‘Contra Mantra’

Army of the Pharaohs

enemy soil/ babygrande

How many artists mob the stage with three or eight microphone-toting homies and nothing interesting to say? But when a super group of musicians who are all on point collaborate, it can be beautiful. Army of the Pharaoh’s crew of East Coast underground MCs — assembled by Jedi Mind Trick’s Vinnie Paz — present a diverse sound but stay connected lyrically, spitting bars on the state of hip-hop and the rise of the underground. Starting out with just a break beat, the piece gets super thick as DC the Midi Alien layers haunting piano and guitar samples, matching the serious tone of the verses. Raw vocal scratches help the artists’ message sink in as the beat rides out.

— Janani Sridharan

Senior Staff Writer

‘Crash Years’

The New Pornographers

matador

After the restrained lulls present in their last album, Challengers, The New Pornographers try to prove they can come back from the lucrative trough of their bygone pop wave. Neko Case’s joyful vocals, backed by the finely-tuned instrumentation, harmoniously lace up latest single “Crash Years”. The pairing of drums and low-toned strings is entrancing at the opening and close of the song. Coupled with jingling bells and infectious whistles, it’s reminiscent of their earlier work, which will have long-time fans in a tizzy. Case and company captivate like a multi-car pileup, but you’ll be swaying with a smile rather than rubber-necking with a grimace.

— Andrew Tieu

Staff Writer

[caption id="attachment_17215" align="alignright" width="201" caption="Erik Jepsen/Guardian"][/caption]

To commence the countdown to this year’s Sun God Festival on May 14, A.S. Concerts & Events scattered bookmarks with the names of five artists slated to appear on the main stage across campus earlier this week. Among the names leaked were Drake — who Associate Vice President of Concerts and Events Alex Bramwell confirmed as the event’s headliner — Michelle Branch, Thrice, Relient K and DJ Z-Trip.

The bookmarks, painted with artist portraits bearing the stylized Sun God stamp and a tip to check out http://www.sungodfestival.ucsd.edu on April 5 for the full lineup, appeared early on the morning of March 29, when members of ASCE placed them in areas such as Mandeville, Price Center and Library Walk.

Last year, the festival’s lineup was revealed over megaphone at the annual Battle of the Bands.

“Traditionally, announcing the lineup at Battle of the Bands has been anti-climactic and awkward,” Bramwell said. “This year, we wanted to do something new and fun, so we did a soft release of some of the bigger acts. We wanted people to find the artists on their own — get people talking to their friends and building the buzz.”

The unusual nature of the release left some students unsure if the musicians were officially confirmed for the festival.

“I thought they were just rumors,” Muir College senior Rebecca Holland said. “I kept hearing about Michelle Branch and Drake and seeing people update their statuses on Facebook, but I didn’t know if they were actually coming.”

Other students thought the partial release of the lineup was a mistake made by A.S. Concerts & Events.

“The story I heard was that some idiot accidentally left the flyers outside,” Marshall College senior Denice Praxidio said.

Plans for a similar viral campaign were discussed for the festival last year, but fell through due to design and printer delays.

According to Bramwell, almost all the other acts performing at Sun God are booked. He said the April 5 release of the festival’s full lineup will include other details about the event, including the layout of the event on RIMAC Field and the other three artists performing on the main stage.

“Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, we’ll have some banners around campus [on Monday],” Bramwell said. “We’re going to have a Web site launch; the Sun God Web site will be completely updated, and we’ll have a Facebook event circulating.”

In the past, A.S. Concerts & Events switched off between hip-hop and rock headliners from year to year. The decision to book Drake as the headliner following the 2009 headlining performance from hip-hop band N.E.R.D. represents a change in priorities for the 2010 festival.

“We generally flip-flop between rock and hip-hop, although that is not necessarily how it always has been,” Bramwell said. “We didn’t feel like we should settle for a less popular rock act if a better hip-hop act was available. I think Drake’s a cool headliner. He’s at his peak right now as an up and coming artist. He’s more relevant than some of the previous headliners we’ve had.”

Praxidio was enthusiastic about the lineup.

“I think the lineup is a big step up from last year,” she said. “I think this year really has something for everyone.”

Though the majority of the acts are booked by ASCE, the traditional Battle of the Bands —held April 3 at the Loft — will determine the main-stage opener.

Student bands registered online at the Sun God Web site, where other students could vote for their favorites. Voting ended March 14 and now the top five bands — Mack’N Biz, Diversion Sound, Seriously, Zephyr Riot and Mad Traffic — will compete.

Yet another musical face-off — the first ever DJ Battle Dance Party — will take place on April 2 at the Loft to determine which student deejays will spin under the festival’s dance tent.

“Last year, we had a deal with DVC where we gave them blocks of time and they chose the DJs,” Bramwell said. “We still gave DVC blocks of time early in the afternoon, but we wanted to give the DJs that we felt were the best a spot.”

A panel of five judges consisting of A.S. Concerts & Events interns and staff members will decide both the Battle of the Bands and the DJ Battle Dance Party.

“It’s a pretty good way for student deejays to get an equal chance to perform,” said, Sixth College senior Justin Park, who will compete as DJ Skyblu. “Even if you might not know the right people, you can have a shot of getting in the lineup.”

Readers can contact Janani Sridharan at [email protected].

The cost of on-campus dorms and dining will likely increase beginning Fall Quarter 2010.

A proposed department budget, finalized by the on-campus Housing, Dining and Hospitality Services Board earlier this month, now awaits approval by Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Penny Rue. The plan would increase dining plans by $98 a year for students in the residence halls, and $75 for those in on-campus apartments.

