weather tomorrow
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Food columnist discusses Fair Trade movement. IN ARTS, P. 6
Libertarian columnist goes for the gold.
Men’s tennis seeks at-large bid.
IN OPINION, P. 9
IN SPORTS, P. 12
mustangdaily Tuesday, May 3, 2011
volume LXXV, number 114
www.mustangdaily.net
Gender-neutral housing in works for Poly Katelyn Sweigart katelynsweigart.md@gmail.com
There has been a quiet quest for equality on the Cal Poly campus for two years. In 2009, students approached University Housing with a proposal to have gender-neutral housing, which would allow men and women to live together in the same apartment. The policy would help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students feel more at ease in their living situation on campus, as well as help individuals who feel more comfortable rooming with the opposite sex. Paul Armer, a software engineering sophomore and Pride Center housing liaison, is an advocate for gender-neutral housing. He said it is an issue that will change a lot of people’s lives for the better. Armer himself didn’t spend much time in his dorm on the all-male first floor of Yosemite Hall freshman year bekatelyn sweigart
cause of the pressure he felt to not be open about his sexuality. He said he metaphorically had to go “back into the closet.” “I feel like your dorm life is a really defining point in your life, because that’s when you really live alone from your parents,” Armer said. “If you are stuck in a place where you are being essentially forced into the closet or being made fun of for being out of the closet, it can really change your life. It can really make you approach new situations differently.” Gender Equity Center assistant coordinator Veronica Heiskell said the biggest argument against gender-neutral housing is promiscuity. “(People think) co-habitation means just rampant sex, and they all just go crazy, and that it’s just going to cause a huge amount of promiscuity,” she said. “But in reality, it’s college. People are mature enough to make their own decisions and
living in separate rooms in one area is not going to make you any more likely (to be promiscuous) than if you’re living in a hall with someone.” Last year, gender-neutral housing advocates seemed to gain ground after starting up a pilot program, which is a model for possible future development. Liz Goralka, a history sophomore, is the president of Spectrum, Cal Poly’s gender and sexuality alliance, and she signed up for the program along with approximately 30 other students, but it was put on hold because of the president change. “Basically what it was is that select students were going to be able to live in mixed gender housing, and you could select your roommates or do it at random with anyone who signed up for the program,” Goralka said. Midsummer, University Houssee Neutral, page 2
mustang daily
Cal Poly students react to death of Osama bin Laden Victoria Billings victoriabillings.md@gmail.com
Cheers went up from Poly Canyon Village, and Facebook statuses were full of triumphant messages Sunday night when President Barack Obama announced the death of alQaida leader Osama bin Laden. The news quickly spread via text message, word-of-mouth and Facebook among Cal Poly students. Chemistry sophomore Allee Macrorie said she was in a study room with a friend in Poly Canyon Village when a student ran in to spread the news. Macrorie said students were also waving American flags, playing “God Bless America” and shouting the news from their windows. “It was pretty crazy in PCV,” Macrorie said. “It got a little intense. I didn’t expect people’s reactions to be so for it. I expected it to be kind of like ‘Oh my gosh what just happened?’ but people were cheering and
yelling. I didn’t know that people would be so excited at the death of someone. I hope that it doesn’t lead to some retaliation from al-Qaida.” Other Cal Poly students got the news not from their neighbors, but from Facebook friends. Paul Skillin, a general engineering senior and ROTC cadet, said he saw the news first on Facebook, and then immediately checked it on the websites of several news organizations he follows, like Al Jazeera. Though Skillin understands the ecstatic reaction to the news, he said the death of bin Laden is not quite the major victory people think. “In terms of what it means to us, I feel like it’s going to be more of a symbolic victory than anything else,” Skillin said. That symbolic victory is one that has been decades in the making. Bin Laden was active in global see bin Laden, page 2
photo courtesy of the white house Before making a speech announcing the death of Osama bin Laden on Sunday, President Barack Obama and National Security officials, as well as Vice President Joe Biden, receive updates about the military operation in Pakistan in which bin Laden was killed.
news bin Laden continued from page 1
terrorism since the ‘80s, when he first funded guerrilla fighters known as mujahideen in Afghanistan and later, in 1988, founded al-Qaida. He was put on the United States’ Most Wanted Fugitive List after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, when six people were killed and hundreds injured. Bin Laden rose to the top spot when he directed the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center that killed more than 3,000 people. In October 2001, the United States and Great Britain sent forces into Afghanistan to find bin Laden, after the Taliban refused to turn over the al-Qaida leader. Since that time, the United States has maintained troops in the country. President Obama made the killing or capture of bin Laden a priority upon taking office, the president told the nation in his announcement of bin Laden’s death Sunday night. “Finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,” Obama said in his address. With the reason for going into Afghanistan gone, the reactions of people in the Middle East remain to be seen, Skillin said. “It will be interesting to see what the impacts are in terms of what the local population feels,” Skillin said. In the United States, bin Laden’s death has had very little impact on military affairs. For the National Guard, security remains at the same
2 level it has been since 9/11, said First Lieutenant Will Martin, of the California Guard Public Affairs Office. At Cal Poly, the reactions are mixed between those who posted patriotic statements to their Facebook page, and those who feel military involvement in Afghanistan was excessive. Nutrition junior Cara Simpson said she was angry to see so many “Go USA!” Facebook statuses. “It took them 10 years and a lot of lost American lives so I don’t think they should think everything’s going to be better,” Simpson said. With bin Laden dead, Simpson said the risk might be even greater to American troops in the Middle East, and to America itself. “Him being dead isn’t going to change all of the thousands of Taliban members that are probably going to be even more pissed off,” Simpson said. To the rest of the international community, American celebration might seem a little overboard, said German student Alex Schleicher, who is studying mechanical engineering at Cal Poly for a quarter. Schleicher said he almost didn’t believe the news when he read it on the LA Times website. “I wasn’t really sure at first if they really got him or if they just pretended to say that they got him,” Schleicher said. Schleicher also said he finds the excited Facebook statuses and cheers of “Go USA!” a little excessive. “I think in Germany it wouldn’t be that big,” Schleicher said.
