By Ariel Messman-RuckerEditor in chief

Bundit Kertbundit, president of the Associated Students of DVC says, he will not apologize for endorsing and campaigning for the coalition that swept seven of 10 winners into office last month, despite being ordered to do so by the ASDVC Elections Commit-tee.

Kertbundit told The Inquirer he dis-agrees with the Committee’s finding that he violated sections of the AS-DVC constitution and elections code, which prohibit him, as “an ex officio member of all ASDVC committees,” from making such endorsements.

However, he said he would apolo-gize for the Committee’s other unani-mous finding—that he violated an elections code section barring non-coalition members from financially aiding a coalition or candidate.

“I will definitely apologize for the financial assistance part,” Kertbundit said. “But I will not apologize for the ex officio part.”

The UAID coalition (Uniting ASD-VC, the Inter Club Council and DVC), headed by President-elect Lindsay St. Hill, was also found in violation of the same rules, since the elections code makes candidates responsible for the actions of their campaign committee.

“Yes everyone worked hard, but I thought everyone knew that I worked especially hard,” St. Hill told the Committee. “Yes, they are confirmed violations, but they are not what sig-nificantly made me win.”

In a unanimous vote, the Commit-tee ordered Kertbundit and the UAID slate, as punishment, to write an apol-ogy to be approved by Committee chair Anna Braginsky.

Braginsky said later the apology will be read aloud to the ASDVC ex-ecutive board at its end-of-the-year banquet May 15. Although the Com-mittee had suggested publication of the apology in the Inquirer, Braginsky said it would not be ready in time for

the newspaper’s press deadlines.After voting against disqualifying

UAID and requiring only the apology, the Committee agreed to bring the idea of a special election to the entire ASDVC board at its next meeting.

On Tuesday, the board discussed

the idea, with heated debates from both sides, and scheduled a vote for its May 12 meeting.

Directly addressing President-elect St. Hill and Vice President-elect Ben Prayada, defeated presidential candi-date Young Jun Jang said, “You have

to make sure that students are still supporting you guys, because you vio-lated the elections code.”

If the board musters the required two-thirds majority vote, a special election would be held at the begin-ning of the fall semester, with all the same candidates on the ballot, includ-ing the UAID slate, Braginsky said.

The election scandal began last month when the Elections Committee acted in response to formal letters of complaint filed by four defeated ex-ecutive board candidates, public rela-tions officer-elect I-Ting, and a DVC student unaffiliated with ASDVC.

The Committee’s April 30 decision to require public apologies did not sit well with those who wanted President-elect St. Hill and other UAID winners to be disqualified, which most likely would have resulted in a special elec-tion, with UAID barred from running.

That action – which required a two-thirds majority vote – failed with three members opposed and two abstaining.

At the April 30 meeting, Angela U, current ASDVC activities coordinator, said, “As a leader you need to know what is right and what is wrong, and as a leader we would be misleading stu-dents [if you do not disqualify them] that this is the right thing to do.”

Before the vote, Braginsky made it clear that holding a special election would be difficult.

But complainant Jang disagreed, saying “We can’t just give in to the time limit just because we don’t have time to make a special election.”

At the April 21 ASDVC meeting, Jang had asked only for an apology from Kertbundit and UAID members.

But he changed his mind and plead-ed with the Committee to void the election after UAID never offered an apology and Kerbundit only apolo-gized for misinterpreting the financial assistance part of the elections code.

“We’re just going to give in and not do the right thing?” Jang said. “Then we’re just going to do the same thing in the future.”

Volume 74 Number 6 Copyright © 2009 Diablo Valley College - The Inquirer Thursday, May 7, 2009www.theinquireronline.com

By Yun Yang Staff writerMeaghan KrakoffGuest writer

What started as a school

project for Speech 121 turned into a campaign May 1 to raise public awareness of homeless-ness among veterans.

Four students from instructor John Hanecak’s speech class – Ryan Berg, Alex Rigali, Ryan Baumbusch and David Murk – combined efforts with the DVC Student Veterans Group to host a benefit concert in the cafeteria.

Despite the rain, a low turn-out and last-minute change of location, the event still col-lected $575 in donations for two veterans’ support groups, Swords to Plowshares and East Bay Stand Down.

