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English professor reads from new book in Phillips Hall.

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Monday, January 25, 2010

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Senate bill opposed by CSU and UC officials

Professor discusses climate estimation

Volume LXXIV, Number 64

Leticia Rodriguez mustang daily

A revised senate bill that would expand the California Public Records Act, forcing secondary university bodies such as the Cal Poly Foundation and the Cal Poly Corporation to open their books to the public was proposed by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) Jan. 5.

The senate bill, known as SB 330, calls not only for open books but also the release of donor names if they receive more than $500 in return for their donation or service such as exclusive box seating at sports games.

If passed, the public will be able to see where the money generated by these non-profits is going as well as if donors or volunteers are receiving special treatment and influencing university curricula.

“These bills are imperative in order to rid the University of California and the California State University of waste, fraud and abuse,” Yee said in a recent statement.

Currently, the California Public Records Act only extends to state and local agencies such as advisory boards and state bureaus, not private nonprofit corporations and entities such

as the 87 foundations and auxiliaries that exist at California State Universities and Universities of California.

As the “fundraising arm” of the university, the Cal Poly Foundation

Nobody else has to disclose to their competitor their records.

Why create a disadvantage for the university and for the CSU system?

— Chip Visci Cal Poly associate vice president

was created in 2006 with the sole purpose of bringing in donations for the university, making it exempt from the act. Similarly, the Cal Poly Corporation is a private non-profit that oversees businesses such as El Corral Bookstore and Campus Dining. Ac-

cording to Chip Visci, the associate vice president for strategic communication, the money generated from the foundation and from the reserves set up by the corporation go to student scholarships, athletics, professional development grants and capital improvements.

Even though the bill has so far received bipartisan support in the state senate, opposition to the bill is strong among university administrators. Visci said public access to private businesses, such as the bookstore, could create an unfair advantage to competitors who contend for student business and in turn, could affect the university’s finances.

“We do not want to see the creation of an unlevel playing field for campus business,” Visci said. “The bookstore already operates with a great amount of transparency. Nobody else has to disclose to their competitor their records. Why create a disadvantage for the university and for the CSU system?”

Visci said that the administration has no problem offering transparency when it comes to their actions but because the foundation and the corporation are not state operated, see Bill, page 2

Earthquakes remain in public eye Katie Grady mustang daily

An international focus on earthquake assessment and preparedness has resurfaced in the aftermath of Haiti’s recent disaster and two recent California quakes.

Dr. Robb Moss, a Cal Poly assistant professor in soil mechanics and earthquake engineering, is part of Geo-engineering Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER), an association of seismologists and geologists devoted to gathering scientific data to improve methods to prevent greater damage and deaths from earthquakes.

“As engineers, we prepare for the next one,” Moss said. “We focus on what we can do better next time. If we know details, we can build on those to increase mitigation in the future.”

GEER asked Moss to join a reconnaissance team that would gather geotechnical data in Haiti.

“Some earthquakes are fun sci-

entifically, but in the situation with Haiti, science becomes hard when you want to help,” Moss said.

Scientists forecast that there is more than a 99 percent chance that an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or larger will hit California in the next 30 years. Dr. John Jasbinsek, a Cal Poly physics instructor, said San Luis Obispo sits just 150 km west of the San Andreas Fault, a system similar to the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone that runs just South of Port-auPrince, Haiti.

“The Haiti earthquake was a left lateral strike slip fault, the same type of fault as the San Andreas fault but it moves to the right instead,” Jasbinsek said. “The way they move is similar, but the San Andreas Fault is bigger.”

With the death toll rising potentially to 200,000, Haiti’s capital city remains in ruins and in desperate need of aid and ranks close behind the 1976 Tangshan, China earthquake as one of the deadliest quakes ever recorded.

Fault system assessment can

provide probabilities, but predicting earthquakes to the hour, day or month has rarely been successful.

Scientists predicted that the Loma Prieta area would experience an earthquake due to a seismic gap in the San Andreas Fault.They had been mapping since 1968, but the predictions were not enough to prepare for a 6.9 magnitude quake that hit the San Francisco Bay Area on Oct. 17, 1989. Known as the World Series Earthquake, 63 people died after 1015 seconds of trembling.

Michelle Smith, an earth science senior and earthquake enthusiast, is fascinated by the idea of inducing earthquakes. Like Moss, she is torn between the marvels of Earth’s systems and the damage they cause. She elaborated on the Haiti earthquake by discussing the major lack of earthquake codes.

“Getting under a doorway works for us, there … it doesn’t,” Smith said. see Earthquakes, page 2

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Guest professor Cort Willmott lectured about errors in weather maps and predictions to a room full of social science students last Thursday.

Anieca Ayler mustang daily

A professor spoke to Cal Poly students about climate mapping and estimation, addressing some statistical problems affecting weather maps and weather prediction last Thursday.

Cort Willmott, a professor of geography and land surface climatologist at the University of Delaware, was invited by the geography department while Willmott and his wife stayed at their vacation home in Cambria. His appearance was a special event for the room packed with social science majors, said Greg Bohr, an attending geography professor.

“The whole idea of someone who is critical about maps is something we don’t get to talk about in intro courses, so it was nice to see that applied,” Bohr said.

Willmott gave a brief introduction to his ongoing research. He and his assisting graduate students have identified problems with commonly used methods of climate estimation from observational records. They have also developed better methods of spatial interpolation of climate maps — a process that helps create climate maps from past temperature and rainfall records.

His research reveals many existing methods to be slightly inaccurate, producing climate maps and other related information that can be as much as two degrees Celsius

off.

“We should be aware of some of the problems that exist in this information and how to critically interpret what’s being recorded,” Willmott said. “When someone reports an average temperature, for example, you really need to know how they got it, because it could make a big difference in terms of what the temperature is.”

With his speech,Willmott wants to bring to light the implications of accepting statistical information without question.

“What I’m hoping is some of the students will stop, will look at a (weather) map with a more critical eye and start asking questions,” Willmott said.“’What data did they use? Where are those data points located? How did they estimate the average?’”

Social science junior Audrey Porcella says though his presentation was heavy in statistics terminology, she was able to follow it because of a class she took on Graphic Information Systems. Part of this class focuses on the differences of various weather predictions, she said.

“It was interesting to see how these variations played a role in assessing climate maps, and to find out that many of the errors in maps are because the climatologist did not take into account elevation,” Porcella said. “In general, becoming aware of all the potential areas for error was quite enlightening.”

2

Earthquakes continued from page 1

A mixture of poor infrastructure with a massive earthquake is the worst of two worlds. According to Moss, the damage in Haiti is almost worse than what would have happened in a developing country where there is limited infrastructure. The economy in Haiti had enough money to build, but the structures were built incorrectly. With an almost totally unreinforced masonry building style, the damage was unavoidable, he said.

“It’s all about building structures so that people can survive,” Moss said.

Closer to home, on Dec. 23, 2003, the San Simeon earthquake with a magnitude 6.5 hit the Central Coast, causing most of the damage in Paso Robles.

Twenty-year-old Jennifer Myrick was one of two victims of the San Simeon earthquake. After their daughter’s death, Vicky and Leroy Myrick spent nearly a year battling with the law to get warnings placed on similar buildings around the state.

From their efforts came the Jennifer Lynn Myrick Memorial Law, in which owners of roughly 25,000 old brick buildings in heavy earthquake zones around most of California who fail to post a placard notifying the public of the building’s unsafe status would be fined.

One of the many placards found downtown San Luis Obispo warning of an earthquake unsafe building.

This one remains posted on the Sinsheimer Bros. building off Montery Street. Photo by Katie Grady According to Moss, there are many similar buildings with placards in downtown San Luis Obispo, which Moss considers to be the worst town in California for structures that need to be retrofitted.

Mark Ellery, part of the city’s Architectural Review Commission, said the final deadline for all buildings to make necessary retrofits is 2012.

“After the earthquake in Paso Robles in 2003, the city of San Luis Obispo recognized buildings as part of an importance factor where they priority listed each structure according to how much of a danger they present,” Ellery said. “The city has offered a lot of incentives including granting no fee permits to make tenant improvements on top of the retrofits.”

