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Newspaper

The Oak leafSRJC

Students disturbed by Project Truth demonstrations p. 3

The ancient history and artwork of Scandinavia comes to SRJC p. 9

Clo’s Classic ran over by the Butte Roadrunners p. 11

Volume CXXVII, Issue IVOctober 24, 2011

Sonoma County’s haunted Halloween horrors p. 6

2 October 24, 2011NEWS

If you want to find a job or keep the one you have, you’d bet-ter learn how to brag.

At least that is what Peggy Klaus, the leading lady of brag-ging, branding and self-promo-tion is ready to teach the SRJC community on Nov. 1 in the Ber-tolini Student Activity Center.

Co-sponsored by the SRJC bookstore, Work Experience and

Career Services Development, Klaus will teach a two-hour work-shop titled “Mastering the Soft Skills Employers Want.” The inter-active workshop is set up to learn Klaus’ special set of bragging skills and how and when to apply them in real life.

“This won’t be some boring power point presentation, people are going to work,” Work Expe-rience faculty instructor Renee LoPilato said. “There’s going to be

Students and faculty alike are preparing for the controversial Ward Connerly debate, which the SRJC’s Arts and Lectures Commit-tee approved and scheduled for Feb. 6, 2012.

Connerly is a former UC Regent and major proponent of Prop 209

and other anti-affirmative action causes. He is scheduled to have a debate with pro-affirmative action speaker Ajuan Mance, a Mills Col-lege professor.

The debate was unanimously approved and both speakers will be given 15 minutes to speak their cases uninterrupted. There will also be time for question-and-answer segment. The event will last 70 min-utes. For the question-and-answer

portion, the audience will use in-dex cards to write their questions, and then the moderator will go over those cards.

“The lynch pin is selecting an appropriate moderator,” said com-mittee member Abby Bogomolny. The person must be able to set limits, keep people on time and be strong, she said. The committee mentioned several candidates for moderator from SRJC’s faculty.

Connerly is an infamous anti-affirmative action advocate turned lobbyist. His presence sparked controversy among faculty and student organizations. The com-mittee resolved to bring in Mills College professor Ajuan Mance to debate Connerly.

Crowds chanted and passing cars honked their horns in support as nearly 2,700 people marched through downtown Santa Rosa to City Hall Oct. 15, rallying against political corruption and corporate greed.

The demonstration was original-ly expected to garner roughly 1,000 supporters, but quickly grew using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. “I was happily amazed at the turnout,” said Eric Cussins, returning SRJC student and politi-cal activist. “To see that large, well-behaved crowd was great.”

The occupation of Santa Rosa’s City Hall came nearly one month after the “Occupy Wall Street” pro-tests began in an attempt to show support for the cause that has now spread to more than 1,000 cities na-tionwide and across the globe.

The organizers provided tables for snacks, drinks, medical assis-tance and an open-mic system to allow everyone to speak their minds and have their voices heard. Martin Olmstead, SRJC student and sup-porter of the cause, made sandwich-es and other snacks for protesters.

“I’m here with Food Not Bombs to give food to people because I feel that food should be free and it’s to-tally possible,” Olmstead said. “I also feel that the people in control of food are corrupt.”

The exuberant crowd sang songs and echoed chants of “We! Are! The 99 percent!” and “The people are shouting, it’s time to listen!”

The demonstration brought people of all ages and ethnicities together, demanding that “the 99 percent” get the resources they need and that the wealthiest one percent pay their fair share in taxes and rep-arations.

Vera Tabib, a Middle-Eastern woman supporting the movement, voiced her displeasure regarding wealth inequality in America.

“Corporate greed has gotten so out of hand now, we have a new nobility,” Tabib said. “They just call themselves corporate America and Wall Street while using the rest of us, and we’re like the serfs under-

neath them getting smaller and smaller paychecks while they get filthy rich.”

Although many protesters planned to pitch tents and camp overnight, their petition was re-jected by Santa Rosa Mayor Ernes-to Olivares. Some people did stay overnight, rotating between shifts, but were told to take down the food and medical stands.