The event began around 4 p.m., with visitors donat-ing money, buying T-shirts and raffle tickets for an Ipod

DVC win conference for first time in 50 years

Vikings seeded sixth in upcoming state playoffs

Sports 4

DVC’s red-hot arts courses

Students pour out beautiful works of art

Entertainment 3

UAID coalition found guiltyNewly elected officers forced to make apology

ZACH BECKER / INQUIRERLindsay St. Hill cries moments after the Elections Commitee found the UAID coalition guilty of two election code violations.

By Matthew SageStaff writer

The 5 percent discount given to students with As-sociated Students of DVC stickers may become the latest casualty of a dis-trict finding that the DVC bookstore has been losing money for five of the last six years.

Bookstore manager Bill Foster said the sticker dis-count is one of many cost-cutting measures under dis-cussion, although it is not at the top of the list.

“That would be our last option,” Foster said. “I think we’re going to solve our problem before it gets to that.”

Bill Oye, dean of student life, said he opposes the sticker discount disappear-

Heroes living on the streetsStudents try to raise aware-ness about homeless vets.

ing altogether.“We want to keep students

loyal to the bookstore,” he said. “My argument is, if you take away that discount entirely, we’re going to lose that loyalty.”

But possible elimination of the sticker discount is just the latest issue involv-ing students to surface as a result of the bookstore’s newly discovered losses.

By law, any profits made by on-campus bookstores must be used to benefit stu-dents.

But zero profit – never mind a six-figure deficit – means no money for stu-dent needs.

“It’s been kind of a shock to us,” said Oye, whose of-

fice relies on about $150,000 in bookstore profits each year to help pay for student gov-ernment and club activities, student awards, graduation activities, “college success” workshops, staff positions in the Student Life office, and more.

So far, his office has used reserves to pay expenses normally covered by book-store profits, but those re-serves are now nearly gone, Oye said.

Foster, Oye and Chris Lei-vas, DVC’s vice president

of finance, met Monday to brainstorm alternative ways to fund student life and will do so again on May 18.

Foster said he did not learn about the red ink until last November, when he was told the bookstore had lost $314,355 in the 2007-2008 school year.

Until then, he said, he had never been told the bookstore was operating at a loss.

But a reshuffling of posi-tions at the district office re-sulted in a new person look-ing at the bookstore’s books and redoing the numbers, Foster said.

“[It was then] that we were told we weren’t making money,” he said.

The district audit showed the bookstore has been oper-ating at a loss for five of the last six years, Foster said.

But since the district ran

the bookstore until the end of the 2006-2007 school year, the college is only responsible for losses since then, he said.

Contributing to the red ink was a $1 million outlay for fixtures, cash registers, file cabinets and desks when the bookstore moved into its new quarters on the opposite side of the Main Quad in 2007, Foster said.

The bookstore will have paid off that expense at the rate of $200,000 a year in another three years, said Lei-vas, DVC’s vice president of finance.

Foster said he immediately began making changes after learning the news last semes-ter, including cutting back on labor costs and eliminating the faculty discount received on purchases.

By the end of the school year, he said he expects to turn a $100,000 profit to ap-ply towards the $314,364 in red ink.

Campus bookstore struggling with huge debtStudent life loses $150,000 in sales profits used annually to fund student government, club activities and graduation

See VETERANS, Back Page

Student urges unity, world peace

FeaturesDIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE2 The Inquirer Thursday, May 7, 2009

Alex RigaliGuest writer

Kamran Amintaheri, 25, believes all politicians tell lies.

“I’m not talking about Iranian politicians, or Americans, or Italians, or Arabs or Chinese,” he says. “I want to talk about all of them, because I believe they are not that dif-ferent. They just use different tools.”

The second-semester student was born in Iran and has been to the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Honduras and the United States.

“This is what I saw in every part of this globe,” Aminta-heri said. “Honest politicians are rare exceptions.”

Amintaheri speaks three languages – Farsi, Spanish and English – and understands Italian and Arabic. He is an avid member of the speech and debate team and well-known for speaking out against racism and propaganda.

DVC speech and debate coach John Hanecak, says Amintaheri is a person willing to take risks.

“He spoke in front of 300 people after only being in America for three months,” Hanecak says, “and Eng-lish was his third language.”

Amintaheri said Americans know little of Iran’s contri-butions to the world.

“Let me tell you some of the things that come from Iran,” he says, reeling off a list that includes the first chapter of human rights ( 500 BC ), refrigerators, batteries, celebrat-

ing birthdays (from Mithraism ), tar, wine, celebrating the new year, poker, backgammon, the game of polo, roads, spinach, animation, ice cream, the postal system, teaching hospitals and the cookie.