Housing fees would increase by $279 a year for students living in single or double rooms in the residence halls, and $247 for those in triple rooms. In the apartments, single- and double-room occupants would see a $287 increase, and students in triple rooms would pay $237 more.

The committee, which passed the budget on March 12, is comprised of nine students representing each of the six colleges, student staff, the Inter-Collegiate Residents Association and the A.S. Council, as well as six administrative representatives from HDS, the Financial Aid Office, and the Residential Life Office. Voting members passed the budget 10-1, with one member abstaining and A.S. Campuswide Senator Wafa Ben Hassine casting the sole dissenting vote.

Those in favor of the proposal said the increases are necessary to maintain current dining services and food prices.

“The [increased] fees are [needed] because of the input gap that has been going up in general,” ICRA representative Michael Lam said. “Food, utilities and other costs are going up — such as water for all of San Diego.”

According to Lam, if the cost of dining packages remains the same, significant cuts in services will follow, including the possible shut down of OceanView Terrace — which has the highest operational costs and the largest student workforce of any dining hall at UCSD. In the event of OVT’s closure, adult staff would move to other on-campus venues, but students would have to reapply to work at another dining hall.

Eleanor Roosevelt College committee representative Daniella Shulman said the decision to endorse a fee increase came after much deliberation on the subject.

“I want to stress that the committee has been working for an entire quarter on this to make the budget,” Shulman said. “In comparison to every other UC, I believe San Diego has the lowest housing costs.”

UCSD has the third cheapest housing in the system, with UC Merced and UC Riverside being the most affordable with respect to on-campus residence halls.

Director of Housing, Dining and Hospitality Services Mark Cunningham said an increase in mandatory dining dollars would help pay for the reopening of Sierra Summit, the John Muir College dining hall currently undergoing renovations. He added that bump in fees would not be accompanied by any increase in food prices, and that the current level of services would continue.

According to a 2010-11 budget released by the board, HDS is trying to cover an expected decrease in total income of over $2,300,000, as well as an increase in expenses of over $1,120,000. Given that 33 percent of undergraduates live in on-campus housing, implementing this increase will raise at least $2,550,000 to cover those costs. In addition to the funds generated by the proposed dining dollar and housing fee increase, HDS will be enacting minor cuts in general service expenses — such as groundskeeping, buses, conferences, and post-office services — and large cuts in service improvement and development.

At a hour and a half long public-input period proceeding the board’s vote, students asked the committee to reject dining-dollar and housing fee increases, saying they were an unnecessary burden on freshmen and sophomores.

“Housing and Dining knows that students are unaware, and they keep on raising fees when they might not even be necessary and taking advantage of a lack of concern,” Revelle College Resident Adviser Chiang Jui Young said. “[Students] might not care personally because their parents are paying their fees.”

Ben Hassine said she voted against the extra dining dollars due to her concern that students fees are already rising so steadily.

“It’s essentially going to make our school less acceptable than it already is,” Ben Hassine said. “We already have 35-percent tuition increases, and to keep raising prices is dangerous, especially to students.”

Campuswide Senator Desiree Prevo said she felt students on the committee were unaware of how increased fees would negatively affect students and campus accessibility.

“Being someone that tries to get students to come here, especially from low-income backgrounds, it’s really hard to say, ‘Come here, but I’m not sure if you can afford it.’” Prevo said. “It puts me in a really difficult position.”

Readers can contact Henry Becker at [email protected].

An internal e-mail mistakenly leaked by the director of International House has received criticism from students who allege that the I-House administrators illegally use criteria such as race and citizenship in their admissions process.

On March 4, I-House Director Christi Gilhoi sent an e-mail to the entire I-House listserv with the subject line “Confidential — I-House Selection List.” The e-mail contained a spreadsheet with the personal information of 148 students who had applied to I-House in Fall Quarter 2009, including columns for factors such as “citizenship” and “cultural identity.”

A followup e-mail from Gilhoi asked recipients to permanently delete the e-mail without reading its contents, but the information was quickly circulated.

Elizabeth*, an Eleanor Roosevelt College junior who wished to remain anonymous, said the e-mail reveals a flawed admissions system in which citizenship and ethnicity are deciding factors.

“I definitely think people’s backgrounds have to do with whether or not [they] get in, because I know people who are one-eighth of some exotic race will write that because it will give them a better chance of getting in,” she said. “Students should not have to resort to white little lies to get in.”

She also said she found the scoring system to be arbitrary. When Elizabeth applied last year, she was placed on the wait list but eventually denied acceptance. Officials informed her she had not scored as high as other candidates, she said. However, according to the spreadsheet, students with much lower scores were accepted.

“There are people on that list who got in with average scores of 13 and13.5 when I got a 16.5 out of 18,” she said. “They lied to me.”

Elizabeth said admissions officials should take into account achievements on a global level, such as volunteer work and educational experiences abroad, instead of directly considering race.

John*, another student who declined to be named, created the e-mail account [email protected] to spread the word about the issue and the ways in which he believed the I-House Admittance Committee has violated both state and federal laws.

In an e-mail sent from the account to the I-House listserv, John claims the selection process violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically the Fair Housing Act provision.

According to the Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to base any housing-related transaction based on factors such as race, color, national origin, religion and sex.

Additionally, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs receiving financial assistance from the federal government.

International Group Affairs intern Jeremy McGrew — a member of Gilhoi’s staff — said it is outrageous that individuals like John are claiming racial discrimination occurs within an organization with the opposite mission.

