Broken Beer Bottles Present Tetanus Hazard

By Chris Bissell

I was talking to a Claremont Colleges groundskeeper, who was describing a rather stressful weekly scenario. He likes groundskeeping. He works hard every week, and then he gets the weekend off. When he arrives back on the job on Monday, he finds the colleges littered with party trash. Plastic cups, confetti, streamers, cigarettes, etc. Especially distressing to him are the multitude of broken beer bottles. [con't]

Pakistani-American Embroiled in Coup

By Doug Meyer

Pakistan is a country in trouble. Apparently, the previous "President" of that Muslim state had disgraced the executive office to such an extent that even our Bubba from Arkansas was able to play himself off, when compared to that tyrannical Pakistani personage, in a relatively sanctimonious and ethically superior fashion. The buzz emanating from foreign news bureaus and Western capitals seems to imply that this profligate, avaricious former despot had plundered the Pakistani public coffers to such an extent that the country was, for all intents and purposes, economically raped. To trump that, this recently toppled despot had left the Southeast Asian nation so physically destitute and ravaged that he decided to fight a war, over a Himalayan glacier, with an indescribably more powerful country (India), just to displace internal hostilities concerning his abominable reign of power. [con't]

Republican Congress Heralds the Apocalypse

By Amanda Baber

I have said it before, and I will say it again: the Republican Party is about to lead us down the road to not only galloping economic ruin but also a fiery nuclear apocalypse. The stock market will crash. The world’s oil reserves will dry up. The polar ice caps will melt, the US will elect George W. Bush to the presidency and a Republican majority to Congress, and the fifth of California that does not crumble into the sea will be consumed by fires and mudslides and the rapacious appetite of beachfront property developer Donald Trump. [con't]

Dorm Prices Don’t Correspond to Quality

By Peter Cook

It costs around 4000 dollars for a year of dorm living here at Pomona College. This works out to about five hundred dollars a month. Imagine that you were looking for an apartment, and you happened upon a room much like one in Smiley. About the size of a walk-in closet, major dust problems, dingy, paper thin walls, a bathroom one has to share with six or seven other people. Is there any chance that someone in their right mind would pay 500 dollars in rent a month for a dive like this? No, there isn’t, but regardless, the college apparently has no qualms over the sad state of some of its dorms. [con't]

Popularity Hinges on Tenuous Grasp of Gnome and Monkey Etiquette

By Daniel Clark

I would like to commend the students at Pomona College. With greater frequency this semester than any other time in my life, helpful students have been bringing matters of etiquette to my attention. Their concern for my well-being is very much appreciated, and these people have no doubt saved me from a multitude of socially devastating errors.

Considering the nature of their suggestions, some given more subtly than others, I realized the necessity of avoiding these kinds of situations in the future. [con't]

Committee, Administration Plagued With Inefficiency

By Jonathan Vanasco

Earlier this month the Office of Student Affairs, in response to widespread student disapproval of the Smith Campus Center, created an ad hoc committee composed of students and administrators to address problems and formulate solutions to the building’s numerous "mistakes."

Conor Friedersdorf’s The Student Alternative tried to poke fun at this committee, satirizing its goals with empty promises accented by complete and utter ineffectiveness. For a second I looked at the article, thinking there might actually be something funny in the TSA. Then I realized it wasn’t funny at all, because it’s most likely true. [con't]