Neutral continued from page 1
ing canceled the program, leaving Goralka without a living situation. Goralka said with the new president undecided at that time, the issue was too controversial to proceed without their consent. However, Executive Director of University Housing Preston Allen said it was delayed because it needed fine tuning for the electronic assignment process used in normal housing situations. Now, the program is ready to be implemented as soon as Vice President of Student Affairs Cornel Morton and President Jeffrey Armstrong review and approve the program. Allen said he is for the program because he said arrangements that enhance the student’s living experience are always a good idea. “It may not be for a large number of students, but even if it’s just for a handful, I’m all in favor of it,” he said. The group is ready to start up again in the fall with a small group of students. Implementation will be easy, Preston said, since they took gender-neutral housing into consideration when building Cerro Vista and Poly Canyon Village, anticipating the interest students might have in gender-neutral rooming. “They have shared living spaces,
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
“ ” I think having a safe space ... is a really important privilege that some of us take for granted. — Piya Bose
Area coordinator for Cal Poly Pomona university housing
two full bathrooms, a common space and private bedrooms,” he said. The biggest obstacle for the program, Allen said, is making sure students and their parents understand the housing agreement. According to their research, most parents are OK with second year mixed gender housing, as long as the campus is involved. “I don’t think that gender-neutral housing option will create any problems or challenges other than all the normal things we deal with,” he said. As for Armstrong, he said he is open to the idea of gender-neutral housing and is ready and waiting to review the proposal. “We want to provide a living environment where all students are comfortable, including LGBT students,” he said. Liberal arts and engineering senior Eric Davis said Armstrong has expressed interest in helping the Pride Center before by visiting and speaking
“ ” I don’t think that gender-neutral housing option will create any problems or challenges. — Preston Allen
Executive director of University Housing
personally to them, which the previous president never did. “I know he’s a big proponent of the minority groups on campus, which surprised me a little bit,” Davis said. “I don’t think he’d have a problem with (gender neutral housing). I would like to think he would like to see it go into effect.” Gender-neutral housing policies can be found at many California universities, such as California State University, Humboldt and Stanford. Most universities in the University of California system have some form of gender-neutral or LGBT-friendly housing. The common vein is that they are optional and most have been implemented in the past five years. This past year, Cal Poly Pomona offered gender-neutral housing to its students. Piya Bose, the area coordinator for university housing at Pomona, said the campus began an optional community for students who were “transgender, gender-queer, (and) gender non-conforming” and their allies. Currently, four students are living in the community and the school plans to continue the program next year. “I think having a safe space to take (care) of life and business and personal things is a really important privilege that some of us take for granted,” Bose said. “And gender-neutral housing can really provide that space for folks within the community.”
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Mourners gather at ground zero to mark death of Osama bin Laden Michael Amon Newsday
They came Monday where the Twin Towers once cast their shadows, some bearing tokens of lost loved ones, others burdened with excruciating memories and still more basking in the joy of a national victory.
Nearly 10 years after 2,752 people died there, ground zero again became a pilgrimage site, a fulcrum for conflicting emotions after the death of Osama bin Laden. Families of the fallen, surviving emergency responders and countless others said they felt compelled to pay their respects. “Coming here, this is my closure,”
said Al Montano, 52, of Manhattan, a contractor who said he worked in the rubble for four months after the attacks. “I haven’t been here since 2002. I couldn’t.” Tears welled in his eyes and his voice cracked as he described his ailments since working on the pile — lung cancer, mesothelioma and
post-traumatic stress disorder. “The memories here, they haunt me. But I’ll sleep better tonight having come,” he said. The elation many felt at bin Laden’s demise was tempered by a somber undercurrent. By midmorning Monday, there were few remnants of the celebration the night before
when the news first spread. Revelers were replaced by rushed commuters, picture-snapping tourists, hordes of media and solemn mourners, pushing and pulling against each other in the crammed lower Manhattan streets. Tara Henwood Butzbaugh, 42, see Ground zero, page 5
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Threat of al-Qaida likely to remain despite bin Laden’s death Hannah Allam Adam Baron McClatchy Newspapers
Political analysts who closely monitor Islamist militant groups said Monday that the circumstances of Osama bin Laden’s death — far from the battlefield in a million-dollar mansion — support what they’ve claimed for years: that while bin Laden remained the spiritual figurehead for al-Qaida, he was far removed from its daily operations. That suggests, they said, that the impact of his death will be largely symbolic, and that al-Qaida will remain a force in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and some parts of North Africa, where it’s still active. Elsewhere, those who claim to be his followers will remain dangerous. “The forces involved go far beyond al-Qaida,” said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There are going to be extrem-
