4-15-10

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Mustang Daily has a new section! Check out The Science Scope.

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Video of upcoming Mexican folk dance performance online.

Baseball travels to Cal State Northridge.

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in sports, P. 11

mustangdaily Thursday, April 15, 2010

volume LXXIV, number 102

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Some clubs too risky Student participates in fundraiser for charter renewal to combat Multiple Sclerosis Jessica Barba jessicabarba.md@gmail.com

Several members of clubs on campus are worried their charters will not be renewed because Cal Poly Student Life and Leadership have labeled them “high risk.”

Of the 250 clubs on campus, 16 clubs’ charters remain in question because they were considered too dangerous because they involve open bodies of water, horses or motorized vehicles, said Stephan Lamb, associate director of Student Life and Leadership.

“This is all about student safety and not about the value of the activity,” Lamb said.

Student Life and Leadership director Everette Brooks said the risk and safety evaluations began in 2006 after the clubs were handed over from Associated Students Inc. to Student Life and Leadership for oversight.

The motion came in response to the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s Office releasing Executive Order 969 in 2006. The order was a set of outlined policies and procedures to be enforced by clubs on CSU campuses. Included in the rules was a review of all club activities, advisers and goals to be conducted by Student Life and Leadership.

The clubs began to evaluate

whether they were under the advisement of the most qualified person, Brooks said. Some clubs were put in the category of Instructionally Related Activities (IRAs), which meant they were given to specific college departments to manage, and others were asked to obtain insurance.

He added that often the adviser’s expertise overrides insurance coverage, and as an advocate for students, he wants to make sure the students remain safe.

“Management of the activity and the skill level of the people involved supersede the insurance. The insurance is if you do everything right and you’re covered to cover your bases,” Brooks said.

Penguins Motorcycle Club, established in 1947, and Poly Goats, created in 1966, are two of the clubs waiting for their charters to be approved.

Since being notified in fall 2009 that Cal Poly did not want to be liable for any accidents, Penguins’ vice president Alan Cook said that, like other clubs, the Penguins received insurance and have filled out the necessary paperwork to have their chartered renewed. Now, after almost seven months of waiting, he said he hasn’t had any signs from

courtesy photo As an advocate for MS in San Luis Obispo County, Cal Poly graduate Adriane Thiessen (second from left) says her team, Carpe Diem, will again participate in “Walk MS,” an annual fundraiser that sheds light on multiple sclerosis. The walk will take place on April 17. Statistics show approximately 300,000 people in the United States suffer from the disease.

Anthony Pannone anthonypannone.md@gmail.com

Adriane Thiessen was 13 when she came off the basketball court experiencing blurred vision and numbness on the right side of her face.

“It was like I was cut in half,” said the 24-year-old Cal Poly busi-

see Clubs, page 2

ness administration student.

Thiessen, like many physically and mentally handicapped students, struggles to balance the demands of her life while fighting Multiple Sclerosis (MS). No one knows exactly how many people have MS, but statistics show approximately 300,000 people in the United States suffer

from the disease, with 200 new cases weekly. A new case is diagnosed every hour, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

While Thiessen endures the aftershocks from her first symptoms, you wouldn’t know it. She is spunky and see Thiessen, page 2

UC Berkeley doubles admission offers to out-of-state students Lisa M. Krieger San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, Calif. — For the first time, University of California, Berkeley (UCB) has doubled the number of admission offers to outof-state and international students — while cutting coveted spaces for California residents.

Saying the state did not provide enough money to support California students, the university dropped the number of in-state offers by 15 percent — from 11,184 for the current school year to 9,459 for next fall’s freshman class, according to data released Wednesday by UC. This created vacancies for outof-state students, who pay three times as much in tuition and fees as students from California, translating to more than $20,000 more per student. About half of their fees are profit for the university.

“These students do not take space from a California student,” said Susan Wilbur, director of undergraduate admissions for the University of California.

the majority of the UCB student body. But out-of-state students will comprise 18.5 percent of next year’s freshman class, up from 8 percent last year. The percentage of inter-

“ ” I do think it is frustration for California kids today to find out it just got even harder to get in.

— Winston Thomas

California resident

“They are bringing more money to the university, which enables us to teach our California students at the same high quality level that they are used to.”

California students still make up

national student acceptances also climbed, from 5.7 to 8.3 percent.

It’s a way to bring in more revenue at a time when the state budget has cut back, said Walter Robinson, assistant vice chancellor and direc-

tor of undergraduate admissions.

“The additional nonresident funds will help UC Berkeley maintain academic excellence for all students,” he said.

Robinson noted that nonresident students bring much more with them than dollars. “These students come from various corners of the country and the world,” he said.

“They are all outstanding students and their diversity of experiences and perspectives will further enrich the university experience for the entire student population.”

The trend is less pronounced at other UC campuses, because they get fewer applications from outside the state, said Wilbur. At UC schools combined, 14 percent of accepted students come from out of the state or country, up from 12 percent last year.

San Mateo father Winston Thomas was relieved that daughter

Georgia was accepted to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for the fall term and UCB for next spring, but he is worried about what further state budget cuts could mean for her classmates and other Californians.

“I do think it is frustrating for California kids today to find out it just got even harder to get in,” he said. Of out-of-state students, “I wonder if they will stay in the state and ‘give back’ to the local economy?” he asked.

For the first time in UC history, seven campuses created wait lists for state residents. About 200 students are wait-listed at UCB; 1,181 at Santa Cruz and more than 5,000 at Davis. Wait-listed students will hear by the end of May if they are offered an opening at their favored campus.

“This was an exceptionally comsee Berkeley page 2

news Clubs continued from page 1

administrators about whether his charter will be renewed.

“I am kind of in the dark for what is going over there,” Cook said.

“Every time we do what they say, we don’t get anything back. It’s just really confusing.”

Cook said the Penguins has not had any injuries for the past four years; it wasn’t until last year when two club members performed wheelies during the Open House parade that the club was labeled “high risk.”

He said the trick upset police who said the members were putting those in the crowd at risk.

“I honestly think it is someone who hears a motorcycle and thinks it’s dangerous, but everyone has gloves and helmets,” Cook said.

Cook said for the past 60 years, the club had never had insurance because about 70 percent of its members have dirt bikes, which by law do not require insurance.

To have their charters renewed, members of the Penguins and the Poly Goats went to the California Off-Road Association, a decision

Berkeley continued from page 1

petitive year,” said Susan Wilbur, director of undergraduate admissions for UC. Competition was boosted by two factors: an increase in applicants and a reduction in available seats. UC received 100,428 applicants, up from 98,119 last

2 Brooks said was necessary to ensure safety.

Lamb said the university’s insurance has a $250,000 deductible per incident; when a college accepts a club into its portfolio, the college assumes responsibility for a potential lawsuit. When clubs hold activities off campus, a special $350 deductible is taken out for the event.

“We are trying to minimize our vulnerability because of the budget. We aren’t even that big,” Lamb said.

Brooks said he was unsure of when a decision would be made about the Poly Goats’ and Penguins’ charters.

Members of the Penguins and Poly Goats said they are eager to get a response because Open House weekend, April 15 to 18, is when they recruit most of their new members.

“It’s going to be hard to get new members, but obviously we will still be around,” Maher said.

“I don’t think Everette and Lamb understand that there are a lot of alumni who are really passionate and will be upset. So if it doesn’t work out, for lack of words, the shit will hit the fan.” year. And it reduced enrollment by 1,500 students.

Systemwide, 71.6 percent of California freshman applicants were offered admission for fall 2010, compared with 72.5 percent in 2009 and 75.4 percent in 2008.

There was a systemwide increase in admission offers to Asian, Latino and black students, according to UC. Offers to white applicants declined, because they represented

Thiessen continued from page 1

carefree, and there are no telltale signs she suffers from the disabling disease.

MS is an autoimmune disease that affects the human central nervous system, which controls all biological processes and motor skills, such as speech, eyesight and coordination. According to doctors and sufferers of the disease, its symptoms range and there is no cure.

“It’s like wiring a house and then stripping the insulation off the wires,” said Dr. Patrick Schwab, director of Academic Support and Department Student Programs and Services (DSPS) at Cuesta College.

“The content is in the brain, but when the nerves go to access it and bring it into consciousness, the signals cross. That signal is then manifested some other way. For instance, you want your hand to move, but your leg starts vibrating.”

Though doctors struggle to pinpoint the how and why of the disease, the onset of MS includes temporary blindness, depression, bladder and bowel dysfunction, numb or tingling sensations and prolonged bouts with fatigue.

a smaller portion of the application pool.

UC’s admitted class is 56 percent female and 44 percent male. Admitted students completed an average of 23 college prep courses, earned a high school grade point average of 3.84 and had an average SAT score of 1794 out of 2400. Almost onequarter ranked in the top four percent of their graduating classes.