“The whole point of this place is to create diversity and make it a blend of everyone from all over the world,” McGrew said. “How are we supposed to create an International House if we don’t know where the heck you are from? That is the only reason that line exists on the application.”

According to McGrew, it is optional to fill in one’s national origin and cultural identity on the application. He defended the I-House Admittance Committee’s system as “fair and diplomatic.”

“Anyone who is trying to criticize the setup of this, or how they run it, is trying to throw a wrench in something that’s moving very smoothly,” McGrew said. “We have a good setup, and good people, and good intentions.”

Eleanor Roosevelt College junior Pejman Moghbeli, a current I-House resident, said he disagreed with the decision to accept applicants with lower scores than those rejected, but understood why the staff would take cultural identity into consideration when facilitating an international community.

Elizabeth said she remains convinced that the issue extends beyond attempting to create diversity and expects I-House officials to provide a legitimate explanation for the e-mail.

“Right now, I just want some answers,” she said. “You can’t have any point system based on race and ethnicity.”

I-House Director Christi Gilhoi was unavailable for comment.

*Names have been changed.

Readers can contact Kelly Kim at [email protected].

At the first A.S. council meeting of Spring Quarter, councilmembers had little to talk about, yet managed to drag out their discussion and debate for over four hours.

Warren Senator Alyssa Wing announced the lineup for next Friday’s Warren Live concert – Delta Spirit, Junior Boys and Pop Noir.

Chancellor Marye Anne Fox arrived to present key points from last week’s UC Board of Regents meeting at UC San Francisco.

Fox updated councilmembers on the administration’s intent to define common goals and actions to improve the campus climate by enhancing diversity with admissions and retention.

Future plans include expanding opportunities for students to participate in cross-cultural events, identifying appropriate areas of campus for art displays representative of minority communities and creating resource centers for African American students.

Associate Vice President of Concerts & Events Alex Bramwell discussed how his department books artists for the Sun God Festival each year.

This year, the coveted festival wristbands will be distributed on both the Thursday before and the Friday of the festival. More details and the official line-up in its full glory will be revealed Monday, April 5 on the festival Web site.

Revelle Senator Arvind Satyanarayan brought his senator project – a glossy banner with facts about Revelle – to the council meeting.

The biggest talk of the night came when VP of Finance and Resources Peter Benesch gave an update on the state of the A.S. budget.

Recently, the funding originally allocated for media organizations was spent. With new student media outlet — such as No. 15 Magazine — councilmembers debated over whether the money would come from Mandate Reserves, which is money typically saved for traditional or long-term larger events or from money set aside for regular student organization programming.

“It isn’t about punishing new or old orgs, we’ve already overallocated our whole budget by $100,000, which is OK, but we established our priorities in the beginning of the year and we should stick to that,” Benesch said.

After a good hour of debate, $8,693.48 was allocated for No. 15 magazine from media orgs unallocated.

Members from the freshman council came to present their accomplishments from the last two quarters, and said an emotional goodbye.

Items from the finance committee and the campus affairs committee passed through council quickly and painlessly.

AVP Enterprise Operations Rishi Ghosh proposed a resolution urging the listing of non-bookstore class materials on Tritonlink and other campus systems as a way to improve the academic experience for students.

Talk later returned to the Mandate Reserve money during new business. Campuswide Senator Carli Thomas, said, “We’ve had a strong precedent of not passing mandate reserves. We relocate all this money — this happens every year.”

[caption id="attachment_17241" align="alignright" width="265" caption="Stefany Chen/Guardian"][/caption]

Things have been pretty mellow around here this week.

Maybe our minds are too fried from finals adderall abuse or spring break binge-drinks to remember anything. Maybe all this La Jolla sunshine is distracting us. Whatever the case, it’s safe to say most have forgotten the racial tension and free-speech debates that plagued the campus last quarter.

That is, at least all those who didn’t notice the tension until their paths were blocked from Rubio’s to Center Hall by a deafening “Real pain, real action!”

Now that Chancellor Marye Anne Fox has agreed to meet the Black Student Union’s list of demands and the local news channels have cleared Library Walk, efforts to create a more tolerant campus community have moved indoors. In particular, walkouts and picket signs have been replaced with an effort to pass statewide legislation that would ban hate speech.

A.S. Vice President External Affairs Gracelynne West and BSU co-chairs David Ritcherson and Fnann Keflezighi are currently working with the UC Student Association to implement a law that would make slur-loving publications like the Koala illegal.

Downright unconstitutional, if you ask us. A lot of other people think so too. But that’s an issue that — if challenged in court — will soon be hashed out with lawyers. The real problem with California Law AB 412 is that, in attempting to protect those who are hurt by racist remarks, would end up regulating individual thought.

Of course, most would rather poke fun at such legislation than care about what’s behind it: a group of students who feel ostracized when they hear their peers throwing around racial slurs with such causal callousness. But even if an umbrella policy swooped in and forced every hurtful word out of public discussion, the ignorance would remain.

Any policy which forces tolerance would most likely polarize the community further. Just think how determined Koala members were to release a sufficiently offensive issue once A.S. President Utsav Gupta slapped their paws and froze their funding. When a group of students feels their right to free speech is being threatened, they will come out in full force — focusing on their right to say something rather than how it might affect someone living a different experience.