“Because of the political issues, you can only find the negative side of Iran,” Amintaheri says, “but there are a lot of things that we have done for the humanity.”

Amintaheri says Iranians have faced hard times in the past 30 years, from the revolution to the Iraq-Iran War and now their current government.

“But you know what?” he says, “Though it is a very tough time… we grew [and], we learned a lot from these difficulties …so we have a much more realistic view of the world.”

This is in contrast to Americans, Amintaheri says, who, until the current economic crisis, were “kind of asleep” and did not know about politicians and their games.

“So I think Americans needed this crisis,” he says, “to think again and to have a better view of life and others.”

Amintaheri believes hatred against Jews, Christians, unbelievers, Muslims, Africans, Native Americans and others is the product of propaganda.

“It’s not just about hatred,” he says. “It’s about all of the major issues of a country, from the war to the taxes.

“And in all of them, advertisement and propaganda are the key.”

Propaganda is the tool governments use, he says, to convince their citizens to go off to war, to pay more taxes and to see them as God.

Amintaheri works on his speeches, teaches piano and hopes to soon transfer as a business administration and communications major.

He is also working on getting a DVD published about Iran, “Kamranat,” which has been viewed by 440,000 people on You Tube. It can be seen at www.you-tube.com/user/kamaranat.

Despite cultural and ethnic differences, Amintaheri says he believes people are the same all over the world.

“People share so many good qualities,” he says. “[They] are tired of wars, conflicts and pov-erty.”

“They want to live in peace... They want to see a better future for their children… and for their loved ones.”

But governments do not care for such things, Amintaheri says.

Why? “Because war and

poverty,” he says, “af-fect normal people like you and me, not them.”

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ELISE ACREDOLO AND CHRIS CORBIN / INQUIRER

4CD CAMPUS ALERT SYSTEM

Contra Costa Community College District Police Department

Contra Costa Community College District (4CD) Introduces the NEW

For more information on the 4CD Campus Alert Systemvisit www.4cd.edu/alert

1. SHELTER: Go to a safe indoor location

2. SHUT: Close and lock all doors and windows

3. LISTEN: Obtain more information from KCBS AM 740 and FM 106.9, or KTVU-2

WHEN CAMPUS ALERT SIRENS SOUND:

Siren tests are conducted the first Wednesday of every month at 11 AM

Emergency information will also be posted at www.4cd.edu

Contra Costa College Diablo Valley College Los Medanos College San Ramon Campus

Christian VillanuevaStaff writer

The Art building remains a center of calm, despite the stress of approaching finals and other end-of-semester worries.

The smell of wet clay wafts through the ceramics lab as stu-dents work meditatively to the rhythmic hum of the pottery wheel, an REM song playing in the background.

“This machine kills fascism” is written on a guitar that hangs from the wall and is covered in clay dust, as is everything in the room.

The occasional sounds of a chop-saw filter in from the sculp-ture lab next door.

Walking past the warm kiln room and the racks of sculptures and pots, a visitor enters the metal works yard with its piles of black ”coke” (used in the furnace during iron pours) and a jum-ble of scrap iron that includes weights, pipes, rusty rebar and the rod iron frame of a chair.

On this day, students are doing a bronze pour. The red-hot, molten bronze boils out the top of the molds. The heat can be felt from 15 feet away, as two big guys pour the metal from a glowing crucible.

PHOTOS BY ZACH BECKER/ INQUIRER

Angela Fortain, top, works on her welding skills. Cal Massey, left, helps pour white-hot molten bronze into a mold to create a sculpture. Takemi Tsuruta, right, shaves his clay pot layer by layer, to create a series of bowls.

Diane Jow works on a sculpture of her class-mate Soran-ya in the Art building’s ceramics lab on April 21, 2009.

EntertainmentDIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE The Inquirer 3Thursday, May 7, 2009

SPORTSDIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE4 The Inquirer Thursday, May 07, 2009

See More Photos Onlinewww.theinquireronline.com

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By Matt SageStaff writer

DVC’s swim teams narrowly missed plac-ing in the state championships April 23-25 at Belmont Plaza, finishing No. 4 among 40 qualifying junior colleges.

“It’s quite an accomplishment,” Millington said. “[It’s] always fun to win, but we didn’t have the numbers at the state meet.”

