As a result, Congress recently passed an amendment to President Obama’s stimulus package (which has just received its final approval from the Senate) that places heavier restrictions on American companies looking to hire foreign workers on H-1B visas – the visa program sought by an overwhelming majority of non-US citizens attempting to live and work in the United States after competing their studies.

As for now, students seeking jobs at American businesses receiving money from TARPwill be the most affected. These businesses include Bank of America, Citigroup and many others – all of which are commonly sought after by CMC students, foreign and American. While these companies are not embargoed from sponsoring H-1B visas, they have been hit with stronger restrictions on who can now be sponsored. Basically, these corporations now have to go further out of their way to sponsor you if you’re not an American citizen and looking to work for them.

The H-1B program offers an annual maximum of 65,000 visas for students with Bachelor’s degrees in a randomized selection process. Those working for high-level academic institutions and non-profit research organizations are exempt from the cap. In the past few years, the number of applicants to the program has increased significantly, causing UCSIS to strip the rights of many to live and work the United States – despite being employed, eligible and sponsored by their employers.

Due to current economic conditions, the H-1B program has altogether come under increasing fire by certain Congressmen and private citizens who are fearful that it may harm the American workforce. There are no present signs of anything more severe happening to the program (the good news is the US business community has a long history of lobbying in its favor), but it may come under increasing scrutiny and be modified in the coming months of years.

So a word of advice to all non-American students who want to continue living and working in the United States after graduation – I don’t mean to scare anyone because chances are you won’t be affected – but do keep a close eye on this while making your post-graduation plans.

CMC Government Professor Jack Pitney was also recently quoted in some major papers.  The San Francisco Chronicle quoted him in an article about Gov. Schwarzenegger’s vow to veto the California state budget.

But there are potential downsides, said John J. Pitney Jr., a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.

“This is the governor who was going to grab the budget and control it through his sheer power and that hasn’t happened,” Pitney said. “So by walking away, he’s confirming that he has not been able to master the events in Sacramento.”

Reuters News also quoted his words on the same issue.

“We’re going to be back to a budget stalemate next summer,” said Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. He expects lawmakers put off difficult decisions about either raising revenues or restraining spending.

“The legislature really hasn’t done much to address the structural imbalance of the budget and the state’s unstable revenue sources will persist until the legislature fixes it,” he said.

“Being a conservative columnist at the New York Times is like being Chief Rabbi at Mecca,” joked Brooks about working for a newspaper that many believe to have liberal-leaning ideologies.

A young boy with his parents at a “be-in” in Central Park (“where hippies could go to Central Park and just ‘be’”), Brooks saw a man burn his five dollar bill and throw it down, so instinctively Brooks picked it up. He jested that the step to pick up the bill was his “first step to the right.”

“Good journalists tend to be aloof and emotionally detached,” said Brooks, who was both witty and personable in his speech. “They say what they think and they don’t have trouble being honestly critical of even the people they like.”

Brooks, who grew up in the highly liberal Greenwich Village neighborhood of NYC, related the influences thoughout his life that affected his political views. A former liberal himself, Brooks admitted to having been deeply inspired into the ideology of conservatism by William Frank Buckley, Jr., who passed away the same morning of this speech. Brooks spent a good portion of his talk on Buckley’s illustrious career and amiable personality.

A common conviction among conservatives is a “distrust in government,” alleged Brooks, who expressed his view that the world is too complicated for the government to fully understand and successfully fix with legislation. He addressed the state of conservatism and the Republican Party, whose base has been rapidly eroding and many of its followers dissipating into both the liberal and independent camps. Unlike the confidence in conservatism that Buckley was able to inspire, Brooks expressed the unfortunate truth that the modern conservative movement has “too many sleezeballs rather than eyeballs” (think Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter). The growing consensus among conservatives, according to Brooks, is that Republican leaders are not genuinely representing the ideology of their own party.

Brooks went on to address the political culture of our time, as well as a range of social issues and current events – such as health care, global warming, the occupation of Iraq, and the ongoing 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. He expressed his skepticism for “Obamamania,” but did not stop short of praising Senator Barack Obama for his many admirable qualities. He seemed certain that Senator Hillary Clinton has effectively lost the race for the Democratic nomination. Brooks also conveyed his “love” for Senator John McCain, who he believes is deeply motivated by a sense of honor.

According to Brooks, the general election will be a contest between the nonpartisan left-winger, Obama, and a nonpartisan right-winger, McCain.

