Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]

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UAW ELECTIONS GROW TENSE P. 5 SOMETHING WICCA THIS WAY COMMEMES: CREATING INTERNET POP CULTURE P. 10

Tursday, April 28, 2011

Vol. 45 Issue No. 26

A Debate

of Great

Magnitude

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Public Discourse

Compiled byEli Wolfe &Kyan Mahzouf

I know that several of my friends wereamong the students who were recentlymugged, so that has had an impact. Buthonestly, Im going to be an RA next year, soIm not going to be directly affected becausecampus is a safe place.

MARIAH BABINFIRST-YEAR, KRESGELINGUISTICS

Not really I guess there are crimes buttheyre not as bad as other places Ive seen.

So Im not worried about it. I wouldntpay money to live in a safer place

here because it doesnt make that bigof a difference to me.

JULIAN LAGUISMAFIRST-YEAR, STEVENSON

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT ECONOMICS

It hasnt had that big of an effect on me.

Honestly, its more about price to me. Priceand convenience to campus is bigger to me.I get alerts when crime happens on campus,but it hasnt deterred me from livinganywhere on campus.

TADAO KOYAMAFOURTH-YEAR, KRESGEHISTORY

I was hesitant about living on the Eastside,but I ended up living there anyway. And its

not so bad.

CHRISTIAN CALDERONFIFTH-YEAR, COLLEGE EIGHT

FILM/POLITICS

SAFF

EDIORS-IN-CHIEF

Ryan AyersJulie Eng

MANAGING EDIORSJulia ReisAlejandro rejo

COPY

Molly Kosso, chieLauren BalianVeronica GloverNicole HardinAlison KernRachel Singer

PRODUCIONess Goodwin, design directorRosa CastaedaHilli CiavarelloBreeze KanikulaSamved Sangameswara

CAMPUS NEWS

Ryan Mark-Grin, editorSarah Naugle, editorLaurel FujiiAna NicasioEmiliano OFlaherty-VazquezArianna Vinion

CIY NEWSNikki Pritchard, editor

Mikaela odd, editorRosela ArceChelsea HawkinsMark RadBruce ran

SPORS

Asa Hess-Matsumoto, editorSamved SangameswaraEli Wole

ARS & ENERAINMEN

Blair Stenvick, editorMitchell BatesHannah oda

COMMUNIY & CULUREMichael Mott, editorMikaela odd, editorAysha Bilalyler Maldonado

OPINIONS & EDIORIALSBlair Stenvick, editor

WEBimothy Lindvall II, developerJenny Cain, editor

PHOOGRAPHY & ILLUSRAION

Morgan Grana, editorLouise Leong, editorMatt BobletRachel EdelsteinSal IngramMuriel GordonKyan MahzouBela MessexNick Parisoby SilvermanMolly Solomon

Prescott Watson

ADVERISINGRyan Ayers, managerPrescott Watson, assistant managerMalia BradleyAlex Lattin

BUSINESSBrittany Tompson, managerommy Palmer, assistant manager

MARKEING

Rosie Spinks, manager

Public DiscourseHow has crime in Santa Cruz aected

where you choose to live?

ABOU US

City on a Hill Presduced by and or UCOur primary goal is tand analyze issues astudent population aCruz community.

We also serve to wthe politics o the UCtration. While we endpresent multiple side

we realize our own oinuence the presentnews. Te City on a H(CHP) collective is dcovering underreporideas and voices. Ourdevoted to certain topand city news, sportsentertainment, and cand culture. CHP is apaper, but it also provor Santa Cruz resideent their views and inthe campus communCHPs pages will servarena or debate, cha

ultimately, change.CHP is published the City on a Hill Preing group rom the laSeptember to the rsJune, except during Ting, winter and sprinbreaks.

Te opinions exprpaper do not necessathe opinions o the stor the University o C

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Table of C

TABLE OF CONTENTS

P. 4 A Changing UC: FoodService and Unionsby Emiliano OFlaherty-Vazquez

P. 5 A Union ElectionsInterruptedby Laurel Fujii

P. 6 Event CalendarCompiledby Hanna oda &ess Goodwin

P. 14 HROUGH OURLENS

by Nick Paris

P. 12 DIABLO CANYONESS PUBLIC FAIH

IN NRCby Ryan Mark-Grin

P. 10 MEMES: OU OFMANY COMES FUN

By Blair Stenvick

P. 19 MAGIC BREIN SANA CR

by Aysha Bila

Matt Boblet Morgan Grana Nick Paris

P. 7 Lecture eachesCommunity About LocalGovernmentby Rosela Arce & ChelseaHawkins

P. 8 SCPD Meets with theCommunity

by Bruce ran & Mark Rad

P. 9 Santa Cruz FilmFestival Showcases StudentFilmmakersby Hanna oda

P. 16 Permutations: TeFuture o ArtBy Mitchell Bates

P. 17 Community Chest:QFS Perormer SharesExperienceby Michael Mott

P. 18 Womyn o ColorConerence Empowersby Michael Mott

P. 23 Editorial: WarGPS racking ViolatFourth Amendment

Editorial: County CoWrongully argetsPeaceul Protesters

Cover illustrationby Bela Messex

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Campus

A Changing UC

By EmilianoOFlaherty-Vazquez

Campus ReporterSASName: Nate BennettPosition: College Nineand en ood servicemanagerPredicament: Tediculties o having bothunion and non-unionworkers are made moresevere by the UC budgetcrisis.

Statement: Glad I stillhave a job in Americawhere I can eat!

A UCSC ood service manager reects on systemic issues

Prescott Watson

People see what naturally hits their pocketbook. As a state, we hav

our bills or some time, and I know thats trickled down in part to mthats my part in that.

Nate Bennett, College Nine and en ood service

Nate Bennett naturally smilesa lot. Tats probably or the bestbecause being a ood servicemanager at the College Nine anden dining hall during a budgetcrisis may not provide too manyreasons to smile.

Although hes currently deal-ing with the schools nancialwoes, Bennetts 20-year careerhas been widely varied.

Ive ed people at our-starresorts and Ive ed people or 7cents a meal, he said. I camein rom managing the Homeless[Services] Center o Santa Cruzor many years, and Ive maderiends with the public I serve. Ieel Im pretty well-liked, as longas you dont steal ood.

Despite his optimistic disposi-tion, Bennett has experienced hisshare o tribulations. Te act thatood service employees are both

union and non-union has causedsome complications.

From this level down [belowmanagers], youre part o theunion. From this level up [man-agers and above], youre not, hesaid.

Bennett was prepared orthe role, however. He even took

a class called Managing in aUnion Environment.

Bennett is a problem solver,and this system put his skills tothe test.

Last year, during the [union]protests, we the management got behind the picket lines,climbed the hill, and we madeood, he said. People still hadto eat. It wasnt our disdain orthe union that did that, it was ourcommitment to our customer. Ilike challenges like that: Get yourskills and logistics together withother people and make some-

thing happen beore your eyes.Tough this complicated sys-

tem may allow Bennett to displayhis commitment and skill, ittends to cause conict.

Tere has been a naturalmechanism that when somebodygoes, [we] dont replace them.Were out o money, Bennettsaid. Tat isnt necessarily thecase or the union olks, thatsthe case or the management. Iour kitchen is one cook short,were required by contract to ndsomebody.

Bennett said the budgetcrisis is something that impactseveryone.

People see what naturally hitstheir pocketbook, he said. Asa state, we havent paid our billsor some time, and I know thatstrickled down in part to me thats my part in that.

Tough budget cuts are mak-ing or a tumultuous and some-times conicting atmosphere,Bennett said the challenges heaces demand compromise and

understanding.Ive learned to be sympathet-

ic with my superiors or acingthat pressure, he said. We weretold at the start o the year thatwed take urloughs.

Still, Bennett is aware thatthings are changing.

As the managers, were trying

to be as ecient as possible, hesaid. Were not complaining,but you have to change yourpriorities. Its something you haveto deal with.

In the ace o these diculties,

Bennett eels the studmay not be aware o tplexities o the situat

What the studendoesnt understand isbetween representedand management, htension between the is something were ca

middle o as managewe need to give themget together and do tbut its not [managemand we both know thteam.

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TA Union Election Turns UglyElection committee stops count, candidates personally attacked

Te triennial election or the UC teach-ing assistant union, UAW Local 2865, washeld April 27-29. Te ballot counting wasinterrupted on Saturday, leaving UCLAand UC Berkeleys votes uncounted. Per-sonal attacks to the parties candidates andspoiled ballots also shook up the election.

In addition to teaching two sections ora class called U.S. History Afer WWII,UC Santa Cruz history graduate studentSara Smith is running or UAW Local 2865Executive Boards northern vice president

as a member o Academic Workers or aDemocratic Union (AWDU).

Tis is the biggest crisis our unionsever had, Smith said.

AWDU is one o the two competingcaucuses, similar to political parties, andwas ounded in 2009 when they elt UAWLocal 2865 leadership wasnt doing enoughto combat budget cuts.

Smith said the 10-person UAW Execu-tive Board currently makes decisions or12,000 members. AWDU wants to increasedemocratic participation in decision-mak-ing among union members by spreadingout the power concentrated in this board.

In response to rise o AWDU, the

United or Social and Economic Justice(USEJ) caucus was born and is comprisedo many incumbents.

Current leadership [in UAW 2865]gave themselves a name to run against us,Smith said o the ormation o the USEJ.

She said USEJ has no presence atUCSC.

Daraka Larimore-Hall, executive boardpresident, UC Santa Barbara sociologygraduate student and A, is running orre-election as a USEJ member. He saidUSEJ is responsible or bring 20,000 labor-

ers into UAW. Our group was instrumental in mak-

ing this happen, Larimore-Hall said.Adam Hefy, a UCSC election commit-

tee representative and graduate student,said that during Saturdays ball ot count,three o the six present election commit-tee members voted to stop the count andadjourned the meeting, leaving the votesrom UC Berkeley and UCLA uncounted.

