Mustang Daily - 2/26

1

Sunny

high 73˚Flow 45˚F

Have cool Spring Break plans? Tweet us with

#MustangBreaks

INDEXNews.............................1-3Arts...............................4-5

Opinions/Editorial..............6ClassifiedsComics..............7Sports..................................8

CHECK OUT

MUSTANGDAILY.NET for articles, videos, photos, & more.

@mustangdaily Tomorrow’s Weather:

sunny partially cloudy cloudy foggy windy light rain rain thinderstorm snow hail sleet

Volume LXXVII, Number 73Wednesday, February 27, 2013 www.mustangdaily.net

ARTS: Student band drops new song, music video SPORTS: After ACL injury, Jonae Ervin is back on top

Spen a year with ‘Frog and Toad’

ARTS, pg. 4

No charges for student found with rifle in dorm

The student whose rifle was found in his Sierra Madre Resi-dence Hall room more than a week ago will not be facing charges, University Police De-partment (UPD) Chief George Hughes said Tuesday.

“Looking at the totality of the circumstances, criminal charg-es will not be filed against him,” Hughes said.

Hughes said he saw no threat to the Cal Poly com-munity and did not feel press-ing charges would be benefi-cial to anyone involved.

“He was no threat to the campus community what-soever,” Hughes said. “We as a police department need to balance what the letter of the law and what the spirit of the law is, and to decide what is best for campus community and for the individual. By pressing charges on this indi-vidual we did not think that we would be appropriately doing so.”

Hughes said the decision to not press charges rested with UPD. The case did not end up going to the district attorney.

“It was a combined decision between me and my staff,” Hughes said. “Ultimately, it falls on us as a police depart-ment to decide what’s best for the campus institution and the individual.”

The unnamed student did, however, leave the area fol-lowing this incident.

“He has voluntarily with-drawn from the institution and has left the campus and the city,” Hughes said.

According to Hughes, uni-versity administration did not become directly involved.

“They (the administration) knew about what was going on the entire time, but ulti-mately the decision was mine,” Hughes said.

Laura Pezzini contributed to this staff report.

MUSTANG DAILY STAFF [email protected]

Paddle up: Cal Poly students help disabled with kayak program

Cal Poly’s course Kinesiology 407, Adapted Physical Activ-ity, gives disabled individuals a chance to kayak on their own in Morro Bay. It also teaches kinesiology students

how to work with these dis-abled individuals.

Students interact with the disabled individuals on a per-sonal level, said Kevin Taylor, head of the kinesiology de-partment and founder of the Adapted Paddling Program. Some students have never ex-

perienced that before.“But when they see it right

before their eyes, and see the kid they’re working with light up at the joy of this ex-perience, and they hear the people work with say how nice it is to be treated like a human being for a change,”

Taylor said, “that has an im-pact beyond what one can re-ally learn from a book. That is ‘Learn By Doing.’”

Taylor started the program to offer more than just lec-tures to his students, he said. They needed hands-on learn-ing with adaptive technolo-

gies they would be putting to use after college. Taylor set up the Adapted Paddling Program as a way for the students to use the adaptive technologies they were learn-ing, while providing an op-portunity for disabled indi-viduals, she said.

The program inspired kine-siology graduate student and Adapted Paddling Coordina-tor Anh Nguyen to continue her involvement with disabled individuals, she said. Some students change their career

JORDAN DUNNSpecial to Mustang Daily

WE’VE GOT SUNSHINEWhat do

you think about this

week’s warm weather?

“I’ve been sick all day, so I’ve been inside.”

“I sat on Dexter Lawn for two hours in the nice, warm sun.

— Andrew Ferrelomechanical engineering

sophomore

— Linnea Briggsindustrial engineering

sophomore

This week’s weather “I wish I didn’t have to be stuck in class all day.”

“It was amazing, I went for a six-mile run.”

— Shoshana Youngmechanical engineering

sophomore— Stefanie Notte

nutrition junior

Wed: high 72, low 37

Thur: high 73, low 45

Fri: high 79, low 43

Sat: high 72, low 45

Sun: high 70, low 43






SUN’S OUT, FUN’S OUT: Plenty of sun hit the Central Coast this week as temperatures reached the low 70s and Cal Poly students headed outside to enjoy the warm weather. Students could be seen sporting shorts and tank tops, hanging out on Dexter Lawn and hiking local trails.

NHA HA/MUSTANG DAILY

see PADDLE, pg. 2

2

Want to advertise in Pit Stop? @Call 805.756.1143 or e-mail advertising mustangdaily.net

MDnews 2 Wednesday, February 27, 2013

goals to the adapted physi-cal therapy field after being a part of the paddling program, Nguyen said.

The Adapted Paddling Pro-gram will take participants out on the water in Morro Bay on March 2 and 3. The students will get hands-on experience by analyzing their participants’ condition and making necessary adjust-ments in the weeks prior to the launch. Each kayak has unique adaptations that meet the needs of the participant, Nguyen said.

“Last quarter, we worked with someone who was para-plegic, we had worked with someone who had no move-ment on just one side of their body, just a variety of things,” Nguyen said. “We have even worked with someone who was blind.”

The Adaptive Paddling Program falls under Cal Poly’s Activity 4 All organi-zation, along with the Friday Club and EyeCycle. These programs offer other oppor-tunities for students to use adaptive technologies.

Taylor has enjoyed kayak-ing for many years. His wife, a physical therapist, had been looking to start a paddling program, so Taylor contacted a paddling instructor to get something started. Taylor first used the paddling pro-gram as a tool to study work-ing with disabled individuals, but then it grew into what it is today, he said.