Sophomore captain Kim Bierwith broke state records in both the 50 free and the 50 butterfly, with her 50 butterfly time becoming a junior college national record.

“Not a lot of student athletes at DVC have a national record,” said head coach Rick Mil-lington.

At the Big 8 Conference championships held on April 16-18, both the men’s and wom-en’s team finished third.

“It’s not as good as we wanted to do,” Bier-with said. “We’ve had to deal with losing a lot of people throughout

the year.”Bier-with

won all three

of her events

at the Con-ference champi-onships, which helped her earn Swimmer of the Year for the second straight season.

By Curtis UemuraStaff writer

After winning its first conference champi-onship outright in more than 58 years, DVC’s baseball team now looks to its first game to-morrow against West Valley College in the state playoffs against West Valley College.

“To win the toughest conference in the state is a big deal and great honor for all of us to achieve,” said third baseman Travis Kruger.

DVC won the Big 8 Conference champion-ship, despite dropping its last two games to second-place Cosumnes River.

The two losses dropped the Vikings to 15-6 in conference and 29-14 overall, while ranking No. 3 in Northern California and No. 10 in state.

“The last two losses don’t affect our confi-dence at all,” said outfielder Corey Conflenti. “We know what were capable of as a team, and the playoffs are the start of what really mat-ters.”

Despite its high Northern California ranking, the Vikings are the sixth seed in the state play-offs, but will still have the home field advantage when they host No. 11 seed West Valley in a best of three series Friday and Saturday.

“It was shocking,” head coach Mike Neu said. “But we have to beat everyone. It really doesn’t matter who we play.”

The first game begins at 2 p.m., followed by a second game at 11 a.m. Saturday and a third at 1 p.m., if a deciding game is necessary.

“We were very surprised with such a low seed after winning our conference,” Kruger said. “But that will serve as motivation going into the playoffs. The Vikings and West Valley met twice during the regular season, each team win-ning a game on their home field.”

DVC has been exceptional at home this sea-son, only losing three games all season and only one in conference play.

Swim team finishes fourth in state meet

“We seem to play with a different swagger and the mindset that nobody can come to our field and beat us,” Kruger said.

The winner of that series will move on to the regional tournament, which is a double elimi-

nation tournament to be played on a neutral site

May 15 – 17.

The No. 6 seed is the highest DVC has been seeded in over seven years. “As a team, we are very proud of what we did this year,” Conflenti said. “Winning the Big 8 was our second highest goal, next to win-ning state, so we [still] aren’t satisfied.”

Baseball team wins Big 8 Conference outright for first time in 58 years,receives sixth seed in the state playoffs

National record for junior colleges set by Kim Bierwith in state championship

her earn Swimmer of the Year for the second straight season.

Sophomore captain Kim Bierwith broke state records in both the 50 free and the 50

At the Big 8 Conference championships held on April 16-18, both the men’s and wom-

won all three

But Bierwith is only one member of a very strong 2009 DVC swim team.

“We’re always in the top 10,” Millington said. “This has been a real fun group to coach.”

At the Conference championships, DVC pulled unexpected upset victories in the men’s 200-medley relay and the women’s 400 free-style relay.

DVC swimming has 19 All-Americans, in-cluding eight men and 11 women.

DVC limps into state playoffs

“To win the toughest conference in the state is a big deal and great honor for all of us to achieve.”

–Travis KrugerThird Baseman

“Not a lot of student athletes at DVC have a national record.”

–Rick MillingtonHead Coach

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION / Yun Yang / INQUIRER

Video games aren’t just for socially awkward guys who live in their parents’ basements and have Funyun and Mountain Dew breath, anymore.

Females are play-ing games in steadily increasing numbers. Indeed, 40 percent of all gamers today are female, accord-ing to the ESA Es-sential Facts 2008 study conducted by the Entertainment Software Associa-tion.

Yet, the trend is not represented in the games them-

selves. Male lead characters in games rated “T (Teen)” or higher outnumber their female counter-parts 16 to 1.

As a life-long lady gamer, this disparity is not lost on me.

When Tomb Raider came out for the PlayStation in 1996, it was a revelation. Lara Croft was a fe-male character with the strength and charisma to hold down a franchise – and she sported a seriously impressive set of guns.

Thrilling as it was to have Ms. Croft plundering her way through ancient tombs and laying waste to mystical beasts, it also brought into focus the veri-table wasteland of female video game characters.

