Feb 27, 2017

Monday, Febr uar y 27, 2017

E s t ab l i sh e d 1916

w w w. m u s t a n gn e w s . n et

Carving barrels

into pens

in a basement

WRITE ON

WILL PEISCHEL | COURTE SY PHOTO

| Agricultural business juinor Casey Martin used to spend his days playing video games. Now, he’s busy selling unique pens he makes from old wine barrels to people from New York to Texas.

Will Peischel Special to Mustang News

Most hobbies develop organically.

Agricultural business junior Casey Martin’s hobby began because one day he decided that he needed one.

Pens, bottle stops and corkscrews ship out from his one-man assembly line in the basement of his Mill Street home. Martin sells his hand-

made pens, usually made of wine barrel staves, through a website of his own design.

When he began, names and shipping addresses came from supportive friends and family. Today, orders come in from places like Texas and New York.

Now, one year after he began his experiment with craft pen-making, Martin is about to finish converting

his first entire wine barrel into pens.

The barrel, by his estimate, converts into about 300 pens — and it’s only one of the materials he uses to make his products.

Niche, but successful enterprise Two years ago, Martin’s free time was mostly spent playing video games. Today, he’s working in a unique market — he’s the only one

he knows of who makes pens out of old wine staves.

Maybe it’s perfect timing, too.

Martin’s products are entering the limelight as the demand for all things labeled “artisanal” and “hand-made” are on the rise, emblemized by websites like Etsy.

They’re destined for bourgeois coffee tables and hands with collar-stayed sleeves.

Philosophy professor Ryan Jenkins defined authenticity in crafted products as “not just being created by humans, not just something special and unique, but involving a certain kind of attitude and emotional attachment, a care that’s taken in the work.”

HANDMADE continued on page 4

Review: ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ is p-h-e-n-o-m-e-n-a-l Anjana Melvin @ CPMustangNews

STIGMA

JAME S T WEET | COURTE SY PHOTO

| Students leaving Fremont have been negatively stereotyped.

Fremont Hall: Displaced and disgraced James Tweet Special to Mustang News

The evacuation of Fremont Hall left many freshmen without a sense of home at Cal Poly.

However, the burden caused more than displaced students, it started a conversation.

After a mudslide caused the evacuation Feb. 18, students faced a new label: refugee.

A whiteboard in Muir Hall addressed the students as “Fremont Refugees,” telling them to be thankful in spite of their support for “banning immigrant refugees.”

This message carries a sting.

Fremont is associated with the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, stereotyped as people from agricultural backgrounds who are primarily conservative. This

includes being conservative toward immigration law.

One whiteboard message forced questions of larger societal and political issues, like President Donald Trump’s effort for a travel ban, upon these uprooted freshmen.

Cal Poly Vice President of Student Affairs Keith Humphrey called this attitude against Fremont students unacceptable.

“We heard some students were doing some things that were unwelcoming,” Humphrey said. “This is a challenging situation.”

Humphrey said this incident was addressed and confronted.

He believes it’s something students could learn from.

FREMONT continued on page 2

Walking into Alex and Faye Spanos Theatre on the opening night of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” felt like being 10 years old again. The bleachers of the gymnasium set to the side and the “Don’t do drugs” and “Boo is for bullying” signs brought back memories of kids shoving each other during P.E. and girls giggling at the latest boy band.

“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” written

by Rachel Sheinkin and conceived by Rebecca Feldman, is about six middle-schoolers competing for first place in the county spelling bee to advance to nationals. From Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre (Tori Waner) who vies for the approval of her gay fathers and is pro-choice “despite being a virgin,” to Leaf Coneybear (Garrett Lamoureux) whose family constantly tells him he’s stupid, each student has a different reason to win the championship.

The play debuted on Broadway in 2005 and sold out with rave reviews from the majority of its critics. Cal Poly’s rendition did similarly well.

You wouldn’t normally expect a play entirely about a middle school spelling bee to be so good. However, in between the awkward pubescent moments, such as Chip Tolentino’s (Daniel

Cook) “unfortunate erection,” were deeper themes of insecurity relatable even to those beyond middle school years.

