Mustang Daily 05-07-09

MUsTANG dAILY TOMORROW: Sunny High 82˚/Low 57˚

CA L I F O R N I A P O LY T E C H N I C S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y ‘X-men: origins’ falls far short of hype.

Tulane students graduating four years after Hurricane Katrina.

IN ARTS, 6

IN NEWS, 3

Sports column: Cal Poly baseball provides team quality entertainment.

IN sPoRTs, 12

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Volume LXXIII, Number 140

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CSU takes steps to ease enrollment worries Chris Jagger Mustang daily

Due to a potential future fall in the number of college graduates, the California State University has implemented programs aiming to increase college attendance and graduation rates and rekindle the state’s struggling work force.

According to the April report, “Closing the gap: Meeting California’s need for college graduates,” the state will lack nearly 1 million college graduates by the year 2025.

By then, it is predicted that only 35 percent of working-age adults will have a college education in an economy that will need about 41 percent.

However, the CSU system has already begun addressing this issue. In May 2008, the Board of Trustees embraced the Access to Excellence plan, a system of small-scale programs which will hopefully cut current achievement gaps in half during the next 10 years.

“Part of the CSU’s mission is to provide high-quality, accessible, student-focused higher education,” CSU media relations specialist Erik Fallis said. “We also educate California’s workforce of the future. Making sure our students attain their degrees goes handin-hand with our mission.”

Working in conjunction with community colleges across the state, the CSU created the Lower Division Transfer Pattern (LDTP), a program that prepares students for transfer-

ring to four-year universities. The LDTP tells students exactly what they need to accomplish in order to transfer to a specific major at all 23 CSU universities.

The LDTP also provides detailed plans, comprised of general education coursework, to students who are not sure which CSU campus they want to attend.

All students need to complete at least 60 units to transfer to a CSU campus.

Cuesta College student Lindsay Walker will be transferring to Cal Poly as a nutrition major next fall. For Walker, figuring out transfer requirements hasn’t been a difficult task because Cuesta and Cal Poly work closely together to iron out minimum standards for all majors.

41%

“My counselor actually printed out a page from the Cal Poly catalog and gave me a list of Cuesta classes that are equivalent and transferrable,” Walker said.

“The Cuesta catalog lists transfer requirements for CSU schools.”

The CSU system has also devel-

predicted percentage of

adults California needs with college degrees in 2025

one million fewer degrees than the state needs

35%

percentage of

Californians the state predicts will have college degrees in 2025

oped a standardized test that gauges college readiness in high school students. The Early Assessment Program (EAP) tests high school juniors’ proficiency in English and mathematics and determines whether remedial work is necessary before entering a CSU campus. High school students who perform poorly on the EAP can tailor their senior year towards college preparation.

According to the CSU’s Web site, 346,000 students volunteered to take the EAP in 2007 — 30,000 more than the previous year. Only 16 percent of the students taking the English EAP demonstrated proficiency, while 55 percent of the students who took the mathematics EAP showed proficiency.

The CSU has created a college poster which is designed to keep middle school and high school students on track for college entrance. This poster informs students about class requirements as well as financial and statistical information about college.

“The CSU has a great working relationship with high schools and community colleges throughout the state,” Fallis said. “The success of these programs will be seen over the long-term.”

According to Fallis, fall 2009 transfer applications are up 13.7 percent compared to fall 2008 an early indicator of the CSU’s success.

“As the nation’s largest public university system, the CSU has taken a leadership role in providing access to quality higher education,” he said.

Students let loose with May Mayhem Chris Jagger Mustang daily

The University Union will be transformed into a student funhouse tonight, in an event that will showcase everything the area has to offer.

The second annual May Mayhem will have something for everyone. Each aspect of the UU, including Backstage Pizza, Starbucks Coffee, Mustang Lanes and the Craft Center will be open and participating in the event.

“The event started last year and its purpose was to highlight all the programs within the UU,” ASI programs coordinator Michelle Curro said. “It was such a success and the collaboration between ASI, Student Life and Leadership and Campus Dining was so strong that we decided to do it again.”

Outside in the UU Plaza, three bands, including Dirty Sweet, The

Silent Comedy and HBI will be performing on the stage throughout the night. Around 8 p.m., during a transition between bands, the 2009 ASI presidential election results will be announced in front of the crowd.

“Last year it was a coincidence that May Mayhem landed on the day of the election results,” Curro said. “It was such a success because it built up so much energy with the students, so we decided to announce the results again this year.”

ASI presidential candidates will be in attendance and are excited to hear the results with the rest of the students.

“I will definitely be there,” ASI presidential candidate Jon McElroy said. “I am looking forward to seeing how the students voted.”

Apart from the presidential unveiling, a slew of activities will happen within the UU. The Craft Center will offer lessons in clay

throwing, hand building and custom hemp bracelets.

Free cotton candy will be available in the new Rose Float office, which is next to the Craft Center.

Outside, Poly Escapes will host a climbing competition on the rock wall.

Further art-related activities will happen upstairs. UU room 220 will feature henna tattoos and a caricature artist. Free popcorn will be given out in the student government office.

Organizations inside the UU will be involved as well. The Multicultural Center will be sponsoring a Red Carpet Runway and the Pride Center is organizing a root beer pong competition.

“We tried to invite everybody in the area to participate and they are all excited,” Curro said. “Any space in the UU will be used.”

One of the largest and most popular attractions at May May-

mustang daily file photo

Last year’s event featured live bands and high student attendance. All activities are free to students with a PolyCard. hem will be laser tag in Chumash Auditorium. According to Curro, the student line for the laser tag arena was so long last year that two

arenas will be set up tonight.

The event runs from seven-11 p.m. and is free for all students with a PolyCard.

Wildfire threatens Santa Barbara area SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — Fierce winds sent a wildfire surging into the city Wednesday, igniting homes and forcing evacuations as columns of smoke rose from many neighborhoods in one of California’s most scenic coastal enclaves.

TV news helicopters showed homes ablaze but the number could not be immediately determined because of thick smoke columns that streamed over the city and out over the Pacific Ocean.

