Letters

Letter Box

October 14, 2019 by Staff Comments Off

Social Media: Not the Answer

In your cartoon in the spring/summer 2019 PCM titled “Depression and Social Media,” fictional “Dr. Kay” (sadly not so fictional) provides some sort of “therapy” (using the word loosely) to fictional “Josie,” recommending she use an app to analyze her “depression-related patterns in her Twitter usage.”

Now wait a minute! My view from 35 years of actual clinical practice as a clinical psychologist is quite different. I wouldn’t say it quite so harshly, but my advice to young Josie:

“Josie, research is getting pretty clear, and the title of the cartoon you are in says it all: ‘Depression and Social Media.’ The increase in depression in your age group seems to be related, in part, to the proliferation of social media. I recommend you get off of Twitter! Also, fire Dr. Kay as he is incompetent and doesn’t know the literature about what helps people.

“It is other people.

“Perhaps Dr. Kay fears this assertion is not ‘scientific.’ He is wrong, the scientific data is actually very clear in this regard. Dr. Kay seems most thoughtful as he looks at his computer screen, where he (along with the surveillance capitalists at Twitter) renders your behavioral data. When you are, ironically, lying on the Freudian couch, he’s not looking at you, but at the ‘report’ that the app has rendered, and reminding you that your dog was seriously ill.

“Josie, do you really not remember that your furry friend was seriously ill?

“Maybe you have been conditioned to believe, as some of my clients have, that such an experience shouldn’t upset you, but clearly it does, and that makes a lot of sense. If you really don’t remember he was ill, we need to explore your rather severe dissociative disorder, perhaps caused in part by your overuse of social media.”

I make what is called a “right livelihood” working directly, face to face, with a broad range of people, including those in Josie’s generation. Many, on their own, without my saying anything, have realized they need to decrease their use of social media, and all would seem to prefer and benefit from relating to me, not an app, as we, together, uncover and explore their joys, sorrows, hopes and fears. It is profoundly rewarding work.

—Jon Maaske ’72
Albuquerque, NM

In Defense of the Federalist Society

The article “History & the Court” in the winter 2019 PCM, about Professor Hollis-Brusky’s analysis of a recent Supreme Court decision on guns, references the way federal courts may inadvertently, but sometimes intentionally, intrude on Congress’s plenary power to enact substantive law under Article I of the Constitution.

Professor Hollis-Brusky’s apparent call to view the courts as a vehicle to “throw out all the rules about what we ought to expect, [which] opens up a lot of possibilities for people who want to reimagine the way we are” is essentially a call to judicial activism. Jurists answering that call would be acting in a way irreconcilable with the Constitution’s foundational tenet of separation of powers, which vests in Congress, not the courts, the authority to create the law.

In contrast to Professor Hollis-Brusky’s call to judicial activism, the Federalist Society advocates that “the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.” The Federalist Society’s solution for judicial activism is a judicial approach focusing first on the Constitution’s express words, and then, if any ambiguity exists, determining the Framers’ actual intent by focusing on what reasonable persons living at the time of its adoption would have understood the ordinary meaning of the text to be. This approach was followed in the Heller decision referenced by Professor Hollis-Brusky. The Heller decision reflects a proper judicial analysis of the Founders’ original intent and meaning of the Second Amendment at the time of ratification.

Although Professor Hollis-Brusky asserts that such an analysis had been made many times over the 150 years preceding Heller, resulting in an answer contrary to the Heller majority’s approach and conclusion, the judicial record indicates otherwise. As the 8th Circuit held in U.S. v. Seay, “Prior to 2009, the Supreme Court had not examined [the Second Amendment right] in depth. This changed with the Court’s landmark decision in Heller.” Similarly, in People v. Aguilar, the Illinois Supreme Court (none of whose judges were, at the time of the opinion, members of the Federalist Society) unanimously noted that the U.S. Supreme Court in Heller “undertook its first-ever ‘in-depth examination’ of the Second Amendment’s meaning.”A consistent application of original intent thereby decreases the danger posed by the temptation for jurists to impose their own policy preferences into decisions and/or exercise judicial activism to change the law independently of the legislature.

—Grant Frazier ’16
Phoenix, AZ

Real VR Therapy

I am writing with regard to the article in the spring/summer 2019 PCM about the potential research of Cynthia Nyongesa ’19 on virtual reality and individuals with ASD.

While we do not use VR as a therapeutic intervention, per se, we at AHRC Middle/High School in Brooklyn, NY (schools.ahrcnyc.org) have been using this technology with our students since 2017.

We have used VR to help our students simulate community experiences such as traveling via subway, making purchases and having social interactions, as well as using it a tool for “virtual field trips” and curriculum extensions. In our experience, VR is an easy-to-use, cost-effective tool for introducing more “real-life” situations to our students with ASD so that they are better prepared to handle these encounters in the real world.

We appreciate that these novel and safe interventions are being investigated at Pomona College these days.