“I think the Mayor’s decision is ridiculous,” said protester Brian Skinner in regards to the decision not to allow people to camp.

According to the New York Times, the demonstration in Santa Rosa was the nation’s sixth largest protest on Oct. 15, surpassing major cities like Chicago and Pittsburgh.

Although the crowd was filled with more middle-aged people than students, there was a solid show of support from younger mem-bers of the community. “Sure there were more gray heads out, but they brought their teenage to 20-some-thing kids with them,” Cussins said.

“And there was a pretty good turn-out of the younger generation.”

Protesters rallied around the world on Oct. 15 in opposition of wealth inequality in their respective countries, some of which turned violent. Demonstrators in Rome set fire to a building and a police van, forcing law enforcement to fire tear gas and water cannons into the crowd of nearly 200,000. Thousands marched to the London Stock Ex-change and pitched more than 100 tents, calling themselves “Occupy London Stock Exchange,” voicing the same concerns about greed and corruption in their own country.

C.J. Holmes, a Santa Rosa real-estate broker, thinks that enough is enough. “I’m here to tell everybody that the banks broke it and we have to make them fix it,” Holmes said. “When there’s an action, there’s a reaction. And that’s exactly what’s happening.”

David Anderson

News Editor

Parris Mazer

Staff Writer

Keshia Knight

A&E Editor

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JC Students fed up with corporateAmerica rally at Occupy Santa Rosa

Affirmative action critic and proponent to square off in debate at SRJC

Communication expert to teach job skills at SRJC

Mischa Lopiano/Oak LeafSRJC students marched with thousands of locals waving protest signs and shouting “We! Are! The 99 percent!” on Oct. 15 flooding the steps outside Santa Rosa’s City Hall.

Continued on page 3

3www.theoakleafnews.com NEWS

SRJC is nearing the end of its search for a new president, again. The hiring committee has narrowed the field to two candidates, Dr. Frank Chong and Dr. Joel Kinnamon, who will be presented to the school in two forums next week.

Chong will address the school on Oct. 31, taking ques-tions from the students, staff and faculty in a forum held at 3:15 p.m. in Newman Auditori-um and telecast to the Mahoney Library Reading Room.

Chong has a doctorate in educational administration,

leadership and technology from Dolwing college in Oakdale, New York and currently serves as Dep-uty Assistant Secretary for Com-munity Colleges at the United States Department of Education, a position he has held since July 2010. Before that he served as the president of Laney College in Oakland.

Kinnamon will be presented to the school at 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 2 at Newman Auditorium. He has been both chancellor and vice chancellor of Chabot College in the East Bay. He also served as a professor of management and de-partment chair at Oklahoma City College.

Curious students and chanting counter-demonstrators crowded the center of SRJC’s Santa Rosa campus Oct. 11 when anti-abortion group “Project Truth” brought graphic pho-tos and controversial messages to in-cite heated debates and discussion.

Project Truth travels to colleges throughout Northern and Central California to inform campus com-munities about abortion and to try and engage in discussion with stu-dents. Many students disagree with the group’s methods, primarily the graphic, blown-up photos of dead and mutilated fetuses.

“Our bodies! Our choice!” pro-testers chanted at the demonstra-tors to make their voices and opin-ions heard.

“I think that women should have the right to choose and that safe sex should be promoted,” said Brianna McGuire, an SRJC student participat-ing in the counter-demonstration. “They can’t go around saying that they are anti-abortion and also anti-birth control. Then we’re going to have a bunch of troubled youth and then have to cut social programs.”

The organizers of Project Truth handed out informational pam-phlets and flyers to students, and talked to people about their motives and beliefs. “This is an educational institution, correct?” said Bud, a leader of the project who chose to withhold his last name to protect himself from potential threats. “This is an educational display that shows the real photog raphic pictures of what babies are in the womb. Abortion is an act of vio-lence that kills an innocent hu-man being.”

However, some students and faculty members disagreed with the group’s method of engaging students, saying the group tries to invoke violence, then files lawsuits against the colleges that they visit. The anti-abortion group, “Survi-vors,” employs the same shock-and-awe tactics while traveling to cam-puses, and has successfully sued

Chaffey College for $225,000 and Cypress College for an undisclosed amount.