Te election committee elt theycouldnt continue [to count the ballots]because o the atmosphere o hostility atthe vote count, Larimore-Hall said.

Hefy did not agree with the three elec-tion committee members who decided tostop counting.

Tere was no pause or me to be ableto vote or understand the motion that wasgoing on, Hefy said. Tree o six doesntconstitute a majority.

Smith said AWDU won at UC Davis,UC Irvine and UCSC, and received 95percent o the votes at UCSC.

Even though USEJ won at UC River-side, UCSB and UC San Diego, she saidAWDU had a good chance o winningonce UCLA and UC Berkeleys votes werecounted.

Both parties wanted the count toresume but didnt agree upon terms underwhich the voting would continue.

On uesday the election committeedecided counting would resume on themorning o May 5, supervised by a neutralmediator. Candidates and their supporterswont be allowed in the room.

Smith said two ballot boxes romUCLA and UCSD were spoiled becausethey contained votes that werent con-cealed in the two appropriate identica-tion envelopes. Tis caused Smith to earvoters were trying to vote twice or werestung the ballots.

Candidates rom both parties said they

were personally attacked during the cam-paign and the counting deadlock.

Larimore-Hall said he received stringso texts rom AWDU supporters

telling him he was going to jailbecause o what USEJ is do-

ing. Its absolutely disgust-

ing the way AWDUs beenacting [since beore] theelection started, he said.

Yuting Huang, UCLAgraduate student and AWDU

candidate or head steward atthe UCLA campus level, said shewas rustrated at times during the

campaign and even cried.She said she couldnt always talk to vot-

ers afer USEJ campaigners because theyphysically blocked her by walking votersto the polls.

Many people will vote with verylittle inormation, she said. I elt peoplewanted to listen to both sides. Electionsshouldnt be run like that.

UC Davis graduate studentPerez is running or the Execunorthern vice president positiUSEJ against Smith, and disagaspects o AWDUs campaign.

We [in USEJ] attempted tour record, while AWDU ocuharassing our candidates by urto step down, Perez said.

Perez said she was verballytwo male AWDU candidates dthree days o voting and nobothem.

Tis conduct is not consisAWDUs message, she said. just running on issues. Tis is campaign o intimidation.

During the counting stalem

members sat in at the UCLA aley UAW oces and held a ralBerkeley.

Afer teaching her MondaySmith returned to Berkeley. Shwill stay there until the ballot nishes.

By Laurel FujiiCampus Reporter

Illustration by Muriel Gordon

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Campus

Compiled by Hanna Toda & TessEvent CalendarCAMPUS

HURSDAY, MAY 5

Lecture: Shoot the Core:An Overview o 2D SpaceShooter Games by Jim

Whitehead. Current Peri-odicals Room, Science &Engineering Library. 3 to 4p.m. Free.

Lecture: uning Baghdad byRegine Basha. Room 210,Humanities 1. 4 to 5:30 p.m.Free.

Strawberries & Justice. Eventincludes live music, reshorganic berry tasting, a so-cial justice sel-guided tour,an art and mural expressionzone on justice and agri-culture. UCSC Farm, CSApickup area. 4 to 7 p.m. Free.

Ramen and Beer: Te Santa

Cruz Film Festival presentsthe 2011 Film and DigitalMedia Student Showcase.Del Mar Teatre. 5 to 7 p.m.$5 students w/ID, $10 gen-eral admission, $8 seniorsand non-UCSC students.

2011 UCSC Digital Arts andNew Media MFA Exhibition:Permutations. Digital ArtsResearch Center. Tursday:Exhibition. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.Free.

FRIDAY, MAY 6

Sports: Juggling Festival.West Field House. 9 a.m.to 8 p.m. Event repeats onSaturday and Sunday at di-erent times. Sunday 9 a.m.to 5 p.m. Free.

7th Annual Graduate Re-search Symposium: Researchdisplayed in dierent media.University Center: Secondoor. 1 to 3 p.m. Free.

2011 UCSC Digital Arts andNew Media MFA Exhibition:Permutations. Digital ArtsResearch Center. Steve DietzReception. 4 to 7 p.m. ree.

SAURDAY, MAY 7

Sports: Juggling Festival.West Field House. 9 a.m. to11:45 p.m.

Sports: Cardiac Pacer 5 MileRun. East Field Center. 10a.m. to 12 p.m. $5.

UCSC Alumni Art Exhibi-tion: Feedback. Porter Col-lege aculty gallery. 12 to 5p.m. Free.

angroupe presents: angoProhibido! Porter/KresgeDining Hall. 2 p.m. & 9p.m. $5 students, $8 generaladmission.

MONDAY, MAY 9

Event: A Caliornians Guideto rees Among Us. Arbore-tum. alk and book signing7: 30 p.m. Free.

UESDAY, MAY 10

Lecture: A alk with ManlioArgueta and Jorge Argueta.Location undetermined atpress time. 4 to 5 p.m. Free.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11

CAMPUS ELECIONS:VOING BEGINS. Vote at

elections.ucsc.edu. 8 a.m.Voting ends 5/18 at 7:59 a.m.

Humanities Spring Awards.Room 210, Humanities 1. 4to 5:30 p.m. Free.

CIY

HURSDAY, MAY 5

Concert: Jesse Cook.Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7p.m & 9 p.m. $25 in advance,$28 at door.

Film: Te Grateul DeadMovie Event Encore. Regal

Cinemas 9. $12.50. Concert: Sour Grass, Cow-

boy and Indian. Te CrpePlace. 9 p.m. $12.

FRIDAY, MAY 6

Perormance: Santa CruzTeatre o Marvels. 418 Proj-ect. 8 p.m. $15-25.

Perormance: Te Imagine-a-nation o Lalachild. Pa-cic Cultural Center. 8 p.m.$7.50-15. Event repeats 5/7at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Documentary: Te Cata-

lyst. Te Catalyst. 8:30 p.m.$30 in advance, $35 at door. Concert: Maestros in Con-

cert eat. Pandit ShivkumarSharma & Zakir Hussain.Te Rio Teatre. 8 p.m. $35or Gold Circle, $25 or gen-eral admission.

Film: Te Goonies. DelMar Teatre. 11:59 p.m.$6.50. Event repeats 5/7.

SAURDAY, MAY 7

Competition: Te Green BigDay. Seabright Beach. 7 a.m.

Environment: Habitat Resto-ration Volunteer Field Day.Soquel Creek, meet at 836Bay Ave. in Capitola. 9 a.m

to 12 p.m. Concert: SOJA. Te Catalyst.

9 p.m. $15. Concert: Proessor Burns

& Te Lilac Field, QuinnDeVeaux. Te Crpe Place. 9p.m. $8.

Concert: Trowing Stones.Te Rio Teatre. 7:30 p.m.$20 in advance, $25 at door.

Sports: 2011 Human RaceFun Run and Walk-a-thon inSanta Cruz. Santa Cruz Hu-man Race Route. 7:30 a.m.to 12:45 p.m.

Food: Fourth annual Art

& Chocolate our. ArtistStudio. 11 a.m. Free.

Perormance: BellydanceCommunity Showcase. TeCrpe Place. 1:30 p.m. Free.

Sports: Capitola Kite Classic.Capitola Beach. 11 a.m. to 2p.m. Free.

Free Comic Book Day. At-lantis Fantasyworld. 10 a.m.to 7 p.m. Free.

SUNDAY, MAY 8

Mothers Day Brunch.Cocoanut Grove. 10

a.m. to 2 p.m. Event: Mothers

Day Jazz Auction.Kuumbwa JazzCenter. 1 p.m. $18.

MONDAY, MAY 9

Concert: New York Voices.Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7p.m. $23 in advance, $26 atdoor.

UESDAY, MAY 10

Concert: 7 Come 11. Te

Crpe Place. 8 p.m. to 12a.m. Free.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11

Food: Downtown WeeklyFarmers Market. BetweenCedar Street & Lincoln

Street. 2:30 to 6: Whats Next Lec

Te Future o FoPlow to Plate. KuCenter. 7 to 9 p.madvance, $15 at dstudents o all ag

Contact us at events

8/7/2019 Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]


When UC Santa Cruz lecturer RyanCoonerty teaches on campus, he usu-ally aces students in classrooms. Butlast Wednesday night, Santa Cruz mayorCoonerty stood beore community mem-bers in the Council Chambers, lecturingon the way City Hall works.

I want to make sure that [community

members] questions or concerns aboutthe city are answered, Coonerty said. Iwant to give them a good sense about howaccessible government is.

Te class, known as the Mayors Acade-

my, will take place three more times, oncea month until July. Classes are open to thepublic and will run rom 7 to 9 p.m.

Coonerty said the class is the rst o itskind. Mayors Academy aims to educatethe public, Coonerty said, and it is notgoing to be a place or him to share hispersonal political views. Rather, through

a better understanding o the way citygovernment works, the community canpartake in a more inormed discussion.

I believe in the idea o sitting downand having a longer, deeper conversationand providing the context and complexi-ties o an issue, Coonerty said. Its notalways clear to the average person whatthe issues are or how to get engaged, andthe more outreach we can do, the better.

Approximately a dozen people attend-ed the rst meeting last week. Coonertysaid he was extremely happy with the

turnout.Te tone o the conversation wasmuch better than it ofen is around publicdebates, Coonerty said. It was verygratiying.

opics discussed included the budgetand tax systems, crime and the desalina-tion plant.

David Sweet, a retired UCSC acultymember who attended the event, said hewas satised with the lecture overall.

Te whole idea that the mayor wouldtake time to invite people to come andhave a civil, inormative talk on how thecity works is benecial, Sweet said. Justimagine i the president were doing this. Iwe were in the habit [as a country] o hav-

ing this ongoing civics lesson, I think wedbe much better o as people.

Beore the mayors presentation, Sweetsaid he was unaware o some o the pro-grams the city had, like the Chronic Ine-briates Program, which aims to prioritizerehabilitation over jail time.

o improve uture Mayors Academylectures, Coonerty plans on incorporatingevaluations and suggestions taken duringthe event.