The Cal Poly campus was sur-

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veyed two years ago by an independent structural engineering firm along with members of the CSU Seismic Review Board.After inspecting for code compliance and compliance with established CSU standards, their results showed that Cal Poly’s environment meets code.

“We have a relatively new campus compared to some of the UCs,” Moss said. “It’s up to code and relatively modern.”

The Cal Poly Web site provides a campus emergency management plan for earthquakes. Safety guidelines include staying away from glass windows, shelves or heavy equipment and taking cover under a desk or chair. Evacuating only after the tremors have ceased is advised.

It’s all about building structures so that people can survive.

—Dr. Robb Moss assistant professor

Dr. Gregory Bohr, a Cal Poly geography professor, emphasizes the importance of having bookshelves bolted to the walls and heavy objects not stored where they can fall on people.

“It’s not a bad idea to have emergency supplies (food, water, or first aid kit) available and refreshed from time to time,” Bohr said.

There are several modes of communication to get information out to students and faculty. E2 campus is a software program where, once you register your phone, notifications will be sent directly to you during an emergency.There are roughly 3,0004,000 students registered for this system, about one-fifth of the student body.

An emergency notification broadcast system will be going in next month, in which speakers on campus phones will act as warning systems, said Mark Hunter, head of

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facilities at Cal Poly. There are also exterior speakers on campus buildings including the clock tower and the administration building. There are radio stations for emergency information distribution as well (920 AM, 1400 AM, and 98.1 FM).

“We have a pretty good system for getting the word out, and older and weaker buildings have been strengthened,” Hunter said.

The only problem with all this technology is that in the case of an earthquake, an announcement over an intercom or a text message will be too late.

“The thing about being prepared, you can flip the switch or send the mass text message, but that’s not going to happen until after the fact,” Moss said.

The newest technology for earthquake preparation, an Early Warning System (EWS), tells you how big and how fast an earthquake is. The technology is stationed at a fault that is prone to slip, essentially a hot spot for earthquakes. Once the earthquake hits, the light waves will travel faster than the sound waves, meaning news will get to us faster than the earthquake, but only by seconds or minutes. In this way, a PA system alerts when the earthquake will hit. Jasbinsek is excited about the prospective benefits of the Early Warning System.

“It would give people not only enough time to get to a safe place, but a brain or a heart surgeon could pull out of surgery, valves to water pipes could be turned off, aqueducts or heavy machinery could be shut down, among other things,” Jasbinsek said.

At the moment, Japan, Mexico and Italy all have functioning EWS. California is dabbling with the idea, but the systems have yet to be implemented.

Vic Crosariol, a graduate student at Cal Poly, has spent the past three years working on a research project involving subway systems responding to scale model testing. He is using a shake table, a piece of equipment that mimics earthquakes. Built 10 years ago with equipment loaned from UC Berkely, the shake table has seen many modifications.

“We are making a lot of good strides preventing any real catastrophes. It’s not something you can stop.

(Earthquakes) are going to happen, we are just trying to prevent further damage,” Crosariol said.

Bill continued from page 1

they should not have to disclose their books to the public. He said the university has historically been transparent, pointing out that the corporation board meetings are made public.

One point of the bill Visci strongly opposed was the presumption that donators have an influence over Cal Poly’s academics and teaching staff.

When big-time agriculture donor Harris Ranch threatened to withhold money from the university when Michael Pollan was scheduled to speak at the Performing Arts Center in Oct. 2009, the one-man speech was changed to a panel discussion.

Following this, Cal Poly drew fire for allegedly bowing down to the demands of alumni and donors. Cal Poly administrators immediately issued statements refuting such claims and their stance has not changed.

Visci said that people should be vigilant and concerned about the impact donors have on programs, but not at Cal Poly.

“I am very comfortable and I know the president is very comfortable and I know the provost is very comfortable saying unequivocally, donors are not allowed to interfere with academic freedom with our faculty or in our classrooms,” Visci said. “Academic freedom was not abridged, has not been abridged, and will not be abridged. Cal Poly’s a terrific place and I’m glad people are concerned what goes on in the university the way they are, but I want people to do their reporting first.”

Nevertheless, the possibility of inappropriate spending on behalf of CSU and UC non-profit foundations and secondary bodies worries members of the California Faculty Association.

The CFA, a co-sponsor of the bill, said they are for the passing of SB 330 because they feel there have already been many examples of “questionable use of foundation funds.” CFA President Lillian Taiz pointed out a foundation problem that occurred at Sacramento State in which the university purchased a building in downtown Sacramento as an investment.

When the school was no longer able to pay for the building, the university received more than $5 million dollars from the foundation. Taiz said donation and tax-payer money that could be going toward students is now go-

Monday, January 25. 2010 ing toward an investment in which they had no say in.

“I worry that people make donations to the foundation thinking the money’s going in one direction and suddenly discover that it’s being loaned out to people inappropriately.

This is the kind of public scrutiny we need in the public universities,” Taiz said.

A big concern for Cal Poly CFA president and physics professor Richard Saenz is not that foundation and corporation money is being spent inappropriately, but that the money is not being spent on issues of top priority such as classes.

“I’m just more curious about the priorities on its legitimate use,” Saenz said. “What’s more important: a bigger football team or more sections of classes that are being taught? I would guess most of the money is going for reasonable things but I would like to know what their priorities are because then we can work to change these priorities.”

Visci, however, assures that the administration takes academic priorities regarding students into deep consideration when it comes to spending corporation and foundation money.

But if that’s the case, Yee’s Chief of Staff Adam Keigwin wondered why California universities are spending hundreds of thousands of student and tax-payer dollars fighting this bill.

“What’s wrong with transparency? If you’re truly not doing anything wrong, then you should want to open up your books,” Keigwin said. “I find it ironic that administrators says they’re completely separate arms, separate entities and if that’s the case, then why are administrators there lobbying again this bill? Most of the time you don’t get involved in something that doesn’t involve you.”

This isn’t the first time university administrators have opposed a bill authored by Yee. A similar bill, SB 218, was introduced by Yee after learning of public records request denials at two state universities. A college newspaper made a formal request to Sacramento State University in order to determine the amount of book markup at the campus bookstore and the Fresno Bee wanted the names of guests who were sitting in luxury suites at the Save Mart Center arena at Fresno State.

Despite bipartisan support, the bill didn’t make it past the governor’s desk in Oct. 2009.

The bill called for the release of anonymous donors’ names, but the governor said he feared that the opening of donor names to the public would result in a “chilling effect” of donations to public universities in a time when universities are being particularly hard-hit by the economy.

Keigwin said the governor’s objections to the previous bill was a “smokescreen” that came about because of the influence university administrators have. As a result, Keigwin said they were careful with their language when amending the new bill. He expects this bill to pass the governor’s desk.

“We had overwhelming support from the student organizations, the faculty organizations, the workers on the campus, from every sector on the campus except the administration,” Keigwin said. “The governor is quite close and influenced by those regent and trustees and I think that’s the reality. We need to convince the governor why this is a good idea but his reaction rarely matches his rhetoric.”

Calls to the governor’s press secretary were not returned, nor were requests to talk to other Cal Poly administrators.

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Wire Editor: Jennifer Titcomb

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Bin Laden takes credit for airline bombing plot Borzou Daragahi and Greg Miller los angeles times

BEIRUT — Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attempt to blow up an American civilian jet in an audiotape broadcast Sunday on Arab television.

U.S. intelligence officials quickly raised doubts about bin Laden’s role and suggested the statement was an attempt to score propaganda points for a plot already claimed by an increasingly independent faction of his movement in Yemen.

In the clip, bin Laden said his group was behind the failed attempt allegedly carried out by Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.

Speaking directly to President Barack Obama, the al-Qaeda leader vowed to continue launching terrorist attacks against the United States as long as Washington supported what he described as Israel’s unjust treatment of Palestinians.

“From Osama to Obama: Peace upon the one who follows guidance,” he said on the tape, broadcast on the pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite news channel, his image appearing on the screen as he spoke. “America will not

dream of security until we experience it as a reality in Palestine.”

U.S. intelligence officials on Sunday did not cast doubt on the authenticity of the tape. But they expressed skepticism that bin Laden or his lieutenants, believed to be based in Pakistan, played a meaningful role in conceiving or executing the Christmas Day plot.

