March 2, 2017

Thursday, March 2, 2017

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Nothin’ but

Nwaba

Former Cal Poly basketball player signs with Lakers

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Michael Frank @ frankmichaelss

Undrafted. Unnoticed. Undeterred.

On Tuesday, former Cal Poly men’s basketball player David Nwaba signed a 10day contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, a dream he never imagined would come true, according to the LA Times.

When Nwaba graduated from Cal Poly last spring with a sociology degree, he had big dreams for his basketball career.

Growing up in southern California, he always loved the Lakers and Kobe Bryant, one day hoping he could play for his favorite team.

The 6-foot-4 guard got his first chance to live these dreams over the summer when he was picked up by the Los Angeles D-Fenders, the minor league affiliate of the Los Angeles Lakers.

He was back home in Los Angeles and one step closer to playing in the NBA. After 38 games in the D-League, Nwaba has now been given the opportunity of a lifetime.

“He had to prove it game after game, night after night,” Cal Poly men’s basketball head coach Joe Callero said. “He’s earned it.”

After the Lakers waived guard Jose Calderon earlier this week, they had a roster spot to fill and the organization decided to give Nwaba a chance.

“If there’s anyone that I know, it’s him that deserves it,” former teammate and current Cal Poly senior guard Ridge Shipley said. “He’s worked so hard. He’s overcome so many obstacles mentally and physically, so I’m very happy for him.”

Nwaba is the first Cal Poly player to be signed to an NBA team since 1978. Lewis Cohen was drafted in the 10th round by the Phoenix Suns but never played a game, making Nwaba the first Cal Poly men’s basketball player in the NBA. For the D-Fenders this year, Nwaba

averaged 29 minutes, 13.9 points, 7 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.2 blocks per game.

While Nwaba was on the D-Fenders, Coach Coby Karl said he was the “best defender in the league,” a main reason why he was moved up.

Nicknamed “Mr. Dunk” by the D-Fenders play-by-play announcer, Nwaba will bring a new defensive intensity and highlight-reel potential to the Lakers’ offense.

“He’s going to bring some intensity to the floor and he will show people that players do play defense in the NBA,” Shipley said.

His first action came against the Charlotte Hornets Tuesday night in what ended in a 109-104 loss for the Lakers. In his five minutes of game time, Nwaba missed his only shot of the game but corralled a rebound, making Cal Poly history.

Nwaba will look to impress the Lakers’ coaching staff and front office in the next 10 days.

“The right things have happened and he gets 10 days to be on the team,” Callero said. “I’m officially a Lakers fan now.”

While he was a Mustang, Nwaba had career stats of 27.4 minutes, 12.0 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game.

Whether he remains with the Lakers or fulfills his original plans of playing overseas, Nwaba is now the most successful men’s basketball player in Cal Poly history.

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NEWS 2

CHANGE

MUSTANG NEWS

NOAH SADLER | MUSTA NG NE W S

| Anthropology professor Coleen Carrigan uses her Advancing Cultural Change project to collect research on how to combat exclusionary behaviors on Cal Poly’s campus and expand the research to other schools.

Professor works to advance cultural change at Cal Poly Austin Linthicum @ austinlinthicum

Coleen Carrigan is on a mission to make Cal Poly a more inclusive environment through her Advancing Cultural Change (ACC) project. Carrigan, her Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (ANT 201) students and research assistants are working collectively to unearth and combat exclusionary behaviors on campus.

Since 2015, 565 of Carrigan’s students from a variety of majors have investigated cultures among majors on campus. Throughout the quarter, they develop research questions and gather data through participant observations

and interviews. They utilize ethnography — listening to stories and observing behaviors — until patterns emerge.

Carrigan and her research assistants then analyze the data students collected using qualitative coding techniques. They then participate in consensus-building exercises to collectively strategize on how to increase cultural change at Cal Poly. Carrigan and the ACC team share their ethnographic findings by creating case studies to engage students, deans, department chairs and faculty on campus.

When Carrigan, a feminist anthropologist and assistant professor of social sciences and

science and technology studies, first came to Cal Poly, she wanted to share her excitement about ethnography with her students.

In order to do this, she started the ACC project.

“One of the great thrills of my life is ethnography,” Carrigan said. “I wanted to let students know that they don’t have to go far away to learn about a culture.”

Carrigan refers to this as making the familiar unfamiliar.