That’s why we feel student leaders shouldn’t waste their time with broad legislation that trickles from the top down and gives even more power to administrators. Instead, they should focus on enlightening a student body that’s still got a lot to learn about the system. Along with pumping up outreach efforts and maintaining retention programs for minority students, why not plan campuswide campaigns that invite students to learn more about where organizations like MEChA and the BSU are coming from? Education cannot stop at a few impassioned rallies — we need to engage in an active dialogue about why hate speech is hurtful.

At the very least, the authors of the bill could focus on writing a strictly on-campus policy. They might not be able to eliminate hate speech or convince a group of righteous bigots that their public charade is a detriment to our community, but they could at least push for localized penalization where possible.

The Sun God Festival may have earned itself an unofficial slogan this year: last name “ever,” first name “lamest.”

We’re not referring solely to the just-leaked lineup — we’re talking about the new viral bookmark campaign to “get people talking” about everyone’s favorite day of the year. But the event’s lackluster slips of expensive paper and weak musical lineup are not promising signs, to say the least.

Viral marketing, when done right, is effective — everyone gets borderline obsessive over finding the next clue in a mysterious grassroots campaign, and pretty soon you have a fan-base frenzy of Dark Knight proportions. The whole point is to build anticipation, and to make us want to know more — which is exactly why dropping the headliners’ names with absolutely no lead-ing is one big fat letdown.

That’s not to say that A.S. Concerts & Events hasn’t succeeded in the game of pre-Sun God buzz in past years. Former A.S. Vice President of Concerts & Events Garrett Berg’s Baby Sun God search left cryptic clues on Twitter of where to look for the little guys, offering prizes to anybody who happened upon one while crossing the eucalyptus grove. Campaigns like that get you 500 followers and a campus full of students frantically checking their cell phones for the next A.S. message. Imagine that.

Dropping a few bookmarks on a bench, however, completely ignores the surefire rules of playing hard to get. There’s nothing to decode and no need to devote any thought to figuring out what’s going on aside from trying to remember the lyrics to that other Drake song.

In short: You really fucked this one up, ASCE.

At least in the past the final announcement arrived with a little fanfare, over a loudspeaker at the Battle of the Bands to a huge crowd. This time, says AVP of Concerts and Events Alex Bramwell, the news will just be added to the Sun God Web site.

Loud things through megaphones offer students an opportunity to cheer. UCSD doesn’t get a whole lot of chances to lose its marbles, and the latest replacement of one of those moments with an anti-climactic bookmark is a worrying sign of the weeks to come.

At the very least, ASCE could have saved the headliner for the big Monday reveal. Giving us a reason to hold our breath is the basic rule of announcing anything — that’s why they always save first place for last.

Although every once in a while it’s nice to tap into our inner 12-year-olds (I love you, Michelle), it’s hard to shake the feeling that Sun God 2010 is going to be a drastically less awesome version of Sun God 2009, however uncaged the daytime festivities find themselves to be.

We’ve got DJ Z-Trip serving as the Girl Talk emulator — and, like last year’s mashup god, his dance tent party might end up being the ultimate draw for this year’s festivities. We have some reservations, though. Z-Trip may have rightfully earned concert cred for fathering the mashup movement, that doesn’t mean he’s the best around — Girl Talk is his more fluid and infinitely less stodgy grandson, and there are more just like him who have taken what Z-Trip started and run with it. Needless to say, this year’s dance tent may be lacking some essential groove.

Relient K and Thrice are essentially identical as Christian-rock bands, albeit more rollicking versions of last year’s Augustana. Sara Bareilles and Michelle Branch go head to head for “cute female artist with fun pop vibe,” though the difference here is that Branch is going to capitalize on all the soft spots she hit with girls who still remember the lyrics to “Everywhere” in middle school.

There’s one act, however, that’s got us worried; the one with the Top-40 hit who is, yes, “a really big name right now,” but doesn’t exactly have a whole lot to back it up: the one and only Drake. We’re having horrific flashbacks to Sun God 2008, when Sean Kingston flopped onstage and didn’t even finish the one song we came to see him sing. Peruse a couple of live Drake performances online and you’ll see he’s got a knack for shouting over the pretty part of the song, and then cutting it off like a real jerk.

Still, there are three more unannounced bands coming to the main stage, and Bramwell says there are still some decent-sized names he’s kept under wraps.

Here’s to hoping that Monday’s announcement will awaken the so-far gloomy Sun God spirit in all of us.

Sometime in late June of the year 2044, a thirty-one year old blogger named David Sullivan stares intently at a computer screen in a quiet corner of his damp basement apartment.

He shifts slightly in his secondhand IKEA armchair, grunting as he reaches for a torn bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Digging aggressively into the greasy crumbs with one hand, he carefully scrolls through a collection of thumbnail photographs with the other, his eyes darting rapidly back and forth over chaotic images of an early twenty-first century college house party. In one shot a group of girls grope one another suggestively, each of them clutching a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor. In another a crowd of red-faced students stand around a battered keg, watching eagerly as two young men chug deeply from red plastic cups, racing each other at breakneck speed to the brink of black-out oblivion.

Sullivan stops suddenly on a dimly lit image of chubby male student swigging cheap vodka from a plastic bottle. The next shot is the same student, now in mid-fall, his glazed eyes wide with surprise, the bottle abandoned on the ground at his side. Two thumbnails later the chubby kid is back on his feet and grinding up against one of the malt liquor girls, his pale face frozen in drunken ecstasy.