“I started it because I want-ed to embrace ‘Learn By Do-ing,’” Taylor said. “This class is about studying how to work with people with dis-abilities to make physical ac-tivity more accessible.”

Daniela Schirmer, a partici-pant in the Fall 2012 quarter’s Adapted Paddling Program,

got involved by contacting Taylor directly, she said. She is a high-functioning quad-riplegic who is also a Cal Poly English graduate student.

“For me, the best part about it was the way it brought to-gether a community of peo-ple,” Schirmer said.

Schirmer’s kayak was given extra back support because of her lack of core strength and balance. She also used a spe-cialized oar she could hold on to despite her poor dexterity.

Many of the students be-came very good friends with the participants, which shows the great connec-tions made in the program, Schirmer said.

The relationships that are built can leave a lasting im-pression on those involved, Taylor said.

“It’s important for programs like this to exist because too many people still look at those with disabilities as be-ing unable,” Taylor said.

PADDLINGcontinued from page 1

COURTESY PHOTO

“It’s important for programs like this to exist because too many people still look at those with disabilities as being unable,” kinesiology department head Kevin Taylor said.

Cal Poly ROTC responds to women in combat, front lines

There is no difference in standards between men and women in combat jobs, ac-cording to Cal Poly ROTC faculty and staff. This comes after the military lifted a ban on women performing on the front lines in January.

The change has drawn criticism from those who question women’s ability to perform the same physical tasks as men in combat. But women can and have gone beyond what males do, ROTC instructor Master Sgt. Joshua Nieratko said.

“Push-ups, sit-ups (and a) two mile run is the physical standard,” Nieratko said. “I have seen an 18 to 21 year old male soldier maximize the physical fitness standards in push-ups, to 71. I personally saw a female do 85 pushups, 97 sit-ups and run two miles in 13 minutes.”

The standards for military fitness have been the same for both men and women for quite some time now, but the standards would obviously be higher for certain positions, ROTC instructor Maj. Chris-tine Mediano said.

“Whether it’s a male or a fe-male that’s going to be doing that job, then that’s the stan-dard that needs to be met by any person,” Mediano said. “They have a good system in place right now for women in the military.”

The standards will not drop as a result of the change, jour-nalism sophomore Cadet Heather McBirney said.

“There are definitely women now that could meet those standards, and as long as they continue to do so, I don’t see a reason why it would change,” McBirney said.

The decision to officially lift the ban on women in combat in the military was estab-lished in January by Defense Secretary Leon E. Pannetta and will open up numerous front-line jobs for women. In 1948, U.S. Congress man-dated women should be lim-ited to 2 percent of the force. Since then, women have ex-panded to cover 15 percent of the military.

Women have been serving in combat positions in the

Middle East for some time now, with 1,000 being wound-ed in the nation’s two most re-cent wars, and more than 150 dead. But they were barred from combat positions until this past January.

Even before the lift on the ban on women in combat, Mediano was performing just as well as the men, and even outperforming them, she said. There were no physical diffi-culties upon entering the mili-tary, she said.

“I was outscoring the guys on the physical fitness tests,” Me-diano said. “The physical side, I mean, well it was fun, but not too difficult for me; I like that part of it. I was always trying to better my score. I was try-ing to exceed the standard, not meet it.”

Women have proven to be just as capable on the front lines as men, Nieratko said.

“When I was in Iraq in 2003, I had two or three females in my squad. We were out ev-ery day, patrolling the streets of Baghdad,” Nieratko said. “They were either the drivers for the vehicle, or they were controlling the turrets. They were on raids with me. They did everything we did.”

Going into the military as an ROTC student requires Physi-cal Training (PT) three times a week. That was the biggest chal-lenge for McBirney, she said.

“I’m still improving every week,” McBirney said. “I’ve seen females outperform other females and even males. The standards for guys and girls is the same. The biggest difference I would say is upper body strength.”

Women have been integrated for more than 40 years in the San Luis Obispo Fire Depart-ment. Women have taken the time to condition their bod-ies to meet the demands of the job, Fire Marshall Rodger Maggio said.

“When you’re already start-

ing off on a smaller stature and have to carry one of your firefighters who may have be-come disabled during an inci-dent down a ladder, it becomes much more challenging,” Mag-gio said. “But then again as they step up to it, they do the conditioning they need to do, they have the job.”

The change raised some questions about sexual as-saults in the services. These types of situations already face women more than men in the military, but it is not any different anywhere else, Nieratko said.

“I think the Army does a good job in training and edu-cation in taking care of their soldiers,” Nieratko said. “I don’t think it happens any more in the military than it does in the civilian world.”

There has also been more support for programs already in place, Mediano said.

“We have the Sexual Ha-rassment Assault Response and Prevention program and it is one of the goals to sup-port this shift to provide eq-uitable treatment for all of our soldiers,” Mediano said. “That program is already embedded and they’re going to be doing further training with it with the introduction of these new positions.”

In combat, women have the same dangers as men, McBirney said.

“If a male and female are in the same situation or role, I think the dangers are pretty similar,” McBirney said.

More of the population must be prepared for the new policy to come into effect, though. A cer-tain old-school mentality, which has been in place in the public’s minds for quite some time, is the key factor, Nieratko said.

“It has always been an old cli-ché that the sons go to war, and I don’t know that America is ready to send their daughters to war,” Nieratko said.