Because students must select a major prior to coming to school, Carrigan saw the importance of studying cultures within disciplines at Cal Poly, as a major is a large part of a student’s identity.

Data analysis has revealed three

major themes: ‘majorism,’ gender bias and racial bias. Majorism grants prestige to technical fields and denigrates liberal arts. The ACC team works to connect this phenomenon to broader social issues in U.S. education and economy. Gender bias is evident when female students in male-dominated fields, like engineering, report feeling intimidated and are presumed incompetent. Finally, racial bias is evident when historically underrepresented minority students report feeling left out in classrooms and are assigned inferior tasks in groups.

Carrigan’s passion for ethnography inspired sociology sopho-

more Noah Krigel when he took her cultural anthropology class last year. After participating in the study, he became a research assistant and currently works on coding student data.

“We are starting to understand that diversity is important, but we don’t always understand why,” Krigel said. “I think this project helps more people understand why diversity is so important.”

In the past year, ACC has presented findings at local conferences, student group meetings, engineering and liberal arts classrooms, faculty meetings and industry advisory boards. In June, they will present a paper on ACC methods at the 2017 American American Society for Engineering Education annual conference in Columbus, Ohio.

ACC lab manager and English senior Michelle Bardini said she thinks the program has already created more awareness.

“Because of this project,

people are talking more about majorism as well as issues of gender discrepancies in specific majors,” Bardini said, who was in Carrigan’s first ANT 201 class in 2014. “Participating in the Advancing Cultural Change study has made me more familiar with issues we see every day and being able to pinpoint them for what they are and their larger impact.”

While the project was funded by the Cal Poly Provost and Chancellor’s Office in the 2015-16 academic year, Carrigan has big plans for the future.

“In five years, I hope to secure external funding that funds a qualitative research center that collaborates with other schools to promote social and intellectual change in science and technology fields” Carrigan said. “I have a firm belief that to solve inequality, science change agents and humanities change agents need to find ways to work together.”

Cal Poly’s firewalls aren’t as strong as they should be Megan Schellong @ meganschellong

SecureMustangWireless is one of the many internet services Cal Poly Information Technology Services (ITS) provides. However, students,

faculty and staff aren’t always able to connect to the internet through the network.

Between Dec. 5 and 6, Cal Poly’s campus experienced network congestion in which users connected to Cal Poly’s on-campus Wi-Fi

were unable to access the internet.

The disruption was caused by a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack, something akin to a traffic build-up on a roadway, according to Velanche Stewart, journalism department information technology consultant. It’s when multiple external sources clog up the bandwidth in a network, preventing users from accessing the server quickly and easily.

December’s DDOS attack can be attributed to imperfect firewalls within Cal Poly’s network, computer science associate professor Zachary Peterson said.

Firewalls serve as gatekeepers of traffic; they distinguish between attackers and legitimate users such as Cal Poly students, faculty and staff trying to access the network.

When the firewalls aren’t strong enough to differentiate real users from attackers, the attacker overwhelms the firewall and slows down the network as in the Dec. 5 and 6 disruption.

Within 24 hours, a team of 20 ITS employees resolved the problem, according to ITS deputy CIO Ryan Matteson.

It’s not uncommon for attacks like these to occur, especially because they happen over the internet. In fact, they happen quite often, Matteson said.

“Cal Poly is being attacked right now. Cal Poly is being attacked every hour of every day. That’s part of being on the internet right now,” Matteson said. “We’re constantly under attack, but what happened in early December was a vulnerability where somebody was able to use our resources in an unauthorized way and the effect was students and staff couldn’t connect to service.”

Why ‘hacktavists’ aren’t caught The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act states that a person initiating a DDOS attack can be held under criminal charges if they cause damage to a computer.

However, not all of the people initiating these DDOS attacks are caught because it’s difficult to track down the source.

“It’s very difficult to shut down a DDOS attack; you can try and shut down the machine, but it’s difficult

and not effective,” Peterson said.

DDOS attacks are challenging to stop because computers are unable to distinguish between legitimate traffic and malicious traffic, Peterson said. In the latter instance, unauthorized users disguised as machines try to access a network while in the former instance, authorized users initiate commands to try to access a network.

When too many users, regardless of whether they’re human or machine, overwhelm the system, the system has no choice but to drop some users’ connections or forbid access, which is what happened in Fall 2016 during finals week, Peterson said.

