1-14-10

Leticia Rodriguezmustang daily

After the closure of the profes-sor-rating Web site Polyratings last quarter, two Cal Poly students and a friend came up with the idea to offer a new Web site, one that adver-tises more than teacher ratings. The Web site, slostudents.com, was cre-ated and designed by Cal Poly stu-dents Slava Markeye, Brian Spence and their friend Alex Kennedy.

The site is intended to be a “one-stop shop” for students look-ing to sell and buy books, post

teacher ratings, calendar events and homework and test solutions. But for teachers who use the same tests and homework assignments year after year, slostudents.com could be a bigger tool for students looking for a way around studying.

Under section 684 of Cal Poly’s academic policies concerning cheat-ing and plagiarism, cheating includes a student “taking or receiving copies of an exam without the permission of the instructor.” A violation of this pol-icy generally results in an automatic failing grade and being kicked out of the class or, in extreme cases, the uni-

versity. Cornel Morton, vice president of student affairs, was hesitant to com-ment on the Web site without more information but could see the poten-tial for concern.

“I’m sure the academic deans and faculty will have more to say about this, but on the face of it, I’m certainly concerned that the potential for com-promising, what I will call, academic integrity exists,” Morton said.

The idea of backlash from Cal

Poly administrators was something that Markeye and his friends discussed. While some teachers make past mid-terms available to students as a study tool, many only keep them in their office where the student can view them under the watchful eye of the teacher. Markeye doesn’t anticipate a problem with having a test online

unless it is copyrighted by the teacher. He said if a teacher asked that a test be taken down — it would be — but he doesn’t think using the Web site would be considered cheating because teach-ers should have a different test from quarter to quarter.

“I could definitely see where it would be considered cheating be-cause the tests are available,” Markeye said. “Though what I perceive, what I think might start happening, is the test

might be in different formats or they might be harder. I really don’t think there’s gong to be a backlash in tests by having the material there, but in other areas to compensate for the test being out there.”

A big concern for some teachers is

MUSTANG DAILYCALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY

Thursday, January 14, 2010 www.mustangdaily.netVolume LXXIV, Number 60

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IN ARTS, 6 IN SPORTS, 12

ASI finds another alternative solution to Concerts in the Plaza.

Men’s and women’s basketball face off against Cal State

Fullerton.

Mikaela Akunamustang daily

A social networking site ex-clusive to Cal Poly students was launched last Monday by indus-trial engineering junior Johnson Nakano. Unlike other network-ing sites, such as Facebook and Myspace, MyCollegeLoop.com is solely event-based.

“The idea is not to keep peo-ple online,” Nakano said. “My vi-sion is to let people go on and find something else to do.”

My College Loop is for Cal Poly students, clubs and affili-ates. Users can create events and use Google Maps to tell students where it is.

“Our site has the potential to become the platform where Cal Poly students share events that are important to them,” co-founder Joel Camacho said. “We thought it would be great to create a net-working Web site that actually en-couraged real-life interaction.”

Camacho and Nakano had the idea about 18 months ago while sitting at home, bored, dur-ing summer break. Nakano ex-pressed his idea of creating a site from which students could find out what’s going on around their college so that the phrase “there’s nothing to do” wouldn’t be an op-tion anymore.

From there, Nakano asked An-drew Huard, Nakano’s roommate,

Studentslaunchsocial network

Sean Hanrahanmustang daily

Appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as lieutenant gov-ernor last November, Abel Mal-donado was depicted by the Gov-ernor as “a terrific, loyal man that has worked very hard in public service … he makes decisions based on what’s best for the people rather than what’s best for the party.”

The son of an immigrant farm-er, Maldonado, 42, grew up on the central coast of California, attended Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo as a Crop Science major — although his graduation has not yet been success-fully confirmed — and was elected Mayor of Santa Maria in 1996 be-fore serving three terms in the State

Assembly beginning 1998.“I think I help (people) under-

stand that anyone can do anything,” Maldonado said. “My father helped me to understand this. He came to this country with nothing but the shirt on his back, and built a suc-cessful life with my mother. And look at me — a son of an immigrant farmer, and I’ve come this far.”

The lieutenant governor nomi-nee has a success story that speaks directly to the Latino and minority communities. Neither political par-ty can ignore Maldonado’s ethnic contribution to the political arena in California.

It’s been more than 130 years since a Hispanic Republican held state office in California. But that alone doesn’t make Maldonado

popular with other lawmakers.The appointment process re-

quires the legislature to confirm or reject Maldonado within 90 days or before Feb. 21. Maldonado’s ad-vancement to lieutenant governor is bittersweet, falling in the middle of the political battlefield.

Teaching California and U.S. politics, Michael Latner, assistant professor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, understands Maldonado’s intrinsic value to those who sit across the aisle.

“His district is one of the four dominant in the state; his biggest asset is to be the dealmaker,” Latner said. “If Democrats lose Maldonado they could end up with someone else in his seat who is more of a threat. Democrats need Maldona-

do’s vote, it’s pivotal.”Democrats considering the open

Senate seat, in hopes to secure the position for one of their own, sup-port Maldonado’s confirmation. But still, Republican lawmakers show contempt for the moderate Republican legislator after he voted in favor of tax increases as part of the Democrats’ proposed (and long anticipated) budget to avoid state bankruptcy last year. During Mal-donado’s tenure in the legislature, he always opposed tax increases. This past year was the exception.

“I simply could not let our state go bankrupt due to our inaction on the Budget. My vote on the tax increase may have damaged my

Poly grad appointed to CA lieutenant governor

New Web site to offer more than teacher ratings

see Networking, page 2 see Maldonado, page 2

see Web site, page 2

I’m a proponent of students learn-ing anyway they can... The only thing I get concerned about is

cheating.—Robert Flores

Agricultural education professor

Teacher Feature: Meet assistant

professor Anika Leithner.

IN NEWS, 4

Students can upload homework and tests on new publication

political career, but it wasn’t about me; it was about what was best for the people of our state,” Maldona-do said.

If confirmed, Maldonado would replace John Garamendi, a Demo-crat elected to congress early No-vember. But both the state Senate and Assembly must vote as a ma-jority. The challenge is members of the Senate have already announced plans to run for the lieutenant gov-ernor seat. Indeed, if the Legisla-ture rejects the nomination with a majority disapproval vote, a special election will be held later this year.

Informed by Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) that a special election would cost taxpayers a substantial amount of money, it is in the best interest of the state to act well before the deadline in order to consolidate

the election to replace Maldonado with the June primary.

Mayor of Santa Maria, Laurence (Larry) Lavagnino, commented on Maldonado’s confirmation, Tues-day.

“I hope he gets it, but politics is a very, very tough business in Sac-ramento. I’m pulling for him,” he said. Sen. Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley) and Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Merced), who are both contenders to replace Maldonado, did not wish to comment.

Despite the lieutenant governor seat exercising little authority — except in the absence of the gov-ernor or being ready to assume the position as future governor — the legislature should act quickly and consider not only Maldonado’s title in California politics, but how far he will be willing to lend him-self to Democrats, crossing the aisle after a decision has been made, as Senator or as Schwarzenegger’s No. 2 man.

to help program the basics of the site, but eventually employed pro-fessional programmers to create it.

“Honestly I’d probably just stick to Facebook,” animal science ju-nior Sarah Gartland said. “It sounds like it would be more useful to someone who is new in town or had just moved (here). I’ve been here for three years, ya know, and I know where most everything is.”