CRISTIAN PONCESpecial to Mustang Daily There are definitely women

now that could meet those standards ... I don’t see a reason

why it would change.HEATHER MCBIRNEY

ROTC CADET

3

MDnews 3Wednesday, February 27, 2013

If you could have any super power, what would it be?

WORD ON THE STREET

“Time control, obviously, so I can sleep more. Every day when I would wake up, instead of hitting snooze, I’d just stop time.”

•Evan Borgeson materials engineering sophomore

“To be able to time travel, because it would be cool to live in a different era.”

•Kiersten Demmond liberal studies sophomore

“Wouldn’t it be cool if you could make food come out of your fingertips? Say you’ve got some bread, but don’t have any peanut butter, boom, spread some peanut butter. Feed My Starving Children? Done.”

• Josh Barkhimer materials engineering sophomore

“To fly, so I wouldn’t have to pay for a parking pass.”

•Carl Lind software engineering sophomore

Chuck Hagel named new secretary of defense

MICHAEL A. MEMOLILos Angeles Times

The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Chuck Hagel, a Viet-nam War veteran and former Republican senator from Ne-braska, as the 24th secretary of defense after a brutal con-firmation process that saw members of his own party question his capacity to lead the Pentagon.

Just hours after a vote to end the first-ever filibuster of a de-fense nominee, Hagel was ap-proved 58 to 41, by far the nar-rowest margin for a successful appointment going back to the Carter administration. Hagel could get to work at the Pen-tagon as early as Wednesday.

President Obama an-nounced his choice of Hagel to lead the Pentagon on Jan. 7, calling him “the leader that our troops deserve.” A ser-geant in Vietnam and two-time Purple Heart recipient, Hagel becomes the first vet-

eran of that war and the first former enlisted man to be-come Defense Secretary.

Hagel’s 2008 trip to Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama, then the Democratic presi-dential nominee, in part drove Republican opposition to installing one of their own former colleagues in the Pen-tagon. In the weeks that fol-lowed, critics also pored over his past speeches and other public statements to question his views on Israel, Iran and other international hot spots.

Democrats also had con-cerns, including Hagel’s ob-jection to the appointment of an openly gay man as ambassador to Luxembourg during the Clinton adminis-tration. The former senator apologized for his comments even before Obama officially nominated him.

Opposition to Hagel’s ap-pointment grew after a dismal performance at his confirma-tion hearing. Two days after

the Senate Armed Services Committee moved his nomi-nation on a party-line vote, Senate Republicans mounted a filibuster to delay a final confirmation vote, saying they needed additional time to review his record and get answers to questions.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also used Hagel’s nom-ination as leverage to press the Obama administration to answer his questions about the terrorist raid on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Libya that led to four Amer-ican fatalities, including the ambassador.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a freshman and outspoken con-servative, went so far as to suggest that Hagel may have received income from hostile states such as North Korea.

No new bombshells emerged during a 10-day Presidents’ Day recess, however, and 14 Republicans switched their votes to end the filibuster. Sen.

Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chair-man of the Armed Services Committee, said the “over the top” opposition from some Republicans ultimately paved the way for confirmation.

Among Hagel’s most im-mediate challenges could be

guiding the military through looming cuts to the defense budget — 13% in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget — because of the au-tomatic budget cuts scheduled to take effect Friday.

MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE

President Barack Obama announced Chuck Hagel (above) as his choice for Defense Secretary in January. The Sen-ate voted Tuesday to confirm the position.

Hot-air balloon accident kills 18JEFFREY FLEISHMANLos Angeles Times

A hot-air balloon exploded over the ancient city of Luxor on Tuesday, killing at least 18 people and adding fresh tur-moil to Egypt’s beleaguered tourism industry, which has been struggling since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak two years ago.

Authorities said the balloon was drifting at about 1,000 feet when it caught fire and the basket plummeted into sugar cane fields outside a village shortly after dawn. Officials said the dead included nine passengers from Hong Kong, four from Japan, two from France, two from Britain and one from Belgium.

The pilot, one British tourist and one Egyptian survived, officials said.

Egyptian media reported that the pilot jumped from the bas-ket immediately before it hit the ground near the Nile River. Balloon rides over Luxor’s Val-ley of the Kings and pharaonic temples have been popular with tourists for years.

Egypt’s state news agency said a fuel line ruptured as the bal-loon was attempting to land. A fire erupted and wind lifted the balloon back into the air before it crashed. The General Prosecutor’s office has called for an investigation, and balloon flights have been suspended.

“Those proved responsible for the accident will receive severe punishment,” said Egyptian Tourism Minister Hisham Zazou, who was trav-eling in Iran.

The incident comes as the new Islamist-led government has been struggling to prop up Egypt’s image as a tourist destination despite road and train accidents, kidnappings, deadly protests and political strife. Tourism is one of the nation’s leading industries

but the number of visitors has fallen sharply.

Estimates suggest nearly 15 million tourists visited Egypt in 2010, the year before an uprising toppled Mubarak. That figure dropped to about just under 10 million in 2011. Officials said tourism in-creased in 2012, but the num-ber of visitors remains far be-low earlier levels.

Violent demonstrations in Port Said and other cities killed more than 50 people in Janu-ary. Days later, tourists in Cairo were alarmed when thugs ran-sacked and looted the Inter-continental Hotel near Tahrir Square. Bedouin clans in the Sinai Peninsula have often kid-napped foreigners and tempo-rarily held them to negotiate the release of jailed tribesman.