“Gotcha,” Sullivan whispers, glancing over at his television. The chubby kid, now thirty years older, stares back from a podium ringed with American flags, his arms waving aggressively as he delivers an impassioned speech about the fiscal woes of the middle-class auto worker. He is Thomas Miller, junior senator from California and the Independent nominee for president of the United States. Tomorrow, when Sullivan posts the damning photographs on his popular blog, Miller — who has billed himself as a squeaky clean political outsider — will face a media hellstorm. He will lose his nomination, drop out of the race and retire begrudgingly to the fleeting shadows of defamed anonymity. He will be temporarily ruined and permanently frowned upon. He will rue the day he let his roommate post those damn photos on Facebook.

Of course, that’s just a hypothetical situation. The question is how soon it will be a reality. With the sheer amount of unfiltered information that our young generation feeds so willingly to the vast social landfill of the Internet, it’s entirely conceivable to imagine a day when every political candidate, every high-powered CEO, every teacher, parent and community leader is subject to the unforeseen embarrassment of some long-forgotten Facebook snapshot. Whether depicting casual drug use or the whiskey-driven exposure of one’s cleavage, many of our wildest college experiences are now etched permanently into the flame-retardant fabric of the World Wide Web.

Untag all you want. The Internet is a cruel, unforgiving mistress and she’s gonna haunt you with one hell of a vengeance.

[caption id="attachment_17195" align="alignright" width="181" caption="John Hanacek/Guardian FILE"][/caption]

BASEBALL — Already having amassed a school-record 19-game winning streak since their Feb. 19 loss to Chico State University, the UCSD baseball team can now add the nation’s No. 1 ranking to its growing list of accolades in 2010.

The Tritons swept their series against Cal State Sonoma State University from March 12 to March 14 to earn the No. 1 ranking, then continued to dominate another four-game series against Cal Poly Pomona over spring break between March 25 and March 27. They improved their record to 28-3 overall and 18-2 in California Collegiate Athletic Association play.

But according to senior pitcher Matt Rossman, the No. 1 spot and record win streak hasn’t gone to the players’ heads. Rossman emphasized that the team must hold onto its humility throughout the season.

“The No.1 ranking is cool,” Rossman said. “It’s an honor, and we have earned it. Our success and recognition is providing even more motivation for us. We aren’t satisfied with where we’re at, and know that we still have things to improve upon.”

In a four-game home stand against Sonoma State, the Tritons did not leave much room for error. They made easy work of the Seawolves on an effective balance of pitching and offense, earning another four victories to tack to their last 15.

In the opener, junior right-hander Tim Shibuya was nearly unhittable, throwing eight innings of two-hit ball. UCSD cruised to a 10-2 win behind Shibuya’s arm, and followed with solid pitching efforts from Rossman and junior right-hander Guido Knudson to take games two and three by scores of 9-7 and 4-3.

Game four of the series saw an offensive outburst, as UCSD exploded for 15 hits in a 12-3 victory to seal the series sweep. Senior first baseman Brandon Gregorich went three-for-four with two doubles, two runs and two runs batted in (RBI), while junior second basemen Blake Tagmyer added three RBIs and two runs. They continued to eat up Seawolves pitching until the ninth inning.

Sonoma dropped to 9-13, 2-10 in CCAA play.

Prior to the series against Cal Poly Pomona, UCSD hosted Cal State San Marcos in a non conference game on March 22, coming out on top 8-4.

Junior catcher Kellen Lee delivered a three-hit game, including a home run and three RBIs. The Tritons sent out nine different pitchers in the game to keep their arms fresh for league play.

In a home-and-home series — in which each team plays host for two of four series games — the Tritons swept Cal Poly Pomona in back-to-back matchups in Pomona on March 25 and March 26.

The Tritons then won both games in a doubleheader at Triton Ballpark on March 27 to complete the four-game sweep.

Shibuya dominated off the mound once again for the Tritons in game one, coasting through seven innings conceding just one earned run.

Kehoe provided three RBIs and senior shortstop Vance Albitz added three hits, allowing UCSD to ease into a 7-3 win.

Rossman pitched all nine innings to go the distance in game two, allowing two unearned runs on five hits.

The complete game effort was just enough for a 5-2 victory –one that Rossman said was mentally and physically taxing.

“We talk about the mental game a lot, and it’s something we take pride in,” Rossman said. “The average fan doesn’t realize how mental baseball is, and the average team doesn’t spend enough time working on it. Physically, it’s exhausting. It was pretty hot in Pomona, and I definitely didn’t cruise through that game. I didn’t have my best stuff, and had to battle my way out of some jams I put myself in. Mentally, I keep telling myself out there, ‘They will not beat me.’ I hate to lose.”

Triton Ballpark provided no refuge for Pomona. They were demolished 11-0 in game three thanks to a scoreless seven-inning effort out of senior pitcher Kirby St. John and an offensive show by junior second baseman Blake Tagmyer.

Tagmyer opened the game with a three-RBI double in the first inning and a three-run home run in the second. His six RBIs and St. John’s impressive pitching was too much for the Broncos to handle, and the Tritons won easily.

The final game in the series was highlighted by a gutsy performance from Knudson, who threw over five innings while allowing four hits and two earned runs.

Junior outfielder Kyle Saul was one at-bat short of the natural cycle, going 3-3; Kehoe added a home run; and Cal Poly Pomona fell to 17-16 overall and 9-11 in CCAA action.

With their series sweep of Cal Poly Pomona, the Tritons surpassed UCSD’s school record of 16 consecutive wins, pushing their streak to 19 games.

While the No. 1 ranking earned the Tritons some respect, Kehoe said expectations will only rise.

“The No. 1 ranking is more of a recognition thing than anything,” Kehoe said. “The rankings really don’t mean anything besides the fact that we are getting some respect nationally. We know we deserve the No. 1 ranking because we know we are the best team in the country, but it doesn’t change the way we go about things at all. We still show up every day and outwork everyone else in the nation.”

