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Memoir reveals flaws in foster care system

Find out what happened over the weekend in Cal Poly sports

IN Arts, 10

US and China team up to reduce green house gasses IN News, 4

IN Sports, 16

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Volume LXXIV, Number 160

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Cal Poly student dies over summer Susie Kopecky mustang daily

courtesy photo

Kevin Rodriguez fell to his death on Aug. 10 while hiking in Sequoia National Park. Rodriguez was about to enter his third year at Cal Poly.

SAE sued because of Starkey death

Cal Poly electrical engineering junior Kevin Trevor Rodriguez fell to his death at Sequoia National Park Aug. 10, officials from the National Park Service (NPS) said. Rodriguez is survived by his sister, an older brother and his parents, Robert and Trinidad.

Rodriguez, 19, was about to enter his third year at Cal Poly when the hiking accident occurred. He had just finished three courses at Moorpark Community College during his summer break and was celebrating his academic success by going to Sequoia National Park, said his father, Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez left for the park with two childhood friends and his family Aug. 9.

Rodriguez and his friends left to go hiking around 11 a.m. on Aug. 10, his father said. Rodriguez’s family dropped off their son and his friends near a trail and planned to meet up

Students wild about Week of Welcome mustang daily staff report

mustang daily staff report

The parents of Carson Starkey filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against the national organization of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE), the local chapter and nine former members of the fraternity.

Starkey died last year after he was given large amounts of alcohol at a Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge event known as “Brown Bag Night.”

The four former members of the fraternity who have been criminally charged for the incident are named in the lawsuit in addition to the officers of SAE at the time of the incident.

Ivo Labar, one of the lawyers representing Scott and Julia Starkey, said that they decided to file the lawsuit now to coincide with the beginning of school to raise awareness about the dangers of hazing.

The Starkey family has started see Starkey, page 2

later that day. Rodriguez was hiking near Tokopah Falls, a very rocky area, when the accident occurred in the late afternoon. Rodriguez was hiking down a steep drop when he slipped.

He fell 50-60 feet to the base of a canyon and suffered severe head injuries, landing in what the California Park Service described as a small pool below the rocks. His family was informed of the tragedy around 6 p.m., after his body had been airlifted by a medical helicopter to a nearby city.

Park authorities and paramedics at the scene attempted CPR for about one hour before pronouncing him dead at 4 p.m.

Park officials speculate that Rodriguez and his hiking companions chose to take an easier route.

“While less steep, the rocks they chose to descend were made slippery by water passing over them during high water,” according to a statement from the NPS. One of the roommates he would

Most students want to start a new school year on a positive note, but that wasn’t the case for some students who attended parties during the Week of Welcome, Cal Poly’s orientation program.

The University Police Department (UPD) gave 42 citations and arrested 43 people between move-in day Sept. 12 and Sept. 21. UPD Chief Bill Watton said almost all of the arrests and citations were for alcohol-related incidences.

Watton also said that UPD increased patrols for the Week of Welcome and the first few weeks of school.

The San Luis Obispo Police Department also issued more than 80 citations from Sept. 10 to Sept. 21, including 49 citations for open containers, 16 for noise violations and 12 for urinating in public. The San Luis Obispo Police Department also arrested more than 25 people for a variety of offenses, including public intoxication, driving under the influence, one case of driving under the influence that resulted in an injury, battery and resisting arrest.

There were also two Cal Poly students arrested for trespassing early Sunday and Monday mornings, according to a press release from the San Luis Obispo Police Department. Both students did not know where they were; the disorientation was the result of alcohol intoxication.

San Luis Obispo police Capt. Ian Parkenson said, despite the tone of the university that the amount of patrolling was about the same as in previous years. He added that while this year’s activity was about the same as in past years it began earlier.

“We noticed problems starting on Saturday this year after the end of the football game,” he said.

The San Luis Obispo Police Department and UPD did not have the total number of arrests and citations for the Week of Welcome last year.

Area hospitals saw an increase in traffic during Week of Welcome festivities. Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center spokesperson Ron Yukelson said that the hospital had seen a “sharp spike” in alcohol-related incidents since Week of Welcome began. It treated one individual who had a blood alcohol content of .38, extremely close to the .39 to .45 percent of recently deceased Cal Poly student Carson Starkey.

Yukelson said the hospital wants to combat the fear and anxiety some students might feel about seeking medical help for friends or loved ones. “It’s very important to bring in friends and loved ones who are severely intoxicated—don’t let them sleep or put them to bed—bring them in,” he said. see WOW, page 2

have been living with this year was with him on the hike.

Rodriguez was a member of the renewable energy club at Cal Poly.

Club president Patrick Bernard said that without Rodriguez the club would not exist. Rodriguez was the only person to show up to Bernard’s first meeting as president. It was not only his commitment to the club that Bernard remembered but also his outgoing personality.

“He always wore a smile,” Bernard said. “He was always inviting people to dinner and was always down to go to the beach or on a hike.”

Bernard also said that Rodriguez was his go to guy and was smart beyond his years.

“In five years Kevin would be a millionaire, gazillionaire genuis,” Bernard said.

Bernard regrets not taking pictures at club meetings because he feels like he does not have enough see Rodriguez, page 2

University Police Department

43 Arrests 42 Citations

SLO Police Department

49 Open container

citations Noise violations

16 13 Public intoxication arrests

12 Urinating in public 7 DUI arrests 2 Trespassing violations

1 Resisting arrest 1 Battery case

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WOW continued from page 1

Furthermore,Yukelson stressed the hospital’s ‘safe zone’ policy, which protects underage drinkers from police intervention.

“We’re a safe zone, so you don’t need to worry about us calling your parents or the police,” he said.

The office of university president Warren Baker sent a campus-wide e-mail Wednesday informing students of acceptable partying practices, encouraging them to keep gatherings under control by calling campus police

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if they see illegal behavior.

The e-mail urged students to make “wise and responsible choices” including checking IDs at the door of parties to ensure no underage individuals are drinking alcohol.

Student Affairs also sent out an e-mail on Friday about a student who was kicked out of his dorm just a few hours after moving in when he was caught smoking marijuana.

The total number of residents evicted from the dorms was not provided by the time of publication Tim Miller and Rebecca Maples contributed to this report.

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mustangdaily d ily.nett always something new.

News editor: Tim Miller, News Designer: Kasey Reed mustangdailynews@gmail.com Wednesday, September 23, 2009 daily

News Rodriguez continued from page 1

tangible moments of Rodriguez.

The passing of Rodriguez, a Malibu resident and former Malibu High School student, prompted the creation of a 447-member strong Facebook group, titled “In Loving Memory of Kevin Rodriguez, R.I.P.” Rodriguez’s younger sister Diana started the group.

Many members of the group shared reactions to the news of Rodriguez’s death on the group’s Facebook wall.

“Kevin was always such a nice person,” one member wrote. “I didn’t know him well, but he made going to Malibu High a lot easier for

Starkey continued from page 1

a non-profit organization called With Carson, to help educate students about alcohol. A bill was also passed in Texas, Starkey’s home state, called the Carson Starkey Alcohol Awareness and Education Act. Labar said that they have not asked for any money in the suit

me as an incoming freshman some six years ago. I’ll always remember you as the caring, smart person who accepted everyone for who they were and always had something nice to say.”

Rodriguez is remembered by friends and family as a friendly face and someone who enjoyed learning.

He liked surfing, both at home in Malibu and at school around Pismo Beach and Morro Bay. His friends described him as respectful and loving.

Rodriguez was interested in programming and software development and wanted to develop his own computer games, his father said.

Robert Rodriguez noticed that his son was becoming increasingly spiritual about three to four weeks

before the accident.

“There was no time to say goodbye the day you went away,” Robert Rodriguez wrote about his son’s passing. “We think of you in silence, we often speak your name. All we have are memories, and your picture in a frame. If tears could build a stairway and heartaches make a lane, we would walk the path to Heaven to bring you home again... Fly well sweetie, till we meet again.”

“He always believed in this: ‘knowledge is power,’” Robert Rodriguez said. “He always liked to treat others the way he liked to be treated. He always said, ‘never assume’ or ‘never judge.’”

A church memorial service took place on Aug. 23 in Westlake Village.

Rodriguez would have been 20 this November.

at this time.

Labar also said that other fraternities have been sued over wrongful deaths successfully in the past.

“The national fraternities do not take charge,” he said.

There is no outside supervision in these organizations; teenagers are supervising teenagers, he added.

Scott and Julia Starkey hired two different law firms, one from Washington D.C. and one from

San Francisco. Both have experience in litigation involving fraternities.

“We will continue to honor Carson by doing everything we can to end widespread misconduct by fraternities,” said Scott Starkey in a press release. “By bringing this lawsuit, we hope to bring attention to the dangers of hazing, cause fundamental change in fraternities and prevent other families from suffering as we have.”

