A behind-the-scenes look at the news of Claremont, CA. We focus on city hall, city staff, and the so-called "Claremont 400" or "Preserve Claremonters" or "Claremonsters", those goofy, too-serious, power types that run most of the town's service organizations, charities, and city commissions. Claremont is indeed a unique place, and we'll try to bring a flavor of that absurd "uniqueness" to the outside world, as well as spotlighting some of the finer things about our city and region.
Showing posts with label Claremont Colleges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Claremont Colleges. Show all posts
One other thing happening this weekend. This Sunday, April 3, the Claremont Colleges will hold a day-long series of events to benefit victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It's all part of Japan Day at the 5Cs. The events start at 1:30pm and continue on into the evening:
Vince Turner over at the Claremont Community College sent us a reminder about his Friday Night Flicks short film series at the Claremont Village Expansion above Chico's.
Date: Thu, March 24, 2011 4:35:58 PM To: moviefans@claremontcommunitycollege.com Subject: WOW Friday Night Flicks!
We're batting a thousand! So far every chair has been filled at Friday night Flicks! (OK. So we didn't set up all the chairs!)
This weeks theme is WOW! If you don't say WOW after each flick, then we didn't do our job.
Friday Night 7 PM
101 North Indian Hill BLVD Suite C2 203
Claremont Community College Where the learning never stops!
To acquire and disseminate knowledge in a humorous way.
To recruit like minded people to spread the word that learning can be fun.
To remember to laugh at our failings before somebody else does.
To keep an open mind on suggestions even if they sound silly - which most are.
To recruit more Deans than students for obvious reasons.
To reserve the right to refuse entry to the College to anyone who takes our mission too seriously.
RAVELERS, HERE AND ON THE ROAD
The Ravelers, Claremont's classic rock band, are on the move. Tonight, they're at the Padua Hills Theatre for Claremont Community Foundation fundraiser (from The Ravelers' PR dept.):
Hey Now...
The Ravelers are proud to be asked to be involved in several fundraisers this year, providing fun music for great causes.
This one is special for us because we call Claremont our home, and we have been looking forward to playing in the newly renovated and historic Padua Theater! We have peaked through the door and walked in the old theater every time we played a wedding reception or event over the past 24 years...hoping someday it would be remodeled to provide a nice place for entertainment and gathering. That day has arrived!
The Claremont Community Foundation was established in 1989 to serve the longer-term philanthropic needs of the community. The Foundation has awarded grants to more than 60 programs and special projects, enriching the lives of youth and adults throughout the community. Please join us to help continue these contributions...
Friday, March 25- Sock Hop at Padua Hills Theater!!! Padua Hills Theater 4467 Padua Ave Claremont, CA 91711 (909) 398-1060
The Ravelers play 7-11pm. Join us at the newly renovated theater for some great tunes, a delicious retro buffet, a cash bar and special surprises!
The proceeds go to benefit the community. Tickets are $50. Click here for more details.
The Ravelers are also at Santa Anita racetrack for the 5th Annual Cal Rods Car Show this Sunday, March 27, from 1pm to 4pm and will be playing between races.
Saturday night at the Claremont Folk Music Center, journey back to ancient Persia, land of poets and musicians:
Saturday, March 26, 2011
JOHN BILEZIKJIAN "master Oud player" show
John Bilezikjian is "America's Oud Virtuoso". Mr. Bilezikjian may be the most prominent Oudist of his generation. He is a master Oudist who has elevated this instrument to the concert stage as well as continues to perform as a folk musician. He has performed for some 51 years on this ancient eleven stringed Persian fretless instrument dating back some 2,000 years. The Oud is performed with an eagle's quill.