“Al-Qaeda in Yemen takes strategic guidance from al-Qaeda’s leadership in the tribal areas in Pakistan,” a U.S. intelligence official said. “But we’ve never seen indications that the senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan have directed tactical, day-to-day operational planning for them in Yemen.

Their relationship hasn’t really functioned that way.”

No evidence has surfaced to indicate that Abdulmutallab traveled to Pakistan in preparation for the plot.

Instead, U.S. spy agencies in recent weeks have had to acknowledge their failure to recognize significant clues that began to surface last year indicating a terrorist plot was taking shape in Yemen, and that the Nigerian allegedly was being groomed by al-Qaeda operatives there for an attack.

U.S. officials described the message from bin Laden as an attempt to take advantage of a plot hatched by al-Qaida’s offshoot in Yemen to shore up his own reputation.

“Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was behind the failed attack on Christmas Day. That’s clear,” the U.S. intelligence official said.“So a message like this — no matter whose voice it may be — should come as no surprise.”

In his message, bin Laden likened Abdulmutallab to the militants behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

“If our messages to you could be carried by words, we would not have delivered them by planes,” bin Laden said on the tape, which could not be immediately verified independently.

“The message we want to communicate to you through the plane of the hero, the holy warrior Umar Farouk ... is a confirmation of a previous message, which was delivered to you by the heroes of (Sept. 11) and which was repeated previously and afterward.”

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an apparent offshoot of bin Laden’s loosely defined organization, had claimed responsibility for the attempted attack, in which the 23-yearold Abdulmutallab allegedly tried without success to detonated explosives attached to his underwear.

Many analysts have suggested that the Christmas Day attack was carried see Plot, page 5

UN reports 111,481 confirmed deaths in four areas in Haiti Jacqueline Charles and Mimi Whitefield

How long have you been at Cal Poly?

This is my seventh year teaching.

What did you do before becoming a professor?

I was the vice president of Technical Services for Farmer John Meats in Los Angeles.

What classes do you teach?

I teach meat science, meat processing and food safety.

What made you interested in your subject matter?

I worked in a small butcher shop and decided this was the career for me.

What is the greatest satisfaction you get from teaching?

When I get a call from someone in the meat industry (who) has hired one of my students and they tell me how great the person is.

What do you hope your students learn from you?

Obviously the subject matter, but I also want them to learn how important it is to always be honest with people.

Where are you when you aren’t teaching?

I enjoy woodworking and am learning Dutch-oven cooking.

What is your favorite thing about Cal Poly?

My favorite thing is the learn-by-doing philosophy.

mcclatchy newspapers

Statistics are a moving target in earthquake-shattered Haiti, shifting as often as the unsteady ground.

On the 13th day of the Haitian catastrophe, these numbers seem the most reliable: The United Nations reported the government has confirmed 111,481 deaths in four departments (the equivalent of states or provinces) and 609,000 homeless in metropolitan Port-au-Prince. These numbers are preliminary.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that as many as 1 million people may leave quakeravaged urban areas for the countryside.

A very preliminary estimate by the Haitian government on what it needs to rebuild the country is $3 billion. Haiti’s Minister of Tourism Patrick Delatour said that number could “triple or multiply.”

The breakdown is: $2 billion for new housing, rebuilding schools and health facilities; $500 million for rehabilitating infrastructure and $500 million to restore government buildings, courthouses and the prison in Port-au-Prince.

The Haitian recovery plan will be presented Monday at a donors conference in Canada. It was first discussed Saturday by Haitian architects and academics from Boston University under the shade of a tree in Petionville.

Attending the Montreal meeting will be Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max

patrick fina mustang daily

Professor Bob Delmore has taught meat science for seven years.

If you could meet anyone alive or dead who would it be?

Aaron Sorkin, man that guy can write.

If you had a million dollars how would you spend it?

Pay off my mom’s house, and make it so my daughters would be able to afford to go to Cal Poly.

What is your proudest accomplishment?

Having two happy and healthy little girls: Ainsley, 7, and Tessa, 5.

mcclatchy-tribune

Children wait their turn in line as Alpha Company of the 1/325AIR helped distribute humanitarian aid to the citizens north of Port-auPrince, Haiti, Sunday. Experts estimate $3 billion is needed to rebuild.

Bellerive and representatives of donor nations, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton The damage estimate in Haiti was placed in the “low single-digits billions of dollars” by Eqecat, a catastrophe-risk modeling firm in Oakland, Calif.

There are 20,000 tents in the country. Haiti needs 100,000, the International Organization for Migration says.

In the aftermath of the quake, estimates of the dead have ranged up to well over 200,000. Aid organizations and the government are supposed to be coordinating their numbers, but communications have been a big

problem, with each group not checking with the other on numbers and facts, or aid groups quoting their own figures. As a result, statistics have varied wildly.

What is the funniest thing you have experienced?

A call I recently received from a woman in Virginia. She was very concerned and had some food safety questions about meat she was preparing. She urgently needed to talk to a meat scientist. I answered her questions for 40 minutes, and did my best.

I answered everything and told her it was very safe to cook the meat the way she described for her family. She told me that the meat wasn’t for her family it was for her cat that was on a special diet.

Do you have a funny, inspiring, crazy or interesting teacher you want to know more about? Send teacher suggestions to: mustangdailywire@gmail.com

4

Monday, January 25, 2010

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Briefs State

National

SAN LUIS OBISPO (MCT) — A local boy is one of seven youngsters from around the United States who will appear on a nationwide television show tonight that’s intended to show other children what it’s like living with cancer and be inspired by stories of hope.

Tyler Borges, 11, of San Luis Obispo will appear tonight in “The Face of Courage: Kids Living with Cancer” — an episode of “Nick News with Linda Ellerbe” on the popular Nickelodeon children’s TV network. It airs at 8 p.m.

“I want people to know that kids living with cancer can still do fun things,” said Tyler, who was found by the show’s producers after they contacted cancer-support organizations around the country.

After five years of severe stomach aches that lasted up to three days, visits with four pediatricians and four trips to hospital emergency rooms, Tyler was diagnosed in June 2009 with neuroblastoma, said his mother, Karen.

••• LOS ANGELES (MCT) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, will eliminate some 12,200 jobs at its Sam’s Club stores as it brings in an independent marketing firm to perform in-store product demonstratons.

Outsourcing the in-store demonstrations to Shopper Events, a marketing firm based in Rogers, Ark, will trim about 10,000 jobs, or 9 percent of the company’s workforce, the company said.

Most of these positions are parttime, the company said.

The retailer also will eliminate about 1,200 jobs in business membership recruiting, or about two positions at each of its U.S. warehouse clubs.

WASHINGTON (MCT) — If Cook County, Ill., had had its druthers, President Barack Obama would have shown up Monday for jury duty.

But court officials were told several weeks ago the prospect was a no-go, a White House official said Sunday. The summons showed up at the president’s home in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood.

Obama, a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, president of its law review and later a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, would have been bound for the courthouse in suburban Bridgeview, Ill., had he not been otherwise occupied.

With his first State of the Union speech on tap Wednesday, it’s a busy week for the president — though not strictly business.

•••

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (MCT) — Two Florida men died after their twin-engine plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Chicago Saturday night.

The men were identified as Drago Strahija, 32, of Lake Worth, Fla., and pilot Gary Bradford, 37, of Hollywood, Fla. The small Piper Aerostar crashed in Sugar Grove, a village 2 miles from the Aurora, Ill., airport where the plane took off, authorities said.

They had flown in from Texas and spent one night in Aurora before a planned trip to Denver, according to Pam Sullivan, a National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman. The trip’s purpose was not immediately known, but the two men worked together at Hollywood-based ENS Corp., a software communications company.

The plane left the airport at 6:52 p.m., Sullivan said.

News

White House defends International health care legislation BEIRUT (MCT) — A Russianmade passenger airplane caught fire as it made an emergency landing in northeastern Iran on Sunday, injuring dozens of people in the latest in a string of Iranian civil aviation and transport accidents.

All 157 passengers and 13 crew members aboard Taban Air Flight 6437 survived the Tupolev-154 aircraft fire on the runway of Mashhad International Airport, local media reported. At least 45 people were hospitalized.

Experts say poor maintenance and management as well as international sanctions on Iran over its nuclear research and development program have taken a toll on the nation’s civil aviation sector.