ist movements almost regardless of what happens to al-Qaida. If it weakens, there will be new splinter groups that develop that will replace it.” Long before bin Laden’s death, al-Qaida had evolved into a mostly leaderless group loosely organized via the Internet with self-declared “members” acting independently around the globe. The bin Ladeninspired freelance militant is a model that could persist long after the leader’s death. “No message dies with the messenger,” said Montasser el-Zayat, an Islamist attorney in Cairo who once represented bin Laden’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, and who wrote a book in Arabic called “Ayman Zawahri as I Knew Him.” “Bin Laden succeeded in turning al-Qaida from a movement into an ideology that still pervades the minds of people all over the world,” el-Zayat said. That was clear in the hours after his death. While few openly mourn-
ed bin Laden, who’s widely viewed as an aberration who distorted the tenets of Islam to suit his murderous goals, a handful of bin Laden’s acolytes posted flowery online eulogies to the man they referred to as “the sheikh” or “the prince.” A spokesman for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni offshoot of the terrorist group, was quoted as calling bin Laden’s death “a catastrophe.” An online message board mainly for Iraqi insurgents carried a statement that exhorted Muslims to “be proud of this man who said and did, who fought and was killed.” Neither statement could be independently verified. In Gaza, the Hamas leader and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told the Reuters news agency that bin Laden’s death was “a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.” In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood condemned the tactic of assassination, but added in a statement on its website that “we hope the elimination of bin Laden will help to remove one of the causes of conflict between the Muslim world and the West in general, and the U.S. in particular.” Bin Laden’s relevance to the Arab world had been fading. The recent revolts that are remaking the region are the work of ordinary people, not Islamist militants. A recent Pew Research Center survey of Muslim populations in six countries showed that bin Laden’s highest support came from the Palestinian territories, and even there just 34 percent of those surveyed said they had confidence in bin Laden to “do the right thing in world affairs.” One-quarter of Indonesian respondents said they had confidence in bin Laden; the figure was 22 percent for Egypt, 13 percent for Jordan, 3 percent for Turkey and 1 percent for Lebanon. Results for Pakistan weren’t available, Pew said, but confidence in bin Laden had plummeted there from 52 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in last year’s survey. “Killing bin Laden is the beginning of al-Qaida’s end. His death confirms that it was fading bit by bit, losing its charisma and effect on Muslim youth, losing the appeal of its rhetoric,” said Hossam Tammam, a Cairo-based academic who specializes in Islamist movements. Iraq’s foreign minister said in a statement that he was “delighted” to hear of bin Laden’s death; Saudi Arabia, Yemen and other Arab countries likewise praised the operation as a victory for counterterrorism efforts. On a Yahoo message board, Arabic-speaking users debated bin Laden’s legacy in heated exchanges. A user with the handle Rafeeq, for example, praised bin Laden as a martyr who died defending his beliefs after a
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mcclatchy-tribune President Obama declared al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was declared dead May 1. Many political analysts believe the terrorist group will remain influential.
successful jihadist career in which he “fought for Islam to end the injustice of Western colonization, starting from Russia to the United States to Europe.” A user with the name Justice of Heaven shot back: “Hell and misfortune to you who corrupted the image of peaceful Islam. Americans made you and killed you and yet some naive people praise you.” Still, the flood of messages offered little support for the United States, criticizing it for molding bin Laden into a “bogeyman” while failing to respond to what they consider the root causes of radicalism: foreign occupation, poverty and authoritarian rule among them. And they noted the hundreds of civilians who’d been killed as “collateral damage” in the U.S. government’s 10-year hunt for bin Laden. El-Zayat said al-Qaida would continue to find foot soldiers “as long as both Afghanistan and Iraq are occupied, as long as the United States keeps backing Israel, as long as the United States exploits the resources of other countries.” Analysts predicted that the alQaida branch in Iraq, which is only informally linked to the bin Laden network, would continue to mount bombings and assassination attempts that have killed not only Americans, but also Shiite Muslim clerics as well as ordinary Iraqis caught in the
There are going to be extremist movements almost regardless of what happens to al-Qaida. — Anthony Cordesman Analyst, Center for Strategic and International Studies
violence. Aggressive U.S. and Iraqi military operations have pushed the insurgents into pockets outside cities they once terrorized, but sporadic bombings have continued in Baghdad and elsewhere, signaling a tenacious group of fighters poised to regroup once U.S. forces withdraw. “Most of the operations of the Iraqi security forces are nothing more than reactions to the insurgent groups,” said Muataz Abdulhameed, a security specialist at an independent research center in Baghdad. In Yemen, bin Laden’s ancestral homeland and the base of one of the world’s most active al-Qaida franchises, the leader’s death dominated conversation. “When I heard the news and saw people celebrating in New York and Washington, I was immediately happy,” said Saif Talib al-Zubayr, a Yemeni who’s been participating in demonstrations to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh. “Bin Laden has done little more than kill innocent people and dirty the name of Islam.” But Cordesman suggested the impact would be small in Yemen, where a Yemeni-American militant, Anwar al-Awlaki, has become one of the most prominent young extremists. “That group does not have longstanding ties to the senior leadership,” Cordesman said. “It is a new group of young leaders that didn’t work with bin Laden.” In Change Square in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, demonstrators were glued to televisions broadcasting the latest news on bin Laden’s death. “Killing bin Laden will not end terror,” said Hazem Majid al-Jadali, a protester. “Arabs, the United States and the European Union must get rid of (Libyan leader) Moammar Gadhafi, (Syrian President) Bashar Assad and Ali Abdullah Saleh, too, if we want to truly end terror.”