But no student who met the uni-

Thursday, April 15, 2010 Connie Smith, development manager of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Southern California Chapter, described MS another way.

“Imagine being trapped inside your own body,” she said.

Thiessen, clenching her fist then opening up her hand, said she has lost feeling in her left hand and can’t type or write with it.

“And right now I can’t really feel my left leg,” she said, tapping it with her right hand. “Sometimes I just have to drag it along.”

MS attacks the body’s immune system and targets the myelin sheath — a fatty-layered protein casing that protects nerves in the central nervous system. Doctors conclude that the soft sheath is repeatedly bombarded by white blood cells, called T-cells, which are part of the body’s defense.

After scarring, tissue forms into lesions, which slow or even block the brain’s electric signals, causing both physical and emotional distress.

These lesions show up as dark spots on an X-ray or MRI. After the basketball game in July 2001, Thiessen said she visited an opthamologist, which, according to Schwab, is standard procedure when experiencing symptoms of MS. “We actually thought maybe the dentist had hit a nerve or something

because I had just gone to get a tooth filled,” Thiessen said. “Come to find out later, my family didn’t want to tell me they thought it might be MS because they didn’t want to scare me.”

According to Smith, studies show MS is two to three times more prevalent in women. And Schwab confirms Smith’s assertion.

“Yes, it is more prevalent in women, but I have no idea why. It goes to the issue of genetics. Whatever is causing the erosion of the (myelin) covering is a combination of genetic and viral infection,” he said.

Judy Finfrock was diagnosed with MS 25 years ago. She is bound to a wheelchair due to the severity of her condition. She lives in Paso Robles, where Thiessen grew up. She is also Thiessen’s aunt and mentor.

Doctors diagnosed her disease by process of elimination, says Finfrock.

Finfrock was 42 when she first felt numbness in the balls of her feet and fingertips, as if they were asleep. So, she visited several doctors hoping to find out what was causing the abnormal sensations. One doctor she saw diagnosed her with a brain tumor.

Another said her condition could be

versity’s entrance requirements was fully turned away. During the next several weeks, about 11,000 students who didn’t get their school of choice will be offered space at two campuses to which they didn’t apply, Riverside and Merced.

Other public university systems, such as Michigan and Vermont, also enroll much higher percentages of out-of-state students. But these states have declining in-state

populations, so the campuses need filling.

Critics of the UC trend warn that it could squeeze out qualified California students.

“The UCs are really a state jewel,” Thomas said. “It takes a lot of time and effort to build a reputation like UCB and UCLA. But it seems it could drop even faster if the state doesn’t fund them appropriately,” he said.

see MS, page 7

Not Your Grandma’s Coupon Page

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thesciencescope Health, Environment & Technology

Welcome to Science Scope!

The Science Scope is a new section of the Mustang Daily revolving solely around science news. Its purpose is to educate the Cal Poly community about the newest research and trends on anything from energy technology to stem cells. On a campus that hosts a majority of science-based majors, this section is a necessary and an extremely relevant branch of news.

If you’d like to submit an article for The Science Scope, please e-mail mustangdailyscience@gmail.com Science Editor, Katie O. Grady

Instrumental insemination of queen bees coming soon to Cal Poly Katie O. Grady mustangdailyscience@gmail.com

Cal Poly faculty are dabbling with instrumental insemination of queen bees, an evolving technology that could help with honey bee research to save commercial hives.

The European honey bee (apis mellifera) came to the settlement of Jamestown in the early 1600’s and has been spreading on its own ever since. With farming came the utilization of bee colonies for pollination. The nation now has over 2 million commercial bee hives with colonies including anywhere from 50,000-80,000 individuals.

California has seen huge losses in billions of bees and over a quarter of the nation’s hives in the last four years, attributed to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This is a phenomenon where worker bees abruptly disappear. The causes are debated, but most signs point to the accumulation of new pesticides, viruses and parasites. Populations suffered a drop in numbers due to varroa mite infestations in the late 1990’s.

Now, in the managed settings, new genetic lines of bees are decreasing the necessity for miticides and other chemical treatments.

Dr. David Headrick, a horticulture and crop science professor at Cal Poly, specializing in entomology, says a big segment of our economy has to be pollinated by bees. This includes about one third of food crops produced such as almonds, apples, pears, alfalfa and much more. Almonds are most at stake from CCD, with California making up half the world’s almond production. On top of that, commercial colonies produce about 200 million pounds of honey a year.

With the loss of bees not only do honey prices rise, but on the wider scale, the price of food crops pollinated by the bees goes up as well.

There are two categories of bees as Headrick explains. One includes feral bees, the bees that find their homes in stumps and abandoned structures, and then there are managed bees. The bees in the managed settings are genetically selected for traits such as docile behavior and honey production. These are the ones facing huge losses.

An evolving technology soon to be practiced at Cal Poly could give commercial bees the genetic edge they need to bounce back. This is the use of instrumental insemination, a form of controlled mating in bees. This method of selective breeding is used to create stronger, more durable bees. Scientists can hone in on desired traits such as mite and disease resistance.

“It’s not too wildly different from breeding cattle or horses or

dogs to maintain blood lines, breed quality and vitality,” Headrick said in an e-mail. “It’s like crossing a Labrador retriever and a poodle to create the perfect dog — the labradoodle.”

Though a semi-complicated process, bee breeding in the wild simply starts with the queen mating with multiple drones, which are always in flight. Once inseminated, the queen can store the sperm for the course of her egg-laying lifetime, and from then on her job is solely to reproduce. What the artificial insemination does is take selected sperm and inserting it into the Queen bee in a controlled laboratory setting. It’s used to ensure queens are crossed with specific drones to isolate and replicate certain characteristics.

Attempts to instrumentally inseminate queen bees, a microscopic procedure, began in the early 1800’s with Francois Huber, a Swiss naturalist who was entirely blind. This evolving technology is now in the hands of experts like Dr. Susan Cobey, bee breeder-geneticist at UC Davis. Considered the go-to-gal in the bee society, she’s taught researchers and beekeepers from all over the world. By using instrumental insemination for honey bee queens, researchers can get a better understanding of bee genetics and land on new opportunities in bee breeding.

With DNA sequencing, they are able to identify certain genes that can be selected for to help control diseases and parasites. This technology made possible the varroa-mite resistant strain allowing populations to rebound in the late 1900’s.

Nathan Longcrier, fruit science senior, participated in the beekeeping enterprise for two quarters in his sophomore and junior year. He would check almonds at a previous job and said he learned how important bees were to the industry.

“Without bees, it wouldn’t be what it is today,” Longcier said.

During the enterprise, students maintain hive health, rear queens, extract honey and sell honey. Students should be able to assist with instrumental insemination this spring.

“It can really help us take the queens that we like to keep hives that are healthier and stronger,” Longcrier said.

Scott Jeffreys, a lecturer in the horticulture and crop science department teaches the beekeeping class as well as running the beekeeping enterprise at Cal Poly. He took the class in 1979 and says when he began teaching it, he had to put up fliers just to get people to join. This spring, he has 70 students, three lab sections and over 100 European honey bee hives on campus.

Jeffreys is heading to UC Davis this week to take a class with Cobey on using the technology. Cal Poly just purchased the equipment for instrumental insemination, making it one of

katie grady mustang daily Swarm of bees at downtown San Luis Obispo. Roughly 150 species of crops are pollinated by commercial bee hives.

the few labs in California and part of only a handful of universities to host the technology.

“We are in the process of making this happen,” Jeffreys said.

“Since it’s microscopic, it’s a really difficult and complicated process.”

The process is similar to artificial insemination in livestock, but “we’ve got smaller gloves,” he said jokingly.

The hardest part is extracting the semen from the drone.

“Impregnating the queen is easy,” Jeffreys said.

Jeffreys discussed the threat of the newly introduced Africanized honey bee (apis mellifera scutellata), which reached U.S. borders in 1990 after hybridizing with the European honey bee. These drones are first out of the hive and most successful at mating. The only problem is in the managed setting they are aggressive and much more difficult to handle. Artificial insemination is a way to guarantee pure lines of European honey bees.

“The African bee is coming in hard and strong,” Jeffreys said.

“Our first line of defense is to keep as many European bee swarms.”

With the managed bees in a controlled setting, Jeffreys argues, the Africanized bees will probably become the dominant feral bee, since they do a better job of fighting pathogens. In recent media, the hype has been speculation about what will happen if the bees disappear. Jefferey’s argues that it’s that a new species will take over.

“I think the bees will outlast the humans,” Jeffreys said.

News

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

news editor: Jessica Barba mustangdailywire@gmail.com

Briefs State

SAN LUIS OBISPO (MCT) — The deaths of the Polish president and his wife in the weekend plane crash in Russia have reverberated in Paso Robles, where the board of a classical music festival has developed close ties with the Polish government.