Vivian Vargas, Latino Aairs Commis-

sion member, suggested at theuture events be televised or aShe also suggested televised ledubbed in Spanish. Coonerty sounded like a good idea andbe worth it to have the [countranslator attend.

Tere was a [county] survbetter reach the Latino commthey ound that the best way towas through television, Vargaworked more than newspaper

Te tone o the lecture wasand Coonerty joked about hisexperiences, rom campaignin

citizens arrests.Coonerty has extended his

high schools in the Santa Cruzors nationwide partnered withUniversity to speak at local sccity government. Coonerty hanine schools and said he intenour more beore the end o th

I enjoyed going and talkindents so Ive continued doing said. Ive really ound their inthe city to be extremely valuab

CommunityMembers Enroll

in MayorsAcademyMayor Coonerty hosts a lecture on

local government

By Rosela Arce &Chelsea Hawkins

City ReportersMAYOR RYAN COONERTY DISCUSSES what Santa Cruz is and what citizens can do better during his rst Mayors Acade

class aimed at educating citizens on how the government work

T

Te tone o the convwas much better thanis around public debawas very gratiying.

Ryan Coonerty, Sa

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City

On a balmy Wednesday night,all was quiet on Ocean Street asmembers o neighborhood watchgroups, including Oceans 11 andake Back Santa Cruz, met withthe Santa Cruz Police Depart-ment (SCPD) at the Sierra Roomin the University Inn. Te grouptalked about their most pertinentsubject preventing and ad-dressing crime. About 30 peopleattended the event.

ake Back Santa Cruz is aneighborhood watch organiza-tion that deals with crime in San-ta Cruz. Group leaders help thecommunity get more involvedwith issues like drug control,gangs and prostitution. Oceans11 is also a neighborhood watchgroup, named afer the 11-block

area rom Ocean Street to theWestside o Santa Cruz.

Crime in Santa Cruz is a risingissue. SCPD recorded 53 burglaryarrests in March alone, and thecity aces ongoing problems withrobbery, gang relations, trespass-ing and prostitution. Robberyin Santa Cruz increased by 32percent rom 2009 to 2010, whileburglary has also risen 6 percent.

Tis has been particularly

alarming to community watchgroups. SCPD held a meeting onApril 27 so the community couldget more connected to its policeocers. Police Lt. Larry Richardled the presentations.

Were a community policedepartment, he said. Tis meet-

ing today provides an opportu-nity or us to come out and bringa voice to our community.

Richard emphasized theimportance o contacting localauthorities in the ace o a threat-ening situation in the city.

I you see something thatdoesnt eel r ight, it probably isnot, Richard said. Get out thereand give us a call.

Regina Henderson, organizero Oceans 11, said robberiesofen occur in her neighborhood,and that community response iscurrently insucient.

I was one o eight people

who were robbed in my areain the last ew months, Hen-derson said. When I rststarted Oceans 11, no one in theneighborhood knew how ofenrobbery occurred.

Noting a lack o communica-tion between neighbors, Hender-son ounded Oceans 11 with aew o her neighbors as a way tomonitor neighborhood crime.

Communication is key,

Henderson said. Now we have amuch better idea about [robbery]because o our communication.

For ake Back Santa Cruz,being part o a neighborhoodwatch group allows members toget more active in watching outor crime.

Were sick and tired ocomplaining about cr ime, saidAnalicia Cube, ounder o akeBack Santa Cruz.

ake Back Santa Cruz some-times takes action against crimein their community. Cube isespecially ond o conrontingdrug dealers standing on a streetcorner, a tactic the group reersto as positive loitering.

Positive loitering is when weget a group o people to comeup to someone and ask themto leave politely, she said. Wewant them to know that i theystick around, were going to callthe cops.

Te meeting emphasizedsaety and spotlighted areas inSanta Cruz that have inordi-nate amounts o crime. Some

residents say the Eastside toWestside bridge is particularlycrime-laden.

I call that bridge crackpipebridge, said Regina Henderson,member o Oceans 11 in SantaCruz, because the rst timeI walked on it I saw someonesmoking crack on it.

City employee MarilynDemartini expressed her saetyconcerns as a resident living on

Broadway Street, and commend-ed the Santa Cruz Police Depart-ment or their responsiveness toher issues.

I always take an opportu-nity to attend events like these,Demartini said. Te Santa CruzPolice Department has made abig improvement throughout

the years. Ive gottena ew police ocers oname basis, and theyresponsive to my issuidea that I can sit commy porch and have aee with no worries adealers or prostitutesby.

Santa Cruz Neighborhood WatcGroups Discuss CrimeSCPD meets groups to address prevention eorts

By Bruce Tran & Mark RadCity Reporters

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein

Were a communitypolice department. Tismeeting today providesan opportunity or usto come out and bringa voice to our commu-nity.

Larry Richard, policelieutenant

8/7/2019 Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]


Arts & Entert

By Hanna TodaArts & Entertainment

Reporter

UCSC Student FilmmakersPresent: Ramen and Beer

Santa Cruz Film Festival showcases student flmmakers

Ill be the luckiest per-son alive i I can do thisor the rest o my lie.

Zak Lambert, studentlmmaker

Te Santa Cruz Film Festivalwill present Ramen and Beer,the 2011 UCSC student showcasetonight, May 5, at the Del MarTeatre. Compiled o 12 shortlms rom selected student lm-makers o the lm and digitalmedia department, the lm

estival will share the talent o thenext generation o lmmakerswith the Santa Cruz community.

Te showcase covers a broadrange o narrative works, autobi-ographical pieces, documentariesand experimental lms originally

started as class projects in thelm and digital media depart-ment. A ew pieces were selectedrom each class and submittedinto a year-long selection processby a showcase selection commit-tee o students and aculty.

Tese students are essentiallythe up-and-coming lmmakerso our day and age, said ourth-year Nicolas Richard Kerr, a stu-dent on the showcase selectioncommittee. Tere is no pressure

like commercial incentive, andits ... a critical work that is muchmore thought-provoking [incomparison to major productionlms]. Its interesting to see thepotential that our department isproducing.

Te title o the showcase,Ramen and Beer, was chosen tocharacterize the unique prole oa student lmmaker a studentwho maintains a questionablediet, but harbors immense cre-ative potential.

As students, were living onthe edge as ar as nancial meansgoes, and sort o have to struggleto create well-made work withconstraints, said Sarah Jae,maker o Wikipedia to PureReason, a lm that explores theexperience o surng the inter-

net. Part o being a student lm-maker is learning the limits ogetting your project nanced anddoing whatever you can to make

it work with what you have.I think a lot o the cool part

is that there is no studio sayingyes and no, said ChristopherKip Radt, a student lmmaker.Your creativity can run wild.

Radt made the autobiographi-cal narrative, Kip, a story thatinvolves literally going inside hishead.

Tis lm class assignmentnot only oered a spot in the

Illustration by Lou

limelight or selected students,but also provided a un and ex-perimental experience. Studentlmmaker Douglas Smith hadbeen planning his lm, Rise andShine, even beore his 10-weekclass and has spent close to 100hours working on it.

I really just made the lm orun, Smith said.

Te comical plot ollows astudent who oversleeps andrushes to get ready or classwhile objects around her housecome to lie to help her get ready.

It also happened to be thelm I submitted or my lmproduction class at UCSC, but Imainly wanted to try out a newstyle o lmmaking [stop-ramewith live actors], Smith said.

Student lmmaker ZakLambert also enjoyed makinghis lm, O, Abby, a love storybetween two young kids.

I had a blast. I think oRobert Altmans quote thatlmmaking is similar to build-ing sandcastles with your closest

people ... No matter hul the intermittent rathe rising tides, my ntional homemade camor the cast o childrenon-set parents might things, that day was pbe the luckiest personI can do this or the rlie, he said.

Te estival createsnities or the student to make connections experienced lmmakpre-reception parties

and greets, and ultimindependent lms theApart rom televi

diction, mass media iproblematic due to thideology thats represprovided to the peopling, Lambert said. Sor everybody when mtellers are thrown intoIndependent lms, astheyre daring, oer thtion that sometimes oget heard.

Santa Cruz Film Festiva

WHO: 12 featured UCSC FDM student

WHERE: The Del Mar Theatre on Pac

WHEN: Thursday, May 5, 57 p.m.

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Feature

Whats promising and concerning

about the Internet meme crazeBy Blair Stenvick

Arts and Entertainment Editor

There is a gray cat with a pop tart or abody on the computer screen.

Its pixilated body is ying throughanimated space, leaving a rainbow trail inits wake. A grating but catchy tune playsover and over.

Nyan, nyan nyan nyan, nyan nyannyan nyan, nyan nyan.

Te appeal is that its just nonsense,said Joel Johnston, a sophomore broad-casting major at San Francisco StateUniversity. Tere are some people wholike the song.

Tis is Nyan Cat, a recent example oan Internet meme, which is an image,video, or saying that spreads virally overthe World Wide Web.

Te word meme rst appeared inRichard Dawkins 1976 book Te SelshGene. Dawkins dened a meme as beingany sort o idea that spreads rom personto person within a culture and catches re.It played on the notion o a gene, as bothgenes and memes multiply with human-to-human contact.

As UC Santa Cruz computer scienceproessor Gerald Moulds put it, Everyidea that manages to sel-replicate is ameme.

Internet memes are much the samething. Tey spread rom website to web-site, rom community to community, rom

user to user across the Web, mutating andbonding together, and taking on dierentmeanings along the way.

Moulds says he has been pluggedin to the Internet beore most peopleknew there was an Internet. He wasonline during the days o purely text-based message boards, called USENEnewsgroups, where he says he experiencedhis rst meme: a message board with theaddress Alt.swedish.che.bork.bork.bork.Te name reerences the Swedish Che, a

Illustrations ByMatt Boblet

character on the Muppets.Tat was the rst really well-known,

completely whimsical thing [on the Inter-net], Moulds said.