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

News

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Organ donors and recipients are aging

Will tougher python species put its squeeze on Everglades?

chicago tribune

David Fleshler

CHICAGO — At 84 years old, Juan Guano would seem an unlikely candidate for a kidney transplant.

But consider this: The kidney he received was 69.

Until recently, that kidney would not have been eligible for use in a transplant, because of the age of the deceased donor. But this summer, surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital transplanted it in Guano, making him among the nation’s oldest organ recipients.

His surgery illustrates two intersecting trends in transplant medicine: People 60 and older represent the fastest-growing age group on transplant waiting lists, and kidneys increasingly are being accepted from older people and donors who had health problems before they died.

Organs from these “expandedcriteria donors,” which otherwise would be discarded, can give patients like Guano a new lease on life. Guano, a grandfather of five and greatgrandfather of six, beams as he recalls being summoned to the hospital on Father’s Day for surgery. The octogenarian had undergone six years of dialysis after his kidneys failed.

“I was surprised; I was shocked,” Guano said in Spanish as he relaxed in the sunny living room of his artfilled home, surrounded by three of his four children. “I still can’t believe it.”

Some experts have expressed ethical concerns about using less-thanperfect kidneys for transplants, stressing the need for full disclosure to the recipients.

“The primary reason (for using these kidneys) is to try to get the most out of the existing organs to save lives, but another factor is that transplantation is lucrative,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at University of Pennsylvania.

“We have a lot of programs doing transplants, clearly more than the supply of organs justify,” he added.

“That means people want to save lives but they also push hard to try to use organs of somewhat questionable quality. ... Even an 84-year-old needs to know that (surgeons) are talking about a kidney that they had reservations about.”

More than 16,000 kidney transplants were performed nationwide last year, and the current waiting list for kidneys stands at about 81,000.

The use of expanded-criteria kidneys has increased about 30 percent since 2002 and now accounts for about 11 percent of all kidney transplants.

Guano got his kidney through Northwestern’s Hispanic Transplant Program. Dr. Juan Carlos Caicedo, the program’s director, said that of the almost 3,000 kidney transplants performed by Northwestern since 1988, 188 came from donors 65 or older.

“Part of our informed consent process — and it’s very thorough — is to explain to every patient all the risks and benefits, and they have the last one word,” Caicedo said. “They can decide if they want it or if they don’t want it.”

Patients who accept an expandedcriteria kidney have a shorter wait for an organ and are less likely to die than patients on dialysis.

A recent study published in the

sun sentinel

Deborah L. Shelton

Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology found that about half of kidney transplant candidates older than 60 will die before getting a deceased-donor kidney.The risk of dying before transplant was even higher for African-Americans, diabetic patients, those 70 or older and those with blood type B or O. The down-side of taking an expanded-criteria kidney instead of a standard kidney is a higher risk of organ rejection and death.

“What we are trying to do is have the best match between donor and recipient,” Caicedo said. “We don’t want to transplant kidneys from young donors into old people or vice versa.We want the match to have the best outcome, making sure the patient and the kidney have the longest survival. In this case, we were able to use an expanded-criteria kidney that probably would not be good for a 20-year-old. And we used a kidney that in many cases would have been thrown away or not used.”

The kidney Guano received had been offered to others, who turned it down. Not knowing how much longer he’d have to wait if he said no, Guano recalls telling the doctors: “Yes, I want to take it.”

Between 1988 and the end of June, nine people 86 or older got kidney transplants from a deceased donor in the U.S.; two received kidneys from living donors. Still waiting are about 150 people between 81 and 85, and about a dozen people 86 or older.

The transplant waiting list is aging because people are living longer and developing diseases like diabetes and hypertension that lead to chronic disease and eventually end-stage organ failure, said Dr. John Friedewald, vice chairman of the kidney allocation committee of United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system.

But the donor pool is much younger, he said, creating a mismatch.

There is no automatic age cutoff on the waiting list for a kidney.Transplant centers decide whom to add to the list and which donor organs to accept, and the criteria they use vary, said Dr. Robert Higgins, president of UNOS and chairman of heart transplantation at Rush University Medical Center.

Guano’s daughter Sonia said several Chicago hospitals had turned him away, but his family kept search-

ing.

Older people typically have more risk factors that can complicate surgery, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity and arteriosclerosis. But they generally are not ruled out for transplant solely on the basis of age.

“You could be a young 65 or you can be an old 25-year-old,” Caicedo said. “Sometimes you have a 65- to 70-year-old patient who is very young in spirit and attitude and they can have multiple medical problems, but they are motivated. ... Mental attitude is so important here. It’s not the chronological age.”

Guano went home two days after the transplant. Two days later, he was back to working on his series of 12 Christian-inspired sculptures called “Los Hijos del Sol,” or “Children of the Sun.” A retired furniture factory worker and accomplished sculptor, he emigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador 33 years ago and became a citizen about a dozen years ago.

On a recent day, Guano chatted about his active life as he carried a clay model of a sculpture to his simply adorned living room, decorated with lace curtains, family photos, several Santa Claus figures and a small Ecuadorean flag. He was animated as he spoke of his desire to exhibit his art and one day meet his donor’s family.

High blood pressure destroyed his original kidneys. But Guano was in otherwise good health before the transplant. Caicedo said a transplant offered him a better quality of life than dialysis, and possibly a longer life.

“He was in great shape,” Caicedo said. “He could live five, 10 years more.”

Medicare, which paid for Guano’s surgery, covers transplant costs if the patient is over 65, including anti-rejection medications.

Higgins said Northwestern should be applauded for using expandedcriteria kidneys to expand the donor pool.

“In the long run, we know for any patient a transplant is better than staying on dialysis,” he said. “The question that arises in a cost-constrained environment is how health care expenditures should be utilized in situations like this.That’s a larger question that I think lies in the medical and regulatory community and on the policy development side, and it’s not a simple answer.”

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The largest snake in Africa, a powerful constrictor that consumes goats, wart hogs and crocodiles, has been found east of the Everglades, raising the possibility it is breeding in the wild in a state already overrun with non-native wildlife.

Authorities are investigating the discovery of three African rock pythons in western MiamiDade County over the past few months, including a juvenile and a female with eggs.

Although Florida wildlife officials hope these were simply released pets, they are taking seriously the danger that a second non-native constrictor has established itself in the state alongside the Burmese python, now estimated to number in the thousands in Everglades National Park.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission plans to send officers to the area where the snakes were found this summer.

“We’re not sure whether it’s someone releasing them or not,” said Scott Hardin, exotic species coordinator for the Florida wildlife commission. “It’s enough to be concerned. We are sending our people to look through the area to determine the extent of it.”

Experts say the danger to people is remote, but there have been fatal attacks. A 10-year-old boy was killed and eaten by an African rock python in 2002 in South Africa. And in 1999 a pet African rock python in Centralia, Ill., slipped out of its enclosure and strangled a 3-year-old boy.

A more realistic danger is to South Florida’s environment, where non-native species can consume wildlife, displace native predators and cause unpredictable changes to already stressed wild lands.

Lt. Lisa Wood, of the MiamiDade Fire Rescue Venom Response Team, found two of the snakes. One night in late May, investigating a report of a giant snake on the road, she found a female about 9 feet long injured by a vehicle. The snake contained about three dozen eggs.

“Had she made it across the road, there would have been quite a lot of babies hatched,” Wood said.

In August, in another worrisome indication the snakes may be breeding, Wood found a 28inch juvenile that had been shot with a BB gun, still bulging from a recently consumed grackle.

The African rock python is found on dry land near lakes and streams in Africa south of the Sahara desert. It can grow longer than 20 feet, although specimens of 16 feet are more typical. Although this places it below the Burmese python in size, the African snake has a reputation for aggressiveness that makes it less

popular than the Burmese in the pet trade.

In the past five years, 3,158 African rock pythons have been imported into the United States for commercial sales, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This makes the snake far less popular than other constrictors, such as the smaller, mild-tempered ball python, of which 619,488 were imported, or the Burmese, of which 19,817 were brought in.

Greg Graziani, a Central Florida reptile breeder who has volunteered to help hunt Burmese pythons in the Everglades, said the west Miami-Dade area where they were found seemed too densely populated to conceal a breeding population of such large reptiles, since so few have actually been discovered.

“When you’re talking about a breeding population, you’re talking about large snakes,” he said.

“When they’re large enough to be breeders, they’re going to be seen.”

There’s a chance the Burmese and African rock pythons could mate, since the two species have produced offspring in captivity, said Bill Turner, a biologist with the state wildlife commission.

Such a hybrid could be a tougher animal than either of the pure breeds, he said, but it would almost certainly be sterile.

The Burmese python has become the symbol of the danger of non-native species, having established a self-sustaining population in the Everglades, where the snakes eat wading birds, raccoons, deer and other native wildlife.

The Florida wildlife commission now requires Burmese pythons, African rock pythons and several other snakes have microchips implanted to prevent owners from abandoning them. And Congress is considering legislation that would ban the import and interstate transport of the two species of snake.