—John Goodson ’02
Cambridge, MA

Corrections

I’m at a point in life where one is inclined to be somewhat forgetful. Personally, I am a good example of that some of the time, but thankfully not all of the time. So when I saw my class note in the spring/summer 2019 PCM with the Class of 1950, I had to think twice: Am I Class of ’50 or Class of ’51? The ’50ers are a great group, but I really am a loyal ’51er and always will be. Thus I felt compelled to bring this little editorial glitch to your attention.

—Pat Newton ’51
Pomona, CA

The spring/summer issue is a splendid piece of work in all ways, but unfortunately, it contains an error on page 52, line 7 of the Class of ’49 notes. I am a member of the Nature PRINTING Society, not the Nature PAINTING Society. If you will access the Nature Printing Society website, you will see that while our society is fairly young, the art of printing from nature is centuries old. I mostly print botanicals [see right] but have also printed fish (does gyotaku ring a bell?), feathers, squid, octopi, fossils, shells, snakeskins and really flat roadkill, and I even got to assist at the printing of an orca that washed up down-coast and was assigned to the museum for a necropsy. NPS also appears on Facebook, but since I’m a technological Luddite, I have no idea how to find it.

—Lila Anne Bartha (AKA “Hebe”)
Santa Barbara, CA

Concerning an error in “Smoke in the Wine” in the winter 2019 PCM, Sonoma and Santa Rosa were not “Spanish settlements” in what is today Sonoma County, Calif., as the article says. They were Mexican.

—Hal Beck ’64
Forestville, CA

Last of the Yellow Journalists

October 14, 2019 by Mark Wood Comments Off

There was a time when editorial cartooning was a job a young artist could aspire to. In 1900, there were an estimated 2,000 editorial cartoonists at work in the United States. They still numbered in the hundreds by the late ’70s, when—at the start of my career—I briefly became one of them.

It’s probably just as well that I moved on to other things. Since then, the American editorial cartoonist has become an endangered species, right up there with the pygmy elephant. The total in the U.S. is reportedly below 25 now, and falling. Just in the last two years, two Pulitzer Prize-winners—Nick Anderson at the Houston Chronicle and Steve Benson at the Arizona Republic—were dumped. In June, following an uproar about a cartoon full of anti-Semitic tropes, the international edition of The New York Times followed the example of its national counterpart and fired its last two cartoonists—neither of whom, by the way, had drawn the offending cartoon.

Here’s how bad it’s gotten: Iran now boasts more editorial cartoonists than the U.S.

I thought for a while that editorial cartooning would be my life’s work. Old-timers like Herblock and Conrad were giving way to subtle, innovative artists like Pat Oliphant and Jeff MacNelly. Strip cartoonists like Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau were blurring the line between the Sunday comics and the editorial page. These young guns were transforming the medium—putting irony and satire, artistic style and sly visual humor ahead of blunt-force commentary. It was an exciting time to be an editorial cartoonist.

And I loved the actual process of creating a cartoon—the immersion in the news, the joyous flash of inspiration, the inner howls of laughter as I did my preliminary sketches, the knowledge of famous faces that allowed me to draw Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton without conscious thought and the feeling of working without a net each time I wielded my ink brush to create the final product.

Over the years, I must have done hundreds of drawings of Clinton, then governor of the state where I lived, including one, shown here, that was completed shortly after he was first elected governor at the tender age of 32. It’s without a doubt the most prescient thing I’ve ever produced.

Part of the fun of it was the pure joy of poking fun at powerful people. I used to joke that we editorial cartoonists were the last of the yellow journalists—the only purveyors of the news who still had license to use caricature and exaggeration to distill complicated situations down to a single, simplistic metaphor. Our work was full of open mockery —an artform that intentionally stretched the limits of polite discourse.

And that was probably a big part of its undoing. In a time of heightened sensitivities and social media mobs, caricature has become a dangerous sport. As Australian cartoonist Mark Knight (whose caricatures are uniformly brutal) learned when tennis player Serena Williams’s husband accused him of a racist depiction of her, there’s a fine line between the kind of harsh visual exaggeration that caricatures depend upon and the perpetuation of cruel stereotypes. Add in the decline of newspapers as a profitable industry, and it’s not surprising, I suppose, that cartoonists have become, at best, expendable and, at worst, potential liabilities.

Given all of that, the number of young American artists who now aspire to become the next great editorial cartoonist is probably on a par with the number who plan to repair steam engines. But while the bell is clearly tolling for American editorial cartooning, I have to admit that I was wrong when I said we were the last of the yellow journalists. Yellow journalism, I’m afraid, is viciously alive and well on social media and talk radio—minus, of course, the redeeming humor.

A Mystery with a Name

May 9, 2019 by Mark Wood Comments Off

About a dozen years ago, on an ordinary workday morning, as I was following my ordinary workday routine, something inexplicable happened. My wife, a teacher, had already left for school. After dressing, I felt a bit odd, so instead of going straight to work, I sat down for a moment and opened my laptop. And discovered that I no longer knew how to open a file.