Images from Mashhad on Iranian television showed the Taban plane’s fuselage, right wing and tail completely burned and the landing gear mangled. The medium-range jet was en route from the western city of Abadan to Mashhad but stopped for a few hours in the central city of Esfahan because of heavy fog in the northeast.

•••

CITE SOLEIL, Haiti (MCT) — Trucks packed with North Carolina-based paratroopers and United Nations soldiers from Brazil rumbled into this Port-Au-Prince suburb Sunday to unleash the most potent weapons in their current mission: food and water.

The three-and-a-half hour mix of hopeful and heart-wrenching scenes that followed crystallized the very purpose of the 82nd Airborne Division’s deployment, but also the enormous barriers in their path.

An interpreter for the troops told a tent city of homeless earthquake victims to begin lining up for the supplies — and cheers erupted. So did chaotic pushing and shoving to be first.

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mcclatchy-tribune

David Axelrod, right, White House senior advisor, speaks with Eric K. Shinseki, secretary of Veterans Affairs, at an White House event in 2009. Axelrod defended President Obama’s health care legislation on ABC’s “This Week.”

Jim Puzzanghera tribune washington bureau

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration tried Sunday to steady itself and its top domestic priority after last week’s stunning Massachusetts Senate upset, as a top White House official vowed to move ahead with comprehensive health care legislation because “the underlying elements of it are popular and important.”

“The president will not walk away from the American people, will not hand them over to the tender mercies of health insurance companies who take advantage” of them, White House senior advisor David Axelrod said on ABC’s “This Week.”

His comments came as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called on the White House to scrap the legislation and “start over.”

Republicans and Democrats continued to spar over the message and effect of Republican Scott Brown’s win last week in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts. The loss has shaken Democrats, who fear voter anger over health care and the still-struggling economy in November.

Part of the immediate fallout has been increasing opposition to the renomination of Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. But White House officials, along with Senate Democratic and Republican leaders, said today they believed he would be confirmed. His current term expires Jan. 31.

Brown built his victory on giving Senate Republicans the one addi-

tional vote they needed to filibuster the Democrats’ health care bill. But Axelrod said the message from voters was more complex than outright rejection of the plan.

He noted that Massachusetts had enacted its own major health care overhaul law in 2006, and 68 percent of voters in last week’s special election support it, according to a poll by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Brown voted for that legislation in the state legislature.

“I think people want action on health care,” Axelrod said, admitting some missteps in the yearlong effort to move legislation through Congress.“The foolish thing to do would be for anybody else who supported this to walk away from it, because what’s happened is, this thing’s been defined by . . . insurance industry propaganda, the propaganda of the opponents, and an admittedly messy process leading up to it.”

His comments echoed strategy laid out by Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, in an opinion article today, as the administration took steps to save major health care legislation.

The day after the Massachusetts election, Obama had appeared to call for abandoning bold legislation in favor of a piecemeal approach. But consumer groups, doctors and patient advocates urged Democrats last week not to give up on health care legislation.

And the White House today signaled it was prepared to fight. Plouffe, who is returning as an advisor to the White House political team on strategy for November’s congressional midterm elections, wrote in the Washington Post that Democrats must “pass a meaningful health insurance reform package without delay.”

“I know that the short-term politics are bad. It’s a good plan that’s become a demonized caricature,” Plouffe said. “But politically speaking, if we do not pass it, the GOP will continue attacking the plan as if we did anyway, and voters will have no ability to measure its upside.”

But with Brown’s victory, Democrats appear to have little flexibility to push through their legislation. Either the House passes the Senate bill insee Legislation, page 5

Monday, January 25, 2010 www.mustangdaily.net

Plot continued from page 3

out without bin Laden’s input, in a sign of al-Qaeda’s continued splintering.

The Yemen branch has strengthened its leadership and has a more focused ideology and strategy than years ago when militants in the country frequently looked to militant leaders in Pakistan or Afghanistan for guidance.

The nature of the plot and the device employed were similar to a suicide bombing al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula carried out last year against the head of Saudi Arabia’s anti-terrorism program. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef survived that strike, in part because he may have been shielded from the force of the blast.

The attempt on Nayef appeared to be a precursor to the botched Christmas Day attack. In both instances, the explosive PETN was used. Both devices went undetected by airport security. The bomber targeting Nayef had the explosive inserted into his rectum; it was triggered by a telephone call.The bomber was killed and Nayef was lightly wounded.

But the Yemen group also has ties to bin Laden. The alleged leader of the Yemen branch, Naser AbdelKarim Wahishi, trained in Afghanistan and once acted as a secretary to the alQaeda leader, whose ancestral home is Yemen.

Wahishi’s second in command, Saeed Ali Shehri, a Saudi national who spent years in U.S. detention at Guantanamo, was captured in 2001 in the lawless tribal areas along the PakistanAfghanistan border, where bin Laden is believed to be holed up. Shehri was released from Guantanamo in 2007

Legislation continued from page 4

tact, or at least one Senate Republican would have to cross party lines to support a compromise between the versions that passed each chamber.

And Republicans said today they would not help save the legislation.

“This particular bill deserves to be stopped,” McConnell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “What we need to do is start over and get it right.”

5

mustang daily

News

and underwent a Saudi rehabilitation program before moving to Yemen.

Wahishi and Shehri drew together a scattering of militants arriving in Yemen from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with more than 20 extremists who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006. Shehri is believed to be behind a 2008 assault on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen that killed 19, including an American citizen.

Music Monday What’s on your iPod?

“Hot” by Avril Lavigne

San Quinn’s album “Fully Loaded”

“Mexico” by Incubus

-Stephanie Freese, child development sophomorepolitical science junior

-Francisco Diaz, civil engineering junior

-Marian Watson, kinesiology junior

“Sweet Home Lynyrd Skynyrd

Alabama”by

“Man On The Run” by Dash Berlin

“Tie me down” by the New Boyz

-Craig Guffeny, kinesology junior

-Tim McHenry, mechanical engineering senior

-Anna Consani, political science freshman

compiled and photographed by jennifer titcomB

McConnell would not say what elements of the existing legislation Senate Republicans would be willing to support.“We would have to sit down and discuss that,” he said.

Republicans want to start over on a bipartisan basis with legislation that would reduce malpractice lawsuits, and allow individuals to deduct the cost of their coverage from their taxes the way corporations can, McConnell said. But the existing legislation, with its huge price tag, is a nonstarter, he said.

www.mustangdaily.net Always in color

4

Monday, January 25, 2010

mustang daily www.mustangdaily.net

Briefs State

National

SAN LUIS OBISPO (MCT) — A local boy is one of seven youngsters from around the United States who will appear on a nationwide television show tonight that’s intended to show other children what it’s like living with cancer and be inspired by stories of hope.

Tyler Borges, 11, of San Luis Obispo will appear tonight in “The Face of Courage: Kids Living with Cancer” — an episode of “Nick News with Linda Ellerbe” on the popular Nickelodeon children’s TV network. It airs at 8 p.m.

“I want people to know that kids living with cancer can still do fun things,” said Tyler, who was found by the show’s producers after they contacted cancer-support organizations around the country.

After five years of severe stomach aches that lasted up to three days, visits with four pediatricians and four trips to hospital emergency rooms, Tyler was diagnosed in June 2009 with neuroblastoma, said his mother, Karen.

••• LOS ANGELES (MCT) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, will eliminate some 12,200 jobs at its Sam’s Club stores as it brings in an independent marketing firm to perform in-store product demonstratons.

Outsourcing the in-store demonstrations to Shopper Events, a marketing firm based in Rogers, Ark, will trim about 10,000 jobs, or 9 percent of the company’s workforce, the company said.

Most of these positions are parttime, the company said.

The retailer also will eliminate about 1,200 jobs in business membership recruiting, or about two positions at each of its U.S. warehouse clubs.

WASHINGTON (MCT) — If Cook County, Ill., had had its druthers, President Barack Obama would have shown up Monday for jury duty.

But court officials were told several weeks ago the prospect was a no-go, a White House official said Sunday. The summons showed up at the president’s home in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood.

Obama, a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, president of its law review and later a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, would have been bound for the courthouse in suburban Bridgeview, Ill., had he not been otherwise occupied.

With his first State of the Union speech on tap Wednesday, it’s a busy week for the president — though not strictly business.