The pair will try to make it more user-friendly and accessible than Facebook by allowing users to search under different catego-ries and filter out excess events that they aren’t interested in.

One of the biggest challenges in creating the site is the time differ-ence between the founders. Cama-cho is in Beijing studying abroad and Nakano is here in San Luis Obispo. The 16-hour time differ-ence forces communication via Skype at odd hours of the day. The team is also funding the site out of their own pockets.

Aside from budgetary issues, communication with programmers was one of the biggest challenges

the team met.“(The site) just wasn’t as solid

as I wanted it to be. Communi-cating what I wanted, my vision, to the programmers wasn’t always easy,” Nakano said while talking about having to push back the release date several times. “Once the friends and Google Maps fea-ture was finished, I was confident enough in the basics of the site to open it to the public.”

Nakano revealed some of what users should expect to see in the future. Features like online ticket-ing (called Stamps) will allow users to purchase tickets to events online. The site will also eventually allow users to upload their schedules to the site. This will create an avatar on their Google Map that shows their friends where they are at any given time.

Both students plan to maintain the site long after they’re done with college. MyCollegeLoop.com is scheduled to be complete before September 2010. Its Beta 1.0 ver-sion is already open to anyone with a Cal Poly e-mail address.

“By creating a profile you be-come part of ‘the loop,’” Camacho said. “Yesterday was the last day you were clueless about what was hap-pening on campus.”

News editor: Kate McIntyre, News Designer: Kasey Reed

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Thursday, January 14, 20102 Mustang Daily

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[email protected]

Networkingcontinued from page 10

Maldonadocontinued from page 1

whether students will use the site as a way to avoid learning the ma-terial. Robert Flores, agricultural education professor said he’s not worried so much about tests be-ing available, because most teachers make them available already. His main worry is that students will cheat and not attempt to learn the material.

“I’m a proponent of students learning any way they can, and some professors have a lot of mate-rial that relies on remote memory,” Flores said. “The only thing I get concerned about is cheating. Is there some behavior that’s inap-propriate that’s gong on? If stu-dents are learning and progressing in the way we want them to prog-ress in our programs, I don’t really see that as a problem. But I think permission from instructors is im-portant if you’re duplicating them and passing them out.”

As it stands right now, some teachers don’t think the site will cause harm to students if it’s be-ing used as a study tool. But Al-len Estes, head of the architectural engineering department for the College of Architecture and Envi-ronmental Design, said he doesn’t consider the posting of quizzes and homework online to be cheating because he thinks professors should already assume students have access to previous midterms and should change up their tests regardless. If anything, Estes said the Web site might create more work for al-ready over-worked professors but it could also even the playing field for the students who don’t have access to previous exams.

“The teaching load here at Cal Poly is horrendous. For a teacher that is teaching three or four differ-ent courses, that’s a terrible load,” Estes said. “Maybe (the Web site) is a good thing and we’ll have to clean up our act. Why allow some students the advantage because they have the correct friends?”

Having tests on the Web site though is only beneficial if the content is updated on a quarterly basis, business senior Caitlyn Arigo said. One problem she frequently encountered with Polyratings was outdated ratings on teachers that were years old and said that was one reason she stopped using the site. Likewise, she doesn’t see using the site as a form of cheating but can understand how some teach-ers disagree because of the wider availability of online versus passed from friend to friend.

“I think it’s about the same as if students passed on midterms quarter to quarter. I guess it’s a little more widespread because you’re not just giving it to your friends,” Arigo said. “I’m sure it will just result in teachers taking back midterms as opposed to let-ting students keep them and look at them.”

In the end, the copying and cheating of tests will only hurt the student, math lecturer Alberto Jimenez said. While he’s encourag-ing of students being creative with their learning, he said he wouldn’t endorse the copying and posting of work.

“Anything related to learning and sharing what you have learned is bound to be good,” Jimenez said. “If what is being done is taking the homework and blindly copying it on a piece of paper and handing it in, it’s cheating their education and eventually it will catch up with them anyway.”

Web sitecontinued from page 1

Todd Spanglerdetroit free press

WASHINGTON — The man accused of trying to blow up Flight 253 on Dec. 25 apparently selected the Detroit-bound flight at random, members of Congress briefed by Obama administration intelligence officials said Wednesday.

“There’s no Detroit connection that we’re aware of,” Homeland Se-curity Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said after a closed-door meeting with adminis-tration officials.

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said she got the same message in an-other briefing, this one for the House Permanent Select Committee on In-telligence, saying Detroit “was not specifically targeted.”

Ever since the alleged Christ-mas Day bombing attempt, ques-tions have been raised why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab chose to fly to Detroit from Amsterdam after a connecting flight from Lagos, Nige-ria. But as intelligence briefings on the incident got underway with the House back in session in Washington, Obama administration officials were being asked about how the 23-year-old Nigerian could have boarded a U.S.-bound flight when his father had reported to American officials in Nigeria that his son could pose a threat.

Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of attempting to detonate explosives he brought onto the aircraft as it de-scended into Metro Airport. Others on the plane subdued him and he and two others suffered burns. The aircraft landed safely.

Thompson and others said their focus is on making sure it doesn’t happen again. And while President Barack Obama tried to assure the nation last week that steps had been taken to protect against another in-telligence failure, Thompson said he’s waiting to see what ongoing reviews

produce as well as proposals to add security and screening measures at airports internationally and domesti-cally.

“It remains to be seen if anything has substantively changed,” he said.

For instance, though the Obama administration has apparently re-viewed its various watch lists of po-tential terrorists and added names to the roster of those prohibited from entering the country, it remained un-clear to members of Congress where the bar had been set.

“They don’t want to make an-nouncements until they feel they’ve made the changes and they’re get-ting it right,” said Rep. Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat.

Because Wednesday’s briefings were classified, members of Congress largely declined to discuss the sub-stance of what they heard. U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who chairs the House intelligence panel, said there are still several lines of investi-gation he intends to pursue. Mean-while, he said he’s confident Abdul-mutallab’s interrogators “got a lot of information out of him.”

How much they got and whether they could have gotten more if he’d been treated as an enemy combat-ant, instead of charged criminally, is a question being raised by many congressional Republicans, includ-ing Rep. Candice Miller of Harrison Township, Mich.

She introduced legislation Tues-day to give the president “clear au-thority” to treat foreign terrorists as enemy combatants – meaning their cases would be handled by the mili-tary, not civilian criminal officials.

“I believe we lost valuable time and, I believe, valuable information by letting the guy lawyer up,” she said.

Hearings on the incident, includ-ing those by the Senate Homeland Security and Commerce, Science and Transportation committees, be-gin next week.

Detroit random choice for terror attempt, officials told

News

www.mustangdaily.net

Wire Editor: Jennifer TitcombThursday, January 13, 2010 3Mustang Daily

News

Word on the Street

“What downtown business would you be most disappointed to see close?”

compiled and photographed by jennifer titcomb

“I’d be disappointed if the shop with the hats and jerseys closed.”

-Drew Cesare, agribusiness se-nior

“I’d say any of the bars.”

-Jeremy Riforgiate, biological sciences junior

“Probably Hands Gallery. It’s so fun to go in there and see the creative jewelry and it’s a great place to buy gifts.”

-Kristina Blackwood, child de-velopment junior

“Cheap Thrills because it’s the only place you can get cheap video games.”

-Josh Grip, mechanical engi-neering senior

“Black Sheep bar, because din-ners are great and drinks are great too. What more could you ask for?”

-Franky Hanna, city and region-al planning junior

“If Firestone closed that would be the biggest shock because it’s so popular.”