My mind had become a hopeless jumble. I couldn’t recall the names of the people I worked with, couldn’t formulate a clear thought or even hold a murky one in my head for more than a few seconds at a time. Out of all that confusion, one terrible conviction emerged. This must be what it feels like to have a stroke.

It never occurred to me to dial 911. All I could think of was phoning my wife, but I couldn’t remember the name of the school where she worked. I pawed through our file cabinet, searching through drawers for old pay stubs. Finding a number for the school’s front office, I left what must have been a strange and alarming message for my wife.

I don’t remember how long it took her to come to my rescue or what I did in the meantime or what she said to me when she arrived. All of my recollections from that day are sketchy and disjointed. I remember the emergency room and the neurologist questioning me. I vaguely remember various tests and scans. I recall becoming fixated on the initials “TIA,” which stand for “transient ischemic attack”—a kind of mini-stroke that my father had suffered on a couple of occasions—telling my wife about them over and over, each time the first for my muddled brain.

And I remember the comic relief of the day—the man in the next bed, who looked and sounded like a character right out of The Godfather, asking me what was wrong. I said I was having trouble remembering things, to which he replied with a wise-guy grin, “Well, do you remember the $200 you owe me?”

Eventually, the neurologist returned with a diagnosis and a smile. I hadn’t had a stroke. All my results were normal. The diagnosis: a rare and poorly understood condition with no known cause, called “transient global amnesia.” (I thought at the time—and still think—that “transient global amnesia” sounds like something invented for a soap opera plot. “Now we know why Bryan disappeared. He was suffering from transient global amnesia.”)

The good news, the doctor said, was that I would almost certainly be back to my usual self within a day and never have a relapse. And he was right. By lunchtime, I felt better, and by the time I left the emergency room, mid-afternoon, I was back to normal. And I’ve stayed that way, more or less—so far, anyway.

But I doubt that I’ll ever again have quite the same confidence in my own “normal” cognitive functioning. Since that day, whenever I feel a bit odd or have trouble remembering a word or a name, I go through a careful litany of friends’ and family members’ names and phone numbers in my mind, just to reassure myself that it’s not happening again.

It would be comforting to believe that everything that can go wrong with us has both a label and a clear explanation, but what I learned that day—something every doctor knows, I suppose—is that a disorder can have a name and still be a mystery.

Medical mysteries abound, and not just in the headlines about emerging diseases like Ebola. As you’ll read in Kate Becker’s “The Face of a Pandemic,” a century after the Spanish flu swept away something like 5 percent of the total world population, we’re still trying to figure out why it was so lethal. And almost everyone knows someone suffering from some chronic illness that seems to defy diagnosis and effective treatment.

As I learned later, my own diagnosis that day was made purely by process of elimination. It wasn’t a stroke or a tumor or anything else the doctors could pinpoint, so it must be transient global amnesia—a mystery with a name, but no less a mystery for that.

Letter Box

May 9, 2019 by Staff Comments Off

Revelle and Gore

I read with some dismay your editorial introducing the article about Roger Revelle. While I am glad you appreciate the immense impact that Roger had in his scientific career, you have perpetuated a myth that Roger was “somehow persuaded to lend his name to an article he reportedly had no hand in authoring.” This myth was created and propagated by Al Gore, who was upset that Roger, whom he had heard lecture in Ashok Khosla’s introductory science class that Gore took at Harvard, about carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, was not supporting Gore’s political position. Gore received a D in that class, one of only two science classes he ever took in college (he received a C– in the other one). Fred Singer was co-author on the referenced paper published by the Cosmos Club in April 1991. I have attached his account of the incident, including the libel suit which he filed successfully against Dr. Justin Lancaster for suggesting, as you have, that Roger was not mentally alert during his last years and that Singer had “used” him.

I am a graduate of Pomona’s Department of Geology, as was Roger. I, like Roger, went into oceanography, and I knew him pretty well both professionally and through geology alumni activities. You can see my website for additional information on my scientific qualifications. I have worked on these ocean-atmosphere systems most of my professional life and believe I have, after a lifetime at sea, gained some understanding of how they work. I can assure you that nothing in nature is as simple as Mr. Gore seems to think it is. He is, after all, a politician, not a scientist. His entire academic background in science amounts to the two required science courses he took at Harvard. He likes to say, in his book and in his movie, that anyone who disagrees with his simplistic assessment of climate change is just like the “scientists” who killed his sister. His sister was a smoker and died of lung cancer, but the “scientists” who denied the connection killed his sister. Never mind that he—and his father before him—gew tobacco for decades in Tennessee. He says that anyone who questions his overly simplistic views about climate change is just like those scientists who killed his sister.