Especially poignant was Olive Ostrovsky’s (Emily Kluger) performance toward the end of the play as she sang “The I Love You Song.” Her powerful vocals and sweet pigtails tugged at heartstrings as she yearned for her parents’ love.

The cast as a whole adopted their roles with ease. Among these was Jacob Keswick who played the charming know-itall William Barfée, Lamoureux, as the adorably dopey Leaf Coneybear and Kluger as the sweet, unassuming Olive Ostrovsky. Kathryn Curran also did a phenomenal job as Rona Lisa Peretti, an ex-champion of the bee, from the second she walked on stage with her overenthusiastic gait and slicked back bun to her inconspicuous romance with the vice principal Douglas Panch.

Easily one of the highlights of the play was Douglas Panch’s (Jacob Corsaro) responses to “Can I have the word in a sentence please?” Each example sentence had the audience roaring louder than the last, like “Atheist: Because Suzie was an atheist, she was not bothered by other students chanting ‘Go to hell, Suzie!’”

The play was made even better by audience participation.

At the beginning of the play,

SAMMI MULHERN | MUSTA NG NE W S

CHARMED | Though humorous, the play explored deeper themes.

the audience was made to stand and recite the pledge of allegiance, while on stage the actors haphazardly mumbled the words the way children do when they’re forced to recite it daily. Some of the audience members were chosen before the performance to participate in the bee, but were given words

News 1-3 | Arts 4-5 | Opinion 6 | Classifieds 7 | Sports 8

like “cow” and “handsome,” much to the anger of the other competitors who had words like “lugubrious.”

Overall, “The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee” was a raving success. From the set design and costumes to the musicals to the cast, this play is a must-see.

NEWS 2 FREMONT continued from page 1

“It’s an educational experience,” Humphrey said. “We have fantastic students. We want them to stand up and help their fellow Mustangs.”

While raising eyebrows, the message also brings forward the issue of stereotypes on campus and offers Fremont students the chance to share their perspectives.

Fremont Community Council President Mark Borges continued the theme of education and growth. The environmental management and protection freshman spoke in front of his peers at a meeting hosted by administration on Feb. 22 for the evacuated students.

“I think a lot of times people try to make things political that don’t necessarily need to be political,” Borges said. “If we look at the blank statement of what’s happened here — we were evacuated from our dorm — that’s what happened.”

Borges explained that other freshmen students may not be able to relate to Fremont’s struggle of leaving home, but will inevitably be in the same position.

MUSTANG NEWS “It’s an emotional experience and I think it’s overlooked,” he said. “A lot of students on campus don’t really understand that because it’s not happening to them, but I know that when the time comes at the end of the year when they have to move, I’m sure they’re going to experience the same thing.”

He said other students are mostly accommodating, but admitted to awakenings from the forced removal.

“It’s a learning experience in itself,” he said. “We definitely don’t think about how much of a comfort zone that dorm has become until it’s taken away from you.”

Fremont students are being relocated across campus according to housing availability and their preferences. However, despite this separation, the freshmen still feel part of one community.

“It [the evacuation] just brought us together,” environmental management and protection freshman and displaced Fremont resident Kylie Kuwada said.

She spoke about how easy it is take something like a residence hall room for granted. Kuwa-

da also shared her thoughts on the stereotype Fremont residents face.

“There is the ‘Fremont is the white, Republican, rednecks or the AGR-majors,’ and that was very stereotypical — what those people wrote — because that is entirely not true,” she said. “The fact that they are saying the refugee thing, I just think was uncalled for, what they wrote.”

Food science and nutrition freshman Sara Blawski thought the comparison made on the whiteboard was valid, and saw the connection to larger political topics.

“I think it was kind of a fair comparison,” she said. “It might have been an inappropriate moment to do it, it might have been an inappropriate format, but I don’t think it was totally out of left field.”

Though she understands the refugee comparison, Blawski felt accepted by the community and other residence halls during this transition.