-Nancy Hung Choy, aerospace engineering senior

www.mustangdaily.netAlways in color

Haiti president describes ‘unimaginable’ catastrophe; U.S. pledges supportJacqueline Charles, Carol Rosenberg, Jean-Cyril Pressoir and Luisa Yanezmcclatchy newspapers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian President Réne Préval is-sued an urgent appeal for his earth-quake-shattered nation Wednesday, saying he had been stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national Parliament.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama said the United States would launch a “swift, coordinated and aggressive” effort to save lives on the island.

Préval, in his first interview since the earthquake, said the country was destroyed and he believed there were thousands of people dead but was reluctant to provide a number.

“We have to do an evaluation,” Préval said, describing the scene as “unimaginable.”

“Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have col-lapsed,” he said. “There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”

Among those trapped inside the

Parliament building but still alive was the president of the Haitian Senate, Kely Bastien.

Préval said he had traveled through several neighborhoods and seen the damage. “All of the hospi-tals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe,” he said.

In Washington Wednesday morning, Obama said search-and-rescue teams from Florida, Califor-nia and Virginia were on their way to Haiti, and that USAID would be coordinating a broad-based effort

see Earthquake, page 5

mcclatchy-tribune

Residents of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, mourn as a girl’s body is removed from rubble on Wednesday. The Caribbean nation is experiencing wide-spread destruction in the wake of a 7.0 earthquake.

News

www.mustangdaily.net

Thursday, January 13, 20104 Mustang Daily

News

to take food, water and emer-gency supplies to the nation, he said.

“We have to be there for them in their hour of need,” he said.

According to media reports, survivors were digging through the rubble and stacking bodies along the streets of Port-au-Prince, Hai-ti’s capital, after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the island nation Tuesday afternoon. The earthquake has left the nation virtually isolated, with countless crumbled buildings, including the historic National Palace and the United Nations headquarters.

The U.N. confirmed five of its workers had been killed and more than 100 were missing. Among those unaccounted for were the mission chief, Hedi Annabi, and his deputy, the U.N. said Wednes-day.

Préval said he has not slept since the earthquake. Other peo-ple slept in the streets because they were afraid to sleep in their homes, he said.

“This is a catastrophe,” the first lady, Elisabeth Préval, said. “I’m stepping over dead bodies. A lot of people are buried under buildings. The general hospital has collapsed. We need support. We need help. We need engineers.”

While official details about the scope of the damage were scarce, eyewitness accounts and media reports painted a picture of wide-spread destruction that is likely to leave hundreds, if not thousands, dead.

A hospital was reported to have collapsed and people were heard screaming for help, and the World Bank offices in Petionville were also destroyed, but most of the staff were safely ac-counted for, the organization said.

Part of the road to Canape Vert, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, has col-lapsed, along with houses perched in the mountains of Petionville, where the quake was cen-

tered. Petionville is a suburb about 10 miles from downtown Port-au-Prince.

On Wednesday, U.N. Secre-tary-General Ban Ki-moon said the organization had released $10 million in “emergency funds” to set up immediate operations. He said Assistant Secretary-General Eduard Moulet would be dis-patched to the region as soon as conditions permit.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said the OAS “will do everything within our means to support the victims of this cat-astrophic phenomenon.” He said Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin was gathering damage in-formation to report to the group’s Permanent Council Wednesday to allow member states to contribute to Haiti.

“It is at such times that people, governments and leaders across the hemisphere, as neighbors and friends of the people of Haiti, should show solidarity and sup-port in a real, effective and imme-diate manner, guided by the coun-try’s government, which knows best where the most urgent need lies,” Insulza said.

Haitian Sen. Joseph Lambert described the scene in Haiti. Standing outside the Parliament building, he said: “Imagine schools, hospitals, government buildings all destroyed.”

When asked about the pros-pect of Haiti rebuilding, Lambert said, “It’s our country. We have no other choice. It’s a catastrophe but we have no other choice but to rebuild.” He expressed hope the

country’s international partners will help in rebuilding.

At least 20 aftershocks followed the 4:53 p.m. earthquake, accord-ing to NOAA, and a tsunami alert was briefly issued for the region, then canceled. A blanket of dust completely covered the city for about 10 minutes, USAID con-tract employee Mike Godfrey told CNN from Port-au-Prince.

“At this point, I’m frustrated trying to find colleagues and staff,” Godfrey said Tuesday. “Phones are not working. ... I see some traf-fic, a little traffic on some of the routes,” he said.

With phone lines down, many of the first accounts of the devas-tation were being sent online via Twitter and Facebook.

Richard Morse, owner of the Oloffson Hotel in Port-au-Prince, sent tweets to the outside world.

“Just about all the lights are out in Port-au-Prince,” he said Tuesday. “People still screaming but the noise is dying as darkness sets. Lots of rumors about which buildings were toppled. The Cas-tel Haiti behind the Oloffson is a pile of rubble. It was eight stories high. Our guests are sitting out in the driveway.”

Women covered in dust crawled from the rubble wail-ing as others wandered through the streets holding hands. Thou-sands gathered in public squares late into the night singing hymns. Many gravely injured people still sat in the streets early Wednesday, pleading for doctors. With almost no emergency services to speak of, the survivors had few other

options.Jarrod Seth of

Seattle, who had traveled to Haiti with his wife, Sena, to adopt two children, had just checked in at the Por t-au-Pr ince airport when the quake struck.

“Eve r y th ing was chaotic,” Seth said of the scene after he and his wife arrived at Miami Interna-tional Airport Tuesday night. “People were fall-ing all over each other. Ceiling tiles came down, windows crashed. It was the scariest

Earthquakecontinued from page 3

patrick fina mustang daily

Assistant Professor Anika Leithner in her office.

Teacher Feature

Assistant Professor Anika Leithner

Quick Facts

Started at Cal Poly: Fall 2006College: Liberal Arts

Classes: European Union (POLS 383), comparative foreign policy (382), interna-tional relations theory (POLS 324)

Hometown: Bamberg, Ger-many

Q: Where are you when you aren’t teaching?A: Most often, I’m either in my office working or at my house in Paso Robles with my husband and dog. I like

reading a lot in my free time and I either do that at home or at a coffee shop. I also love going to the movies. I will go see just about anything!

Q:What is your favorite thing about Cal Poly?A:The students! Oh, and I love the fact that I can buy Cal Poly chocolate, cheese, and meat. Everyone back home gets a big kick out of that. Especially my little brother who’s a farmer.

Q: What was the last book you read? Favorite book?A: This is probably going to be super-embarrassing. The last book I read was Breaking Dawn, the last book in the Twilight series. I hope this won’t undermine my authority in the classroom. And just so you know, I’m definitely part of Team Jacob. By far my favorite book of all time is The Lord of the Rings, though!

Q: What are your goals in life?A: You know how pitchers aways dream of pitching the ‘perfect game?’ One of my goals is to teach the ‘perfect class’ before I retire. I have about 30 more years to do it, so we’ll see. I’d also like to write a novel at some point in my life. I want to have kids, be a good parent, be a good friend, and I want to grow old with my husband, Erin. That’s about it!

mcclatchy-tribune

Haiti’s National Palace is in ruins on Wednesday.

Please send teacher suggestions to: [email protected]

Not Your Grandma’s Coupons!

News

www.mustangdaily.net

Thursday, January 13, 2010 5Mustang Daily

News

CAIRO (MCT) — Yemeni special forces killed a suspected al-Qaida leader and captured four fighters as the country increased pressure on the militant network operating in several key tribal provinces, officials said Wednesday.