Tuesday Tunes What are you listening to?
“Pretty Girl Rock” by Keri Hilson — Vivian Ly, business administration freshman
“Without Bass” by Lil’ Wayne — Charles Mason, construction management junior
“Doing It Right” by Afrojack — Nick Curran, aerospace engineering junior
“The Show Goes On” by Lupe Fiasco — Jenny Sevilla, mechanical engineering junior
“Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles
“NJ Legion Iced Tea” by A Day to Remember
— Emily Hoyt, kinesiology freshman
— Bobby Hodges, mechanical engineering junior
Ground zero
continued from page 3
of Manhattan, carried an American flag and a photo of her brother, John Christopher Henry, 35, a Cantor Fitzgerald employee killed on 9/11. “It’s bittersweet,” she said of bin Laden’s death. “For the world, this is a victory. For families, this is very personal.” There was also an uneasy sense that another terrorist strike loomed. “This isn’t over,” said Elijah Stevens, 56, a U.S. Army captain from Newburgh. Dressed in uniform, he came to ground zero Monday with his wife, Stephanie, to show their two children where the war began. “When we saw it on television last night, I thought, ‘It’s about time. Now, on to the next terrorist leader.’” Makeshift memorials and tributes popped up on the streets. Someone tied a pair of pink flowers to the bars of St. Paul’s Chapel cemetery, with a note: “Thank you U.S. Military! Holly & Henry.” Stickers reading “WIN”
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were plastered over street signs at Church and Vesey streets. Newspaper front pages featuring bin Laden were hung along the northern wall of the ground zero construction site. Tourists smiled for pictures in front of them, their thumbs up. “It is a place that acts like a magnet for our nation,” said Alice Greenwald, director of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. “People feel this need to be here, this need to be part of 9/11.” Commuters took time from their workday to reflect on the day’s stunning news. Bennie Rodriguez, 40, of Huntington, a construction inspector for the 9/11 memorial site, stood in the crowd and took in the scene. For the past four years, he’s seen many gatherings at the site, but never the spontaneous outpouring on Monday. “Maybe now people can start recovering,” he said. “But I can’t really believe it. I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m not sure what it means.”
Death of bin Laden a clear victory for Obama, but popularity boost won’t last David Lightman Margaret Talev McClatchy Newspapers
President Barack Obama has gained stature from the dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden, but history shows that a burst of national euphoria many months before an election doesn’t assure victory for an incumbent who’s seeking another term. Obama’s job-approval numbers probably will spike, and for a while he may even look unbeatable as the 2012 campaign season unfolds. But he still has to confront a weak economy, and as long as Americans see gasoline prices near $4 a gallon, analysts said, he shouldn’t count on an easy campaign. Obama’s greatest gain is that he now looks more presidential: the commander in chief who got bin Laden, after George W. Bush spent most of his eight-year presidency trying, but failing, to find him. “It took a long time to run Osama down,” said University of Texas political analyst Bruce Buchanan. “Bush didn’t have enough. Obama didn’t do it rapidly, but he did it, and people like that.” However, the presidential election is still 18 months away. And as New Hampshire conservative activist Jen-
nifer Horn put it, killing bin Laden “doesn’t change the unemployment rate or the health care crisis.” Buchanan tended to agree: “Unless the war is a crisis that happens right before Election Day, it isn’t necessarily a plus. You can be shown the door in spite of that.” Military successes usually mean bumps up in the polls for presidents. Bush got the biggest ever after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when his job-approval rating soared to 86 percent from 51 percent within days. He soon hit a record 90 percent. President John F. Kennedy’s numbers jumped 13 points during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and President Bill Clinton got a 7-point boost after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. Perhaps the most sobering reminder of how fleeting such a bump can be is the experience of George H. W. Bush, whose boost came at a point in his presidency that’s similar to Obama’s now. During the Persian Gulf War in February 1991, Bush’s Gallup poll rating rocketed to a then-record 89 percent. Many political analysts thought he’d be a shoo-in for re-election in 1992. The next year, however, amid a stagnant economy and perceptions that he was out of touch with it,
Bush first endured a nomination challenge from conservative Pat Buchanan, then lost the general election to Clinton. In fact, Bush garnered the lowest popular-vote total of any incumbent president in 80 years. Much the same thing happened to Winston Churchill. After he led Great Britain to victory in World War II, British voters, focused on the economy, tossed him out of office in 1945. Frank Newport, the Gallup Poll’s editor in chief, suggested that the pattern could repeat itself this cycle. “A year from now I think the focus will be quite a bit more on the economy than on what happened to Osama bin Laden,” Newport said, but then he hedged: “Sometimes this can have a lasting effect on the image of a leader. We just don’t know at this point.”
mustangdailyarts arts editor: Sarah Gilmore mustangdailyarts@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
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Horoscopes Horoscopes
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A look at the Fair Trade movement
TUESDAY, MAY 3 TAURUS (April 20-May 20) — You’re likely to receive help from a surprising source, even though you may have thought you didn’t need any. Aquarius
GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — What you do in tandem with another can prove far more valuable than anything you try to do entirely on your own. CANCER (June 21-July 22) — Your emotions may be near the surface all week long; heed the warnings of those who have been in your shoes before.