As ofen happens with memes, the mes-sage board spurred imitators and varia-tions, such as Alt.wesley.crusher.must.die.die.die, this time poking un at Star rek:Te Next Generation.

Tis was happening in the mid-1980s,but most o the memes Moulds can re-member are rom the last decade. oday,the Internet is much more sophisticated,though memes operate mostly the sameway: an absurd or relatable concept takesorm, usually in an image, and is releasedonto the Web, where just about anythingcan happen. Tey can remain in obscurity,or they can take over an entire section othe Internet at least or a couple o days.

Te last huge medium to take holdbeore the Internet was television, whichbrought mass culture into the home in away it had never been beore. Te IdiotBox had the potential to be a voice orand o the people, but commercial inter-ests outweighed realistic representations

and varying viewpoints.Its widely acknowledged that the

Internet is in some ways replacing televi-sion, and thus memes are poised to rivaltelevision as a orm o mass entertainment.Te popular meme database website KnowYour Meme currently has 5,525 memescatalogued total, and that doesnt count allthe variations that come about within eachmeme.

Compare that to the 70-somethingchannels that come with most cablepackages or television. Some would saythat you cant look at V shows and viralInternet images the same way, but what itall boils down to is the inuence o ideas,and in numbers, memes have a lot moreideas, and a growing inuence. Johnstonspoke about the inevitability o encounter-ing memes in todays world.

It eventually just happens, he said. Iyoure on the Internet, youre eventuallyjust going to get exposed to memes. Mymom isnt really into the Internet shejust uses it or email, but even she knowsabout some o them.

Te Internet currently has less corpo-

rate control than other mediuo this, memes are a orm o enthat is actual popular culture iterms: a culture o the people. Vs instant-gratication ormect a voice that is really rom tor the masses. Advertisers aretrying to produce an inauthenthis, and many criticize memeits anonymous, anything-goesBut the populist entertainmenon or better or worse.

Friday, that inamous Rebmusic video, was inescapable weeks in March o this year, ansurpassed Lady Gagas single Way in hits on Youube. Teoriginally produced and promArk Music Factory, but what mvor so intense was the work opeople on their computers, powherever they could.

And it wasnt just the videocaught on. Dierent memes dand analyzing small parts o thand comparing it to other partculture, were all over dierent

One popular image had twthe rst, Rebecca Black is smila caption that reads Which seI take? a line rom the populathe next, the character Gretch

popular teen movie Mean Gimaces, and the caption is a linmovie: You cant sit with us!

Tere were hundreds morethousands o other memes taknet by storm every single day.medium that, thanks to the omo the Internet, is constantly evever changing and growing sejokes and reerences upon reereerences.

By taking apart Rebecca Bl

Whats a Meme?

Every ideathat manages tosel-replicate is ameme.

UCSCcomputer

science proessorGerald Moulds

With the invention of the internet and the

popularity of websites like 4chan and Reddit,meme culture has become increasingly notable in

recent years.

2007: As the LOLcat meme gained popularityon 4chan, Eric Nakagawa creates the weblogICanHazCheezburger.

2008: On April Fools Day Youube Rickrolls allo their users by linking all o the eatured videos onthe home page to the music video or Rick AstleysNever Gonna Give You Up.

2011: Videos and images parodying Rebecca Blacksmusic video Friday ood the internet.

A Medium for the MassesTroll Face Me Gusta Rage Face Forever Alon

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generic pop song, the masses used humorto reject the disintegration o the musicindustry. Memes arent important becausethey make stars out o 13-year-old girls theyre important because they allow thepublic to speak, and to decide whats valu-able. Tey are, in a way, a re-appropriationo American popular culture.

And this re-appropriation has concreteresults. On April Fools Day o 2008, You-ube linked all eatured videos on its rontpage to the music video or Rick Astleys1987 song Never Gonna Give You Up,copying a popular practice rom Internetpranksters known as Rickrolling. Tesong shot to number 77 on Amazonsonline store.

Te meme site ICanHazCheezburger,which bought Know Your Meme in Marchor an undisclosed seven-gure amount,receives around 2000 submissions a dayalone. Te site ocuses on LOLCats, a typeo meme that takes humorous images ocats and imposes absurd text laden withpurposeully poor spelling and grammar.

For much o the 2000s and still today,LOLCats were and are inescapable. Teirsignature I can haz [insert thing here]?has become an acceptable way to request

something, and people are expected toknow what is being reerenced. EmilyHuh, editor-in-chie o ICanHazCheez-burger, explained why she thinks certainmemes take o so much.

It has to have some entertainmentvalue, whether its unny or whether itsso horrible that it is unny, she said.Like Rebecca Black. It was so horriblethat you just had to laugh at it. You dontnecessarily have to relate to it, but justunderstand it.

San Francisco State student Johnston,who can spend an hour or two goingthrough dierent memes in one sitting,echoes Huhs opinion.

I think the absurd nature o a lot o[memes] denitely make them entertain-ing because you just cant really expectthem, Johnston said. Teyre all very ac-cessible. A lot o people can see them andunderstand them, and a lot o people canuse them in their own way.

People come to our sites because theyget to connect and share with peoplewhat they have made or seen, Huh said.People get a ew minutes o ame. Teyget really excited when they make a sub-mission and it gets to the home page.

An example o a relatable meme isRage Comics, our-panel comics thatalways end the same way: with a stick-gure man looking upwards, his ace

contorted, mouth agape, with the textFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU. Tesituations leading up to the almost-expletive are always everyday annoyances the sort o things that happen toeveryone at some point, but that are somundane that most people never talkabout them, like being too lazy to tie yourshoelaces and then tripping over them.

Te uuu guy is one o a cast ocharacters in the meme-verse. Also

present are Forever Alone and the roll,dierent unattractive aces that have their

own comics and ollowings.Tese memes, like many others, origi-nated on 4chan, an anything-goes messageboard site which grants users completeanonymity. Wade Hastings, a student atCabrillo College, has been using the siteor about ve years now. He rst l ookedat it afer he repeated a joke he had heardsomeone else tell, only to be told that thejoke originated on 4chan.

I read that thread [rage comics] whenit rst happened, said Hastings. It wasjust some guy, he made a our-panelcomic, and it ended with the uuu guy.

4chan is known or having no boundar-ies or limits or what is acceptable to post.Tat means a lot o awul stu, like child

pornography and extremely racist, sexist,and homophobic posts, pop up. Tis is theprice that is paid or a democratic, popu-list orm o entertainment all democra-cies depend on ree speech.

I do think the anonymity o theInternet has inspired creativity withouttraditional boundaries, and much o whatsbeen created seems like a response to thethose traditional boundaries, said UCSCproessor Moulds in anemail. Some o what iscreated is small-mindedor mean, and maybemuch o it wouldnt

be out there i every creation were clearlylinked to its author. But it would also

chill ree expression immensely i peoplethought that every o-color joke or juve-nile Photoshop could be tied to their realnames orever.

And alongside the oensive material,memes that later take hold o the entireInternet start on 4chan. For Hastings, thelimitless atmosphere is key or creativityree rom judgment.

Its almost completely anonymous,which is a huge helper, because peoplearent araid to post a word, he said.

Afer a meme pops up on 4chan, ittakes a while to spread to other sites, likeReddit, a more policed message board, andumblr, a popular micro-blogging site.Once there, in the mainstream, the memes

can blend together with each other to cre-ate a sort o pop cultural society and lan-guage. Christopher Price, editorial directoro umblr, spoke about this phenomenon.

I think that the graphical Internetmemes are almost like hieroglyphics [be-cause] you couldnt express that sentimentany simpler than that, Price said. And soits just a guy saying uuuuuck, you know,thats a pretty clear, basic sentiment. We all

get that. We all havebeen there beore.

Nyan

CatA gray catwith a Popart bodythat ies throughanimated space,

leaving a rainbowtrail in its wake. Asyou watch the cat, agrating but catchy tune playsover and over.

http://nyan.cat/

Price also talked about a reon umblr, which has been to tell stories using dierent mempress emotions. In a world thaing more and more wired, thinbody language and acial exprbeing replaced by animated imGraphics Interchange Format

Tey have their GIF oldecomputer, and they pick the bGIF rom Harry Potter or somexpress how they eel. And thaamazing way to communicate.he said. Tere are so many reso theres really a lot to be comthere, but the person doesnt ndo any o the communicating.

Because memes are a ormtainment that is easily manipucreated by anyone, the potentisectional reerences are innitdepicting the movie Inceptioshow RuPauls Drag Race caright next to each other, creatipletely new hybrid. In yet anoBlack meme, 50 Cent and Elmin the same car, both o them lthe tween singer. Its a pop culdream come true.

But entertainment isnt thememes can comment on. Almmediately afer Osama Bin Lawas announced, images were cwith the text America! Fuck Ypictures o Bin Laden made tothe lead character in Black SwI was perect also made the rnation wanted to celebrate thea man widely regarded as evil,turned to GIFs and Photoshop

It has to have some entertainment value, whether itsunny or whether its so horrible that it is unny, like Re-becca Black. It was so horrible that you just had to laugh atit. You dont necessarily have to relate to it, but just under-stand it.

Emily Huh, editor-in-chie o ICanHazCheezburger

Continued o

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Feature

Situated on a coastal blu overlookingthe majestic Pacic Ocean, the industriallandscape o the Diablo Canyon PowerPlant orms a sharp contrast with the natu-ral beauty o its surroundings. Lush rollinghills with scattered trees level out to theat concrete surace o the plants com-pound. wo large dome structures whichhouse the plants nuclear reactors towerover the rest o the complex like sentriesstanding guard over Caliornias centralcoast. Te juxtaposition o natural beautywith the concrete o the plants structuresis simultaneously wondrous and con-ounding one could not imagine a morebeautiul site or a nuclear power plant,nor a worse eyesore on this gorgeouscoastal stretch just north o Avila Beach.