“It’s the JC that should be su-ing them for both the thousands of dollars of our staff time involved, and the emotional distress inflicted

on our students, in particu-lar our female students,” said Rhonda Fin-dling, a coun-selor at SRJC. “I heard from the head of Student Health, Susan Quinn, that the Student Ambas-sadors out in the quad were hav-ing to deal with

upset students.”The event continued at SRJC

for two days, and members of the counter-protest stayed to voice their opinions, including SRJC stu-dent Ashley Fike.

“I think that they should keep their laws off my vagina,” Fike said. “It’s the woman’s choice, not theirs.”

Quinn Conklin

Web Editor

David Anderson

News Editor

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Students riled over Project Truth demonstrations

Presidential search narrowed down to two candidates

Mischa Lopiano/Oak LeafDemonstrators gathers crowds at the SRJC campus with their pro-life rhetoric and graphic images ofaborted fetuses that shocked some students and brought out emotional responses from others.

exercises, practicing the skills, talking with each other and bragging.”

In today’s competitive job market it is vital to understand the importance of setting one’s self apart from all the rest. Job seekers can no longer rely on just a resume to get by: it’s about marketing yourself to the com-pany to get them to want to do business with you.

“I think that it’s important to learn these skills because they can be applied to so many dif-ferent situations,” LoPilato said. “Not only can students take these skills with them into the workplace and after they trans-fer, but faculty can gain some-thing from Klaus, too.”

Klaus is a world-renowned communication coach who has worked with Fortune 500 firms such as MasterCard, Chev-ron and the National Football League. She has also written ad-vice columns in the New York Times, BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal. Her years of experience in this field and the demand for her leadership coaching is what attracted the Work Experience Department and Career Services to want Klaus to come speak.

Both departments have

worked hard for the last two years to put on relevant events at the JC. Together they hope to provide skill-building workshops to aid students and others in succeeding in the workplace.

“I’m really interested in going to this workshop and learning how I can better interview for a job,” said SRJC student Emily Thomp-son. “Hopefully I can pick up some skills to help me be less shy around managers.”

The soft skills seminar will run from 3-5 p.m., and will conclude with a book signing where people can purchase Klaus’s book, “The Hard Truth about Soft Skills: Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They’d Learned Sooner.”

Job skills Continued from page 2

“I think that they should

keep their laws off my vagina.”

-Ashley Fike

4 October 24, 2011OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

My life is not very exciting. I’m con-tent to stay home and play video

games when not in class, going out maybe once a week to do something like party, or see the sunlight. It’s not that I’m some pastey weirdo in a basement, though I am pale because I burn like crazy if not cov-ered in sunscreen. I’m just not reliant on a bustling social schedule to feel fulfilled. It takes a lot of incentives for me to give up my lazy afternoons of brutally killing NPCs in my favorite game.

The Oak Leaf is one of the few activi-ties that can drag me away from that. Not because I want to be a journalist. I actually would make a terrible journalist. I’m never sure what the hell to write about for my col-umn. I adopt and then abandon idea after idea, muttering to myself and procrastinat-ing. I should have written this by deadline, but I didn’t. The Thursday after deadline was a good day to write it as well, but I went drinking with friends instead.

I’m in a dinky portable at the back of campus, with red pens stuck in the ceiling and a unicorn poster on the wall in front of me. Issue after issue, people miss deadlines, stories fall through, I procrastinate, some-body else gets sick and it feels like we’re not going to make it to print with anything even semi-coherent.

The thing is, no matter how insanely frustrating it can be to go from a week of classes to a weekend of staring at other people’s mistakes, I keep coming back for more. There’s a kind of demented camara-derie that comes from the twisted torture of giving up our weekends to put together a paper that many students don’t seem to realize exists. At this point, one of my pri-mary ways of judging a person’s character is: could they survive the Oak Leaf? It’s not that we’ve ever had a death on staff, al-though three of us wound up going to the ER last issue, myself included, for medical reasons completely unrelated to the paper.