Scorpio
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — You may have trouble, for a time, deciphering messages that come your way during the morning hours. Priorities may seem confused for a time.
Taurus
Gemini
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — Take things one step at a time. A friend makes an offer that takes you by surprise. A physical difficulty can be overcome. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) — You have been listening to another’s warnings for quite some time, and now is the time Pisces to do what you can to avoid the dangers ahead.
Aries
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) — You think you have things in order, but you are likely to discover that not everything is as it seems.
Leo
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) — Are you ready to improve your multitasking? Doing one thing at a time will not allow you to get everything done. Capricorn CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — You’ll be following someone else’s lead throughout much of the day, but you’ll know it when the time comes to break out on your own.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) — Technical assistance may not give you everything you had hoped for; you will have to Cancer Libra trust your innate abilities, surely. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) — Keep your head above water, and don’t let the little things accumulate to the point that they become overwhelming or threatening. ARIES (March 21-April 19) — You don’t know yourself quite as well as you think you do — or so a friend will assert when you behave in an unexpected way. Sagittarius
Virgo
Heather Rockwood is a food science junior and Mustang Daily food columnist. Imagine you have been working all day with the sun’s hot rays burning down on your body. You are exhausted from the manual labor of harvesting food and replanting for next season’s crop. Your back is sore from bending over, but the sun is finally setting and you know the end of the day is here. You walk over to the line of waiting workers to receive your earnings. What happens when you finally get to the front of the line? Well, if you are in the United States, you can expect to be rightly rewarded for your hard work, and you expect to receive at least minimum wage for the long hours you put in. Unfortunately, in this scenario, you are not in the U.S. Actually, you are a resident of a developing country, such as Kenya or the Ivory Coast, and earn less than $2 for all those long hours. This hardly seems fair, but that’s the reality found commonly throughout developing nations, and this is one of the better scenarios. What if the scenario was expanded to the realities faced by
some countries? What if you were just a child working such hours? To add to that, you were not only a child, but a trafficked slave far from home and the family you love. This scenario seems unimaginable to many of us who have grown up so blessed. As Americans, we have the opportunity to walk to the grocery store, obtain food we can immediately consume and choose from five different versions of the same product. We can’t imagine seeing a child work the register at a local grocery market, and
almost all of us believe living off a minimum wage salary — $8 per hour — is near impossible for a family. As Americans, we work hard and demand to be fairly rewarded for our labor, and we are. Although we claim these standards in our lives, the sad reality is that beyond the comfort of our U.S. homes, a vast majority of the rest of the world is facing a starkly different reality — and we, however unknowingly or unintentionally, have contributed to the painful reality of so many others. Sixty percent of the world lives on less than $2 a day. Since globalization, the world of food has been greatly altered. In an effort to provide more foods in all seasons and to gain larger profits, many American companies outsource labor to developing nations across the globe. This new shift posed a possibility of benefit not only for American companies, but also the
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see Fair Trade, page 8
Beyond the comfort of our U.S. homes ... we have contributed to the painful reality of so many others. — Heather Rockwood
Food columnist
picture of the day by Krisha Agatep
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Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Looney Tunes return to television Robert Lloyd Los angeles Times
Pity the poor cartoon character. Unable to speak for himself against those who would redraw or rewrite him, he is the slave and plaything of whomever owns the copyright. The human fan can only watch or not and note that in most cases the better work is not usually the latest, and that theatrical versions of old cartoons are almost invariably supe-
rior to their television revivals. But revivals there will be. “The Looney Tunes Show,” which debuts Tuesday night on CN, at the bigkid-but-not-little-kid-friendly hour of 8 p.m., is the latest attempt to do something new with the Warner Bros. roster of cartoon players — the greatest cartoon cast of them all, to my mind. It is certainly a new take on the classics, making suburban neighbors of its players in a show framed like a sitcom, and while it doesn’t improve on the originals, it
“ ” Bugs is not the wiseguy he once was; Daffy is an amiable, excitable idiot. — Robert Lloyd
Los Angeles Times
does not at least turn them into toddlers, as in the 2002 “Baby Looney Tunes.” It’s useful to remember that even in their youth these characters evolved, and taken on its own merits, ignoring the cognitive dissonance, the show can be pretty amusing. Bugs Bunny, badly re-proportioned with a big head and big feet, and Daffy Duck are at the center of the action. (Both are well voiced by Jeff Bergman, who has voiced them before.) When they shared a cartoon in times gone long by, they were adversaries, the cool rabbit versus the overheated waterfowl. Here they are not only best friends — the words “You’re despicable” will not be heard — but roommates. (“I’m just crashing here until I get back on my feet,” Daffy protests to Speedy Gonzalez, who points out that five years cannot be described as crashing.) They lead a modern life, in a big house with a flat-screen television and stonetopped kitchen counters. Bugs works out on a treadmill; there are laptops and email and texting.