Bridges Hall of Music Pomona College 150 E. 4th Street Claremont, 91711 (909)607-2671
Pomona College senior, Eddie Sayles will present his senior vocal recital performing the music of Barber, Donizetti, Ravel, Falla and others assisted by pianist Gayle Blankenburg.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
3:00 PM - The Claremont Concert Choir and The Chamber Choir Spring Choral Concert
Garrison Theater Scripps College Scripps College Performing Arts Center
241 E. 10th Street Claremont, 91711 (909) 607-3267
Charles W. Kamm (Scripps/Joint Music faculty), conductor Paul R. Bishop (Scripps performance staff), piano and organ works by Brahms, Britten, Purcell, Whitacre, and others.
Click to Enlarge There's more information on that counter demonstration set for next Saturday in response to the planned National Socialist Movement's rally and march on Foothill Blvd. and an as-yet unnamed cross street. The anti-Nazis are being organized by a group calling itself Claremont Peace.
The Claremont Peace rally will take place in Memorial Park. Click here to read more.
Claremont Peace has a Facebook page set up if you're interested in getting more information. If everyone who has signed up to attend actually shows up, the NSMers are going to be greatly outnumbered.
The NSM rally is supposed to run from noon to 1pm. The anti-rally starts at 10am and goes until 6pm.
* * * * *
Tony Krickl has the official vote count from last week's municipal election. Nothing really changed. And one of our readers wrote in to comment on the low voter turnout (about 25%):
Date: Sat, March 12, 2011 9:45:52 AM Subject: election results From: To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
The voters who bothered to vote on the 8th (only 5,483 out of 21,731 eligible voters) have made the decision for the rest of Claremont. One wonders what the other 16,248 thought about the election and what kept them from voting. Perhaps it was because they had to choose from a less than stellar field of candidates. Perhaps the negative campaigning by the supporters of Pedroza, Haulman and Lyons kept them away. Or perhaps, like more than a few people I have talked to over the years, they believe that it does not matter who is on the City Council as they all drink the Kool-Aid eventually and only care about themselves and getting re-elected.
Whatever the reason, 25% of the voters in Claremont chose who will govern us for the next 4 years. We can thank the other 75% for giving us Dumb (Pedroza) and Dumber (Lyons). Yet another time that so many have done so little for their city.
The LA County Fair opened this past Saturday and runs through Sunday, October 3. The Fair's opening weekend deals end today - $1 admission from 10am to 1pm, $1 22 oz. soft drinks from 1pm to 4pm, and $1 carnival rides from 4pm to 7pm.
Regular admission is $17 for adults and $12 for children on weekends and $12 for adults and $7 for children on weekdays. Kids under 5 are free. Expect to pay through the nose for parking.
If you're looking for a bargain, there are plenty of other deals that cut the ticket price down. Ralph's grocery stores have a Fair deal going. If you bring 5 cans of Ralph's brand foods to the fair, you can get in for free on Fridays from noon to 6pm. You can also get in for $5 after 5pm Wednesdays through Fridays.
Last week, Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen had a preview of this year's slightly downsized fair. The Fair's fare, however, has not been downsized. There's as much fried stuff as ever. More, says Allen:
As for food, the fair promises to mix it up with a selection of food trucks, following a trend in L.A. Not to mention the usual high adventures in cholesterol.
"We will have bacon-wrapped Oreos dipped in chocolate," [fair spokesperson Leslie] Galerne-Smith said.
I can't wrap my head around that.
Between those Oreos and the fried Klondike bars, you're liable to end up as plastinated as the cadavers in the "Our Body: The Universe Within" exhibit under the Grandstand.
Students, faculty, and staff from the Claremont Colleges can get in for free on Thursday, September 23. The University of La Verne, Cal Poly Pomona, Citrus College, Mt. SAC, USC, and UCLA all have their days as well. Click here for all the promotions.
Click to Enlarge
September 23 is also Claremont Day at the Fair. Residents can get in for $5 before 5pm. There''ll be a community parade, so you'll have a chance to see all our local high muckety-mucks, plastinated and otherwise, on display.