“The fire is moving very very rapidly,” said Santa Barbara County fire Capt. David Sadecki. “The fire is burning from the north to the south.

It is wind-aided fire with 40 and 50 miles per hour gusts.”

Sadecki said there were unconfirmed reports of two firefighters being overrun by flames. One firefighter suffered a head injury. More than 800 firefighters were on the lines, and 20 more strike teams totaling about 1,300 firefighters were requested.

“The firefighters are picking houses and seeing if they can make a stand,” Sadecki said.

The fire was reported at 196 acres at midday when winds were calm.

There was no immediate new estimate of its size.

After the fire broke out Tuesday, 1,200 homes were ordered evacuated.

That number was expanded to 2,000 on Wednesday.

Authorities had warned earlier evacuees to not try to return to their homes because of a forecast for a return of strong winds Wednesday afternoon.The forecast proved accurate, along with predictions of very low humidity levels and high temperatures. Fire officials said the temperature reached 102 degrees in the late

afternoon.

Santa Barbara rises rapidly from the coastline on the south to the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains to the north. It is subject to “Sundowners” — strong winds that blow downslope through passes and canyons of the mountain range and offshore.

After producing little more than wisps of smoke most of the day, the fire became active on all sides, especially the southwest and east, and spot fires developed, “We were projecting 50 miles per hour down-canyon gusts, and that’s exactly what we’re getting now,” said city fire Capt. Mike dePonce.

Steve Pivato of Goleta was working at Westmount College in Montecito, just east of Santa Barbara,when the flames intensified about 4:30 p.m.

He said smoke was hanging over the city and traffic backed up on U.S. 101, the main highway through the area.

He told The Associated Press he had just gotten off the phone with a friend whose avocado orchard wasn’t far from the fire.

“He said it’s going to burn his trees. He can see houses burning. It’s bad,” Pivato said. “He’s loading up the chickens and getting out of there.”

Pivato said all the homes in the homes in the threatened area are at least $1 million and many are $2 million or more.

As he drove home, Pivato said the smoke from the fire turned from gray to black. “That’s the color when homes starts burning,” he said.

Santa Barbara, with a population of more than 400,000, is 100 miles west of Los Angeles. The city dates to the Spanish colonial era and is a major tourist destination on the state’s central coast.

mustang daily

corrections The Mustang Daily staff takes pride in publishing a daily newspaper for the Cal Poly campus and the neighboring community. We appreciate your readership and are thankful for your careful reading. Please send your correction suggestions to mustangdaily@gmail.com.

• In Tuesday’s Board of Directors voter guide, industrial technology sophomore Solomon Reda was incorrectly listed under the College of Science and Mathematics. Reda is running for a position to represent the College of Business. We apologize for the mistake.

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Thursday, May 7, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

News

‘Class of Katrina’ graduates 4 years later Kevin McGill associated press

In the months after Hurricane Katrina swamped the University of New Orleans campus in August 2005, the basketball team practiced at a school six hours away in Texas and played almost its entire season on the road, winning just three games.

Some team members quit, but for those who stuck it out, “it made us closer,” said Jada Frazier, who was a freshman from Albany, Ga. “I strongly believe that sometimes you have to go through some hardships and changes in order to become a stronger person,” she said. “And I don’t think I could have gone anywhere else and become the person that I am today.”

Frazier is a member of the Class of Katrina — the graduating college seniors who were brand-new freshmen when the hurricane plunged New Orleans into anarchy and ruin four years ago.

While many of their classmates left and never came back, they returned, whether out of loyalty to their school or affection for the city.

And for some of them, it was a lifechanging experience.

Tulane University student Denali Lander, an English major from Boulder, Colo., helped start a nonprofit relief effort called the NOLA Fund.

Originally a source of aid for families displaced by the storm, it evolved into a program providing students at a New Orleans public school with technology training and free laptops.

“I’ve always been a civic-minded person, I like to think. But certainly the hurricane kind of put that at the forefront of my interest,” Lander said.

Many of New Orleans’ freshmen had barely unpacked and decorated their dorm rooms when the city was ordered evacuated because the levees broke. Administrators returned

associated press

Denali Lander, a Boulder, Colo., native and Tulane University senior talks to students in a New Orleans charter school in New Orleans, Monday. weeks later to find major damage at Dillard University, Xavier University, the University of New Orleans and Southern University at New Orleans. Tulane and Loyola universities fared better.

Other colleges around the country took in New Orleans’ students for a semester before classes finally resumed in the city in January 2006 — in trailers at some of the flooded campuses or, in the case of Dillard, at a hotel. It was a dreary, depressing experience.

An international business and Spanish major, Ashlee Yates of Memphis, Tenn., recalled a Dillard gym piled ceiling-high with the belongings of students who wouldn’t be coming back for them. Her dorm room had flooded, and she had lost everything.

“The morale became really, really low after the hurricane,” Yates said.

“A lot of students that came in with me aren’t here anymore.”

Jazmine Boutte, a student at Dillard, didn’t just lose what she had on campus; her family in New Orleans lost their home to flooding. It was, she said, a shock to her then-materialistic soul when she wound up in Houston with no extra clothes, desee Tulane, page 4

Wire Editor: Cassandra J. Carlson

3

4

Tulane continued from page 3

Kevin McGill associated press

In the months after Hurricane Katrina swamped the University of New Orleans campus in August 2005, the basketball team practiced at a school six hours away in Texas and played almost its entire season on the

mustang daily www.mustangdaily.net

road, winning just three games.

Some team members quit, but for those who stuck it out, “it made us closer,” said Jada Frazier, who was a freshman from Albany, Ga. “I strongly believe that sometimes you have to go through some hardships and changes in order to become a stronger person,” she said. “And I don’t think I could have gone anywhere else and become the person that I am today.”

Frazier is a member of the Class

Thursday, May 7, 2009

News

of Katrina — the graduating college seniors who were brand-new freshmen when the hurricane plunged New Orleans into anarchy and ruin four years ago.

While many of their classmates left and never came back, they returned, whether out of loyalty to their school or affection for the city.