Diablo Canyons secluded location alsokeeps it largely isolated rom the publicpsyche. While tensions have existed oryears between the plant and environmen-

tal activists o the San Luis Obispo area,many in Caliornia are not even aware othe plants existence. Despite being one oonly two currently operating nuclear pow-er plants in the state o Caliornia, Diablo

Canyon has enjoyed minimal exposure inmainstream media or the past 20 years.

However, all that changed when the8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunamiin Japan led to the nuclear disaster at theFukushima Daiichi plant.

Almost instantly, media attention wasocused on Diablo Canyon in San LuisObispo, and the San Onore nuclear powerplant in San Clemente because o theirsimilarities to the Fukushima Daiichiplant. All three are located on the coastalong earthquake ault lines, and in theafermath o the worlds worst nuclearaccident since Chernobyl in 1986, manyare becoming concerned about the saetyo nuclear power plants in areas o highseismic risk.

Diablo Canyon has received a dis-proportionately larger percentage o thismedia attention because Pacic Gas andElectric (PG&E), the plants operator, is

currently applying or an extension onthe operators licenses or its two nuclearreactors until the years 2024 and 2045,respectively.

Tis has raised concerns about the

Nuclear Regulator Commissions (NRC)ability to serve as an eective watchdogor the nuclear industry. Te NRC has soar ailed to heed Rep. Lois Capps (D-SanLuis Obispo) and Sen. Sam Blakeslees(R-San Luis Obispo) request that they haltprocessing o PG&Es application until 3Dseismic studies can be conducted on theShoreline Fault discovered in 2008 by U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) scientist JeanneHardebeck. Little is known about theShoreline Fault other than that it i s muchcloser to the reactor than the larger HosgriFault located ve kilometers oshore.Te NRC maintains that ongoing saetyoversight is adequate to consider anyseismic issues that arise rom the resultso the study, but many contend the NRC isignoring the signicance o the Fukushimadisaster by proceeding with business asusual.

Jane Swanson, spokesperson or the San

Luis Obispo Mothers or Peace, the legalintervener between the San Luis Obispocommunity and the NRC, says the eventsat Fukushima warrant a departure romthe status quo.

I not now, when are we gocide nuclear power is not wortSwanson said. PG&E says theo a bad deal happening at Diayou dont need to worry aboutsays that too. Guess what theyat Fukushima seven weeks ago

Shoreline Uncertainties

Diablo Canyon is marred bhistory o downplaying seismiPG&E initially denied the exisa ault line near Diablo Canyoapplying or a construction pethe mid-1960s, but the Hosgridiscovered in 1969 afer the cowas approved.

Ten, in 1976, the NRC adorom a seismic study conducteUSGS that stated Diablo Canydesign would not withstand th

possible earthquake generatedgri Fault. PG&E protested, butretrotted their structures to wthese new thresholds.

In 2006, the Caliornia legi

Shak ing up t he Nuclear Deba

Controversy surrounds Diablo Canyon re-licensing processin wake o Fukushima disaster

By Ryan Mark-GrifnCampus Co-Editor

Photos by Morgan G

Illustration by Bela M

1960s

-PG&E applies forconstruction permit forDiablo Canyon PowerPlant

1976

-Seismic study by USGS statesDiablo Canyon would not withstandlargest possible earthquakegenerated by Hosgri Fault

2006

-California legislaturedirects PG&E to conduct 3Dseismic studies

1969

-Hosgri Fault discovered-Diablo Canyonconstruction alreadyapproved

2008

-Shoreline Faultdiscovered by USGSseismologist JeanneHardebeck

2011-NRC receives halt PG&Es approcess until 3Dconducted

8/7/2019 Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]


Continue

directed PG&E to conduct 3D seismicstudies to address uncertainty about seis-mic hazards oshore rom Diablo Canyon.PG&E denied this uncertainty, but in 2008USGS seismologist Jeanne Hardebeckdiscovered the Shoreline Fault while work-ing in col laboration with PG&Es ownlong-term seismic study team. While theexact location o the Shoreline Fault is stillundetermined, estimates place it less thana mile rom the reactor.

PG&E spokesman Paul Flake said Dia-blo Canyon remains committed to seismicsaety.

PG&E has always been ocused onsaety, and at Diablo Canyon, seismic sae-ty has always been priority number one,Flake said. Tats why we are continuing

to conduct seismic studies, including 3Dstudies, to make sure that we have all thedata that we need to keep the plant andour community sae.

Te Shoreline Fault is smaller thanthe Hosgri Fault, and projections madeby PG&E seismologists place the greatestearthquake it is capable o producingat a magnitude o 6.5. By comparison,the Hosgri Fault is rated to produce amagnitude 7.5 earthquake.

Sen. Blakeslee, who grew up inthe Central Coast area and holds aPh.D. in earthquake studies romUC Santa Barbara, calls the seismicstudies conducted by PG&E woeullyinadequate. He authored the 2006 billthat called or PG&E to conduct oshore

3D studies prior to the discovery o theShoreline Fault. He explains that while theShoreline Fault is capable o producing asmaller earthquake than the Hosgri Fault,it is actually ground acceleration that

matters or seismic saety.You might think o it in terms o how

loud is a thunder clap? Sen. Blakesleesaid. Its due in part to how close youare to the lightning. You may have amagnitude 7.0 earthquake, but i you are100 miles away versus two miles away, youwill experience a dramatically dierent

ground acceleration.Sen. Blakeslee says the Sho

Fault is now understood to be threatening o the two.

Because this newly discov

Shoreline Fault is closer to thethe Hosgri it has the potentgreater strong motion [or Diaeven though it may produce a earthquake, Sen. Blakeslee sai

Te 8.9 earthquake that Jap

PROTESTERS GATHER AT Avila Beach Pier to demonstrate opposition to the relicensing of the Diablo Canyon nuclear pow

Photos by

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Photography

THROUGH

OUR LENSWords & Photographs by Nick Paris

FOCUSING ON HECREAIVE PROCESS

When looking or a more dened tone

rom singer Josh Montoya, Gadgetbox

Studios owner Andy Zenczack told him,

Drop and give me 20. Afer reluctantly

doing the push-ups, Montoya sang intothe mic again, this time with the rough

sound they were looking or. Its not the

access to proessional Auto-uning you

pay or at Gadgetbox, its the inspiration

Zenczack and his studio bring to the

mix. When Zenczack noticed Montoya

was losing condence in his voice, he

sent or a little Irish whiskey. Afer a

couple songs on Zenczacks one

one shot plan, Montoyas bravad

saturated the mic. As track afer t

went down, I realized how impor

a musicians environment is to m

their art. With guitars lining the

and exotic instruments like a ng

piano lying around, its easy to gecreative even while taking a brea

everyone can aord a studio, but

well worth the money. Montoyas

Te axi Project, uses a micro-n

website to get around working w

controlling labels while still work

with talented people like those at

Gadgetbox Studios.

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Arts & Entertainment

Te Digital Arts and NewMedia (DANM) workshop iscluttered with stacks o wood,dismantled computers, multi-

colored wires, prosthetic limbs,empty cans o Mountain Dewand couches manned by tullysleeping graduate students.

For DANMs ten participants,this represents two years o workcoming to ruition. Tis yearsMasters o Fine Arts (MFA)new media exhibition, entitledPermutations, will be open tothe public this Tursday throughSunday.

Tose in the DANM programstudy digital media and thecultures they have created. Ac-cording to the programs website,aculty and students rom a vari-

ety o backgrounds pursue inter-disciplinary artistic and scholarlyresearch and production in thecontext o a broad examinationo digital arts and cultures.

Tis is a very non-traditionalprogram, DANM student An-drew Pascoe said. It crosses theboundaries o art by employingdierent types o technology.

Te yearly MFA presenta-tion began in 2006, but has only

been able to move onto campussince the completion o the newdigital arts acility. en projectswill be on exhibit, each with theirown twist on DANMs inventivesensibilities.

Pascoe composed a musicalpiece or Permutations entitledGod: Te Opera, which will be

perormed in the Digital ArtsMedia Center on Friday at 8 p.m.

UCSC alumnus Jacob Cribbs

wrote the libretto or the piece.I avoid spectacle. I avoid the

dramatic. But my opera involvesa wide variety o things, Pas-coe said. Instrumentalists andsingers will be reading the opera.I have a soprano, alto, baritoneand bass all perorming. I alsohave an oboe, string quartet anda piano playing. Ten I employcomputer electronics along withthose.

Exploring the relationshipbetween art and technology cancreate varying theories, as theDANM participants illustratethrough their unique works.Pascoes research has led him to aconclusion that might be inam-matory to some involved in themusical world.

Music has no meaning, hesaid. My opera is based on the

Book o Job. Te piece parallels

Jobs search or meaning in su-ering by examining the searchor meaning in music. Job doesntnd any answers, and there areno answers in music.

Pascoe said this doesnt un-dermine the value o music.

Music is still a worthwhilepursuit, he said. Stripping it oits meaning does not strip it o itsbeauty.

Other DANM students chose

to express their research throughsimilarly unconventional means.Phoenix oews wrote a program-ming language entitled Palimp-sest, which he has used to createan augmented reality presenta-tion or both iPhones and iPads.

Te type o program Ivecreated places virtual objects atreal GPS locations, oews said.Well be l oaning out iPads, andwhen you look at the screenyoull see the cameras view othe real world. But when youapproach my virtual objects,theyll appear as i theyre actu-ally there.

oews augmented reality

scavenger hunt may seem like avideo game anatics dream cometrue, but there are other elementsas well.

With this particular pieceIm talking about memory andplace, oews said. Im col-lapsing space into the moment,taking a single space and makingit a multiplicity. Tis is a way totell many stories about a singlelocation.

Levi Goldman, anDANM student, creaactive exhibit entitledtion Inc.

My piece represetious corporate entitysaid. I have a antasttion o human parts, ready or sale.

Cameras will sensment o viewers and dierent body parts wand shif accordingly

Subtle movemenbeats represent the liobjects we consume,said. Commodity itet the average body,

people use those proidentities meld and bage. It produces hommonoculture.