You can pick up $5 Claremont Community Day at the Fair tickets at the Claremont Chamber of Commerce at 205 Yale Ave. in the Claremont Village. The Chamber also has discounted $10 adult and $6 children any day tickets. Call (909) 624-1681 for more info.
Claremont's Architectural Commission announced the winners of the City's Excellence in Design Awards. Six of the seven winning designs were on or affiliated with the Claremont Colleges. The City's website listed the award winners:
Winners of 2009 Excellence in Design Award Announced (May 12, 2010)
The Claremont Architectural Commission has announced the winners of the 29th Annual "Excellence in Design Awards," a program designed to recognize recently completed projects that best reflect the City's standards of design excellence. Seven projects have earned awards in the categories of New Construction, Renovation, Addition, Sustainable Landscaping, and Restorative Landscaping.
The Architectural Commission will formally recognize the award winners at its meeting on Wednesday, June 9, 2010. The meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber, 225 W. Second Street. The public is invited to attend.
The Winners are: - Claremont McKenna College - Biszantz Family Tennis Center - 601 E. Foothill Boulevard Commercial Building Claremont University Consortium - - Honnold Library - Scripps College - Sicilian Court - McDermott Building - CGU Residence - Shafer Residence
Packrats all over Claremont are gearing up for a buying spree tomorrow at the annual City Yard Sale. In a sign of the fiscal times, the City is no longer hosting the event. Instead, the Claremont High School Softball Boosters will be in charge of the annual community yard sale in Cahuilla Park. The yard sale begins at 8am.
Citywide Yard Sale May 15, 2010
Please note the change in this event!
This event will now be offered by the Claremont High School Softball Boosters and will no longer be offered by the City of Claremont. The 2010 event will take place from 8 am to 11 am at Cahuilla Park 1775 N. Indian Hill Blvd. (corner of Indian Hill and Scripps Ave). For more information please contact the Claremont High School Boosters at (909) 450-1730.
WILDERNESS PARK CLOSED NEXT WEEK
City Manager Jeff Parker's weekly report informs us that the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park will be closed next Monday through Wednesday for what has become an annual training exercise.
If you're curious to see where the exercise will take place, you can see the grove L.A. County Fire has worn into the hills on the west side of Thompson Creek. Rather than changing the area they practice in, L.A. County Fire has used the exact same area each time for their exercise. Every year, the firefighters use a trail that they created by tromping around the hillsides, and all that activity, together with erosion, has resulted an unintended, permanent feature.
This was Jeff Parker's blurb on the subject:
WILDERNESS PARK FIRE TRAINING EXERCISE
On May 17, 18 and 19, the Los Angeles County Fire Department is conducting its annual wildfire training exercise in the City of Claremont Wilderness Park. This exercise will begin at 8:00 AM and conclude at 1:00 PM each day. During this time, the Claremont Wilderness Park will be closed. Mills Avenue north of Mt. Baldy Road will also be closed, except to residents.
MAY BUDGET WORKSHOP
Claremont will hold another budget workshop on Saturday, May 22 in the City Council chambers at 225 W. Second St. The workshop runs from 1pm to 4pm, and the public is welcome and encouraged to attend. This is your chance to take partial ownership of your community's financial decisions. Here's the info from the City:
May 22 Budget Workshop (Mar 25, 2010)
The City Council has scheduled a Budget Workshop on May 22 from 1pm to 4pm to address the budget shortfall in 2011-12 Fiscal Year. The City Council approved staff recommendations for staff and program reductions for fiscal year 2010-11 resulting in a reduction of $1,318,727 in expenditures. In fiscal year 2011-12, staff has projected a $750,000 shortfall which is dependent on several undecided factors. These factors include the outcome of the State Redevelopment lawsuit, negotiations with labor unions, and the California State budget. At the late May workshop, staff will give an update on these factors, and provide additional reduction recommendations if necessary.
In case you were thinking state and local finances were going to be in better shape this year, think again. The Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert had this budget news today:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will release his revised spending proposal for the 2010-2011 fiscal year today.