Killed were Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria Kaczynska. They were among 96 people who died Saturday in a plane crash in western Russia. Investigators are pointing to human error as the cause.

A Toast To Paderewski concert is scheduled for 6 p.m. April 24 at Pear Valley Winery, 4900 Union Road, Paso Robles. Proceeds will help fund a musician exchange program between the Paso Robles Paderewski Festival and Poland.

•••

LOS ANGELES (MCT) — Lancaster, Calif., residents have voted overwhelmingly to continue the city’s policy of allowing clergy from different faiths to deliver an invocation at council meetings without restricting references to specific religious figures, including Jesus Christ.

The controversial policy, included on the ballot in Tuesday’s municipal elections, passed with about 75 percent of the vote, according to results published by the city.

National

International

NEW YORK (MCT) — Despite e-filing, 24-hour tax prep centers, easy-to-use computer programs and the lure of refunds, the IRS expects hundreds of thousands of people to file their tax returns barely before Thursday’s deadline.

The reason: Americans find the annual ritual only slightly more bearable than attending a funeral, a new survey shows.

The survey, by Allianz Life Insurance Company, found that even though the majority of those asked expected to get a refund, they’d just as soon not bother with 1040s, Schedule Cs and the like.

MEXICO (MCT) — In the second stop on her first solo international foray, first lady Michelle Obama Wednesday met her Mexican counterpart and touched on the sensitive topic of drug treatment in a nation reeling from a war against narcotics cartels.

Mexican first lady Margarita Zavala received Obama at Los Pinos, the Mexican presidential compound near the Chapultepec Park in the heart of the capital. The two spoke for 45 minutes about “drug addiction treatment and early prevention programs” and care for migrant children, a White House statement said.

WASHINGTON (MCT) — Wednesday marked the 10th day that hundreds of thousands of jobless people couldn’t get benefit checks because of congressional gridlock, an impasse rooted in politics, and perhaps one with political consequences in November.

Democrats say that the legislation — which also would fund temporary increases in Medicare payments to doctors is a response to true emergencies. Republicans agree, but insist that the cost should be offset by cutting federal spending elsewhere.

Meanwhile, polls show the public is growing more disgusted with lawmakers regardless of party.

LONDON (MCT) — Climatechange researchers accused of manipulating or hiding data in last year’s “Climategate” affair were guilty of sloppy record-keeping but not bad science, an independent panel in Britain concluded Wednesday.

Allegations that the researchers deliberately misrepresented data to promote the idea of human-caused global warming rocked the scientific community in November, just as world leaders were preparing for an international environmental summit.

The allegations, by skeptics of climate change, were based on e-mails hacked from the University of East Anglia in eastern England.

•••

Word on the street If a movie were to be made about your life, who would play you?

•••

“Will Ferrell.“

“Natalie Portman. I think she has a dynamic range of personality and she was born in Israel.“

-Nick Taylor, recreation, parks and tourism freshman

-Marisa Blume, psychology senior

“Liam Neeson, because he is tall and sexy.”

“Vince Vaughn or Woody Harrelson, because they are both extremely talented actors.“

-John Wall, environmental engineering freshman

-Dean De Smet, construction management junior

“Cuba Gooding Jr. Come on, ‘Snow Dogs’ and ‘Men of Honor.’“

“Julia Roberts.”

-Robert Aguero, forestry and natural resources freshman

-Molly Stites, mathematics senior

compiled and photographed by jessica barba

News

Arizona passes strict illegal immigration act Nicholas Riccardi Los Angeles Times

DENVER — Arizona lawmakers on Tuesday approved what foes and supporters agree is the toughest measure in the country against illegal immigrants, directing local police to determine whether people are in the country legally.

The measure, long sought by opponents of illegal immigration, passed 35-21 in the state House of Representatives.

The state Senate passed a similar measure earlier this year, and Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is expected to sign the bill.

The bill’s author, state Sen. Russell Pearce, said it simply “takes the handcuffs off of law enforcement and lets them do their job.”

But police were deeply divided on the matter, with police unions backing it but the state police chief ’s association opposing the bill, contending it could erode trust with immigrants who could be potential witnesses.

Immigrant rights groups were horrified, and contended that Arizona had been transformed into a police state.

“It’s beyond the pale,” said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “It appears to mandate racial profiling.”

The bill, known as SB 1070, makes it a misdemeanor to lack proper immigration paperwork in Arizona. It also requires police officers, if they form a “reasonable suspicion” that someone is an illegal immigrant, to determine the person’s immigration status.

Citizens can sue to compel police agencies to comply with the law, and no city or agency can formulate a policy directing its workers to ignore the law a provision that advocates say prevents so-called sanctuary orders that police not inquire about people’s immigration status.

The bill cements the position of Arizona, whose border with Mexico is the most popular point of entry for illegal immigrants into the United States, as the state most aggressively using its own laws to fight illegal immigration. In 2006 the state passed a law that would dissolve companies with a pattern of hiring illegal immigrants. Last year it made it a crime for a government worker to give improper benefits to an illegal immigrant.

Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that advocates tougher immigration enforcement, said the legislation was a logical extension of the state’s previous enforcement efforts.

“It makes sense that they would be the first to do it since they’re ground zero for illegal immigration,” he said.

Krikorian added that he doubted the law would be used much. “Obviously, their prosecutors aren’t go-

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ing to go out and prosecute every illegal alien,” he said. “It gives police and prosecutors another tool should they need it.”

Opponents, however, raised the specter of officers untrained in immigration law being required to determine who is in the country legally. They noted that though the bill says race cannot solely be used to form a suspicion about a person’s legality, it implicitly allows it to be a factor.

“A lot of U.S. citizens are going to be swept up in the application of this law for something as simple as having an accent and leaving their wallet at home,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.

The ACLU and other groups have vowed to sue to block the bill from taking effect should Brewer sign it. They note that a federal court struck down a New Hampshire law in 2005 that said illegal immigrants were trespassing, declaring that only the federal government has the authority to enforce immigration.

The issue of local enforcement of immigration laws has been especially heated in Arizona, where Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has taken an aggressive stance, conducting sweeps in immigrantheavy neighborhoods to round up illegal immigrants.

His actions have drawn a civil rights investigation from the Department of Justice but strong praise from Arizonans. Other agencies have argued against Arpaio’s stance, saying that they need illegal immigrants to trust them enough to report crimes.

Brewer, a Republican, has not taken a public stance on the bill.

She replaced Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who became President Barack Obama’s Homeland Security chief last year. Napolitano had vetoed similar bills in the past.

Brewer faces a primary challenge next month; most observers expect her to sign the measure.

Some Republicans have privately complained about the bill, which Pearce has been pushing for several years, but were loath to vote against in an election year. The House was scheduled to approve it last week but the vote was delayed until Tuesday to give sponsors a chance to round up enough votes.

It picked up steam after the killing late last month of a rancher on the Arizona side of the Mexican border.

Footprints from the crime scene led back to Mexico.

In an impassioned debate Tuesday, both sides relied on legal and moral arguments.

“Illegal immigration brings crime, kidnapping, drugs — drains our government services,” said Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican.

“Nobody can stand on the sidelines and not take part in this battle.”

11-year-old girl found alive after 4 days

mcclatchy-tribune

In this photo provided by the Winter Springs Police Department, Nadia Bloom is picked up by Cpl. Kevin Chaulk after she was found and rescued. She disappeared in swampland near her home for four days.

Bianca Prieto, Gary Taylor and Walter Pacheco The Orlando Sentinel

WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. — Almost two hours into a trudge through some of Central Florida’s densest swamp, James King announced he had witnessed a miracle: “I’ve got her. I’ve got Nadia,” the volunteer searcher told 911 dispatchers from his cell phone.

King had discovered 11-year-old Nadia Bloom on Tuesday, four days after she disappeared in the insectand snake-infested swampland near her home. She was exhausted and bug-bitten but alive, he said in a recording of the call that was released Tuesday night.

Doctors later confirmed that aside from the bites, some scratches and dehydration, Nadia was in good condition.

Missing-persons experts say Nadia’s story is one of survival.

These cases are unusual, they say, but do happen, such as the 3-yearold found last year in Missouri after being lost in the woods for two days.

“The miracle aspect in Nadia’s case is the fact of where she was found. Clearly, there were a lot of negative things that could have happened to her,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Nadia was last seen Friday. Her mother alerted police after she found her daughter’s bike at the end of a cul-de-sac in their gated subdivision. The kickstand was down, and her helmet was on the handlebars.

Her disappearance sparked a

massive search through the forest by teams with dogs, ATVs, horses and helicopters.

King, 44, of Orlando, called 911 from his BlackBerry about 8:30 a.m.

EDT Tuesday. At the dispatcher’s request, he handed the phone to the fifth-grader.

“Hi, this is Nadia. And I’m the girl who got lost,” she said.

