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Cullinary arts a cut above
inquirer
Things are heating up this semester at DVC. See Page 4. Thursday, Sept. 15 - Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016
Volume V, No 1
Uncensor your mind
Mental health program is well underway across district campuses MIRNA ABOUKHALIL Staff member
Professor publishes new view on mass media manipulation CHELSEY SCHALLIG News editor
“Censored 2017” covers a variety of stories from surveillance technology, to a brief history of Central Intelligence Agency media manipulation. Mickey Huff, history and social science professor at Diablo Valley College, is a director of Project Censored and Media Freedom Foundation. Huff explained that the project engages with media literacy to work towards a truly free press for democratic self-government. “Censored 2017” points out the problems and issues that are ignored, or not covered in the corporate press, and celebrates independent journalists who bring those stories to life. The project hopes to bring more attention to ignored and skewed stories and hopes people will pay more attention to particular issues. The book is part of a mission to show the importance of free press and a part of the mission is media literacy. “For the upcoming book, ‘Censored 2017,’ there is a civic action kind of bent to it. We believe that free press principles and journalism play an important part in pursuing social justice,” says Huff. “The American culture is a pretty unique society overall, despite the fact that many people in the U.S live under the um-
brella of mythological…exceptionalism,” says Huff. “Censored 2017” is opposed to censorship and Huff mentions that censorship is a lot bigger than people realize in the United States. Media outlets make the decisions as to what subjects are included, or not included, in corporate media. “We operate under the principle that we have a free press, therefore, there’s nothing wrong. It’s not that people don’t understand it, it’s that they’re not taught to think critically about media,” says Huff. The project’s purpose is to educate people about how media works and support the new generation of journalists while working in multiple media assignments through education and classes. “We have a weekly radio show that’s on 35 stations and multiple film projects. We have over 200 students and faculty supporting us and we are celebrating our 40th anniversary this year with this upcoming book,” says Mickey Huff. Ralph Nader, who wrote the Foreword for “Censored 2015: Inspiring We the People” will be hosting an event at the DVC campus Tuesday Oct. 18th in the Diablo Room from 3-4 pm. “Censored 2017: Fortieth Anniversary Edition” is available for purchase on Oct. 4.
1 in 4 college students fall into depression. That means if Diablo Valley College has around 22,000 students, 5,500 of them have depression. Diablo Valley College has been pushing to add a mental health program for countless years, and this July, DVC finally opened the Student Wellness Program — hoping to address the problem that many colleges face. The New Student Wellness Program is “We want to going to offer therprovide a very apy to all students. The program has supportive partnered with John environment.” F. Kennedy University to provide therapy to students that ~BETH HAUSCARRIAGUE Dean of Counseling and are suffering from Enrollment stress to having major depression. Beth Hauscarriague, the Dean of Counseling and Enrollment Services said, “We want to make sure to provide a very supportive environment, not only in the academic but also in the wellness piece of it.” She hopes that this program will give students the necessary support and resources to helping them with any of their struggles through therapy. Some types of therapy include a lot of humanistic approaches and positive psychology focussing on positive coping strategies In order to join this program you will need a referral and an appointment. If a student needs help immediately, then there will be someone on site to help the student, whether it’s one of the interns or a counselor. There will be two therapist interns work-
Contact CHESLEY SCHALLIG at CSchallig@DVCInquirer.com
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Space telescopes picking up mixed signals JEANETTE CHIAPPONE Staff member
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) quietly issued a statement Monday, Aug. 29, saying a signal had been detected coming from a solar system 95 light years from Earth. In astronomical terms, the news sounded as if our alien neighbor down the street had come a’knocking. But the statement by SETI’s Senior Astronomer, Seth Shostack was quick to mini-
mize the discovery of the signal coming from HD164595, as the system known, even as it was being announced. “The chance that this is truly a signal from extraterrestrials is not terribly promising, and the discoverers themselves apparently doubt that they’ve found ET. Nonetheless, one should check out all reasonable possibilities, given the importance of the subject,” Shostack wrote. Dr. Alex Filippenko, professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley elaborated, “The signal
detected by RATAN-600 has a nearly zero chance of being a transmission from an intelligent extraterrestrial. It’s a broad-band detection that has numerous more-plausible explanations including noise, a terrestrial origin, and a celestial origin unrelated to aliens,” Filippenko said. Still, the mere possibility the signal was sent by aliens is fascinating, if only to imagine civilizations far more advanced than our own. For one, Shostck said, if this message
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was actually from aliens, the signal is being broadcast at 100 billion watts. “That’s hundreds of times more energy than all the sunlight falling on Earth, and would obviously require power sources far beyond any we have,” he wrote. The beam itself seems to be aimed right at planet Earth. While humanoids might think they are worth the trouble to contact, that would mean the signal began its focused Continued on Page 2