And for some of them, it was a lifechanging experience.

Tulane University student Denali Lander, an English major from Boul-

der, Colo., helped start a nonprofit relief effort called the NOLA Fund.

Originally a source of aid for families displaced by the storm, it evolved into a program providing students at a New Orleans public school with technology training and free laptops.

“I’ve always been a civic-minded person, I like to think. But certainly the hurricane kind of put that at the forefront of my interest,” Lander said.

Many of New Orleans’ freshmen

had barely unpacked and decorated their dorm rooms when the city was ordered evacuated because the levees broke. Administrators returned weeks later to find major damage at Dillard University, Xavier University, the University of New Orleans and Southern University at New Orleans. Tulane and Loyola universities fared better.

Other colleges around the country took in New Orleans’ students for a semester before classes finally

Word on the Street

“Lebron James or Kobe Bryant?”

“Kobe because he knows what his team needs at all times.

If the team needs defense, he’ll pick up the best offensive player and defend them. If the team needs offense he’ll score points on call. Kobe by far.”

-Hal Kelley, business junior “Kobe over LeBron because he has more championships.”

-Stuart Sharpe, agricultural business senior

“LeBron because he way nicer than Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant is really selfish. LeBron is the man and no one can touch him.”

-Devin Mateo, kinesiology junior

“I would pick LeBron because he hasn’t had any rape allegations.”

-Jenn Tan, English senior

compiled and photographed by zach lantz

State Briefs PAICINES, Calif. (AP) — Six years after they were released at Pinnacles National Monument, a pair of endangered California condors has hatched an egg and is caring for the youngster.

Biologist Joe Burnett of the nonprofit Ventana Wildlife Society says the couple is a 6-year-old male released at the Pinnacles in 2004 and a 6-year-old female who flew inland from the Big Sur flock.

Burnett and National Park Service biologist Scott Scherbinski had swapped the condors’ natural egg for one laid by captive condors to ensure a viable offspring. The shells of eggs produced by free-flying condors often are weakened by pollutants.

The offspring hatched April 18 is the first in San Benito County in 70 years.The nest is on a private ranch southeast of the park.

County fire Capt. David Sadecki says there are unconfirmed reports of two firefighters being overrun.

5

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Arts and Entertainment Editor: Emilie Egger Arts and Entertainment Designer: Milena Krayzbukh

music column

Thieves Like Us releases dance-worthy album Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E,”Asher Roth’s cabs taking the lonely into the city “I Love College” and Lady Gaga’s “Just and back out.While all of the album’s Dance” did a good job of convincing denizens are looking for somebody to everybody that the bars and parties remove their sense of isolation, only a merely existed for dancing and rev- few are willing to take what they can get, “a free release, a soft affair” or elry. Thankfully, the new album to put it more vulgarly, they ask “Plays Music” from Thieves themselves, “Should I fall inLike Us actually grounds itside her?” The others are held self in the reality of the dance back by girlfriends, lofty goals floor and builds equally from and self-imposed morals. They indulgent revolt and the denever find release and insires of the lonely. Sure, stead rely on parachuting this generation may ecstasy in the bathroom find freedom in the and staring across the drunken movements dance floor “paralyzed, of their body, but they unflirting.” are equally interested It sounds depressing in the beautiful tranbut let’s be honest, the scendent fuck at the bars are equally deend of the night that

by Graham Culbertson pressing and freeing. never gets found.

For every beautiful Thieves Like Us besparkled Aphrodite hit the scene with out that night, there’s rave anthem “Drugs a matching smacked in My Body,” a single out mess puking in the that served as a mistoilet alone. Dance musion statement for this LP. sic lately has made us beThe keyboards and drums move cyclically as perpetulieve that the Long Islands we plow through to free ally “the days they go fast, our bodies on the floor are the nights they go slow.” The singer searches for somebody, pump- statements of revolution. It’s not aling drugs into his body and hitting up ways true; sometimes we’re just trying parties with an end goal to “stay up to escape the pangs of isolation stirred late put some heat in my heartache.” by our aimless lives. There is nothing In the video for the song, an iconic better than grinding up on somebody group of teens vandalize a mall and hit to a song that can say that. Thieves the dance floor over and over until a Like Us have plenty of songs that can. young couple breaks off, fleeing into a Graham Culbertson is an English night of sexual release.

The bass and drum lines of many graduate student and a Mustang Daily of the songs trundle like trains and taxi music columnist.

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arts & Entertainment

Thursday, May 7, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

movie column

Wolverine can’t claw way to success movie buzz with alex petrosian

Many movie and comic book fans credit Bryan Singer’s original two X-Men films (“X-Men,” “X-Men United”), along with Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman,” with reintroducing the superhero genre in today’s film industry. Following the success of Singer’s revival, filmmakers gained enough confidence to treat audiences with the effective restoration of both the Superman and incomparable Batman franchises, along with the in-

troduction of Iron Man. Unfortunately for fans of the famed mutant legacy, director Gavin Hood’s addition to the storyline could possibly result in the death of a previously respected franchise. After realizing the plot’s failure about 15 minutes into the story, the film’s short run time became one of its most appealing aspects. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” starts off bad and closes in an even worse state, representing everything that is cheesy and generic in derivative comic book movies.

The movie begins with our young hero James Howlett (whose eventual name change to Logan is oddly never explained) in mid-1800s Canada, realizing his mutation for the first time after witnessing the death of his father — at the hands of his real father.

His newfound half-brother and best friend is Victor Creed, a character who eventually becomes Sabretooth, portrayed efficiently by the talented Liev Schreiber.

What follows is the title sequence, which for me proved to be this film’s only enjoyable scene.

It encompasses an impressive sequence of transitions showing Logan and Victor’s service side by side in every major American war, culminating in Vietnam. After Victor lashes out at a fellow soldier through the subtle means of decapitation, he and Logan are both

courtesy photo

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” opened last weekend across the country.

The film stars (from left to right) Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber and Lynn Collins. It opened to mixed reviews from critics and the public. sentenced to death by firing squad, a punishment they obviously survive as a result of their mutations.