Yemen’s government, juggling a civil war in the north and a se-cessionist movement in the south, had been slow to react to a wid-ening al-Qaida threat. Its stepped-up raids come amid international concern over the country’s ability to defeat a branch of Yemeni and Saudi fighters that has claimed re-sponsibility for the failed Christ-mas Day attack on a Northwest airliner heading for Detroit.

• • •BEIJING (MCT) — Bou-

quets of flowers were laid in front of Google Inc.’s headquarters in China on Wednesday, a show of support for a company whose threat to exit China rather than tolerate more censorship is a dra-matic shot across the bow of the Chinese Communist Party.

But while Chinese cyberspace was awash with chatter on Google’s gambit, state-media downplayed the news, saying Google had been a victim of cyber attacks in Chi-na but made no mention that the company also alleged that human-rights activists had their e-mail ac-counts hacked.

InternationalCHICAGO (MCT) — A po-

lice officer assigned to Kankakee Junior High School was placed on administrative leave after he alleg-edly shocked three boys with a Taser as part of an unauthorized demon-stration of the device, Kankakee, Ill., police said Wednesday.

The incident happened Tuesday at the school, where the officer is sta-tioned as a school resource officer.

According to a police statement, the officer used the Taser to “touch stun three male students, who re-portedly volunteered for the ap-proximately one-second tase as a demonstration.”

The officer was not authorized by the school, district or police de-partment to do a Taser demonstra-tion, police said. A parent later took one student to a local hospital where he was examined and released.

• • •FORT LAUDERDALE

(MCT) — The United States gov-ernment on Wednesday halted all deportations to Haiti because of the earthquake there.

Matt Chandler, deputy press sec-retary at the Department of Home-land Security, said the government “halted all removals to Haiti for the time being in response to the dev-astation caused by (Tuesday’s) earth-quake.”

He said he wasn’t able to provide an estimate for how long the sus-pension of deportations would last.

NationalLOS ANGELES (MCT) —

The Nuclear Regulatory Com-mission is having a busy month in San Luis Obispo County as it be-gins processing an application to re-new Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s two operating licenses and wraps up an investigation into mis-aligned safety switches at the plant.

A team of NRC officials is here this week to meet with local elected officials, including the county Board of Supervisors. The meetings are “to acquaint them with the process that we will be using to review the li-cense renewal application and to an-swer any immediate questions they might have. We see this as the first of several meetings of this type,” said Victor Dricks, NRC spokesman.

• • •LOS ANGELES (MCT) —

During the heyday of Michael Jack-son’s Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County, the pop star’s me-nagerie of animals included several giraffes.

But Jackson sold the giraffes to an Arizona animal center in the wake of his child molestation trial in 2005. And now there is concern over the deaths of two of the animals over the last few months. One died in No-vember and the other last week.

The cause of the deaths is unclear. But the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals this week sent a letter to officials in Page, Ariz.

State

BriefsGoldman admits ‘improper’ actions in sales of securities

Greg Gordon and Kevin G. Hallmcclatchy newspapers

WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs’ chief acknowledged Wednes-day that the investment bank engaged in “improper” behavior in 2006 and 2007 when it made huge bets on a housing downturn while peddling as safe more than $40 billion in securi-ties backed by risky U.S. home loans.

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chair-man and chief executive, made the surprising concession at the opening hearing of the Financial Crisis Inqui-ry Commission, a 10-member panel that Congress created to investigate and lay out for the public the causes of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Blankfein and senior officers of three other of the nation’s most prominent banks told the panel that serious flaws in their risk models and business practices contributed to Wall Street’s meltdown and the massive taxpayer bailouts that followed. The commission also heard testimony that the banks and quasi-government mortgage giant Fannie Mae reck-lessly took on as much as 95 times more risk than they could cover, and that Wall Street excels “at pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people.”

Blankfein faced the toughest ques-tioning.

Commission Chairman Phil An-gelides, a former California state trea-surer, warned Blankfein that he’d be “brutally honest” in his questioning. He asked why Goldman thought it was necessary to take out protection against investment-grade mortgage securities it was selling by purchas-ing insurance-like contracts known as credit-default swaps. Angelides lik-ened it to selling a car with knowl-edge it had faulty brakes and then taking out an insurance policy on the buyer.

“I do think the behavior is im-proper, and we regret ... the conse-quence that people have lost money in it,” Blankfein told Angelides.

Until Wednesday, Goldman had insisted that it was merely managing its risks when it placed “hedges,” in the form of wagers against the hous-ing market, various venues including in secret offshore deals, with insurance giant American International Group and on a private London exchange.

In November, McClatchy News-papers reported exclusively that Goldman failed to tell investors about its contrary bets while selling $39 billion in risky mortgage securities it had issued, and another $18 bil-lion in similar bonds issued by other

firms. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress are inves-tigating Goldman’s swap dealings, said knowledgeable people who asked not to be identified because of the sensi-tivity of the issue.

While conceding that its contrary bets were improper, Blankfein said that in most cases Goldman took those positions to offset bets it had underwritten for clients seeking to

wager on a housing downturn.Similarly, he said that the firm got

into the business of securitizing sub-prime loans to marginally qualified buyers on behalf of “sophisticated in-vestors who sought that exposure.”

Angelides, who crusaded for cor-porate accountability as California treasurer from 1999-2007, pressed Blankfein to explain why Gold-man plunged deeper into subprime

mortgages despite an FBI warning to Congress in 2004 that the lax lend-ing standards could lead to a crisis. He also needled Blankfein for seeming to resist taking responsibility.

Goldman’s purchase of the dicey loans, Blankfein admitted, allowed subprime mortgage lenders “to go out and originate more loans. So to that extent, we ... played a part in making that market.”

mcclatchy-tribune

Jamie Dimon, Chairman of the Board and CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Company answers questions during a break at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington, DC.

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Arts

Thursday, january 14, 2010 arTs & EnTErTainmEnT EdiTor: cassandra kEysE

“Emerald City”

beer column

Pilsner: a thirst quencher that won’t leave you too tipsy

“Oooh ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall; ninety-nine bot-tles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall!”

Good morn-ing ladies and gent lemen, boys and girls. Ev-erybody k n ow s the clas-sic nine-t y - n i n e bottles of beer on the wall game. While it’s a great drink- ing activity to enjoy with friends and family alike, please, in light of the recent swine flu scare, do not play this or oth-er bottle- or cup-sharing games. This has been a public service an-nouncement.

Alright, now that I’ve done my good deed for the day, let’s get down to business — the business of pleasure. After all, that’s what beer makers are in, are they not? They are in the business of pleasing the mouth or, what I like to call, “oral pleasure.” When in search of proper oral pleasure, one must

expand one’s horizons and look through even the farthest beer aisle at the liquor store. It was in this aisle that I came across Stiegl, a self-proclaimed maker of “world classic beer.”

If you remem-ber last week’s column, you

might recall that I had p romi sed to ap-

peal to the s e e m i n g

masses and try a lager style

beer, particu- larly a pilsner. As I cannot tell a lie, I have kept that promise. In fact, I went above and beyond. I have selected two differ-ent beers from Austrian beer-mak-er, Stiegl: the Pils, and the curious, yet enticing, Radler Lemon.

But first, here’s a little history. While looking for information on Stiegl and its beers, I came across their Web site, which had this to say: “Elegantes, schlankes Pils, hell in der Farbe, mit herrlichem Schaum und dem Bukett von fein-stem Saazer Hopfen.”