But monoculture to be ound in PermTese ten demonstracreativity are made aimpressive when comunorganized and chao the digital arts buiwhich they were prod

The Future of ArtUCSCs DANM program combines creativity and technology

By Mitchell BatesArts & Entertainment

Reporter

THE EXHIBITIONPERMUTATIONS is the new project being displayed inside thedigital arts facility.

Photos by Molly Solomon

Tis is a very non-traditional program. It crossesthe boundaries o art by employing dierent typeso technology.

Andrew Pascoe, Digital Arts andNew Media student

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Community &

Community ChestA series that takes a closer look at some o UCSCs fnest

By Michael MottCommunity & Culture

Co-Editor

In this weeks Community Chest, Cityon a Hill Press sat down with Shelby Don-aldson, a UCSC student who perormed atthis years Queer Fashion Show (QFS).

CHP: How was Queer Fashion Show?Good crowd?

Donaldson: It was really un! I danced allthree nights Wednesday, Friday and

Saturday. Ive been in shows beore ordancing, and a lot o times the directorsthink theyre the shit and arent very per-sonable to each person, but [in QFS] theywere. Tey enjoyed putting it on, and thattransers to everyone else.

Tere were a lot o people there. We ac-

tually sold an extra 86 tickets.People really look orward toit. Everybody was super loud

and they really liked everything.Lots o screaming, pretty sure I heard

my name a ew times, it was great.

CHP: Were you nervous? You guys dosome pretty daring stuf up there.

Donaldson: Yeah I know, we have to striponstage! I wasnt nervous at all though, asa perormer, just because everybody wasso welcoming. We were all there to haveun, so it wasnt like youre going onstage[thinking], Oh I have to be super good.Everybody is super nice.

CHP: Can anybody participate? Was it

empowering?

Donaldson: Anybody can participate. AndId say it is empowering or everybody,just because the atmosphere is so loud andun. I think people eel really comortablethere, whatever your color, race or sexualpreerence. I would think that i youvenever been onstage, Queer Fashion Show

would probably be the rst place youshould go to. You would denitely openyoursel up there, o all shows, i youre

not comortable onstage. And the girls inmy jazz class who had never been onstagebeore really enjoyed it.

CHP: Would you recommend participat

ing in Queer Fashion Show to others?Donaldson: I would encourage anyonewho is outgoing and has a sense o humorto get involved with QFS. Even i perorm-ing isnt your thing, there are opportuni-ties to help the directors or be a part o thelight and tech team.

Shelby DonaldsonQueer Fashion Show Perormer

CollegeEightfrst-year

Majoringinart&literature

TisisherfrstQueerFashionShow

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Community & Culture

I am mixed, I am beautiuland I am proud, said UC SantaCruz student Alana Duvernayin a spoken-word poem at thisyears Womyn o Color Coner-ence.

Delegates rom UCSC, SanDiego State, UCLA and otherschools met on Saturday at theUCSCs Oakes lower l awn to em-power women o Latino, Arican,

Native American, mixed-raceand Asian roots.

Te rst keynote speaker,Dylcia Pagan, spoke on her expe-rience as an activist in the ghtor Puerto Ricos independence.At the event, stories like Paganswere celebrated, as well as otherstruggles women have overcome.

Sponsored by the StudentUnion Assembly (SUA) andseveral other campus groups, theWomyn o Color Conerence isan annual event that is normallyheld at a dierent UC campus ev-ery year. Beore last year, it hadnt

been held or our years. Aferthe hiatus, the event was broughtback at UC Santa Barbara in2010.

Te UC Student Association(UCSA) decides when and wherethe conerence will occur. TeUCSA is a coalition o the indi-vidual UC student governments,such as UCSCs SUA.

Omar Villa, the SUA commis-ioner o diversity, said the themeo this years Womyn o Color

Conerence was Celebrating ourStories.

Its a two-day conerence. Wedid it because it didnt look likethe other UCs were going to,he said. By talking about ourstruggles, were trying to em-power women and ocus on theirachievements.

With workshops, keynotespeakers, caucus spaces, spokenword and dance troupes, theconerence was an all-day event.Chairs were lled by students andaculty o all ethnicities, men andwomen.

UCSCs Arican AmericanTeatre Arts roupe perormed,as did the Haluan Hip-HopDance roupe, Grupo FolklricoLos Mejicas and Sabrosura Danceroupe.

Villa said men were encour-aged to attend. He led a work-shop with a riend.

Its called Letting Your InnerVagina Out, he said. Mines allabout actively speaking out aboutsex without barriers and degrada-tion. Its a healing workshop, andits important to have men here asallies. Teyre important to this

space, and its one way we can allparticipate.Kelly Zen-Yie sai, a Brook-

lyn-based spoken word artist,also attended and led a workshopcalled Living Poetry Outloud!Writing & Perorming SpokenWord.

Ive really enjoyed talkingand learning about all the dier-ent communities here, she said.

In a spoken word perormancecalled Real Women I Know, she

commented on gender equalityand the struggles o women.

Real women I know arentwomen at all, but are trannyboys, gender queer, gender uid,with short hair and button-downshirts genitalia are only onetiny part o the puzzle when theworld oers so much more, shesaid. Real women I know aredriven into the ground eternally,never given rest, take on every-body elses problems, never allowourselves to give up.

Tree workshop sessions wereheld, with 26 dierent workshops

to choose rom. One workshopwas held by Shannon Gleeson, aUCSC assistant proessor o LatinAmerican and Latino studies.She got involved with the eventbecause she wanted to learn moreabout dierent student groups,she said in an email.

I do think that it is impor-tant or aculty to participate instudent programming, she said.However, especially in a tightbudget climate with decreasingresources and increasing de-mands on aculty, it is not alwayspossible to do so.

Maya Wagoner, a UCSCstudent o mixed race, said it isimportant or these events tohappen so people come togetherand have an open dialogue.

Its more open here, she said.Teres a wall up in the whitecommunity where people dontofen talk about racial issues.[Tis event] is a sae space todiscuss issues o race in our com-munities.

Colors Ebb and FlowWomyn o Color Conerence draws delegates rom across the state

By Michael MottCommunity & Culture

Co-Editor

HALUAN DANCERS perform Saturday at the Womyn of Color Conference.

Michael Mott

Te replacement o the lettee or a y in womyn is meato maintain gender neutralityand signiy expression oemale independence and arepudiation o traditions thatdene emales by a reerencethe male norm.

DefnitionTe Womyn o Color Conerence chooses to spelltheir title with a y as opposed to an e because tbelieve the traditional spelling o woman is derivrom the word man. Below is an excerpt rom the

event program explaining why they choose to spellWomyn with a Y.

8/7/2019 Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]


Community &

By Aysha BilalCommunity & Culture

Reporter

Santa Cruz Wicca CommunitCelebrates Days of Fire, Fertili

Witches gather at Seabright Beach to welcome Beltanes frst day

LOCAL FOLLOWERS OF WITCHCRAFTjump over the re to celebrate the return of life and fertility during the solar Sabbat Beltane (leftWITCHES FROM ALL OVER Santa Cruz County gather in Boulder Creek at a special house with altars and ritualistic circles that aid in thcelebration of holidays like Beltane. During Beltane, witches wear ower wreaths to celebrate the growth and fertility associated with sprin

Photos

Te re pit mirrored thecircle created by the witches. Firedancers enclosed the group whilethe beating o the drum echoedthe witches chants as they sangpraises to their god and goddess,welcoming them into the circle.

A chalice was passed around,symbolizing the riple Goddess,the emale deity in the religionsduotheistic system. Inside thechalice was a razor blade rep-resenting the Horned God, themale deity. Te witches in thecircle took turns drinking rom

the chalice while a witchcrafcommunity teacher, Birch ree,stood in the center, beating thedrum and singing along.

Beltane, one o the our reestivals o Wicca, happens inthe wake o spring, six monthsrom Samhain, which occurs onOctober 31. Witches celebratedthe two-day event April 30 andMay 1.

Te rst day emphasizes re

and ertility, and the secondday consists o more rituals andeasts.

About 40 Wiccans were pres-ent at the rituals held at SeabrightBeach or the rst day o Beltane.Te second days rituals wereheld at rees Sacred Grove WitchStore, located in Soquel.

Tis is a big crowd, saidGinger Fox, an initiate o theShamanic Feri radition o thewitchcraf strand o Wicca, andemployee o the Sacred GroveWitch Store. Lately [the events]have been getting bigger becausewe have been throwing all o the[Wicca Sabbat] celebrations. Weknow there is a need or them.

Santa Cruz now has a l arge

witch community, some o whichcan be ound on the UC SantaCruz campus.

Eleven years ago there was anactive on campus club, [called]Coven Willow Wind, ree said.It came and went several timesin my time here, and sometimesit was a really large club.

Tis club and the SacredGrove Witch Store provideoutlets or the UCSC students

and the rest o the Santa Cruzcommunity to learn more aboutWicca.

In the Wicca religion, theriple Goddess is symbolized by

the moon, the Horned God bythe sun, and the Earth is con-sidered to be the Wicca mother.During Beltane, witches celebrateby giving back to the motherwith ertility.

Te ertile process is sacredin our religion, ree said. Ev-erything is about the plantsgrowing, animals mating, aboutthe god and goddess chasingeach other around to mate. We

take our ertile energies and givethem back to the planet.

ree said this ertility does not

just consist o reproduction, buto many dierent aspects as well.

In the contemporary world, itsdenition has evolved to includethe growth o plants, animals andeven bank accounts.

Its all eclectic now, saidPearl, who did not wish todisclose her ull name. It is allabout creation and ertility andhow you translate that into themodern world. Its usually howyou maniest ertility into yourlie as either prosperity with your

money or your energPearl, another ini

member o the Sham

tradition o witchcraWicca, emphasized hdierences rom otheo Wicca. Feri traditipersonal responsibilispiritual and personaollowers who must tsibility or their rituaand anything that matheir personal lives.