•••

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (MCT) — Two Florida men died after their twin-engine plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Chicago Saturday night.

The men were identified as Drago Strahija, 32, of Lake Worth, Fla., and pilot Gary Bradford, 37, of Hollywood, Fla. The small Piper Aerostar crashed in Sugar Grove, a village 2 miles from the Aurora, Ill., airport where the plane took off, authorities said.

They had flown in from Texas and spent one night in Aurora before a planned trip to Denver, according to Pam Sullivan, a National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman. The trip’s purpose was not immediately known, but the two men worked together at Hollywood-based ENS Corp., a software communications company.

The plane left the airport at 6:52 p.m., Sullivan said.

News

White House defends International health care legislation BEIRUT (MCT) — A Russianmade passenger airplane caught fire as it made an emergency landing in northeastern Iran on Sunday, injuring dozens of people in the latest in a string of Iranian civil aviation and transport accidents.

All 157 passengers and 13 crew members aboard Taban Air Flight 6437 survived the Tupolev-154 aircraft fire on the runway of Mashhad International Airport, local media reported. At least 45 people were hospitalized.

Experts say poor maintenance and management as well as international sanctions on Iran over its nuclear research and development program have taken a toll on the nation’s civil aviation sector.

Images from Mashhad on Iranian television showed the Taban plane’s fuselage, right wing and tail completely burned and the landing gear mangled. The medium-range jet was en route from the western city of Abadan to Mashhad but stopped for a few hours in the central city of Esfahan because of heavy fog in the northeast.

•••

CITE SOLEIL, Haiti (MCT) — Trucks packed with North Carolina-based paratroopers and United Nations soldiers from Brazil rumbled into this Port-Au-Prince suburb Sunday to unleash the most potent weapons in their current mission: food and water.

The three-and-a-half hour mix of hopeful and heart-wrenching scenes that followed crystallized the very purpose of the 82nd Airborne Division’s deployment, but also the enormous barriers in their path.

An interpreter for the troops told a tent city of homeless earthquake victims to begin lining up for the supplies — and cheers erupted. So did chaotic pushing and shoving to be first.

www.mustangdaily.net

mcclatchy-tribune

David Axelrod, right, White House senior advisor, speaks with Eric K. Shinseki, secretary of Veterans Affairs, at an White House event in 2009. Axelrod defended President Obama’s health care legislation on ABC’s “This Week.”

Jim Puzzanghera tribune washington bureau

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration tried Sunday to steady itself and its top domestic priority after last week’s stunning Massachusetts Senate upset, as a top White House official vowed to move ahead with comprehensive health care legislation because “the underlying elements of it are popular and important.”

“The president will not walk away from the American people, will not hand them over to the tender mercies of health insurance companies who take advantage” of them, White House senior advisor David Axelrod said on ABC’s “This Week.”

His comments came as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called on the White House to scrap the legislation and “start over.”

Republicans and Democrats continued to spar over the message and effect of Republican Scott Brown’s win last week in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts. The loss has shaken Democrats, who fear voter anger over health care and the still-struggling economy in November.

Part of the immediate fallout has been increasing opposition to the renomination of Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. But White House officials, along with Senate Democratic and Republican leaders, said today they believed he would be confirmed. His current term expires Jan. 31.

Brown built his victory on giving Senate Republicans the one addi-

tional vote they needed to filibuster the Democrats’ health care bill. But Axelrod said the message from voters was more complex than outright rejection of the plan.

He noted that Massachusetts had enacted its own major health care overhaul law in 2006, and 68 percent of voters in last week’s special election support it, according to a poll by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Brown voted for that legislation in the state legislature.

“I think people want action on health care,” Axelrod said, admitting some missteps in the yearlong effort to move legislation through Congress.“The foolish thing to do would be for anybody else who supported this to walk away from it, because what’s happened is, this thing’s been defined by . . . insurance industry propaganda, the propaganda of the opponents, and an admittedly messy process leading up to it.”

His comments echoed strategy laid out by Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, in an opinion article today, as the administration took steps to save major health care legislation.

The day after the Massachusetts election, Obama had appeared to call for abandoning bold legislation in favor of a piecemeal approach. But consumer groups, doctors and patient advocates urged Democrats last week not to give up on health care legislation.

And the White House today signaled it was prepared to fight. Plouffe, who is returning as an advisor to the White House political team on strategy for November’s congressional midterm elections, wrote in the Washington Post that Democrats must “pass a meaningful health insurance reform package without delay.”

“I know that the short-term politics are bad. It’s a good plan that’s become a demonized caricature,” Plouffe said. “But politically speaking, if we do not pass it, the GOP will continue attacking the plan as if we did anyway, and voters will have no ability to measure its upside.”

But with Brown’s victory, Democrats appear to have little flexibility to push through their legislation.

Either the House passes the Senate see Legislation, page 5

Monday, January 25, 2010 www.mustangdaily.net

Plot continued from page 3

out without bin Laden’s input, in a sign of al-Qaeda’s continued splintering.

The Yemen branch has strengthmonday, january ened its leadership and25, has2010 a more focused ideology and strategy than years ago when militants in the country frequently looked to militant leaders in Pakistan or Afghanistan for guidance.

The nature of the plot and the deAimee Vasquez vice employed were similar to a suimustang daily al-Qaeda in the Arabian cide bombing Peninsula carried out last year against professor andanti-terrorCal Poly theEnglish head of Saudi Arabia’s Distinguished Teaching Award ism program. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef survived strike,read in part bewinner Kevinthat Clark selec-

Cal Poly

cause he may have been shielded from the force of the blast.

The attempt on Nayef appeared to be a precursor to the botched Christmas Day attack. In both instances, the explosive PETN was used. Both devices went undetected by airport security. The bomber targeting Nayef had the explosive inserted into his rectum; it was triggered by a telephone call.The bomber was killed and Nayef

News

Music Monday What’s on your iPod?

arts & Entertainment editor: cassandra keyse

professor reads poetry in tions of poetry to promote his award-winning new book, “SelfPortrait with Expletives,” at Philips

by Avrilnight.

Lavigne Hall“Hot” Thursday “Self-Portrait with Expletives” will be published in March of -Stephanie child book devel-is 2010.

The thin,Freese, paperback opment sophomorepolitical the third of three chapbooks sciand wonence thejunior 2009 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Book Competition, a prize which includes publication by Pleiades Press. Clark is also the author of poetry textbook, “The Mind’s Eye,” and was awarded a grant from the Academy of American Poets for his first fulllength collection, “In the Evening of No Warning.”

Brad Comann, who attended graduate school and used to play softball with Clark, drove up from “Sweet Home Lynyrd Skynyrd

aimee vasquez mustang daily

Cal Poly English professor Kevin Clark read selections of poetry from his new book, “Self-Portrait with Expletives,” Thursday in Phillips Hall.

bill intact, or at least one Sen-

5

mustang daily

ate Republican would have to

“Spring awaits”

San Diego for hour-long reading.

“Kevin’s skill at poetry continues to grow and astound,” Comann San Quinn’s album “Fullyclap Loadsaid.

“Usually you don’t after ed” each poem, and yet the audience clapped.”

-Francisco Diaz,that civilthis engineerClark agreed was one ing junior of the most appreciative audiences he’s ever read to.

“And you know the audience makes the reading,” Clark said.

“When a poet reads and the audience responds, the poet can say a little more and do a little more, because he knows the audience is willing to go a little farther.They’re in an appreciative place.”

The title piece, “Self-Portrait with Expletives,” is about growing up in New Jersey culture.

“It’s not a reading for kids,”

Clark said. “There’s going to be some language there. It is tricky to read that poem because there are “Mexico” bythat Incubus audiences get very uptight.

But in New York or New Jersey, that’s how everyone talks.”

-Marian kinesiology Clark Watson, described his own juwork nior as having two different poetic styles.

“One is an edgy, narrative style telling story-like poems, and the other is a more lyrical, melodical style,” Clark said. “And I occasionally invest my poems with humor.”

Michael May, a Cal Poly graduate, got both his undergraduate and master’s degree in English literature.