Of course, this was none too helpful, as I haven’t taken German

see Pilsner, page 8

ASI brings music back to UU with Sounds of SLO seriesRaquel Reddingmustang daily

Associated Students Inc. (ASI) is holding a concert series called Sounds of SLO, that will be held Tuesdays at 11 a.m. for the month of January at Backstage Pizza. The series will bring music back to the University Union (UU) featuring Cal Poly students and others from San Luis Obispo region.

ASI has scheduled three bands — PK, Take it SLO and Criticnue — to perform more intimate-type shows on the stage inside Backstage Pizza.

“We wanted to think outside the box to bring the music back to the UU, so we’re experiment-ing right now to see what hap-pens,” Dave Carlsen, the musical entertainment student supervisor of ASI, said.

Before construction, ASI had Concerts in the Plaza, which was a concert series held every Thursday at 11 a.m on the stage outside of the UU. The Sounds of SLO and Music in the Market se-ries are not replacing Concerts in the Plaza, but rather offering an alternative during construction.

“ASI has been providing mu-sic with Concerts in the Plaza for decades, we want to continue that as much as possible,” Missi Bullock, ASI program coordina-torl, said.

The ASI Web site estimated that the UU renovation proj-ect will be completed in April 2010. The stage where concerts occurred previously is being re-built.

The three bands chosen all represent a different genre of music. PK is an indie rock and roll band that is popular with stu-dents. Recently they sold out a show at Downtown Brew, debut-ing their new full-length album Casting Shadows.

The next performance will be January 19 by Take it SLO, an all a cappella group that focuses on doing different interpretations on hit songs — very much like the TV show Glee.

“We are an all-student en-semble that performs all origi-nal arrangements,” Take it SLO President Amy Lebetsamer said.

“Look forward to a rendition of Ghostbusters.”

The last performance of the trio is Criticnue, pronounced critic-in-you. Their MySpace.com Web site describes them as “a unique sound that crosses sev-eral genres … impossible to com-pare them to any one sound or band.”

“Criticnue opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their popularity and Heath Seagers vocals made me choose them as one of the per-formers,” Carlsen said.

Since the concerts are inside

raquel redding mustang daily

Cal Poly’s a capella group Take It SLO is slated to perform Tuesday, Jan. 19 as a part of ASI’s new music series Sounds of SLO.

see Music, page 8

Arts

Arts editor: Cassandra Keyse

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Thursday, January 14, 2010 7Mustang Daily

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Mikaela Akunamustang daily

A traveling play about Jack-ie Robinson is coming to Cal Poly’s Performing Art’s Center this Friday. The play about Major League Baseball’s most ground-breaking player is aptly named “Most Valuable Player” and spans from 1935 to 1949.

Between those dates, Robin-son played for UCLA where he lettered in four different sports, played semi-profession-al football, joined the Army and got mar-ried. He did all this before signing with the Brooklyn Dodg-ers in 1945 and being named the National Leagues MVP in 1949.

“ S t u -dent’s here don’t re-member a time w h e n t h e r e weren’t b l a c k p l aye r s in Major League Base-ball, so it’s in-teresting from a sociologi-cal perspec-tive,” Cal Poly Arts Director Steven Lerian said. “Since it’s Martin Luther King weekend, I think it has a lot of rel-evance in that, too.”

The show covers topics like the pressure Robinson faced be-ing the first man to break the “color barrier” in the major leagues. Most of the play spans his time with the Brooklyn Dodgers and outlines his own personal sacrifices, and how he dealt with racism among his teammates and from fans.

“People have asked me if now that Barrack Obama is president, do I think this show is still rel-evant. Of course,” Sally Fiorello, the show’s producer and tour di-

rector, said. “People don’t realize what a big part of the civil rights movement (Robinson) was. Without him, we might not have an Obama.”

For those who are not baseball fans, Fiorello

said that “Most Valuable Player” is still a show that they can get something out of.

A c r o s s the stage,

there is chain-l inked fencing and a series of plat-forms. There is a large screen where pictures are p ro j e c t e d th rough-out the

show. The pictures start with modern day black athletes to give a perspective as to how far the Unit-ed States has come as a society and

then gradually takes the audience back to the ball parks of

the 1940’s. There are also photos of old ra-

dios, soldiers and oth-er prominent things of that time period.

They’re accompa

Upcoming show brings Jackie Robinson’s story to Cohan center stage

courtesy photo

Rick Spivey of the Dallas Chil-dren’s Museum plays the lead role of Jackie Robinson in their produc-tion of “Most Valuable Player.”

Student design receives national recognitionZach Lantzmustang daily

It’s not everyday that mundane school projects, sometimes seen as drudgeries, receive national atten-tion and are proclaimed a vision.

Yet that’s what happened to ar-chitecture senior Sarah Jester who was recognized for her Architecture 351 class project by the Association for Computer Aided Design in Ar-chitecture conference in Chicago.

“I put my whole self into that project and it feels very good to get recognition for all that hard work,” Jester said. “I created something that was actually meaningful to other people, and that feels awesome.”

Jester was surprised to win, as she found out about her success while working at her internship.

“I checked my e-mail right be-fore leaving … I turned to the ar-chitect behind me and said, ‘I think I just won an award,’” she said.

Titled the “Inhabitable Book Li-brary for San Francisco,” her proj-ect won the award of distinction in architectural design. The project was completed as an assignment in Architecture 351, normally the first design studio architecture juniors take.

The objective of her project was to design a hypothetical satel-lite library for the library system of San Francisco, that drew inspiration from the shape of a book. The fi-nal appearance of the building was completed after transitioning the project from a physical model to a computer model.

Working on the project was difficult, Jester said. She described frustrations in moving from physi-cal modeling to computer model-ing.

“I had this bitter feeling toward the digital process, and I really just have a raw way of working, draw-ing by hand and being really messy and painting so digital stuff didn’t really work into that,” she said.

The digital transition can be challenging to new students but is still necessary, said architecture pro-fessor Thomas Fowler, who taught Jester’s class.

“There is a very different creative process that happens when you’re

using your hands to make drawings and even paintings,” Fowler said. “Once you have to translate that to a different media, the jump some-times is very difficult. It’s like going from pen and paper to a computer in terms of keyboarding some-thing.”

Regardless of her struggles, Fowler said he was impressed with Jester’s project even in the begin-ning stages.

“She was always willing to try different things with her project, and she’s very good at taking criti-cism and coming up with alterna-tive options for her project,” he said. “She has the right attitude, she’s very, what I call agile, and able to adjust to whatever the direc-tion that’s needed to get something done.”

The winning of this national award was new ground, even for a reputable architecture program such as Cal Poly’s.

“In all my years of sending en-tries in, I’ve never had a student get the top honor. I’ve had them get honorable mentions,” Fowler said. “(Her project) was so well thought out and also so well connected to her vision about reading, and that’s what I want students to do. I want them to get a lot of themselves into these projects, and once they get to the actual building design, the tran-sition is a lot easier.”

Because she won the top prize, Jester won free software for herself as well as for students in the archi-tecture department. On top of that, she was flown to Chicago to receive the award.

“I was mostly stoked just to go to Chicago,” she said. “I mean, wining an award is cool, but they flew me to Chicago, and that’s way cooler.”

see MVP, page 8

courtesy photo

Architecture senior Sarah Jester’s digital design titled “Inhabitable Book Library for San Francisco.

