Tennis begins postseason in NorCal. SORTS, pg. 8 Volume LXXVI, Number 120
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Putting money ASIde
Controversy fills trustee meeting MUSTANG DAILY STAFF REPORT
Athletic scholarships $2,398,306 ASI administration $1,039,672
General administration $454,636
Student community services $76,067
Children’s Center $686,889
ASI programs $616,190
ASI plant fund $400 Club allocations $5,549
Student government administration $226,505
mustangdailynews@gmail.com
The California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees wrapped up its May meeting Wednesday by recapping some of its potential cost-cutting strategies to help offset its universities’ budget woes. Chief Financial Officer Benjamin Quillian concluded the two-day meeting by announcing the ideas — including giving additional workload to professors, charging more fees for students and possibly eliminating state funding to one of the CSU’s more affluent campuses — will be further discussed at a meeting of the statewide budget advisory committee. The proposals are yet to be voted on or approved; CSU officers instead presented them as worst-case alternatives if the university system takes further cuts later this year. “The unpalatable things as a system, we may have to start thinking about, in order to deal with the scenarios that we could end up getting presented with,” Robert Turnage, the CSU assistant vice chancellor for budget, said during the finance meeting on Tuesday. The trustees also took steps to further regulate top-level pay at the CSU’s 23 campuses during their meeting. While students and professors protested high-level compensation outside, a special panel on presidential compensation voted to freeze pay increases for university presidents. The new policy instead allows for university foundations — such as the Cal Poly Corporation — to contribute raises up to 10 percent of current salaries for newly hired presidents. The Board of Trustees meeting was punctuated by a CBS 2 investigation into what it called “questionable spending” by toplevel university executives, including CSU Chancellor Charles Reed. The report, based on expenses found on at least one CSU credit card, detailed more than $750,000 spent on catering, private transportation and restaurant bills. State Senator Ted Lieu responded to the report with a letter to the chancellor Tuesday where he called for Reed’s resignation over
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Budget breakdown: How are your ASI fees spent?
see TRUSTEES, pg. 2
AMBER DILLER
amberdiller.md@gmail.com
With budget cuts and tuition increases, knowing how things are paid for and who decides where the money goes is becoming increasingly important to Cal Poly students. The Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) Fee makes up a portion of the tuition Cal Poly students pay every quarter. These fees are separated into two categories: those that directly fund ASI and those that directly fund the University Union (UU). The ASI fees are $96.83 per quarter and are made up of four areas: athletics, ASI programs, the Children’s Center and student community ser-
vices. UU Fees are $209.01 per quarter and are made up of two sections: UU costs and the sports complex. Many students don’t know they pay an ASI fee, but it’s important, ASI Presidentelect and social sciences junior Katie Morrow said. “Everyone’s a member just by going to Cal Poly,” she said. “So they deserve to know where the money is going and really see that.” Though the fees may seem confusing, the budget is always available for people to look at, ASI Director of Business Services Dwayne Brummett said. The following is a breakdown of each individual ASI and UU fee students pay, when the fee began and why
Fees Athletics An ASI referendum in February 1987 proposed the idea of collecting money for athletic scholarships and the idea was revisited in April 2004. Students pay $44.38 per quarter to ASI, who then passes the money onto the university in the form of athletic scholarships. The athletic scholarships enable Cal Poly to maintain its NCAA Division I status. ASI Programs In 1998, the board of direc-
tors voted to create a $38.29 fee every quarter to fund ASI-run programs. These programs include Poly Escapes, club services and other ASI events (such as Concerts in the Plaza). Additional revenue helps fund these events with user fees. Orfalea Family & ASI Children’s Center Construction began for the Children’s Center in April 1991 after an ASI referendum. Four years later, a referendum passed that created a $12.75 fee each quarter to put towards operating costs. The Children’s Center is open to anyone, with first priority going to Cal Poly
teachers and students. User fees and the Orfalea family also fund the program. Student Community Services After an ASI referendum in April 1997, a $1.41 per quarter fee was added to tuition. This money is collected by ASI, but then passed onto the university to help fund the Student Community Services Center. University Union Each quarter, students pay a $202.01 fee to ASI for the UU. This money helps fund the debt from construction of the see ASI, pg. 2
Study examines relationship between exercise, hunger BRIAN DE LOS SANTOS
bdelossantos.md@gmail.com
When kinesiology assistant professor Todd Hagobian was an undergraduate student at University of Southern California, he was training on his bike seven days a week. He’d bike anywhere from one to five hours a day, while only taking a day off once every two or three weeks. And after every workout, he always noticed the same thing — he wasn’t hungry. “I noticed when I did these big, long events in cycling, I didn’t eat that much for the rest
of that day,” Hagobian said. “The subsequent days I would start to eat a little bit more, but that day I just wasn’t hungry.” Years later, Hagobian, working with a team of students and faculty, set out to research the effect exercise had on hunger. And after a year-and-a-half study, the group’s work was published in The Journal of Applied Physiology last month and found itself the subject of a New York Times article. “It’s not until the last four or five years that there has been any data on this; it is a relatively new field in terms of the
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ARTS, pg. 4
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regulation of appetite or food intake and how exercise can affect that,” Hagobian said. “People thought it doesn’t affect it really, before that.” But Hagobian’s findings suggest it does. He, along with coauthors Nero Evero, who was a graduate student in kinesiology during the time of study; Laura Hackett, who graduated from Cal Poly in June with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology; and fellow faculty members Suzanne Phelan and Robert Clark found brain activity in see EXERCISE, pg. 2
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Kinesiology assistant professor Todd Hagobian (left) and a team of students and faculty had their study published in The Journal of Applied Physiology in March.