Those proved responsible for the accident will receive severe

punishment.HISHAM ZAZOU

EGYPTIAN TOURISM MINISTER

MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE

4

MDarts 4 Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Childhood friends Frog and Toad are getting ready to emerge from hibernation, with the help of Cal Poly The-atre and Dance Department.

For the next two weeks, Alex and Faye Spanos Theatre will turn forested for Tony Award-nominated “A Year with Frog and Toad.”

The musical is based on the children’s books by Arnold Lobel and follows best friends Frog and Toad through the year after they emerge from hi-bernation.

Directed by theatre and dance professor Virginia Ander-son, “A Year with Frog and Toad” is described as “heartwarming” and “fam-ily friendly.”

The family fun, however, only lasts an hour, and only features five cast members.

Theatre arts sophomore Brigitte Losey plays a bird, a mole, mother frog and a turtle. The original play was written for five cast mem-bers, and Losey said they wanted to stay true to the original script.

The cast consists of three men and two women, and Losey said she was surprised she was selected for the cast.

“There was so much talent at auditions,” she said. “I was blown away.”

The hopeful cast members were put through singing and dancing auditions and a round of callbacks before the decision was made, Losey said.

And when the cast was se-

lected, Losey was excited for the opportunity to get closer to four students she already knew.

“We knew each other going into this,” she said. “But this has definitely been a bonding experience.”

The cast has been hard at work since the first Monday of the school year and has spent roughly 15 hours each week rehearsing.

But the acting isn’t the only reason to pay a visit to the

theater next week, Losey said. The set and costume design are also sights to be seen. They’re painted by de-partment head Tim Dugan’s daughter, Teresa Shea, whose scenic paintings have received Los Angeles Ovation Awards.

“The sets are incredible,” Losey said. “And the costume designers have really out-done themselves.”

But all visuals aside, Ander-son said the best part of the whole show is the mes-sage it conveys.

“In light of ev-erything that has been hap-pening in the world, there was something that I found so won-derfully center-ing about being

reminded of the wonderful color of friendship, of human connections,” she said. “To kind of have that celebration of meaningful relationships is really exciting.”

After teaching a children’s theater class, Anderson said it was especially exciting to put into practice what she and her students had been working on in class. For many of them, it’s a new opportunity.

“What’s different about chil-dren’s theater is you have to play it from a point of sincer-ity,” she said. “We’ve been hav-ing a lot of fun with opportu-nities for interactions with the audience, too.”

While the play is catego-rized as children’s theater, Anderson and Losey both urged that it isn’t just a child’s play. The cast has spent its rehearsals think-ing of ways to subtly allude to other musicals, Anderson said, and musical theater aficionados may have extra laughs in store for them.

But most importantly, ev-eryone can relate to the friendship Frog and Toad have, Anderson said.

“Grab your best friend, even if you know nothing about the show, grab your best friend and go see the show,” she said. “It will be such a wonderful affirma-tion of friendship and why your best friends are your best friends.”

“A Year with Frog and Toad” opens Thursday at 8 p.m. and closes Saturday at 7 p.m. Tick-et information can be found on the PolyTix website.

“It’s only an hour,” Ander-son. “Take a study break. It really is delightful.”

‘A Year with Frog and Toad’brings childhood out of the woodwork

COURTESY PHOTO

HANNAH [email protected]

“Set forth”

• PHOTO CREDIT David Jang •

We’ve been having a lot of fun with opportunities

for interactions with the audience, too.

VIRGINIA ANDERSON‘FROG AND TOAD’ DIRECTOR

5

MDarts 5Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Student rock band on the rise with new single and video

Four Cal Poly seniors with a love for music and a multiply-ing fan base: This is the student-comprised band Louder Space.

Originally created in October 2011, the band describes itself as “alternative rock with a taste of reggae and funk” and has had increasing success since its first EP, titled “Signs of Life,” was released in February 2012.

The band has since released the single “805” as well as an accompanying music video.

“The song ‘805’ is really con-nected to our time here, at

the Central Coast and at Cal Poly,” bassist Oren Ben-Jo-seph said. “We wanted to have a music video that exempli-fied that. It’s all self-produced, self-directed, with just us and the help of friends.”

Mechanical engineering soph-omore Emmett Ross played a part in the making of the “805” music video, doing a majority of the recording.

“We used only GoPro camer-as, which is pretty cool,” Ben-Jo-seph said. “As far as the storyline goes and kind of the directing and production, that was really a combination of efforts from the band and good friends.”

Days after the video was re-

leased, the band played a sold-out concert at SLO Brewing Co. (SLO Brew) on Feb. 21.

“It was an incredible experi-

ence,” Ben-Joseph said. “The release of our music video being a few days before really helped people to see us and be like, ‘Hey, I want to go to that show.’ It was definitely our best show ever at

SLO Brew. We had a fantastic time, the crowd was all into it.”

One long-time fan and sup-porter is environmental engi-

neering senior Michelle Kolb.“I go to most of their shows,”

Kolb said. “It’s not like I’m go-ing to (the shows) and seeing anything new, (but) it’s still so much fun every time. (Louder

Space) really brings everybody into it. They’re just amazing musicians and you can tell that they love to play.”

As far as the future, Ben-Joseph said the band has two more songs titled “Jerusalem Tree” and “Lifted,” though he doesn’t know the release order or when the songs will release.

“Definitely within the upcom-ing months,” he said. “We’re hop-ing to pair each of them with an-other music video as well.”

Though the band members are seniors, they will continue to keep the band alive and stay in the San Luis Obispo area.

