News Round Up for the Past Week

Nemo Nicholas HMC '97 was killed by a drunk driver this week. Here he is with his family.

I'm the first to admit that I've been derelict at giving you the Claremont news. It's been just as painful for you, dear readers, as it has been for me.

Never matter, I shall give you all the news that's fit for human consumption and then some!

• Cable TV host Connie Martinson, host of "Connie Martinson Talks Books," donated nearly 3000 tapes to CGU. Rick Wartzman, director of CGU's Drucker Institute, says that the collection will be cataloged chronologically and digitized and will be completed in three years. Claremont McKenna's Athenaeum should take note.

• Professor David Asai of Harvey Mudd College was named director of the undergraduate science education program at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI.) In that position, he will oversee an annual portfolio of over $50 million in initiatives at research universities and liberal arts colleges.
  

• Pitzer College invited Marshall Wong of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission to speak about hate crimes. He gave the usual bogus presentation about how hate crimes are really attacks on a whole community and ducked the usual, and very persuasive arguments against hate crime legislation. These arguments include that hate crimes legislation effectively forces the government to decide what is in someone's heart and makes a mockery of the process of equal before the law.
  

• Another speaker at the Pitzer College discussion, Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American Legal Center, tried to make the argument that these crimes can be linked to global events as evidenced by the so-called rise in attacks on South Asians after Sept. 11. Kwoh, said as China grows economically, tensions between United States and China also grow. What a load of bunk.
  

• The Claremont Insider has shown once again that The Student Life is an untrustworthy publication. Kavisha Singh uncritically parroted back Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor's lies without so much as trying to verify if what she said is true. Not only did they not check her statement that La Verne doesn't have a woman city council member -- it does! --they echoed her complaints that she's been getting a hard time for being a woman on the city council. In fact, she's been getting a hard time because she's been harassing the girl scouts among other bad behavior.

• Andrew Chung, 20, of Harvey Mudd got second place on College Jeopardy! last night. He won $19,002. He leads the Wild Card at this point. You can read about the blow by blow here. (Just be sure to type control F.)
  

• Nemo Nicholas HMC '97 died after a drunk driver collided with him on the Santan Freeway. He was literally a rocket scientist who kept photos of his family around his office. He leaves behind his wife, whom he met at Harvey Mudd College in '96 and propose to after a helicopter ride, and his kids, Nash, 4, and Kaitlyn, 17 months old. RIP.