“Thank you to the majority of people because a lot of people have been super accepting of us and [have] been nice and making an effort and we really appreciate it,” she said. “Give us

FREE-MONT

JAMES TWEET | COURTE SY PHOTO

| Some have referred to Fremont residents as “fremont refugees” since the evacuation.

a chance. Everyone could use a fresh perspective.”

This attitude of positivity and openness is something Fremont students want to promote.

Whether or not they’re met by it, the emphasis is in the hope to end stereotypes and feel at home again on campus.

Forestry and natural resources freshman Nora Stankavich en-

courages looking beyond these political differences.

“Give them a chance because I was born in southern California,” Stankavich said. “So coming here was a culture shock from all these farmers and they are genuinely the nicest people I have ever met in my entire life. It just takes time to get to know them.”

This call to action might offer the proper message, but it won’t mend all the pieces.

Stankavich expressed how she will continue in the struggle to adapt to her new setting in Poly Canyon Village.

“I feel like I’m always going to be a guest now,” she said. “I’m never going to feel that home sense that I felt in Fremont.”

Boeing uses Cal Poly aerospace sensory project in flight tests Aidan McGloin @ mcgloin_aidan

Forty-eight Cal Poly students were part of the Boundary Layer Data System (BLDS), a nine-yearold aerospace sensory project, which was used by Boeing in its ecoDemonstrator flight tests in January. The BLDS is a system of small autonomous devices that measure the flow of air around experimental aircraft during use.

Mechanical engineering professor Russell Westphal conceived the idea of the BLDS in 2005, but was unable to gain traction with the project until 2008, when he got a team of Cal Poly students working on it under contract from American global aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman. Since then the project has had eight senior projects to support it, several master theses and has carried on work over summer and through-

out the year.

Despite his long time involvement as head of the project, Westphal said the project has been entirely student-driven.

“Everything we’ve done has been contract work involving students. All the development work, all the applications work, all the testing we’ve done at groundbased facilities on campus; it has all [been] done by students and none of it has been done by me as a consultant or anything like that,” Westphal said. “It really is a 100 percent student-focused project and the whole goal of it was to involve students in something that was unique.”

Many of the students that worked on the project now work for Northrop Grumman, Westphal said.

Mechanical engineering graduate student Htet Htet Oo is one of those people, having secured a full-time position at Northrop

Grumman. She worked on the BLDS during the summer of 2014.

“I hope to pursue a Ph.D and become a professor in the future,” Oo said. “My ultimate dream is to come back to Cal Poly and teach and inspire the next generation of engineers and provide them with many opportunities like Dr. Westphal has done for many of his students.”

Her contribution was self-heating aerogel insulation that allowed the sensors to operate in temperatures between negative 40 and negative 57 degrees Celsius, the temperature range for a plane flying at altitudes between 30,000 and 40,000 feet. Before her, the electronics were unreliable and would quit gathering data in those conditions.

“I was very nervous about doing wind tunnel testings on my own at first, but I really learned to

It really represents the future of aviation.

PAUL KUJAWA

GOING WITH THE FLOW

MA X BECHTEL | COURTE SY PHOTO

| Devices from the BLDS system are used to meaure air flow for Boeing flight tests.

trust myself as Dr. Westphal has trusted me with thousands of dollars worth of equipment,” Oo said. “The work has helped me become a more confident and independent student-engineer.”

Aerospace engineering senior Paul Kujawa has been working

on the BLDS since the start of last summer. He has focused on software development, defining parameters to get rid of junk inputs and ensuring the inputs and outputs of the sensors are clear.

“At this point we have basically come as far as we can in terms of shape of the airplane and layout and everything. It’s been determined. Low wings, swept wings, twin engine airplane is the most efficient,” Kujawa said. “From here on we have to go into the finer details refining aerodynamics, which is where the BLDS comes in.”

Kujawa heard of Westphal through mechanical engineering professor Graham Doig, and joined because he believed the reduction of boundary layer drag is the future of aeronautics.

