things not to burn

i missed the news that there was a (non-racially-motivated) cross burning at my alma mater. sam mikes has the details (and i first guessed it happened in west, too — it happened in front of north). but he misses one gem in the collage article about the incident. it actually explains “mental masturbation.” they could have just said see the twenty-page opinion section in this newspaper.

in volume ii, issue 1 of the hmc compass (the school paper for which i was the founding editor-in-chief, and which i’m sure is gone now, in the fine tradition of failed harvey mudd newspapers), i broke down the content of the collage (the five-college paper) by space: 37% advertisements, 18% features, 13% opinion, 8% news, 6% cartoons and games, 6% sports, and 12% other (internal advertising, the staff box, world news, calendar, classifieds). as i recall, the student body of harvey mudd voted to deny the collage their funding at least once.

speaking of the hmc compass, i happen to have a copy of volume 3, issue 1, too. it wasn’t exactly high design or journalism when i was editor, but i think i can comfortably say it got much worse on both fronts after me. i should have absconded with the $1000+ that was in the paper’s bank account when i had the chance. (actually, i would not be at all surprised if that money was still sitting in its bank account.)

of course, the paper that had us all beat was too much free time, the anonymously-published paper that made fun of everyone.