They soon garner the attention of Gen. William Stryker, a character we were previously introduced to in Bryan Singer’s second installment. Stryker, played by respected veteran Danny Huston, wishes to recruit Wolverine and Sabretooth into his newly formed special unit, a group of mutants that carries out secret operations. Logan however eventually abandons his ‘brothers’ after witnessing the slaughter of a number of innocent civilians in Nigeria, a decision that does not sit well with Victor. To his dismay, Wolverine later learns that the group’s main goal is actually to capture and experiment on other mutants, attempting to realize Stryker’s dream of creating the ultimate mutant killer, Weapon XI, who has a variety of powers that includes Cyclops’s eye lasers combined with Wolverine’s own healing power and retractable blades.

Films like this are disappointing not only as a result of surprisingly boring action sequences, but also because of disrespect and negligence in to the source material.

Essential fan favorites like Deadpool and Gambit are degraded and

altered to the point of randomly mouthing off witty comments and killing a few bad guys.

Gambit was one of the main reasons why so many fans were eager to see this film, but unfortunately I realized the filmmakers had demoted him about two minutes into his first scene. This unfortunate revelation instilled the feeling that this film could have been equally as terrible even if these characters were omitted and ‘saved.’ There is little dialogue, except for Wolverine’s growling and Stryker’s lecturing, and the plot encompasses the reiteration of the same lines over and over again. All that exists is chaos and the annoying use of computer generated images in many scenes that don’t even need it. However, what surprised me the most was the fact that this film was directed by Gavin Hood, who gained the respect of almost every critic with his Oscar-winning foreign film “Tsotsi.” He almost surely took this job in order to reach a more commercial fan base, a trap that is all too familiar with Hollywood directors.

Alex Petrosian is a biological sciences freshman and the Mustang Daily’s film reviewer.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

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arts & Entertainment

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Amazon seeks more paths for sales with new Kindle Rachel Metz associated press

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon. com Inc. hopes a bigger version of its Kindle electronic reading device can be a hit, even if it’s more expensive, and the company is aiming it in part at college students who are eager to save money on their textbooks.

Since the Kindle debuted in late 2007, it has jazzed many users and technophiles, but electronic readers from Amazon and rivals such as Sony Corp. are still in an early stage. Amazon has not disclosed Kindle sales figures, and the publishing industry has said e-books account for less than 1 percent of book sales.

Now, by offering the larger, $489 version of the Kindle DX and the smaller $359 Kindle 2, Amazon will try to open more avenues for digital versions of books — and other kinds of content.The New York Times,The Boston Globe and The Washington Post plan pilot programs in which they will offer the new Kindle at a discount to some readers who sign up for subscriptions to read the news on the device, the way cell phone providers subsidize phones.

In an interview, Amazon founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said that because the newest Kindle has

mark lennihan associated press

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos introduces the Kindle DX at a news conference Wednesday in New York. The Kindle DX has a larger 9.7 inch screen than its predecessor, the Kindle 2, and can be ordered for $489 for delivery this summer.

a 9.7-inch screen, it will be better suited than the 6-inch regular Kindle at showing “complex layouts” in everything from cookbooks to travel guides.

“Things like those that have a lot of layout, structure, look really good on a big screen,” he said on the sidelines of a press event Wednesday at Pace University in New York.

The Kindle already had features that could aid textbook reading, like the ability to highlight and bookmark passages. Users could tap the Kindle’s typewriter-layout keyboard to look up words and annotate text. But besides a larger screen, the new version also offers more data storage — room for 3,500 books instead of 1,500 on the Kindle 2.

Three textbook publishers — Pearson PLC, Cengage Learning and John Wiley & Sons Inc. — have agreed to sell books on the device. Collectively, they publish 60 percent of all highereducation textbooks, Bezos said.

At least six universities have agreed to run Kindle pilots in the fall — Pace, Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Princeton University, Reed College and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. The schools will work with publishers to make sure books assigned for courses are available in the Kindle format, and some colleges might subsidize the devices for their students.

Case Western President Barbara Snyder said the school will equip 40 students with the new Kindles to study their effects on how they read, take notes, work in teams and retain knowledge. Snyder said she was not sure who would be paying for the Kindles, but that the students would not be.

She believes the device may enable students to get textbook content more cheaply.

Indeed, for students, the biggest advantage could be the lower cost of electronic textbooks. Reading material on the Kindle is consistently less expensive than printed versions, with new releases of mass-market books typically costing $10, for example.

A 2005 Government Accountability Office report said the average cost is $900 per year for students at four-year public colleges, though the textbook industry argues the figure is

closer to $625.Typically the prices are high because publishers are trying to capture as many sales as possible in the first year of release, before students can buy used versions.

The Kindle’s size and weight — 18.9 ounces, which is almost twice as heavy as the Kindle 2 but lighter than most laptop computers and paper textbooks— could also be appealing to students on the go.

Amazon won’t be the first to venture into the digital textbook realm.

CourseSmart, a Belmont, Calif.based company started by several textbook publishers, is already trying to cut down textbook prices by selling digital copies to students, who can download or view them online.

An August study by Make Textbooks Affordable, a joint project of a number of student advocacy groups, was critical of CourseSmart’s digital textbooks, however, saying that they were still too costly and that most of the ones they surveyed expired after 180 days.

Bezos believes electronic versions will eventually dominate, though. “It just makes so much sense,” he said.

Whether portable, electronic versions of newspapers make sense will remain to be seen. But publishers that have struggled to get people to pay for digital versions of news stories in Web browsers are exploring the Kindle and similar devices.

“Ultimately, this is about providing our readers with what they want and need,” said New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who joined Bezos on stage for the event.

mark lennihan associated press

Jeff Bezos, right, CEO of Amazon.com, shakes hands with Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of The New York Times, at a news conference Wednesday in New York.

Josh Martin, a Yankee Group analyst, is skeptical of that.

“It’s not as if the mass market is saying, ‘I’m desperate for a newspaper.’... That seems to be the problem they’re trying to solve, but that’s not the issue. The issue is timeliness of delivery of the news, relevance to the user,” he said.