Pearl said she didto disclose her nameshe is not comortablher belies, even in thworld. Tis is true omembers o the Wiccnity. A ew witches at

were not comortableinterviewed, nor did their pictures to be ta

ree learned the ethe lack o understancommunity at a very

I was [brought] itholicism but I was bree said. Around n

Te ertile process is sacred in our religion. Ev-erything is about the plants growing, animalsmating, about the god and goddess chasing eachother around to mate. We take our ertile energiesand give them back to the planet.

Birch ree, witchcraf community teacher

Continued o

8/7/2019 Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]

20/2420 | Thursday, May 5, 2011

old I started to gure stu out. From nineto 13 I thought that I had invented myown spiritual path, and then at 13 yearsold I met people who happened to bepracticing my religion.

During his spiritual journey at the ageo nine, ree had a revelation. Te dec-laration o this revelation to his Catholicparents proved unsuccessul.

Te revelation was, I am God, you areGod, we are God, here maniest in hu-

man esh to have an earthly experience,ree said. Needless to say I barely got thewords I am God out o my mouth beoreI got slapped.

During the 1960s and 1970s, religiouspersecution led many Witches to moverom the eastern United States to the west.

All Witches historically learned to shutup, ree said. Tere are people that aregoing to understand, and as soon as theydont, you cant make them understand it.

ree said that the community beganmoving to Caliornia. Many migrated toSan Francisco and Santa Cruz.

Although he preerred not to speakmuch on the private subject, ree said thatSanta Cruz Wiccans do not have a place oworship due to lack o unding. Because othis act, the Wicca community o SantaCruz mostly gathers at rituals, or at theirstore.

Te Sacred Grove Witch Store thereoreserves as a haven or the community. Tisis where ree provides a learning experi-

ence or Witches with classes, such asWitch 101, and workshops.

Our people have organized out o theback o Witch stores, ree said.

Te Witches that attended the Beltaneevent give back to the Santa Cruz commu-nity by donating ood to a local organi-zation, Second Harvest. In the past ewmonths they have donated three barrels ocanned oods.

We just live lives o quality, Fox said.We make sure we are happy, ullled andwhole.

Continued rom p. 19

DURING BELTANE, followersdance around the maypole ina ritual that releases creativeenergies back into the world.

Nick Paris

Medium for theMasses

But there are still drawbacks. Becausememes rely on catchphrases and singleimages, patience or anything longer isrunning low. A UCSF study released inApril showed that extreme multitaskingassociated with the Internet can limit thebrains attention span.

Teres very much simplicity, and

short is important. And sometimes I get alittle scared about that, UCSC proessorMoulds said.

He tells a story o receiving an emailwith a link to a video, and afer seeinghow long it is, thinking to himsel, Aminute and a hal, thats orever!

But perhaps morethreatening thanlength is the possibil-ity o being mone-tized. Viral marketingtries to synthesize theorganic way memescan spread, creatingads with the goal ohaving amused Inter-

net users doing thepublicity or them.

I think it doesntbecome a meme,usually, or money,Moulds said. Interms o the memesbecoming popular,that seems to happenpurely by accident.Tere are attemptsto replicate that, ocourse. Snakes on aPlane was introduced as viral marketing.

Movies like Snakes on a Plane andClovereld are amous or viral market-

ing campaigns, as are brands like Skittlesand Burger King.

Wade Hastings remembers seeing asupposed eud between Lady Gaga andWeird Al played out on the pages o Red-dit surrounding Al covering one o Gagassongs. He suspects it was really all viralmarketing.

All o a sudden, these two peoplehad huge bursts o publicity. Hundredso thousands o people saw that on theront page o Reddit, he said. Its viralPR rms. I dont mean to sound paranoid,

but its kind o like mind contIts manipulation.

But despite these worries, Price rom umblr has an optoutlook or the uture o mem

I think there will always bment o Wild West, anythingcause its just the nature o the

he said. Its a platorm that eyou to use it and create your oor it. Tere are always going people in their basements maweird stu that nobody undeAnd I think thats great, becauweird stu that gets rened a

and rened,somehow mto people.

For Hasthave nowheup. He wavearound andeyes wide asabout their

I think i

be like the nI mean, thatweird reereBeatles weresaid. Memegoing to expreally exciterom now thto be an Inteclass at presversities.

Maybe thhappen som

or now, memes are still in thworld, what San Francisco StJohnston calls the subconsci

people. And maybe the peopto turn over their own mass mthe established media just yetthey want to keep memes wei

Afer all, that pop tart cat screen, reblogged on umblr chris, also know as Christopha day afer we spoke. And theunderneath is as ollows:

I almost attempted to desCat to a reporter yesterday, bagainst it because I didnt wanbatshit crazy.

I think there will al-ways be an element oWild West, anything-goes, because its justthe nature o the In-

ternet. Its a platormthat encourages you tocreate your own stuor it.

ChristopherPrice, editorial

director o umblr

Continued rom p. 11

LOLcatsA type o meme that takes

humorous images o cats andimposes absurd text laden withpurposeully poor grammar.http://icanhascheezburger.com/

8/7/2019 Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]


Estimated 600 meters fromreactor

Capable of producing 6.5magnitude earthquake

Diabl o Cany onNuclear Plan tRai ses Conce r ns

Estimated 5 kilometers fromreactor

Capable of producing 7.5magnitudeearthquake

Continued rom p. 13

Illustration by Ra

enced on March 10 was our times

greater than the 8.6 projected by Japa-nese seismologists. USGS seismologistHardebeck said the reason projectionsindicated such a smaller earthquake wasJapanese seismologists did not believemultiple segments o the ault line wouldrupture at the same time. Hardebeck saida much larger earthquake than is projectedcould occur at the Diablo Canyon site i arupture starting on either the Shoreline orHosgri Faults spread to the other.

It seems entirely plausible that anearthquake could start along one o theseaults [and] jump to the other and create amuch larger earthquake, she said.

PG&E said that the real issue or the

Fukushima Daiichi plant was not theearthquake, but the tsunami that ollowed.

A lot o people are understandablyconcerned because o what happened inJapan, Flake said. But there are majordierences between Diablo and Fukushi-ma. Diablo Canyon is located on a blu 80eet above sea level. Te Fukushima plantis located less than 30 eet above sea level.I think not too many people are aware thatthe Fukushima plant was able to withstandthe earthquake. What caused the problemsor their cooling system was the tsunami,because it knocked out their emergencygenerators.

Flake said that the threat o a wave largeenough to knock out power to Diablosgenerators is very slim.

At Diablo Canyon, both the powerplant as well as our back-up generators areat about 80 eet above sea level, so they arevery high.

Sen. Blakeslee said, however, that thepotential or increased ground motion aswell as the possibility that an earthquakecould jump rom one ault to the next cre-ates considerable concern.

Such an earthquake would not only belarger than orecast, but much closer to theacility, which is really a deadly combina-tion, Sen. Blakeslee said.

A Bad Idea

ensions have existed between Diablo

Canyon and the residents o San Luis

Obispo County since the mid 1960s,when PG&E announced it would beginconstruction o a nuclear power plant atthe Diablo Canyon site. Between the early1970s and mid 1980s, thousands were ar-rested or civil disobedience protesting thedevelopment and licensing o the DiabloCanyon plant.

Te San Luis Obispo Mothers or Peacewas one o the rst organized groups totake on the plant. Recognizing a need orlegal opposition to Diablo Canyon, Moth-ers For Peace has been the legal intervenerbetween the NRC and the residents o SanLuis Obispo since 1973.

When we rst read that PG&E was

going to build a nuclear power plant, wedidnt know what that was, spokespersonSwanson said. Afer we learned that therewas no solution to nuclear waste and thatthe utility wasnt responsible or it becausethe ederal government agreed to take ito their hands, it didnt take us too manyMothers or Peace meetings to decide[Diablo Canyon] was a bad idea.

Since the Fukushima disaster, supportor Te Mothers For Peace has growndue to concerns about Diablo Canyonslocation along two ault lines, the Hosgriand Shoreline Faults, the latter o whichvery little is known. Swanson says that theday afer the disaster in Japan, the groupreceived many requests or more inorma-tion about getting involved.

As soon as the horror o Fukushimabegan to hit the news, the Mothers orPeace website and my personal emailand phone were just ooded with peoplesaying things like this: Ive watched youMothers For Peace or years and I alwaysthought you were a bunch o crazy ladiesbut now I see youre right. How can Ihelp? Literally thousands like that, Swan-son said, her eyes growing wide.

With so many people asking what theycould do, Te Mothers For Peace decideda public display o concern was in order.On April 16, approximately 300 peopleshowed up at the Avila Beach Pier to ca ll

or a halt in the licensing process or allnuclear power plants under review by the

NRC, and the decommission o DiabloCanyon.

People came to us looking or l eader-ship [and] in response, we organized theApril 16 rally, Swanson said.

Calling or a direct decommission othe plant is something that Te Mothersor Peace has not done in years, Swansonsaid. However, the disaster in Japan has re-ignited their desire to see the plant closeddown or good. aking the microphone atthe rally, Swanson led the protesters in animpassioned chant o Shut it down! Shutit down!

Swanson said this kind o public state-ment was a new experience.

I am a retired fh grade teacher, shesaid, her ace ushing. Ive never spokenthat way in my lie, but I am mad!

Business As Usual

Because o saety concerns about theShoreline ault, Sen. Blakeslee and Rep.Capps have been requesting the NRC haltits processing o PG&Es license renewal

application until oshore 3D seismic stud-ies can be completed.

Congresswoman Capps press secretaryAshley Schapitl pointed out that DiabloCanyons current licenses wont expire orover 10 years, while 3D studies will becompleted within ve.

San Onore nuclear power plants li-cense expires sooner than Diablo Canyonsand they havent even applied or re-licensing yet, Schapitl said. In [Congress-woman Capps] view there is certainlyenough time to pause the process until

these studies are completed.Te NRC contends that thi

sary.Seismic issues are not con

as a part o the license review said NRC spokesperson VictoSeismic issues are looked at ca condition o PG&Es operatiseismic concerns are too impountil license renewal.