“He’s a pro with a sense of husee Clark, page 8

Alabama”by

“Man On The Run” by Dash Berlin

“Tie me down” by the New Boyz

-Craig Guffeny, kinesology junior

-Tim McHenry, mechanical engineering senior

-Anna Consani, political science freshman

www.mustangdaily.net Always in color

Arts editor: Cassandra Keyse mustangdailyarts@gmail.com

8

www.mustangdaily.net

music column

The Endless Bummer may or may not make music you enjoy Before we begin, I would like to point out that this review is completely absurd. You should know it’s absurd and completely unnecessary.

You should know that the music it discusses is also completely absurd and silly.

But, most importantly, you should know that, due to an oppressively absurd job and a solid week of rain, I have listened to this album and have found, or believe I have found, something intelligent and important. Or maybe I think it’s intelligent, when, in reality, it is some stale or half-baked truth that exists in the collective consciousness of 20-something college grads or Americans in general.

But most likely, this is just some pseudo-intellectual masturbation all over a quirky little bedroom-popband. Anyway, The Endless Bummer’s album “Modern American Calypsos for Voice and Computer” is a charming album that you should listen to alone.

The Endless Bummer is just David B. and Natalie S. and a computer that produces 8 bit music that is distinctly calypso. As the computer beeps, boops and crunches, David and Natalie sing pleasant little tunes that are similar in style and structure of traditional calypso with more modern American subject matters such as hipster girls, Wednesday nights, municipal participation and baseball. It’s cute. It’s fun.

It’s totally quirky. But, if you’ll indulge me, I don’t really feel comfortable leaving this album to be just another quirky pile of bullshit.

Music, as I see it, is a visceral art form that inspires visceral experiences. I see you kids listening to all your electronic-housedub-trance and you aren’t thinking. You’re feeling the music, coked out on ecstasy and just dancing, expressing some sort of sexuality that will always terrify me.

Same thing goes for calypso and every other genre of music ever created ever.

But I am going to stand here and tell you that The Endless Bummer transcends (or tries to transcend) or tricks me into

thinking that it transcends the primeval emotional tempest that is only human. Instead, like an educational album for children,“Modern American Calypsos for Voice and Computer” shells out information about various cultures that we as Americans have persecuted, felt bad about persecuting, pretended to learn about and care for and, in turn, bastardized.

Ok, this is getting ridiculous for a 500-word music review for a college newspaper. Does it make any sense?

Can you follow my argument? Or am I so incompetent after hours of inadvertently inhaling Comet brand toilet cleanser that I can’t write a cohesive and relevant review for some pop album?

It really is a fun little album. One of my friends told me a story about how he got a school bus full of children to sing “Boring but Beautiful” on a field trip. It’s that simple and fun.

But the majority of the songs are about some indigenous or sovereign peoples and the ways in which they are relevant to America. “Itacan of Lakota” and “Nanavut,” for example, pleasantly detail the ways in which we and they must legally view and understand them and us.

Possibly the most blatant selfaware, absurdist view of America and its international role is “Baseball in China.” Essentially, the song (I would like to believe) argues that the only thing that America has to contribute to the world is it’s comically important national pastime (See “The Great American Novel” by Philip Roth).

But this is all ridiculous. It’s a cute album for hipsters. It’s silly. The band even thinks so. The second half of the album is just the first half, except as if played off a tape recorder in a puddle of rain water. Why would you do that if you wanted people to take you seriously? I guess, the best piece of advice this album has to offer is to “make the most of your life, go out on a We d n e s d a y night.” Maybe that’ll help?

Clark

ture at Cal Poly from 1970 to 2004 and founded the Al Landwehr Creative Writing Contest, also attended the reading. Landwehr has known Clark for 20 years, and said that he is impressed at how hard Clark works at his craft.

“This book has the best voice all the way around,” Landwehr said. “It’s very strong and consistent throughout, which is a big thing in poetry.”

continued from page 7

“It was very cut, very pared down, very stark,” May said. “What I liked about it was that it surprised me. Sometimes there were almost too many good lines. I wanted them to slow down.”

Professor Al Landwehr, who taught fiction writing and litera-

Jack LaPorte is an English graduate and KCPR DJ.

mustang daily

Monday, January 25, 2010

Arts

Harrison Ford takes charge with new film “Extraordinary Measures”

mcclatchy-tribune

Harrison Ford signs autographs at a screening of his latest film “Extraordinary Measures,” released last week.

Robert W. Butler mcclatchy newspapers

Harrison Ford is an institution. A household name. For almost three decades he has been one of Hollywood’s favored leading men, playing Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Jack Ryan.

So he ought to have his pick of good scripts, right?

No way, Ford said in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles.

“I used to depend on a steady flow of product from the studios’ development process,” he said. “But now if you want something for yourself — something you can be proud of — you have to make it yourself.You have to spend the time and money to do it yourself.”

Part of the problem, he said, is that Hollywood tends to view actors in light of their most recent work. So in the wake of 2008’s “IndianaJones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,”studios weren’t thinking of him to star in intimate dramas or comedies.

“I’ve always done that in my career — different kinds of films, films on different scales. But despite my career choices, people tend to think of you in relation to your more commercially successful work.Which meant that if I wanted something dramatically meaty, I’d have to find it myself.”

The result of his search is “Extraordinary Measures,” a drama about real-life drug company executive John Crowley (Brendan Fraser).To save two of his children from a rare and fatal genetic disorder, he teams up with renegade researcher Robert Stonehill (Ford) to search for a cure.

“I was looking for a story that presented the opportunity for something different from people’s

Clark said most of the poems in the book are based 30 years ago in his child and young-adulthood on the East Coast.

He said that he grew up in an Irish-Catholic family that valued reading and athletics. His father was a journalist who loved Jack London, and his mother a history major who loved novels.

“There were books all over the house,” Clark said. “And we were

expectations of me,” Ford said.

“And I wanted a project that kept me interested.

“This was one of a number of pieces of material that I hoped to develop. In fact it’s the sole survivor.”

By serving as the film’s executive producer, Ford could shepherd it through its various stages, from the script to hiring the names in front of and behind the camera. Had he not done that, the actor said, he would never have ended up with such a role.

“Being the producer allowed me to have some part in assuring the project on which my name appears is of the quality that I want the audience to expect from me.

It allowed me to participate in the crafting of a character, and that was very important to me. This isn’t the kind of film I’d find lying around in the street.

“In fact, if this script had been circulating around the general marketplace they’d have pushed John Malkovich for the part before they got around to me.”

While Crowley, his wife and children are actual people, Stonehill is an amalgam of several researchers with whom Crowley worked to develop an enzyme to keep his children alive.

Ford’s Stonehill is a genius but an outsider who prefers to work in solitude, who is often contemptuous of other scientists and who is more comfortable with theoretical research than actually dealing handson with other human beings.

“I wanted to create an ally for John Crowley who wasn’t a natural fit,” Ford said. “They’re very different individuals” — one a devoted family man, the other an oft-divorced loner; one diplomatic and careful, the other a confrontational

expected to always live up to our potential, and to follow our passion.” His passions, as now, were writing and athletics.

Clark received his master’s degree in literature from the University of California, Davis, and has taught American literature and creative writing at Cal Poly for the past 21 years. He was awarded the Cal Poly Distinguished Teaching Award in 2002.

personality.

“The idea was to create opportunities for drama, conflict and humor as these different individuals collide.”

Particularly tricky, Ford said, was finding the right balance between science and drama.

“I wanted the details of the science to be accurate, for audiences to have a sense of the complexity of the task involved. But at the same time we had to find a way to get science out of the characters’ heads and onto the screen. And that’s where the conflict between these two very different characters was useful.”

After a great movie career, does Harrison Ford have favorites? If he had to pick three of his films to be engraved on his tombstone, what would they be?

“Honestly, I’d rather have the names of my kids on the tombstone,” he said. “That’s what I’m proud of.”

Ford, 67, has four grown children from his previous marriages to Melissa Mathison and Mary Marquardt, and is the father figure for 9-year-old Liam, the adopted son of his fiancee, Calista Flockhart.

“It may sound odd for someone in this business, but I’m not a natural filmgoer. I’ve never been a student of cinema. I don’t even watch many movies.

“But I like to work. I’ve always liked the work. I like the people who work on movie sets, and I like the process of filmmaking. I like the problem-solving aspects of film production, and I like being someplace where I’m useful.