King and Nadia knew each other from church, he told the dispatcher.

“Nadia, are you OK? You’re not hurt in any way?” the dispatcher replied.

“No. What’s your name?” she asked.

As King and dispatchers tried to figure out how to get them out of the swamp, King fed the hungry and thirsty girl.

“An apple?” he offered.

“Sure an apple! I’d love an apple,” Nadia said.

She cheered when King said he had chocolate milk and said she had faith she would be found.

“I kept saying over and over to myself that God would probably lead me home,” Nadia said.

King found the girl in a hard-toreach area about a half-mile east of State Road 417. Rescuers had not yet searched there.

Rescue crews headed toward the pair and a helicopter hovered over the area. King climbed a tree and lobbed toilet paper over the canopy as a visual

clue for the pilot.

Shortly before noon, officials carried Nadia out of the woods in a black sling. Nadia, who has an autism-related disorder called Asperger’s syndrome, had on jean shorts and a T-shirt but was not wearing shoes.

Her parents, Jeff and Tanya Bloom, as well as younger sister Sophia, watched as rescuers loaded Nadia into an ambulance for a trip to South Seminole Hospital in Longwood.

“It all came so fast, and it just shows the compassion of the human spirit.

It should give everybody encouragement,” Jeff Bloom told reporters.

When asked how he felt, Nadia’s father said: “I can’t even describe it.

Let’s give the glory to God.” “She’s smiling. Her vital (signs) are stable. She has some abrasions and bites. She is dehydrated and receiving (intravenous) fluids and wound care,” said Dr. Rakesh Parekh, medical director at South Seminole. “She is doing remarkably well.”

Late Tuesday, Nadia was no longer at South Seminole, but it was not known if she had been released or transferred to another hospital.

People can go for days without food and not experience any drastic health issues, said Dr. Aaron Godshall, a Florida Hospital for Children pediatric critical-care expert who is not treating Nadia. see Alive, page 6

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4 killed in Chicago home and 12-year-old escapes Liam Ford, Cynthia Dizikes and Pat Curry Chicago Tribune

mcclatchy-tribune

Family members and neighbors react to news of a quadruple shooting at a Marquette neighborhood residence. A woman and three children were found shot to death Wednesday morning in the bedrooms of a Chicago bungalow, part of a crime scene police described as “incomprehensible.” the neck and wounding the others in the head. When he saw that his wife was still alive, he shot her in the head, Thompson said.

Police were alerted around 4:25 a.m. Wednesday after a 12-year-old girl ran out of the house and down the street, sources said.

The gunman chased her and fired a shot but missed, a source said. The girl made it to a gas station and was asking someone to call police when a squad car approached and the girl told officers about the shooting, the source said.

Gas station attendants said a young girl burst through the door in her pajamas a little after 4 a.m.

They said she was crying and asked one of the attendants to call her mom and the police.

Police put out an alert for a 32year-old relative from Madison, Wis., who they said had a beard and goatee and was wearing dark clothing.

In the meantime, the suspect left the house, ditching a 9mm handgun along the way, a law enforcement source said. A squad car spotted him at about 5:49 a.m. and he was arrested without incident.

A handgun was recovered, but Chicago Lawn District Cmdr. John Kupczyk said police were still trying to determine whether it was used in the murders.

“This is a really bad crime scene,”

Kupczyk said. “Something like this is pretty incomprehensible.”

The suspect’s sister — who is the mother of two of the dead children — said she was not at the house at the time but got a call from her 12-year-old daughter who had escaped.

“She called me screaming,” Keisha Larry said. “She said, ‘He killed everyone.’ She told me my brother chased her down the street.”

Larry said her mother, Leona Larry, is on a ventilator at the hospital and her son, Demond, was undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound to the face.

The suspect, her brother, has an arrest record dating back to 1995 for battery, drug possession, resisting arrest and escape. He was sentenced in January of this year for a misdemeanor battery conviction, according to records. His most recent address is a halfway house for parolees in Janesville, Wis., though most of his arrests were in the Madison, Wis., area.

Ella Smith, a relative of the family, said her sister-in-law called her this morning screaming and crying.

“She said her brother killed her kids,” said Smith. “She said her daughter managed to escape and he chased her down the street shooting.”

But the real danger to her health would have come from a lack of access to clean drinking water.

“The key here really in her situation is dehydration,” Godshall said. “The body can convert muscle protein and fat stores into energy. But fluid is another story.

The heart must have a sufficient volume to be able to circulate the blood.”

Godshall said Nadia was likely cold outdoors at night, but with temperatures in the 50s and 60s, she did not have to worry about frostbite. However, her body would have used the heat it had to protect her vital organs, so she could be suffering from poor circulation.

Nadia’s arrival at the hospital attracted more than the media.

The story, which has received national attention, gripped the community.

Jessie Coutermarsh, 45, drove from her home in Deltona, Fla., to the hospital for a chance to see Nadia.

“I was just excited. Goosebumps all over,” she said. “It’s absolutely wonderful that they found her.”

Authorities hailed King for finding Nadia.

“God directed me to her,” he said, adding he and his family had prayed the night before for her safe return.

After emerging from the woods with Nadia and rescue crews, authorities quickly debriefed and him and questioned him about how he was able to find the girl.

King said they checked his car and background.

“Mr. King is a hero right now,” said Winter Springs Police Chief Kevin Brunelle.

Brunelle was relieved he did not have to make a decision about the search for Nadia at the 96hour mark — a key point at which the odds of survival without food or water decrease.

“I feel extremely relieved and extremely happy and proud of this community ... for sticking with us,” the chief said.

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Thompson. Tawanda was pregnant with a girl she was going to name Khadijah, she said.

On Tuesday, the suspect had come down from Madison, Wis. with his wife and son and mother to visit his sister, Keisha Larry, according to the suspect’s brother, Letisha Larry, 30. “He snapped out and killed them,” Larry said. “He was saying some Muslim stuff.”

Larry, who also lives in Madison, said her brother had been a “little weird” lately.

“He was like just saying little weird little stuff about (how) he was an angel and we were demons, there’s demons in the house,” Larry said.

The suspect carried around the Quran, and about a week ago he started telling his family that something in the book told him to kill someone, Letisha Larry said.

She wasn’t aware of her brother having any diagnosed mental problems, and she said she thinks he should be brought to justice.

“How you going to shoot your mom and then your wife and kids?

That’s just crazy,” Letisha Larry said. “Your niece and nephew. Why would you do something like that?

You were just a killer.”

Thompson and her mother Veronica said they were told by police that the suspect opened fire unprovoked, first shooting his wife in

continued from page 5

i break s gs ow blo esh slid dio au

CHICAGO — A woman and three children were found shot to death Wednesday morning in the bedrooms of a Chicago bungalow, part of a crime scene police described as “incomprehensible.” Two other people were critically wounded and a suspect — a relative of the victims — was in custody.

A 12-year-old girl who was shot at by the suspect as she fled the home alerted police at a nearby gas station, authorities said.

The children were Jihad, the 7-month-old son of the alleged gunman, his 3-year-old niece, Keleasha Larry, and his 16-year-old niece, Keyshai Fields, who a friend said was four months’ pregnant.

Keyshai and Keleasha were found shot to death in the same bed.

The fourth victim was a 19-yearold woman identified by family members as the alleged gunman’s wife, Twanda Thompson, who he married just weeks ago and who was expecting their second child.

She and Jihad were found in bed in a separate bedroom with gunshot wounds to their heads, police said.

The two wounded were identified by family members as the alleged gunman’s mother, Leona Larry, and his 13-year-old nephew, Demond Larry. They both suffered gunshots to the head and were taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, a fire department spokesman said.

The suspect was arrested several miles away about an hour and a half after the shootings.

A law enforcement source, citing preliminary information, said the man told police he had been hearing voices that told him to bring his family to Allah. He also told police he didn’t have enough ammunition, the source said.

The suspect had been arrested last fall for allegedly beating Thompson, according to records. Just last week, Thompson filed a paternity case against the suspect, records show.

And in recent days, Thompson said the suspect had been fighting because he wanted her to dress in Muslim garb, but she refused, according to Shirina Thompson, the older sister of Twanda Thompson.

The suspect had become a Muslim while in federal prison on a gun charge, relatives said. Recently, he had been acting strangely, talking about “going to Allah,” Thompson said.

Twanda had been with the suspect two years, but they had been married for the last two to three weeks, said her sister Shirina

Alive

7.1 quake in China leaves 400 dead

Barbara Demick Los Angeles Times

BEIJING — Chinese authorities raced against time, distance and wind in a remote corner of the Tibetan plateau as they tried to rescue victims from a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 400 people and injured more than 8,000 others.

The earthquake struck Wednesday morning in one of the most inaccessible reaches of China, Qinghai province’s Yushu county. The 100,000 people in the area are mostly Tibetan, many of them making their living herding yaks and sheep.