Thirteen years later, sadly, very little has

changed. Of the 737 console games released in 2008, 20

had women in the title role, and another 42 pro-vided players with a choice in their avatar’s gender, according to Metacritic.com.

The Sony PS3 scored the most poorly in gender diversity, offering up only three games with female leads, Microsoft Xbox 360 did slightly better with four and the Nintendo Wii fared the best with 17, although the games are geared primarily toward the under 12 set.

That’s not to say the fairer sex doesn’t make fre-quent virtual appearances.

In recent years there have been a number of strong female characters, notably the Heavenly Sword-wielding Nariko, parkour delivery special-ist Faith, and slayer of all things undead Jill Val-entine.

However, for every Jill Valentine, there is a le-gion of other virtual ladies relegated to supporting roles.

A typical female in a video game is a sidekick, a damsel in distress, a femme fatale, a sex worker or – in one particularly antifeminist case – a fat prin-cess the player keeps safe by steadily force-feeding her large quantities of cake.

Another area of feminist contention: attire. Were I to fight crime, masses of the undead or

opponents in the ring, a one-piece spandex thong and thigh-high stilettos wouldn’t be my go-to gar-ments, particularly if I’ve had breast augmentation of circus freak proportions.

Despite any arguments that could be made for

the flexibility of said uniform, the high potential for nipple slippage alone would outweigh any ra-tionalization about its comfort and breathe-ability. Not to mention, where precisely does one holster her firearm?

One encourag-ing trend is that, as character cus-tomization tech-nology increases, so does the fre-quency of having the option to play as a female character.

This becomes something of particular interest in the recent title Fable 2, in which moral and dietary choices have a physical effect on a character’s ap-pearance, meaning that a character can be anything from waifish to body builder-esque, a remark-able twist of the ascetics of female characters in games.

Video games have made great evolutionary leaps technologically, from the 8-bit Nintendo Entertain-ment System to the supercomputer power of the Xbox 360.

The depth and complexity of storytelling and the sheer number of things a character can do within today’s games would have been unthinkable when I started playing them 20 years ago.

However, when it comes to portraying woman-kind, video games are still swimming in the pri-mordial ooze.

OPINIONSDIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE The Inquirer 5Thursday, May 7, 2009

What are your plans for the summer break?

EDITORIAL

OPINIONMore female representation needed in video games

The ASDVC Elections Committee, led by Vice President Anna Bragin-sky, betrayed its calling by deliver-ing the merest slap on the wrist after unanimously finding President Bundit Kertbundit and the UAID coalition of winning candidates in violation of the ASDVC elections code and its consti-tution.

A forced apology is far too mild, given that seven of the 10 officers mak-ing up the ASDVC executive board for the 2009-2010 school year won their seats after being backed or endorsed by Kertbundit and UAID during the campaign.

This includes Kertbundit’s succes-sor and hand-picked UAID candidate, President-elect Lindsay St. Hill.

Judging from some UAID members’ laughter at a recent ASDVC meeting when complaints were raised and their sometimes-profanity-laced reactions to The Inquirer’s coverage of the story, it would seem an insincere apology, at best.

Some UAID members are not only unapologetic, they seem to believe they did nothing wrong.

In a recent interview with The In-quirer, Kertbundit went so far as to say he would refuse to apologize for one of the violations for which he and UAID were found guilty.

The Elections Committee has set a terrible precedent for future elections.

It sends the message that candidates can run their campaigns any way they see fit without fear of repercussions.

In meting out this scant punishment, the Elections Committee cited the diffi-culty and lack of time remaining in the semester to hold another election.

However, more than three weeks elapsed between the election and the Committee’s meeting April 30. It should have promptly called emer-gency meetings until the problem was dealt with.

A re-vote, at the bare minimum, seems only fair.

To not do so rewards UAID and pun-ishes all of the other candidates who ran fair and legal campaigns.

Any violation of the electoral code, even minor ones, erodes democracy. And when nothing meaningful is done to punish the perpetrators, it makes the system look corrupt.

At local, state, and national levels of government, campaign fraud and fi-nance violations are considered serious crimes that carry hefty monetary penal-ties and, in some cases, jail time.

ASDVC and the student body should be replicating this democratic process.

At the very least, this decision shows poor judgment, if not a serious conflict of interest.