“Besides, it keeps me away from such things as playing golf.

“So don’t carve any of my movies on the tombstone. I’m fine with a plain old epitaph.”

Cal Poly graduate student Martin Mares, a former English student of Clark’s, said he took Clark every quarter his senior year at Cal Poly.

Mares described Clark as easy-going, mellow and highly involved in the lives of his students.

“His classes were awesome,” Mares said. “Everyone would sit around in a circle and talk, like a circle of friends ... and every now and then he’d grant us a poem.”

opinion/editorial Editor in chief: Emilie Egger Managing Editor: Alex Kacik

Monday, January 25, 2010

mustangdaily@gmail.com

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mustang daily The voice of Cal Poly since 1916

9

I hate Comic Sans:

A typophile’s rant against the kindergarten font Comic Sans walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “We don’t serve your type.”

It’s true. If typefaces could walk and talk, I would discriminate against Comic Sans. I hate the font.

Maybe it was the time I received my first Beanie Baby in second grade and ripped off the tag. (Any beanie baby enthusiast would know that it’s against beanie baby etiquette, they even sell tag protectors). Or maybe it was the garage sale sign (I didn’t go), restaurant menu (I didn’t eat), midterm exam (I stared at it for a full five minutes before I began), or countless club posters around campus (I ripped them all off the wall).

I don’t know exactly when my hatred for Comic Sans began, but one thing still remains true: It’s time to kill the overexposed font. It’s time to ban Comic Sans.

According to graphic communication professor Brian Lawler, type is one of the most eloquent means of expression. Comic Sans however expresses something much different.

“It’s unfortunately ugly and unfortunately overused and abused,” he said.

The favored typeface of human resource managers and high school librarians, Com-

ic Sans was designed by Vincent Connare and released by Microsoft in 1995. Connare was inspired by the lettering style of comic books he had in his office, including Batman and Watchmen.

Connare originally designed Comic Sans specifically for comic book style talk bubbles and not for general use. The font’s initial name was Comic Book. However, Connare didn’t think the name sounded fit for a typeface. He used ‘sans’ referencing a sans-serif font because most of the lettering (except for the

uppercase I) doesn’t have serifs, the small features at the end of strokes.

Fifteen years after the Comic Sans induction, the font has been abused so excessively it threatens to erode the foundations upon which centuries of ty-

pographic history have been built.

From Gutenberg’s letterpress to the digital age, type, like music and art, has a rich history.

Throughout history, the design of letterforms has been influenced by the prevailing cultural climate.

The letters printed in Renaissance Europe by Johannes Gutenberg were a direct interpretation of the ornate gothic handwriting of the day — blackletter. Blackletter influenced the italic cut type, Bembo, which was informed by 16th century Italian handwriting.

Contemporary typography functions as a kind of weathervane for the era, with designers expressing themselves through type. Type is a voice; its very qualities and characteristics communicate to readers a meaning beyond mere syntax. This voice speaks louder than the text itself.

For example, when designing a “Do Not Enter,” “Danger” or “Caution” sign, the use of a heavy-stroked, attention-commanding font such as Gill Sans Bold or Bell Gothic Bold is appropriate.

Traffic signs are set in sans-serif typefaces (actually called Highway Gothic) which are developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration to maximize legibility at a distance and high speed.

Typesetting such messages in Comic Sans would be ridiculous.

This is sort of misuse is most common on posters around campus.

Comic Sans as a voice conveys silliness, irreverence, absurdity and is too casual for such a purpose. Writing your résumé in Comic Sans is analogous to showing up for a job interview in a clown costume.

Additionally, sans serif fonts are not typically used for large bodies of text. If you examine most textbooks, they are set in serif type.

This is because the serifs in text lead your eye from one letter to the next and promote easy comprehension. One more reason why Comic Sans shouldn’t be used for lengthy e-mails, college essays or exams.

On campus, typography is most effectively expressed through The Type Directors Club, the current show at the University Art Gallery.

The Type Directors club is an international organization founded in 1946 whose members include design professionals, typographic designers and typophiles. The exhibit features excellence in the use of typography, calligraphy, hand lettering and other letterforms.

The show clearly exemplifies the power and clarity of a well-chosen typeface. They’ve made it a point not to include Comic Sans.

Daniel Triassi is a journalism and graphic communications senior and Mustang Daily reporter.

daniel triassi mustang daily

Stand up for yourself by standing on principles This country was founded on several highly-valued principles outlined in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that shouldn’t be ignored.

Many are so basic and fundamental that they are easy to take for granted, especially if you have been born and raised in the United States and have had your rights respected all your life. However, rights are easily undermined; usually it isn’t an abrupt transition, but a slow and gradual one.

The transition is one of incrementalism, where a slippery path is embarked upon and at the beginning you don’t notice, but perhaps by the time you do notice things have gone too far and you wish you could get back to the “good old days.” As a rather extreme example, tyrants like Mao, Hitler and Stalin do not come to power instantly — there are circumstances leading up to their rise to power, and in many cases that includes elections.

I say this not because I think we’re headed for a tyrannical disaster, but because I think it’s always important to consider the future ramifications of actions we take now. I respect people who are against policy that maybe in and of itself isn’t harmful, but they see the potential harm down the road.

One area where I see small, incremental changes (but dangerous nonetheless) is with government checkpoints. In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court (Michigan Depart-

ment of State Police v. Sitz) ruled that checkpoints for the supposed purpose of catching intoxicated drivers were legal. Checkpoints were further expanded post-9/11 for the supposed purpose of immigration enforcement, with these checkpoints being allowed as far as 100 miles from a border.

Americans are routinely stopped and asked about their citizenship even when they don’t cross a border. All of this is contrary to our fourth amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizures. I fear that checkpoints will continue to grow in number and their purposes will expand as well.

Another example is firearm registration. There are many different forms of firearm registration, but generally I think people who are opposed to firearm registration aren’t as opposed to firearm registration itself

as much as the ramifications and the slippery slope that it entails. If a firearm is uncovered at the scene of a crime, law abiding citizens probably wouldn’t mind if it was traceable back to its owner. However, firearm registration (as the saying goes) leads to firearm confiscation.

I think it’s fairly easy to understand that during Katrina, when law enforcement and the National Guard unconstitutionally (and therefore illegally) went around confiscating firearms, that citizens wouldn’t want their firearms to be registered, as it would make them easier targets for an unlawful confiscation. History has shown that firearm registration has repeatedly led to confiscation, so people are rightfully very wary of any registration laws. Registration leads to more regulations of buying and selling firearms, as the registration must

be kept current and it also means that there is a database somewhere of people who own firearms and the quantity and types that they own.

This is sensitive information that can be easily misused. I’d imagine it’d be a criminal’s dream to access a list of who owns what firearms as the country would turn into a virtual superstore for that criminal.

We should stand up for even the smallest infringements on our rights.

Too many people don’t pay attention to small infringements and after a while the infringements seem normal. Once a small infringement of our rights is allowed, it makes it easier to expand that infringement subtly.

After a decent amount of time they are no longer small infringements of our rights, but rather big, huge violations of them. It is much harder to restore our rights as Americans at that point and much easier to have dealt with the small infringement at the beginning. It’s important to stand on principle and not let things slide, so to speak. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” How true a statement, and yet people seem to be doing just that every day.

Aaron Berk is a computer engineering junior and Mustang Daily political columnist.

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sports

11

Wrestling falls to No.12 Boise State in dual meet mustang daily staff report

After rolling off three straight wins, head coach Cal Poly wrestling coach John Azevedo looked to his team’s contests against No. 12 Boise State to solidify its legitimacy from a national perspective.

“We (were) definitely looking to win and prove ourselves as a top-10 program,” Azevedo said.

Boise State rode a technical fall

by No.1-ranked Kirk Smith and victories in two matches over nationally-ranked wrestlers as the Broncos defeated No. 15 Cal Poly 23-13 in a Pac-10 Conference dual meet Sunday afternoon in Mott Gym. “We were looking to go out and battle and be our best,” Azevedo said.

Smith earned a 20-4 technical fall against Mustang 184-pounder Kelan Bragg, lifting his record to 17-0 for the season, as Boise State improved to 11-2 and 4-0 in the Pac-10.