“(We’re hoping to) just con-tinue writing new material, sat-

urating the market in San Luis Obispo and the Central Coast and continue to build our sup-port here,” Ben-Joseph said.

This is a support he hopes to see grow.

“When we have our fans lis-tening, I really hope that they just feel the emotions that we feel when we are playing the music and that we put into the music,” Ben-Joseph said. “I think that’s the most impor-tant because playing music and making music (is) what makes us happiest and that’s why we’re so passionate about it.”

Kassi Luja contributed to this staff report.

COURTESY PHOTO

MUSTANG DAILYSTAFF [email protected]

SLOCAL BOYS: Local band Louder Space — made up of four Cal Poly seniors — plays Red Hot Chili Peppers-like pop rock with a ska tinge. The band’s new single, “805,” was released this past week with an accompanying music video. The video was filmed at various locations on campus and around San Luis Obispo. The song is available to download on iTunes.

It’s all self-produced, self-directed, with just us and the

help of friends.

OREN BEN-JOSEPHLOUDER SPACE BASSIST

Local reggae-rockers Louder Space performed in the University Union Plaza as part of ASI’s Concerts in the Plaza series in October.

66666

MUSTANG DAILYGraphic Arts Building Building 26, Suite 226 California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, CA 93407

CONTACT EDITORIAL (805) 756-1796 ADVERTISING (805) 756-1143 CLASSIFIED (805) 756-1143 FAX (805) 756-6784

EDITORS & STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brian De Los Santos

MANAGING EDITOR Sarah Gilmore

NEWS EDITOR Kaytlyn Leslie

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Carly Rickards

ARTS EDITOR David Liebig

SPORTS EDITOR J.J. Jenkins

STAFF WRITERS Jefferson Nolan, Laura Pezzini, Aryn Sanderson, Stephan Teodosescu, Allison Montroy

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Sara Natividad, Kelly Trom

FREELANCE REPORTERS Erin Abzug, Joseph Corral, Ashley DeVriend, Carly Hume, Jacob Lauing, Amanda Margozzi, Sean McMinn, Jessica Burger

COPY EDITORS Holly Dickson, Kassi Luja, Erica Husting, Samantha Sullivan

HEAD PHOTOGRAPHER Maggie Kaiserman

PHOTOGRAPHERS Ian Billings, Nha Ha, David Jang

DESIGNER Ali Weiss

ILLUSTRATOR Bryce Snyder

ADVERTISING MANAGERS Katie Amegin, Eric Pocock, Mikaela Vournas

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Christian Antaloczy, Willie Blades, Rachael Burnham, Bianca Galvez, Chelsey Higgins, Connie Lewis, Raleigh Nelame, Thalia Navarro, Nicole Oltman, Dylan Rodgers, Alissa Rogers, Becca Waltrip

GRAPHIC DESIGN MANAGER Katie Witkop

ART DIRECTOR John Larwood

PRODUCTION MANAGER Natalie Annin

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Jenna Alvarado, Nicole Bergmann, Kelsey Lancaster, Melanie Lapovich

BUSINESS Kelsey Carvalho, Sarah Diekneite, Alison Leung, Lauren Ramirez

PROMOTIONS DIRECTOR Katie Russ

MARKETING TEAM Marika Nieratko, Taylor Riley, Annie Tomasek

SPECIAL SECTIONS COORDINATOR Jennifer Young

FACULTY ADVISER Brady Teufel

GENERAL MANAGER Paul Bittick

WRITE A LETTER Mustang Daily reserves the right to edit letters for grammar, profanities, and length. Letters, commentaries and cartoons do not represent the views of the Mustang Daily. Please limit length to 250 words. Letters should include the writer’s full name, phone number, major and class standing. Letters must come from a Cal Poly email account. Do not send letters as an attachment. Please send the text in the body of the email.

EMAIL [email protected]

ADVERTISING EMAIL [email protected]

MAIL Letters to the Editor Building 26, Room 226 Cal Poly SLO, CA 93407

ONLINE mustangdaily.net

CORRECTIONS Mustang Daily staff takes pride in publishing a daily newspaper for the Cal Poly campus and the neighboring community. We appreciate your readership and are thankful for your careful reading. Please send your correction suggestions to [email protected].

NOTICES Mustang Daily is a “designated public forum.” Student editors have full authority to make all content decisions without censorship or advance approval. Mustang Daily is a free newspaper; however, the removal of more than one copy of the paper per day is subject to the cost of 50 cents per issue.

ADVERTISING DEADLINE Space reservation is two days prior to publishing date at 5 p.m. Advertisements must be finalized one day prior to publishing before 5 p.m. Camera ready artwork is due at 12 p.m. the day of deadline.

Printed by UNIVERSITY GRAPHICS SYSTEMS ugs.calpoly.edu [email protected]

Mustang Daily is a member of Associated Collegiate Press, California Newspaper Publishers Association, College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers and College Media Advisors.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013 Volume LXXVII, Number 72

©2013 Mustang Daily

“Rest and digest, that’s my motto.”

MD op/ed 6 Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Crowd funding: A new direction for democracyZachary Antoyan is a political science junior and Mustang Daily liberal columnist:

Strap in, I’m about to make taxes awesome.

Functionally, we pay taxes to fund our government and its works. Fed-eral, state and municipal taxes provide the necessary sum of money to each level of government for whatever she-nanigans it is involved in.

What amount each individual pays into this pile of cash is a matter of heat-ed debate. And for the record, side ef-fects often include but are not limited to: fiscal cliffs, stagnation, partisanship and stupidity. Our taxes should be pro-portional to our income, blah, blah, blah. No, we should just have a flat tax, blah, blah, blah.