Maybe if I was into massively multi-player online games, like World of War-craft, I wouldn’t be here. Of course, I am relatively certain that this is a better way to seek socialization than killing virtual dragons with a bunch of people I’ll never meet. I’m very, very sure that I will never seek employment at a newspaper, but I’m still glad to be a student journalist, because sometimes you have to do something that’s seemingly unrelated to your life’s path to remember that there is more to life than what cubicle you’ll be working in 20 years from now.

I think the best part about college is that we don’t have to know what the heck we’re doing yet. We can still change our minds, or realize that something is fun as a club or hobby, but not what we want to do for the rest of our lives. We can befriend people who are on the surface completely different from ourselves, and realize that in the end, we’re all people. Best of all, we can learn re-ally cool stuff and meet awesome people, and a few months later learn something else completely different but still cool and find a whole new group of people to com-miserate and gripe with. So break out of your shell and live a little, JC. You won’t be in college forever.

Editorial

Learn to live outside your personal bubble

Shock and awe does not make your argument validProject Truth staged an assault on the minds

and eyes of SRJC students last week. Members came with their posters, their flyers and their aborted fetuses to prove to the school that abor-tion is wrong. What they showed instead is that they are a bunch of inconsiderate bullies.

Bullies? That seems a bit harsh. Perhaps you would prefer demagogues or agitators but bullies are what they are.

Whether they’re shaking us down for lunch money or opinions, bullies only want to intim-idate us into thinking they’re better than us. Their fists, literal or metaphorical, punch and batter us until we see ourselves as worthless because we are not like them.

Project Truth came with that agenda. They wanted to prove to us that they are right and those who think a woman has the right to control her own body are wrong. They claim all they wanted to do was raise awareness and educate students about why abortion is wrong.

What they do is preach and seek converts. It is important to make a distinction between education, debate and proselytise.  Education consists of reputable sources providing veri-fiable facts to one or more students.   Debate is the jousting of ideas against each other to come to an understanding of which position is better. Proselytism’s sole aim is to convert oth-ers to your way of thinking.

Was what the did education? I would say

no. They did present facts: abortion does ter-minate the life of a fetus. However, they also presented an opinion in the form of fact. There is no medical, psychological or spiritual way to demonstrate the moment at which sentience and life begins. Many opinions and arguments that can be made, but all of them, from the feeling that life starts at conception to a baby are nothing more than a rumor until the fe-tus draws its first breath.

Was it debate they wanted? Again, no. Debate involves two people equal-ly ready to consider not just the ideas and opin-ions of another, but also to consider their own. When we enter into a rational debate we must be willing to allow the possibility that the other person could be correct. In Project Truth’s cam-paign they came with no intention of changing their position and engaged people in discussion who most likely would rather be left alone.

Was it prothletisation? Indeed it was. The purpose for the assault on campus was simply to make others believe what they do.

Does this make them bullies? No, it does not. It makes them opinionated and inflexible. What

makes them bullies is the tactics they use. They create a context of dead babies for their argu-ments. With graphic images they make us think of dead babies, they make us see doctors as killers

and want us to protect the poor defenseless unborn babies. They push our but-tons, and we can’t help it.

Their tactics are the mental equivalent of being punched in the mouth and asked, am I right now?

Why does Project Truth need to bully us in order to convert us? Be-cause pictures of dead babies make us forget the other side of the argument. A woman with an unwant-

ed pregnancy is not just bearing the child, but also a financial and economic burden that will last far beyond the nine months of the pregnancy. The question that needs to be asked is does the baby’s right to live outweigh the mother’s sover-eignty over her own body?

By bullying us, by showing us the graphic images of death, Project Truth distracts us from the mother. This is wrong. The question of abor-tion and the rights of the fetus vs. the rights of the mother are complex issues that require more than an emotional sucker punch to win a victory.

Project Truth wanted to prove to us that they are

right and those who think a woman has the right to control her own body are

wrong.