Bugs is not the wiseguy he once was; Daffy is an amiable, excitable idiot. Let’s listen in: Bugs: “I bet if you looked up ‘self-absorbed’ in the dictionary you’d find your picture.” (“Selfabsorbed” is, I would guess, a phrase new to him.) Daffy: “My picture’s in the dictionary?” Some of the characters have been given new backstories or jobs, as if they had entered a cartoon witness protection program — Marvin the Martian is now “a former foreign exchange student from Mars who went to Daffy’s high school”; Speedy Gonzalez, voiced by Fred Armisen, “owns the local pizza place, Pizzarriba”; and Foghorn Leghorn has become “a rich entrepreneur and adventurer.” Sylvester, Tweetie, Porky, Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd and Granny (still voiced by June Foray) are all here as well, along with the relatively recent Lola Bunny (a very funny Kristin Wiig). There are also “music videos” — Elmer Fudd singing a soul ballad to grilled cheese, or “gwiwwed cheese” — which are weird in good and bad ways, and brief CGI Road Runner-Coyote segments have something of the quality of ViewMaster slides. They are neat, but brevity is certainly the soul of their wit.
Fair Trade continued from page 6
potential benefit of opportunity for developing nations to become a part of the global society. Sadly, this opportunity became more like a curse for hundreds of thousands of small farmers and producers. Instead of taking a step further in development and progress, many producers were victimized, stripped of rights and protection, left defenseless against the powerful government-backed companies that came into their countries, and thus scenarios like the one described above became the result of the once hopeful opportunity. But the reality of this scenario does not have to remain — there is gleaming hope once again for change and the rebirth of the original opportunity posed by global trade. As students and consumers receiving education and information on the injustices occurring around the world, we have the opportunity to make a difference for so many who have lost their voice in the clamor of an unfair system. Fair Trade is a social movement not only committed to raising awareness of the unfair realities in the global food trade, but a market-based movement that takes action to change the current situation. While focusing on numerous facets of global trade, the Fair Trade movement’s overarching goal is to offer disadvantaged producers fair prices, to secure rights for marginalized producers and to contribute to sustainable development. By purchasing products marked with certified Fair Trade logos, consumers are guaranteed that they are battling against the current injustices involved with global trade, and fighting for the promotion of producers in developing nations being justly compensated and being able to work in safe and healthy working environments. Next week begins Cal Poly’s Fair Trade Week, and I encourage you to take a closer look at what it means for you individually and for the thousands of marginalized farmers to support and promote the Fair Trade movement. We all eat, and thankfully we can use the way we purchase our food to help impact a greater change for good. And I think you’ll be surprised with just how many people are becoming conscious of the present situation and are making the ethical choice to support the Fair Trade movement. Instead of the usual weekly recipe, I’ve included some local places that sell fair trade and products that are fair trade certified: - Ben and Jerry’s - Honest Tea - Santa Cruz Organic Juice - Sweet Earth Organic Chocolate - Dole Food Company (pineapples and bananas) - Trader Joe’s Honey - Starbucks - Black Horse Espresso and Bakery - Higher Groundz - Nautical Bean - Linnaea’s Café - Kreuzberg, Ca HINT: This food originated in Latin America, and was used as currency in parts of Latin America until the 19th century. It was also used in many religious rituals of the ancient Mayan people.
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Tuesday, May 3, 2011 Volume LXXV, No.114 ©2011 Mustang Daily “How about ‘It’s almost better than Michigan.’”
editor in chief: Leticia Rodriguez managing editor: Patrick Leiva mustangdaily@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
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Currency not worth its weight in gold
Eric Baldwin is an electrical engineering senior and Mustang Daily libertarian columnist. The nice thing about being a libertarian is that I have front-row tickets to the very best conspiracy theories. Other people have their George Soroses, their global warmings, their corporate shadow governments and their Koch brothers. We have those too, but we go one better: we go gold. Gold has a long history in human commerce. It fulfills all the requirements for money: it is limited in quantity, easy to standardize, transport, divide and measure and it won’t corrode or die. For some mystical reason, humans like gold. It is pretty and shiny and has a nice mellow tone when you whack it. In one form or another this has been enough to ensure gold’s use in the economy since the dawn of human history. Governments have experimented with other forms of currency from time to time, but most nations reverted to gold (or a bag of precious metals) eventually. It was only in the first half of the 20th century that nations as a group turned from backed money to fiat money, which is money that exists by legal imperative, or “fiat.” Fiat money has no intrinsic value; it is good for nothing other than a means of transaction. “Backed,” or commodity-based money is money that has value and utility aside from its use as a means of transaction. Believe it or not, huge conflicts have
been fought over the difference. The advantage of a fiat currency is that it is not limited by the availability of any particular commodity. It can be expanded to keep pace with economic growth to minimize deflation, it does not face shocks due to large amounts of the commodities entering or exiting the economy (California gold and Nevada silver rushes, anyone?). Its lack of intrinsic utility means it will never get melted down for its metal content. The advantage of commoditybased currency is that it is limited by the availability of particular commodities. The value of its component sets a lower threshold for its total value, ensuring that its trustworthiness is not restricted to the apparent trustworthiness of its associated government. Governments and banks cannot issue unlimited amounts of currency to fund wars, takeovers or expensive programs. In the early stages of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, which kind-of-sort-of confiscated gold coinage from citizens and into the national treasury. He then revalued gold from approximately $20 per ounce to whatever seemed expedient, thereby expanding the dollar value of the government’s holdings because aggregate demand was imploding and the New Deal required a lot of money. In 1971, President Nixon closed the Gold Window, ending the ability of foreign governments to redeem dollars for gold at a fixed rate. Before