INDEX News.............................1-3 Arts..............................4-7
Opinions/Editorial........7-8 Classifieds/Comics..........8 Sports.........................9-10
MDnews 2 EXERCISE continued from page 1
regions that stimulate hunger were significantly reduced following exercise. “The data is actually pretty clear that when people exercise, they don’t eat as much as if they didn’t exercise,” Hagobian said. “Exercise affects the brain centers that regulate food intake. Those centers are suppressed,
so there is no stimulus to eat or there is less stimulus to eat.” The group arrived at that conclusion after starting data collection in fall 2010 when they began sending subjects to Templeton Imaging Medical Corporation. There, the subjects were hooked up to Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity by gauging blood flow, and asked to either exercise rigorously on a train-
Thursday, May 10, 2012 ing bike or sit for an hour. Afterwards, the subjects were shown images of highcalorie, typically fatty, foods and healthy, low-calorie foods. The fMRI would then scan areas of the brain, revealing the brain’s interest. The results came back definitively and were consistent with the fact that exercise suppresses hunger. “I was surprised at the robustness, meaning that we had a lot of regions that showed decreased activity,” Hagobian said. “I expected only one or two regions to change, and I think that we had eight or 10 different regions that changed.” Because of the definitive results, the authors have started incorporating the practices into their daily lives, especially Hackett. She is now in an accelerated bachelor’s degree program for nursing at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, and her background with the study is helping her emphasize the importance of exercise to patients she deals with on a daily basis. “When you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, it all ap-
plies,” Hackett said. “That little bit of exercise a day makes a huge difference. If you can get people who I see in the hospital every day to make small changes in their lives, it would totally change who is actually in the hospital from day to day. It’s neat to be able to apply it and apply my background and really see how it correlates to what I am doing now.” Even others outside the study have felt those changes in appetite, such as kinesiology sophomore and STRIDE Club president Laura Cox. She said she typically runs three-anda-half miles every other day of the week and weight trains for two-and-a-half hours during the days between. And after those workouts, she usually isn’t hungry. “I find it more after I run,” Cox said. “When I get back, food doesn’t usually sound too good. It is hard to say with weight training. I don’t feel that hungry, but I still make myself drink a protein shake, or chocolate milk, or something like that.” This effect may create more reason for people to get active, Evero said. In exposing
ASI
from user fees, but the student fee funds the majority.
continued from page 1
Recreation Center, as well as operation and maintenance of the UU facilities, Recreation Center and sports complex. The fee began to fund the construction and operation of the UU. Since its beginning, there have been referenda that have added to the original fee. Sports Complex The sports complex, which is located past the baseball and softball fields on campus, opened in 2000. “The fee was put into place to fund the repayment of bonds used for the construction of the sports complex,” Brummett said. With the fees from every student each quarter, ASI has many areas to divide the money among. There are seven categories that ASI is in charge of funding, in addition to the areas listed above. The following is a breakdown of each area.
Spending ASI Programs As mentioned above, ASI programs include Poly Escapes, club services and ASI events. There is income involved in these programs
Student Government Cal Poly clubs, sports clubs and ASI scholarships are both funded through the student government area of ASI spending. The budget is also used for operations related to student outreach and representation goals. ASI scholarships are given to seven student government members: president, chair and vice chair of the University Union Advisory Board (UUAB), board of directors chair and vice chair and the chief of staff. The scholarships were created so student-government members, who devote a large amount of time to the school, could focus on their duties without needing another job, Brummett said. All of the scholarships go through financial aid, and they are based off of the cost of “student living” as determined by the state of California. The ASI president receives 100 percent student living, chair and vice chair of UUAB receive 75 percent, board of directors chair and vice chair receives 25 percent and chief of staff receives 50 percent.
... I truly believe what we studied is essentially a link to proper exercise intervention. NERO EVERO CO-AUTHOR
the connection between appetite and exercise, the results of the study could lay down the groundwork for creating a more healthy society. “No study proves anything,” Evero said. “But I am a strong believer in the power of exercise, and I truly believe what we studied is essentially a link to proper exercise intervention.” Others such as kinesiology senior Megan Yamashiro agree. Yamashiro said she believes if the results alone won’t get people off their couches, but the results in combination with other advantages may. “Even if people don’t exercise for appetite suppression, I hope they will do it for their health,” Yamashiro said. “There are so many mental, physical benefits of exercise, this is just another
thing to add on to all the benefits established.” It’s also something Hagobian’s started incorporating in his lectures. He said he plans on doing a follow-up study on a more diverse group of subjects, but the original has already spurred a lot of praise and feedback, especially after it appeared in The New York Times. All in all, Hagobian said he was excited the study got the press that it did, because of how hard every student involved worked on the study. “We publish stuff in these journals and there is more readership in that one New York Times article than in any of the other journals. It’s not even close,” Hagobian said. “I am happy for all the students that were involved in it.”
Everyone’s a member just by going to Cal Poly ... they deserve to know where the money is going and really see that. KATIE MORROW ASI PRESIDENT-ELECT
counts for depreciation of capital assets that aren’t necessarily part of one specific area of ASI. Capital assets are “those that cost $2,500 or more and have a useful life longer than one year,” Brummett said. An example of this is the ASI marquees, which were recently taken down
This portion funds the postretirement benefit obligation for employees that retire with ASI. The amount required is more than necessary for Cal Poly, so the organization is working toward lowering the percentage put toward this area by investing in an outside fund, Brummett said.
ASI Administration
Orfalea Family & ASI Children’s Center
Plant Fund
All full-time employees and student employees are paid through ASI fees and other user fees. Staff costs total approximately $1,917,784. Without ASI administration, behind the scenes human resources, accounting and planning would not be successful, Morrow said. “We don’t just take it for granted that the staff is doing their job,” she said. “I think they’re great, but I think it’s our job to make sure that they’re spending it the way that students want it to be spent.”