In response to public concesent a letter to the NRC on Apquesting that nal decision betheir license application until studies can be completed.

PG&E heard the concernsmunity about what happened and we are trying to be responthese times, Flake said. So areceived a response. I dont knwill respond, but that is our re

Dricks said the NRC currenintention o halting its review Canyon. He maintains that anseismic threats uncovered by tcan be taken care o by the exi

procedures.I necessary, the plant wou

quired to make changes to enscontinue to operate saely, Dr

Katcho Achadjian, Caliornblyman or San Luis Obispo, sNRCs decision not to halt theprocess.

Moving orward [with re-ldoesnt stop the 3D studies, AAchadjian said. I the license

Shor el i ne Faul t Hosgr i Faul t

Continue

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22/2422 | Thursday, May 5, 2011

Feature

M

Continued rom p. 21

Shak ing up t heNuclear Debat e

and the results o the study arenot in [PG&Es] avor, it will bedealt with.

Despite expressing concernsabout the plants saety, Assem-blyman Achadjian said he iscondent the NRC will protect

the interests o the public.Youve got to have aith in the

higher authority, Achadjian said.Sen. Blakeslee does not share

this aith in the NRC. On thecontrary, he eels the NRC hasproven time and time again theyare willing to put the interests othe nuclear industry beore thesaety o the American public.

Ive become increasinglyconcerned the NRC is moreinterested in keeping reactorsrunning than keeping the publicsae, Sen. Blakeslee said.

He also criticized the policy o

the NRC to accept results romstudies perormed by the utilityitsel.

When a regulator reliesalmost exclusively on inorma-tion rom the regulated entity itmakes it dicult or the regula-

tor to get independent, objec-tive analysis, and that is what isneeded on saety issues o thisimportance, he said.

Te Mothers or Peace aresimilarly dissatised with theactions o the NRC. Swanson said

the NRC is not doing enough tolearn rom the Fukushima disas-ter and instead moving orwardwith re-licensing nuclear powerplants across the nation beoreinormation rom Japan can becollected and studied.

Were not asking or this outo the blue, she said. Te NRCitsel in 1979 sel-proclaimedafer Tree Mile Island that theywouldnt process any licensesor 18 months until they learnedwhat the hey happened there.

A Moral Obligation

Sitting on a bench afer theApril 16 rally on the Avila BeachPier, Swanson is looking tired.Te sun has been shining overSan Luis Obispo, and she wipes athin layer o perspiration o her

orehead be-ore continu-ing.

Lookat this greyhair, shesays, holding

out a lock orinspection. Istarted thiswork whenI was in my20s. Now Ihave [eight]grandchil-dren. I didntknow it would take over my l ie,but it has.

Some might say Swanson isghting a losing battle. Despitethe public concern surroundingseismic saety at Diablo Canyon,the NRC has made it clear they

have no intention o delaying there-licensing process. Instead, allstatements made by the NRC inrelation to Diablo Canyon con-rm her accusations that they areconducting business as usual.Te NRC has said many times

they are condent in the abil-ity o their oversight programsto protect against any currentlyunknown saety issues related tothe Shoreline Fault.

Te executive director orNRC operations said phase oneo the agencys post-Fukushimainvestigation into the nations104 nuclear power plants has notidentied anything that requiresimmediate action, in a statementmade on April 28 at the agencysheadquarters in Rockville, Mary-land.

Despite all this, Swanson

reuses to give up.Ive had people a

you dont like Diablowhy dont you move Swanson says, her acas though preparing an unseen oe.

Because we are thdoing this work, sheI we move away, thand the NRC can do ever they want. Withintervener there wouone to hold them accederal law. It would to leave.

JANE SWANSON, spokesperson for the San Luis Obispo MothPeace, helped organize the rally at Avila Beach Pier.

8/7/2019 Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]


E

he world is rapidly developing. Everything rommicrowaves to iPads has been developed withinthe last 50 years. New gadgets have appeared,

including new methods or dealing with crime. Policenow have the potential to curb crime by shooting a GPStracker at any suspicious car via laser-guided handgun,

and track a persons whereabouts or days or even weeks,something that would have been unimaginable eventwenty years ago.

As o April 28, a three-judge panel upheld in theSeventh Circuit o the United States Court o Appeals comprising the states o Illinois, Indiana and Wiscon-sin that this practice is legal, and it is unnecessary orpolice to obtain a warrant in this situation.

Disregarding the ill-tting notion o using James Bondtactics to curb real-lie crime, the most upsetting thingabout this case is the secrecy o the tracking or search,and the idea that it is unnecessary or police to produce awarrant or inorm the suspicious person o their audit.

Tis cases legality means that it is up to police to de-cide what is suspicious. One wonders, what actors do thepolice weigh beore they choose to track a car?

It sounds oddly reminiscent o Arizonas SB1070 bill,which would have allowed police to ask drivers theysuspected to be illegal immigrants to produce documen-tation papers and proo o residency or citizenship, allwithout a warrant.

But the resounding dierence between these twocases is that a ederal judge blocked some controversialprovisions o SB1070 rom ever taking eect, arguing thepotential or broad misuse, whereas the majority o judgeso the Seventh Circuit panel upheld the GPS trackingdecision in U.S. v. Juan Cuevas-Perez.

Te U.S. v. Juan Cuevas-Perez casewas upheld because ultimately, thejudges decided that inormation gath-ered rom this GPS tracking device,which was used on Cuevas-Perezs car or 28 days,could also be gathered bypolice who simply ollowwhat they consider a suspicious car.

In her dissenting opinion,Judge Diane P. Wood said, Tetechnological devices available orsuch monitoring have rapidly attaineda degree o accuracy that would have beenunimaginable to an earlier generation. Tey make thesystem that George Orwell depicted in his amous novel,

1984, seem clumsy and easily avoidable by comparison.Judge Wood maintains that as new technologies l ike

the GPS tracking device appear, the margin or errordisappears. Police ollowing a suspicious car cannot be asaccurate as the GPS devices that are now going to replace

them. And by comparing the device to the mlance depicted in 1984, Wood suggests the ntracking represents a serious invasion o priva

And where are Fourth Amendment proteco this? Instead o new world uses o the Fourment that would address new technologies lik

tracker, old world applications o it and stricttion lead to decisions like U.S. v. Juan Cuevasto the lessening o Fourth Amend-ment protections or citizens in theUnited States.

Te Fourth Amendment mustnot remain stagnant, unable to ace ris-ing challenges o the modern world.

It is now up to the Supreme Courtto invalidate this decision, and broaden

protections o the Fourth Amendment toaddress new technologies in the modernworld.

he right to assemble is guaranteed in the FirstAmendment to the Constitution or a reason:liberty depends upon it.

Tis week, the Santa Cruz County Superior Court

is moving orward with the trial o six people accusedo illegally camping outside government buildings inthe summer o 2010. Five men and one woman rolledout their sleeping bags over the summer with dozens oothers who protested a city ordinance that bans sleep-ing outside at night in public places.

Peace Camp 2010, as it became known, began July4 on the county courthouse steps and continued toSanta Cruz City Hall, where it ended in October. Manydemonstrators were cited and arrested, but judges dis-missed nearly all violations except or those o the sixdeendants in this weeks case.

Eliot Bob Anderson, Arthur Bisho, ColletteConnolly, Christopher Doyon, Gary Johnson and EdFrey stand accused o breaking a state lodging law by

participating in the protest against the anti-campingpolicy. I sentenced, the group could ace jail time,exorbitant nes or community service.

On uesday, our deendants were ound guilty,

Anderson was dismissed because o a hung jury, andDoyon did not show up to court. He is now acing awarrant or arrest. Sentencing is expected on May 10.

Te protest was intended to scrutinize the consti-tutionality o a policy with questionable implications.While thousands o homeless people reside in SantaCruz County, there are only a couple hundred beds incounty shelters to accommodate them.

Demonstrators argued that local governments in-sistence on presenting a wholesome image is inringingon the basic rights to lie and liberty, including the verypersonal decision o where to sleep at night.

Because the camping ordinance criminalizes sleep-ing outside o a private residence, thousands o peopleneed to get on their eet or get out o town. Unor-tunately, both o these cl ichs are easier said than done.

Unemployment has made even the most qualied

job seekers desperate or minimum wage employ-ment. People without residences are ofen excludedrom jobs, and while there are a ew exceptions,most nd the transition rom street lie to main-stream society painul and ultimately unsuccessul.

o top it o, state and local governments acrossthe country actively expel the homeless with strictlyenorced anti-camping policies. In more extremecases, the homeless are bussed to other places.

Ordinances like the one in Santa Cruz existacross the country. Te logic or many cities is that

i sleeping outside is allowed in one town (especialbeautiul one with a mild climate), then the homelwill come ocking to sleep on the streets.

Tis may be true. However, the exclusion o

residence-less persons rom a community is bothelitist and immoral. Santa Cruz should be concernwith maximizing liberty, not avoiding a populationpeople who sleep on the streets.

Tere is no point in targeting these six demon-strators, especially in light o charges being droppeagainst all other protesters. It is a way or the city tshow that it is tough on crime. Yet, shouldnt we becongratulating these protesters or recognizing a ptially unconstitutional policy and taking action agait?

Beyond the questionable ethics o the policy itsethere is no reasonable explanation or why these sipeople specically are acing court charges.

Te right to assemble is a clear and non-negotiaright in this country. It has been essential to imporsocial movements throughout U.S. history: abolitio

afer the Civil War, womens surage afer that, prosive reorm in the 1930s, and most present in the rconsciousness, the civil rights movement o the 19

For Santa Cruz to claim that the assembly o thosix protesters was illegal because they were in sleeping bags is appalling. Peace Camp 2010 was a peacdemonstration and, as such, it is protected under thFirst Amendment.

Basic rights are not contingent on a persons restial status. Each o us has the right and the respo

Volume 45 Issue 26 [5/5/2011]

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