then, other nations could exchange dollars for gold at a fixed (though modifiable) rate. Now the dollar floats free; it is backed by nothing other than the expectations of those who use it. Dollars can still be exchanged for gold but at a ratio determined by the market; currently around $1,500 per ounce. Beginning in 1965 the metal content of dimes, quarters and halfdollars was changed from silver to cupronickel clads. A silver dime is now worth almost $5. It all seems very much like water under the Hoover Dam at this point. Gold was confiscated. Stuff happened. We moved on. But we haven’t moved on; the Great Recession has fanned the fires of curmudgeons across the States. A surprising number of people want to return to a backed currency, and certain politicians who will not be named (Ron Paul 2012) have pushed the idea for years because fiat money requires the state to provide the stability and security that makes it viable. Commodity money is a creation of the market and requires only the mutual agreement of traders to maintain its worth (though the state provides useful standardization services). The primary point of contest between these two forms of money is this; should the state be “wide,” or should it be narrow? Should money be under tight control or not? The answer depends on which view of economics reflects your sociopolitical beliefs (there is no neutral school of economics). Fiat currency can be created without bounds so it provides an easy way for the government to spend without taxation. When the price of money is reduced, so is the price of power. The
value of a fiat dollar is determined by the total number of such dollars in circulation; inflating the number of dollars reduces the purchasing power of each dollar. By pumping new money into the system as it sees fit, the government can transfer purchasing power from those who have dollars to those who receive them. In this way, a fiat currency allows governments to create an “invisible tax,” shifting wealth without having to reduce anyone’s number of dollars. To hold the keys to such power must be nearly irresistible. Since the value of a commodity currency is based on its metal content, government redistribution is difficult. For better or for worse, the government can only redistribute what it first gets its hands on. A commodity-based currency is therefore one which encourages the evolution of the status quo and discourages external interference. If the government should widely transfer wealth then it should have the tools to do so; if not, then not. What is important is to realize just how tangled and messy the topic of money is. Economics is a deeply ideological field and all claims deserve to be soberly questioned. More often than not, we take the default path because someone (perhaps we ourselves) has a vested interest in us taking it. The beliefs we hold deserve to be the products of honest struggle. Even as commodities, gold and silver act as currency, rising in response to demand as the world loses confidence in the major fiat currencies. They’re not investments — they don’t create wealth — but they can be a decent store of wealth.
“ ” (Gold) fulfills all the requirements for money: it is limited in quantity ... and it won’t corrode or die. — Eric Baldwin
Libertarian columnist
Women’s tennis hopes to continue season in NCAAs
Softball continued from page 12
“As of right now, I don’t think we have a chance to go to postseason,” Cahn said. “It’s been a really rough year for me. It’s really hard to see this season and everyone is feeling it. The morale is pretty low.” As a sophomore in 2009, Cahn and the Mustangs won the Big West with five seniors on the team. Now, the senior leads the team as one of only two seniors. With all the new faces on the field, her advice is spread thin, Cahn said. “As a freshman I didn’t really know the expectations and I looked to the older girls on what to do,” Cahn said. “But there are only two of us (seniors) so it’s been hard for us to help them out experience wise
Tennis continued from page 12
ryan sidarto mustang daily file photo After losing in a first round matchup to Cal State Northridge 4-1 at the Big West Tournament, the Mustangs’ postseason fate is up in the air. They will wait to see if they were selected to go to the NCAA Tournament, which will be released today. The Mustangs are 16-6 this season, after losing to the Matadors this weekend.
sports
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ing into the tournament. “Every match is tough,” Sonesson said. “There was Pacific, who we barely won against in the regular season and other small margin victories here and there that can drastically change the outcome of the season.” Cal Poly narrowly defeated Pacific in the regular season, with the seventh and final match being won by freshman Marco Comuzzo who, after losing the first set 6-3, dominated the next two 6-2 and 6-3.
or (by) giving them tips.” Now that time has gone by in the season, the underclassmen have accustomed themselves to what needs to be done, Cahn said. “I think they are doing a good job,” Cahn said. “It just takes a little bit of time being fresh to a new level of play. For them, for those eight girls, if they stick together and work hard, I know they will do some really great things.” With more than 15 years of experience in his professional career in athletics, athletics director Don Oberhelman is no stranger to witnessing young teams struggle initially, and then follow up the next seasons with success. “If you have a team whose primary contributions come from underclassmen, they almost always are able to learn from those lessons,” Ober-
helman said. “If they get knocked around a little bit, it’s a challenge as to what you are going to do. Are you going to fold the tent or are you going to dust yourself off and get better? Very rare does it not involve getting better and adding to the win total the next year and the years to come.” Oberhelman fully anticipates the Mustangs to be a top contender for the Big West again next year. Moreover, he said this season will provide lessons that go beyond the game of softball. “They’ll take these lessons on to life,” Oberhelman said. “This isn’t the only adversity they’re going to face in their lifetime. They’re going to face a lot of downtime in their careers and in their personal lives. This will teach them how to handle it in ways most students don’t get the opportunity to learn.”