Amy Devilbiss, a reptile hobbyist and employee of JP Pets of Sanford, near Orlando, which imported 335 African rock pythons, said the snakes may have been released by people who realized they couldn’t take care of such a large, high-maintenance animal.

“People get them and they get overwhelmed,” she said. “I tell people you have to understand what you’re getting into.”

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

China, U.S. promise bold steps to safeguard climate at U.N. summit Warren P. Strobel and Renee Schoof MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao of China — the leaders of the two countries that emit the most greenhouse gases — pledged at a United Nations summit Tuesday that their countries would take bold actions to protect the Earth’s future climate from irreversible damages.

Obama and Hu listed what their countries already have done to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases and acknowledged that much more would be needed, although they didn’t specify what new steps lie ahead.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon opened the special climate session with an appeal to all countries to work toward “a common, long-term goal to limit global temperatures to safe levels consistent with science.”

Negotiations for a climate agreement in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December have been bogged down as industrialized and developing countries argue about which should

act first, and how much they should cut emissions. The goal in Copenhagen is for industrialized countries to set midterm and long-term limits on carbon pollution and for developing countries to declare what steps they’ll take to reduce emissions, a step short of making mandatory reductions.

Another area of dispute is how much the world’s wealthy nations will pay to help poorer ones reduce emissions and adapt to unavoidable climate change. Any general agreement probably would require more work after the Copenhagen talks to fill in details.

“Success in Copenhagen will have positive ripple effects for global cooperation on trade, energy, security and health,” Ban said. “Failure to reach broad agreement in Copenhagen would be morally inexcusable, economically shortsighted and politically unwise.”

Obama warned that unless the world’s nations act “boldly, swiftly and together, we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.” He added,“No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can

mcclatchy-tribune

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Climate Change Summit, held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on September 22. escape the impact of climate change,” which includes rising seas, more frequent droughts and more powerful storms and floods.

Obama announced that at the Group of 20 meeting Thursday in Pittsburgh he’d propose phasing out fossil fuel subsidies so that money can be directed to climate protection.

The United States has been the subject of increasing complaints from Europe for not doing more to set strict limits on carbon emissions.

In his speech, Obama said that since he took office in January, “The United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history.”

Energy and climate legislation is moving slowly in Congress, however, taking a back seat to Obama’s priority of health care restructuring.

China’s Hu said his country would cut carbon dioxide emissions as a percentage of economic output by a “notable margin” by 2020, but

he didn’t specify an amount. China’s overall emissions are expected to keep growing through this period.

This is a new goal and “the clearest signal yet that China is willing to take on responsibilities that are commensurate with its resources and global emissions impact,” said Julian L.Wong, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan research institution that supports Obama’s initiatives.

Wong said that Hu’s statement implicitly committed China to measure and report its emissions in a way that international observers could verify.A plan for how that would work for all countries remains to be decided.

Hu’s statement followed other policy actions by China’s leadership in recent years that reduce the rate of increase of the country’s emissions.

“Quite frankly, China is making great strides in many areas,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in an interview Tuesday with McClatchy Newspapers.

Chu said it was possible to keep temperatures from rising beyond 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, the level that world leaders and scientists have agreed shouldn’t be crossed.

“This goal, which is an ambitious goal, is achievable, but we’ll have to work very hard to get there,” he said.

“Having said all that, the thing we’ve got to do is get started. We’ve got to realize the dangers of what would happen” if temperatures increase by 11 degrees Fahrenheit or more, as scientific studies have shown could happen if no limits are put on emissions.

“At all costs we want to avoid entering into that region, because it would be a very different world,” Chu said.

China, India and other large developing countries have said that it’s impossible for them to put a binding cap on emissions.

India announced last week that it would make voluntary emission cuts through greater efficiency and more use of renewable energy.

Obama’s Mideast talks fall short of expectations Warren P. Strobel MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

President Barack Obama, expressing impatience with stalled Middle East peace talks, told Israeli and Palestinian leaders Tuesday that “it is past time to talk about starting negotiations — it is time to move forward.”

His meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was the highest-level Middle East diplomacy of his presidency, but it fell short of expectations. As recently as a week ago, U.S. officials had hoped it would yield an announcement of renewed formal negotiations on an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.

However, Obama special envoy George Mitchell was unable to secure a deal in which Israel would

freeze construction of West Bank settlements in return for Arab states taking small steps toward recognition.

Obama and his aides seemed to be switching gears after seven months of frustration, as they played down the settlements issue and emphasized the need to begin talks right away.

“Permanent status negotiations must begin, and begin soon,” Obama said, referring to talks on the fundamental issues that divide the parties, such as borders, the status of Jerusalem and the settlements.

The meetings at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel — Obama met Netanyahu and Abbas separately, and then brought them together — produced no breakthroughs.The only apparent progress was a commitment by both sides to send negotiating teams to

Washington next week, and a general agreement that peace talks should restart quickly.

Mitchell, who’s repeatedly shuttled across the Middle East, said the Obama administration has made significant progress in narrowing the differences between the two sides.

But he added: “We knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”

Tuesday’s talks were “blunt” at times, Mitchell said, with the Israelis and Palestinians reiterating their positions and Obama beseeching them to “get things done.”

Netanyahu, at the helm of a right-center coalition, has steadfastly refused U.S. calls for a full freeze in construction of Jewish settlements in the contested West Bank. He’s offered a temporary nine-month pause, see Mideast, page 5

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

Mideast continued from page 4

which would not include construction in Jerusalem.

Obama appeared to acknowledge that his early calls for a settlement freeze have fallen on deaf ears. Israel, he said, has only offered to “restrain” settlement activity.

The Israeli offer “is not everything we might have wanted. But it’s certainly a significant step,” said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under White House ground rules.

Aaron David Miller, a Middle East negotiator for six secretaries of state, said Netanyahu was the clear winner after Tuesday’s summit.

“Netanyahu 1, and Abbas, Obama and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, zero,” said Miller, now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington.

The meeting “represents an impasse, after seven months of working the issue in a particular way,” Miller said, referring to the settlements-forconfidence-building measures trade that Mitchell has been working on.

Critics of Obama’s approach say the demands on settlements and other issues have created new barriers to peace talks and caused the Palestinians to harden their bargaining stance.

They point out that Abbas and Netanyahu’s predecessor, Ehud Olmert,

held detailed talks without preconditions, during President George W. Bush’s last year in office.

U.S. officials say that, with so many peace negotiations having failed over the years, they are trying to establish solid ground rules before the talks that would drive them to a successful conclusion.

“We have never identified the steps requested (of Israelis and Palestinians) as ends in themselves,” Mitchell said. “We have always made clear that they are means to an end, the end being the re-launching of negotiations.”

“There is absolutely no change in our focus,” he said. “We want to get negotiations re-launched, and everything we have said and done in this period has been in an effort to achieve that objective.”

Obama promised during the presidential campaign that he would make Middle East peace a priority, criticizing what he said was Bush’s insufficient attention to a problem with worldwide ramifications. He appointed Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader, as Mideast envoy on his second full day in office.

But Miller said that Obama will soon have to calculate how much time and capital he wants to devote to the conflict.“The decision point is rapidly approaching for this administration. How important is IsraeliPalestinian peace for this president?”

Word on the Street “How does it feel to be back to school?”

Compiled and photographed by Jennifer Titcomb “It’s pretty overwhelming; getting back into the swing of things with work and classes and everything.”

-Julie Rudd, journalism junior

“It feels good. I was getting bored.”

-Gonzalo Chavez, ethnic studies senior

“I think it feels good.

The energy is good.”

-Leah Johnson, animal science junior

“It feels kind of long and draining. But it’s exciting and bittersweet.”

-Sadie Jones, liberal studies junior

Wire Editor:Jennifer Titcomb

News

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Briefs State

National

International

SACREMENTO (MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE) — By 2030, California will need to train almost 1 million more health-care workers, according to a report released Tuesday.

These workers, also known allied health workers, are people in health care who aren’t doctors or nurses. They form the backbone of the industry, described by many as the “hidden healthcare workforce.”

The report, funded by the California Wellness Foundation, said the 15-county area surrounding Sacramento would need approximately 214,000 to 253,000 new health workers.

The need for new workers comes from population growth in California, and people retiring or leaving the field. California will grow by 10.2 million people by 2030, with the population of over-65 residents doubling to 9 million, the report projected.

Occupations in highest demand are nursing aides, medical secretaries, medical assistants, licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses, home health aids, dental assistants and dental hygienists.

The group includes up to 50 job classifications and comprises about 60 percent of the health care work force.

CHICAGO (MCCLATCHYTRIBUNE) — After a microscopic look at several famous marriages, author Christopher Andersen takes his pen-or, some argue, a hatchetto the Obamas in his latest book, “Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.”