The honesty, eloquence and comical nature of Brooks’ speech offered a fresh perspective which, even as a non-conservative, I believe was worth hearing.

“Journalism is the heart of democracy,” said McChesney, who went on to declare that a well-informed public is imperative to the success of a free society. Journalists have a significant role to play in educating and informing the populous on relevant social concerns. He referenced founding fathers James Madison and Benjamin Franklin’s zeal for complete freedom of the press, as they considered it a cornerstone ideal on which the success of the United States would rest. Unfortunately, the press industry is failing to deliver on its constitutional responsibility of enlightening the public sphere on the problems pertinent to society.

One particular trend in the journalism industry is that important social issues are losing ground to trivial entertainment, such as the personal lives of celebrities. McChesney stated that mass media outlets have been feeding viewers with “a steady diet of crap” rather than effectively informing them. It is regrettable because it diverts people from what actually matters.

Citing an example in Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, McChesney noted the failure of the media to challenge the administration’s intentions and ‘intelligence findings,’ and went on to suggest that a misinformed public was the prime catalyst that gave the president a free ticket to carry out one of the greatest foreign policy disasters in the history of the United States. Rather than contesting the shaky grounds on which the decision was made and evaluating its potential consequences, the media simply reproduced and dispersed the voices of the deciders. Accepting – if not embracing – the agendas of people in power has become the norm as of late. This is not what journalism should be about.

Increased commercialization of the media has largely contributed to an ineffective press. It is becoming more and more difficult to establish a career in the journalism industry if one has a habit of challenging the status quo. Advertisers and promoters ought to be distinct from writers, said McChesney, so that the quality of issues journalists raise is unobstructed by commercial interests. It’s not that there is a shortage of individuals fit for the job. It’s that due to growing commercial pressures, publications have begun to hire writers and anchors based on their bottom line and not on the relevance of issues he or she brings to the table. “Writers only seem to be allowed to raise a question if someone in power is talking about it,” lamented McChesney, “or else the perception is that they’re not being objective, they’re simply pushing an agenda.” Journalists must be allowed to raise questions and spark new debates. Just because an issue is not currently being talked about, doesn’t make it unimportant.

While the internet has revolutionized the manner in which people all over the world receive their information, McChesney believed that this change is neither a cause of nor a solution to the current dilemma. He remarked that large phone companies are pushing for the privatization of the internet, which would allow them to exert a greater stranglehold over the flow of information and other intricacies such as the speed at which websites load. If they succeed, it would be a disaster for the concept of free speech. He urged us to reverse these efforts by supporting the House Internet Freedom Preservation Act (HR-5353), which has been endorsed by Representatives Chip Pickering (R-Miss) and Ed Markey (D-Mass). As a part of his efforts, he co-founded freepress.net, an organization dedicated to the freedom of press and media reform.

Mr. Gergen began with a talk about the presidential race and the fresh results from Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. “McCain survived a scare, and almost lost Virginia, and if Obama wins next week, that would give him ten straight. Then there will be a momentum change,” he said. But he added a caveat: “There is something about this election that we truly do not understand.” Indeed, the pundits have misjudged this election cycle with the predictions of an Obama win in New Hampshire and the end of the McCain campaign last summer.

Beyond the primaries, Mr. Gergen talked about foreign and domestic policy issues that get lost in the media excitement over the presidential race. He spoke about Iraq, Iran, the economy, health care, and global warming as the major issues facing the United States. He emphasized his opinion that the next President may have to face the most difficult and complicated issues since President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933. As a veteran of Washington, Gergen shined most when he described what is and not politically possible. He related an exchange with Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria on whether the U.S. would subsidize green technology, saying “I turned to him and said that Congress would never subsidize China.”

On Barack Obama, Mr. Gergen had mixed feelings. He said Senator Obama holds an unknown factor– that is, he has a very large potential upside and equally large potential downside if elected. According to Gergen, Barack Obama could come as the “beginning of a new politics” or could turn out to be “just another Jimmy Carter.”

Mr. Gergen held his highest praises for Senator John McCain. Gergen recounted the service Senator McCain gave to this country in detail and lauded the Senator as one of the greatest patriots this country has ever seen.Mr. Gergen was mostly unbiased in his political analysis, but advocated strongly for national service at the end of his talk. As a board member of Teach for America, he talked up the organization and its founder, Wendy Kopp. Yet, Gergen did not acknowledge some of the widespread criticisms over the effectiveness of the program.