The outlook? Not so good. Here's what we know so far:
Cash commitments from federal officials have amounted to about $3 billion -- far less than the $6.9 billion in federal aid Schwarzenegger counted on in his January proposal.
Last month's drop in personal income tax revenues ruined any chance of a "May surprise" revise -- the state ended April about $1.3 billion short ofrevenue projections.
The governor's office has warned of "absolutely terrible cuts," including to social services programs.
Democrats say they want "everything on the table," including tax increases to close the gap. Republican leaders and Schwarzenegger say the topic of taxes is a non-starter.
The bottom line: Get ready for another long budget fight.
Bee colleagueKevin Yamamura reports today that one proposal expected to be included in today's revision would revive a plan to house some 15,000 nonviolent felons incounty jailsinstead ofstate prisons. Read more on that here.
The big rollout of the governor's proposal, set for 1 p.m. at the Secretary of State building, will be broadcast live here.
The academic year has wound down, and next weekend we say goodbye to another group of graduates from the Claremont Colleges. May they recall their bright college days in Claremont with fondness.
Here's the slate of speakers for next week's commencement ceremonies:
Friday, May 14th
Baccalaureate Ceremony The Claremont Colleges 3:30pm - 4:30pm Bridges Hall of Music, Pomona College 150 East Fourth Street, Pomona College Please contact the Office of the Chaplains for questions regarding this event.
Speaker: Jacqueline Powers Doud, Ph.D., President, Mount St. Mary's College, Los Angeles Alumna, Claremont Graduate University
Commencement speaker: Heidi Hartmann, president and founder of the Institute for Women's Policy Research and research professor at George Washington University.
Commencement speaker: David R. Walt, Robinson professor of chemistry and professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts University.
Claremont McKenna College 2:00pm Pritzlaff Field Claremont McKenna College South of 9th St. and Claremont Blvd. (909) 621-8117
Commencement Speaker: Henry Kravis '67; founding partner of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and CMC Trustee.
Sunday, May 16th
Pomona College Commencement 10:00am Marston Quad Pomona College College Ave., between 4th and 6th Streets (909) 621-8131
Commencement speaker: Janet Napolitano, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, former Arizona governor, former Arizona Attorney General
Scripps College 10:00am Elm Tree Lawn Scripps College 345 E. 9th St. (909) 607-1870
Commencement Speaker: Speakers: Sue Monk Kidd, New York Times best-selling author, The Secret Life of Bees,; and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor, co-author, Traveling With Pomegranates.
Harvey Mudd College Commencement 1:30pm Harvey S. Mudd Quadrangle Claremont University Consortium East Tenth Street and Dartmouth Avenue Claremont, 91711 (909) 621-8125
Speaker: Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, longtime president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and advocate for promoting education within underrepresented groups.
TSL tells us the students were part of a group of 40 such riders whom Claremont police said were in violation of indecent exposure laws. Three of the bikers were detained and handcuffed, including Pomona College student Erica Reiss, whom a CPD officer physically removed from her bicycle.
The TSL article explained how it all went down:
Participants in the bike ride said 12 students were stopped when a police vehicle tried to block the group’s path on First Street. The rest of the students continued cycling. When a second vehicle tried to cut them off, police Corporal David DeMetz grabbed Reiss, who was not injured in the incident.
Two other students, Eric Stahl-David PI ’11 and Matt Goldbach PI ’11, stopped when they saw DeMetz take Reiss to the ground. All three students were handcuffed and told to sit on the curb. According to police, the students were released when witnesses opted not to press charges against them.
The matter came up at the City Council meeting last night during public comment. Resident and retired LAPD officer Ralph Ruiz brought up the issue. Ruiz called the incident in, and he was unhappy that no one was arrested.
Cooper said police will not take action against a nude biker as long as witnesses are not offended by the nudity or the biker is not getting sexual pleasure from his/her activity.