The Mustangs were unable to pull off the same result in the Big West semis. Up 3-0 after winning the doubles point and their first two singles matches, the Mustangs were unable to secure a victory in the last four individual matches and missed a second consecutive Big West Championship appearance. Cal Poly picked up the first doubles point with victories from the duo of Dome and Sonesson, as well as Brian McPhee and Drew Jacobs. The team jumped up within striking distance of victory over Pacific with quick wins in straight sets from Sebastian Bell who won 6-3, 6-3 and Dome who won 6-1, 6-2.
But Cal Poly failed to win any of its last four matches. Sonesson and McPhee were defeated in straight sets, while Jordan Bridge lost in three sets, 6-0, 2-6, 6-3. The deciding match came down again to Comuzzo who faced Alex Golding for the second time. It was a similar setting for Comuzzo, who narrowly lost the first set 4-6, before dominating Golding in the second set 6-1. But Comuzzo couldn’t secure the win in a third set tie-breaker, losing 7-6. Now the Mustangs will wait eagerly for the selection announcement for the 64-team NCAA tournament, which is scheduled today at 2:30 p.m.
mustangdailysports Tuesday, May 3, 2011
sports editor: Brian De Los Santos mustangdailysports@gmail.com
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Young softball team takes positives from losing record Catherine Borgeson CatherineBorgeson.md@gmail.com
ryan sidarto mustang daily file photo The Cal Poly men’s tennis team (14-6) will wait for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament in today’s selection show.
Men’s tennis falls short in Big West Tournament, seeks NCAA at-large bid Jerome Goyhenetche jeromegoyhenetche.md@gmail.com
The Mustangs’ hopes for their first Big West Tournament championship was cut short Saturday as Pacific upset the Mustangs in the semifinals. Though the team’s Big West venture is over, their hopes for an at-large spot in the 2011 NCAA Champion-
ships is not. For senior Alexander Sonesson, an NCAA championship invitation would reflect the improvements the team has made since last season. “We’ve been really high up in the rankings consistently all season,” Sonesson said. “That’s been one of the biggest changes for us as a team: that we can maintain such a high level over such a long period of time.” As a team, the Mustangs have been ranked 49th in the nation or better since early March. In a press conference, head coach Justin McGrath said he thinks his team still has a shot to qualify for the tournament, especially ranked duo Sonesson and Andre Dome. “Alex Sonesson and Dome in doubles have a great opportunity to make the NCAA Tournament as well,” McGrath said. “Those two guys are very excited about the opportunity.” The duo has ranked in the top 45
since late February, posting a 12-4 record for the season and going 2-2 against ranked opponents. For Dome, the highlight of the season has been watching the team chemistry develop and grow with every victory. “Every match we won has been a pretty big highlight for me,” Dome said. “I felt like we relied on each other a lot better and we just trust each other a lot more. Now we just have to keep moving forward.” Cal Poly earned a first round bye in the Big West Tournament after earning the second seed with a 4-1 Big West record, losing only to undefeated UC Irvine. No. 3 Pacific defeated No. 6 UC Davis 4-0 to advance to the semifinals against Cal Poly. Despite beating Pacific in the regular season, Sonesson said the team took nothing for granted gosee Tennis, page 11
The Cal Poly softball team is fighting to get back on top. After losing to Cal State Northridge (18-29, 6-9) this past weekend, the Mustangs (8-33, 4-11) are tied for last place in the Big West. In a preseason coach’s poll released back in February, Cal Poly was predicted to win the conference but two months later, it’s a completely different story. But the Mustangs do have one thing on their side — youth. Seventy-five percent of the team is underclassmen, which means they have more seasons to play together as a team and learn from this season’s roller coaster of disappointment and frustration. Battling through the season struggles for the first time is shortstop Kim Westlund. As the team’s third leading hitter (.266), it’s hard for the journalism freshman to look at the team’s season record knowing they are capable of much better, she said. “You want to show that you came here for a reason and that you can perform at that level,” Westlund said. Despite being a freshman, Westlund has started every game, giving her the experience she said she wanted coming in to the team. In fact, all eight of the freshmen have started at least one game. Having the opportunity to start shows the coaches’ confidence in the first year players, but it also
adds to the pressure of expectations, Westlund said. “She’s (head coach Jenny Condon) said it plenty of times at practice — ‘You guys may be freshmen but that doesn’t mean anything. You’re part of the team and we brought you here to perform,’” Westlund said. Condon said this season serves as a valuable learning experience for the younger players because it teaches them how grueling college athletics is. The pace of the game is much faster and the athletes they compete against are a lot bigger and stronger at this new level of play, Condon said. “Everybody on the team was a star on their team back in high school so it’s kind of a crap shoot as to who is going to excel and who is going to struggle,” Condon said. With the different learning curves among the new players, the team has struggled with aspects of the game, Condon said. Despite the challenges, they have bonded as a team. “They get along really well and for the amounts of failures we’ve had as a team, the fact that they are not at each other’s throats is a testament to them,” Condon said. “They have never quit. They’re fighting as best they can, and hopefully we’ll get the break to get the outcome they’re looking for.” But for pitcher Anna Cahn, this season has not seen the results she was looking for. In her last year playing as a Mustang, Cahn wanted to go on to postseason, and the Big West season ultimately determines if the team will play in the postseason, Cahn said.
“ ”
see Softball, page 11
They have never quit, they’re fighting as best they can. And hopefully we’ll get the break to get the outcome they’re looking for. — Jenny Condon
Cal Poly softball head coach