“What Boeing is doing with their ecoDemonstrator is fantastic,” Kujawa said. “It really

represents the future of aviation.”

His next step, Kujawa said, is to make the system accessible from the ground. It is completely headless, meaning testers are unable to gather any information about how the sensors are doing until they take them off the plane and connect the sensors to computers. He also said other people on the team are working to update the computer system the BLDS works on.

The BLDS development gained primary support from Northrop Grumman, but has also been aided by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Boeing, the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, the U.S. Air Force Flight Test Group from Edwards Air Force Base, Lockheed Martin, Constant and Dorothy Chrones and the Donald E. Bently Center for Engineering Innovation.

NEWS 3

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2017

Lyft vs. Uber: The politics behind our everyday choices

Annie Vainshtein Special to Mustang News

A few weeks ago, the nation watched the kind of Super Bowl it wasn’t prepared for: a match of corporate wars and commercial stalemates. Almost 100 companies, many of them Silicon Valley giants including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, filed an amicus brief denouncing President Donald Trump’s immigration ban, which temporarily bars immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. AirBnB said it will provide free housing to refugees and all those affected by the ban. Starbucks, in an uncharacteristic stroke of community action, said it will hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years.

Across America, companies have become a proxy for politics.

Lyft and Uber, have too. As of Jan. 25, Lyft began offering its services in San Luis Obispo.

As close substitutes, Lyft and Uber have often come head to head. Recently however, their fight escalated. After the immigration ban, a taxi driver union in New York went on strike at Kennedy Airport in solidarity with the protestors. About a half hour after the protest, Uber dropped their surge pricing feature after accusations that Uber intended to profit off the situation ensued like wildfire. More than 200,000 people rallied to delete their Uber accounts and are encouraging others to jump aboard onto Lyft.

Economists and historians studied this phenomenon, which many call a new form of social activism through consumption. Economics professor Eduardo Zambrano puts it more precisely: ordinary goods, like eggs, water and transportation, are more and more becoming what he and other economists call “experience goods.”

“It used to be that when people bought cereal, they were just buying cereal; as long as it was tasty, that’s all you cared about,” Zambrano said.

But as consumers gained access to more information on labor practices, nutritional information and larger political structures, ordinary goods, like cereal, became a part of an origin story — where it came from, how it was made, which business practices were in place, etc. As a result, the “good” stopped being judged on its visible characteristics, like price and taste, and instead on “conceptual characteristics,” or the personalities of the corporations which produced them.

With the help of branding, abstract corporate personalities are the new 14 ft. billboard. The events of that demonstrate the

growing pressure on corporations to ‘get with the political program’ or take a stance. History professor Sarah Bridger says this isn’t anything new.

“There’s a long history of companies connecting themselves to political issues,” she said.

Ben & Jerry’s is one of them.

Founded in 1978, the company was a major corporate force for activism — it gave 7.5 percent of its pre-tax profits to charity and supported environmental and peace programs — all until it was acquired by the multinational conglomerate Unilever for $326 million in 2000. Massive protests resulted.

Bridger says protests and boycotts have been cornerstones of consumer culture and activism even since the American Revolution.

But under the structure of capitalism, they’re full of caveats. Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick eventually stepped down from his position on Trump’s Economic Advisory Board, an action which didn’t wholly exonerate him.

Sure enough, as people dropped their Uber accounts into the fire of justice, it flamed once again: two major shareholders in Lyft are also major supporters of and advisers to Trump.

As a consumer who uses neither Lyft nor Uber, Bridger can’t help but see the irony of the inferno.

She says that in some ways, Lyft and Uber are both economically

I’ve lost faith in large companies and their ability to have ethical practices.

HALEY FULLER

destabilizing. They offer certain kinds of economic opportunities to their employees, but with almost no benefits or guaranteed incomes. They’ve also unequivocally changed an ecosystem which at one time gave taxi drivers economic stability.