Isabel Johnson

Opinion Editor

The Oak leaf

EDITORSEditors-in-Chief: Spencer Harris and Michael Shufro oakleaf-editor@santarosa.eduA&E Editor: Keshia KnightFeatures Editor: Michael ShufroMulti-Media Editor: Noah DiamondNews Editor: David AndersonOpinion Editor: Isabel JohnsonSports Editor: Spencer HarrisSocial Media Editor: Keshia KnightCopy Editor: Isabel JohnsonPhoto Editor: Mischa LopianoLayout Editor: Brutus GrueyWeb Editor: Quinn ConklinAdvertising Manager: Brutus Gruey oakleaf-ads@santaro1sa.edu

CONTACT THE OAKLEAFAddress: 645B Analy VillageSanta Rosa Junior College1501 Mendocino Ave.Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Newsroom: (707) 527-4401Editor Line: (707) 527-4401Adviser, Anne Belden: (707) 527-4867abelden@santarosa.edu

STAFF WRITERSAlex Campbell, Domanique Crawford, Sean Dougherty, Ken Kutska, Grace Williamson, Chardé Wydermyer, Parris Mazer

LETTERSSend letters to the Editor to:oakleaf-editor@santarosa.edu or to the Oak Leaf office. They should include your first and last name and be limited to 300 words. Letters may be edited for style, length, clarity and taste. Libelous or obscene letters will not be printed.

The Oak Leaf is published seven times per se-mester by the Journalism 52 newspaper practice class at SRJC. Editorials do not necessarily re-flect the opinions of the students, staff, faculty or administration.

Newspaper

SRJC

Visit us on the web at: www.theoakleafnews.com

In response to “Steve Jobs deserves no mourning” from Issue III.

I think that Benjamin Brutus Gruey is way off base in his “opinion” on Steve Jobs.

Using this writer’s logic, you might as well condemn Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, along with every corporation who has products manufactured in China and other countries and sold in the USA.

To condemn one person because of work-ing conditions of Chinese factories is ridicu-lous, especially since many, if not most, of the factories in China work under conditions that we would find inhumane and politically incor-rect.

Enslaved by technology?Most Chinese people would not consider

themselves “enslaved”  or “shackled” by a cell phone, a computer or Internet service; they would consider themselves “liberated” by these electronic gadgets.

I have lived and worked in China.

Few people ever had “land-line” phones. However, cell phones, computers, and the Inter-net are what have connected the Chinese people to the rest of the modern world, and it broke down 30 plus years of isolation for the Chinese people. Once the door was opened, and they could see what the rest of the world was really like, the Chinese government had to change.

They now have access to each other and the rest of the world.

Yes, factory workers around the world (in-cluding the U.S.), do repetetive work that is bor-ing, unchallenging, and sometimes dangerous for long hours. Not too far back in our history, we had child laborers in US factories, and we still have “sweat” shops that operate illegally.

As individuals and as a nation, we still need to be vigilent to demand humane and safe labor laws at home and to strongly encourage other countries to establish humane and safe working conditions for all types of work situations, in-cluding factories and mines.

American companies can contract to have

things made in other countries and they can put up the money to build factories, but they do not really have “ownership and control” as they would have here in the U.S. The Chinese have “abused” their peasant workers for thou-sands of years. However, the new generations of workers  who have been raised with cell phones and computers will refuse to work in the same manner as their parents and grandparents, and the Chinese government will finally be forced to deal with human rights issues and their labor laws.

If someone wants to make a statement against Chinese factories:   Don’t buy anything made in China, be vocal about that, and write to all of the corporations who contract for prod-ucts to be made there,   and to the politicians who encouraged manufacturing to move off to developing countries.

However, condemning Steve Jobs for labor laws in China is way off base.

-Linda Selover, Adjunct ESL Instructor

Letter to the Editor

5www.theoakleafnews.com OPINIONS & EDITORIALS

Violence in video games is a hot button topic for this generation. But why is violence so prevalent in games? Sure, the Sims is the best selling PC franchise of all time, and we still get at least a dozen sports games released annually, but there’s no denying that the vast majority of video games are centered around committing acts of violence.