Though DDOS attacks cause great inconvenience, it’s pretty common that the initiators, sometimes Cal Poly is being referred to as “hacktaattacked right now. vists,” aren’t caught.

“It is substantially Cal Poly is being easier to be caught in attacked every hour real life than online,” of the day.

Peterson said.

It’s a challenge for RYAN MATTESON agencies to find online criminals because of the nature of a bot net. A bot net consists of hundreds of thousands of machines within the “internet of Why people initiate attacks on things” (IOC), including items universities such as computers, smart tele- It’s possible that “hacktavists” visions and other smart devic- target universities like Cal Poly es, Peterson said. For example, for practicing purposes, Peterson when a person wants to attack said. The initiators of the attack a network, they could send may use institutions such as uni500,000 to 1 million bots to the versities as guinea pigs to see how target host. When the host re- successful their attack is before ceives a million requests for ac- trying to execute a disruption to cess, it can’t distinguish between a larger company. a bot and a human user. As a reThat’s to say Cal Poly is not a sult, the system slows down and unique target for attacks like the network drops connections, these. DDOS attacks can occur according to Peterson. anywhere, from large tech comMany networks have anomaly panies like Yahoo to smaller detection components that notice ones. One famous DDOS attack when a surge in traffic from an- occurred in the form of politiother country occurs suddenly, ac- cal retribution against a large cording to Peterson. The network file-sharing website, Mega Upcontroller can then put a limit loads. When the U.S. Departon the number of users it allows ment of Justice took the site offrom the other country in order fline, “hacktavists” showed their to combat potential attackers. On frustration by interfering with the other hand, by placing a limit websites belonging to the White on the amount of users from an- House, FBI, Department of Jusother country, a network controller tice and branches related to Warmight also block legitimate traffic. ner Music and Universal Music.

JAKE GIUSTO | MUSTA NG NE W S

Other interruptions Internet congestion is typical at the beginning of a new quarter, as ITS makes changes to the system, Stewart said. Some changes that are typically made include installation of new routers and equipment.

Network problems usually occur within the first two weeks of every quarter due to the large influx of students coming back onto campus after an academic break. During this time, many users try to connect to the network, but problems loading PolyLearn and other tabs on the portal may occur. Meanwhile, other users may not access the Cal Poly portal at all due to the limit on the number of nodes on routers in the Wi-Fi network, Stewart said.

As Cal Poly continues to be attacked, Matteson said ITS is working toward developing new ways to combat the attackers.

“Attackers always get better.

They get smarter and they learn,” Matteson said. “We’re working against an adversary who will get new tools and techniques overtime, so we also have to strengthen our defenses.”

NEWS 3

THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2017

New house rules: The changing climate around partying in SLO James Hayes @ jimbles_hayes

students and the community is not yet undone.

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, some Cal Poly students and community members recall San Luis Obispo’s rocky history with holiday parties. Years of ordinances and double fines have created a climate of distrust between students and San Luis Obispo residents. But this year marks a change as new methods of keeping parties in check work their way through city council.

A collective effort between San Luis Obispo City Council and Cal Poly’s Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) is beginning to change the way city officials deal with parties. The groups are working together to find non-ordinance solutions.

These changes are part of an attempt to move past some of the most memorable party fouls dating back as far as 2004.

St. Fratty’s Day Flash forward 11 years to March 2015: Students clad in green woke up before sunrise and took to the streets in huge numbers. Thousands of party-goers crowded streets, backyards and even roofs.

One particular party on Hathway Avenue continued unhindered until students heard a crash and screaming. One of the roofs party-goers were standing on had collapsed, injuring nine students.

The university launched a formal investigation to determine who was responsible and how to avoid another incident in the future. Students and community members alike pointed fingers at the Interfraternity Council (IFC), but investigations found that no formal group or organization was responsible.

Again, the relationship between students and community members was strained.

Mardi Gras On February 21, 2004, the San Luis Obispo Mardi Gras celebrations began just as they had for many years. Students crowded California Boulevard and Foothill Boulevard as law enforcement attempted to keep traffic and crowds moving.

The crowd became unruly and after bottles and rocks were thrown, riot police began using rubber bullets and tear gas.

Mardi Gras festivities have since dwindled, but the damage done to the relationship between

Crackdown These events did more than just damage community relations for students, they also led to new party ordinances and Safety Enhancement Zones.

Safety Enhancement Zones are periods of time when fines for certain offenses are doubled in an effort to minimize party-related activities.