Gergen expressed his hopes for the future of American politics, hoping that young Americans would step up and give the national service that is “expected” from our generation. Gergen opined that our generation is “more idealistic, more spiritual, and believes in social change.”

As happens occasionally at the Athenaeum, a student challenged the speaker directly during the Q & A session. Charles Johnson ’11 disagreed with Gergen’s ideas about national service, stating that paying taxes was enough service. Mr. Gergen turned the question on Mr. Johnson, asking if he paid his own tuition and whether he felt he owed anything to his country. Mr. Gergen, visibly taken aback by the student’s responses, declared that national service is not “suggested,” but is “expected.” At this point, the audience erupted into applause and Mr. Johnson sat down.

• Dr. Kathleen Purvis-Roberts, professor of chemistry, provided us with an overview of the scientific issues surrounding global warming. She affirmed that the vast majority of the scientific community agrees that humans are contributing tremendously to climate change. The threats presented include the melting of polar ice caps, sea level rise, severe droughts and more extreme weather patterns, all of which are likely to lead to daunting consequences. She went on to stress the responsibility of developed nations toward the developing world, who do not have the adequate means to protect themselves without severely stifling the rise in their already weak standards of living, and more importantly have emitted far fewer greenhouse gases since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

• Dr. Alex Rajczi, professor of philosophy, surveyed the issue from a normative moral standpoint. The prominent questions he raised were a) should we believe that climate change is anthropogenic and poses a serious threat, and b) does the U.S. have an obligation to do something about it? “We are certainly accountable,” declares Rajczi, because “we are the ones pouring these chemicals into the air.” From an ethical perspective, he advised that the best we can do – as predominantly nonscientists – is trust the conclusions of the majority of experts, unless we have a good reason not to. And although the window for specific policy debates is limitless, the majority of experts are unequivocal in their conviction that global warming is an anthropogenic activity, hence we have the responsibility to curtail the damage we are causing.

• Dr. William Christian, professor of government, addressed the political realities surrounding global warming. The United States is responsible for roughly ¼ of worldwide greenhouse gases and is as of today, the only country in the world not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. “No doubt it is our responsibility,” says Christian, but it is “a very difficult matter to deal with.” He mentioned the various solutions being proposed in Congress, including the instatement of a carbon taxes to discourage emissions, and a ‘cap and trade’ system whereby the government can set a ceiling on pollution and private organizations can trade their quotas between each other. Although these solutions would be effective, political intricacies such as special interest lobbies are influential in preventing such legislation from being passed. He ended by invoking journalist Thomas Friedman’s outlooks, that we need an economic transformation more than economic regulation, which will occur when the government spends money to build the currently meager green industry.

• Dr. S. Brock Blomberg, perhaps the most inimitable speaker of the night, offered us the economic realities of regulating the energy industry. He opened with a disclaimer of humility and hubris, declaring that he “doesn’t know much about environmental issues, but he’s still going to talk about it.” The best part about professor Blomberg was his modesty, as he claimed that economists are only assessing the stats and figures involved with regulation emissions, and “not even trying to deal with the human loss or the things that actually matter,” in his own words. He invoked a cost-benefit analysis to assess the harm that would be dealt to the economy in comparison to the benefits, if the government were to regulate the energy industry. The brazen conclusion of a number of economists is that the ‘economic’ harm done would outweigh the ‘economic’ benefits of regulation.

While it is important to appreciate an economist’s opinion on policy matters, this perspective is severely limited by the sheer lack of deliberation on the multiple other dimensions of the phenomenon. Naturally, there are disadvantages to dealing with any potential threat, but an economic cost-benefit analysis does not take into account the mounting health risks (such as asthma), the millions of people likely to be displaced from their homes due to rising sea levels, the water shortages presented by droughts, and the catastrophes looming in the worsening weather patterns, all of which is currently set to transpire at an exponential rate. Furthermore, non-regulation today will severely strain the resources available to future generations. Factoring in these consequences, even the most extreme free market economist’s conviction would face an enormous burden.

It is imperative to consider the humanitarian concerns – and not merely short term economic prospects – when weighing the relevance of environmental policy. Nobody that is willing to objectively examine the threat of global warming from all angles would have a leg to stand on in refuting the importance of actions designed to ameliorate the human loss it is expected to cause.