This area of the budget ac-
Cash Administration
This money goes to the board of each college and is used to promote the college to the rest of the university. The Board of Directors wanted to give money to each college, but also wanted to make sure that they can only use it to benefit everyone in the college, Brummett said.
TRUSTEES
of documents collected by the news station over the course of a year. He also said catered meals are often provided to visitors by the Chancellor’s Office. “We are going through the different claims made in the report,” Uhlenkamp said. Students assembled outside Reed’s dinner party at his Long Beach home Tuesday night to protest continuing tuition increases and presidential raises, even with the freeze being implemented.
Protestors, including some on a hunger strike against the CSU, made reference to the dinners and catering outlined in the CBS 2 report, as reported by several Los Angeles media outlets. At one point, trustee Steven Glazer came to the students and answered questions about university spending. He said the Board of Trustees is moving in the right direction toward creating a better system for presidential compensation.
continued from page 1
comments that the money was well spent. Lieu’s letter, published online by CBS 2, called the spending “shameful.” CSU Spokesperson Mike Uhlenkamp said the claims made by CBS 2 are under investigation by the university and are the results of thousands
As mentioned above, students pay $12.75 per quarter to fund operations for the children’s center. The daycare also receives funding from the Orfalea family and user fees. Council Allocations
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MDnews 3
Thursday, May 10, 2012
NATIONAL
SLO COUNTY
STATE
ARROYO GRANDE —
LOS ANGELES —
TENNESSEE —
MEXICO —
A group of Arroyo Grande sixth graders raised approximately $5,000 to help a 5-year-old boy who received cancer treatment for more than a year. Clayton Roberts was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumor, two years ago. He underwent radiation therapy and surgery to remove the tumor. Branch Elementary School students started collecting funds to help Roberts’ family pay for medical treatment not covered by their insurance. The students sold cookie dough, popcorn and candy to raise funds. One of them also left a jar for donations at Breakfast Buzz. Roberts met the students Wednesday when they presented his parents with the check.
Hairstylist Vidal Sassoon, who had leukemia, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, a family spokesman said. He was 84. With one high-profile haircut on the Paramount Studios lot, Vidal Sassoon vaulted to fame in Hollywood. Flown in from London in 1967, he trimmed the tresses of Mia Farrow for her role in the film “Rosemary’s Baby” — a $30 haircut that he calculated cost $5,000, including airfare. Sassoon gave the actress a pixie cut that would be copied by women the world over. As a celebrity hairstylist, Sassoon helped launch the age of the signature hair salon, complete with designer-label prices.
Adam Mayes and his exwife have been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of a Tennessee woman and her eldest daughter. Two other children remain missing and are believed to be with Mayes, a fugitive being sought in at least two Southern states. Tennessee investigators announced the latest round of charges Wednesday even as authorities stepped up their search for Mayes, 35, who was seen in a video visiting a convenience store in Union County, Miss., near where he lived with his ex-wife, Teresa, and mother, Mary. Both women are in jail in Hardeman County, Tenn., about 80 miles from their Mississippi home.
Chopped-up parts of at least 15 bodies stuffed into two vans were discovered Wednesday on the road to Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest inland body of fresh water and a popular retirement community for U.S. citizens. The bodies found just south of Guadalajara, in Jalisco state, may be the latest victims in a bloody turf war between the vicious Zetas gang and an offshoot of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, a fight that has bloodied the area around Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, for a year or so (link in Spanish). “We are investigating ... dismembered persons ... to know exactly how many there were,” Tomas Coronado Olmos, top prosecutor for Jalisco state, said in a news conference.
INTERNATIONAL
Obama ‘comfortable’ with same-sex marriage MICHAEL A. MEMOLI
Tribune Washington Bureau
President Barack Obama, marking the end of a prolonged “evolution” on the issue, now favors allowing homosexual couples to marry, he said in a television interview Tuesday. The announcement comes days after Vice President Joe Biden’s comments that he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage put new pressure on Obama to clarify his position on the issue. Obama told ABC’s Robin Roberts on Wednesday: “Over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.” Obama’s new position realigns him with the growing number of Democratic officials who have embraced full marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Gayrights activists have widely believed that the president privately supported samesex marriages, but withheld a public declaration out of concerns about alienating independent voters in key swing states. There is a movement among activists in the party to adopt a so-called “marriage equality” plank in the official platform this summer. Such language would mark the continuance of the party’s own evolution. In 2000, the Democratic platform stated simply that the party supported “the full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of the nation,” and “an equitable alignment of benefits.” In 2004, in the face of an effort supported by the George W. Bush campaign to put gay marriage bans to statewide referendums across the country, the Democratic
platform stated that marriage “has been defined at the state level for 200 years, and we believe it should continue to be defined there.” By 2008, the party vowed to “enact a comprehensive bipartisan employment nondiscrimination act,” and opposed the Defense of Marriage Act “and all attempts to use this issue to divide us.” It has been nearly a year and a half since Obama first indicated that his stance against gay marriage, in support of “strong civil unions,” had begun to evolve. Obama has in fact taken multiple stances on the issue. In 1996, as a candidate for the state Senate in Illinois, he told a gay rights group that he favored same-sex marriages and would fight efforts to block them. As a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama said he believed marriage is between a man and a woman, citing his faith as the underpinning reason for that belief. In 2008, he repeated that assertion to influential evangelical pastor Rick Warren, adding “for me as a Christian it’s also a sacred union, God’s in the mix.” But Obama also said he would not support an amendment adding that definition to the Constitution. Defining marriage “has been a matter of state law. That has been our tradition,” he said. At the same time, Obama opposed a California ballot initiative outlawing same-sex marriage because it was “divisive and discriminatory.” Obama had plenty of company in such murky waters. All of his top competitors for his party’s nomination drew the same line — opposing marriage and arguing that civil unions were sufficient to protect the legal rights of gay couples. Since then, Obama’s party has steadily drifted away from that position — and the president tried to suggest, without stating clearly, that he’s moving with it. In October 2010, during a question-and-answer session with progressive bloggers, Obama first signaled he was reconsidering his previous position. “I am a strong supporter of civil unions. As you say, I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to samesex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage,” he told Joe Sudbay of AmericaBlog.