There are currently four Safety Enhancement Zones written into San Luis Obispo’s municipal code:

• From 12:01 a.m. on the Thursday preceding “Fat Tuesday” until 12:01 a.m. on the Wednesday following “Fat Tuesday” (Commonly referred to as Mardi Gras).

• From 12:01 a.m. on March 17 until 7 a.m. on March 18 • From 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 31 until seven a.m. on Nov. 1. If Halloween falls on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the Safety Enhancement Zone period will be effective at 12:01 a.m. on the Thursday falling on or preceding Oct. 31 until 7 a.m. on the Monday following Oct. 31.

• From 12:01 a.m. on the first day of Cal Poly University’s housing move-in day until 7 a.m. of the Monday following the first weekend of the fall acDuring these times, fines are doubled for the following offenses: • Possession of open containers or consumption of alcoholic beverages in public places • Hosting a gathering where underage persons consume alcohol • Noise control • Unruly gatherings • Use of dangerous and deadly weapons • Public urination ademic school year.

The Safety Enhancement Zones proved to be effective in curtailing party behavior so far, with a record low number of citations during Week of

Welcome this academic year.

However, while unsafe behavior has decreased during the Safety Enhancement Zones, the double fines have done little to foster a positive relationship between the community and Cal Poly students.

Mechanical engineering senior Eric Johnson received a ticket for a noise violation during Week of Welcome, a ticket that cost him $700.

“As a college student — especially an out-of-state student — it’s pretty difficult,” Johnson said.

“It was like as soon as you get to college you immediately put $700 down, which is pretty pricey.”

ASI President Jana Colombini said the Safety Enhancement Zones can be positive, in moderation.

“It makes sense for a day. I get where they’re coming at for that,” Colombini said. “It’s when they try to make it multiple days, I think that it’s a little over-reaching.”

Communication This year marked a significant change in the attitude toward party ordinances and Cal Poly students in general.

On Jan. 17, San Luis Obispo city council voted four to one to not extend the March Safety Enhancement Zone to encompass the first 17 days of the month. The same day, city council decided to move forward with a pilot party registration program that would allow students and community members to register

parties the day before in order to limit citations.

These two decisions mark a change in the city council and community’s attitude towards Cal Poly students. Mayor Heidi Harmon said the issues that are being brought up are issues “you can’t ordinance away.”

“My overall philosophy is building more relationships and less ordinances,” Harmon said.

The shift in attitudes did not occur overnight. This change in the way San Luis Obispo handles parties came after this election year’s increase in student involvement in local politics, according to Colombini.

“We elected those new members of city council and the mayor,” Colombini said. “I think they recognize who put them there and all of them ran on a platform of fixing problems and not creating ordinances.”

ASI emphasizes how important student voices and student votes are in the community with events like the Flex Your Right campaign. The voter registration campaign registered thousands of students to vote in San Luis Obispo, pushing students to be more active in the city’s politics.

The pilot party registration plan was created by both Cal Poly students and community members.

San Luis Obispo Police Department (SLOPD) Neighborhood Outreach Manager Christine Wallace and other city officials met with ASI and IFC and provided a workshop on the party registration plan, allowing for student input.

“They just presented what it is to us and then we kinda picked it apart,” Colombini said. “They

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were able to make it very student-friendly.”

Wallace said the dialogue between the city, community and students is improving and that student engagement is key to a cohesive community.

“It’s always going to be one of the keys,” Wallace said. “We are a very engaged community, we have a very engaged council, we have a very engaged staff and it really depends on that group of students if they really want to get involved or if they don’t.”

Colombini echoed the same sentiment and stressed the importance of student’s making their voice heard.

“You can just email [student government] your issue, what you’re upset about, maybe what you even like,” Colombini said.

“Then we are able to act from there if we see more people and more of a consensus behind it.”

Going forward As February comes to a close, many Cal Poly students are anticipating St. Fratty’s Day, but this year there is a spotlight on students. The new pilot party registration program is not yet in effect, but students are still working with city officials to ensure the holiday festivities run smoothly.

Though there was no connection between greek life and the roof collapse of 2015, IFC President Danny Halprin is working with SLOPD to make sure this year’s greek events are safe.

“Student tradition has been early mornings, so we’ve been guiding chapters to plan events later in the day,” Halprin said. “It’s the early morning partying that wakes up neighbors. The hope is that it’ll distrupt less of the neighbors and the neighborhood.”