He describes a reluctant groomto-be, sometimes-stormy union, and woman sick of emptying his overflowing ashtrays-and being shut out by his ambition. He says the crucibles of battling infertility, helping to nurse daughter Sasha to health after meningitis, and coping with early political defeat (and debt), the Obamas survived-and thrived. By the inauguration they were “indisputably the First Couple not only of America but of the world.”

URUMQI, CHINA (MCCLATCHY) — China’s leadership says it has calmed this city after almost 200 people were stabbed, bludgeoned or beaten to death in July riots and more violent protests this month forced the removal of top officials.

Despite the assurances from Beijing, however, Urumqi remains on edge less than two weeks before the 60th anniversary celebration of China’s communist regime. The region’s main ethnic groups, Han Chinese and Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims, are locked in a cycle of violence in this enclave of more than 2.3 million people near China’s western border.

Hundreds of soldiers with automatic rifles and riot shields are stationed on street corners. Pickups zoom through the streets blaring propaganda from loudspeakers, exalting the government and demanding cooperation.

Urumqi (pronounced urumCHEE) is supposed to be a testament to China’s unstoppable progress, the ability to take an ancient trading post of more than a dozen ethnic communities and erect over them a modern city of glittering towers dedicated to commerce and tourism.

•••

DETROIT (MCCLATCHYTRIBUNE) — General Motors Co. plans to add new shifts at three U.S. assembly plants, restoring 2,400 jobs, the company announced today.

The shifts will be added at plants in Lansing Delta Township, Mich.; Fairfax, Kan.; and Fort Wayne, Ind., the company said.

GM said the actions are the result of consolidating products built at factories that are being retooled for new products, closed or being placed on standby as previously announced.

6

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News

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Senate panel takes up health care, but final bill may be months away David Lightman MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

The Senate Finance Committee Tuesday began the last, and so far the most crucial, piece of writing legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system _ and quickly demonstrated how tough a task lawmakers face.

Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., revised key elements of the carefully crafted compromise that he announced only a week ago. The 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans took more than three hours to make their opening statements expressing their views. Committee members offered 564 amendments.

Sometimes, they seemed almost awed by their mission. “This is our opportunity to make history,” Bau-

cus said. Other times, they expressed concern about a wide variety of issues, notably whether middle- and lowerincome consumers could afford the coverage they’d be required to buy under his bill.

The committee, which hopes to finish its work by the end of this week, is the latest stop in a months-long process that still lacks a clear finish line.

Everything done in Senate Finance may be changed again on the Senate floor, or later in a House of Representatives-Senate conference committee.

Any final legislation is months away.

So far, three committees of the House and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have produced their versions of health care legislation, all written largely by Democrats. Each includes a govern-

mcclatchy-tribune

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R) on the floor with Assistant Majortiy Leader US Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) before the speech of President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress on his embattled healthcare reform plan at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on September 9.

ment-run alternative to private health insurance coverage, or a “public option.”

House leaders are trying to merge their three bills into one, and a floor vote is expected soon. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said that the public option will pass the House, setting up a likely showdown with the Senate, where many think a public option can’t pass. The Finance Committee is expected to back cooperatives, or nonprofit, member-run companies, as an alternative to a public option.

Once Senate Finance is done, its work will be combined with the Senate Health committee’s measure, and the full Senate will consider a single bill, subject to amendments. If that passes, a House-Senate conference, or negotiating committee, will write a final version. It then would go to each chamber for final passage. If each chamber approves the final version, it would need only President Barack Obama’s signature to become law.

It’s but a single way station on a very long road, yet the Finance Committee is being watched closely because Baucus and two other committee Democrats negotiated for months with three Republican members in search of bipartisan compromise. Though those talks broke down last week, hope remains that Democrats can find some GOP support.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the committee’s top Republican and one

of the six negotiators, indicated that would be difficult. “The cry of impatience has won out,” he said.

However, Sen. Olympia Snowe, RMaine, another negotiator, sent strong signals Tuesday that she’s still willing to talk, listing a series of concerns but indicating a desire for compromise.Afterward, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called her remarks “brilliant.”

Snowe’s vote could be needed badly. Democrats now control 59 seats in the 100-member Senate, and 60 votes are needed under Senate rules to break procedural deadlocks. While Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, is expected to fill the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy soon, 91-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., suffered a setback Tuesday when he fell at his home and was taken to a hospital.

The key committee flashpoint Tuesday involved affordability, as senators from both parties signaled that unless they can go home and assure their constituents that their health care costs won’t skyrocket, this bill is going nowhere.

Health insurance costs have been soaring. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, during the past 10 years, the average health care premium for family coverage has gone up 131 percent, to $13,375. The average worker contribution has soared 128 percent, to $3,515.

“We have to do better on affordability in this bill,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Baucus’ revised plan, which adopts amendments offered mostly by Democrats, takes a number of steps aimed at easing those concerns.

He originally wanted to impose a 35 percent excise tax on insurance policies costing more than $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for families.

His change would raise the tax to 40 percent and increase the limits for most retirees and people in high-risk jobs to $8,750 for individuals and $23,000 for families.

Baucus also proposed making it easier for lower- and middle-income families to get tax credits that would help them buy coverage, and would cut in half to $1,900 the penalty for higher-income families who don’t buy insurance. Virtually all Americans would have to buy coverage.

The revenue lost by his amendment would be made up from the bill’s projected $49 billion budget surplus over 10 years, Baucus said. The bill’s total cost: $774 billion, paid for by taxes, fees and projected savings, notably from Medicare.

Lots of concerns remained. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., whose bipartisan “Healthy Americans Act” alternative health care bill would promote competition in the private marketplace, said that the Baucus bill doesn’t do enough to promote competition.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

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News

Congress considers California scales down plan extending Patriot to close state parks Act provisions Paul Rogers

san jose mercury news

David G. Savage TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU

The Patriot Act, a favorite of the Bush administration’s fight against terrorism, may be renamed later this year as the Justice Act at the hands of congressional Democrats.

But the law itself, including its controversial provisions that gave FBI agents more leeway to search computers and bank records, is likely to survive, albeit with some changes to limit who can be searched.

“Security and liberty are both essential in our free society,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Tuesday in introducing a bill to extend three provisions of the law due to expire on Dec. 31. He said Democrats would “update checks and balances by increasing judiciary review” of the government’s investigations.

As a senator from Illinois, Barack Obama was a critic of the Patriot Act. Last week, however, the Obama administration asked the House and Senate to extend its three expiring provisions.

“The Administration is willing to consider ... ideas (for modifying the law), provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,” Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said in a letter to Congress.

This small concession was greeted by House Democrats Tuesday as a “refreshing break” from the Bush era.

The House subcommittee on the Constitution held its first hearing on extending the Patriot Act Tuesday. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., its chairman, said the law has “aroused a great deal of controversy and concern,” but it nonetheless “remains a useful tool” in investigating and preventing terrorism.

But many liberals are still upset by the far-reaching search authority, and they are not ready to back the extension, even in a now-Democratic administration.

“This law was rushed through Congress after 9/11,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.

When an Obama administration lawyer testified in support of extending the law as is, Conyers stopped him short. “You sound like a lot of people who came over from DOJ,” he said, referring to the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., the lone opponent of the Patriot Act in 2001, served notice he will lead an effort with other Senate liberals, including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to make “fixes” in the Patriot Act. Their bill, called the Justice Act, also would allow lawsuits against telecommunications firms that cooperated with the Bush administration and supplied information on their customers.

More controversial than the three provisions about to expire is the FBI’s use of “National Security Letters” to obtain financial records and computer information _ and without the approval of a judge.

Both Leahy and Nadler said

Tuesday they will not seek its repeal, but they will press for changes. Leahy said his bill “would require the FBI to include a statement of facts articulating why the information it is seeking is relevant to an authorized investigation.”

He also said he planned to seek a change that would call for disclosing these searches in some cases after 21 days. The Obama administration said it had not decided on whether it would support or oppose changes in this part of the law.

The most controversial of the three expiring provisions allows the FBI, with a judge’s approval, to obtain an order to get business records, financial data, computer information or even library records that are believed to be “relevant” to a terrorism investigation. These searches are done in secret and the banks, for example, are not to notify the customer.

Leahy and Nadler said they will seek a change in the law that would require investigators to show a clearer link between the records being searched and an actual terrorist.

On Tuesday, an Obama administration lawyer discounted concern from the ACLU about library books in testimony before the House subcommittee.

“At the time of the USA Patriot Act, there was concern that the FBI would exploit the broad scope of the business records authority to collect sensitive personal information on constitutionally protected activities, such as the use of public libraries.

This simply has not occurred, even in the environment of heightened terrorist threat activity,” said Todd M. Hinnen, a deputy assistant attorney general.

Another section authorizes a “roving” wiretap of suspected terrorist or foreign agent who moves around and switches cell phones to avoid detection. These wiretaps must be approved by a judge. An Obama administration lawyer said it has been used about 22 times per year since 2001.

The third provision allows the government to target a foreigner who is suspected of terrorism but is a “lone wolf ” with no apparent connection to a group such as al-Qaida.