For the record, I still sail to the Arctic, as I have since 1967, and have personally observed that the ice is indeed melting due to the Arctic amplification, which is causing the Arctic to warm four times faster than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. This does not explain why sea ice in Antarctica is increasing at about the same rate that we are losing ice in the Arctic. Perhaps you or Mr. Gore can explain that and the other myriad examples of complexity in the ocean-atmosphere system. Your quotes from Dr. Lancaster that say, “You had what was an insidious example of what I would call a lack of ethics in science and the use of scientists as hired guns by the industry” would seem to conflict with his statement, dated April 29,1994, which resulted from his losing Dr. Singer’s defamation suit. There he says, “I fully and unequivocally retract and disclaim those statements and their implications about the conduct, character and ethics of Professor Singer…” It was Gore who tried to use Roger as a “hired gun,” not Fred Singer.

—Jim Kelley ’63
Loyalton, CA

EDITOR’S NOTE: I guess in cases like these we all must decide whom to believe. I’ve chosen to believe Roger’s family and close associates. As for the libel settlement, in my experience, lawsuits aren’t a dependable barometer for truth. They’re often won by those with the deepest pockets.

Aspirants, Not Victims

I read the letter titled “Korematsu in Context,” in the Winter 2019 PCM, with deep personal interest. Four now-young men, former high school students of mine, came over the border “uninvited.” I have been deeply involved with them for eight years. Two I adopted as adults; the other two are “mine” by affection.

The letter describes people like them as “victims,” but I would not. They are aspirants. They all came here for many of the reasons our forefathers came: for safety and opportunity. The letter’s author would describe them as “illegals.” Is that how we would describe our forefathers? (Note: Those seeking asylum are engaged in a legal activity.)

The “crisis” the letter refers to is political theatre. The real crisis is with our values: Are we no longer a destination of hope, the hope that brought our families here?

—David Lyman, ’66
South Pasadena, CA

No More Plastic, Please

I truly enjoy Pomona College Magazine, but was disheartened to find the latest edition arrived wrapped in plastic. With all of the programs and policies being implemented worldwide to reduce plastic usage, both to reduce fossil fuel use and to reduce plastic pollution, why, oh, why wrap the magazine? Was this only so that you could enclose the letter asking for monetary support? Not acceptable. It would be far better to communicate with the target audience by email, and to make an online-only edition of PCM an option to reduce paper use/waste as well.

But seriously: no more plastic!

—Mary Stanton-Anderson ’75
University Place, WA

Dear PCM Reader

Your “Dear PCM Reader” letter prompted lots of Pomona conversation and reminiscences between my wife (Marilyn Hendrickson ’55) and me. We appreciate your letter’s approach to the reality of cost vs. your mission of connecting and a sense of pride as part of the college family. Your mission succeeded with us—many fond and proud memories.

Thank you for reminding us of the many good things Pomona College has contributed to our lives, both in the past and continuing today. The Winter 2019 issue was impressive and especially connected with us, since we are Southern California natives and lived in fire-prone Ventura three times and in the Sierra foothills for about 20 years.

—Dave Holton ’53
Pleasanton, CA

Kudos for PCM

I just want to thank you for this magazine [PCM Winter 2019]. I love geology! About 30 years ago I wrote a fictional story about the Cambrian and the Burgess Shale incident—for children and their parents and grandparents. I never got around to publishing it, but my family are now anxious to visit the exhibit in B.C.

—Barbara J. Sanders ’54
Santa Barbara, CA

PCM is an outstanding magazine, and the “Fire and Water” issue was an ideal fundraiser.

—Helena Zinkham ’75
Arlington, VA

Bravo, PCM Winter edition. The cover should be framed on a wall at MOMA.

—Marshall Hutchason ’52
Glen Head, NY

Alumni, parents and friends are invited to email letters to pcm@pomona.edu or “snail-mail” them to Pomona College Magazine, 550 North College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711. Letters may be edited for length, style and clarity.

Letter Box

February 4, 2019 by Staff Comments Off

Fire-Resistant Buildings

In all the tragedy and huge economic loss in the California fires, you should do a story in PCM about Sia (’65) and Aim (’64) Morhardt. They built a lovely hilltop home in Santa Barbara on the site of a previous home that was burned. They are both very artistic, and their home doesn’t look like you would expect.

There will be a big need to rebuild, so why not have fire-resistant buildings? According to scientific forecasts, fires in California will become stronger and more frequent. We learned in Pomona botany classes that much of the vegetation in SoCal is fire-maintained.

—Priscilla Sherwin Millen ’65
Waipahu, Hawaii

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you for the timely tip about the Morhardts and their home. Given the theme of this issue, we were very interested and followed up on it immediately. As a result, please check out the story, “How to Outsmart the Next Wildfire,” on page 44.

“Korematsu” in Context

The article in the Summer/Fall 2018 PCM titled “The Shadow of Korematsu” contains some important truths but lacks important context. I offer the following to better flesh out the discussion.

Let me begin with the Japanese incarceration during World War II. In 1941 the people affected were predominantly U.S. citizens and legally here. There was no due process and the rule of law was greatly stretched, if not broken. The most evident and egregious of those violations was the confiscation of their property. The separation of families was exacerbated by a lack of facilities to house interned families. Later, when facilities such as Manzanar were established, families were interned together. There is no doubt that the internment of these citizens was greatly hurtful to them and their families and was also part of the price of war, as well as prejudice.