UAID may have won the election without going over its budget limit, by filing all of its expenditures, as required and without the help of Kertbundit, as it claims. But we will never know for sure.

This is truly an embarrassment to DVC.

Editorial BoardEditor in chief: Ariel Messman-RuckerNews editor: Curtis UemuraFeatures editor: Christian VillanuevaSports editor: Yun YangOpinions editor: Rachel ShattoOnline editor: Rachel Shatto

StaffPhoto chief: Chris CorbinPhotographers: Keiva Hummel & Zach BeckerCartoonist: Yun YangGraphic Designer: Elise AcredoloReporters: Lauren Unruh, Matthew Sage & Oksana Yurovsky

The InquirerDiablo Valley College

321 Golf Club Road, H-102Pleasant Hill, CA 94523

The Inquirer is published on Thursday morn-ings during the school year by the journal-ism students of Diablo Valley College. All unsigned articles appearing on the opinions page are editorials and reflect a two-thirds

majority opinion of the editorial staff. All signed columns and cartoons are the opinions of the writer or artist and not necessarily those of the Inquirer, Diablo Valley College of the Contra Costa Community College District.

Phone: 925.685.1230 ext. 2313Fax: 925.681.3045

E-mail: inquirer@dvc.eduWeb: www.dvc.edu/journalismwww.theinquireronline.com

ASDVC election is a failure of democracy

Keven Sorensen, 21 Managerial Econ. Major

“I’m going to Minnesota and Canada...to visit my friend’s aunt in northern Canada. She lives off the grid.”

Interviewer: Christian VillanuevaPhotographer: Zach Becker

Jack Dillon, 21Art Major

“I was hoping to do some drugs, as much as possible. I’m growing a cactus with some mescaline in it.”

Paul Kang , 17Undecided

“I might be doing a 50 mile hike with my Boy Scout troop. I might go back to Seoul.”

Winner of the 2008 JACCGeneral Excellence Award

Nicole Hess-Diestler, 30+Performing Arts Instructor

“I’m adopting out of the foster care system, two children. Other than that, teaching two classes and writing two new ones.”

Rachel Shatto Opinions editor

“Were I to fight crime... a one-piece span-dex thong and thigh-high sti-lettos wouldn’t be my go-to garments.”

The Inquirer

Ashley Hudson, 19Coaching Major

“Really nothing now, cause I have to go to summer school. I guess I’ll just be here playing basketball.”

Agents: everything that is wrong with professional sportsThey advertise other humans bodies for money. They are profitable in their business. More often than not they exploit their clients.

They’re called “sleazebags,” “leaches” and “SOB’s.”

But to most people they are just “sports agents.”

If the sports world and the real world ran parallel, agents would be the pimps, the ones who sell women for sex, dress in fur and walk with a cane.

Jay Mohr’s char-acter in “Jerry Maguire,” Bob Sug-

ar, is the stereotypical sports agent. But take a look around at the sports world today,

and you’ll find sports agents have become walking, talking stereotypes.

He’s a slick talker, a backstabber and doesn’t

care at all about his clients. Are you rooting against him? Yes. Do you hate him? Indeed. The Bob Sugars of real life could only be one

man, baseball agent Scott Boras. His name has become synonymous with driving

up the price of signing his prized clients. Who got A-rod his $252 million contract? Boras. Remember Barry Zito’s record setting $126 mil-

lion dollar contract? That was Boras again. When Manny Ramirez sulked his way out of

Boston in order to get a bigger contract, many sports figures pointed the finger at his agent.

Boras, of course. His presence as a player’s agent has even led to

trades or avoiding an athlete altogether. Todd Van Poppel, the top player to enter the 1990

MLB draft, wasn’t drafted until the 14th pick. Why? Boras, again. The same thing could happen to this year’s top

college pitcher Stephen Strasburg, a junior at San

Diego State. He is the No. 1 prospect in the draft.But the team with the first pick may pass. It’s definitely not because Boras is asking for

$50 million, it has to be some-thing else.

Boras is just unlikable. He brings nothing to the game of baseball, which would be fine if he didn’t have so much power.

In a 2008 col-umn, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons called Boras, “one of the worst human beings in America who hasn’t actually committed a crime.”

That is why the agents are the underbelly of the sports world. You can just picture them in a dark alley, selling body parts like strong arms or quick legs.

But hey, maybe we should give them a break. After all, as Big Daddy Kane would say, “Pimpin’ ain’t easy.”