Houses of mud and wooden beams gave way almost immediately when the tremor struck at 7:49 a.m. in the county seat of Jiegu. A series of aftershocks collapsed schools built of concrete and a pagoda in the main park.

The school collapses evoked painful memories of the Sichuan province earthquake of 2008 in which, by the official count, 5,335 children were crushed to death in their classrooms.

“Buildings in our school were all toppled, and five pupils have died,” a teacher surnamed Chang at the Yushu Primary School, a boarding school with about 1,000 students, told the Xinhua news service. “Morning sessions did not begin when the quake happened.

Some pupils ran out of dorms alive, and those who had not escaped in time were buried.”

At a vocational school, troops sought to rescue 20 teachers and students still buried.

Logistical difficulties frustrated rescue crews. Phones lines and electricity were out and strong winds swept the plateau. Nearly 12,000 feet in elevation, Yushu is a full day’s drive from the nearest major airport, in the provincial capital of Xining. A small airport nearby that opened last summer lacks fuel pumps and lost power and communications equipment in the quake.

“What we need most is teams with special skills for earthquake rescue, because we’re mostly digging ourselves right now,” Pubu Cairen, head of the county’s emergency response, told CCTV in a telephone interview.

Restraining the emotion in his voice, he told the television reporter:

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“When I went back home to check, I found my house too had collapsed and my mother was killed.”

“It is very difficult to save people with our bare hands,” Shi Huajie told the Chinese television station.

As night fell, many of the Tibetans had fled the town and retreated to tents in the mountains, returning to a nomadic lifestyle they had given up years before.

“People are sleeping in the mountains. They don’t want to go back to their houses which are made of mud,” said a 24-year-old student from Yushu, reached by telephone in Xining.

The student, who did not wish her name to be used, said most of the victims were Tibetans, many of them older people who were still at home or sleeping when the earthquake hit.

“It was a very destructive earthquake,” the student said. “We have never had such a strong one in Yushu.”

People’s Liberation Army troops garrisoned in Yushu secured banks, oil depots and caches of weapons and explosives shortly after the quake, CCTV reported, but there were no reports of looting or ethnic tension.

As with the Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese military looks likely to take a major role in the rescue work.

The Air Force had ordered 1,500 airborne troops and 100 parachutists to assist in the quake zone.

MS continued from page 2

a “number of 100 different things.”

Not satisfied, she kept searching until a friend recommended a doctor in San Francisco who was using state-of-the-art technology — Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

“When I saw the MRI, it looked like someone had taken a shotgun and unloaded it on my brain,” Finfrock said. “I went home and cried for about three hours, then talked with a friend who told me, ‘You can either lay down and die, or you get on with your life.’ Well, I got on with life; it’s just the way I am.”

Finfrock suffers from PrimaryProgressive MS, the second of four types, which include Relapsing-Remitting MS, Secondary-Progressive MS and Progressive-Relapsing MS. All four types share one characteristic: a slow deterioration of neurological function.

It is a complex disease and difficult to detect.

What makes the disease so elusive to doctors is its early symptoms are temporary. And, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Web site, there is no definitive test for MS, only a series of neurological tests known as The Revised McDonald Criteria — which includes MRI, Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) and spinal fluid analysis.

With all this uncertainty looming in the scientific realm, living with MS is an unrelenting battle between mind and body for Thiessen. Planning her schedule around daily treatments and shuffling between disability service providers has made life an uphill battle.

According to Cal Poly Disbilities Resource Center access specialist Chris Parker-Kennedy, approximately 500 to 550 Cal Poly students walk through the DRC office seeking services. Students with health impairments, ParkerKennedy said, not only include those with MS, but also diabetes, cancer, arthritis and cancer.

The DRC is bound by federal and state law pertaining to confidentiality in mental health as specifically stated in The American Disability Act, which prohibits disclosure of doctor-patient medical history to a third party. As a result, there is neither graduation rate nor an exact head count showing how many Cal Poly students actually have MS. And because symptoms are temporary and not all noticeable, MS is a tricky disease, which can leave sufferers with little or no external signs of plight for years. For Thiessen, appearing ‘normal’ has its challenges, especially at Cal Poly.

“I missed so much school because I always had physical therapy

or doctor’s appointments,” Thiessen said. “Like, one time I got to take a test home — I didn’t cheat or anything — but I thought it was nice of my teacher to trust me. Another time though, I e-mailed a teacher and never got a reply. I am thankful I look normal, yeah, but there are times when I felt teachers thought I was making it up. I don’t even know why I’d make it up.”

Instructors are considered “third parties,” and, thus, are left in the dark when it comes to really knowing the medical condition of their students, often having to make judgments of

rather than autoimmune diseases,” Thiessen said. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t look normal. I feel since I look normal, people have no idea what I go through.”

Schwab said the first step in negotiating “reasonable accommodations” for students with health impairments starts with a doctor’s verification of said impairment. The second is an interactive forum in which a specialist develops a plan based on an individual’s needs. And once the accommodations are set, it is the responsibility of the student or service provider to meet them.

“ ” Sometimes I wish I didn’t look normal. I feel since I look normal, people have no idea what I go through.

— Adriane Thiessen

Cal Poly graduate

a particular student’s requests based on correspondence from the DRC or DSPS. After her dream to play college basketball ended, Thiessen found a new love — marketing. She hopes to work for a nonprofit someday but says working full-time is tough because of constant bouts with fatigue.

Before transferring to Cal Poly, Thiessen attended Cuesta College.

“I think Cuesta’s DSPS is better just because there’s more understanding, more leniency when it comes to sudden illness — at least with my condition. I know there are others on campus who don’t just have ADD or test anxiety, and I just feel like people don’t understand what it’s like in our shoes. It sucks.”

The DRC offers a list of services that can be found on its website. Services include classroom note-takers, on-campus transportation, assisted listening devices, and priority registration.

“I feel there is more concentration (at Poly) on test anxiety and ADD,

Law dictates what service a healthimpaired student receives. It doesn’t, however, provide answers.

Thiessen said on a typical day she wakes up and takes a shot of Copaxone — a steroid that treats relapsing-remitting symptoms of MS — then swallows vitamins and antidepressants. She also takes Arisept, a pill that improves memory tasks.

These daily treatments attempt to thwart the disease’s plan to degrade the body.

Thiessen remembers when her brother, Ryan, helped cut and style her hair when MS had fatigued her body.

“She’s my little sis, man, and I felt helpless,” he said. “After I found out, I wanted to know everything I could about MS. My fear was that she wouldn’t be able to walk someday.

One of the hardest things was when the doctor told her she wouldn’t be able to play sports any more because I know how much she loved being out there.”

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mustangdailyarts arts editor: Leticia Rodriguez mustangdailyarts@gmail.com

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Swap-o-Rama-Rama aims to reduce carbon footprint Kelly Cooper kellycooper.md@gmail.com

UpcycleSLO will be hosting Swap-oRama-Rama, an interactive event including a clothing swap and do-it-yourself workshops and demonstrations, at Laguna Middle School this Saturday.

The event promotes the reusing of clothes to create original pieces.

Jennifer Alexander, pioneer of UpcycleSLO and San Diego State University alumna, founded the creative collective group with friend Sara McGrath in November 2009. The group’s purpose derives from the term coined ‘upcycling,’ which is the process of converting unwanted materials into new, creative items without leaving a carbon footprint.

“Instead of recycling, which takes a lot of energy and resources, upcycling doesn’t. You just take something and recreate it,” Alexander said.

With her new club in its grassroots stage and new ideas surfacing, Alexander came across Swap-o-Rama-Rama in a friend’s book titled “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.”

After contacting Wendy Tremayne, creator of Swap-o-Rama-Rama, Alexander signed on and became San Luis Obispo’s first Swap-o-Rama-Rama coordinator.

“I wanted this event to be here because I wanted to go to this event,” Alexander said. “And, I thought, if I want to go to this event, then I’ll have to do it!”

Tremayne started Swap-o-RamaRama in 2004 in New York City after taking time off work and re-considering her place as a consumer. After having a few clothing swaps at friends’ houses that soon included sewing machine and crafts, she saw innovation start to blossom both in creativity and sustainability. So, she decided to take the swap to a larger scale.

“I was considering the concept of value and looking at commodifying culture and wondering about the issues around consumerism,” Tremayne said.

“The maker is what we’re losing —

what we’ve lost. This event is bringing people back to an experience to remind people that they’re makers.”

After deciding to get a Creative Commons license for the event, Tremayne was able to essentially “give away” her idea to all who wanted to host a Swap-o-Rama-Rama, both for profit and nonwprofit.

Attendees for San Luis Obispo’s event must bring a pile of unwanted clothes and/or textiles, such as bed sheets and pillowcases. They are also encouraged to bring extra sewing supplies. All other supplies, such as crafts and sewing tools, are being donated from local craft stores and consignment shops such as Curio in San Luis Obispo and the Cotton Ball in Morro Bay. Rob Appell, co-owner of the Cotton Ball, is excited for the community to use the nine sewing machines that his company is lending out.