"This is a specific intent crime," Cooper said. "The persons exposing their genitals have to received some type of sexual gratification from this. There's no evidence to support that [in this case]."
Oh.
You can watch the council video here (just click on the public comment agenda item). You have to wade through some non-nude biking talk, including a little medical marijuana info and a few comments by Citizen Michael John Keenan before you get to Chief Cooper's and the council's comments.
An article in the Daily Bulletin noted that the Claremont McKenna College is eliminating 11 administrative positions by the end of June as a cost-cutting measure. Three of the positions were vacant, so that means that eight people were handed pink slips.
The cuts come in response to a significant drop in CMC's endowment, according to Richard Rodner, CMC's associate vice president for public affairs. Rodner did not disclose the exact amount of the cuts CMC needed to make to balance its books, but he did note that the college had already slashed $1.5 million from its operating budget through faculty and staff early retirements.
The Bulletin article, by Wes Woods II, quoted Rodner on the cuts:
"It's important to know we haven't done this lightly and we've certainly have looked at the process of making certain that our core mission is maintained," he said. "We focused efforts on minimizing the level of tuition increases, supporting financial aid and meeting every student's needs."
"When I say financial aid, we don't do loans. It's not financial loans. What I said was we will continue to support the financial aid program, and meet 100 percent of financial need without any packaged loans.
He said it was "private information" on who these people are who were laid off.
"As far as we know, we are not planning anything further in the near future," Rodner said. "We sincerely hope we don't have to go through this again. Economic circumstance dictates how to evaluate circumstances in the future."
The article also said that CMC was facing a deficit of between $10-12 million by 2012-2013.
Authentic Food and Live Entertainment, 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Right after the Egg Hunt.
If history is any guide, plan to arrive early as some of the booths will run out of food. This event is always well attended and is worth a visit. Rain or shine--the forecast is for clearing weather and warmer than Friday; maybe a little breezy.
850 Columbia Avenue, between 8th and 9th Streets; on the main quad at CMC. Note: Columbia is closed between 8th and 9th for construction. Look for the signs. Free parking if you can find any. Admission and entertainment free; food available for purchase.
We came across a website with news and discussions about the Claremont Colleges. It's called 5Cene, and you can find it here.
The site has news feeds, general information about local eateries and entertainment, and discussion boards for students and, presumably, faculty (you need to be on campus to access the discussion groups).
5Cene was created by two CMC students. Here's what their "About" page says:
About 5CENE
5Cene's aim is to foster a 5C community by encouraging discussion, aggregating content, and organizing information across the Claremont Colleges. Put simply, we hope to make 5C life a little bit easier and a little bit more fun. 5Cene was created in February 2009 by Abhi Nemani and Josh Siegel (both CMC '10).
The 2 1/2 -hour tour starts at 9:30 a.m. at Seaver House, 305 N. College Ave. It tours Pomona, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer and Harvey Mudd colleges and the Claremont Graduate University.
The tour costs $8. You can find out more by calling Claremont Heritage at (909) 621-0848 or by checking out their website.
The Student Life, the newspaper published by Associated Students of Pomona College, reports that Pomona College senior have received 16 Fulbright fellowships, tops among US liberal arts colleges. The article by news associate Sarah Higley says:
For the second year in a row, Pomona has topped the list of liberal arts colleges receiving the most Fulbright fellowships awarded to its seniors. The graduating Class of 2008 received 16 of the fellowships, not including a student who received an award but turned it down and [an] alumni who come [sic] back to use college resources in their application process.
Following Pomona [among liberal arts schools] were Smith College with 15 fellowships awarded, Swarthmore with 12, and Pitzer with 11. Scripps received five, and CMC, three.
According to Paula Goldsmid, Director of the Graduate Fellowships Office, the Pomona Fulbright program has used increased publicity to greatly expand the program over the past four or so years.