The recent separation of families at the border is a different matter. There is no doubt that our immigration system is broken and that the victims of our government’s failure to fix it are the migrants who come across the border illegally and the citizens of the U.S. who pay the costs associated with that failure. However, your article lacks important context. The Mexican cartels run everything on the Mexican side of the border, and nothing crosses without their knowledge and approval. Those who recently came to the border with children to cross illegally knew full well that they could expect to be separated from those children. And yet they chose to do so. You have to ask why. There are many reasons; desperation and the hope at least for a better life for their children have to be at the top of the list. However, one can’t ignore the influence of the cartels. It was and is in their interest to disrupt enforcement at the border and the politics within the U.S. involved with it.

The major difference between the situation in 1941 and the situation at our border today is that there is due process and rule of law today whereas there was not in 1941, and the detainees in 1941 were here legally and the migrants crossing illegally are not. It has always been the practice in the U.S. legal community for law enforcement to separate children from the custody of someone being legally detained. This was not a new policy created or implemented in the current border context. There is much in the law that doesn’t work well and that one can question. Nevertheless, it is the law, and until Congress changes it, law enforcement agencies are bound to and should enforce it.

Make no mistake that the immigration situation at our southern border is tragic and in crisis. But for your article to conclude that our immigration policies at the Mexican border today are “dictated by racism and violent separation of families” is a gross misstatement. Let’s be clear. Migrants crossing illegally into the U.S. are victims. They are victims of the Mexican government, the Mexican cartels and an ineffective U.S. Congress.

—Robert Maple ’69
Green Valley, Arizona

Alumni, parents and friends are invited to email letters to pcm@pomona.edu or “snail-mail” them to Pomona College Magazine, 550 North College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711. Letters may be edited for length, style and clarity.

Stray Thoughts: What’s Next? (A Thought Experiment)

September 5, 2018 by Mark Wood Comments Off

There was a time, not so very long ago, historically speaking, when everyone assumed the future would look pretty much like the past—if they were lucky. Any sort of significant change was something to be feared and avoided, because it probably meant invasion or plague or something equally likely to send your life up in flames.

The modern concept of progress—the notion that advances in science, culture and social organization are feeding a steady improvement in the human condition—was a product of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. As an ideology, the cult of progress may have reached its peak in the optimism of middle-class America in the ’50s and ’60s, when new medicines and a parade of shiny and suddenly affordable labor-saving gadgets seemed to promise an end to drudgery and dread.

But as the pace of change has continued to accelerate, we’ve become a bit more world-weary about what it all means. The optimism of the ’50s and ’60s has curdled into fatalism. We expect change—and a lot of it—but we don’t necessarily expect progress. We’ve reverted to our historic default—viewing change with a high degree of trepidation.

Maybe that’s why anticipating the next big change has become such a fascination. We’ve all become futurists of a sort. Not that planning for tomorrow is in any way new. Indeed, some believe the ability to think about the future is what made us human in the first place. But predicting what tomorrow may bring has now become a central facet of our lives.

Did you check the weather forecast this morning to see if you needed an umbrella? Did you read the election polls or watch a TV pundit discuss the possible fallout from a recent Supreme Court decision? Did you put off buying a new computer or a new car because you read that the next iteration will be amazing? Did you, just for fun, fill out a World Cup or Final Four or MLB, NFL or NHL playoff bracket? Did you invest your hard-earned money in a stock you think/hope might be on the rise?

Yeah, so did I.

To do all of this future-gazing, we employ a range of cognitive tools, some more effective than others. We use the science of statistics with a remarkable degree of success—when we do it right. We use deductive reasoning with rather more mixed success. And of course, we use lots of guesswork and magical thinking, with just enough accidental success to make us superstitious.

We’re wrong a lot—or else Hillary Clinton would be president, cars would fly through the air, and we’d all be fabulously rich.

So, when we at PCM asked Sagehen experts in a variety of disciplines to make some daring predictions about what’s next in their fields, our purpose wasn’t really to give you a preview of the future, though we hope that you’ll take away some interesting ideas of what may be in store for us down the road.

The main reason we sought these predictions, and the reason our experts offered them, was as a kind of thought experiment. Thoughtful, informed predictions tell us as much about the present as they do about the future. Whether or not these predictions turn out to be right, I hope you’ll find the reasoning behind them intriguing and enlightening.

Of course, if you shake the dust off this issue of PCM a decade from now, you may find that some of these predictions were dead wrong. A few may even seem quaint and funny.

Like the science fiction writers of the ’50s whose spacefaring heroes went rocketing about the solar system while navigating with slide rules, sometimes we know something revolutionary is coming, but we pick the wrong revolution.

That’s the danger of prediction, even for experts.