And although the machines will be for sale, that is not his intent for supporting the Swap-o-Rama-Rama.

“So many people are doing recycling of things, and we support that,” Appell said. “My goal was to not overwhelm the community, and to really be there to support the program to help out with the machines and not sell, sell, sell — that really turns my stomach.”

All proceeds from San Luis Obispo’s event are supporting EcoSLO, a local nonprofit organization focused on the protection and enhancement of the environment. Alexander also hopes that this event will serve as a business opportunity to help get UpcycleSLO’s name out.

“We’re trying to get our name out there by teaching people the joys of being creative,” Alexander said.

The event will feature classroom workshops ranging from Basic Sewing and Tension to Pillowcase Possibilities, each led by an experienced local artist who will show attendees how to alter textiles to create new original pieces.

Cory Anderson, who will be leading the Accessories Galore workshop, wants participants to realize the simplicity of reusing.

“We always want to go out and buy

picture of the day

by Ryan Sidarto

“Windows”

stuff. Trendy stuff you find at places like Urban Outfitters are actually really easy to make yourself,” Anderson said.

Experienced crafters as well as firsttime creators are welcome to the event,

which will also have demonstrations on knitting, crocheting, jewelry making and others. And kids are welcome, too.

Cuesta College student Karen Silva will be hosting a kids’ hour, where she will

teach children how to make super hero costumes.

“It’s really awesome to introduce

see Swap, page 11

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

Reggae rockers kick off tour at Cal Poly John McCullough johnmccullough.md@gmail.com

San Diego’s Through the Roots will play a free show at Cal Poly’s Via Carta Mall, near Campus Market today before going on to tour the West. They

said they plan to play songs on the tour that no one has heard.

The band’s story isn’t entirely typical of many groups today. Through the Roots formed back in 2008 when the death of a good friend of the band sparked the band’s song writing, band manager Grant Betrix said.

The first song they ever wrote was ‘Man Down.’ “It’s about a good friend that died,” Betrix said. “The first guy to really get the band idea going was Chris.”

Chris Cruz met up with friends Evan Hawkins, Bryan Jackson and Taylor Boatwright and began playing music in their room. Brady O’Rear joined the band after being found on Craigslist to play keyboards.

At the moment, the band members have a lot of things on their minds.

Practicing their songs as much as possible is one of them. Hawkins, the band’s singer, said the most important thing to the band is the crowd’s response to their music.

“For us, making it is getting good feedback from people. When someone comes up to me and says they don’t really listen to our genre of music but they like us, that makes me feel great,” Hawkins said. “We take this seriously.

Some money in the pocket would be nice but ultimately it’s for the fans.”

It’s easy for bands like Through the Roots to be compared to the other American bands playing reggae music that have spawned over the past decade. Through the Roots likes to ignore that sort of thing. They say their biggest difference from those bands is their lack of help from a record company or big-name producer.

“Bands like that have a lot of help.

We don’t have a record deal, we’ve had to pretty much do this on our own,” the band said. “We want to be as big as we can be but we don’t want to compare ourselves to any of the other bands

courtesy photo San Diego reggae band Through the Roots will play today at Cal Poly’s Via Carta Mall near Campus Market at 11 a.m. The band was formed in 2008. out there like that.”

The music on their new album is different from bands like Iration, who Through the Roots is about to begin touring with, and 311, who has taken on the role of godfather to this now not-so-new genre of music.

“A lot of what’s on our new album is what’s going to set us apart. We’re using a lot of reggae bass lines and heavy in-your-face songs. We also use a lot of synth which is different,” Hawkins said. “We’re mixing a lot of genres, trying to come up with the best sound.”

Through the Roots will play today at 11 a.m. before going on to play another free show at California State University, Monterey Bay. They meet up with Iration for the Time Bomb Tour on April 23 and will play shows in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Washington.

Dave Carlsen is in charge of booking bands for Cal Poly’s concerts. He found them while looking at online profiles of bands like the Expendables, Iration and Tomorrow’s Bad Seeds.

“I look for something the Cal Poly students are going to enjoy,” Carlsen said. “I put my personal preferences aside. It’s about what the students enjoy.”

Carlsen said he looks forward to today’s show. He said that Cal Poly is contacted all the time by bands that are looking to get exposure to a crowd of college students and Through the Roots really caught his ear.

“My initial reaction to Through the Roots is that they’re going to be the next big thing in the genre. They’ve got a pretty clean sound, it’s really catchy reggae with a rock base,” Carlsen said.

“It’s going to be a great show.”

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Swap continued from page 9

kids to this way of life at such a young age, so I thought that would be really fun,” Silva said. “Kids are hilarious, so I’m excited to see what they’ll come up with. I can’t wait to see them running around in the things they’ve made.”

Aside from workshops and demonstrations, the event will have open tables, sewing supplies, screen-printing machines and sewing machines for those who want to experiment with altering clothes. A fashion show will also be held to show off upcycled garments. And with a supply of more than 1,000 pounds of recycled clothes, Alexander said the possibilities are endless.

“When you create something and you wear it, you feel it’s unique. You’re proud of it, and you’re more likely to keep it. I just feel like we should be making a change back to our roots and doing more stuff for ourselves,” Alexander said.

Tremayne said she hopes her idea will continue to promote environmental awareness as consumers as well as creativity in reusing. As Swapo-Rama-Ramas are now being held all around the world, Tremayne said she hopes her deeper message will be reused, too.

“What consumerism takes from us is our creativity, which connects us to our community,” Tremayne said.

The event will be held from 1-6 p.m. Pre-sale tickets are available for $5 by calling Jennifer at (619) 8077006 or $10 at the door. Raffle tickets will also be for sale for $1 each.

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Jay-Z changing the game of rap with Coachella appearance Chris Lee Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK — The plan was to rock the mic, not cause an identity crisis.

In 2008, when Jay-Z was named as a headlining act for Britain’s fiercely rock-centric Glastonbury Festival — a first for any hip-hop performer, let alone one of rap’s epochal superstars — the island nation erupted in furious debate. They’re giving a rapper domain over one of rock's elite events? Critics derided the decision as “a disaster”and “tragic,” assailing Glastonbury itself as “contaminated.” No less an eminence than Noel Gallagher of the Brit-pop quintet Oasis provided an antagonistic voice of dissent.

“I’m sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance,” Gallagher said in an interview with the BBC, citing the festival’s “history of guitar music.”

To Jay (birth name: Shawn Corey Carter), the situation smacked of segregation. “That was the old guard standing in the way, saying, ‘This is rock music. This is sacred,’” he said, seated in his wood-lined corner office, a stone’s throw from Times Square.

“It was one of those hurdles we had to break down.”

B-boy braggadocio is one thing, but a certain performance anxiety set in when the rapper first laid eyes on Glastonbury’s heaving masses: nearly

a quarter-million festival-goers camped out in a vast tent city surrounding the outdoor venue in the British countryside. Around 70,000 of them — some openly hostile — awaited his set.

“It felt like we were invading a country,” Jay said. “‘Whoa. There’s a lot of people out there.’ I had never played before that many people in my life.

‘What did we just do? This had better work.’”

Not only did he manage to win over the crowd — thanks, in part, to his opening number, a cheeky cover of Oasis’ biggest hit, “Wonderwall” — but the artist known variously as Jigga Man and Young Hova in the process established a whole new enterprise. With what he calls his Glastonbury “gamechanger,” Jay-Z suddenly became the most internationally popular live performer in hip-hop history.

As a measure of his post-Glastonbury clout, this year Jay will take his show on the road to such top-tier summer music fests as Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, the Summer Sonic Festival in Japan and Germany’s Rock Am Ring, among others. And come Friday, Jay-Z arrives as the first straight-up rapper to claim a headlining berth at Southern California’s crowning musical event: the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio. Others have graced the lineup — Jurassic 5, Kool Keith, MURS, Kanye West and Aesop

Rock, to name a few — but none have done it at the top of the ticket.

“In hip-hop, there’s not many great performers,” Jay-Z acknowledged. “I look outside the genre, measuring myself against others. I look at Madonna’s production and envy that. Daft Punk’s set, I'm like, what the ... And I look at the way U2 can command an audience. Bono’s a performer pretty much like I am. He’s not a dancer; he’s not jumping around. He’s having a conversation. He’s using his stillness as movement.”

To be sure, such platinumanointed MCs as 50 Cent and Lil Wayne can book arena tours and rock stadiums while never entirely crossing beyond their “urban” core audiences. Eminem remains a huge international draw but has until very recently resisted the lure of the festival stage. And West enraged fans when he headlined Bonnaroo 2008 by refusing to take the stage until just before sunrise.