Cal Poly (6-3, 3-1) won two of its nine matches including a forfeit due to an injured Boise State’s Andrew Hochstrasser, who is ranked third in the nation.

No. 4 Filip Novachkov lost to No. 12 Levi Jones after surrendering an early 5-1 lead.

Jones held on for an 8-5 victory, moving him up to second in the Pac-10 with a 14-3 record. Novachkov, ranked first in the conference, fell to 18-5.

Ranked 10th in the nation, Cal

Poly’s Chase Pami had similar luck facing Boise State’s Adam Hall, ranked No. 2 nationally and No. 1 in the Pac-10.

Pami escaped to start the second period after a scoreless first.

It was his only lead as Hall notched four takedowns in a 11-6 decision. Pami fell to 20-5 and Hall moved up to 20-2.

Cal Poly’s Ryan Smith gave his team an early 4-0 lead with a 12-3 major decision against Matt Casperson at 197 pounds. Smith scored four takedowns, an escape, riding time and two penalty points for his 15th win in 24 matches this season.

Steven Vasquez earned the other win at 165, with a 6-5 decision over Michael Cuthbertson. Vasquez scored a takedown with 50 seconds left in the final period to take a 6-4 lead and secure the win.

Vasquez’s win (10-8) closed Boise State’s lead to 15-13, but the Broncos posted victories at 174 and 184 to clinch the dual meet.

At 174, Mustang sophomore Ryan DesRoches surrendered two takedowns, an escape and riding time in a 6-3 loss to No. 15 Nate Lee. Mustang 285-pounder Jim Powers extended Sam Zylstra into overtime before giving up a takedown in a 5-3 sudden-victory setback.

Cal Poly will host Arizona State on Feb. 5 at 6:30 p.m. and Oregon State on Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. for two more Pac-10 matches in Mott Gym.

ryan sidarto mustang daily

Cal Poly won two of nine contested matches against Boise State. One of the Mustang’s victories came off a forfeit.

mustangdaily.net Monday, January 25, 2010

SPORTS

sports editor: Brian De Los Santos

mustangdailysports@gmail.com

MUSTANG DAILY

Men’s Basketball records third consecutive conference win Zach Lantz mustang daily

With 17 seconds left on the clock, senior guard Lorenzo Keeler was whistled for a foul on Matador guard Raymond Cody. Cody, a junior, had been held scoreless to that point.

With the score at 73-72 in favor of the Mustangs, Cody needed two from the stripe to put his team up.

After missing the first free-throw, the second bounced off the rim and fell into a sea of players. After the ball was volleyed by nearly every player, the Matadors managed two shot attempts that didn’t find the nylon.

What ensued was something resembling a rugby scrum as both teams tried desperately to corral the ball while the referees swallowed their whistles. At least four players ended up on the floor and one Cal State Northridge player limped off with and injury. Somehow, Hanson secured the ball and the win with 2.2. seconds left. Neither team scored again.

The Mustangs (8-10, 5-2 Big West) mustered their second straight conference win Saturday night against Cal State Northridge (7-12, 2-4) in Mott Gym. Cal Poly, led by Keeler and his 23 points, beat Cal State Northridge 73-72 in what was part basketball game part brawl.

“It was ugly, it was really ugly, but ugly sometimes wins,” head coach Joe Callero said.

Hanson added 15 and Shawn Lewis finished with 11. resh of his

game-winning free throws from Thursday, Lewis gave Poly a 71-69 lead with 1:55 left.

“He hit some big shots for us made some big plays, got big rebounds, but his poise was much better … he is maturing as a player,” Callero said.

Still up two, Kyle Odister got a screen on the elbow from Keeler and kissed in a leaning banker with 43 seconds left, it would eventually prove to be the game winner.

“What we know about Kyle is that he’s done this two or three times for us … He shot it with confidence and I think the team expects him to make that shot,” Callero said.

Mark Hill, who led the charge for the Matadors and was perfect from the field until 3:53 mark in the second half, came back and hit an offbalance three. Running full speed down the left side of the court, Hill stopped and nailed a long-range three while fading to the left. Hill went 5-7 from long range and ended the night with 24 points.

“Maybe even a month ago we lose that game … (but now) the internal message in our guy’s head is we’re going to win, we’re going to find a way,” Callero said.

Still missing big man Will Donahue, Callero reached into his bag of tricks and played small ball. One point during the game, the tallest player on the court was the 6-foot6-inch David Hanson.

“Let’s play small, let’s play Golden State Warrior basketball,” Callero said. “How are they going to respond

nick camacho mustang daily

Sophomore guard Justin Brown finished the game with eight points. Brown was one of three Mustangs who combined to score 26 points off the bench. David Hanson finished with 15 and Charles Anderson finished with three. to us? We have three point guards out on the court … two small forwards and they had to adjust to us. We had quickness. We were able to move the ball, everybody could touch and drive it and pass it.”

The Mustangs are riding a three-

game win streak. Highlighted by their last two wins by a combined three points, Cal Poly is finishing close games.

“It’s a toughness that we’re having at the end of the game,” Keeler said.

“Last year, to be honest, we weren’t

as hungry, for whatever reason I don’t think everybody was hungry enough to finish off those games. This year, everybody wants to do their part whether that’s rebounding, making shots, whatever it is to win these close ones.”

Women’s basketball rebounds from loss against Matadors mustang daily staff report

Junior forward Kristina Santiago became the fifth leading scorer in Mustang Program history with a 15-point effort to propel Cal Poly (12-6, 5-2 Big West) to a 73-60 win against Cal State Northridge (3-13, 1-5) Saturday night.

Santiago surpassed three-time All-Big West selection Jessica Eggleston as the fifth-leading scorer in Mustang program history. With 1,055 collegiate points, Santiago requires just 21 points to supplant Sherrie Atteberry (1983-87) for the fourth spot on the Cal Poly careerscoring chart.

While Santiago is slowly etching her name in the Mustang record books, her mindset is not about scoring, it’s about setting up opportunities for her teammates.

“I’m playing with mostly double and triple teams anytime I get close

to the basket,” Santiago said. “My mindset has changed to go set a screen and get someone else open…

It’s not a one person sport.”

Other than Santiago, Rachel Clancy and Brittany Lange were two other Mustangs that finished the game with double figures.

Clancy tallied 13 points, while Lange added 15.

“We fell apart as a team, we stopped playing team ball. A lot of players started to do too much,” Santiago said. “Going into Northridge we were really trying to get back into that team player philosophy…

It was an improvement from the game against Riverside.”

Cal Poly kept pace in the Big West Conference regular season title chase despite shooting just 34.3 percent from the floor and converting only four of 16 threepoint attempts. The Mustangs, 21for-28 from the free throw line, committed just 11 fouls and sent the Matadors to the free throw line just nine times. Sophomore guard Ariel Gregersen finished with eight rebounds and freshman guard Caroline Reeves grabbed a careerbest seven for the Mustangs, who matched a season high with 52 boards.

Despite this season’s success the Mustangs are still working hard towards their goal of winning a conference championship.

“Our team is still pretty confident,” Santiago said. “We’re still working hard…We know we are

not going to get (to the Big West championship) easy. Every time we go to practice, every time we got to shoot around, we know we still have to work our butts off—it’s not going to come easy.”

Cal Poly, which has prevailed against Cal State Northridge during nine of the previous 10 matchups, failed to trail the Matadors by less than a field goal. Lange’s lone

three-pointer of the afternoon broke a 15-15 deadlock with eight minutes remaining before intermission as Cal Poly closed the opening half with a 21-4 run.

Up 36-19 at the break, the Mustangs led by as much as 55-32 with 11-and-a-half minutes to play. The Matadors successfully whittled Cal Poly’s advantage to 67-58 with less than two minutes remaining, but

the Mustangs knocked down seven of their last eight free throw attempts to preserve victory.

Senior guard Ashlee Stewart finished with six assists for Cal Poly.

Santiago’s Saturday double-double was also her fifth of the season.

The Mustangs return home to host U.C. Santa Barbara on Thursday, Jan. 28. Tip-off time in Mott Gym is scheduled for 7 p.m.

ryan sidarto mustang daily

Senior guard Brittany Lange was one of three Mustangs who finished in double digits against Cal State Northridge. Lange finished with 15, Kristina Santiago finshed with 15 and Rachel Clancy finished with 13.