Martin believes that, especially in the case of newspaper readers, the benefits of the Kindle DX don’t justify its high price.

When the Kindle 2 was unveiled, NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin predicted that for e-book readers to reach broader audiences, the price would have to come down — something he

didn’t expect to happen until musthaves like textbooks became available for the devices. Since the Kindle DX actually costs quite a bit more than the Kindle 2, “it makes sense to explore ... other forms of distribution, such as subsidization by newspapers,” Rubin said.

Bezos said another potential improvement in the Kindle — a color screen — is being explored but “many years away from commercial readiness.”

“The electronic paper display we’re using now, that was in the lab for 13 years,” he said.

Amazon shares rose 9 cents to close Wednesday at $81.99.

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May 7, 2009 Volume LXXII, No. 139 ©2009 Mustang Daily “When my friend hugs me she always ends up motorboating me.”

opinion/editorial mustang daily

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Editor in chief: Marlize van Romburgh Managing Editor: Giana Magnoli

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8

U.S. should free itself from entangling alliances A few weeks ago I mentioned the threat posed by piracy as an excuse for another ‘war on terror.’

This week, I would like to step back to examine the greater issues at hand. The ‘war on terror’ is not the only method governments are using to enhance their authority at home and abroad.

American and foreign government officials have increased efforts lately to increase global oversight and regulation over a broad spectrum of topics.

Operating within international organizations with globalist agendas, heads of state and their advisors have revealed radical plans to transform government as we know it, creating what is popularly referred to as ‘a new world order.’

Founding father Thomas Jefferson once advised: “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.” Today, globalists have infiltrated both major American political parties, working tirelessly toward forming powerful new alliances to compromise U.S. sovereignty and create a world government.

The United Nations (UN) is the driving force behind the world government goal.

America has been using the UN as a surrogate Congress for declarations of war since the Korean War. UN ‘peacekeeping’ troops and UN-authorized military operations by the United States have created a global police force intent on maintaining status-quo governments and enforcing international rules created

by UN architects.

Commenting on the recent rocket launch by North Korea, President Obama asserted, “Some will break the rules, but that is why we need a structure in place that ensures that when any nation does, they will face the consequences.”

Obama has surrounded himself with advisors and filled his branch with bureaucrats who share his globalist agenda.

Tre a s u r y Secretary Timothy Geithner recently stated he was open to supporting a global currency proposal from China while attending a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) event.

These types of comments are typical from CFR members, whose membership roster includes many in Obama’s cabinet, staff and executive departments. For decades, the CFR has worked to infiltrate governments with members

who share the private organization’s globalist agenda. Several U.S. presidents and many cabinet members have been CFR members, as well as many major corporations and philanthropic organizations.

At the April London Summit of the G20 organization, heads of state and officials from the top 20 economically influential nations and the international organizations of the UN, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and European Union presented globalist solutions to the pressing issue of the financial mess.

Some of the proposals discussed included enhancing the power of the IMF to create a world central bank, much in line with the vision of IMF founding advisor John Maynard Kenynes.

In a closing speech at the G20 summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared, “A new world order is emerging.” An agenda of replacing sovereign national governments with a ‘new world order’ under the guise of peaceful international diplomacy has ingrained itself into psyche of leaders around the world.

Organizations such as the CFR, UN and G20 have in the past, and will most certainly in the future, work to implement international management of crime, poverty and environmental issues in addition to the finance sector and military operations. On his recent trip to Mexico, Obama stated his goal of the Senate passing the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms (CIFTA) as a solution to the black-market importation of firearms into Mexico. This treaty severely compromises privacy rights and the Second Amendment here at home, as well as harming prosperous and innovative businesses in the American arms manufacturing and ammunition reloading industries. As I discussed in my very first column, Obama is working to increase foreign aid spending, principally through the UN, in a vain attempt to cure global poverty.

The UN is promoting global regulation of carbon dioxide emissions and the creation of a new, more subtly subversive replacement to the Kyoto Protocol in an attempt to get the United States to submit to regulation by foreigners.

Last July speaking in Berlin, Obama echoed globalist goals, stating, “But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together.A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more — not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our

common humanity.”

A global state is morally wrong on several points. First and foremost, such a state runs completely contrary to the principals this nation was founded on and ordained in our constitution.

Many of the founding fathers of America left oppressive governments in Europe to settle in the colonies, which offered greater freedom. As the British government increased their control over the colonies, the settlers revolted and established a new union of states in a republic. To promote a return to a condition where America is simply a satellite controlled by foreigners is blatantly unpatriotic. A global state offers no refuge for individuals dissatisfied with life under a particular government. So far there is only one inhabitable planet, and to unify control under a single government leaves no choice for those seeking the life they choose but to submit to the state or be crushed.

While the globalists labor to unify the world under their control, so must the opposition to stop them. The strategy that offers the best hope of sinking this battleship flying international colors is to utilize the established two-party system in the United States to organize the opposition.

In his response to Obama’s State of the Union speech, Republican Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, noted that for in order to rebuild the party its leaders must return to the principals of “limited government, fiscal discipline and personal responsibility.”

These core Republican principals run completely contrary to the globalist ideals, and so, the Republican Party must reorganize to counter the growing globalist threat. The party must ostracize globalist insiders and use its established following to spread the word about the plans for the ‘new world order’ before it takes root. Rather than just voicing their simple opposition to the Obama administration, republicans must address the core of the issue, which has remained in the dark for far too long.

President Obama and Vice President Biden (a self-acknowledged internationalist) will continue down the path toward establishing positions for themselves in a new world government unless enough Americans wake up and take notice.

The prospect of a global regime, I can assure you ,is very real, and will likely resemble more of an Orwellian dystopia where the oligarchs line their pockets and subjugate the citizens rather than the utopia the globalists market their goals as.

There is no doubt that the only significant change in the new administration is that of increasing government control by accelerating the pace towards a centralized monetary and political system. There is no doubt of Obama’s intentions for a new world order, and he is sometimes blunt. Speaking in April he said, “All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime.”

Americans must take careful note of the words and actions of our government if we are to stop this juggernaut.