Why are the most popular games violent? What makes it so essential to video games? The reason is the same as in any other medi-um: conflict. Conflict is essential for any story to be interesting, be it a movie, a book, a TV show, or even a video game. We keep watch-ing or reading because we want to see how the conflict will be resolved, how things will turn out for the characters. No one wants to watch the story of a man having breakfast, going to work, then coming home and going to bed. They want to see something go wrong, for a problem to come up, and our protagonist to have to rise up and solve it.

In non-interactive media, the conflict can be sorted out through any means; a couple can talk out their problems, a man can fight for his rights in court, an underdog team can work their way through a championship, or a man can shoot everyone in sight. The situation can respond to any event that occurs, because the entire thing is planned out in advance by the writer. But in an interactive medium, ev-erything is different. There isn’t just one thing that can happen, there’s many. The player dic-tates how things occur, that’s the draw of the format. The player wants to be the one resolv-ing the conflict, the one whose actions have a direct effect on the conflict. But a game isn’t like the real world, where there are reactions for every action. In a game, the only reactions are the ones that are set by the designers be-forehand.

And there in lies the problem. Games sometimes try and be dialogue focused, but in the end the player is just picking and choosing from a bunch of predetermined dialogue op-tions. Players don’t have free reign, they can’t say whatever they want. But with violence any approach can be taken, because the reaction to

getting shot, or punched, or run over is the same in every instance: they get hurt and then they die. So the designer can give the player a gun, and let them do whatever they want with it, because while players can take whatever approach that they want, the reac-tion that impacts the game is the same, they kill people and move on.

It all boils down to numbers. Damage inflicted on someone is, behind the graph-ics, just numbers being taken off of a total. And yes, there are other games that turn player actions into numbers. Games where you manage cities or sports teams take all of the statistics and budgets and run them in the background, showing the results to the player. But those fill a niche market. On the whole, people don’t want to manage simu-lations, or walk through pre-scripted dia-logue scenes. They want to be in the action, resolving the conflict directly, seeing every-thing they do have a distinct result that di-rectly affects the world around them. And violence is the most straightforward way to do it.

Quinn Conklin

Web Editor

Student on the street

Luis Sevina Regielyn PaduaChris SparrowKatie Suija Skylar Evans

What are you looking forward to most this Holiday Season?

Neo-cons are knocking at the White House door...again

Video games: conflict resolution and action

“Family... Dinners and stuff.”

“A break from school honestly, this semester’s been crazy.”

“Having some free time.

Not stressing about

school.”

“Getting together with friends and family. Vacation, just chilling with my family. Eating good food. ”

“Being able to spend time with my family. I’m usually always here at the theatre department so I barely get to be able to see them.”

The good folks over in Redmond, Wash. seem to think we need a new

Windows operating system after only a cou-ple of years. They think we need a tablet op-erating system on our laptops and personal computers. They want us sliding our win-dows and swiping across our desktop.

The problem is it works. The developer build of Windows 8 runs

better on my laptop than Windows 7 ever has. A pre-beta version of the software does not crash my video drivers the way 7 does like clockwork every three days. It recog-nizes new networks quicker. And it is just plain easier to use.

It shouldn’t be.The Metro user interface is clearly built

to be used with touch inputs. Big buttons, the ability to swipe through windows and a start menu you can reorder just by drag-ging and dropping tiles are all interactions we are more used to seeing on our phones than on our desktop.

This new interface is the most notice-able tweak in the latest version of Windows, but there is more going on than just a new look. Windows 8 preserves a number of the great features from 7. Aero Snap, used to resize windows; is still there for example. Things have been improved.

Windows has struggled from version to version with permission to use files. Sometimes you could not access some-thing because you were not an adminis-trator, something would not close because you did not have permission. Windows was like a 2 year old who had just learned the word “no.” By the time Vista was released Windows had grown into a demanding 4 year old asking permission for everything. It got better in Windows 7 and it seems this trend of maturity has continued.