“Whether people use Uber or Lyft because of one small action that Uber took that seemed to undercut a movement against Trump’s immigration ban, I totally get that argument,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that I think that Lyft somehow has emerged as some incredibly magnanimous champion of people’s rights. Maybe they feel that way or maybe they just see an oppor-

HEAD TO HEAD

PHOTO ILLUSTR ATION BY HANNA CROWLE Y AND CHRIS GATELY | MUSTA NG NE W S

| After Uber dropped their surge pricing features, more than 200,000 people rallied to delete their Uber accounts and go to Lyft.

tunity here to present themselves in a certain way.”

Lyft said it will donate $1 million to the ACLU. Uber vows to create a $3 million defense fund for drivers affected by the immigration ban. Consumers are apt to wonder if their efforts are entirely wholesome.

Philosophy professor Ryan Jenkins studies the ethics of technology and said one thing is clear: There’s alot of noise that needs to be separated from the signal. The politicization of consumerism, he said, has led to a chaotic and confusing marketplace.

“I can imagine being a marketer and just thinking, ‘Well, I’ve got a hundred thousand tweets that tell me ‘x’, and a hundred thousand tweets that tell me to do the opposite of ‘x.’ What the hell am I supposed to do? I wish I could roll the clock back ten years when this wasn’t a problem,” he said.

Jenkins said companies are put in bizarre positions where they become a medium for political messages.

“When I go to the grocery store, the list of companies I’m not supposed to buy from and the list of ingredients I’m supposed to try to avoid, either for health reasons or for moral reasons, just keeps growing larger and larger,” he said. “It becomes an increased psychological demand on me when all I’m trying to do is buy peanut butter.”

Scenes like this are at the forefront for agricultural and environmental plant sciences senior Haley Fuller. Fuller dedicated her time to considering these psychological demands and finding ways for them to align with her personal ethics. When consuming, Fuller’s mainly concerned

for the environment and animal welfare. She’s vegan, with the exception of eggs she buys from Los Osos, and doesn’t buy anything from large corporations. She bikes almost everywhere.

But it’s hard. Fuller and her roommates try to lead a zero waste lifestyle and in October, they took it to the extreme.

“It made me realize that the ease and convenience with which we can access products is crazy,” she said. “It makes it way too easy to not think about the ethics behind your purchases.”

Fuller said she tries her best to stay away from companies involved politically in things she doesn’t agree with, but has become increasingly disenchanted.

“I’ve lost faith in large companies and their ability to have ethical practices and truly practice what they preach,” she said.

“I’ve seen and heard about so many companies who get exposed for backing environmental controversies or not compensating their workers fairly and it’s just disappointing.”

Jenkins said a skepticism like Fuller describes is growing.

“It’s sort of a perverse suggestion to say that if we just do capitalism in the right way, we’ll be able to solve all these problems,” he said.

Because of recent political events, companies like AirBnB and Lyft are aggrandized as ones who stand up and resist. Bridger

is a bit cynical.

“It’s a low stakes decision for Lyft and AirBnB to say they’re opposed to a refugee ban,” she said. “They don’t have anything to lose there.”

Bridger acknowledges these public stances aren’t meaningless; they have the power to filter upward, inspire others to mobilize and create upwellings of change, sometimes. However, for the companies themselves, they’re relatively low stakes.

“It would be interesting if Trump or Republicans in Congress came up with legislation that was friendly to companies like Airbnb or Lyft — what position would they take? Most likely, they’re going to act with their self interest,” she said.

ARTS 4

MUSTANG NEWS

Lipslut fights back against Trump POLITICALLY PR ACTICAL

ILIANA ARROYOS | MUSTA NG NE W S

| Graphic communication junior Katie Sones felt disheartened after the 2016 election, so she decided to promote activism by selling a product that many people already use.

Carly Quinn @ carlyquinnMN

Kylie Jenner’s lip kits may be kicked to the curb because there’s a new matte liquid lipstick brand that does more than just complete a go-out look. For $20, graphic communication junior Katie Sones created a simple way to give back to womanhood while looking good at the same time.

