Ban the Convicts From Claremont, CA

Now I blogged about this ridiculous student theatre program and local paroled women thing back in September, but apparently The Student Life is only now getting the message. Their headline says it all:"Theatre Program and Local Paroled Women Collaborate for Social Change". Lindsay Mullen, a writer for The Student Life, just swallows the agitprop without challenging any of the people she gets quotations from or the underlying premise that cons should be allowed into schools. What a shame.

Apparently Pomona has this woman, Norma Bowles, who set up this activist theatre company, Fringe Benefits, that "works with schools and communities to create plays that spread awareness about racism, sexism, and homophobia." Yawn. Heard that one before.

Her latest "work" is at Pomona where her women-only class, Theatre for Social Change creates "activist theatre from a feminist point of view to explore current theoretical positions." (read: boys need not apply.) Or to use the propagandist's words, "the class is composed of only women, giving the course a distinctive dynamic."

It's all about social change through theatre, baby. Or as one student taking the class puts it:
“The women and activists involved are really becoming enthused about this project,” said Arielle Brown ’11. “We are all interested in seeing how activism and art can be paired to affect change.”

But some of us just aren't comfortable with former convicts running around. Call me reactionary, call me whatever, but something seems downright wrong about having former convicts running around at Pomona of all places where a student was viciously attacked at gunpoint. Does anyone else think its a strange coincidence that a gunpoint robbery took place at Pomona recently? Does anyone else think it might not be too far of a stretch to say that one of these women may have been involved? After all, we have no idea what crimes they have stood accused of committing or could commit. Something tells me that the theatre "business" isn't quite so lucrative as these activists make it out to be. I'd put even money on the theatre program running at a financial loss.

After Pomona went to all the precautions of hiring outside security people, you'd think that they would cancel the play, but I guess the show must go on. In real life, though, far removed from the word of make believe, we simply can't risk having former cons on our campuses.

UPDATE 11/11/2007: Some of you have criticized me from the admittedly tenuous connection between the armed robbery and the cons. What's more distressing to me isn't necessarily the former cons but that no one else seems to have a problem with this program. No one has made an effort to inform the community of when and where these women will be on campus, no one has provided their names so that we can check what crimes they have or have not been convicted of, and no one has questioned the underlying sexism of creating a course that deliberately excludes men. Any thing that deliberately excludes a section of the population cannot be said to be nondiscriminatory.

Harvey Mudd President Attends Yet Another Female Engineers Promotional Conference

The Korea Herald reported on Nov. 8 that Harvey Mudd Pres. Maria Klawe attended another symposium addressing her favorite topic: women engineers. This time, she flew to South Korea's Ewha Womans University. (One wonders if that travel is included her salary as a Harvey Mudd President or if she's getting free travel by some larger lobby.)

She's made a habit of flying all over, spreading the word. In September, she went on a panel and talked about her fight for women in math. In early October, she pushed her teach for Math for America on everyone at Harvey Mudd. As I've blogged previously, at another women software engineer conference in Orlando, Fl. she made no secret of her fuzzy math for improving the numbers of women admitted to Harvey Mudd. By her estimation, 43% of Harvey Mudd's class of 2011 is now female. (One wonders if quotas had anything to do with that... )

By her own admission, she's also done some heavy "recruiting" of women engineers for Harvey Mudd. Will she make those numbers public? After all, even me, a non-math major, can tell that there's probably been some hard core affirmative action for the women admitted to Harvey Mudd. One girl told me that they "relentlessly encouraged [her] to apply."

Perhaps, instead of working so hard for female engineers or mathematicians, Dr. Maria Klawe could work to drum up support for all would-be engineers. This support would get Harvey Mudd's name out in new and exciting ways. Rather than doing the traditional recruiting for minorities/women, Klawe could work on creating contests for would-be engineers, encourage scholarships for students in dire straights, etc. After all, Dr. Klawe readily admits we're facing a crisis of math and science majors. Why would she deliberately go after only one narrow group if her role as an educator is to educate all?

Scripps Professor Explains Why Old Folks Tend To Be So Darn Happy

(From the Tennessean.com) In a study published in Psychological Science, Stacey Wood and her colleague at the University of Colorado

recorded the brain activity of 63 adults, ranging in age, who were shown a series of negative and positive images, such as dead animals or a bowl of ice cream. Older adults were about 30 percent less reactive to the negative images compared with the younger adults.

Might it be that the old folks are just desensitized to anything bad?

In characteristic bluntness, Wood states that

Younger people tend to think that happiness is getting what you want: a fabulous body, great job, true love, a nice place to live and a good ride. No one should dismiss the hopeful dreams of the young, but it's just not that simple, Wood says.

"We try to make decisions that make us happy, but we're not good at doing that," she says.

Now there's a cheery thought! Anyone see else see why I don't want to take psychology?