Letter Box

September 5, 2018 by Staff Comments Off

Remembering Martha

If there was one person more than any other who personified what made my experience of Pomona extraordinary, it was Professor Martha Andresen. The brilliance of her intellect was matched by the openness of her heart, and she instilled in me a love of literature that remains alive after more than three decades. I know that I am far from unique in that regard; a number of my classmates who have gone into teaching have spoken of drawing on her example years later. She challenged her students in the best possible way, confronting the flaws and unexamined assumptions in our thinking not to make us feel inferior but to push us to become the better readers, writers and thinkers she believed we could be.

I had the great good fortune of continuing a friendship with Professor Andresen long after I had graduated, corresponding about our lives, art, politics, and most of all writing. We would discuss the books we had recommended to each other, explicating what a particular writer had achieved or failed to achieve. This was never dull academic pontificating, at least on her end; everything she wrote burned with her love of the written word. I have kept every one of those letters from her, and I cherish them.

Pomona will of course go on, with other talented and dedicated professors to lead it into the future, but it will never be the same. Martha Andresen will never be replaced.

—Eric Meyer ’87
Lake Oswego, OR

Wilds of L.A.

Thanks to Char Miller for his review of the natural systems that have shaped Los Angeles (“The Wilds of L.A.,” PCM Spring 2018). But I think he’s misreading the city when he calls it “concretized and controlled” and claims that it’s “nearly impossible to locate nature” in Los Angeles, except in the earthquakes, fires and floods that he describes in almost apocalyptic tones.

In contrast to many large cities, wildlife and nature are a wonderful, unavoidable part of everyday life in Los Angeles. At our home just two miles north of Downtown L.A., we are frequently visited by coyotes, bobcats, possums, raccoons, skunks and snakes. Birds of prey like red-tailed hawks and screech owls share the trees with woodpeckers, finches, warblers and hummingbirds.

I was especially chagrined that Prof. Miller dismisses the Los Angeles River as an “inverted freeway.” The channelized River is indeed a concrete ditch for much of its 52-mile run, but it is also a habitat for much wildlife, especially in the three “soft-bottom” sections of the river (the Sepulveda Basin, the Glendale Narrows, and the Long Beach Estuary). I recently published a novel set on the L.A. River (The Ballad of Huck & Miguel), and the fugitives in the book encounter many of the same animals that I’ve encountered down there, including herons, egrets, turtles, fish and snakes.

What’s more, millions of LA residents live less than an hour away from mountain waterfalls, desert oases and ocean tide pools. For nature lovers who also want access to the cultural diversity (and economic opportunity) of a major urban metropolis, there is no better place to be than Los Angeles.

—Tim DeRoche ‘92
Los Angeles, CA

A Rural Voice

As a longtime “Rural Voice” from Beaver Dam, Wis., I was especially interested in Mark Wood’s piece on Rachel Monroe ’06 and Marfa, Texas, because I had just been reading Possibilities by Patricia Vigderman. In the chapter “Sebald in Starbucks” she writes about sitting in Starbucks in Marfa and reading W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. She explains how Marfa got its name: In 1881, a Russian woman came with her husband, a railroad overseer, to an unnamed whistle stop. She was reading a novel published the previous year, The Brothers Karamazov, in which Dostoevsky gave the name Marfa to the Karamazov family servant—and the unnamed town in Texas got its name. The essay is delightful, as is the book by Vigderman.

—Caroline Burrow Jones ’55
Pasadena, CA

Dwyer Passing

Thank you, PCM, for publishing news of the passing of former Pomona College Assistant Professor of History John Dwyer. He served at Pomona for only a few years, but the quality of that service was unmatched in my experience. I remain grateful beyond words for his friendship and guidance, for his love of history and Africa and for his wonderful family. Saturday mornings will always bring memories of the Metropolitan Opera broadcast, accompanied by a proper pot of tea. Thank you, Mr. Dwyer, for everything.

—David Beales ’73
Elk Grove, CA

A Barnett Fan

Okay, maybe the good part of being a children’s author is that Mac Barnett’s (’04) kid audience doesn’t “fanboy” over him…but the adults reading his books definitely do! I was so psyched to open the Spring 2018 issue to “Ideas That Feel Alive.” We are HUGE fans of his work in our family, and we read one of his books with our 2½-year-old Lyra almost every day. We particularly love his collaborations with illustrator Jon Klassen—Extra Yarn and The Wolf, The Duck & The Mouse are our most beloved favorites. We’d actually just bought Triangle for Greg Conroy’s (Pomona ‘00) son Malcolm’s third birthday on the same day the PCM arrived in the mail! It’s super refreshing to read kids’ books that are quirky and smart: Barnett doesn’t talk down to kids or dumb down his stories, even when they’re a little dark or offbeat (in the best way possible). We can’t wait to keep reading everything he writes!

—Chelsea Morse ‘02
Astoria, NY

Kudos for PCM

Pomona College Magazine continues to be readable, relevant and enlightening, thanks to your creativity and hard work. We look forward to each issue and read it cover to cover.