Kehoe says the team’s success is rooted in the players’ work ethic.

“The mentality we have is that we may not have the most talent in the nation, but we have outworked everyone else,” Kehoe said. “We play teams that we know haven’t worked as hard as we have — and that, in turn, makes us feel we deserve it more. Nineteen straight is a product of knowing we are better than everyone else, outworking the other team and trusting our preparation — nothing more.”

Thus far, the season’s success has been attributed to consistency in every area of play: the rotation, lineup, bullpen and bench.

At the top of the rotation, Rossman and junior right-hander Tim Shibuya have served as an outstanding 1-2 punch. Rossman now stands 6-0 with a 2.17 Earned Run Average (ERA), while Shibuya stands at 7-0 with a 2.22 ERA.

Junior designated hitter Aaron Bauman leads the Triton offense with a .444 batting average and an astonishing .603 on-base percentage. Gregorich leads the team with an impressive 46 RBI so far this season.

The Tritons will now set their sights on Cal State San Bernadino, working to keep the streak alive in another home-and-home series this weekend. The Coyotes are currently 16-10 overall and 15-9 in CCAA play.

“No one talks about the fact that we have won 19 straight,” Rossman said. “Sure, we all know it, but the important thing is that we are only focused on the future and getting better. We talk about taking things one game, one inning and one out at a time. That keeps us in the present and doesn’t allow us to get caught up in external hype that is out of our control.”

Readers can contact Cameron Tillisch at [email protected].

Despite my lifelong hatred of the American League and its mission to ruin baseball via the designated hitter, Alex Rodriguez and the city of Anaheim, I have to admit that sometimes, it’s not so bad. Over the past couple of years, it has produced a quality brand of ball that even we National League-purists can stomach. Teams like the Tampa Bay Rays, the Minnesota Twins and the Texas Rangers are succeeding by relying on young, homegrown talent that cut the big boys in New York and Boston down to size.

So it is with slightly less disdain than normal that I give my predictions for the 2010 American League baseball season.

1) American League West

For the first time in recent memory, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (a constant flame to my AL-fueled anger) will not start the season as division favorites. Losing ace pitcher John Lackey to the Red Sox leaves the Halos’ rotation in the hands of the goldie-locked Jered Weaver and Scott Kazmir, who has yet to live up to his Tampa Bay glory days after being traded to Los Angeles last season. The addition of World Series MVP Hideki Matsui at designated hitter to complement Kendry Morales and Torii Hunter will keep their offensive attack scary as ever, but in the AL’s most exciting division, they just might not be enough.

The Angels should be especially wary, considering the Seattle Mariners are baseball’s most improved team after an offseason that saw them add ex-Phillies ace Cliff Lee and ex-Angels leadoff man Chone Figgins to their ranks. With Lee and King Felix Hernandez at the top of the rotation, the Mariners will have the best one-two punch in the league and will thrive off the spacious, pitching-friendly outfield of Safeco Field. If manager Don Wakamatsu and the ageless Ken Griffey Jr. can help newly acquired outfielder Milton Bradley find inner peace, the 2010 Mariners might bring Seattle its first-ever AL pennant.

Similarly, watching this year’s Texas Rangers perform will surely provide an addictive, intoxicating rush. Now that I’ve gotten the obligatory joke about Rangers manager Ron Washington’s positive cocaine test out of the way, I’ll tell you why this team could make its first playoff appearance since 1999 — even with a druggie leader. Ian Kinsler might be the best second baseman not named Chase, and right fielder Nelson Cruz is still one of baseball’s best-kept secrets. If starting pitcher Rich Harden pulls out even half his uninjured potential, the Rangers could surprise a lot of people.

My Predictions

Division champ: Seattle Mariners

In the hunt: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Fantasy sleeper: Scott Feldman, Texas Rangers Starting Pitcher

Story to watch: If Ron Washington will continue to conjure Rick James.

2) American League Central

No AL Central team has made it to the World Series since the White Sox won it all in 2005, and I don’t think that’s about to change this season. Each of the five teams has something great going for it, but not one has enough to push it over the top.

The Twins signed local hero and catcher Joe Mauer to a staggering eight-year, $184-million contract extension, but are hurt by the loss of All-Star closer Joe Nathan to season-ending Tommy John surgery on his throwing elbow.

The White Sox have the insane brilliance of manager Ozzie Guillen, but cannot win by relying on an outfield of MLB rejects like Alex Rios, Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones.

The Tigers could make a run at the division now that Johnny Damon’s re-grown beard is roaming the field, but ace pitcher Justin Verlander’s erratic performance the past few seasons is a big problem.

The Cleveland Indians have heartthrob Grady Sizemore roaming center field and the young power of firstbaseman Matt LaPorta, but with Jake Westbrook as their Opening Day starting pitcher, baseball in October remains a dream for the Tribe.

And except for reigning Cy Young winner Zach Greinke, the Kansas City Royals have little to offer baseball fans — or their AL competition.

My Predictions

Division champ: Minnesota Twins

In the hunt: Detroit Tigers

Fantasy sleeper: Max Scherzer, Detroit Tigers starting pitcher

Story to follow: Ozzie Guillen’s Twitter account

3) American League East

Following their unparalleled 27th World Series championship, the New York Yankees somehow managed to shed payroll while improving their team. Gone are Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui (and their bulging contracts), and here to stay are outfielders Curtis Granderson and Randy Winn, infielder/DH Nick Johnson and starting pitcher Javier Vazquez.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman should be credited for overseeing an offseason that has turned the defending champs into a more streamlined club — one that now has more bench depth and cost efficiency. No matter how good A-Rod might be, I will always hate baseball’s richest and cockiest player. Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia, on the other hand, seem like good guys that play hard and stay humble, so I guess not all members of the Evil Empire have fully crossed over to the dark side.