Fair warning: it gets a bit technical here. I am dual booting my Lenovo Ideapad be-tween Windows 7 and Windows 8. This means at start up I can choose which oper-ating system I use. It also means I have two different sections of my hard drive with different user accounts for each of them. Sometimes I will be working in one OS and need a file that I started in the other. When this happens I have to give administrator level permission for Windows 8 to access the Windows 7 My Documents folder. No big deal. Then it asked if I wanted it to re-member this decision.

Wait what?Does this mean Win 8 is remembering

what is OK and what’s not? Sure enough, next time I returned to My Documents on the Windows 7 drive I did not have to tell it “yes it is OK if I do this.”

There are other bells and whistles at-tached as well. For example, when backing up files from the computer to an external hard drive, instead of listing each transfer in a separate window, each progress graph lines up one under the other, neat and tidy in one window. Wait, did I just say graph? Indeed I did. Gone is the progress bar of old. Now Win 8 shares a shiny graph, track-ing transfer speed over time. You can see exactly how much speed you lose or gain from each extra file or folder you transfer simultaneously.

Is Windows 8 ready to be your main operating system already? Probably not. Microsoft is still adding features, meeting standards and verifying compatibilities. Will it be worth the money when it comes out? Well, let’s just say I have already start-ed shopping for a touch screen monitor.

Windows 8 is comingNeo-conservatives like Dick Cheney, Don-

ald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush took charge of the White House in 2000 and immediately implemented and operated an aggressive “glob-al dominance” foreign policy. They were able to accomplish this through a vast network of neo-conservative think tanks such as Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and American Enterprise Institute (AEI). They also used me-dia outlets such as magazines like “The Public Interest” and “The Weekly Standard.”

AEI, founded in 1943, is considered by many to be the most influential neo-con think tank in America today. President George W. Bush ap-pointed more than 12 AEI members to senior positions in his administration.  The members of the group are filled with Ivy League graduates and are linked to many other conservative think tanks and media outlets, including Fox News.

Irving Kristol, a.k.a. “The Godfather of Neo-conservatives” and an AEI member, founded the neo-con magazine “The Public Interest” in 1965, effectively giving neo-conservatives a media platform to push their “American global military dominance” agenda. 

Kristol, a social democrat, was one of the first to be called neo-conservative, a term coined in 1973 to criticize Democrats who didn’t sup-port Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.”   Irving loved the neo-conservative title and wore the name proudly like a badge of honor. Neo-cons then criticized Carter for his human rights ef-

forts and for relaxing relations with Russia. By 1983 most neo-cons were Republicans.

In 1995, William Kristol, a Harvard gradu-ate and son of Irving Kristol, founded “The Weekly Standard,” another neo-con magazine full of educated authors pushing U.S. global dominance. In 1997, William founded PNAC and immediately started garnishing support to convince then President Clinton to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power.  

In a report PNAC delivered in Sept. 2000, titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the au-thors seemed to call for a catastrophic event to occur in order to get public support to push this global military dominance agenda forward. In section five of this report, titled “Creating To-morrow’s Dominant Force,” PNAC authors ac-knowledged how swaying public opinion could take a very long time without a catastrophic event by including this sentence:

“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor,” the report states. PNAC disbanded in 2005 after many war policies in Iraq failed, but William Kristol went on to start a think tank called For-eign Policy Initiative (FPI), which fills the same roll as PNAC.

Now that the Republican Primary has taken center stage in American politics, we must ask ourselves if these think tanks are still influen-tial. Most candidates have toned down their pro-war stances, calling for diplomacy and other countries to share the burden of fighting a global war on terror. Front runner Mitt Rom-

ney is on record stating that “corporations are people.”  That panders quite a bit to these neo-con pro-corporation beliefs. Romney has also started to use theocratic rhetoric to unify his party, but we haven’t seen much about global military dominance out of him until now.

He gave a speech Oct.7 in South Carolina in which he articulated a need to build up our Navy and continued to push diplomacy through a strong global military presence. To me this speech played right to FPI, AEI and other neo-con groups. He was rewarded handsomely; by Monday morning Romney had jumped eight points in the polls.

