‘Jewels
sparkle
May 19, 2005
pcc-courieronline.com
on stage
Campus opera a hit
Page 8
Vol. 91, Issue 12
Candidates
Outline Goals
FIRST PLACE PHOTOBLOG WINNER
‘After Mid-Terms’
Courtesy of Angel Alfaro /www.pasadena.edu
This first-place photo, taken by Angel Alfaro, captured a student taking a rest after mid-terms in
front of the mirror pools, exhibiting the life of a typical student. Alfaro received the grand prize,
a 30-gigabyte Apple iPod Photo, on May 17 at the awards ceremony for the “A Week in the Life
of PCC” photo contest hosted by the college as part of the citywide What Drives L.A.? series. All
winning photos are currently on display in the New Media Center.
Murder
Suspect
Appears
in Court
■ Former student
George Pigman IV,
accused of killing a
Japanese national,
gets his arraignment
postponed until June.
Linda Rapka
Editor-in-Chief
After missing his first three court
appearances, a former PCC student
arrested earlier this month on a
charge of murdering his girlfriend
appeared before the judge on May
12 in Alhambra Superior Court.
George Pigman IV, 23, was
arrested on May 7 after being found
naked and bloody on the roof of an
apartment near San Gabriel,
according to police. He is the only
suspect in the killing of Japanese
student Eimi Yamada, 21, who was
found dead from multiple stab
wounds to the chest and blunt trau¬
ma in her apartment about a block
away, according to wire reports.
Pigman is being held on $1 mil¬
lion bail at the Twin Towers
Correctional Facility in Los
Angeles. He was due for arraign¬
ment May 10 but missed the bus to
Alhambra Superior Court three
mornings in a row, said the court’s
deputy clerk. On May 12, he arrived
on a late bus and appeared before
Judge Carlos Uranga.
Pigman requested a delay in the
arraignment so his lawyer could
review the case before advising
Pigman on a plea. The judge grant¬
ed the request. His new arraignment
date is slated for June 15.
Pigman attended PCC from the
fall of 2001 to the spring of 2004. In
addition to taking English classes,
he also wrote for the Courier news¬
paper. Two former female Courier
staff members said that Pigman
would repeatedly call them and ask
them out, even after they refused
him. While Pigman was still a stu¬
dent at PCC, a woman on the
Associated Students board filed a
restraining order against him.
Several classmates recalled Pigman
as “troubled.” He was dismissed
from the college after failing to
attend a disciplinary hearing in the
spring of 2004 to determine whether
he could remain enrolled.
The victim, Yamada, was a stu¬
dent at Poly Languages Institute in
Pasadena.
Whispers of Change in New Media
John Avery
Staff Writer
Change is sweeping through the New
Media Center, but the old PCC grapevine
has moved even faster, spreading troubled
speculation even as the administration still
works to plan the restructuring.
The bottom line? “People will be
reporting in new ways, but no one’s losing
any jobs,” said Dr. Lisa Sugimoto, vice
president for student and learning services.
Yet worries abound, and are likely to
persist until changes take effect July 1 with
the start of the new academic year.
Perhaps the sanest approach is that of
Robert Cody, assistant dean of computing
services, who said, “Until it’s in writing,
I’m assuming nothing.”
“Restructuring is never easy,” Cody
said. “I’ve been reorganized several times.”
But not every change under discussion
will be implemented. Cody emphasized
that managers need freedom to brain¬
storm, to consider many possibilities
before deciding. Janet Levine, dean of
external relations, said, “We spend a lot of
time in the executive committee asking
about things ‘Is this working?’ . . . ‘Are there
ways to simplify things?’”
Exactly who reports where remains in
flux, but in broad strokes the restructuring
will leave the services side of the New
Media Center as is, while moving people
on the production side closer to their
New Media Center >
Page 6
■ Students vying for
positions on the
Associated Students board
debated and discussed
goals at last week’s forum.
Jennifer MacDonald
Staff Writer
With student body elections taking
place next week, the candidates had
one last chance to convince students
that they are right for the job. Four of
the 15 candidates didn’t bother to show
up and participate in the candidates
forum on May 17.
Students are vying for 10 govern¬
ment positions, four of which are con¬
tested. Two of the candidates for two
contested positions did not attend, but
their opponents did. The two candi¬
dates for vice president of academic
affairs, Jessica Chiarizio and Ling-Jun
(Krisy) Zhang, did not attend the
forum.
Presidential candidate Steve Juarez is
running unopposed. He said he has
“worked closely with the current presi¬
dent,” and he encouraged everyone to
vote in the elections to be held Monday,
May 23 through Wednesday, May 25.
Voting will take place on the internet
at www.pasadena.edu.
Orlando Pina/ Courier
Candidates for the Associated Students offices answer
questions and explain their plans at last week’s forum.
One of the most heated issues dis¬
cussed during the forum was the issue of
textbook 'prices. Current student trustee
Hanyang (Edward) Li said he wants to
cut textbook prices at the bookstore by
talking to the publishers.
Nick Szamet, who is running against
Li, disagrees with his plans to slash text¬
book prices. Szamet, who recently lob¬
bied in Washington, D.C. to get a bill
passed to refund students the total cost of
textbooks per year, said if prices are
dropped in the bookstore, fees will rise
elsewhere on campus like parking.