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“But I also think you’re right that attitudes evolve, including mine. And I think that it is an issue that I wrestle with and think about because I have a whole host of friends who are in gay partnerships. I have staff members who are in committed, monogamous relationships, who are raising children, who are wonderful parents.”
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MDarts 4
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The hour we knew nothing of a play
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Cal Poly students to perform unique play Thursday. KAYTLYN LESLIE
kaytlynleslie.md@gmail.com
A madwoman runs wildly across the University Union (UU) Plaza after dark. A firefighter appears for 15 seconds before disappearing without a word as a beauty in mirrored clothing glances through a hole in a leaf. Couples come together and break up, random strangers become friends and enemies plot against one another — all without speaking. While this may seem like the plot of the latest Tim Burton movie, it is in fact the plot of the Cal Poly Theatre and Dance Department’s latest show, “The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other,” which opens
today at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 and include a pair of wireless headphones and a seat cushion for audience members to sit on anywhere in the plaza. In the play by Austrian playwright Peter Handke, approximately 400 different characters are played by a cast of between 10 and 25 actors. These characters all converge on a town square over the course of two hours, going about their daily lives with varying degrees of interaction. Handke wrote the play in the early ‘90s, after an afternoon spent in a small Italian café with a glass of wine observing all of the passers-by. In an interview for Austrian magazine, Profil, Handke said his inspiration came after watching a hearse pull up to a nearby house and collect a coffin. After it drove away, Handke said he felt the hearse and the coffin colored all of the following events on the street, even though the rest of the people there had no clue it had been there. Flash forward 10 years later, and the play inspired by a cof-
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fin and a glass of wine is now being performed by Cal Poly theatre students. In the Cal Poly production, the town square is the UU Plaza and the 400-plus characters are played by 17 students. According to director and theatre professor Josh Machamer, the play fits well in a Cal Poly setting because it echoes how students themselves go about their lives in college. “When I walk across campus, I see people put in their earbuds in their very onetrack minded, ‘I’m going to class, I’m going to this particular destination,’ without really having the sense of awareness to what are the other things going on that are surrounding us,” Machamer said. “I think this play allows us to see, over an hour, the many dreamlike stories that each one of us has.” A major factor in telling untold stories, though, was actually adding an element of the unknown into the play by performing in an open space, which opens up the opportunity for random passers-by to literally become a part of the production. “I think it’s kind of giving people a chance to tell their own particular story based on what they are getting,” Machamer said. Though some students just walk by without noticing the production, or try to circumvent the performers, others take the chance to do some performing of their own, Machamer said. There was even one student who realized what was going on midstride, did a back-flip and walked in the opposite direction, Machamer said. Performing in the plaza also forced the cast to face logistical concerns, Machamer said. One of these was how to make people want to pay to see the play, if in theory they could just walk into the plaza and sit down. To remedy this, Machamer decided to add a soundtrack to the performance, available only through wireless headphones, he said. The 135 headphones, provided by Silent Events — a company that specializes in “silent discos” see PLAY, pg. 6
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Watch Morro Bay go by while staying dry Erin Hurley is a journalism senior and Mustang Daily SLO lifestyle columnist.
I went on one of these voyages two weeks ago, and had a good time. The weather was great and the bay couldn’t have been prettier. My boat captain was Kevin Winfield, who has owned Sub Sea Tours and Kayaks with his wife since 2000.
for a living,” Winfield said. We started out the tour above water and Winfield took us all the way across If there’s anyone out there the bay, pointing out sea unfortunate enough to have life. First we stopped by a never visited Disneyland, bunch of sea lions just chillthere’s an awesome ride in ing and barking their little Tomorrowland called the hearts out. A few even swam Finding Nemo in front of our Submarine Voyboat. Winfield It’s definitely a new age (I swear said there’s an there’s a point agreement beperspective getting to see to this). You sit tween him and in these sublions. sea life from underwater while the“I sea marines and go straight, watch through they get out of being perfectly safe in a boat. windows as the the way,” Winocean and recfield said. ognizable charThere was acters go by. so much great Okay, so it’s wildlife out on not really the ocean, and fish He was friendly, funny and the bay: blue herons, otters don’t really talk. I know. welcoming and kept shar- and pelicans. Winfield took But there’s actually some- ing interesting facts with the the boat over to the other thing similar to this in Mor- passengers during the trip. side of the bay next to the ro Bay. Sub Sea Tours and Winfield used to be a fisher- 23-million-year-old volcanic Kayaks in Morro Bay offers man, and when the oppor- Morro Rock, which is even a different way to experi- tunity to own the company more impressive up close — ence the environment that came up, he took it. He said he said it was once used as a is Morro Bay — underwater. it’s worked out well. quarry. We also stopped by And it’s pretty cool. “It’s better than working a group of sea otters floating in the water like they couldn’t be bothered. Winfield dropped a fact about these furry friends too —
HOROSCOPES THURSDAY, MAY 10 TAURUS (April 20-May 20) — You can adopt a more open, accepting attitude toward those who do not share your ideals or point of view. Now is not the time for conflict. GEMINI (May 21-June 20) — Now is no time to give your emotions free rein; do what you can to keep in check any behavior that might rub others the wrong way. CANCER (June 21-July 22) — You have more than one change to consider at this time, and the clock is ticking. Are you doing some things just to get attention? LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) — Others may not understand just what exactly you are trying to accomplish at this time, but if you continue undaunted, you’ll surely win memorable results. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) — You’ll be looking at the big picture throughout much of the day, but occasionally you’ll want to narrow your focus and assess the details. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) — Keep spending in check today. Do what you can to communicate your deepest concerns to someone who can really help. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) — You can learn a great deal today simply by listening to the stories told by those who have more experience than you have. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) — You can afford to let someone close to you have a little more say in what happens today. He or she can contribute new ideas. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) — You’re not likely to get any guarantees today, but with a little help you can further your cause and position yourself more favorably. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) — You must be willing to let others have a say today; yours is not the only opinion that matters — and you can learn much by listening. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) — You will have a chance to judge your own strengths and weaknesses today; do so with an open mind, and know that lessons can be learned quickly. ARIES (March 21-April 19) — You can expect some to be supportive today, but others are likely to come at you with objections that are more personal than professional.