Last season’s AL Wild Card winners, the Boston Red Sox, roll in from spring training after landing the offseason’s top pitching free agent, John Lackey. Boston will hope this makes up for losing their the top offensive free agent of 2009 in left fielder Jason Bay. A pitching lineup of Lackey, Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and Dice-K is dangerous any day of the week, and with Jonathan Papelbon closing out games, the boys from Beantown are looking solid.

Only a few years removed from the dredges of professional baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays have quickly built themselves into a competitive organization. Their early season success will determine whether or not their two star players — outfielder B.J. Upton and first baseman Carlos Pena — will be signed to contract extensions or traded off at July’s trading deadline.

Look for young pitching phenom David Price to have a breakout season and cement himself as one of the premier left-handed pitchers in baseball.

My predictions

Division champ: New York Yankees

In the hunt: Boston Red Sox

Fantasy sleeper: Brian Matusz, Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher (and University of San Diego alum)

Story to follow: How many games will Kate Hudson show up to at Yankee Stadium to root for her squeeze, Alex Rodriguez?

Thus concludes this year’s edition of my MLB preseason predictions. So tune in this Sunday for Opening Day 2010, pour yourself a frosty beverage and practice your bleacher-bum taunts, because we have 162 glorious games ahead of us.

Oh, and just in case you weren’t quite sure yet, I think Alex Rodriguez is a douche.

With the economy still in a slump and not looking up, many students — worried their UCSD diploma may not be the prestigious piece of parchment it was cracked up to be — are pursuing an academic internship to iron neatly onto their resume.

As the job market becomes increasingly competitive, being a GPA superstar isn’t enough to edge out the other candidates. Landing an internship while in college can be just as clutch as keeping up the Provost’s Honors we’ve guarded since freshman year.

Here at UCSD, the Academic Internship Program is seeing a spike in participants. During the 2008-09 academic year, the AIP enrolled just over 550 students; however, program officials estimate that the numbers for the 2009-10 academic year will reach well over 600. And according to the 2006 Graduating Student Survey, 44 percent of students who were involved in academic or co-curricular activities while attending UCSD participated in an internship, compared to 23 percent who participated in study-abroad programs or the 25 percent who enrolled in honors or advanced courses.

Of course, not every internship guarantees a stellar experience and post-graduate employment — they can also be a keen strategy for companies to extract cheap labor from wide-eyed, Xerox-savvy undergrads.

The AIP was established in 1976 to give students an opportunity to bridge the gap between their studies and professional career goals. Unlike internships discovered through independent research, academic internships also allow students to earn credit toward upper-division general electives with a ‘Pass’/‘No Pass’ grade. And since many participating companies require that their unpaid interns receive verifiable credit that students must pay for to receive, enrollment in the AIP isn’t always optional.

According to AIP Assistant Director and Internship Counselor Tricia Taylor-Oliveira, the AIP’s staff is available to provide referrals and advice during the application process — helping students edit cover letters and resumes, discussing their career goals and even aiding in the selection process.

According to Taylor-Oliveira, the AIP office is not only a great resource for landing a job, but also expanding students’ awareness and knowledge about any field they may plan on going into.

“I tell students to think actively and seek out every opportunity to get more out of the experience,” Taylor-Oliveira said. “You know if it’s a good time to talk, they might really sit down and chat with you about how they got there and what steps they needed to take.”

She said the intern’s experience is always valuable — even if it doesn’t guarantee you a job.

“If the internship doesn’t lead to a job, you network and meet people, get contacts of people who can be useful to connect to other opportunities,” Taylor-Oliveira said.

2009 Revelle College alumnus Craig Hill currently works at Doan Law Firm as a legal assistant, where he first began as an academic intern. With the help of the AIP internship database, Hill said he was able to apply to a law firm that fit his learning expectations based on the comments that previous interns had left in the AIP’s database.

“While I could have applied on my own, I wouldn’t have known what to look for,” Hill said. “Just the fact that they gave me contacts to call and [told me] what to have prepared streamlined the whole process for me.”

Though some students have expressed complaints about the expenses and workload required to earn academic credit through AIP, Hill remains a proponent of the program.

“As an out-of-state student, I paid $40,000 to go school, and it is really nice to know that my tuition paid for programs like AIP that give you opportunities like this,” Hill said. “Having these resources are great, because you can’t find things like this once you are out of college.”

At Doan Law Firm, Hill learned about consumer litigation by working alongside lawyers — assisting them in analyzing legal material, conducting research and talking to clients.

“I was actually in the field, and you kind of just have to go with the flow,” Hill said. “You pick up jargon and learn to apply the concepts you just read in books.”

Needless to say, Hill was a success story for the AIP. He said he was simply fortunate that Doan Law Firm was hiring legal assistants around the time his internship ended.

For the majority of students, internships offer academic credit for the time they devote and their training. Some manage to score a paid internship, if they’re lucky. In many cases, students devote 30 hours of work per week they’re not getting paid for, on top of jobs they may already have, as well as class work. While many students like Hill eagerly accept credits as pay, Warren College senior Dara Bu sees it as a loophole for companies to extort free labor from a generation of potential employees struggling to secure an advantage in an evolving job market.