"More people succeed, and that encourages other people," she said.
Goldsmid added that she thought that many Pomona students are attracted to Fulbrights because of shared values of community service and the flexibility they offer.
TSL'sHigley also has an article about the final Pomona Alma Mater forum. The Alma Mater has become controversial because it was allegedly written for a minstrel show in 1910. Higley's article says:
On Sunday, the Colleges Songs Committee hosted a student meeting, the last of three forums to gather community input before forming a recommendation on the future of the Alma Mater "Hail, Pomona! Hail" and "Torchbearers." The faculty and staff forum was held last Friday, Oct. 24, and alumni had a chance to give their opinions last spring. The student forum that took place on Sunday, Oct. 26, on the other hand, was closed to the public.
In a separate article, TSL reports that Pomona alumna Rosemary Choate has submitted a report to the college that says that there is a lack of documentation to show that the Alma Mater was written specifically for the minstrel show. You can read Choate's report here.
Contempt for the First Amendment is a long tradition within the Claremont city limits. In keeping with that stifling tradition, the Claremont Graduate University (CGU) recently hired an attorney to have a YouTube video by a person named Peter Musurlian removed from YouTube's website.
In June, Musurlian came to CGU to attend and videotape a lecture by a Turkish consul general. Musurlian, who is of Armenian-descent, then posted a film he made of the lecture. Musurlian's film depicts some of the concerns the Armenian-American community has with Turkey's denial of the World War I-era genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Turks in the Ottoman Empire.
The film must have ruffled some feathers because a short time after he posted his YouTube video, an attorney representing CGU contacted Musurlian. The attorney informed Musurlian that he no authority to post a film containing the faces of students who attended the lecture. The attorney demanded that the students' faces be blurred, or CGU would have YouTube pull the film from its website.
Musurlian says his video was pulled from YouTube on June 25th but was restored on July 10th after Musurlian responded to YouTube's concerns. Charles Johnson's post on the Claremont Conservative first alerted us to this matter:
The very fact that CGU's first reaction to seeing a video on YouTube was to call in an attorney who gets a high fee should really bother us. What does it say about a college that their first act was to call the lawyers?
Musurlian said he had a campus lawyer, identified as Paul S. Berra, tell him to blur student faces or the university would have the video pulled."He initially said some of the students were being harassed," Musurlian said.But the video doesn't focus in on students and he said he wasn't given a specific reason about the kind of harassment.In a letter claimed to be from Berra posted on Musurlian's Web site, the lawyer wrote " ... I asked you to voluntarily remove your video from YouTube because you had no authority to publish it. I explained that you needed to obtain, for starters, the students' consent before doing so."
Here at the Insider, we've had our own run-in with Claremont censorship, so we can sympathize with Musurlian and his problems with YouTube, which is owned by Google. CGU still hasn't justified its actions, by the way, which happens to be another Claremont strong suit: When in institutional trouble, deny, deny, deny.
In any case, here is Musurlian's video, in case you're interested. Musurlian also has started a website called "Claremont Genocide University." The Musurlian film runs about six minutes:
FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, took the Claremont Colleges to task again on its website's blog. FIRE first contacted the presidents of the 5C's, along with the Claremont University Consortium, to notify the colleges of concerns FIRE had about several incidents that seemed to limit freedom of speech on the Claremont campuses.
FIRE seems to have kept tabs on the goings on at the Claremont Colleges, and their blogger Erin Royce summed up the seeming double standards at the 5C's when it comes to which ideas are acceptable and which are not:
Now, FIRE has learned that about a week ago, another flyer was posted around the campus of Pomona College, another of the Claremont Colleges, advertising a "Black Out Party." This ad also features photos of scantily clad African-American women. As of today, there is no word on whether or not Pomona administrators will send around an e-mail criticizing this flyer, but if they don't, it's an obvious display of a double standard that FIRE and the students of the Claremont Colleges should not tolerate.