Using our constitutional system to elect representatives and senators who will fight infringements of our national sovereignty offers a voice for the true desires of Americans for our future.

Republicans and democrats alike must make the next election cycle a clear message of anti-globalist sentiment to the Obama administration. The power to vote was vested in us to prevent our leaders from taking advantage of us; do your research and make your vote count, before it’s too late.

Colin McKim is an environmental management and protection junior and a Mustang Daily political columnist.

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mustang daily

Thursday, May 7, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

opinion

Obama’s choice for Supreme Court justice replacement will influence policy for decades

Last Friday, something unique — though perhaps not entirely spontaneous — happened at Robert Gibbs’ White House press briefing.

While Gibbs was rather feebly explaining the president’s remarks on the possible mutation of the H1N1 flu virus, the president himself made an appearance to discuss an unrelated but more newsworthy topic: His role in nominating a Supreme Court Justice to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

According to a biography on Oyez (a Web site containing Supreme Court information and decisions), Justice Souter has served on the Supreme Court since 1990, when President George H. W. Bush appointed him, former President Bush’s father. Though Justice Souter was appointed by a Republican president, and according to the Oyez biography, “The Bush White House assured the Republican far right that Souter would be a ‘home run,’” he ended up to be a liberal-leaning but free-thinking Justice.

The reason I make this point is that several GOP politicians and Republican iron hearts are sweating over the fact that Obama, such a far left president, will have the honor of influencing public policy matters not only for the next four to eight years, but possibly for the next 20, 30 or even 40 years. Are my regular Republican critics reaching for their inhalers yet?

For the past week the media has been considering what racial background and experience Obama’s choice will have, and they will continue to speculate until the nominee is confirmed. Will he or she be African-

American, pro-choice, anti-choice, a lawyer, a governor or a law professor? Will she or he prefer Coke to Pepsi, mojitos to margaritas?

While these questions can be overwhelming, Obama, a former University of Chicago law professor and current president provided us with his criteria for a nominee at the Friday White House press briefing he interrupted.

He said, “I view (the) quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving (at) just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role.”

He continued, “I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.”

I think the most interesting aspect of what Obama said is that he will “seek somebody who shares (his) respect for constitutional values.” He is thinking of a like-minded person who, perhaps, is “skeptical of court-led efforts at social change” and “interested in how the law metes out power in society,” which according to a New York Times article, are views that Obama himself espoused as a law professor.

Perhaps Obama is considering someone who shares so many of his views that she has been called “the other half of Obama’s brain,” according to Time magazine.

Valerie Jarrett is a current senior aid to Obama. She received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1978, her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981 and has practiced law at two firms.

Most central to her qualification as an empathizer is her work with the Chicago Transit Authority and as executive vice president

paul lachine newsart

of Habitat, a company that works to rebuild Chicago’s dilapidated and crime-infested public housing.

“She is very concerned with the person who is riding the bus or the train every day,” then-CTA President Dave Mosena is quoted in the biography as saying. Mosena continued, “She understands that our job is not to serve the bureaucrat. She has little patience for b.s., doesn’t suffer fools and is very committed.”

While there isn’t much information on her understanding of constitutional law, Obama mentioned nothing of constitutional experience in his list of qualifications, and he has been reportedly advised not to choose a sitting judge. Valerie Jarrett might offer a bold, fresh perspective on law, an Obama-like charm and

an open-mindedness that the Supreme Court could use.

My offering of Jarrett as a possible nominee may not be the resulting headline at the end of this week when Obama is rumored to be planning an announcement, but I think that anyone who meets his list of qualifications as well as Jarrett would be a good choice.

Not an activist, but someone with ambitious ideas. Not politically biased, but someone who fully contemplates and understands the effect of the law. Not a radical, but someone who will be forward-thinking and have sound judgment. Like Obama and Souter.

Stephanie England is an English junior and a Mustang Daily political columnist.

letters to the editor A letter in support of Jacob Alvarez for ASI prez I am writing to express my opinion for Jacob Alvarez’s candidacy for the next ASI president of Cal Poly.

Jacob’s tireless efforts show his dedication in supporting organizations that help to better serve the Cal Poly campus and the San Luis Obispo community. Jacob’s platform of degree in progress, student access and diversity depicts his broad experience and knowledge that it takes to be the president of ASI. Consider Jacob Alvarez when voting today.

Tyler Hartrich ASI Sustainability Officer Executive Cabinet member

Candidate campaigns are difficult to differentiate Dear Mustang Daily, You stole my article! I was going to write this whole thing about why all the ASI presidential candidates are the same but you beat me to it. I guess I can give a breakdown of what I think of each regardless since they all spoke to the club I am a part of on Monday night.

Kelly is your typical goody-goody from high school who was involved with ASB and really enjoyed plan-

ning dances and spirit days.

Jacob thinks his idea for securing classes is better than the administration’s and that his will prevail over the President’s, Dean’s and Provost’s new Finish on Time initiative for new students.

Jon was the least nervous talking and wasn’t spewing your typical campaign stuff but his ideas are not well formed and he doesn’t realize that ASI accomplishes nothing.

If Kelly and Jacob have such great ideas and are currently involved with ASI why haven’t they done more to get their ideas moving? And Jon needs to make clear his ideas before I could vote for him.

Next year will be the same as all years. ASI totally disconnected from the students.

David Hansen biological sciences senior

DREAM Act gives hope to immigrant children One issue most Americans seem to agree on is that everyone should achieve the American Dream. The way to achieve the American Dream is through a quality education. So if everyone has this right to education, why is it that Americans deny that

right to illegal immigrant children?

These children have a right to an education, and the way to give them the education they need is through the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act repeals a measure that discourages states from providing instate tuition to their resident undocumented students. The legislation also provides students conditional legal status for 6 years, this legal status becomes permanent when students serve in the military, receive a 2 or 4 year degree, and must remain in good standing in school. The DREAM Act does not qualify these students for grants but loans and federal work study.