—Bonnie Home ’62 and
DeForrest Home ’61
San Jose, CA

Stray Thoughts: Kitchen Window Community

March 23, 2018 by Mark Wood Comments Off

Rural America My favorite anecdote about growing up in the rural South is a childhood memory of sitting with my aunt and uncle at their red Formica kitchen table, which was strategically positioned in front of a double window looking out on the dirt road in front of their house. Each time a car or—more likely—a pickup would go by, leaving its plume of dust hanging in the air, both of them would stop whatever they were doing and crane their necks. Then one of them would offer an offhand comment like: “Looks like Ed and Georgia finally traded in that old Ford of theirs. It’s about time.” Or: “There’s that Johnson fellow who’s logging the Benton place. Wonder if he’s any kin to Dave Johnson.”

Inevitably, there would follow a speculative conversation about their neighbors’ personal and business affairs, about which they always seemed remarkably well informed. “Is her mom still in the hospital?” “I think they let her go home yesterday.” “Maybe we should take over some deviled eggs or something.”

For the most part, it was casual and benevolent. Though their nearest neighbors—my parents—lived half a mile away, beyond a screen of forest, they seemed to have a strong sense of being members of a real community where people knew each other well and looked out for one another.

Sometimes, though, a darker note would creep in. “There’s that Wheeler boy again. What’s he up to, do you reckon?” Then the conversation would turn to past misdeeds and present mistrust, accompanied by a disapproving shake of the head.

And on those rare occasions when they didn’t recognize the vehicle or driver at all, they would take special note. “Who in the world is that?” “Never saw him before.” “Wonder if he’s the fellow who bought the old Pearson place.” “What kind of truck is that?” Looking back, it seems to me now that there was always a strong note of suspicion in their voices at such moments. Here was an intruder, not to be trusted until clearly identified.

Over the years, I’ve found myself conflicted about the sense of belonging that memory evokes. There’s something compelling about that kind of attentive and caring community —something that I miss to this day. The old clichés were true—doors were never locked, and people really did show up unexpected with food when someone was sick.

But there was also something intrusive—even coercive—about it, and as I grew older, I began to understand just how closed and exclusive a community it was and how ruthlessly it enforced its unspoken rules of conformity and homogeneity.

I don’t think my parents ever felt completely a part of that community, though they lived there most of their lives. Neither did I, even as a kid. We didn’t go to church. We didn’t hunt or fish. We had strange political views. But we kept to ourselves. We didn’t make waves. And so we were accepted, if never quite assimilated.

Today, I’m a suburban Angeleno, but my roots will always be there. For years, whenever I went home to visit my parents, I was treated by the community as a prodigal son. A couple of my many cousins would drop by to ask how I was doing out there in California. The few neighbors who still knew me would wave hello as I drove by. Even though I always felt apart, I don’t suppose I’ll ever feel quite so completely at home anywhere else.

During the past year, there’s been a lot of talk about the growing cultural and political divide between urban and rural America. Despite my roots, I don’t feel qualified to comment beyond that little anecdote. The last time I visited that community was to finish preparing my parents’ house for sale. They’re both long gone, as are my aunt and uncle and almost everyone I knew as a child. I doubt I’ll ever go back. In any case, I’ve become an outsider, the kind of stranger whom people stare at from their kitchen windows and say, “Who in the world is that?”

Letter Box

March 23, 2018 by Staff Comments Off

Eclipse Memories

Close-up of the total eclipse. Photo by Tom and Judith Auchter, digitally enhanced by Lew Phelps ’65

Thanks to Chuck and Lew Phelps (both ’65) for the interesting article about the Pomona eclipse event in Wyoming in August. The opportunity to share the experience with Pomona friends and family was stunning, and the article captured the depth of the adventure. It is amazing that they had the foresight to plan two years in advance and to reserve one of the premier spots in the U.S. to view the spectacle. The twins worked tirelessly on every aspect of our time together, including housing, meals, a lecture series and guided stargazing, and they created a deeply memorable experience for everyone on the mountain.

Wishing to honor the Phelpses, attendees from the Class of ’65, as well as the Classes of ’64 and ’66, created a Pomona fund to celebrate our time together. At the final group lunch, we announced the Phelps Twins Eclipse Fund to support Pomona summer internships in science. The response was heartening: 86 donations came from Pomona alumni and friends who attended the event and from some who did not but who wanted to support the fund. The final figure was $52,242. The fund will support more than 10 summer internships for students in future years.

With appreciation to Chuck and Lew for making it happen.

—Ann Dunkle Thompson ’65, P’92
—Celia Williams Baron ’65
—Virginia Corlette Pollard ’65, P’93
—Jan Williams Hazlett ’65
—Peter Briggs ’64, P’93

Excelling Wisely

When I received the Fall 2017 edition of PCM, I was intrigued by the front cover’s puzzle shapes, where work and life fit together. As a creative writing and reading intervention teacher at STEM Prep High School in Nashville, TN, I wrestle with this question of how to fit life and work together without work consuming both pieces. I was absolutely delighted, upon opening to the article “Excelling Wisely,” to read these lines by the president of Pomona College: “We need to tell ourselves and each other that we can achieve and excel without taking every drop of energy from our reserves. That we all need to take some time to laugh.” And later President Starr adds, “Creativity requires freedom, space and room to grow. And achievement isn’t the only thing that adds meaning to our lives.”