ARTS 4

MUSTANG NEWS

Professor sheds light on the most unknown war in U.S. history Rebecca Ezrin @ CPMustangNews

In 2011, about thirty years after the ethnic studies movement at San Francisco State University (SFSU), Bing Aradanas guest lectured an SFSU ethnic studies class on the Philippine-American War. In the 1968 SFSU ethnic studies movement, the student body went on strike for five months, demanding that ethnic studies classes be incorporated into their education.

They felt there was a critical need for students to learn and understand the history and culture of different people.

This need for knowledge about unknown history is exactly why Aradanas gave his lecture on the Philippine-American War, something most people know little to nothing about.

Aradanas called his 2011 lecture a “major seed planting.” He said the reactions it elicited from Filipino students inspired him to continue meeting with them.

“This was radical because nobody wanted to talk about [the Philippine-American War] for so long. It’s one of the most disturbing chapters in American history,” Aradanas said.

Aradanas compared Americans’ treatment of Filipinos during the war to that of Jews in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

In 2012, Aradanas relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area to Lompoc, California. When Aradanas left SFSU, the momentum he created to spread awareness on the war fizzled out. Later, he inspired Filipino-American students to raise awareness on the war at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Cal Poly, where he taught in the ethnic studies department. Currently, he is on a leave of absence.

Today, Aradanas continues to educate the public on the war through museum work, art, publishing an-

thropology research, teaching and activism. He believes the war has been buried so deep in history that neither Americans nor Filipinos know about it.

The history It wasn’t until Aradanas was 33 that he learned about the war, something critical to understanding his own Filipino-American identity.

Aradanas made this discovery while at an anti-death penalty rally in Seattle.

“An elderly white gentleman marching at my side casually mentioned the war to me,” Aradanas said. “First, I thought he was delusional, but then upon his suggestion, I read Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States’ and I was shocked.”

The Philippine-American war was complex, from its origin to conclusion. In May 1898, American forces arrived in Manila Bay in the Philippines as the Spanish-American War was escalating.

The United States saw an opportunity to capitalize on the Filipinos’ war of independence against Spain.

The Filipinos were on the verge of victory when U.S. Admiral George Dewey promised Philippine revolutionary General Emilio Aguinaldo that if Filipino rebels helped America fight Spain, Philippine independence would be recognized.

However, instead of granting them independence, the U.S. annexed the Philippines without consent of the Philippine government. When the Filipinos refused to recognize American rule, the U.S. initiated a war of conquest against them.

What is omitted from most history books, however, is that the U.S. spent the next 14 years mass murdering and torturing Filipinos.

Families were separated and starvation was commonplace.

Documented records suggest that anywhere between 200,000 and 600,000 Filipinos were murdered during this time. But Aradanas said those numbers only account

for the island of Luzon. Accounts from first-hand participants and their descendants suggest that a more accurate number of deaths is closer to one million. Aradanas said that most civilians were killed in concentration camps. “[The war] was not even a battle, it was a massacre of civilians,” Aradanas said.

According to Aradanas, next to the Afghan War, the Philippine-American war is the longest combat-war in American history, but almost no one knows this.

Part of the lack of awareness is a result of the U.S.’s resistance to call the conflict a war. Historians instead referred to it as an uprising or insurrection. Because of this, it’s uncertain when the war actually ended.

Although many believe the war only lasted three years, Aradanas said the Battle of Bud Bagsak in 1913 indicates the war lasted 14 years.

The social movement While researching the Philippine-American war, Aradanas was surprised to learn that a San Francisco street he once associated with his free-spirited youth was named after one of the cruelest American officers in the war, Frederick Funston.

“Shock, which turned into that sinking feeling in your stomach, which turned into outrage, which turned into an intense but beautiful phase in my life of insatiable research,” Aradanas said.

Colonel Frederick Funston fought 19 battles in the Philippines and was a leader in an operation that captured Aguinaldo. He was awarded a medal of honor and considered a national hero. In 1902, Funston traveled America to gain support for the Philippine-American war. Funston is also credited with helping extinguish fires from San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake.

“I first learned of Funston Avenue back in 1984. I was 21 living

BING ARADANAS | COURTE SY PHOTO

BRUTAL | Frederick Funston was one of the most ruthless American officers in the Philippine-American War.

in San Francisco with my girlfriend and we were invited to a party at the intersection of Funston and Aloha, which we thought was a cool-sounding intersection,” Aradanas said.