see MORRO, pg. 6
. E IM E. T Y AN HER W Y N A
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MDarts 6 MORRO continued from page 5
he said otter fur is the most dense in the world. The next part of the tour was the best. We went into the lower level of the boat, which had windows on both sides, and Winfield took the boat around in a circle twice to help draw out the fish — he said it was like playing the ice cream truck music. It took a little while and the water was kind of dirty,
PLAY continued from page 4
— will broadcast music that helps provide the mood for the multiple scenes of the play. Machamer said the headphones give an entirely new feeling to the performance. “They’ll be able to hear the stories, as well as see them,” Machamer said. “It’s really beautiful.” Another concern when performing outside is the lack of offstage space. To combat this, the stage crew will set up four tents in the corners of the UU, each with a different prop and
Thursday, May 10, 2012
but Winfield started throwing food out, and soon, there were a bunch of fish swimming right by the windows. It was pretty cool, like a moving aquarium. The only fish we saw on my trip were California golden jacksmelt — but Winfield said a variety of species have been spotted out in the bay such as striped bass, ocean sunfish and bat rays (which he said can grow to more than 100 pounds). Winfield also took us into an area of giant sea kelp where some of the bunches
of kelp were so big they covered the whole window. The best part of running Sub Sea Tours and Kayaks is meeting new people, Winfield said. In the summer season, they give the tours all the time, and “you better meet new people or it’ll drive you kind of nuts,” he said. If you like the idea of going out on the bay but are maybe looking to spend a little more time there, Sub Sea Tours and Kayaks also offers kayak and canoe rentals, and — even cooler —
whale watching tours. December through April is the best time to see gray whales, but starting in June, humpback whales can be seen in the bay. So it might not have had any talking fish, but the sub-sea tours of Morro Bay are really fun. At this time of year the weather is perfect for spending a day out on the water, and this is a new way to get up close to all the great sea life in the area. The tours are $14 for adults for a 45-minute tour.
costume master, so the performers can run in to change costumes or grab a prop, Machamer said. Stage manager and theatre junior Gabrielle Koizumi is in charge of organizing all of the backstage efforts. “There are over 300 props and costumes in the show, and my assistant stage manager and I were charged with the task of tracking all of them,” Koizumi said. For Koizumi, the biggest challenge wasn’t organizing all the props and costumes, though — it was writing down the staging so it remained constant without a traditional script. “For this particular show, I started with a blank word document and simply wrote what I saw,” Koizumi said. “Writing what I saw was difficult, as so many stories were happening at once that each rehearsal I would be adding more notes to my blocking script.” As one of the actors Koizumi was watching, theatre freshman Brigitte Losey said she has enjoyed the experience of working on “The Hour.” “Our director, Josh, uses
every opportunity as a teaching device,” Losey said. “We play a lot of games to help us use our bodies and be specific with our actions. I’ve learned a lot of valuable things on an acting and personal level. Overall, I think the most valuable is ... the message of the show.”
Losey said. “I think that the play has a lot to do with silent interactions and how we don’t recognize how powerful movement and silence is.” Machamer echoed these statements. “It gives me (a) new perspective every time I walk through the square now,” Machamer
I become more aware of the different people around, and in this day and age, I think the more we can become aware ... is a good thing. JOSH MACHAMER DIRECTOR
And for Losey, the silence of the play is the deciding factor in expressing Handke’s idea of events and interactions unknowingly coloring everything coming after them. “The silence is key to the plot because it is a reflection of how we pass one another everyday, each person with their own story, but we don’t say anything to one another,”
said. “I become aware of the different people around, and in this day and age, I think the more we can become aware versus isolated, I think that’s a good thing.” “The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other” opens today at 8 p.m. and runs until May 19. Tickets are $15 and will be sold at the Performing Arts Center Ticket Office.