In economic times like these, one must realize that the DREAM Act is very beneficial; the students would be paying off loans, enter the workforce at a higher starting rate, let them break out of the cycle of poverty, pay taxes, and etc.These children do not deserve to be punished for an act their parents committed, and to many of them the United States is their country.

Walter Salguero aerospace engineering junior

CARE-Net could infringe on first amendment rights

In response to CARE-Net article from May 4’s Mustang Daily, I have concerns both for academic freedom and the first amendment rights of faculty members at Cal Poly.

Is a teacher who is not ‘politically correct,’ for example, something truly worthy of concern on a self-respecting university campus?

Cal Poly has already earned (?) a ‘red light’ for censoring student speech from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Do we now want to impose more speech codes on our faculty members?

While I applaud the initiative better to mediate student conflicts, I urge those potentially involved better to think through the thorny legal issues that this proposed advocacy group might raise.

Brian Kennelly modern languages and literatures department chair

A lecturer’s perspective on the waitlisting process Students are listed on the wait list in chronological order. If an opening occurs in the class, they will automatically be moved from the wait list to the class list, provided they meet the prerequisites and don’t owe the

school any money. I have seen this happen in my classes.

Apparently other instructors don’t understand the wait list. My policy is very simple. If there is an opening in the class, I add the first person off the wait list, assuming they come to the first class. If there are still openings after I line-drop those who are enrolled and did not show up, and after I add people from the wait list that showed up, then I will add “crashers”. I do not add anyone who does not show up for class on day one.

Also, do not believe PASS, which shows openings, but not the wait list.

Too often I get e-mails from students at home reading PASS asking for a permit number for my open space.

They do not see that there are seven students on the wait list, nor do they see e-mails from students hoping to crash.

The bottom line is simply this: get yourself on the wait list for a class.

There is a long time between now and the Friday before classes start this Fall, so there is a very good chance someone will change their mind and drop and you will automatically be enrolled from the wait list.

Mark Hutchenreuther computer science lecturer

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mustang daily

Thursday, April 7, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

Baseball continued from page 12

So the Mustangs will close out the season with series against Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State and UC Riverside. Cal Poly is currently locked in a three-way tie for second in the Big West standings behind No. 1 UC Irvine.

It seems that the Mustangs have a great chance at making the postseason regionals, which includes 64 teams fighting to make it to Omaha, Nebraska, the home of the College World Series.

This weekend will surely be a huge deciding factor in Cal Poly’s fate. This doesn’t happen often for Poly’s baseball team, so I seriously recommend catching a game before the season ends. Hopefully, if things go well, you’ll also be able to watch them on television come June in Omaha.

the time to go is this weekend.

The Mustangs will play host to Big West Conference rivals Cal State Fullerton in a weekend series that will potentially have dramatic postseason implications for both teams.

Cal Poly is currently ranked No. 12 in the Baseball America Top 25 standings, just six spots behind the Titans. I’m not so surprised at Fullerton’s impressive numbers, as they seem to find themselves at the College World Series in Omaha year after year. But now Cal Poly has the chance to do something it’s never done before, and it only seems fitting that standing in our way is the notoriously impressive Titans.

In fact, the whole Big West Conference seems to be running on all Tyler Jauch is a political science sophocylinders this season. Three teams more and Mustang Daily sports columfrom the Big West are in the top 12 nist. of Baseball America’s Top 25 rankings right now. This just gives more praise to Cal Poly’s success.

sports Tweets

Sports designer: Kate Nickerson

tweeting, but think of what he could say about the arrest of his mother on drug charges or Joe Giradi’s decision continued from page 12 to yank him Tuesday night in the middle of an inning after he had just his last three posts involved him struck out his eighth batter in a row.

Teammate Alex Rodriguez could eating breakfast and then going to send a tweet to his followers asking play golf.

Granted, the third was a swine flu them not to believe everything they joke that featured Kermit the Frog read, while managing general partand a pig that apparently had Daly ner Hal Steinbrenner could post one rolling on the floor in laughter. Ap- offering half-priced tickets behind parently, bad humor can be done in home plate to the first 1,000 lucky followers.

140 characters or less.

Tiger Woods never says anything So can good food, which seems to be a big topic among Twittering ath- to the media that might even reletes. On Wednesday swimmer Dara motely be controversial, but imagTorres had a healthy salad and not so ine if he were tweeting after the healthy onion rings for lunch, while final round of the Masters. Actually, former UConn center Hasheem there’s not much to imagine because Thabeet was Twittering about the seafood he had the night before at Crustacean in Beverly Hills.

How about throwing us a real piece of red meat?

I can’t find any evidence Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain is

11

it would be unprintable.

And how about Michael Vick giving us the inside scoop from Leavenworth. He could tweet about the food and how excited he was to have Tony Dungy visit the other day until he found out that Dungy didn’t coach the Indianapolis Colts anymore.

Finally, Manny Rodriguez could tell us in real time during a game what he thinks about the goofballs who sit in the Mannywood section at Dodger Stadium wearing fake dreadlocks.

He does, after all, have experience using a phone in left field.

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.

mustangdaily.net Thursday, May 9, 2009

SPORTS

sports editor:

Scott Silvey mustangdailysports@gmail.com

MUSTANG DAILY

Ducks look for third win over Wings associated press

ANAHEIM, Calif. — It is rare for the Detroit Red Wings to lose three straight in the postseason, but when it happens it is usually at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks.

The Ducks took their first lead over the Red Wings in the Western Conference semifinal series on Tuesday night with a 2-1 victory in Game 3. Anaheim could take control against the defending Stanley Cup champions on Thursday night if they win again on home ice.That would give the Ducks a 3-1 edge before the series shifts back to Detroit for Game 5.

Detroit hasn’t lost three straight playoff games since 2007 when the Ducks did it to them in the conference finals en route to their Cup championship. Anaheim also swept Detroit in a first-round series in 2003.

A slow start on Thursday could put the second-seeded Red Wings into a deep hole against surging Anaheim. The Ducks are gaining confidence daily as they build off their first-round elimination of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning San Jose Sharks.

“We have stay out of the penalty box early on against them and we have to get our legs going early in the game,” Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. “They’ve had some power plays early on that have given them some momentum, whether they score or not.”