Fort Funston is also named after Funston. Dewey Boulevard in San Francisco is named after Dewey and Lawton Street is named after General Henry Lawton, both officers in the war.

Aradanas was first motivated to change the name of Funston Avenue when he learned the, “details about the perverse delight this man took in raping Filipina women, torturing Filipino civilians and executing Filipino prisoners of war.”

On April 22, 1899, Kansas City Journal published a letter that Funston wrote to the editor.

It read: “I am afraid that some people at home will lie awake [at] night wor-

rying about the ethics of this war, thinking that our enemy is fighting for the right to self-government ...

[The Filipinos] have a certain number of educated leaders – educated, however, about the same way a parrot is. They are, as a rule, an illiterate, semi-savage people who are waging war not against tyranny, but against Anglo-Saxon order and decency...”

On March 10, 1902, The Sun of New York cited Funston in a piece called “Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines.” It read: “I personally strung up 35 Filipinos without trial, so what was all the fuss over Wallers ‘dispatching’ a few ‘treacherous savages?’ If there had been more Smiths and Wallers, the war would have been over long ago. Impromptu domestic hanging might also hasten the end of the war. For starters, all Americans

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who had recently petitioned Congress to sue for peace in the Philippines should be dragged out of their homes and lynched.”

Aradanas thinks that the U.S. has consciously buried the war from history by excluding it from textbooks. The history of the war is also unknown in Filipino schools, as their curriculum is based on that in the U.S.’s and is taught in English.

“Does the mass suffering of innocent Filipino civilians in brutal concentration camps under the U.S. Army matter less to U.S. historians than the mass suffering of those in brutal concentration camps under the Nazis?” Aradanas said. “That’s racist ‘Oppression Olympics’ bullshit and those authors should be ashamed of themselves. It’s 2017.”

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OPINION 6

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OPINION

Brendan Abrams @ CPMustangNews

Brendan Abrams is a liberal arts and engineering studies junior and Mustang News columnist. The views expressed in this column do not reflect the viewpoints or editorial coverage of Mustang News.

I don’t want to get hung up on the lack of cultural diversity at Cal Poly — let’s be honest, I’m not doing much to help increase it — but there is something to be said about having diversity in one’s own social circle.

Most people are aware of how exposure to only a narrow set of beliefs is problematic when many different types of people exist in the world. Whether it’s believing that everyone will understand Java jokes that you tell System.out.print (“to the world”), or seeing only one side of an issue on social media, it’s easy to assume that most other viewpoints match your own.

It would be awesome if there was a way to remedy this somehow. What if there was a service that forced diverse views into people’s lives just long enough to expose everyone to a cultural variety of thought?

That ser vice exists, it’s called Airbnb Don’t mistake this for free advertising for the monolithic

Finding humanity through Airbnb

residence-sharing site. Airbnb has its share of drawbacks when it comes to the health of local real estate markets.

However, one thing the site does well is connect disparate types of people through the promise of cheap travel and quick cash.

It was quick cash that my roommates and I were after when we decided to begin hosting through Airbnb to cover our utility bills.

We quickly learned that we would also get a cultural awakening when people from around the globe began sending in requests to stay with us.

B efore our first guests arrived, we had a multitude of questions. Would they be friendly? Would they steal from us or leave the place a mess? WHERE IS THE TV REMOTE? Airbnb only provides a blurry picture and a brief description of the people it expects users to let live with them overnight, so our assumptions ran wild.

We expected stiff, awkward conversations with random humans.

Boy (and girl), were we mistaken.

We forgot one ultimate assumption: our guests would be

people, just like us. Sometimes that’s all that’s necessary to form meaningful connections.

Imagine our delight when two of our first guests were a young German couple so friendly that we all went out to dinner and spent hours talking late into the night.

‘hi’ to strangers,” they said.

Good job, America. I needed a small shift in perspective. Diversifying isn’t about getting a bunch of different people to come together; it’s about making individual connections with individual people. Simple exposure to ideas is nowhere near as effective as intimate understanding.

There was a lot more understanding to come.

As foreign guest after foreign guest passed through our home, we got all sorts of viewpoints on life and politics.

“People just have to relax and play golf. Could you pass me another Corona?” a middle-aged German psychologist and mother on a golf vacation said.

“Brexit is like our version of Trump,” a single British biologist who just felt like traveling said.