Prior to 2001, the law allowed the FBI to spy on terrorists or foreign agents in this country, but only if they could be linked to some terrorist group or foreign government.

Government lawyers said they have never used this provision of the law, but urged that it be extended in the event a similar situation arises in the future.

Republicans said the Patriot Act helped prevent a terrorist attack in this country, and they said the provisions should be extended as they are.

“The clocking is ticking,” Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said Tuesday.

An ACLU lawyer said much of the current law is “unconstitutional” and should be repealed or revised.

“The time for Patriot Act reform is long overdue,” said Mike German, an ACLU lawyer and former FBI agent.

Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will close far fewer than 100 state parks, and has dropped plans to release a list this month, as his administration previously planned.

Appearing to back away from an issue that has prompted growing criticism and threatened the governor’s environmental legacy, Schwarzenegger’s office has asked the state Department of Finance to find other cuts in the state parks budget to minimize the number of parks closed, the governor’s office said Tuesday.

“That 100 number isn’t something to hang your hat on,” said Jeff Macedo, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger.

“We wanted to find a way to keep as many parks as possible open. We are still working with the parks department to find other ways to save besides closing parks.”

Macedo did not rule out the possibility that all state parks might remain open, although he said it was not likely.

“If there’s some way we can work that out, it would be great. But with the cuts in their budget that may not be feasible,” he said.

When will the closure list come out, if there is one?

“I don’t think we have a specific time line,” he said.

Faced with a $24 billion deficit amid plummeting tax revenues,

Schwarzenegger proposed eliminating all $143 million in state general fund money for parks by next year, which the state parks department said would have required 220 of the 279 state parks to close.

After public outcry, the Legislature restored all but $8 million this summer. Yet last month, Schwarzenegger cut an additional $6.2 million through a line-item veto, for a total of $14.2 million.

State parks director Ruth Coleman raised entrance fees and searched for partnerships with counties and cities, without much luck. She announced there was no other way to make ends meet but to close as many as 100 parks, and the governor’s office did not overrule her. Further, the official state budget summary Schwarznegger’s office released July 28 declared that the cuts “will result in the closure of probably more than 100 parks.”

California’s storied state parks system includes ancient redwoods, the shores of Lake Tahoe, glimmering “Baywatch” beaches and historic sites like Sutter’s Fort.

In recent weeks, the prospect that Schwarzenegger would become the first governor in the 108-year history of the state parks department to ever close a state park to save money has prompted protests, letters from the public, critical newspaper editorials and requests from Republican lawmakers in rural districts that their

parks not be closed because of the loss to tourism.

Schwarzenegger’s staff tried Tuesday to downplay that the changing policy was a major shift in the governor’s position. Last Monday, however, Schwarzenegger was asked at a press conference about closing parks, and did not mention that his staff would be re-evaluating the plan to close 100.

mcclatchy-tribune

Spring runoff fills the Merced River, helped by the heavily flowing Yosemite Falls at Yosemite National Park in California, Friday, April 24.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: CASSANDRA KEYSE

“Back in Gear”

mustang daily

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

Arts

Arts editor: Cassandra Keyse mustangdailyarts@gmail.com

9

music column

A Clear Blurr is the clear choice for Blink 182 faithful Susie Kopecky mustang daily

Anything strongly reminiscent of Blink 182 is fine in my book. The relatively new pop-punk rock band A Clear Blurr is one such band, with a vibrant new album and a whole lot of potential.

The band is made up of four members: Kevin Nicotera, Tom Kenney, Karl Pearson and Cole MacDonnell. The men are from New Jersey and continue to make the Garden State their base of operations. “Trigonometry” is the band’s sophomore album and will officially be released on Sept. 29.

As a longtime punk rock fan, I’m a tough critic and generally skeptical of new faces on the scene. Perhaps it is the infectious enthusiasm of “Trigonometry” or simply the lack of any outstanding new punk rock albums this summer, but something comes together just right to make this album a home run. The best songs include “Drive Me Crazy” (a genuine Blink 182 homage),“Barely Breathing” and “Sharks & Liars.”

The band was originally formed in October 2005, when the first three members, Kenney, Pearson and MacDonnell, were high school freshmen. They have since graduated and switched gears to focus on their music careers.

“Tom and Kevin knew each other since elementary school, as did Karl and Cole,” guitarist Nicotera said. “The band kind of fell apart soon after it started. Cole joined a new band, and slowly, A Clear Blurr came into play again, but only with Tom, Karl and a new drummer.”

From the very first track, one is hard-pressed not to recall the height of the ‘90s pop punk craze and its kings, Blink 182. Nicotera named other major musical influences, including New Found Glory, Incubus, All Time Low, “Motion City” Soundtrack, Thrice, Johnny Cash, Misfits and The Starting Line.

Noticeably missing from their list of punk rock influences is Fall Out Boy, even though there is certainly a similarity between the much-maligned yet still popular group and these up-and-coming rockers.

courtesy photo

‘A Clear Blurr’ will release its second album, “Trigonometry,” on Sept. 29. at Vintage Vinal in Fords, N.J.

“I think Fall Out Boy came into the scene a little too late to be a major influence,” Nicotera said.

He explained that the band works together to come up with new songs. Nine times out of 10, the members “will just get together and start working up some kind of idea with hopes of turning it into a song. Over time we’ll pick it apart

and change things here and there.”

Nicotera credited Kenney with imagining up lyrics and MacDonnell with creating many of the guitar riffs.

The success the band has received over the years has been met with modesty and humility from their standpoint.

“We don’t look like the kind of

kids that would be in a band, and we don’t drink or do drugs,” Nicotera said. “We’re the normal kids you would see in high school… We are friends with everybody and everybody can relate to our music.”

For those traveling to the East Coast soon, A Clear Blurr can next be seen on Sept. 25 at the Fall Festival in Edison, N.J.

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Arts

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

book column

Memoir reveals the hard knock life of an abandoned foster child

Imagine feeling as if you’ll never belong, as if you have no input whatsoever over what happens to you, that your life is spiraling out of control and all you can do is watch it happen.

While some people are fortunate enough never to have these feelings, they were permanent fixtures in the childhood of Ashley RhodesCourter.

In her memoir, “Three Little Words,” Rhodes-Courter reveals the realities and failings of life in foster care in a harshly honest tone.

She weaves a storyline by describing memories from her past and mixing them with little bits of her own selfcritique.

Written for a young adult audience,

the writing in this book is simple and easy to get through, but the content is so gripping that I had a truly difficult time putting it down.

It is her honesty and her ability to draw you in from the beginning that makes you care about what happens to this little girl when she is tossed so nonchalantly into foster care.

You are there with her when she is ripped from her mother, when she suffers abusive foster parents and when she realizes that her mother is not going to come back. One of the best aspects of this book is that she writes in such a way that the reader can’t help but go along with her on an emotional journey – but it’s a trip that you actually want to take.

We’ve probably all heard the horror stories of kids who are shuffled around in foster care, but this girl actually lived it.Ashley Rhodes-Courter lived in 14 different foster homes in the space of only nine years. Before she turned 4 years old, she and her infant brother were taken away from their mother.

O n e thing that is a little vague is the role that her mother played in this separation. She clearly didn’t want her children to be taken away, and it isn’t entirely clear why they were taken away to begin with.

A vague reason is the stepfather being in trouble with the law, but in the beginning, it doesn’t seem as though her mother had done anything wrong.

This was an interesting moment of confusion for me – at first I thought that Rhodes-Courter was leaving out some painful memories, but as you get to the end of the book, you realize that she hasn’t spared any other details, so why now? My guess for this lack of clarity about her mother’s role is actually a criticism of the foster care system. As you see later in the book, there is a serious incompetence on the part of the social workers and aides in charge of Ashley and her brother.

I think that she is hinting in the beginning the foster care system did not actually have much reason to keep

courtesy photo

Ashley Rhodes-Courter recalls her relationship with her mother and life in foster care in her memoir, “Three Little Words.” see Memoir, page 11

“Parks & Recreation” actor finds humor in unlikely places Maureen Ryan chicago tribune

Nick Offerman has a rare skill: the ability to wring laughs from silence.

In the Sept. 24 episode of the much-improved NBC comedy “Parks and Recreation” (8:30 p.m.

EDT Thursday), his character, park district manager Ron Swanson, is mostly silent, trying to ignore an injury that has rendered him unable to leave his office chair.

His pained reactions and stoic silence are hilarious.

Even as you feel a little sorry for Swanson, who barely moves in the episode, it’s hard not to laugh at his plight.

Offerman, who grew up in Minooka, Ill., near Joliet, and co-founded Chicago’s Defiant Theater in 1993 after receiving a BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says he learned the value of silence as an altar boy and lector at his church.

“I had a cousin in the congregation, and I would speak with the utmost, august stoicism, and everyone would think I was a very effective speaker,” Offerman said in a July interview in Los Angeles. “But he knew I was being facetious. He’d get in trouble for cracking up.”