Red Wings coach Mike Babcock would also like to see more early spark from his team. Detroit is trying to become the first NHL team to repeat as Cup champion since the Red Wings did it in 1998.

“We have to get started on time,”

Sports Talk with Tyler Jauch commentary

Take me out to the ball game Tyler Jauch on cal poly baseball

associated press

Players scramble for a loose puck during Anaheim’s 2-1 victory in Game 3 of the Western Conference Semifinals. he said. “The last two games, if I’m not mistaken, we had a power play right at the start of the game, both power plays I thought we were uneasy.”

While Babcock indicated the Red Wings will not make any lineup changes for Game 4, the Ducks could be without James Wisniewski.

The defenseman was hospitalized Tuesday night because of a bruised lung. Wisniewski was struck in the chest by Pavel Datsyuk’s slap shot during the second period and was taken off the ice on a stretcher.

Wisniewski has meshed with the Ducks’ veteran defensemen since being acquired from Chicago in a March 4 trade with Chicago.

“He stepped in and played an important role for the team since he got here,” said Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer, who will likely increase his already heavy work-

load if Wisniewski sits out. “He was a guy who was out killing penalties and on the power play. He plays in all situations.”

Anaheim could look to add to the lineup a young defenseman such as Brendan Mikkelson, Brett Festerling or Brian Salcido.Veteran Bret Hedican remains sidelined with a back injury.

“We’ll have to make adjustments and find a way to get it done,” Niedermayer said.

The Ducks were also angered

by Tomas Holmstrom’s elbow to Wisniewski’s head just seconds after Wisniewski was hurt by Datsyuk’s shot.

“What would you think if you were doubled over and gasping for air and someone gives you an elbow in the side of the head. How would you feel,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said.

Niedermayer was careful not to unload his feelings about the hit.

“I have a couple answers, but I’ll stick with a boring one,” he said.

“Everyone is definitely responsible for what they are doing out there.

You make decisions about how you are going to act and carry yourself.

I haven’t seen what happened, but if that is what happened, you be the judge.”

Holmstrom denied intentionally nailing Wisniewski with his elbow.

“I had no idea I hit him,” Holmstrom said. “I didn’t see him, I had no idea he was behind me.”

Babcock also downplayed the hit.

“From my perspective when I’m watching this series, come on, it’s like a rodeo after every whistle,” he said. “Every whistle could be a penalty. I don’t know how one play would be anything.”

Some sports tweets are better than others to find out why, but my guess is he would be as uninterested in the mundane things I would pack into 140 characters as I am with what he has to say.That is, of course, unless he calls his shot from the dugout just before going out and facing Jonathan Papelbon.

Among athletes, we can grant an exemption to Shaq on this one because the big guy, also known as The_ Real_Shaq, is undoubtedly the most creative Twitterer around. He does things such as tweet his presence at a store and promise game tickets to the first person who touches him, which is one reason why he has 906,908 followers.

“I perform random acts of Shaqness,” he proclaims.

Good for him. But do we reassociated press ally need Shaq telling us, as he did Wednesday, that he’s predicting Kobe A journalist takes a photo of his computer screen after learning that the against LeBron in the NBA finals? I Patriots had traded a draft pick from their twitter feed during the draft. mean, doesn’t everyone know that already?

And who really wants to get Tim Dahlberg He did so using Twitter, of course, a tweet from him promoting his new associated press and the 62,767 people following him diet product? surely felt better because of it.

No doubt, though, that it’s a TwitThe morning after his Yankees Then Swisher went out Tuesday dropped yet another game to the hat- and struck out twice as the Yankees ter world we live in. The New York ed Red Sox, Nick Swisher said there lost yet again.This time there was no Jets announced they landed Mark Sanchez via Twitter, John Calipari was no quit in his team and vowed to tweet. get the Bostonians that night.

I could have tweeted him back uses it regularly in hopes it will lead

him to a recruit who will justify his $32 million contract, and San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson had to quit using it after questions were raised about his tweets from a late night out.

In the interest of full disclosure, I plead guilty to sending out a tweet the other day promoting my new book.

The basic idea is sound, unfiltered information straight from the source, all in 140 characters or less. That’s how I learned golfer Morgan Pressel likes to shop and seems to eat an awful lot, and that CC Sabathia was glad to be home last week after returning from a road trip.

And where else could we get updates from Jose Canseco on his latest charade — a mixed martial arts bout against 7-foot-2 Hong Man Choi in Tokyo.

“Training hard ... ready to shock everyone on May 26th. Are you ready??!!” Canseco wrote.

The problem with most tweets is they leave us wanting more.

Take John Daly’s recent postings.

Here’s a guy who must have a million sordid stories to tell, yet two of see Tweets, page 11

Lately I’ve been getting pretty interested in Cal Poly’s baseball team, mostly because of its recent success. Now, I don’t follow every college baseball team as much as football or basketball, but I usually have a pretty good idea about what’s going on and who’s doing what. It occurred to me that this is really the first time I’ve seen Cal Poly’s name in the headlines of the college baseball world.

So just to check up on the success of our team, I recently decided to go watch a Friday night baseball game with some friends at our very own Baggett Stadium. I wasn’t exactly expecting much in terms of entertainment because baseball has never seemed to be one of the biggest things on campus. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I showed up to a completely packed stadium filled with college students and locals. What was most entertaining was the atmosphere and intensity of the crowd around the diamond. Every person in the crowded stadium was at full and loud attention for the entire game, and it only got better as the innings went by. Granted, it was a Friday night and it was conference play, but it was much more than I was expecting. The hot dogs were great (but not cheap), the fans were great, the extra-innings game was great and it was all for free admission. I don’t know if it’s like this every year or if it’s just because of Cal Poly’s run at a championship, but either way it’s well worth the walk to the stadium.

So if you’re going to take my advice and actually go to a game, see Baseball, page 12

nick camacho mustang daily

Cal Poly sophomore infielder J.J. Thompson rounds the bases during the Mustangs’ most recent home game, a 7-4 win last Sunday.