Upset after President Donald Trump’s election and the issues women may be facing under his presidency, Sones decided to take

HANDMADE continued from page 1

Even as this quality is commercialized for coffee tables by col-

action by creating Lipslut. The Lipslut website features a pop-art graphic of Trump wearing lipstick and bold pink letters that read “F*ck Trump.”

“After the election, everyone was saying, ‘Donate to this and [to] that,’ and I never donated, but I thought ‘Why aren’t I doing that?” she said. “People are going to buy lipstick either way, so if you could do that and have the money go somewhere that you support, that would be perfect.”

Sones added that the Lipslut team wants to keep the origin of

the name a mystery, but she hopes it sparks conversation.

The brand’s social media followers were given a poll to pick which color they wanted the lipstick to be. They decided on a “mid-tone, nude pink,” according the website.

Half of the lipstick’s sales will go to a woman’s charity. Each customer can vote on the charity they wish to donate to at checkout.

Once the campaign is over, all designated proceeds will be donated to the charity with the most votes.

“You can also write in your vote and it’s gonna be the popu-

lar vote that’s gonna win,” Sones said. “No electoral college to go through; whoever gets the most votes wins!”

With organizations like Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Campaign and the National Organization for Women on the charity list, Lipslut’s goal is to donate the money to causes that support women all over the world. Sones said the completely student-run company already received orders from all across the country.

“I definitely feel strongly about political activism and I

don’t think many companies are very outspoken about it,” Lipslut promoter and general engineering freshman Alexandra Ebrahimi said. “Even if they are, it’s not their main message and I think that’s what’s really cool about Lipslut.”

By posting on social media and reaching out to friends, the Lipslut team has grown into about 10 representatives throughout California, including at colleges like University of California, Los Angeles and Stanford University.

Lipslut is continuously looking

for more representatives to promote their cause.

“We really believe in people supporting a company that they can get behind,” Sones said. “We want to integrate philanthropy into everyday life; why not support something you care about?”

Lipslut plans on expanding their makeup line using funds leftover after donating to charity to grow the company. The team is currently deciding on a cruelty-free manufacturer to produce the lipsticks in the coming weeks.

lar-stayed folks, something about Martin’s work continues to hold that charm from authenticity. He makes it all with his own hands, after all.

“It really comes down to this,” Martin said. “I think it makes a huge difference when you know that it was handcrafted by somebody who put ener-

gy and appreciation into what they’re making rather than just a machine that’s programmed to make something.”

His father, an engineer in the wine industry, donated some empty post-Pinot barrels for the enterprise.

Despite wet air and a water leak on the far end of the basement, business continues as usual. The center of Martin’s operation is a wood lathe that he uses to grind down blocks of wine stave called blanks into the primary structure of the pen. Empty diet coke cans stick around from earlier nights of work.

“What’s really cool, too, is when I turn the barrel staves on the lathe, it smells really good,” he said. It almost smells like the wine the staves used to hold when they were barrel parts.

each one shiny and different.

Not all of them are made of wood; some are part of another project Martin’s working on: acrylic pens.

Acrylic pens, which have a smooth finish like a billiard ball are widely available. However, like his wine stave pens, Martin introduces a totally original approach. The acrylic material is alumilite, a liquid polyurethane plastic. When the alumilite is activated, it solidifies.

“What I’ll do is I’ll add grape vine into the mold before the material solidifies,” Martin said.

The finished product is a vibrant contrast along the surface, bright acrylics and darker, auburn grape vine swirls.

According to Martin’s roommate and history senior Matt Goulding, Martin spends up to 15 hours a week working away in the basement, crafting originals.

“He’s making it in a basement.

I don’t know how much more authentic you can be than that,” Goulding said. “His business started from scratch and it’s my understanding that he has dozens of clients at this point.”

Martin says he plans to keep it that way. To him, the magic would be lost knowing that he was selling a pen manufactured by a number he hired on an assembly line, rather than a Martin original.

“This is all built around me hand making them. It needs to stay small to stay itself,” he said.

The hidden workshop The house on Mill Street atop his shop is extremely well-kept.

It’s well-lit and spotless. Against the heavy rain outside, it’s a cozy step above the student squalor.