Offerman knew “Parks and Recreation” star Amy Poehler when they lived in Chicago in the mid-‘90s, but Offerman, who appeared in plays with the Steppenwolf, Goodman and Wisdom Bridge companies, was involved in the theater scene, while Poehler was a mainstay of Chicago’s

mcclatchy-tribune

Nick Offerman stars as Ron Swanson in the NBC comedy “Parks and Recreation.” The show airs on Thursdays on NBC. improv comedy world.

Years after leaving Chicago in 1997, Offerman got into improv and did some shows at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, which was co-founded by Poehler. And over the past few years, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, executive producers of “The Office,” kept trying to cast him in that comedy, but it never worked out for Offerman, who has lived in Los Angeles for more than a decade.

Schur and Daniels, the co-creators of “Parks and Recreation,” eventually offered Offerman the role of Swanson, a midlevel bureaucrat who hopes for the abolition of all government.

You could say that Swanson’s not really enthused by his job.

“We’ve all known those adminis-

trators — they’re just humorless, and they’re not taking any crap from you,” Offerman said. But Swanson puts up with Leslie Knope, Poehler’s energetic character, because, thanks to her, “Things are getting done.”

Somehow Offerman makes Swanson’s humorlessness humorous, and the actor says the supporting role is the kind he likes best.

One of his touchstones, he said, is Rev. Jim Ignatowski, Christopher Lloyd’s surreal character on the classic comedy “Taxi.”

“I love roles that don’t carry the main story usually but are kind of bizarre,” Offerman said. “It’s like, entrees are the most important part of a meal, but you really appreciate the cilantro when it shows up.”

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

11

mustang daily

Arts

Personal touch lost with evolving hand-held technology Bobby Bingle The Heights (Boston College)

Personal technological advances such as the iPhone, Blackberry, and iPod have changed the way we live on a daily basis. They have countless benefits. Their advantages outweigh any disadvantages, but I feel that with their existence we nonetheless have lost some valuable things.

Before I continue, I should make it clear that I’m not an expert on technology. In fact, I’ve often been described as technologically challenged. My dad and I once predicted that DVDs would be a fleeting fad because they were just VHS tapes with menu screens. Hell, I probably would have thought the wheel was a gimmick. With that in mind, take what I say with a grain of salt. iPhones and Blackberries can do almost anything. You can check e-mail, make calls, surf the Internet.

There’s an app for finding a restaurant, budgeting your money, taking a shower, following a recipe, pleasuring yourself, shopping for clothes, sending postcards and breaking up with your girlfriend.

But at some point, people become too interconnected in touch with the world and each other.We have almost unconsciously given up a decent amount of our privacy.We’ve become walking Global Positioning Systems.

How often do you go somewhere of some importance when someone doesn’t know where you are, whether it is from a text, a call, or an away message? Anyway, I doubt kids these days are able to just tell their mom they’ll be home at five for dinner, hop on their bikes and spend the day going wherever they want.

Have you ever decided on Friday to just turn your phone off until

Memoir continued from page 10

Ashley and her brother away from their mother.

But after some misfiled paperwork, they slipped so far through the cracks that when something finally was done about it, their mother had become incapable of caring for them due to drug addictions and bad choices.

I don’t think that she is actually blaming the foster care system for all of her time floating from home to home or for her mother going so far off the deep end, but she is definitely saying that the system contributed to it.

From hopeful beginnings to devastating disappointments, RhodesCourter reveals both the good and bad moments of her childhood. This

Paul Lachine newsart Monday morning? Or have you ever lost your charger for a week and had no phone? I can tell you, it’s exhilarating. It’s not that you’re cut off; it’s that you’re drawn in.There are almost

book is much more than a complaint against her bad foster parents; it reveals the human side of foster care and shows that although it is hard, some children do make it through.

This memoir served as a reminder for me that there are people out there who will take advantage of a child, but that there are also people out there who will go to any lengths to be someone’s savior.

Both a questioning of humanity and an affirmation of it, this book is a success in many ways.

As for the “three little words” the book takes its title from, they aren’t the ones that you’d expect. Go read it for yourself and discover what they really are.

Melinda Truelsen is a graduate student in literature and a Mustang Daily book columnist.

mustangdaily.net

no outside distractions. Rather than texting or looking up who finished second in the NL East in 2006, you become engulfed in the present.

Maybe I’m just ignorant because

I’ve never owned an iPhone or a Blackberry. And as I said before, their benefits outweigh their drawbacks.

But there are still drawbacks. And plus, they’ve ruined Trivia Night. iPods are another development that have changed our lives completely. I truly do like iPods. You can keep your entire music catalog in your pocket.You can download hundreds of songs (free if you choose) in minutes and put them on your iPod. You can press a genius button which will choose a whole playlist for you to listen to that fits the style you want to hear.

However, the iPod has caused the loss of some important aspects of music. I’m speaking from the perspective of a kid growing up in the ‘90s and early 2000s. So, I’m speaking about the cassette and CD era. But I’ll focus on CDs. One thing that has been lost is the regularity of listening to a CD, or album, in its entirety. Though this is still done, all the choices and options the iPod affords make it less frequent.

Though I believe that people should listen to whatever they want whenever they want it, I still feel there is something to listening to an album in its entirety. (I used to think listening in its entirety was the only way. Then I came down from my shining, gold, high horse).

The artist or band didn’t release just one or two songs. There is value to a whole album even if 10 out of the 12 songs are just fillers.There was still some time put into them and you may find gems you never would have known about otherwise. Or you may hear songs so terrible that your opinion of the artist or band may change.

Finally, anyone who has listened to an album they love, from beginning to end, knows how satisfying it can be.

Before iPods, getting new music meant something more. If there was a CD you really wanted, you had to work to get it. Maybe you saved up birthday and Christmas money to get Floored by Sugar Ray. Or maybe you begged your parents or did extra chores to get B*Witched’s selftitled debut. You couldn’t just click a few buttons and have a hundred new songs at your fingertips. This meant that when you had the CD, not only did you own a disc, but you possessed the music.

Also, there are rarely CD mixes anymore. There are playlists on iPods, but they don’t carry the same potency as the CD mix. A playlist can have over a hundred songs on it from your catalog of thousands. Depending on the length of a song, your CD mix could only contain about 12-15 songs. This meant that at the time of your CD mix’s creation, those handful of songs were the songs that you had found a way to get and truly enjoyed.

Giving or receiving a CD mix was once a significant gesture.Those were songs that you had gone out of your way to get. And those were songs that you wanted someone else to share.

Maybe they were just songs that simply sounded good or maybe they had meaning to you. For example, I made a CD mix for a girl I liked in grade school that opened with On Bended Knee by BoyZ II Men and closed with Cherry Pie by Warrant.

As we make more and more gains in personal technology, there are feelings and moments that we lose.These dissolve in our brains under a charge of apps and genius playlists. However, the things lost can be retained every now and again. Though the process may seem foreign, the result is more than refreshing.

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mcclatchy-tribune

President Obama plans to make history Thursday by chairing a special, summit-level meeting of the U.N. Security Council. This will be the first time an American president has done so, and only the fifth time in the United Nations’ 64year history that such a heads-ofstate meeting has been convened in that chamber.

The focus will be on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

The pressure will be strong for Obama to emerge with some sort of substantive outcome that can be hailed as a success.

Beware. In the matter of making history, there are some things worth doing, such as breaking the racial barrier to the White House or ending the Cold War. And then there are other instances, in which, if something has never been done before, there may be good reasons for not doing it now.

In the case of chairing the Security Council, there are plenty of reasons a president should not do it, ever. It demeans the U.S. presidency, and there’s a big risk it will bind Obama far too intimately to bargains for which America is likely to pay dearly and reap mainly trouble.

Why would it demean the presidency? The answer has to do with the art of U.N. diplomacy and the nature of the institution itself.

When the United Nations was founded in 1945, it was imagined as a noble peace-promoting parliament of all mankind. It has not worked out that way.

The United Nations holds

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July 2, 2009 Volume LXXIII, No. 3 ©2009 Mustang Daily “Are you fishing for encouragement?.”

12

Obama chairing the U.N. Security Council will only demean his office votes, but it is not a democracy, and it does not cleave to its own lofty charter principles about upholding human dignity. If it did, quite a number of member states, including one of the major founders, Stalin’s Soviet Union, would never have been enrolled, and others would have been kicked out years ago (that’s never happened).

In practice, the United Nations is a messy, murky despot-infested collective opaque, girdled in diplomatic immunities, and thus largely unaccountable for its actions. The biggest voting bloc in the General Assembly is the 130-member G-77, which this year picked for its chair — I’m not kidding — the genocidal government of Sudan (whose President Omar al-Bashir is under indictment by the International Criminal Court).