MDarts 7
Thursday, May 10, 2012
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Snoop Dogg sells out SLO Brew for second time MERCEDES RODRIGUEZ
mercedesrodriguez.md@gmail.com
Snoop Dogg fans will have a chance to see the legendary rapper at downtown’s SLO Brewing Co. tomorrow night, if they were lucky enough to snag a ticket during the few short days they were available. The artist, known for his hits such as “Gin and Juice,” “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and “Let’s Get Blown,” sold out SLO Brewing Co. (SLO Brew) in less than a week. “Tickets went on sale Friday or Saturday and they were completely sold out by Tuesday of the next week,” said Boo Boo Records employee Ryan East. Boo Boo Records handled the ticket sales for the May 11 show. East said the maximum occupancy for the relatively small concert space is between 350 and 400 people. Prices were considerably higher than those for other performances at the venue, though. Regular tickets sold for $76 while VIP tickets cost $356. General admission tickets are now selling for more than twice their original cost on Craigslist. “With the VIP tickets, you’ll be able to meet Snoop Dogg and get a picture with him,” East said. “That’s really the only difference.” The 40-year-old performer, born Calvin Broadus, is also known as Snoop Doggy Dogg, D-O-Double-G and the Doggfather, according to his website. He recently made headlines with his appearances at Indio’s music festival, Coachella, where he appeared on stage with Dr. Dre and a hologram of the late rapper Tupac Shakur. Aerospace engineering seniors, Shaun Luther and Steve Katzman, attended Coachella and saw Snoop’s performance. “He performed with the
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
“He performed with the ghost of his dead friend and still smoked a blunt on stage —That’s dedication to your art,” aerospace engineering senior Steve Katzman said of rapper Snoop Dogg, who will perform at SLO Brew tomorrow night. ghost of his dead friend and still smoked a blunt on stage,” Katzman said. “That’s dedication to your art.” Luther said he’d want to see Snoop Dogg perform again. “I heard he was coming here sometime soon, and I’d definitely be down to go,” Luther said. “It was great seeing him and the rest of the old rappers I used to listen to as a kid.” This performance will mark
the second time in two years that Snoop has played at SLO Brew. He last visited San Luis Obispo in October. Snoop will perform in Santa Cruz before his San Luis Obispo show and travels to Las Vegas, Nev., afterwards, according to his official website. Justin Muravez works security at the venue. He said Snoop is a “true performer of our generation.”
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The Obama vs. Osama showdown: one year later As the November election looms, conservatives argue the negatives of Obama’s role in bin Laden’s death.
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Thursday, May 10, 2012 Volume LXXVI, Number 120 ©2012 Mustang Daily
“Watermelon Wednesday!”
out when they pay that much.” The artist released his eleventh studio album “Doggumentary” on March 29, 2011. The album features collaborations with Wiz Khalifa, R. Kelly, T-Pain and Young Jeezy and debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Chart for Rap Albums, according to Billboard’s website. The sold-out show is Friday at 8 p.m.
MD op/ed
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“I know he really knows how to hype up the crowd,” Muravez said. “The last time he was here all he wanted to do was hang out, so that’ll be cool.” Despite the excitement surrounding the performance, Muravez is not concerned about crowd control. “I don’t think it’s going to get that crazy,” Muravez said. “Ticket prices are too high, and people don’t want to get kicked
Andrew Bloom is an English senior and Mustang Daily liberal columnist. Some of us vividly remember the first murmurs of agitation, one year ago, that rippled across the Internet faster than we were used to — this was no mere announcement of a music festival lineup or a paltry celebrity’s passing. No, this was an announcement of an announcement, an enigma in itself before we were even told it would involve national security. The President was to address the nation in an hour, a terrifically arbitrary window of time during which the pundits could guess at the commotion. I remember Anderson Cooper’s glib predictions of an economic disaster in afterhours trading; there was Fox’s blog post speculating currency devaluation; and there
was even talk, a whole hour of genuine commentary, about earth’s impending doom at the hands of an asteroid, aliens or some combination of the two. But the news was short and uplifting: the Navy Seals, informed with fresh intelligence supplied by the CIA — don’t ask me how — acted on President Obama’s order to fly to a mansion in Pakistan and kill Osama bin Laden. Much fanfare has been made lately of what to make of this administration’s accomplishment in a campaign setting. The President’s re-election campaign seems to shy away from outright gloating, but aggressive “mentioning” of the mission seems the new standard. Certainly none can deny the bin Laden mission is one of the White House’s most bolded bullet points going into this election. And where was the President last Tuesday, the precise date of the mission’s anniversary? Making a furtive and unannounced trip to Afghanistan to meet with President Karzai about the daunting task of handing over his nation’s security. Some have raised the question of whether the hype could stand to harm Obama’s image as the general election begins to heat up. Though the administration has made countless public gestures of moral support and credit sharing among all the military branches and personalities which could fathom a claim on the bullet that killed the terrorist kingpin, I hear the overtones of
truth in Time’s Michael Crowley’s metaphorical criticism of Obama’s bin Laden strategy: It’s like “when LeBron James lowers his head and stampedes to the hoop, determined to score or get fouled trying.” Perhaps the victory in Obama’s portfolio really is as Crowley says; he need only hammer it home and survive the fallout of such a blatant appeal to patriotism. And if we choose to see it Crowley’s way, a great deal of risk remains in Obama’s strategy. What if, Darwin forbid, al-Qaeda shows signs of reorganizing or attacks again? The true origin of this draft of political momentum which now blows in Obama’s favor trades on the notion of America’s crushing victory over the terrorist leader and his immediate network. But realists will tell you this is not tantamount to al-Qaeda’s defeat; the orga-
nization is blunted, sure, but remains dangerous as ever. There is probably some validity to that line of attack, but I nevertheless feel that Obama is wary as ever of the dangers of the precocious “Mission Accomplished” statement that marked his predecessor’s fall from grace. The moral inquisitors who comprise the closest cousin of al-Qaeda here in America, the social conservative wing of the Republican party, have already launched a campaign to paint the centrality of the bin Laden mission within Obama’s campaign in a coat of egocentrism. Their tactic is laughably absurd — absurd because most rational Americans outside of their teabag-bedazzled clubhouses can detect the rhetorical pestilence in associating a great many people’s achievement with the iniquity of a single man. And it is laughable
because it so reeks of 1950s bobbysoxer finger-pointing that I hardly worry about these types of Republican ever again rising to power. Let the Santorums and Gingriches of the future rot in their own misapplied vitriol. Whether or not Obama’s waving of the Bin Laden banner is an ethically permissible mode of rhetoric, I think it will help his chances in November. The truth is that the Obama administration has not in any way let up in the war against al-Qaeda, with escalations of drone attacks punctuating the CNN ticker for some time now. And even more fundamentally, it shows Obama’s aptness to exercise the scariest powers of the commander-in-chief with both restraint and success — a combination that has tended to elude presidents since the Vietnam War.