Arts

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Thursday, January 14, 20108 Mustang Daily

Arts

since high school. But, using my uncanny ability to figure out for-eign languages, and with a tiny bit of help from the English version of stieglbrauerei.at, I was able to de-cipher its meaning. As it turns out, it translates roughly into: “A noble pils of golden color with a won-derful head and an excellent clean, crisp bouquet from using only the finest Saaz hops.”

Saaz hops are hops from the Czech Republic, somewhat near the city of Pilsen, Bohemia, where the Pilsner was born. This hop is known for its mildly spicy aroma and also mild flavor, two key as-

pects of a pilsner. The Saaz hop is one of four “noble” hops, which are known for being low in bitter-ness and high in aroma.

The page goes on to say: “Stiegl-Pils is ideal to quench thirst.” This statement made the most sense to me out of any, as I can’t help but describe it as a bit...watery. Of course, this is a trait that I find is common throughout many lager-style beers.

Also according to the site, the Pils has an original gravity (roughly meaning the density of the pre-fermentation wort, which determines the amount of sugar that can be changed into alcohol) of 11.6 degrees, which is relatively low. It also has a bitterness of 30 EBU (European Bitterness Unit),

which is relatively low- to mid-ranging. The combination of these two mild ratings along with the mild aroma and taste of the Saaz hops, made for quite the mild beer with 4.9 percent alcohol by vol-ume (ABV).

In brief conclusion, this is a light, refreshing beer with that Saaz hoppiness. It isn’t a favorite of mine, but if you’re looking for a nice crisp beer to go along with some fish or poultry, it’s a good pick.

Finally, we get to the wild card, the mystery brew — the Radler Lemon. “Radler,” according to Stiegl, translates into “biker.” The beer was apparently created for the biker traveling around Austria who needed a refreshing beer without

the heavy alcohol, and at 2.5 per-cent ABV, this drink should do the trick. This is not actually a lemon-flavored beer, but rather it is half Goldbräu, and half lemon soda. This makes for quite the refreshing beverage. As you can imagine, it is rather sweet, a little bitter, and to be honest, it’s downright tasty.

Well, as I wrap up this tasting and the column to go with it, I reflect back on the experience. I have to say that overall, the running theme throughout this column is refresh-ing. These two beers are mild and light. These will make great beers for the summer, or for later this month if we have another January heat wave (fingers crossed).

Next week, I will be upping the excitement by leaving my liv-

ing room for the tastings! I will be traveling to a local provider of ev-erybody’s favorite refreshment to take some samples and to learn a bit more about the brewing pro-cess. What I discover and what I learn, I will bring back and share with you. Can’t wait? Neither can I. But we’re just going to have to.

And lastly, don’t drink and drive. Yes, I am talking to you. No, you can’t walk a straight line. No, you’re not invincible. No, you can’t out-run the cop car. Well, maybe the bike cop. Yeah, probably the bike cop, but it’s still not a good idea.

Adam Plachta is a business admin-istration senior and Mustang Daily beer columnist.

Pilsnercontinued from page 6

nied by a soundtrack full of hit songs of the time and even a little country music to signify Robinson’s time in the South.

The show stars Rick Spivey as Robinson, Charles Roach as Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey, and

was directed by Andy Long.Long, who is a “huge” baseball

fan, took time to work with the cast to get the game scenes right.

“People who watch this show who like baseball will know if the actors have any idea what they’re doing,” Fiorello said. “Andy really tried to bring a reality to the play, even in actors who really didn’t know.”

“Most Valuable Player,” present-

ed by Dallas Children’s Theater, has shown at other universities nation-wide including Mississippi State and Saint John’s University. The show begins at 7 p.m. tomor-row in the Cohen Performing Arts Center. Ticket prices are avail-able online, and there will also be student rush tickets available at a discounted price at 6 p.m. at the door for Cal Poly students and children.

MVPcontinued from page 7

www.mustangdaily.netAlways in color

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Backstage Pizza the performers are to play acoustically. PK, which played Tuesday Jan 12, informed Carlsen that acoustic was unavail-able, resulting in a louder show.

“I know it’s really loud in here, but for the next two performances it will be quieter, it’s been a little hectic,” Carlsen said during an in-termission when the drummers drumhead broke.

Inside Backstage Pizza the mu-sic loud, resulting in people unable to talk to one another, unless the band was on a break. There were

more students sitting in back than up close.

“I have an hour, heard the mu-sic, and wanted a slice of pizza, it worked out,” agricultural business junior Will Salmen said. “Not the kind of music I really listen to but I appreciate it. I would listen again if on campus at the right time.”

With the next performances being acoustic and quieter, stu-dents might sit closer to the stage.

“There is a chance Kevin will serenade someone during Acci-dentally in Love,” Lebetsamer said.

Music in the Market, another concert series at Via Carta Mall next to Campus Market, features out-of-town performers such as Ingrid Michaelson. Music in the Market is only on Thursdays and will be from January 28- Febru-ary 18. Both Sounds of SLO and Music in the Market are not all quarter long and do not occur each week.

Musiccontinued from page 6

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Show Wall Street you mean business: Move your money into a community bank

Everyone knows the story of George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” George represents an aver-age family-oriented, kind-hearted American. He runs a small com-munity bank geared toward helping the average family own their own home and achieve the American dream. Life is wonderful for George until a villainous large bank owner, Mr. Potter, nearly it and the lives of the residents of Bedford Falls by at-tempting to monopolize the small town and absorb George‘s bank in the process.

As an American consumer, I feel betrayed by our large financial insti-tutions — much like George Bailey. I grimace at the similarities between the attitudes of our bank executives and Mr. Potter. A New York Times report Tuesday revealed, “Bank ex-ecutives are grappling with a ques-tion that exasperates, even infuriates, many recession-weary Americans: Just how big should their paydays be?”And it’s not just Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase who are re-ceiving profits disproportionate to the reality of this recession.

The Times reports, “During the first nine months of 2009, five of the largest banks that received federal aid—Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley—together set aside about $90 billion for compen-sation. That figure includes salaries, benefits and bonuses, but at several companies, bonuses make up more than half of compensation.”

The sickening report continues, “Goldman Sachs is expected to pay

its employees an average of about $595,000 each for 2009, one of the most profitable years in its 141-year history. Workers in the investment bank of JPMorgan Chase stand to collect about $463,000 on average.”

I understand that because our economy was in such disarray as a result of the Bush administration’s economic policies of deregulation and free market capitalism, it be-came necessary to bail out the banks so that credit would be more readily available to consumers. The thing is, credit isn’t really more available to consumers, and after being in such dire need of taxpayers’ help, these

banks clearly rebounded rather quickly — especially when their most pressing moral dilemma re-volves around garnering the highest salary possible without raising eye-brows.

It seems like the entire finan-cial system of America is built to penalize the consumer. I was read-ing about the calculation of credit scores, and I had the impression that simply thinking about my credit score would lower it. Maybe the rationale to bail out the banks was logical according to economics and business, but it seems today that nearly everyone in America has felt

the effects of the recession, except for these large financial institutions. I think it’s time that we, as Ameri-cans, do something about that.

A simple movement has begun through a Web site called MoveY-ourMoney.info, which seeks to send a message to banks deemed “too big to fail.” The general idea is for peo-ple who belong to Wells Fargo, JP-Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America to move their money and credit cards out of these large financial institutions and into small, community banks.

This idea transcends political ideology, empowers the consumer, and supports local communities — and it’s not just an unknown grass-roots organization. In the past week, the founders of the site have been on MSNBC and even The Colbert Report.