“Everything seems fine here.

From the news we thought it would be much worse,” a young French woman, here for the Pacific Ocean and Vegas, said.

“Everyone we meet says they didn’t vote for Trump. So how did he get elected? Everyone blames someone else,” a Belgian couple on holiday (because Belgian employers give vacation time) said.

“Your bread is weird. Our

Exposure to only a

narrow set of beliefs is problematic.

This was during the 2016 presidential race when my general opinion of the quality of American people was on the downward slope, so I was further surprised when the Germans mentioned that everyone was so friendly in this country. They could barely walk down the street of a small West Coast town without being bludgeoned with friendly smiles and polite greetings.

“In Germany, nobody says

bread is not so fluffy,” more Germans said.

Sure, Airbnb guests might not provide the most representative sample of viewpoints, but there was something going on. All the strangers made as many assumptions about us as we made about them, yet we were immediately drawn into deep conversation in almost every case. There was no shortage of mutual understanding and respect despite our widely varied backgrounds.

If we, a couple of college students, can get along so easily such random people, who in some cases struggled to speak our language, why is common ground so hard to find between our political factions, or even between representatives in government and their constituents?

It comes down to a lack of personal contact. Politicians rarely live among the people they govern in a physical, financial or ideological sense, leading to the mess of special interests, corruption and disconnectedness we’ve known for much of our country’s history.

It would be great to “drain the swamp,” but obviously the alligator we hired to do it won’t be much help.

Let’s add another criterion to the politician’s list: must live for several days in a house with a representative sample of his/ her/zir constituents.

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MI CASA ES TU CASA

TABATA GORDILLO | MUSTA NG NE W S

| One way to gain new perspectives is to speak with someone with different ideologies. Having that someone stay in your home is a step above, but worth it.

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SPORTS 8

MUSTANG NEWS

Gilbert’s glorious career comes to a close Erik Engle @ erik_engle

After seeing Hannah Gilbert practice once as a freshman at Morro Bay High School, Faith Mimnaugh, head coach of the Cal Poly women’s basketball team, knew she wanted Gilbert to be a Mustang.

“She’s legit, coach,” Mimnaugh told Cary Nerelli, Gilbert’s coach at the time.

Now, almost eight years later, the Mustangs’ senior center has produced four of the most productive seasons in Cal Poly women’s basketball history, currently ranking seventh all-time in scoring and sixth all-time in rebounding in Cal Poly women’s basketball history.

Wednesday night Gilbert laced up her shoes one last time at Mott Athletics Center before calling it quits on a record-breaking career. Though Gilbert will play in the Big West Tournament in one week, Wednesday was her last game in San Luis Obispo.

The varsity years It almost seems like a foregone conclusion that Gilbert would end up where she is in her collegiate career, especially when looking at her development as a youth.

A native of Morro Bay, she started her basketball development early, attending a youth basketball program at the age of eight. The program was run by Nerelli, who had a feeling from the beginning that Gilbert would one day play for a Division I program.

Nerelli, who Gilbert still keeps in touch with, would schedule meetings with each of his players at the start of the camp to decide what skill the player was going to focus on over the course of the season. According to Nerelli, Gilbert was fun to watch grow up through the system because her brain was “like a sponge” and would “soak up everything” he told her to do on the court.

By the time Mimnaugh came to scout her in practice at Morro Bay High School, Gilbert had turned into a force down low for the Pirates. In her last three seasons at Morro Bay High School, the Pirates did not lose a league game, winning 27 in a row, earning them three straight Los Padres League titles. Gilbert also received numerous personal accolades, including being named San Luis Obispo County Player of the Year by the Tribune after her senior season.

As her ability on the court got better and better, Gilbert’s leadership ability began to blossom.

According to Nerelli, Gilbert was not necessarily a vocal leader on the team when she first arrived, but she developed leadership skills from her older teammates.

“I think she took a little bit from each of the seniors that she followed as she came through her freshman, sophomore and junior classes,” Nerelli said. “Mix a little bit of that with her own leadership and as a senior, she really took the horse by the reigns.”

The decision During her final year at Morro Bay High School, Nerelli got as much national exposure for Gilbert as he could. Gilbert’s success drew scouts from programs all around the country, including several PAC-12 schools like Oregon State and Utah. According to Nerelli, however, Gilbert told him from the very beginning that she only had one destination in mind: Cal Poly.