MD op/ed 8
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Monday. Concerned that mobile phone networks are becoming surveillance tools, the American Civil Liberties Union recently asked hundreds of local law enforcement agencies whether they’ve tracked people’s movements through their cellphones. Most of those that responded said they had, usually obtaining the information from mobile phone companies without a warrant. The practice has become so routine, the ACLU found, that phone companies are sending out catalogs of monitoring services with detailed price lists to police agencies. The alarming find-
ings should persuade Congress to clarify that the government can’t follow someone electronically without showing probable cause and obtaining a warrant. The Supreme Court has long held that the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures requires police to obtain a warrant if the intrusion would violate a target’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” That standard has barred law enforcement agents from surreptitiously recording what people say on the phone without a warrant, even when the conversation is taking place in a public phone booth. But the court and Congress set a significantly lower bar for monitoring other aspects of a phone’s use. The government can obtain
records about numbers dialed and calls received — either from the past or live and in real time — with a subpoena, which a court will grant if shown that the records sought are relevant to an investigation. Mobile phone networks collect another type of data that wire-line networks don’t: They register a phone’s location continuously as long as it’s turned on, even when it’s not in use. Those records can be exceptionally revealing; as the ACLU put it, the potential insights range “from which friends you’re seeing to where you go to the doctor to how often you go to church.” Nevertheless, the Justice Department and many local law enforcement agencies view location data as no different
from calling records. With the acquiescence of mobile phone carriers, they’ve been quietly collecting this information through subpoenas, not warrants backed by a showing of probable cause. And in some cases, the subpoenas have been frighteningly broad; for example, one police department sought data on all the mobile phone users in the vicinity of a planned protest. The fact that phone companies are collecting fees for providing this information raises the additional question of whether their financial interests trump their customers’ privacy interests. Looking for an answer, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., co-chairman of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, recently asked the major wireless carriers how much money they’ve collected from law enforcement agencies and whether they actively market their information-gathering services. Location data can undoubtedly help solve crimes, but there’s a broader principle at stake. New
TIM BRINTON/NEWSART
The secret life of the American cellphone
technology enables people to trade information about themselves — sometimes consciously, sometimes not — for commercial benefits, convenience and insights into the world around them. They agree to share that information with service providers because of the unique
benefits it brings — for example, users of the Roamz app can arrive in an unfamiliar town and see what previous visitors have said online about the best places to eat and stay. But if sharing this information automatically makes it the government’s for the asking, what will be left of the Fourth Amendment? A growing number of courts have been pushing back against the Justice Department’s permissive approach, but the rulings haven’t been uniform. Nor are there clear rules to distinguish emergencies from routine investigations, live tracking from the examination of stored data, or any of the many other complexities. Rather than trusting judges to sort it all out, Congress should make it clear that the protections that apply to phone conversations also apply to location data. No warrant, no tracking.
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MDsports 9
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Bryant is no Jordan, still controls Denver series MICHAEL LEV
The Orange County Register
Don’t worry, Lakers fans: That loss to the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday night was a mere speed bump in the latest championship chase for Kobe Bryant & Co. The Lakers will dispatch the Nuggets, at which point Bryant will be one step closer to his sixth NBA title ring. These Lakers are far from favorites, but they’re legit contenders, and their window will remain open as long as Bryant can remain upright with all his appendages relatively intact. If/when Bryant wins that
sixth ring, his total will equal that of Michael Jordan, the player to whom Bryant is most often compared — at which point pundits from here to Bristol, Conn., will debate whether Bryant is greater than Jordan. Let’s end the debate right here and now: Kobe Bryant wasn’t, isn’t and never will be better than Michael Jordan. Bryant might be Jordanesque (see flawless footwork on fadeaway jumpers). He might do things that are Like Mike (see barrage of 3-pointers in Game 5 against Denver). But only one player can be the best of all time, and that’s Jordan.
I bring this up now because if it’s spring and you’re in Southern California, you’re bound to hear someone, somewhere (cough ... Vic the Brick ... cough) contend that Bryant is the greatest, even though it’s untrue. I also bring it up because I’m uniquely qualified to compare and contrast the two shooting stars. I spent my formative years in Chicago, watching and admiring Jordan as he revolutionized basketball, sneaker sales and our conception of the modern-day superstar athlete. I’ve spent the past 12 years in the Los Angeles area, watching and admir-
LUIS SINCO/LOS ANGELES TIMES
Andre Miller (left) scored 24 points in the Nuggets Game Six win over Los Angeles on Monday.
ing Bryant as he mirrored Jordan’s accomplishments — setting scoring records, winning championships and playing through every imaginable ailment. Whenever I’m asked the question — Do you think Kobe’s better than Michael? — I always come back to this fact: Bryant never has won a championship without a bigtime big man; Jordan won six without ever having one. Bryant won his first three championships playing alongside Shaquille O’Neal, one of the five greatest centers in NBA history. After the Lakers parted ways with O’Neal, Bryant didn’t win again until they acquired Pau Gasol, a Hall of Fame-caliber player with current career averages of 18.7 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. Here’s the motley crew of centers Jordan played with on the Bulls’ six title teams: Bill Cartwright, Will Perdue, Stacey King, Scott Williams, James Edwards, Jack Haley, Luc Longley, Bill Wennington and Joe Kleine. At this point, Lakers fans inevitably counter with the Scottie Pippen/Dennis Rodman argument. Both are in the Hall of Fame. Jordan played with Pippen on all six championship teams, Rodman the final three. Doesn’t that offset Jordan’s lack-ofbig-man handicap? No, it doesn’t. Even in this era of wow-factor wings and prolific point guards, having a real scoring threat in the post changes everything. Post players demand double teams. When did Pippen, as productive and unique as he was, ever draw double-team attention when Jordan was on the floor?