Bu said it was a difficult decision to invest hefty hours into unpaid office work in lieu of an actual job. In addition, paying standard academic fees for the units seemed an unfair burden.

“At one point, I had two internships, both unpaid, while working a part-time job,” Bu said. “I knew it was a good experience, but it just sucked putting in so much time to something when I knew I could have been making money doing something else.”

Though some companies offer paid internships, others get away with hawking academic credit as long as their criteria meet the standards of the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the FLSA states that students can be regarded as “trainees” as long as they meet criteria stipulating that both parties understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for time spent in training. Students must work under close supervision, and the employer that provides the training must receive no immediate advantage from the activities — the training must strictly benefit the student.

To ensure that students are indeed applying for legitimate internships that meet UCSD’s specific educational standards, Taylor-Oliveira says that the AIP office acts as a kind of filter — screening out any potentially shady companies while maintaining a database for the ones that students have enjoyed.

However, Warren College senior Lisa Tat said she found it to be a disadvantage that students are forced to work a minimum number of hours in order to meet the academic-credit requirements, as opposed to adapting to a more natural work-place schedule.

During Winter Quarter, Tat interned for San Diego County Speech Pathology as an office assistant and “Reading Stars” tutor. She taught preschool and kindergarten students about phonetics for roughly 65 minutes twice a week, and — for the remaining hours — made cutouts, pamphlets and games for the children’s activities.

“I struggled to find work to do after teaching the children how to read,” Tat said. “Because the point of an internship is to gain experience and learn as much as you can in the field, there is no point of filling up the hours just to do so.”

The program requires at least 10 hours a week of labor, a 10-page research paper, an exit evaluation and three online workshops — which equate to a four-unit course. Tat said she felt she was putting in more hours than necessary for an ideal experience.

“It should be up to the discretion of the supervisor at the internship site to assign the kind of work and determine how many hours you work,” said Tat.

According to Taylor-Oliveira, the AIP may not be a perfect fit for students who already have too much on their plate.

“It’s a serious academic endeavor that shouldn’t be taken lightly,” Taylor-Oliveira said. “But for those who do commit, an academic internship helps [them] see the practical side of what they are studying in classrooms.”

As a double major in communications and international history, Bu said her first internship experience at MTV Tres — the popular music channel’s Latin-American sibling — did help her narrow her career scope. Despite the stress of having to intern while holding down a job and taking four classes, Bu said the academic internship helped put her studies into perspective.

“Even though I studied the history of Latin America, I realized I sucked at actually speaking Spanish, and was not even that in-tune with the culture,” Bu said. “I also didn’t like how everything had to appeal to a streamlined audience.”

Following her internship at MTV Tres, Bu scored a higher-level internship at Elle Communications, where she explored fashion and design by selecting outfits for display mannequins and traveling to fashion shows in New York. She says that it was likely because of her experience at MTV Tres that she got the internship with Elle.

“I realized how much I loved working in this field, dealing with clients and doing things like designing window sets,” Bu said. “PR and marketing is much more interactive and fun for me.”

Experts at the Economic Policy Institute have even proposed legislation that would force the federal government to appropriate $500 million annually to support up to 100,000 low-income college students’ internships. According to co-author of the legislation Alexander Hertel-Hernandez, most low-income college students are not full-time, so they can’t receive financial aid for the cost of an unpaid internship which includes transportation, food and temporary housing. By subsidizing unpaid internships for lower-income students, Hertel-Hernandez said, the federal government would be opening up opportunities for a more diverse array of students to participate in internships that are usually given to middle- and upper-income students.

Incidentally, Hertel-Hernandez got his job at the Economic Policy Institute after interning there during his senior year of college.

According to the Undergraduate Student Experience and Satisfaction Survey conducted by UCSD’s Office of Student Research and Information, students who engage in creative, non-classroom activities are considerably more satisfied with their overall college experience than those students who do not pursue experiences that take the them beyond the lecture hall, lab and library experience.

Accordingly, former Doan Law Firm intern Hill advocated the AIP wholeheartedly, and recommended that students get an internship while in school. Even if it means having to shoulder a little more than they’re used to, he said, it will make their prospects after graduation that much brighter.

“Some people spend all that money for graduate school when they are unsure it is what they want to get into, and plenty of them are still unemployed,” Hill said. “Do an internship — take advantage of the fact that you are there to learn and can [do it] at your own pace. The experience is invaluable.”

Readers can contact Kelly Kim at [email protected].

It’s a well-established, indestructible law of nature that adorable things are the perfect panacea for finals. And every year at UCSD man’s best friend never fails to make an appearance when you least expect it — walking back from Center Hall, drugged up, pen down and brain drained of all comprehension.

As part of the De-Stress Fest — the University Centers’ annual week-long giveaway — PC Ballroom was transformed into a geriatrics ward on Tuesday, March 16 from 10 a.m. — 2 p.m., speckled with Irish Setters, Cocker Spaniels, Pomeranians and Dachshunds. All in the name of surviving the week-long tumult of scantrons, free responses, essays and short answers.

Also included in the week’s festivities was “Massage Mania” (Monday), “Cupcakes and Cocoa” (Tuesday), “Bagels and Bluebooks” (Wednesday) and “Kiss Winter Quarter Goodbye” (Thursday) – at which students handed out Hershey’s kisses and tubes of chapstick as a final send off.

Needless to say, the string of de-stressers provided enough distraction to get students through one Tuesday’s worth of tests and a hearty lack of sleep.