But as Coachella’s founder and operational mastermind Paul Tollett points out, Jay-Z is the only rhyme-spitter in the game today with enough big hits, street cred, Twitter-worthy showmanship and mass appeal to connect with the desert festival’s discerning audience. “I

don’t think there’s any other hip-hop artist who could headline Coachella right now,” Tollett said.

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Thursday, April 15, 2010 Volume LXXIV, No.102 ©2009 Mustang Daily “Did you do your taxes?”

editor in chief: Emilie Egger managing editor: Alex Kacik mustangdaily@gmail.com

Thursday, April 15 2010

12

Sarah Palin can keep religion and guns, while the rest of America keeps moving forward Sarah Palin and I began our public political journeys at the same time. I began my journey writing columns for the Mustang Daily the same week that she made her debut debating Joe Biden during the 2008 presidential campaign. So it’s interesting for me to return to Palin more than two years later to consider how far we’ve both come and the extent that our views have been solidified on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

When I heard Palin’s speech at the Boston Tea Party on the news Wednesday, among all of the signs — one sign especially waving proudly, which I thought was maybe the most honest and the funniest, reading, “White People are Pissed” — she said, “You can keep your change, and we’ll keep our Constitution, religion and guns.”

As the crowd erupted into applause and cheers, it suddenly struck me that the gap between their views and my own is so vast that I’m not sure they can ever be bridged. I may never come to see Palin’s views as ideas, which should travel beyond the glass window at a coffee shop or the back door of a home.

But I think that on a more useful, intellectual level, her views and her followers’ views disregard the serious problems our country faced only two years ago — and that’s the larger evil. Palin decried the Democrats’ ‘change’ frequently in her speech before the substantial Tea Party gathering in Boston Wednesday, and it sounds good to say the problems our country is facing are due to President Obama’s lack of action or his views regarding economic policy.

But it’s simply not true. Our economic problems are due to the Republicans’ lack of regulation, and the Bush administration’s general failures from 2000-2008.

That’s why President Obama won the election by such a landslide; McPalin’s policies were just a continuation of the Bush administration’s policies. Only two years later, it’s easy for people to forget where we came from, or for conservatives to deflect this truth by retorting that the Bush administration isn’t in office anymore, so we can’t blame them for today’s troubles. They’re correct in that it does no good to

continuously blame the previous administration for their wrongs — but we have to remember that a lack of regulation is the reason we’re in this economic downturn in the first place.

In fact, much of the Obama administration’s work in reforming Wall Street is just an effort to undo either the bad policies or the spirit of deregulation and corruption engendered during the Bush administration. The reason the housing market collapsed is that banks gave people loans with interest rates that rose as the years went on. With the optimistic view that as the strength of the economy increased, people’s

incomes would increase and their payment would also increase. The economy went under; people lost their jobs, and these banks that had dispersed bad loans found themselves going under, too. The view of the Bush administration was that these banks were too big to fail.

The American public, the Democrats and the Obama administration now believe differently.

The White House is now attempting to push a financial reform bill, which would prevent bailouts of large financial firms in the future, such as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout passed under the Bush administration. The prevailing view is

now that no financial firm is too big to fail. Reuters reports that within the bill there is “a provision that would allow regulators to step in to dismantle large, troubled firms.”

Republicans argue that this provision alludes to endless bailouts.

But that’s simply not true. Jen Psaki, White House deputy communications director said in response to the Republicans’ claim, “The Senate bill explicitly mandates that a large financial firm that faces failure will be allowed to fail, and it explicitly prohibits the use of any funds to ‘bail out’ a failing firm. Large financial firms, not taxpayers, will be required to bear the costs.”

So when Palin cries out to a cheering, sadly-misinformed crowd, “You can keep your change, and we’ll keep our Constitution, religion and guns,” the only response I can have is: Please, keep your religion and your guns, and I’ll keep my relationship with God, the change, the Constitution and my sense of reality.

Stephanie England is an English sophomore and Mustang Daily columnist.

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Holocaust Rememberance Day offers opportunity to reflect Between 1939 and 1945, six million Jews were brutally murdered in Europe. Their crime? Being Jewish.

They had committed no crime, they had incited no riots, they had leveled no threats. These Jews had lived for many generations in their home countries and were law-abiding citizens who contributed great minds to culture and science. Leaders from all around Europe were only too happy to round up their Jewish citizens and send them off as despised chattel to be unceremoniously slaughtered. Ancient Jewish populations from such countries as Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Po-

Strategic nuclear weapons are inherently useless against terrorists.

So, if anything, reducing the number of strategic nuclear warheads we have to maintain means we can put more of our resources into weapon systems we can acctually use. Fewer strategic warheads also means that it’s harder to steal one, if you are a terrorist attempting to do so.

The ‘no nuclear response to chemical or biological warfare’ is a bit more troublesome. But, notice the condition. Iran and North Korea either 1. Never signed the nonproliferation agreement. Or 2. are actively flaunting it. So, the treaty is a non-issue with regards to these countries. If anything, it might convince them to sign on to these treaties and cease atomic weapons development. Although, I will admit you are correct to point out that their leaders are not necessarily rational and probably wouldn’t make such a deal.

—Andrew J. Musselman In response to “The Wrong Time for Playing Ghandi” History has a way of repeating itself and we can either learn from it or dare to relive the experience.

Treaties are only as good as the folks who honor them and taking a Jimmy Carteresque approach to foreign affairs proved to be unsuccessful if not sadly naive. For example, the Iran we have today is of Jimmy Carter’s making.

I am reminded of a story told by Albert Spear (Hitler’s architect and much more) concerning Foreign Minister Von Ribontrop. The story goes that as Von Ribontrop was being presented with a fancy wooden box to hold all of the treaties that he himself negotiated with various

land, Belarus, Greece, Romania, Czecheslovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Italy and Austria were rounded up with horrifying precision, and sent to the hell of concentration camps, such as the notorious Auschwitz.

The Jewish populations assembled were referred to with many vile terms, including slave labor populations. While in their enforced slavery, they were tortured (both physically and psychologically), starved, beaten, forced to live like animals and literally worked to death.

On Monday, we marked Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this day, we remembered

the six million Jews and the millions of other “undesirables” who were silenced by hate, and had no hero to save them. We remember those who survived the atrocities of the Holocaust, and who have since passed on. The Holocaust illustrated the worst in humanity, and its sheer magnitude of destruction is still hard to entirely comprehend.

We keep a place in our hearts and minds for those silent victims, children to the elderly. We also understand that something as horrifying and destructive as the Holocaust must never be allowed to happen again. The modern state of

Israel was founded for the purpose of providing one entirely safe haven for the wandering minority nation.

The survivors of the Nazi-directed hell were forever marked as victims, with blackened numerical tattoos on their arms. My grandmother was one of those brave survivors who vowed never to forget the horror of Europe, so long as she had a voice. From a young age, I was exposed to stories of the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust. I find it incredible that there are still people out there who deny the Holocaust, or try to pooh-pooh it as a distant event.

countries, everyone began to laugh when they realized that every one of the agreements had been violated and ignored!

I agree that the recent nuclear treaty and strategy are an unnecessary change, however, the noise being made by Fox News is unjustifiable.

weak we are, we are showing how strong we are that we don’t need massive amounts of fire power to make peace and be a world leader as well as showing that we do not want conflict. Isn’t that what we all really want?

—Roger Freberg In response to “The Wrong Time for Playing Ghandi” This piece is a reflection of the recent outcry from nearly all Conservative media outlets, which have taken tidbits from recent documents such as START and NPR and vastly misconstrued them to the public. A simple investigation into the actual wording of the documents and press releases directly from the White House (i.e, not Fox News) reveals that the U.S. does reserve the right to take both preemptive and defensive nuclear action against countries such as Iran and North Korea that have not signed the nonproliferation treaty and are in violation of U.N. sanctions. You have inferred that Obama is sending them the message that we will not respond to an attack, when in fact he himself has stated the precise opposite.

Let’s keep the facts separated from the Fox. —Ben Turner In response to “The Wrong Time for Playing Ghandi” Come on now, you can do better than this. As others have pointed out, nukes don’t help against terrorists and your interpretation of the treaty’s restriction of using nukes is flawed.

Why is reducing the number of nuclear weapons a bad thing? We still have enough to destroy earth many times over. The Cold War and the insane concept of MAD are not very relevant in the global political theater these days. Shouldn’t our defensive capabilities change with the changing times?

—Scott In response to “The Wrong Time for Playing Ghandi”

My biggest point to those saying we should reduce our nuclear stock pile because nukes are ineffective against terrorists is that perhaps in another decade our biggest threat will be a nuclear power like China or Russia. Just because there is no reason to have thousands today doesnt mean they will be irrelevant a few years from now.