This article hit home to me as I was struggling with just one more bout of sickness after a challenging but fulfilling semester of teaching. Its message needs to be heard in every corner of our world. Yes, achievement is important. But the quality of our lives as we accomplish our goals is also important. In my work environment at STEM Prep Academy, I am surrounded by motivated, hardworking, yet caring leaders who themselves are asking these questions. Students today are extremely stressed. Many of our students face particular language challenges, which further contributes to stress. How can we help to close the achievement gap and yet not become consumed by it?

STEM Prep High is intentionally trying to create balance this year by adding once-a-month Friday afternoon clubs. These clubs enable students to explore interests and to spend more relaxed time in a group of their choosing. I lead a sewing and knitting club, which has attracted a very “chill” group of students. I provide knitting needles, crochet hooks, yarn and other items, assisting as students explore these crafts. Other clubs include flag football, hiking, a Socrates club, games and yoga.

STEM Prep High has also created balance this year by offering elective classes such as Visual Arts and Imaginative Writing. My Imaginative Writing classroom is intentionally filled with creativity and fun, including a bookshelf full of children’s stories, teen books and adult novels. A stuffed Cat in the Hat and a Cheshire Cat lounge on top of the bookshelves. Plants adorn the top of the filing cabinet near the window, creating a homey, relaxed atmosphere. During the month of November my students and I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This provided students with an opportunity to creatively express their own life stories or stories that they had made up.

And what about teachers? How can we create a tenuous balance between work and life? Certainly, our work is important, but so are our lives. I continue to wrestle with this question. One “solution” that my husband created was buying season tickets to the Nashville Predators games. This allows my husband and me to enjoy downtown Nashville and to spend time together. We also enjoy motorcycle trips on my husband’s Harley.

Most of us will continue to face this challenge of how to “excel wisely” throughout our lives. I was most grateful for this issue of PCM and the opportunity to reflect on ways in which I am trying to make this happen and ways in which I can continue to create a healthy balance between work and life.

—Wilma (Fisher) Lefler ‘90

Wow!

Wow! The recent issue of PCM is superb. Each story is meaty and unique and engaging. I’m one who usually reads an issue from cover to cover, and this one left me wanting to start at the beginning again with the suspicion that I’d surely missed important details along the way.

Thank you for the imagination, creativity and careful editing that you give in helping us feel connected and proud.

PS: I’m one of the trio who were the first exchange students from Swarthmore in spring 1962 at the invitation of Pomona. It pleases me that both colleges are currently led by African-American women.

—Betsy Crofts ‘63
Southampton, PA

Alumni, parents and friends are invited to email letters to pcm@pomona.edu or “snail-mail” them to Pomona College Magazine, 550 North College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711. Letters may be edited for length, style and clarity.

Stray Thoughts: Excelling Wisely

November 16, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

G. Gabrielle Starr POMONA IS EXTRAORDINARY. We remind ourselves of this proudly when we marvel at the brilliance of our students and faculty, the accomplishments of our alumni, the talent of our staff, the amazing marks Sagehens leave on the world. How many high-achieving people, people who never give up, do we see every day?

What a wondrous thing! Yet I wonder something else, too. How much room do we give ourselves and each other to slow down? To choose which amazing thing we are going to do—today? There’s a lot of pressure on everyone to take advantage of all of the gifts and opportunities in front of us. We advise each other to excel.

Maybe we can talk about excelling wisely.

Sometimes people ask me for advice, and this column seems a good place to give some, if you’ll let me. Most of us acknowledge that you have to seek balance in life; equally, we acknowledge that finding such a balance is hard. This truth deserves more than lip service. We need to tell ourselves and each other that we can achieve and excel without taking every drop of energy from our reserves. That we all need to take some time to laugh.

Parents, friends, professors, bosses, coworkers and mentors routinely use language that raises expectations: We challenge, we press and we exhort. Even this magazine—always full of stories about people doing extraordinary things—can sometimes seem to be ratcheting up the pressure to achieve. There’s good reason for all of that. Everyone needs to be reminded that they can do great things. But we also need other reminders. Creativity requires freedom, space and room to grow. And achievement isn’t the only thing that adds meaning to our lives.

This issue of the magazine is, as usual, about some amazing Pomona people, but it’s also about the sometimes blissful, sometimes thorny relationship between the work we do and the lives we live. It’s about achieving lifelong dreams and coping with life-or-death stress. It’s about life-changing choices and what happens when everything falls apart.

Most importantly, the stories in this issue are about dealing with timeless, and timely, questions. I hope you pause and give yourself permission in your work, your studies and your relationships to make the life you desire.

—G. Gabrielle Starr
President of Pomona College

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