We’re addressing the wrong problem with these supposed solutions. Rather than focus on who should pay what, we should be examining our inherent hatred of taxes.

People don’t hop out of bed on April 15 (when taxes are due) stoked on their lives because they’re about to drop hard earned money into a huge pool of even more money the gov-ernment may or may not waste. The source of numerous unfortunate tar-and-feather incidents, and probably a good number of revolutions, taxes seem to be a persistent issue through-out history. There was never a “friend-ly neighborhood tax-collector.”

This is all, however, completely un-derstandable from a historical per-spective. Monarchs, despots and au-thoritarians have routinely squeezed

their citizens dry for the personal luxuries of whoever is in power or to fund the the next big war. We should be skeptical of taxes and what they are used for, and voting for represen-tatives was supposed to fix this — de-mocracy was supposed to fix this.

If the issue of sequestration within Congress is an indication of anything, it’s that we are nowhere near knowing what to do with our budget.

I can’t help but think that if we were to shift society’s perception of taxes from negative to positive, we would tap into something unprecedented for a democracy. But to do this, we need to create a closer relationship with our tax system.

Enter stage left: the website Kick-starter.com. It’s a place where ordinary people can go and help crowd-source projects. The projects range from in-dependent movies to video games and product manufacturing. Essentially, someone with an idea for anything can create a Kickstarter.com campaign and get their idea funded by a ton of people, only paying a little bit of money each.

No major publishing company, no billionaire investor, no risk assessment. The project either gets funded by the masses or it fails and gets nothing. It stands to reason then, that if a person sees their contribution to the fruition of an idea, then they will feel as if they were a part of something bigger.

All right, now that I’m done blatant-ly promoting, let’s apply this to our tax system.

What if when we went to pay our tax-es, we had a choice where our money went? What if there was a list of all the

projects that needed to be funded lo-cally, and the individual could direct what their tax dollars specifically fund-ed? Perhaps the good tax isn’t only the evaded one, but the one in which you dictate where the money goes.

Say the amount you owe in taxes is the amount you can divvy up between different local projects. You want to help build a park in the abandoned lot near your house, so you send some money that way. And all those damn potholes in the street, the city wants to go and fix those, so you give a portion to that cause.

Projects would be created by city of-ficials and need a minimum amount of money to get going (without a stringent time constraint). Once the project is funded, work could begin. Politicians could use this data, look-ing at where people put their money, to see what their constituents are truly interested in. In all honesty, I’m not entirely sure how the system would work, or even if it could be ap-

plied at a national or state level. But I do know our options for this could be endless.

Adopting a system where people have a more active role in the spending of public money makes the bond between government and citizen more cohesive. It could pave the way for citizen-initiat-ed local projects, encourage greater ef-ficacy and knowledge of issues and help government see where the people want their money to go.

For so long, we have seen taxes as a negative aspect of life under any sort of rule, but if we were to effectively give the power of spending to the people, it may be that taxes become a method of political activism. They would be crowd-sourced contributions to the public good, instead of the burden of the nation.

This is Zachary Antoyan, trying and failing to not eat the whole box of Girl Scout Cookies. And I’m apparently a walking advertisement for Kickstarter.com. Have a fantastic week.

I recently hired a student to help me get wired into what I’m told is the minimum needed to survive in today’s digital world. So now in ad-dition to Facebook, I am able to link in, tweet, Google Plus and other things I can’t remember because I haven’t used them yet.

I’m hardly a technophobe; in fact, I tend toward geek. Where else but Facebook would I have found Ellen Degeneres’ delicious take on Bic pens for women? NASA Gangnam Style? Talking cats playing patty cake? During the election, political humor on Facebook kept me sane, and articles shared by smart friends kept me informed. Mostly, I like seeing what former students and old friends are up to.

Still, I’ve been more than hesitant to dive head first into the rest of the social me-dia thing, and I was not clear why. And then it came to me: I’m just not that social.

I delight in small groups of friends — even better, one on one. I rarely an-swer my phone (“KC! Are you there? Pick up!”) I’ve been called a vampire because I often sit in the dark.

In school, I flunked Girl Scouts (loved the cookies; hated the uniform thing). I dropped out of the one sorority a friend was able to shoehorn me into. I watched my generation’s revolutions mostly from the sidelines, supportive but rarely on the streets. I never much wanted to join professional organizations because I didn’t care about be-ing a member of the national association of anything. When the brilliant (and autistic) writ-er Donna Williams described groups of normal folks as Red People — after a while, just “noisy, vibrating colors” — I understood perfectly.

And until the push to be “out there” socializing digitally, all that seemed more or less OK.

Now I have a nifty set of new tools to accomplish everything digitally I never much enjoyed in real life, and what have I done with them? So far, not much.

But, once I got wired, I also stopped feeling guilty about my lack of constant exposure. Af-ter all, it’s not so different from the old days, when getting “out there” mostly meant collecting contacts, rubbing shoulders with the “right” people. Joining.

Somehow, I managed back then with a minimum of schmoozing. Now I’ve decided that the minimum, digitally, will serve me once again. There’ll al-ways be a place for those who prefer to sit in the dark — at least some of the time.

But I’m abstaining, not re-jecting.

I can already hear Instagram calling. Tweeting will no doubt fast become addictive, like gos-sip and potato chips. I will keep looking in from the outside, mostly, on Facebook, occasion-ally announcing some crucial upcoming event — Pi Day, for example. (Mark your calendars now: March 14, at 1:59 p.m., eat pie and behave irrationally.)