Candidates *
Page 6
Hip Hop Protestors Fight Corporate Rap
Titania Kumeh
Staff Writer
First, let’s define it.
Rap: it is free associative poetry set
against a beat riddled background, spo¬
ken word with spiritual overtones,
thought-provoking social commentary
with electronic grooves one can bounce
his head to.
At times it contains the obscenities of
a Charles Bukowski poem, uncensored,
unapologetic, and undeniably raw.
“The history of hip-hop was about
uplifting voices, images, and stories, oth¬
erwise untold by the media,” said Erinn
Carter, a representative from the
Coalition for the Revolution of Corporate
Rap. “[The media] didn’t want to hear
from us [black people], so hip-hop was
used to let them know what was going
on,” Carter said. “It has the potential to
be the largest voice for the black commu¬
nity. So what does it say to white America
when every time you see one of us [black
people] on TV, we’re criminals or we’re
getting credit cards swiped down our ass
cracks or we’re dancing for dollars?”
Carter recalled the recent shooting of
an unarmed man in Compton by the LA.
Sheriff’s department. “When they see
[black people] every day being dehuman¬
ized on television, they will treat us like
we’re not human,” she said.
“Hip-hop is about progression,”
Carter said. “It’s about a voice. It’s about
strength. It’s about power in the black
community. We’ve lost that.”
In the constant pursuit of “bling,”
bitches, and booze, mainstream corporate
rap has sucked the artistry from this hip-
hop genre by reducing it to stereotypical
images of black men and women. Or,
that’s at least the stance of Carter’s
Hip Hop g-
Page 3
Dinosaur
Discoverer
Visits Campus
■ A famous prehistoric-bird
expert lectured students on his
once in a lifetime discovery a
brand new dinosaur species.
Diane Garcia
Arts Editor
Dr. Luis Chiappe, a renowned pre-historic bird and
dinosaur specialist, visited PCC last Thursday, May 12,
to lecture on his role in the discovery of the Auca
Maheuvo region, a pre-historic nesting site used by
dinosaurs some 80 million years ago. He is also credited
whith finding a new species of dinosaur, the Aucasaurus.
Chiappe spoke to dozens of eager PCC students in
the campus Forum at noon, followed by a question-and-
answer session. That evening the same presentation was
made in Spanish at the Forum.
Currently, Chiappe is the curator and chairman of the
department of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural
History Museum of Los Angeles County. The native-
born Argentinian, along with his expedition team, dis¬
covered the valley of Auca Mahuevo in 1997. He dis¬
covered the eggs in Patagonia, a rural flood plain that
happened to be home for the past 70 to 80 million years
to a valley of dinosaur nests, and where for the first time
embryonic dinosaur skin was available to study.
On a later excavation to the same site, Chiappe was
one of the discoverers of a never-before-seen species of
dinosaur. They named the 20-foot long predator
Aucasaurus.
A specialist in early bird development, Chiappe said,
“I think the work done at Auca Mahuevo is important.
We will be able to do things that in the past were unthink¬
able.” Chiappe added that through the years of dinosaur
nests laid at the site, scientists were able to look at the
incidence of disease among them and their nesting
habits. For instance, dinosaurs only created a surface
nest, which means they dug a hole then laid their eggs,
but they did not cover them with any type of sediment.
His discovery was made because over the years the site
became flooded and the water was full of sediment that
covered over the nests. This new sediment was different
than the sandstone that the nests were originally made
out of, leading the team to conclude that the dinosaurs
did not cover their offspring.
Chiappe said they also found that dinosaurs formed a
type of colonial nesting, with possibly hundreds of thou¬
sands of females gathering to lay their eggs around the
same time. So far about six different nesting events were
found to have taken place there, Chiappe said.
“I do a lot of work in the origin of birds and early bird
evolution. That’s what we were looking for - the role of
birds at the site and to look for dinosaurs closely related
to birds. But when you find something like this, you are
not going to turn your back on it,” Chiappe said.
Attorney General
Cancels His Visit
Diane Garcia
Staff Writer
State Attorney General Bill Lockyer cancelled his
visit to PCC last Tuesday because he had the stomach
flu. Lockyer was scheduled to give a speech, followed
by a question and answer session. But instead he was
at home in Sacramento recuperating from the virus.
“You catch a lot of things when you have a 22-month-
old baby,” said Lara L. Larramendi, special assistant to
the attorney general.
Though Lockyer was absent, Larramendi was on
hand to handle any questions those arriving for the
event might have.
Larramendi said the attorney general’s office would
try to reschedule the event, but it would depend on his
current schedule and the school’s upcoming events.
“We would like to be able to try this again because it
would be good for the students and the attorney gener¬
al,” said Larramendi.
A full house was expected to greet Lockyer, who
has 25 years of state legislative experience under his
belt. The Republican was re-elected in November 2002
as the state’s 30th attorney general. Lockyer is also the
president of the National Association of Attorneys
General.
Lockyer graduated from the University of
California at Berkeley, and later went on to earn his
law degree in Sacramento from the McGeorge School
of Law. He was also a teacher and earned his teaching
Atty. General *
Page 4
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