Curtis UemuraStaff writer

“Agents are the underbelly of the sports world. You can just picture them in a dark alley, selling body parts like strong arms or quick legs.”

Shuffle (donated by the finan-cial aid office) and picking up information from the Concord Veterans’ Center and Veterans of Foreign Wars booths.

Music was provided by Greg Lamboy, who plays acoustic pop. He offered to sell his CD for $10, with the sales going to the cause.

Speakers included Brad Heatherington, a DVC student and veteran of Desert Storm, who was formerly homeless.

After 15 years of post-war

drug and alcohol addiction, he sought help through the Con-cord Veterans’ Center, where he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He recovered after three years of treatment and is now married and pursuing a career as a den-tal hygienist.

Heatherington said a big part of his recovery was real-izing there were resources for veterans and people who knew what he had gone through.

“My hope here is to create awareness for students to seek help,” he said, “because there is help out there.”

Speech 121 student Rigali emphasized the severity of the situation during his speech.

“Although only 9 percent of the U.S. population has served in the armed forces, 25 percent of all homeless people in the country are veterans,” he said.

Fellow Speech 121 student Baumbusch, a Navy veteran of the Iraq war, talked about the importance of prevention.

“[People need to] take more time,” he said, “because it would be easier to prevent homelessness than to try to stop it when it already hap-pens.”

NewsDIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE6 The Inquirer Thursday, May 7, 2009

CalendarThursday May 7Video Game TournamentBFL Conference Room4:30 p.m.-7 p.m.

“The Physics for 9/11 Truth”Student Union Conference Room12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Friday May 8 – 10Blithe SpiritArena Theater

Saturday May 9ACM Inter-Collegiate Programming ContestACT 115 8 a.m.- 3 p.m.BFL Conference Room 12:30 p.m.- 1:30 p.m.

Monday May 11DVC Chamber Ensembles concertMusic building room M101Free admission

Sacramento University VisitTransfer Center9:30 a.m. -3:30p.m.Appointments and Drop-In

Tuesday May 12CSU East Bay On-the-Spot AdmissionTransfer CenterAppointments 9:40 a.m.-11:30 and 12:15 p.m.-3p.m.

Wednesday May 13Grand Finale Jazz ConcertWith DVC Night Jazz Band and Jazz Ensemble Performing Arts Center8 p.m.$7 in advance, $10 at the door

Thursday May 14Art Institute of California –San FranciscoTransfer CenterDrop- In 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Study Abroad London Informational MeetingLA-1183 p.m.

Chapman UniversityTransfer Center5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

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April 30, 2009

Science Hill parking areaAn employee was struck by a vehicle while he was attempting to advise the driver that he wasn’t in a legal parking space.

POLICE BEAT

SILENT WITNESS: Working together to solve crimeThe Silent Witness tip line provides a means of communi-cation for members of the campus community to provide District Police with information on crimes or suspects on campus. Tipsters can give information ANONYMOUSLY without revealing their identity.

LOST AND FOUND is located at Police Services. People who have lost items or have found items may come into Po-lice Services Monday thru Thursday 8a.m. – 10p.m., Friday 8a.m. – 5p.m. and Saturday 8p.m. – 3p.m.

Unconventional DVC professor spurs thoughtHistory instructor Mickey Huff approaches a traditional subject with a radical perspective

By Ariel Messman-RuckerEditor in chief

A “corporate American flag” decorates one office wall, its 50 stars replaced by the Play-boy bunny, McDonald’s gold-en arches, the Nike swoosh and other marketing symbols.

Radical bumper stickers cover the file cabinets and his-tory tombs share space with books on media censorship and alternative textbooks.

Mickey Huff, 38, is not your typical DVC professor.

From his full beard and long pony tail, you might think “lib-eral Berkeley hippie.” But he grew up in a small coal town in Pennsylvania and has only lived in Berkeley for 10 years.

Not that Huff doesn’t share some of the values of the ’60s peace and justice movement. He recently helped to pro-mote the resurgence at DVC of Students for a Democratic Society, one of the era’s most famous student run-activist groups.

Huff teaches two history survey classes and “Critical Reasoning in History” (Histo-ry 122). While he has worked at DVC for close to a decade,

he only became a full-time faculty member last year.

Instead of asking students to regurgitate facts from text-books he says are written by the “corporate media propa-ganda machine,” he uses alter-native texts like the “Peoples’ History of the United States,” “Project Censored” and an ev-er-growing list of websites.