The Security Council isn’t all that much better. art ws Chairne n

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corrections

notices

mustangdaily@gmail.com

“As an out-of-state student the increased cost of going to Cal Poly has driven me nearly bankrupt. At this point transferring is not an option. It drives me crazy when they say part of the fee increase goes to people who cannot afford the increase. I cannot afford it yet my tuition went up more than the in-state students, where is my money, how am I supposed to continue my education?...The CSU and Cal Poly administrations have a lot of frustrated students and families to answer to...”

— Chris Response to “Busted budget Q&A: The facts behind the summer of change”

“Are you even a local? I am and I can tell you that it’s not just tourists who wear the Mom and Dad Poly shirts. it’s a prestige thing to have your kid go to the local college. Going into both bathrooms at Madonna Inn only makes you a tourist if you aren’t a kid being shown them.

We shop in the downtown Poly store because it’s a heck of a lot easier to get to than going all the way to campus just for a shirt.”

— Melissa Response to “How to Spot a Tourist in San Luis Obispo” NOTE: The Mustang Daily features select comments that are written in response to articles posted online.

Though not all the responses are printed, the Mustang Daily prints comments that are coherent and foster intelligent discussion on a given subject.

manship rotates monthly through all 15 members, with no regard for what kind of regimes that might entail. The five permanent members are democratic France, Britain and the United States, plus despotic Russia and China.

The current roster of 10 rotating members includes not only Japan and Austria, but Vietnam and Libya.

This month it is America’s turn to preside; Obama will sit in the same chair occupied in March by an envoy of Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya.

With heads of state summoned for Thursday’s historic occasion, it’s likely history will record the spectacle of terror-drenched tyrant-forlife Gadhafi sharing the table.

In this setup, the most lawabiding of the 192 member states tend to get stuck with the results of whatever the Security Council agrees to. The most unscrupulous, which account to no electorates back home, feel free to lie as they please and do

whatever they can get away with, which is plenty, because the United Nations leaves individual member states to police their own compliance with U.N. deals.

From the oil-for-food scandal to the current sanctions-busting traffic with the likes of Iran and North Korea, it is common practice for some Security Council members to violate, with impunity, the same deals they vote for. That goes far to explain why a series of “binding” Security Council resolutions over the last three years imposing sanctions on North Korea and Iran have failed to stop the nuclear programs of Pyongyang or Tehran.

Sending an envoy to navigate this scene and report to the president has the great advantage of leaving room to maneuver, revise, rethink, defuse, and deny without showcasing the U.S. president as petitioning support from whatever despot has been exalted to swing vote of the season. Even Jimmy Carter was not foolish enough to try the stunt of subbing for his own ambassador at the Security Council.

As to the results: It’s a good bet that Obama will arrive at the table with a precooked deal to whip out as evidence of progress. His ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, hinted as much in a briefing earlier this month, saying, “We are consulting with colleagues on a potential product.”

Is there any connection here, for instance, with Obama’s bid to please Russia by backing away from U.S. plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe? We don’t know, but it’s a valid question.

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009 www.mustangdaily.net

13

mustang daily

op/ed

Health insurance costs are putting U.S. companies out of business mcclatchy-tribune

In 1999, it cost about $5,800 to buy employer-provided family health insurance coverage. If premiums had increased at the same rate as inflation,

margaret scott newsart

that same policy today would cost $7,239.

Instead, it costs $13,375. That’s an increase of 131 percent — more than five times the overall rate of inflation.

Companies don’t provide health

benefits out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to attract the best workers and because healthy employees with healthy families are more productive.

But when insurance costs grow at five times the rate of inflation, it’s worth wondering how much longer they can afford to do it.

Since the early 1990s, the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation has been surveying U.S. businesses about the cost of health benefits offered to employees. Its latest survey, released this week, demonstrates why health reform is so urgent.

Let’s put premiums for family health insurance coverage into a human scale.

A person who worked full time at a minimum-wage job in Missouri would need his entire gross wages from January until the second week of November just to buy a policy — assuming he could get the group rate.

For about $3,000 less, he could buy a new car; a base model Hyundai Accent sells for $10,665.

Employers pay about three-quarters of the premium for health insurance that they offer their workers.

That means the minimum-wage worker’s company would be paying about $9,860 for his family’s coverage, a figure equal to about two-thirds of his annual salary.

The cost of covering just that

worker, excluding his family, would equal about what he would earn for working almost 17 weeks.

No wonder so few companies that employ mostly low-wage workers offer health benefits. The Kaiser survey found just 39 percent of companies with large numbers of low-wage workers offer health benefits.

About 46 percent of companies with nine or fewer workers provide health benefits.

The result is that millions of Americans have been priced out of the health insurance market.

About 46.3 million were uninsured in 2008. Current estimates based on the unemployment rate put that figure at about 50 million uninsured today.

Covering them is one of the key goals of health reform. But another is to shore up the current employmentbased system of health insurance. The reform proposals would create a socalled insurance exchange — essentially a giant group market that would be open to small businesses, the uninsured and people who buy coverage

on their own.

Propping up the current system is crucial to the 150 million-plus Americans who get coverage through their jobs. Because if health insurance premiums keep growing at a rate anything like their recent pace, many people who now get health insurance through their jobs would soon be uninsured.

Last year, consumer prices increased by 0.1 percent. Health insurance premiums jumped by 5 percent.

That’s unsustainable.

If premiums keep growing at the rate they have over the last five years, family coverage will cost more than $24,000 in 2019.

If they grow at the rate they have over the past 10 years — an average of 8.7 percent per year — family coverage would cost nearly $31,000 in 2019.

If that happens, it won’t only be low-wage workers who are priced out of the health insurance market.

Millions of middle-class Americans would find themselves uninsured, too.

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15

mustang daily

sports

Life isn’t improving for Pete Carrol and USC Jeff Miller the orange county register

LOS ANGELES — Six weeks ago, he looked so good that he was the starting quarterback at USC. On Monday, Aaron Corp was being ridiculed on a national radio show for his physical appearance.

Corp never was sacked in his starting debut Saturday at Washington, but he has been taking shots ever since, some cheaper than others. And some from very close range.

But that’s how we’ve evolved as a society; we’ve grown by shrinking, our attention spans to our patience to our perspective all shriveling because that’s the easier path.

This much is certain: Age 20 is a lot older than it used to be.

Corp did not play well in USC’s 16-13 loss to the Huskies, a team the Trojans defeated last fall by eight touchdowns. His performance, in fact, led to the least productive passing game since Pete Carroll took over before the 2001 season.

Since this is USC, which is supposed to win every game, and since he plays quarterback, a position that’s supposed to be manned by a Heisman Trophy candidate, Corp is being buried.

“The quarterback threw a pick but could have thrown a couple more,” Carroll said Tuesday.“Those were most alarming to me, that we could have had two or three more interceptions in that game.”

This, from a coach whose optimism usually is thick enough to pour over pancakes. Carroll later was more encouraging toward Corp, though the coach continued to leave little doubt just how far this sophomore has fallen in a month and a half.

Corp doesn’t deserve praise, but does he really deserve this?

After one start, his first since Dec. 16, 2006? Against Palo Alto High?

After just four quarters that also included his more experienced teammates fumbling four times and being called for eight penalties?

Let’s start by remembering something everyone seems to have forgotten. Corp is still dealing with the affects of a broken leg. A broken leg!

He didn’t suffer a thigh bruise last month or a cut on the pinkie of his non-throwing hand.

He cracked his fibula. This was a rather significant occurrence, especially for a quarterback who relies on mobility.

“He needs to get back to fullgo,” Carroll said. “I don’t think his arm strength is there. He’s been playing with a broken leg for five weeks now. He has compensated in a way where he’s not at his best yet.”

In a similar manner, Corp has been denied the chance to stand on two sound legs mentally. Carroll’s affinity for Matt Barkley borders on comical. The coach even was asked this week if he has a crush on the freshman.

The atmosphere Carroll has established around his program recently hardly is ideal for the

mcclatchy-tribune

Washington’s Donald Butler, left, fights for a fumble against Southern California’s Stanley Havili in the third quarter in the Huskies’ stunning upset over USC, 16-13, capped by a game-winning field goal Saturday, Sept. 19. development of a second quarterback. For a guy who loves to encourage competition, Carroll has masterfully discouraged Corp numerous times.

Last week, even as Barkley went day after day of missing practice because of a sore shoulder, Carroll never publicly announced Corp would start against Washington.

It wasn’t until trotting onto the field with the first team Saturday that Corp was sure himself.

And why, exactly, didn’t Carroll officially back Corp even as he admitted “it was so obvious” who was going to start? That, once again, was for Barkley’s benefit, to ensure his mental readiness.

“Specifically, it was to keep Matt alive in the process,” Carroll explained. “Aaron knew more than Matt did. If you tell a guy, ‘OK, you’re not playing,’ it’s really, really asking too much to have a guy hold that warrior mentality.”

Recall that in naming Barkley as the starter in August, the same coach did so more than a week before the opener in order to allow Barkley to prepare his mind.