It makes sense that he’s able to keep heavy machinery in the house without the protest of the landlords because they’re his parents.

Though Martin isn’t considering expanding the craft to a full, blue-collar trade, the northern California native looks the part. He’s tall, solidly-built and blond with a demeanor seemingly straight from the Midwest, topped with slow, logical talk and reflexive smiles.

He’s the perfect fit for honest, mechanical handiwork.

Downstairs, the workshop is under siege. It’s unpragmatic to build basements in California, primarily because of the threat of earthquakes. But the natural threat to his workplace Martin worried about was an overabundance of rain. It doesn’t seem like nature took Martin’s preferences into account. Usually, sawdust floats through the gaze of fluorescent lights. Today, it clings to everything damply.

Preserving the Martin touch The spinning lathe is where Martin introduces his personal touch. Every pen is a Martin-made original.

“That’s where you have the freedom to do what you want. You can make it really thin, really thick,” he said.

After the wood is shaped, Martin waxes the pieces and fits them to the long brass tube that makes up the pen’s center. He adds other components, part of kits he buys online. They’re all placed on a mechanism that squeezes the pieces together. No glue, just pressure.

At this point, Martin presents his collection of finished pens waiting to be sent to their buyers.

They’re in a black, rectangular suitcase fit for a kitschy action film, the plot of which revolves around a deal gone wrong.

Pens and bottle openers line the inside of the suitcase,

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OPINION 6

OPINION

MUSTANG NEWS

Punch ‘em right in the Nazi

Elias Atienza @ CPMustangNews

Elias Atienza is a history sophomore and Mustang News columnist. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints and editorial coverage of Mustang News.

The phenomenon of punching neo-Nazis reached Cal Poly recently when an idiot passing out pro-Nazi flyers was punched by a masked individual in front of the library. Of course, defenders of neo-Nazi punchers always point out that beating up Nazis is an American tradition. After all, we kicked their asses from North Africa to Germany while bombing their cities and factories and defending our shipping from them in the Atlantic. Captain America smacked Red Skull around, and he even punched Hitler in a comic. The modern day Captain America, played by Chris Evans, saved America from a secret Nazi death cult twice.

But if someone was to punch a member of antifa or a communist, would the defenders of punching Nazis be just as vocal in defending these new throwers-of-hands?

After all, the communists were a much more prevalent threat than Nazis — they were our chief enemies for 40 years during the Cold War. We fought a number of underground wars against them, such as overthrowing the socialist government of Chile’s Allende (so what if he was democratically elected?), killing tons of them in Korea and Vietnam and economically isolating Cuba until President Obama decided Castro could come out of his timeout.

Communism was just as much of a threat as fascism, if not more.

After all, when you compare the death counts attributed individually to Hitler and Stalin, they are about equal. Though there is a slight difference in motivation, as Stalin had the decency to only murder the millions who opposed him, while Hitler sought to murder entire ethnic and religious

groups as well. Both, however, had ideologies that are incompatible with western democratic thought and our republican view of government.

On the topic of death, communism under Mao Zedong murdered tens of millions during movements such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Suffice to say, they didn’t work so well.

Even the low-ball estimates put t he death toll at a minimum of 18 million people, while the highest counts total around 70 million. The terrifying thing is that modern day China isn’t even extremely communist due to their rapid modernization and Deng Xiaoping dragging them away communism towards state-controlled capitalism. Unfortunately, this move was too little and a wee bit too late for those already slaughtered, but

If you want to punch a Nazi, fine.

Do it.

c’est la vie.

We can continue to tally up the death tolls later, such as Pol Pot’s grand design to murder millions in Cambodia and the murder of millions of people and imprisonment of thousands in labor camps in North Korea. The point here is that communists are just as despicable and deserve just as much vitriol towards them as fascists.

So if you want to punch a Nazi, fine. Do it. I don’t condone it nor would I ever punch someone for their political beliefs, but I won’t shed a tear for an idiot who thinks white people are the greatest thing to walk the Earth and has some deeply seeded desire to deport me back to the Philippines (even though I was born in the U.S.) But I also won’t shed a tear for the communists who hate private property, think people deserve to be shot for thinking capitalism works, condone mass murder from communist figures and believe in state control of everything.