I’ll certainly use the whole tool kit to flog my own work

and that of my friends.But to get work “out there” requires producing the work, and there’s a lot less time for that when we’re pres-sured to be con-stantly social net-working (or as a

friend calls it, “social notwork-ing”). That’s not a new observa-tion, but it’s also not trivial.

Like a lot of writers, I do my best work when I’m not doing much of anything. Hiking, dig-ging in the dirt, reading novels, dancing around the house, lis-tening to music. If I connect on social media instead, I may be more “out there” but a lot less will be going on “in here.” And then I’ll have nothing to share.

The most productive part of my day is often close to sunset, on the beach or near a window, sitting in silence, listening to the night fall, with my love, or my cat, or alone. I can hear my-self think. I can let the world in. So when I do get out there, I may have something to say.

The World Wide WasteWhy some are running late to the

social networking party

Any member of Congress who refuses to compromise on the budget sequester this week should be given this mandato-ry assignment: Read “Democ-racy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline of Repre-sentative Government.”

Author Joshua Kurlantzick examines the spate of retreating democracies over the last two decades and finds something startling. The middle classes — supposedly the bulwark of democracy worldwide — are often turning against it. As our governmental paralysis contin-ues, the same thing could well happen here.

Two decades ago, Francis Fu-kuyama famously argued, in “The End of History and the Last Man,” that the world would inevitably evolve toward liberal democracy and market eco-nomics. Yet 2013 represents the seventh consecutive year that declines in freedom outweighed gains, according to the Freedom House index.

Kurlantzick offers keen in-sights into what has gone wrong.

After 1991, the Soviet econom-ic model was discredited. For-mer communist states turned toward democracy, along with many developing countries. Yet too often they assumed that em-bracing democracy would con-fer instant wealth.

“It was a widely held belief in East and Central Europe, and in most emerging democracies,” says Kurlantzick, “that democ-racy would bring prosperity.

When the first years brought slow growth, that was a real dis-illusionment.”

Absent a culture of democracy or strong leadership, many new democracies struggled; the high expectations of poorer citizens were shattered. But what ac-counts for the growing frustra-tions with democracy evinced by its supposed middle-class bul-wark — in countries as diverse as Venezuela, Thailand, Egypt and the Philippines?

Much of the problem can be ascribed to the Three C’s — cha-os, corruption and the crash.

Democracy can open the door to irresponsible populists such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who appeal to the poor (and often wreck the economy). The middle class feels its well-being is threatened.

Moreover, when dictatorships fall in countries with no rule-of-law tradition, a political vacuum often breeds lawlessness and chaos. A prime example is Egypt, where much of the middle class, and many urban poor, now yearn for the stability they had under Hosni Mubarak, though they once rallied against him in Tahrir Square.

Corruption has also become associated with newly open so-cieties. “Rising corruption can lead to popular alienation with democracy,” writes Kurlantzick. In autocracies, corruption is usually controlled at the center, but the collapse of such regimes provides much broader oppor-tunities for graft.

One of many examples: In post-communist Russia, Boris Yeltsin’s fire sale of state-owned natural resources to private “oli-garchs” convinced ordinary Rus-sians that democracy equaled theft, and fueled the yearning for a new strongman.

Middle-class anger has also been stoked by the 2008 finan-cial crash, which resulted in huge economic pain yet let most of the bankers who caused it off the hook.

Little wonder that much of the world began to question the validity of the Western liberal economic model. All the more so when the European Union can’t resolve its postcrash finan-cial crises, and Washington can’t get its fiscal act together. As one State Department official quoted by Kurlantzick puts it: “How can

we with a straight face be tell-ing countries in Africa and the Middle East that they need to develop better systems for governing when we can’t even pass a budget?” Indeed.

With the Western model in decline, little wonder, too, that many Asian, African and Latin American nations look with new interest at the Chinese model of undemocratic de-velopment, mixing capitalism with continued government control of key sectors in an au-thoritarian state.

However, let me stress this: Whatever the risks to U.S. in-terests posed by the growing gravitational pull of China, the biggest threat to global democracy lies within the West itself.

If Western citizens lose faith in their own systems, new democracies are bound to do likewise. In Europe, postcrash austerity has aggravated job loss and impoverished many middle- and working-class citizens, especially in southern Europe. The post-World War II social contract that ended a century of European conflict is fraying. Right-wing fringe groups are attracting more of the vote.

Meantime, middle-class Americans feel threatened by rising inequality and per-manent job loss — and their fear leads to disillusionment with government. Congress is paralyzed, with Republicans pressed by their hard-liners to reject any compromise on rev-enue and spending. Irrespon-sible fringe groups proliferate, fueled by billionaire backers. Conspiracy theories go viral on the Internet, like the one I just received, proclaiming: “Secret Obama plot to stay in power until 2020.”

America’s deep democratic roots and strong civic organi-zations remain a bulwark. Yet relentless right-wing efforts to demonize government un-dermine our democratic in-stitutions. Washington’s melt-down convinces the world that our democracy can no longer deliver.

And when the world’s paramount democracy can’t function, why would devel-oping countries want to fol-low our lead?

K.C. COLEMcClatchy-Tribune

If Congress can’t bring prosperity to democratic society, who can?