Claremont McKenna College bloggers Aditya Bindal and Charles Johnson have followed the FIRE/5C's story closely, and you can read their takes on the coverage the issue received in Pomona College's The Student Life here and here.
The school year is winding down for students at the Claremont Colleges, and soon this year's seniors will shuffling off to whatever futures await them.
Here is a list of commencement events:
Friday, May 16th
Baccalaureate Ceremony The Claremont Colleges 3:30pm - 4:30pm Bridges Hall of Music Pomona College 150 E. 4th St. (909) 621-8685
Speaker: Jerry Fowler, J.D., President, Save Darfur Coalition
Baccalaureate Ceremony Claremont School of Theology 4:30pm - 5:30pm Mudd Theater Claremont School of Theology 1325 N. College Ave. (909) 447-2552
Commencement speaker: Richard Tapia, Maxfield and Oshman Professorship in Engineering, Rice University, will be the keynote speaker at CGU's 80th Annual Commencement ceremonies.
Commencement speaker: Billy Tauzin, former Congressman and current President and Chief Executive Officer of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, will speak at Keck Graduate Institute's 7th Annual Commencement.
Commencement speaker: Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning Author, Journalist, Lawyer, and Human Rights Activist, has been selected by the senior class as this year's Keynote speaker.
Commencement Speaker Tom Leppert '77, Mayor of Dallas and CMC trustee, will present the keynote address at Claremont McKenna College's 61st Annual Commencement ceremonies.
Sunday, May 18th
Pomona College Commencement 10:00am Marston Quad Pomona College College Ave., between 4th and 6th Streets (909) 621-8131
Commencement speaker: Alex Gibney, writer, director and producer of the 2008 Oscar-winning "Best Documentary Feature" film "Taxi to the Dark Side" (ThinkFilm) about the current U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, is the featured speaker.
Scripps College Commencement 10:00am Elm Tree Lawn Scripps College 345 E. 9th Street On campus lawn - two rows of elm trees just north of the Malott Common (909) 607-1870
Commencement speaker: Kirsten Smith, an acclaimed screenwriter whose films focus on themes of female empowerment; her credits include "Legally Blonde," "Ella Enchanted," "10 Things I Hate About You," and "She's the Man." A much-published poet, she also has written a book about girl power and women's rights, titled Geography of Girlhood. Smith is a graduate of Occidental College.
Commencement speaker: Bill Nye will be the speaker at the 2008 commencement ceremony at Harvey Mudd College. There will be plenty of seating in the shade; no tickets required.
The San Bernardino Sun reports that a group of Latino activists will travel together to Los Angeles Thursday for a May Day rally for immigration rights. The article, by Stephen Wall, said that the Claremont Colleges should be well represented there as well:
Students and faculty from the Claremont Colleges are planning to travel separately to Los Angeles.
Organizers of the May Day "Gran Marcha" expect to attract between 20,000 and 100,000 people, who will urge Congress and President Bush to enact comprehensive immigration reform.
Protesters are also demanding legalization of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States and other measures to ensure their fair and humane treatment.
"This march is meant to raise consciousness of how the immigration population is being targeted in this time of economic crisis," said Jose Zapata Calderon, a professor of sociology and Chicano Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont. "Hopefully, we'll be able to get some type of legislation passed that will allow the immigrants to work as human beings here and not just be exploited."
A coalition of students from Pomona, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd and Pitzer colleges are expected to go to the rallies.
This is the third straight year protesters have converged to press for immigration reform.
The article went on to note that last year's rally was marred by violence as police clashed with rally goers in MacArthur Park. You may recall that just a couple weeks ago KTTV-11 reporter Christina Gonzalez filed a lawsuit against the LAPD and the city of Los Angeles claiming that police used excessive force against her as she was covering the event. Gonzalez's camerawoman filed a similar suit last year.