When did Rodman (7.3 career ppg) ever draw double-team attention, period? If that reasoning doesn’t do it for you, let’s look at some statistics. Here are Jordan’s career regular-season numbers: 30.1 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 5.3 apg, 49.7 FG percentage, 83.5 FT percentage, 32.7 3-point percentage. Here are Bryant’s: 25.4 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 4.7 apg, 45.3 FG percentage, 83.8 FT percentage, 33.7 3-point percentage. Most of the numbers for both players are about the same in the playoffs — you can look them all up on the wonderful website basketball-reference. com — except Jordan averaged 3.3 more points per game in the postseason. The biggest differences in their stats are field-goal percentage and points per game, one obviously influencing the other. Despite having O’Neal, Gasol and Andrew Bynum as
teammates, Bryant has never shot better than 46.9 percent in a season. Jordan shot worse than that only five times, including two seasons when he came out of retirement to play. I’m bound to be labeled a “Kobe hater” for writing this piece, but don’t misconstrue it. I absolutely respect Bryant’s game — his competitive zeal, his will to win, his unmatched ability to play at peak levels despite injuries. (He’s got you there, MJ.) This isn’t about hating Bryant. It’s about remembering Jordan’s greatness and placing basketball’s icons in the proper pecking order. It’s natural to forget what now qualifies as the distant past, Jordan’s last title coming 14 years ago. It’s natural to think of Jordan as then and Bryant as now. Don’t worry, Bulls fans: At least one person in Lakerland knows who’s No. 1.
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
Tennis heads to Berkeley for NCAAs Cal Poly faces Texas Tech in first round match STEPHAN TEODOSESCU
stephanteodosescu.md@gmail.com
MAX ZERONIAN/MUSTANG DAILY
Andre Dome (above) leads the No. 63-ranked Cal Poly men’s tennis team against Texas Tech this weekend. He will also compete in the individual championships in two weeks.
The Cal Poly men’s tennis team nabbed a No. 1 seed in the Big West Tournament last month after an undefeated regular season in conference play. With the help of senior Sebastian Bell’s third-set tiebreaker, the Mustangs took down rival UC Santa Barbara in Indian Wells to capture the Big West Tournament championship a week later. Now, No. 63 Cal Poly looks to play a bit of role reversal, as the Mustangs enter this weekend as underdogs facing No. 19-ranked Texas Tech in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships. “We’ve been in that situation before in a couple matches this year against Washington and San Diego,” head coach Nick Carless said. “I think (the team) is going to embrace it and it will bring out their best tennis.” The Mustangs (15-7) won both the Big West regular season and tournament title in 2012, garnering an automatic bid to the opening round of the Division I championships in Berkeley this Saturday. In the conference tournament, Cal Poly defeated UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara on successive days to earn the Big West’s only qualifying spot in the round of 64. Boasting a spotless confer-
ence record of 5-0 this season, Cal Poly became only the third team in Big West history to go undefeated in conference play. But the Mustangs finished 6-6 against ranked opponents, a trend Carless said the team is looking to reverse come tournament time. “We’re going to have to play our best tennis (of the year),” Carless said. The Mustangs will face a formidable foe in Texas Tech (15-8) in the California Regional on Saturday; the team is making its sixth straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Red Raiders dropped a tight match to the Gauchos earlier in the season, 4-3, in Santa Barbara. No. 14-seed California will host the University of TexasSan Antonio after Cal Poly’s opening tilt with the Red Raiders on Saturday. The winners of the two matches will then face each other in the second round at 3 p.m. to determine who advances from the Regional. The tournament will feature a standard collegiate tennis format with three doubles matches being played followed by singles. The team to win two of three doubles matches earns a point and every subsequent singles match won will also count as a point. First team to four points wins in the single-elimination format. Junior Andre Dome, the 2012 Big West Player of the Year, anchors the team and will likely face No. 43 Gonzalo Escobar in singles. An Arroyo Grande High School standout, Dome enters the match ranked 40th. Bell begins the postseason play having won four straight
These last two weeks off gave us a good little rest, and everyone has come back firing for this weekend. SEBASTIAN BELL MEN’S TENNIS SENIOR
singles matches including the Big West championship match on April 29. The Glen Waverley, Australia-native improved his record to 13-7 in singles play with the win and looks to keep the momentum rolling against Texas Tech. “(UCSB) was a huge win for us, especially for me, and there’s no doubt we’ve taken some confidence from that,” Bell said. “These last two weeks off gave us a good little rest, and everyone has come back firing for this weekend.” Dome and Fawcett, the No. 64 doubles team in the nation, will have their hands full likely facing No. 19-ranked Raony Carvalho and Gonzalo Escobar. According to Carless, the Mustangs will look to gain an advantage in the doubles point to make up for the depth that the Brazilian-dominated Red Raiders bring in singles play. Carless also said Texas Tech plays a unique style of tennis using a lot of spin and endurance to wear opponents down. He believes this will make for Cal Poly’s toughest opponent thus far. The Red Raiders won the only other meeting between the two teams, 6-1, during the 2001 season. Dome and Fawcett will also play together later this month at the NCAA Doubles Tournament in Athens, Georgia — an honor Fawcett said is well deserved based on the work the two put in throughout the year. “We’ve got absolutely nothing to lose,” Fawcett said. “I really feel that in the best of three sets (Dome and I) are going to be really difficult to beat.” Dome will also take part in the singles championship by virtue of the Big West’s automatic qualifying spot earned as the top singles player in the conference. He is set to play in Athens following the conclusion of the team championships. “That was my goal last summer — to make it into the tournament and make a statement and put my name and Cal Poly on the map,” Dome said.