We can’t rely on our govern-ment officials to affect change in our financial institutions because politicians are generally crooked. Instead, we must make the first move to show these licentious fi-nancial organizations that if they want our business, they must change their practices. I can assure you that as soon as I decide where I’m go-ing to graduate school, I’m pulling my money out of my current glut-tonous, morally decrepit bank, and changing over to the credit union in that city.

Stephanie England is an English senior and Mustang Daily political col-umnist.

The beginning of a new decade obliges us to reminisce on the last.

Some say we should put the past where it belongs and leave it at that. Others choose to dwell on our mis-takes, curse the past and long for the glory days. It has become trendy to belittle the past 10 years; TIME magazine has gone so far as to la-bel it as “The Decade From Hell.” It was marred by wars, natural di-sasters, financial meltdowns, health care crises, expanding gaps between the haves and the have not’s and a growing, at times violent, resent-ment for others with differing opinions and lifestyles. With such a lengthy and weighty list, it is easy to see why some would like to turn their backs on the last 10 years.

But for some, the last 10 years represent something entirely differ-ent. The last 10 years represent not the last gasps of an empire, but our individual ascensions into society, the time when we carefully crafted our personalities, became who we are. I, for one, find it a little insult-ing when some call the last decade nothing to get excited about.

We have been forced to be wit-ness to the strangulation of the American Dream at the hands of neoconservative ideologues and power thirsty corporations. Former badges of honor such as our demo-

cratic principles and our constitu-tion have somehow strayed from their noble beginnings. Our gov-ernment no longer seems to be for the people, by the people, but for special interest groups, by corporate money.

I know I’m not alone in being unbearably frustrated at times with our leaders in Washington. In fact, it seems that today’s status quo is to distrust the government. Current political discussions are almost al-ways accompanied with accusations of corruption and claims of inepti-tude, far more so than praises for honesty and ability.

Yet surely we, the young people, can’t be blamed for this. We didn’t elect the George Bushes. No peer of mine was involved in the sub-prime mortgages scams or the repeal of the Glass-Steegle Act. I don’t recall any of us agreeing to bail out the “too big to fail” businesses, only to watch our parents and family friends lose their jobs and their houses. We have not been consulted on what we want our health care to look like. They chide us for being too young and naive to understand the cold, calculated reality of the real world. They roll their eyes at our idealism while they call us apathetic.

The beginning of a new decade causes one to look forward and

dream of what could be. For us, the 2010’s may be remembered as the time when we graduated from college, embarked down a career path or three and came to call new places home. Perhaps it will be re-membered as the time when we be-gan to start a family. As we begin to leave our adolescence behind, cur-rent trends make it hard to believe that our government is capable of making the 2010s something we can look forward to.

There is no hiding from the fact that drastic changes need be made. Currently, Washington may be ill-equipped to solve them, but the problems themselves are not unsolvable. A revamped health care system, equipped with a public op-tion that lowers insurance rates and national debt is not a figment of our imagination. The issues are not unprecedented, and accordingly, the solutions need not be groundbreak-ing.

Whenever the government has brought about change, it only does so because it’s been pushed and prodded by social movements. Whether it was Lincoln being pushed by the anti-slavery move-ment or Kennedy and Johnson pushed by the civil rights move-ment, progressive change has only come about through citizens’ move-

ments. Whether it was through educating, agitating, striking, boy-cotting or demonstrating, the idea was the same: to threaten those in power with the disruption of the stability they so need.

While we were not responsible, we will be looked upon to fix the problems of the past decade in the new one. I don’t claim to know how to draw up a health care bill, nor do I know how to organize a social movement. I do know that us young people have all the necessary tools to make our shunned idealism a reality. Careers and families don’t yet hold us back; we have the time and energy. We’ve shown the abil-ity to unite for a cause, as exhibited by the last presidential election; we are in a unique position to spark the social movement this country direly needs.

We have to be that spark, if only so that, when we sit here 10 years from now, reflecting on what the 2010s meant, we can look back and know that we did not pass the buck. That we stood up for what we believed in, did not surrender our idealism but instead fought for it, forever shedding our stigma of apathy.

Zach Edling is a history junior and Mustang Daily guest columnist.

Look back for motivation to change the future

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STAYING IN TOWN THIS SUMMER AND LOOKING FOR A GREAT JOB ON CAMPUS?

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(Cerro Vista Apartment Admin. Bldg) M-F 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. or on Mustang Jobs online. Completed Apps. and resume due by 2/ 17/10. Call (805)756-7600 for detailed job descrip-

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Tennessee “got punked” by Kiffin’s departureJohn Claymcclatchy newspapers

The characteristics that Tennessee loved about Lane Kiffin, his willing-ness to say and do anything, ended up biting the Vols in the end.

Coaches don’t criticize other coaches. Kiffin did. Coaches don’t publicly dis competing schools. Kif-fin did. Coaches don’t challenge the NCAA with a slew of secondary vio-lations. Kiffin did.

Coaches don’t willfully leave a Southeastern Conference school with a rich tradition and a massive fan base after just one season. Kiffin did.

Tennessee kicked old reliable Phil Fulmer to the curb and fell hard for the hot young thing. Kiffin was 33. He was bold. He was brash. You loved it when he poked a needle in Urban Meyer’s ribs. Sure, he might have been a punk. But Tennessee consid-ered him their punk.

And then Tuesday night, as my friend John Adams nailed it in the Knoxville News Sentinel, Tennessee “got punked.”

Lane Kiffin to Southern California was all anyone could talk about Tues-day night at the O’Connell Center in Gainesville. (The Gators seem to have a keen interest in what happens in K-ville.) Kentucky and Florida might have been playing basketball on the floor, but the main thing on everyone’s minds was the shocking football news out of UT.

Just minutes before tip-off, Ken-

tucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart was at the media table ask-ing whether the Kiffin rumors were true.

Internet searches commenced. First, speculation. Then sources. Then confirmation. By night’s end, gossip had Tennessee students storming the school’s football offices. There were rumors of smoke bombs and police helicopters. Suddenly, a joyride by a quartet of gun-toting basketball play-ers was old news.

Ah, anarchy in the UT.And you thought NBC was a

mess. Jay Leno whined that NBC stood for “Never Believe your Con-tract.” In college athletics, it could stand for, “Never Believe a Coach.”

You had to know that somewhere Tuesday night, ol’ Fulmer was smil-ing.

The man with real egg on his face here is Mike Hamilton, the Tennessee athletics director, who signed a bad pre-nup. Kiffin’s monetary punish-ment for breaking his contract after just 13 months? A mere $800,000.

In a profession where Texas’ Mack Brown, the coach who helped lose the national title by calling that ridiculous shovel pass, had his salary bumped up to $5 million per year, Kiffin’s buyout is mere pocket change.

In the end, nothing changes, of course. Coaches have all the power. They come, they go. They’re paid ei-ther way.

Even Billy Gillispie, whose two-year reign of terror and error has only been accentuated by John Calipari’s

sudden success, wobbled away with more than $3 million, just to stay away and, of course, have nothing bad to say about his former employ-ers.

The government is reportedly considering taxing Wall Street enti-ties, thanks to their excessive salaries and bonuses. When might it start tax-

ing college athletic departments?There are some faint indicators

out there of a slight push-back. It is no longer OK for a coach to (alleg-edly) place a player with a concus-sion in a dark tool shed. At least not at Texas Tech. It is no longer OK for a coach to (allegedly) grab and slap a player as part of his halftime motiva-

tional strategy. At least not at South Florida. I guess that’s called progress.