TRUDY RUBINThe Philadelphia Inquirer

MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE

MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE

7

MUSTANG MINIS SUDOKU

POP CULTURE SHOCK THERAPY

F MINUS

TO PLACE A CLASSIFIED AD:

Order online: www.MUSTANGDAILY.net

Call: 805.756.1143 a day prior by noon

Ads must be prepaid by check made out to MUSTANG DAILY or paid by credit card at MUSTANGDAILY.NET

CLASSIFIED ADS AREFREE FOR STUDENTS

Stop into the MUSTANG DAILY tofind out how to place your ad.Classifieds

THE

COMICS & GAMES

MD Position OpeningsWeb editor

Mustang Daily is look-ing for a web editor who has proficient knowledge of Web

design and Wordpress. Interested? Email

[email protected]

L.A. Area Summer Day Camps

Counselors, life-guards, activity spe-

cialists & more.www.daycampjobs.comANYTIME.

ANYWHERE.

Never find yourself out of the loop again.Sign up to get the latest headlines delivered straight to your inbox.

8

SUDOKU ANSWERS

MDsports 8 Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Five foot, three inches.Jonae Ervin may not be the

tallest or the most vocal player on the court, but for the Cal Poly women’s basketball team, she has become a giant, and she lets her statistics do the talking for her.

Hailing from Brea High School, the junior point guard boasts the highest assist-to-turnover ratio in the nation with a 2.91 ratio.

“I think that’s amazing to have a teammate be No. 1 in the nation for having the best assist-to-turnover ratio,” red-shirt sophomore guard Ariana Elegado said. “(Ervin) is a great passer, and she always finds the open person. She is always driv-ing in the gaps and finding that open spot. It’s just an amazing accomplishment.”

Having started in all 21 games in the 2011-12 season, Ervin tied for first in the NCAA with her assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.67, dishing out 112 assists and com-mitting just 42 turnovers.

But in the 2012-13 season, the main difference for Ervin and for the rest of the Mustangs (16-9,

10-4 Big West Conference) is the absence of former Cal Poly for-ward Kristina Santiago. Santiago, the first player in program histo-ry to earn All-American status at the Division I level, finished her senior year fifth in the nation in scoring, sixth in field goal per-centage and 31st in rebounding.

But without the two-time Big West Conference Player of the Year, the junior point guard knows how much her role has changed.

“Last year, we were focused on (Santiago),” Ervin said. “But this year, we’ve been playing to-gether as a team. It feels like we can exploit our strengths. We all have different strengths, and we all share the ball. Everybody can handle the ball. Everybody can shoot. We know who to go to in a given time and who can step up and bring the team energy.”

Elegado has played with Er-vin for two years, and she ap-preciates how much Ervin means to the team.

“Without Santiago, the ball is in (Ervin’s) hands probably 90 percent of the time,” Elegado said. “She’s more willing to take control of the game. Jonae has the confidence that no one can stop her. This year, I can tell that her role has changed. She’s that player who can take control of any game, any time, any day.”

In addition to losing San-tiago, the women’s basketball squad also bid adieu to three of its top five scorers. The loss of Brittany Woodard to a midsea-son injury left big shoes to fill for each member of the team. Head coach Faith Mimnaugh recognizes how substantial of

an impact Ervin continues to have in every game at the point guard position.

“She’s always been a very good handler of the basketball and someone who prides herself in making great decisions on the court,” Mimnaugh said. “She doesn’t take a ton of risks on the court. She’s very steady with the ball; you can count on her to al-ways go through a game almost flawless in her decision-making skills. It’s an asset that I value and I know the team values. I know that she takes great heart in trying to do that job effec-tively for us.”

In Cal Poly’s game against Cal State Northridge (13-14, 7-8 Big West), Ervin recorded her fourth double-double of her collegiate career with 10 points and 11 assists as she led the Mustangs to victory against the Matadors.

“If somebody isn’t on their game, someone else is going to have to step up,” Ervin said. “We’re really good about doing that. We can read each other really well and step up and see who is and who is not having a good game.”

Ervin and the Mustangs look to continue their three-game winning streak as they travel to UC Riverside (11-14, 4-10 Big West) on Thursday.

“She was the best in the country last year, and she’s in the mix to be a repeat,” Mim-naugh said. “And she’s just a ju-nior. Hopefully people around the country are watching what she’s doing and seeing that she can be somebody that they consider one of the top point guards in the country.”

ASSISTING THE ’STANGS TO VICTORYJEFFERSON P. NOLAN [email protected]

Sophomore Jonae Ervin leads the nation with a 2.91 assist-to-turnover ratio, after finishing the 2011-12 season leading the same category. Cal Poly travels to play UC Riverside on Thursday.

IAN BILLINGS/MUSTANG DAILY

Big West Standings - Men’s Basketball

Cal Poly

UC Irvine

Pacific

Cal State Northridge

UC Davis

Hawaii

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Cal State Fullerton

Big West W-L

13-29-5

9-6

9-68-6

7-7

6-8

Long Beach State

UC Santa Barbara 4-10

4-11

UC Riverside 3-11

Overall W-L

17-1015-12

16-11

16-1313-12

12-14

14-138-18

13-15

6-21

Big West Standings - Women’s Basketball

Long Beach State

UC Santa Barbara

Cal Poly

UC Riverside

Cal State Northridge

Hawaii

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

UC Davis

Big West W-L

11-410-4

10-5

8-6

7-7

7-8

6-9

Pacific

UC Irvine 5-9

4-10Cal State Fullerton 4-10

Overall W-L

21-616-9

14-12

12-14

14-12

13-14

11-159-17

11-148-18

Jonae Ervin makes her mark at point guard

Mustang Daily - 2/26

Documents