—Brian Richter In response to “The Wrong Time for Playing Ghandi” Your representation of Reagan using our military might ended the Cold War is a bit of an exaggeration.

The USSR was in its last days; regardless, Reagan probably sped the process up a bit, but probably only by a few years.

To say we are in the midst of an international crisis is a bit of an overstatement. Honestly, while Iran and North Korea are a concern, North Korea hasn’t proved they have any means of launching anything successfully that could reach us or that they have a successful nuke. They are rather broke as a country and while they talk big, don’t really have the resources to be that much of a threat to us directly, if at all. Suggesting that North Korea is strong, is laughable at best.

Iran is a larger concern but one can suspect that the primary reason they want nukes is Pakistan has them, as does India. The bomb isn’t really tool anymore as much as it is a strategy to try to keep others from attacking you, and even if we reduce our almost 10,000 weapon stock pile by 30 percent we will still have more weapons then almost everyone combined (excluding Russia).

Truthfully, we probably only need about 10 to end the world.

By reducing our stock pile and signing on, we are not showing how

Ramifications of Europe’s period of absolute evil still remain: I grew up with one grandmother, a result of my family on both sides being decimated because the Nazis decided Jews were sub-human, and most of Europe was too cowardly to stand up to evil.

Please take this week to consider how you can stand up against injustice, and remember all victims across time, who had no voice.

Susannah Kopecky is an English graduate student.

—Anonymous In response to “The Wrong Time for Playing Ghandi”

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Softball to host Cal State Fullerton in conference series this weekend

ryan sidarto mustang daily file photo Starting pitcher Anna Cahn (above) threw two complete-game shutouts against UC Santa Barbara last weekend.

mustang daily staff report

For the Cal Poly softball team, pitching is the key to success.

“That’s the name of the game,” head coach Jenny Condon said at Monday’s press conference. “If you don’t have pitching, you’re not going to go very far.”

Last weekend, the Mustangs proved just that. In their three-game series against UC Santa Barbara, the Mustangs allowed a combined two runs.

Rebecca Patton started Friday and surrendered two runs, and Anna Cahn started the remaining two games and didn’t allow a single Gaucho to cross home plate.

The Mustangs (15-17, 4-2 Big West) rode their pitching staff to their first series sweep of the season and will look to carry that success into this weekend’s three-game conference series against Cal State Fullerton (9-29, 4-2).

“It starts in the circle,” Condon said. “Anna (Cahn) threw great and Rebecca Patton set the tone. She threw the first game on the weekend, and she did a great job.”

Cal Poly’s success in the circle came after seeing reigning their Big West Pitcher of the Year struggle against UC Riverside. For Anna Cahn, a good performance was much needed. Not only did she bounce back with two consecutive shutouts, she was also tagged as Big West Pitcher of the Week.

“It was hands down the best weekend that she has thrown all year,” Condon said.

With the sweep, it seems the Mustangs have gotten out of their mid-season blues. The Mustangs had dropped nine of their last 10 games coming into last weekend. In response to its hopes at the post season fading, Cal Poly got back to the little things this week in practice.

“We really just changed a lot of things throughout the week in prac-

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tice,” Condon said. “(We) really just tried to simplify the game … take it pitch by pitch and inning by inning.

Try not to do anything too big.”

To pair with its change in preparation, Cal Poly stuck to the things it can control. They focused on effort, not the win-loss column.

“We don’t talk about winning or losing because you can’t control that,” Condon said. “So, we went back to really controlling the things that we can control and taking care of the stuff that we can do. Then everything takes care of itself.”

Now with momentum, the Mustangs hope to carry that into their series against Cal State Fullerton.

“Hopefully our pitchers show up and get it done and defensively we can take care of the ball and continue to hit the ball well,” Condon said.

The Mustangs will square off against a team that just surrendered their first series to UC Riverside last weekend after sweeping UC Santa Barbara to open conference play the weekend prior.

After posting 27 runs on 36 hits against the Gauchos, Cal Sate Fullerton was held to seven runs on eight hits in their series loss to UC Riverside. The Titans came into last weekend batting .409 with eight home runs in conference play, but hit .125 with no home runs last weekend.

Despite its offensive struggles, Cal State Fullerton is still batting .289 in conference play and also leads the league in runs scored (34), in home runs (8), RBIs (31), and slugging percentage (.493).

But no matter the opposition, the Mustangs will look to post a win against consecutive conference opponents — a feat that would put them closer to their goal.

“Our goal is to win the conference championship,” Condon said. “When you have a record below .500, you’re not going anywhere unless you win the title … We’re still in the hunt.”

Baseball continued from page 16

“You had Ryan Lee in the leadoff spot that set the table with a high on-base percentage, and you had (Adam) Bushini, who at times really carried the team,” Lee said.

“I think those guys allowed your younger guys, (like Bobby Crocker) and (Matt Jensen) and (Ross Brayton) to kind of be comfortable and not have any pressure on them.”

Or maybe it’s just timing. No matter what Cal Poly is going through, maybe it just needs to hope that they catch teams on a losing streak.

“It’s about playing the team at the right time,” Lee said. “Obviously you have to take care of business, and sometimes you have to catch other teams when they’re not quite at their peak.”

Could the venue make a difference? Maybe the Mustangs need to get away from the comfort of playing at home, just drop everything else surrounding them. No family, no friends, no distractions — just baseball.

“I think it’s good for us to be on the road,” Lee said. “We enjoy being on the road — there is no distractions. We show up; we play.”

How about momentum? Maybe the Mustangs just need to scrape together enough wins to get momentum under their feet again.

They have lost 10 of their last 12 games.

“It’s tough when you don’t come up with the wins,” Lee said. “You don’t get that winning environ-

ment — that winning feeling. It’s really tough to turn it around.”

Whatever the case, the Mustangs are fighting an up-field battle; they are trying to get through the season wounded. Cal Poly just lost Mitch Haniger — its team leader in batting average — and have been without Ross Brayton — a transfer who hit .393 last season. Not to mention the Mustangs are without Mason Radeke, arguably their best pitcher, and Luke Yoder battled an injury earlier this season.

“Being depleted on the mound and in the field — it just makes (winning) that much tougher,” Lee said.

It will be hard for the Mustangs to try to turn around their season with their team .278 batting average and their 6.64 ERA, especially when the Matadors are hitting .313 as a team — third in the Big West. But this weekend, it will just be time to get back to the basics.

“We’re trying to compete,” Lee said. “That’s really all what you can do at this point.”

mustangdailysports Thursday, April 15, 2010

sports editor: Brian De Los Santos mustangdailysports@gmail.com

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Baseball travels to Cal State Northidge for conference series mustang daily staff report

Head coach Larry Lee took the desk at the Cal Poly athletics press conference last Monday. In front of several members of the media, he answered questions with minimal emotion.

There wasn’t much to be happy about.

His team currently stands with a

(9-21, 2-4 Big West) record. It is off to its worst start in 10 years, has yet to hold a winning record and has yet to win a weekend series — none of the characteristics last season’s 37-21, record-breaking team held.

Lee has never sugar-coated the truth. As the losses stack up, it’s harder to be optimistic.

When asked if it was only a matter

of time for his Mustangs to get out of their current losing slump, he shook his head and simply replied, “No.” “This year’s team really has underachieved,” Lee said. “It should be playing a lot better than it has.”

Cal Poly has fallen off the baseball map. After holding national rankings for numerous weeks just a season ago, the Mustangs have not been able

to thrive in the shadow of the 2009 campaign.

“I’ve seen enough — I think — throughout the course of the year, and I think it will be hard to get back on track,” Lee said.

This weekend, the Mustangs will hold another chance to turn things around with a three-game conference series against Cal State Northridge (17-14, 0-3). But if the struggles from last weekend’s series against UC Santa Barbara resurface, then the future for Cal Poly doesn’t look good.

Against the Gauchos, the Mustangs coughed up two of three games.

Cal Poly was only able to scrape together one win — a 10th-inning victory Friday night, but in the other two games, the Mustangs let late-inning leads slip away en route to two losses.

“When you squander leads late in the ball game — that hurts,” Lee said. “It says you’re in the ball game,

and playing better, but it says you’re just not finishing well and not taking care of business.”

What’s the problem? What is the cure to fix a disappointing season?

It isn’t the effort. All the work on the field — preparing for games — is still there.

“It’s not any lack of effort,” Lee said. “Everybody goes out and they still work hard in the weight rooms.

They still work hard on the field.

They’re trying to get better.”

Then what else is there?

Maybe it’s the fact that the Mustangs lost a couple of key components to their offensive success last season due to graduation and the MLB draft. Those were players who helped their teammates with more than just cold hard statistics — they were players who made their teammates better. see Baseball, page 15

ryan sidarto mustang daily file photo Starting pitcher Matt Leonard (above) pitched 6 2/3 innings allowed one earned run in the Mustangs only win against UC Santa Barbara last weekend.