The Claremont OTR blog is defunct, so we have deleted that link. Apparently, the students who started the site lost interest. We noticed that no one had posted to the blog in a couple months, and the host site, College On the Record, finally pulled the plug.
No, we don't receive ad revenue from NBC, but we couldn't help noticing that things have reached a truly sad state when the most honest treatment of race in America happens on a sitcom:
Jack: Well, well, well Lemon. Steven’s a good man; he’s on partner track at Dewey, and he’s a Black.
Liz: A black?!? That is offensive. Jack: No, no, that’s his last name: Steven Black. Great family. Liz: Oh, yeah, of course. Jack: They’re remarkable people, the Blacks: musical, very athletic...not very good swimmers. Again, I’m talking about the family. Black is African American, though.
These and other matters of political correctness are serious issues to be sure, and we have a long way to go to solving any of them at the Claremont Colleges, in this city, or for that matter as a country. We should have serious discussions of issues; however, we should also not become so serious that we misread something as innocent as a party flyer, as Scripps College Dean of Students Debra Wood did in February, or become so straitlaced that we can't laugh at ourselves.
The self-seriousness of those who would protect the oppressed or downtrodden in a way dehumanizes the very people they would protect. You almost want to see these protectors slip on a banana just to get them to lighten up enough to allow you to talk to them without having to walk on eggshells. These folks haven't figured out that the best way of deflating some of these stereotypes is to poke fun at them.
And efforts to stamp out racism or any other -ism through censorship, as Pomona, Scripps, and Harvey Mudd Colleges were accused of doing, seems a terribly Procrustean solution to what are really very human problems. Watching the current presidential campaigns try to deal with the same issues, one really does sense that there is a significant segment of the voting public who are ready to try some different approaches to such things as discussions of race.
Let's see how long it takes that debate to filter down to the local level.
To the great unwashed, this seems a double standard, which it is. Wood, and no doubt others, refuse to acknowledge this, and they seem to want to practice censorship in some instances but not in other similar situations. This sort of irrationality gets explained away by the Debra Wood School of Thought by simply saying, "I know better than you what's right and what's wrong."
(Residents of Claremont are very familiar with this same thinking, which has been applied to any number of fiscal and program initiatives. Maybe this is where the overlap in Town and Gown governance expresses itself most.)
Wood's type of censorship is getting notice. Charles Johnson at the Conservative noted that an organization called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has singled out the Claremont Colleges for what FIRE believes is a chilling atmosphere for free speech.
In a letter dated March 18th, FIRE contacted the presidents of all five colleges, as well as the Claremont University Consortium. The letter cited the Debra Wood-White Party incident, as well as other incidents involving administrators at Scripps and Harvey Mudd College.
The letter said:
Taken together, these incidents show a concerted effort on the part of Claremont College administrators to pressure students to censor their expression. Even if those responsible for the controversial expression were not ultimately punished, the responses that were sent out to the Claremont College community - including references to notifying campus safety and to taking "appropriate action" in response to protected expression - are likely to have a profound chilling effect on speech at the five colleges.
KSPC, on the dial at 88.7 FM, received permission from the Federal Communications Commission last month to relocate its antenna from the campus to the hills above Claremont.
"We hope in a lot of places (the signal) will simply be good to a greater distance," said Fred Volken, a radio engineer working with KSPC. "The service area will increase.
"And in a lot of places it will become clearer, not subject to the kind of static you get when you drive around hills and things."
KSPC features original programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week - most of it independent and obscure music. Local bands often perform live on the station as well.
Right now, the station broadcasts its signal from a Pomona College antenna, but the station is moving on up the hillsides where it should be able to reach more listeners. The signal is a bit spotty, depending on where you happen to be. We've heard in the past that you can pick it up if you're parked in the Target parking structure on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena, so there's just no telling where KSPC will pop up.
The article didn't say where the antenna was moving to. There are a several antennas up on Sunset Peak to the west of San Antonio Canyon. You can see these when it's a clear day, or at night blinking redly away.
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