Huff’s critical thinking his-tory class is titled “America, 9/11 and the War on Terror: Media Myth Making as Cen-sorship and the Propaganda of Historical Construction.” In it, he asks students to look at history and current events, such as 9/11, in a new light.

“[We] go back and look at, what are the official narratives about 9/11 that the government and the mainstream, corporate press have put forward? ver-sus, what are the alternative narratives based on facts?” he said in a recent interview.

And while the course does not attempt to convince stu-dents of some alternative ver-sion of 9/11, it does try “to get them to understand…how little we seem to know about it,” Huff said.

Huff is greatly interested in

media censorship and recently became the associate director of the Media Freedom Foun-dation and Project Censored.

A media watchdog group based out of Sonoma State University, Project Censored researches national news sto-ries that are ignored, under-reported or censored by U.S. mainstream media and every year publishes the “Top 25 Censored Stories.”

Huff co-authored two chap-ters and edited many more in the latest edition, “Censored 2009,” and is currently co-editing and writing for, “Cen-sored 2010.”

“He’s not one of those peo-

ple that pushes his own agen-da on students,” said Frances Cappell, 22, a former student and his teaching assistant last semester. “He encourages free thought and independent thinking.”

Now a full-time intern at Project Censored, Cappell de-scribed Huff as “a human en-cyclopedia of really interest-ing facts.”

Student Alicia Sanhueza, likes that Huff is unbiased and said he bashes Republicans and Democrats equally when they are in the wrong.

“It’s refreshing,” she said. Huff said he does what he

can “to impress upon people

the importance of understand-ing their own histories, the importance of respecting other people’s narratives and stories and the significance of being a well-informed electorate in a free society.”

On a recent afternoon, Wil-liam Backer left LA 118, say-ing, “I wish this class was five days a week..”

Backer said his reaction to his new professor during the first class meeting was, “Oh, no! A crazy 9/11 conspira-cist!” But that soon changed, because “he wasn’t telling us what to believe.”

Huff said he teaches full time at a community college “because it is a community.”

“The idea,” he said, “is to try to get as many different people with as many different ideas as you can to come here and give people things to think about.”

“I respect that he lets us choose,” said SDS member Alicia Fambrini. “He refuses to give us his opinions, be-cause he doesn’t want to influ-ence us.”

(J120 student Linda Wolf contributed to this story.)

Former student creates textbook exchange site By Oksana YurovskyStaff writer

Former DVC student Chris Sargisov has launched an on-line textbook exchange pro-gram in which a DVC student seeking a particular textbook is matched with another stu-dent here who wants to sell it.

Sargisov, 27, said he always bought his books at the DVC bookstore or online, but af-ter transferring to California State University East Bay, he realized he might have another option.

While talking to a classmate in December 2007, Sargisov learned she wanted to take a class he was already taking. He offered to sell her his text-book, and she accepted.

After the conversation, Sargisov said he had an idea:

“Why don’t I swap all my text-books?”

Thus, the textbook exchange program was born.

After meeting with several developers and finding a web-site designer, textbull.com was launched in February 2009.

“I’m always looking for ideas,” said Sargisov, who ma-jored in business.

The concept is straightfor-ward: Students log on, regis-ter and list the textbooks they need and want to sell.

The website is free and does not have any ads. Sargisov said he currently funds the project himself.

While there is no way to make sure those who register are actually students, he en-courages users to be on the lookout for suspicious activity and to use discretion when ar-

ranging an exchange. Once a match between two

students is made, they can make arrangements to meet.

Andrew Applegate, 19, said he buys most of his textbooks from the campus bookstore. He said he would consider ex-changing textbooks with stu-dents, “if the price is right.”

Currently, 217 different text-book titles are listed.

To make the exchanges more convenient, matches are campus based, meaning that students are only matched with those attending the same college.

Though Sargisov wants to make DVC the “pilot pro-gram” for textbull.com, five other campuses are currently participating.

Of 112 currently registered users, 74 are DVC students.

Continued from front pageVeterans

“[I try] to impress upon people the importance of under-standing their own histo-

ries...and the significance of being a well-in-formed electorate

in a free society.”–Mickey Huff

History professor

ZACH BECKER / INQUIRER

History teacher Mickey Huff leads an enaging and fast paced lecture on April 30, 2009.