“I said ‘Well I’d love to send you to Cal Poly, I think that would be a great place for you, but I want you to look at these other places, please, so you can make an intelligent decision.”

Gilbert reluctantly agreed to tour other campuses. After returning from touring multiple campuses, she was more sure than ever of where she wanted to play college ball.

“She came back and said ‘Are you happy now? I’m still going to Cal Poly,’” Nerelli said. “I’m telling you, when she makes up her mind, nobody’s going to change it.”

Shortly after, Gilbert committed to Cal Poly and prepared for her career as a Mustang. Though she was a team captain and a vocal leader on her high school team, college was a different beast.

“I remember always just being, not really scared, but just kind of afraid because I was the new kid,” Gilbert said. “There’s kids who’ve done this for four years and know their way around. Eventually, you get acclimated but it definitely took some time.”

The transition Gilbert had an unusual way of dealing with the stress of transitioning from high school to college.

“I pretty much used to be a TUMS addict,” Gilbert said. “I used to pop those suckers all the time because of anxiety.”

Today, Gilbert is clearly one of the leaders of the women’s basketball team. According to Mimnaugh, Gilbert is able to perfectly toe the fine line between constructive criticism of her teammates and still being able to be an encouraging and positive presence.

“She’s brought the kind of leadership that we need in practice everyday, holding players accountable, being an incredible encourager as well,” Mimnaugh said. “You can always fuss at people, but you have to give some support as well. So she’s done a good job, I think, of balancing the two.”

The passion to play Though she has one of the most statistically dominant careers in Cal Poly history, Gilbert never once worried about her numbers, only winning.

“If we get the win I don’t really

care what my points are,” Gilbert said. “To me, it’s more important to win, and I’m just glad to be here.”

The casual fan wouldn’t be able to tell from watching her on the court, but Gilbert has been dealing with severe achilles tendonitis for the last two seasons. According to Mimnaugh, Gilbert wasn’t able to get through some practices last season without tearing up from the pain, yet still wanted to give it her all.

“She’s a warrior,” Mimnaugh said. “She does everything she possibly can to ready herself for both practice and games.”

When Mimnaugh said everything, she means literally everything. Aside from physical therapy treatments, ultrasounds, long periods of icing and having someone knead the knots in her calves out almost every day, Gilbert also uses a walking boot aside from game days or when when she is playing basketball.

“I wear the boot every day but game day, just mentally I don’t like to walk in wearing it,” Gilbert said. “But it’s been a frustrating thing because I eat correctly, I take anti-inflammatory pills, all that type of jazz. It’s just frustrating when it doesn’t work.”

Gilbert’s toughness and relentless mentality is exactly why her coach dubbed her a warrior. Since she was named the starting center at the beginning of her sophomore season, Gilbert has only missed one game in her junior season despite all of the pain she has experienced because of her ailing achilles.

“There’s plenty of people that have to deal with injuries in their lives, and some that you wouldn’t know if they had an injury,” Mimnaugh said. “To me, that’s a warrior’s mentality. They keep it on the down low that they’re hurt. They’re ready to show up for practice. They’re not asking to have reps off. They’re not looking for any special favoritism. To

TIP-OFF

MAT T L AL ANNE | MUSTA NG NE W S

| Hannah Gilbert’s wingspan gives her an advantage.

me, that’s a fighter’s mentality or a warrior’s mentality that every team needs to have.”

While her unbreakable mental fortitude is something to be revered, the most impressive aspect of Gilbert’s basketball ability may be her athleticism. Gilbert is listed at 6-foot-3 and boasts an intimidating 6-foot-8 wingspan which has allowed her to match up defensively with any post player she has seen in her career.

“Her ability defensively, it might be better than any post player that I’ve had, to be honest,” Mimnaugh said. “She really can move and she’s very intelligent.

It’s been a real pleasure for me to be coaching somebody that cares so much about defense.”

On the offensive end of the

floor, Gilbert’s agility poses a nightmarish problem for opposing teams. According to Mimnaugh, Gilbert’s speed up the court is only comparable to Cal Poly’s all-time leading scorer Kristina Santiago.

“She’s definitely one of the most athletic players in our program,” Mimnaugh said. “Her ability to run the court puts her right next to Santiago as far as posts that I’ve coached. She gives up a little bit of girth to some of her opponents, so if we can get her in motion that seems to suit her better than trying to pound her against people that are 50 pounds heavier than she is.”

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