Communism sucks. Fascism sucks. If you punch one person for holding one ideology, you better be prepared to punch his commie counterpart, too.

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MUSTANG NEWS

MAT T L AL ANNE | MUSTA NG NE W S

| Senior Corey Pang beat the No.42-ranked player Thursday at USC in the Mustangs’ 4-3 loss. The Mustangs have four losses this season, but all have come against the top 25 teams.

Mustangs keep it close in losses to top teams Ayrton Ostly @ ayrtonostly

The Cal Poly men’s tennis team lost both matches this week, losing 4-3 to no. 12 USC Thursday and 6-1 to no. 9 Michigan Sunday afternoon.

Against USC The Trojans (12-2) presented a tough test for the Mustangs (5-4) as they enjoy their highest ranking in team history.

Cal Poly put up a strong fight as the no. 3 doubles team of senior Garrett Auproux and sophomore Josh Ortlip beat the Trojans’ tandem of Rob Bella-

my and Jack Jaede 6-3 in court three. The no. 1 doubles team, seniors Ben Donovan and Corey Pang, lost to USC’s Brandon Holt and Riley Smith, but no.

2 doubles junior Karl Enander and senior Tim Tan won 6-4 over Nick Crystal and Laurens Verboven to secure the doubles point for the Mustangs.

In singles play, the no. 5 singles finished first, with Riley Smith defeating freshman Antoine Noel 6-2, 6-3. The Trojans made it two in a row in singles wins as Bellamy beat junior Axel Damiens 6-1, 7-5 at the no. 6 spot to give USC the lead.

Auproux gave Cal Poly the

equalizer by taking a 7-6, 6-3 win at the no. 3 spot over Thibault Forget.

Donovan kept it close against Holt (ranked no. 27 in the country), but ultimately lost 6-3, 6-4 at the no. 1 spot. With this 3-2 lead and two matches left to finish, it came down to the no.

4 and no. 2 singles to decide the match.

Ortlip kept it close against Jaede at the no. 4 spot but couldn’t keep the match going, losing after multiple tiebreakers 6-4, 7-6 (2-0). This gave USC a 4-2 advantage that clinched the match for the Trojans. Pang, fresh off a Big West Men’s Ten-

nis Athlete of the Week honor, wrapped up singles play with a 7-5, 6-4 win over no. 42-ranked Logan Smith to bring the final score to 4-3.

Though they lost, the match was a good test to see if the Mustangs are deserving of their no. 33 team ranking in the country. After playing the Trojans and multiple ranked singles players close, Cal Poly looked to continue that good form into Sunday against the no. 9 Michigan Wolverines.

Against Michigan The Mustangs’ strong form didn’t lead to a win on Sun-

day afternoon. The Wolverines took the doubles point as no.

1 Donovan and Pang lost to Michigan’s Jathan Malik and Connor Johnston 6-3. Tan and Enander lost to the Wolverines’ Alex Knight and Runhao Hua 6-4 on court two as Michigan took an early 1-0 lead.

Auproux lost 6-1, 6-2 to Kevin Wong at the no. 3 singles spot and Noel lost 6-4, 4-0 at no.

5 to Hua, pushing Michigan’s advantage to 3-0. Carter Lin then clinched the match for the Wolverines with a win over Damiens 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 at the no.

6 spot.

The rest of the matches were

played out from there and Donovan scored the first point for the Mustangs with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win over Myles Schalet at no. 2 singles. Pang dropped a third set to lose 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 at the no. 1 singles spot to Malik and Ortlip lost to Knight at the no. 4 spot 2-6, 6-4, 7-6.

The pair of losses drops the Mustangs to 5-4 on the season, but the losses have all come against top-25 teams. The Mustangs will likely remain at or near their current ranking going into their tournament next weekend at the Pacific Mountain Invitational in Stockton, California.