Corp wasn’t afforded a similar opportunity.

“That might have helped him, I don’t know,” Carroll said. “I don’t think it would have helped him immeasurably.”

Now, hearing his coach’s words, what is Corp learning? The same thing we all are, that a healthy enough Barkley is decidedly this team’s starting quarterback. From the sounds of it, the gap between the first- and second-stringers from Orange County isn’t close.

Carroll expertly has handled the abundance of talent he has recruited to USC the past nine years, finding ways to keep the majority of his skill-position players happy while still using just a single football.

With this quarterback situation, however, he has been ham-handed, at best. Rarely, has the ultra-cool,

always-in-charge Carroll appeared this clumsy.

None of this is a knock on Barkley, who has done nothing more here than impress the heck out of his head coach. By the end of the

season, maybe we’ll all be seeing what Carroll already evidently has seen.

And Corp doesn’t need anyone’s sympathy. This is his third year in a program that forces its

players to grow up quickly or be crushed.

It’s just that we think he deserves better, deserves more. We know he certainly doesn’t deserve this.

mustangdaily.net

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

SPORTS

mustangdailysports@gmail.com

MUSTANG DAILY

sports information report

football

Ohio 28. no. 16 cal poly 10 ATHENS, Ohio — Cal Poly’s passing offense failed to produce in the 28-10 loss handed by Ohio, and its defensive miscues were much more evident in week two.

Senior quarterback Theo Scott passed for 236 yards and three touchdowns as Ohio defeated Cal Poly 28-10 in a matchup of a Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division 1-A) team against a Football Championship Subdivision (1-AA) squad Saturday night.

Scott completed 14 of 27 passes with no interceptions and was not sacked.

Ohio scored two touchdowns in the first 17 minutes of the game and never looked back.

Errik Ejike intercepted a Tony Smith pass and ran 23 yards for the first score of the game with about seven minutes left in the first quarter and Scott hit Lavon Brazill with a five-yard touchdown pass early in the second quarter as Ohio built a 14-0 lead.

Cal Poly scored its first points on a 42-yard field goal by Chris Pinto with 2:37 left before halftime.

Ohio had two chances to score late in the first half but Matt Weller missed field goal attempts of 26 and 43 yards. He also missed a 39-yarder five minutes into the third period.

Scott connected with Taylor Price on a 42-yard touchdown pass early in the third quarter as Ohio extended its lead to 21-3.

Price, who caught 51 passes a year ago, is a Fred Biletnikoff Award candidate and finished with nine catches for 135 yards Saturday.

Scott’s third scoring toss spanned 62 yards to Terrence McCrae with 7:20 to go in the game.

Cal Poly’s only touchdown of the game came courtesy of the defense as sophomore safety Greg Francis returned an interception 60 yards with 2:36 remaining in the game.

Ohio’s ground attack was paced

by Chris Garrett with 91 yards on 17 carries.

Cal Poly junior fullback Jordan Yocum established new career highs of 27 carries and 130 yards.

Smith completed just one of 11 passes for 12 yards. The completion was to Dominique Johnson

in the first half.

Last week, Smith was 12 of 19 for 218 yards and rushed for 92 additional yards against Sacramento State. He was held by the Bobcat defense to 20 yards on 11 carries.

Despite the loss, Cal Poly had an advantage of 5 minutes, 52 seconds in time of possession and 239-186 in rushing yards.

Cal Poly, which did not have a turnover in its season-opening win over Sacramento State a week ago, turned the ball over three times Saturday as Smith threw a pair of interceptions and lost a fumble to the Bobcats.

Linebacker Marty Mohamed recorded nine tackles, including 1.5 for lost yardage, to lead the Mustangs defensively. Safety David Fullerton notched two pass breakups while end Karl Winkelman recovered an Ohio fumble.

Cal Poly plays its second FBS opponent in as many weeks, visiting San Jose State for a non-conference game at 5 p.m. in Spartan Stadium Saturday.

Cal Poly was whistled offside on four occasions, including an apparent headed goal from Zamora in the second minute of action. The Mustangs, who received a matchhigh four shots from Zamora and a further three from Hustedt, outshot San Jose State during the second half, 10-4.

“When the score was 1-1, I thought we took more of an initiative,” Holocher said. “The result was that Dan Cumming came up with a big goal for us.”

Cal Poly completes its pre-Big West Conference schedule at the Sept. 25 and 27 Husky Fever Classic, hosted by Washington. The Mustangs open the competition Friday against Portland at 4:30 p.m.

women’s soccer

Cal Poly 2, San Jose State 1

The Cal Poly women’s soccer team evened its record at 4-4 with a 1-0 win on the road over Colorado College on Sunday. For the Mustangs it was the team’s secondstraight win. With the loss Colomen’s rado College fell to 4-3-1 on the Cal Poly 2, season.

San Jose State 1 Freshman forward Haley Walker scored her first goal as a Mustang Cal Poly senior midfielder in the 73rd minute of play when Daniel Cumming’s 77th-minute she took a feed from Morgan Millstrike following a pass from soph- er for the goal. It was Miller’s third omore central defender Patrick assist of the season.

Walker nudged a soft bouncer Sigler broke a 1-1 stalemate and propelled the Mustang men’s soc- into an open net after CC keeper cer team to a 2-1 victory against Caitlin Hulyo got caught up in a San Jose State Sunday afternoon at scramble about five yards outside the right post. Miller earned an asAlex G. Spanos Stadium.

Cal Poly (2-4-0), winners of sist on the game winner, getting a consecutive matches after throttling Sacramento State, 4-0, on Friday evening, took a 1-0 advantage in the 13th minute. After Mustang sophomore midfielder Jacob Hustedt was scythed down in the box by Spartan senior defender Oscar Monjares, junior forward David Zamora converted Cal Poly’s second penalty in as many chances this season.

Six minutes later, Mustang freshman goalkeeper Brett Finkelstein was yellow carded for a foul on a Spartan attacker inside the box.

Monjares converted the resulting penalty to level the scoreline.

Deadlocked for nearly an hour and with the Mustangs playing a man up due to a 66th-minute red card issued to Monjares, Sigler — one of 38 collegians named to the Hermann Trophy Watch List — found Cumming five yards from goal to earn his first assist of the season.

“At halftime we made changes and talked about stretching San Jose State and improving our passing,” said Cal Poly head coach Paul Holocker. “Our legs were a little bit heavy from Friday’s match and our movement wasn’t what it could be, but sometimes to win games you have to grind it out and that’s what we did today.” The Mustangs improved to 17-3-3 at home since the venue’s 2007 opening.

soccer

loose ball to an open Walker out of traffic in front.

Senior goalkeeper Coral Hoover made seven saves for Cal Poly. Hoover’s biggest stop of the afternoon came in the 75th minute, when she was in perfect position to rob Kelly LaVoie from 10 yards out in the middle of the box.

For Hoover it was her fourth win of the season and her second shutout, earning her Big West Athlete of the Week honors.

The Mustangs took 10 shots, five on goal while CC 21 shots with seven on goal.

CC held a 6-3 advantage in corner kicks while the Mustangs were whistled for nine fouls compared to five for CC. The Mustangs return to action on Friday when the team travels to California for a non-conference game at 4 p.m.

Idaho Friday evening to complete play at the program’s Mission Inn of Pismo Beach Invitational.

Trailing 22-17 during the fourth game, Cal Poly (4-9) utilized kills

by McConnell, junior middle blocker Dominique Olowolafe and freshman outside hitter Chelsea Hardin and three further hitting errors by the Vandals (4-7) to level the scoreline, 24-24. In total, the Mustangs faced an Idaho set point on five separate occasions before a kill by sophomore middle blocker Anicia Santos and consecutive hitting miscues by Idaho sophomore outside hitter Cassie Hamilton delivered the match win to the Mustangs.

Cal Poly, which recorded a season-high 10 aces, led the opening game wire-to-wire after limiting Idaho to a .138 hitting mark.

The Mustangs opened game No. 2 by claiming five of the initial six points. An Olowolafe kill erased a brief Idaho lead and handed the women’s Mustangs an unassailable 14-13 game 1 cal poly 25, advantage.

Idaho 21 Idaho returned in the third game 2 game to hit .520 against just one cal poly 25, error. The Vandals used a 12-2 Idaho 21 run midway through the game to game 3 break a 7-7 deadlock and outdisIdaho 25, tance Cal Poly.

Cal poly 13 Cal Poly received match-best game 4 32 assists from freshman setter cal poly 30, Anuhea Keanini. Junior libero AliIdaho 28 son Mort also led all players with 15 digs.

Big West champions in 2006 Megan McConnell led all players with 14 kills and fellow fresh- and 2007, Cal Poly opens conferman outside hitter Molly Pon ence play against No. 18 UC Iradded 10 as the Cal Poly volleyball vine Friday, Sept. 25. Match time team erased a late five-point defi- in Mott Gym is scheduled for 7 cit during the fourth set against p.m.

volleyball