DAILY 49ER California State University, Long Beach
Vol. LIX, Issue 853 In Tuesday’s paper, the Daily 49er should have published the following article under the headline “Moving forward during Genocide Awareness Month.”
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Wednesday, April 8, 2015
A BRIEF RELIEF
Diversions
Moving forward during Genocide Awareness Month A Holocaust survivor and researcher at the Museum of Tolerance discusses the roots and methods of deterrence when it comes to systematic extermination. By Alex Berman Contributing Writer
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fter six weeks of hiding in a pitchblack apartment cellar alone, the Germans had finished their roundups, and it was safe for Gerda Seifer to return to her family in the ghettos of Przemysl, Southeast Poland. During this time, she imagined them subservient in the workforce and safely tucked away in clandestine corners as she had been. “When I got there I asked him, ‘Daddy, how’s mom?’” Seifer said. “He took me and sat me down on the bed—we had no chairs. He had to tell me what I didn’t want to hear ... they had been arrested and taken away.” Seifer, now 87 years old, looks back on some of the horrors she experienced as a Jew during the Holocaust. With the departure of March comes the arrival of Genocide Awareness and Prevention month, a month that is dedicated to educating the public and deterring events such as the Holocaust, the 100-year-old Armenian Genocide and the genocide in Darfur from repeating themselves. Stories like Seifer’s serve as one of the few remaining windows to the past; a narrative reminder of the terrors that genocide inflicts on all who are unfortunate enough to be victimized by it. Aaron Breitbart, senior researcher at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, said that
See GENOCIDE, page 11
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Michael A res | Daily 49er
oncluding a day of overcast weather and gusty winds, a fleeting rainstorm visited
Long Beach Tuesday night. Storm clouds that rolled in Monday brought 0.11 of an inch of rain around 8 p.m. According to the National Weather Service, the wet weather is the result
Turn off the sprinklers City dwellers should stop waiting for the nonexistant water police to tell them what to do and take matters into their own hands. By Ariana Sawyer Opinions Editor
A dust devil picks up a cloud of sand and a few tumbleweeds in the middle of what was once a productive farm in California’s Central Valley. Now, dust accumulates in the nostrils, causing painful sinus irritation. At California State University, Long Beach, the sprinklers turn on in the mornings, shimmering over the large expanses of grassy courtyards across campus. Signs pleading for help with the water crisis line the highways, interstate and gas station parking lots all throughout Central California. At a San Francisco restaurant in
Diversions 4, 11
of a cold low-pressure system from the southern Gulf of Alaska moving into Southern California. It brought almost two hours of consistent rain to the area. Wednesday is expected to be much
drier, but still windy with a forecast of sun and a high near 66 degrees Fahrenheit. Thursday should warm up with a high near 70 degrees, but the clouds are expected to still roll in at nights until next week.
OPINION
expensive Hayes Valley, patrons leave full water glasses wasted at the table after paying their tabs. Two dusty repurposed school buses painted white with the words “Farmworker Transportation” in thick black letters on the sides amble down the slow lane in the Central Valley. Because of the drought and the resulting loss in crops, some workers now have to travel over 60 or 70 miles to keep a job, and some are now unable to find work where they live, surviving on food donations, according to the New York Times on Saturday. But free food doesn’t pay the mortgage or put children through school. The drought still just isn’t real to most city dwellers, and it is in cities where California can afford to conserve the most. “Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow,” Governor Brown said in a press release. “This historic drought demands unprecedented action.” Californians have largely relied on politicians to fix the water crisis, but it is time for the citizens to take it upon themselves to make an impact. Carly Fiorina, a Republican who lost the California Senate seat in
Michael A res | Daily 49er
By replacing various lawns with drought resistant landscaping over the summer, California State University, Long Beach hopes to aid in statewide water conservation. 2010 to Democrat Barbara Boxer, said she was seriously considering running for president, told Blaze Radio Monday that the drought is all the liberal environmentalists’ fault for protecting endangered species, according to Politico. When the House passed a bill to pump water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to send to Southern California, President Obama said he would veto it because it would harm an endangered species of fish. Water is a scarce resource that humans and other animals must share, not a magically replenishing fountain. Rather than take water in a way that kills members of an endangered species, perhaps the overpopulated species should each hold themselves accountable and help to lessen the
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effects of the water crises on an individual level. People demand that Sacramento and Obama solve the water crisis, but the drought is an act of nature that is out of government’s control. No one can know for sure when it will be over. If this is the beginning of a mega drought, as some NASA scientists have anxiously cautioned, according to the Washington Post in February, after a few more dry years, will blaming liberals, congress or the fish make any difference? Don’t order more water than you need at the restaurant. If a server brings you water without asking, tell them that there is a water shortage and send it back.
See WATER, page 10
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