But apparently it is still OK for a coach to sign a huge contract, preach loyalty, honesty, integrity and team-work and then break those vows, eas-ily as you please.

But then, come on, Tennessee fans, what did you expect?

mcclatchy-tribuneAfter one season with the Oakland Raiders and another with the Tennessee Volunteers, Lane Kiffin returns to USC to replace Pete Carroll. Kiffin went 5-15 in Oakland and went 7-6 with the Volunteers.

mustang daily staff report

The Cal Poly women’s basketball team is set to play Cal State Fullerton on Thursday night.

With the Mustangs’ recent loss to UC Davis, they are 2-1 in confer-ence play and stand third in the Big West. Davis is ranked second while Cal State Fullerton, 4-0 in confer-ence play, is first with its best confer-ence start ever.

Women’s basketball head coach Faith Mimnaugh said in order to win a Big West championship this year, the Mustangs will have to be the best rebounding team in the conference. With close to 50 turnovers in the last two games, the team has been work-ing on emphasizing and not forcing

passes.The injury bug is another oppo-

nent the Mustangs have battled this season. During the game against Pa-cific on Jan. 7, senior forward Becky Tratter left the game due to a foot injury.

“Anytime you hear crunching, that always concerns me,” Mim-naugh said. “Obviously having our best (defensive post) player out and somebody who is 10 points a game for us is a concern at this moment.”

Junior forward Kristina Santiago is coming off a career-high 29-point game in a losing effort against the Aggies. The Titans beat the Aggies Jan. 2, 68-57.

“(The Titans) play really good team basketball,” Santiago said. “They are also a running team like we are, so we will have to keep up with them in that and see who gets tired first.”

Mimnaugh looks to the confer-ence’s leading scorer and reigning Big West player of the week, Santiago to lead the team.

“She has so much say in the lock-er room and on the court, and other people respond to her,” Mimnaugh said. “They believe in her; what she says is gold. So if she gives them honey, she gets a nice treat at the end of it.”

The junior is averaging a double-double in conference play with 25

points and 11 rebounds per game.Santiago recognizes this leader-

ship role and the responsibilities that come with it, but also that basketball is a team sport. She said it takes every team member’s effort to win a game.

Mimnaugh and Santiago both said the most important thing the team has been working on is taking care of the ball. Santiago said opponents have had five to 10 more possessions than the Mustangs, and that “it is re-ally hard to win a game when they have the ball a lot more than we do.”

Rachel Clancy, junior guard for the Mustangs, achieved a career-high 24 points against UC Irvine and continues to be a consistent scorer for the team.

“She’s embracing her role as a glue player and is really consistent across the board,” assistant coach Kerri Na-kamoto said.

Nakamoto said she knows how close the race will be for Big West champion and that Cal Poly is a solid threat.

“In the past, we were coming in as an underdog. It’s a different men-tality this year with people gunning for us,” Nakamoto said. “Every team is excited to play us.”

Cal Poly ranks atop the confer-ence in three statistical categories as they head into its battle against the Titans.

“It is huge, especially since they beat Davis and we just lost to them,” Santiago said. “It would be a really big win for us if we could beat Ful-lerton on Thursday.”

Everyone is so good this year. It is

pretty much an even battle for who is going to take it this year, so it will be a dogfight with every game.”

Megan Hassler and Katherine Grady contributed to this article

Brian De Los Santosmustang daily

Remember streetball?Sponsored by AND-1, a group

of ankle-breaking hoopsters who would battle for bragging rights in a game not judged by point total, but by piecing together the most crowd-pleasing crossover.

But, hidden beneath the high-fly-ing alley-oops and windmill dunks was a physical element filled with elbows and two-handed shoves.

That is what senior guard Loren-zo Keeler compared this week’s contest against Cal State Fullerton to — a game of streetball.

Tonight, Cal Poly (5-9, 2-1 Big West) will travel to Cal State Ful-lerton (7-7, 2-1 Big West) to take on the Titans.

“It’s going to be a dogfight,” Keeler said. “They want to get us like NBA Jam, they want to get the ball and push it and they want to dunk … It’s going to be a fun, fun, tough game.”

Fullerton opened conference play on Jan. 2 with a 67-63 loss at UC Davis.

Jacques Streeter and Aaron Thompson lead the team, each averaging 10.9 points per game. Jer’Vaughn Johnson checks in with 10.1 points and Devon Peltier aver-ages 9.0. Johnson leads the team in rebounding with 6.1 a game.

The Titans opened the sea-son with an impressive win when they defeated Pac-10 powerhouse UCLA on Nov. 16, 68-65 in double overtime.

The Mustangs will embark on

their fourth road trip of the sea-son. Tonight’s contest will tally Cal Poly’s 10th road game of the sea-son, compared to the five they have played in Mott Gym.

“When you’re traveling, it kind of wears on your body,” Keeler said. “Airplanes, hotels, long bus rides, it wears on your body a little bit, but coach (Callero) does a great job of not over-working us, we have a

nice little plan every time we get to where we’re going and usually we come out ready for the game.”

Despite Callero’s plans, the road has not been kind to the Mustangs. Cal Poly has a combined 2-8 record off its home court.

“We want to win every game, and to steal one on the road is huge ... If we beat them, we’re alone in third place,” Keeler said. “Any road

win is a great win. We’re jut look-ing to go in there, give it all we got, leave everything on the court and hopefully come away with the win.”

Cal Poly was projected to finish last in the Big West at the beginning of the season. The Mustangs fin-ished last season with a 3-13 record in conference and a 7-21 record overall, with an incoming coaching

staff at the helm.Despite weak results outside of

the Big West, the Mustangs have opened their conference campaign 2-1.

“I am not surprised we are hav-ing success, but I am pleased we are,” Callero said. “In conference play, it’s about getting the (wins) … Ulti-mately to climb into the playoffs we have to get (wins) in the win/loss column of the Big West.”

The Mustangs lead the confer-ence in six statistical categories as they head into the game against the Titans.

Callero doesn’t take merit in early-season statistics. He said he would wait until his team plays all conference opponents to assess their chances.

“You got to look at your sample size, and our sample size is three games,” Callero said.

Junior guard Shawn Lewis has made eight of his last 10 shots.

“Shawn’s shooting percentage is very similar to Lorenzo; they both really found their rhythm of when to shoot,” Callero said. “Shooting percentages is very rarely ‘Can I make a shot?’ It’s ‘When can I take the shot?’”

Keeler, the reigning conference player of the week, is the Big West’s leading scorer. The senior is aver-aging 26 points per game in con-ference play and stands six points ahead of the Big West’s second lead-ing scorer, UC Davis’ Dominic Ca-legari.

“We look forward to the chal-lenge, and we are going to take care of business,” Keeler said.

Sports

MUSTANG DAILYSPoRTSmustangdaily.net

Thursday, January 14, 2010

sports editor: Brian De Los [email protected]

nick camacho mustang daily file photoJunior guard Shawn Lewis (23) has converted eight of his last 10 shots, including a flawless 4-4 performance from behind the three-point line against Pacific. Against the Tigers, Lewis scored 17 points. His season high is 22.

ryan sidarto mustang daily file photoJunior guard Rachel Clancy ranks sixth in Big West in scoring, averaging 14.7 points per game. Clancy also ranks eighth in field-goal percentage.

Women’s basketball set to duel Titans at home

Men’s basketball travels to Cal State Fullerton