President Bush spent more money on social programs than President Clinton and Romney passed a progressive state healthcare bill that was emulated by President Obama‘s federal plan, thus keeping to the socially liberal stance of the ex-Democrat neo-cons. The big differ-ence between Romney and Obama is in foreign policy.

Obama hasn’t done much to change foreign policy, but he did run on an evolutionary ap-proach to foreign policy, not a revolutionary change. Romney seemed to support that for a while, but it seems he has discovered the silent force of the neo-cons, and I predict he will con-tinue to use global military presence rhetoric to attempt to win the election.

If he is successful we will once again be relinquishing the White House to the neo-conservatives, and American Imperialism will continue to expand.

Drew Sheets

Contributing Writer

Noah Diamond

Multi-Media Editor

Students looking for a good fright this October can choose from three horrorific haunts summoning the ghoulish spirit of Halloween in Sonoma County.

This year’s activities range from fear-fueled events including haunted houses and mazes to live-screened horror flicks, panic-pumped amusement rides and an extreme yard haunt with a full-blown light show.

-Michael Shufro

Night Terrors: Creeps, freaks and caskets lure locals to halloween haunts

Outside the warped chambers of sadist surgeons, Halloween enthusiasts looking for a high-quality, free haunting experience can go to the Wicked West Ghost Town of Jose Ramon Avenue.

In its fourth season , the ex-treme yard haunt follows a story-line called the Legend of the Rosa Witch, and includes several rooms and a maze with 8-foot-tall walls. The ghost town also contains an interactive monster that allows visitors to activate different props in the yard and a constantly run-ning light show, which creator Bill Wolcott says has never been done in a home haunt before. A computerized setup using an 80-channel Light-O-Rama system to sequence the lights with music, the haunt includes more than 20 Halloween related songs from the past to the present.

Wicked West Ghost Townof Jose Ramon Avenue

Inside a vacant warehouse in Santa Rosa, an unsettling laby-rinth of darkness awaits its next line of victims. Outside, a crowd of scare-junkies gathers around the local haunt to get their eve-ning’s fix of terror. One by one, each guest enters the warped, pitch black series of corridors, armed only with the faint light of a glow stick just bright enough to disturb the slew of deranged freaks lurking in the shadows.

“It’s a walk into and through your worst nightmares,” says Judy Groverman Walker, co-owner and marketing specialist for the hor-ror-riddled house.

With 6,000 square feet of long, lightless and winding passages, Walker encourages visitors to tour the twisted maze from hell, known as Blind Scream, at their own pace. Victims are kept from wandering off the main path by monsters constantly leering out of the dark, Walker says. Along the way, guests can expect a visual dose of lunacy from a giant spin-ning vortex to a playground of evil

clowns.Aside from Blind Scream the

premise includes a second haunt-ed house named Doc’s Horrorito-rium, and The Last Ride, a three-minute death trip underground.

The Halloween spectacle, start-ed in 2010 and based upon the Hopper House of Horror, is the culmination of the vision of co-owner Drew Dominguez, who’s built and designed more than 50 professional haunted houses in his career.

A macabre shanty filled with the sounds and smells of crea-tures roaming the haunted house’s dingy halls, Doc’s Horroritorium offers scare-seekers an in-depth theatric experience of gore and the grotesque. Through a series of thematically designed rooms Doc Hunter and his demented family carry on blood-bursting perfor-mances for new visitors playing witness to the mad doctor’s side-show of terrors.

At any given moment 35 to 60 actors in elaborate monster cos-tumes prowl the grounds. Walker

says, “We work with and train our actors for months prior to the haunt’s opening.”

Guests still thirsting for more can sate their every last desire for fright by venturing onto The Last Ride. Believed to be one of only 50 functioning in the United States, the ride provides the highly creepy and unusual simulation of being buried alive.

Willing participants begin their experience by climbing into an authentic coffin, then lay down as gravediggers close the heavy lid upon them. The ride, which goes from casket to hearse to six feet under, includes the use of hydrau-lics and the smells and sounds of dirt being shoveled down upon the helpless victim.

While Walker and Dominguez don’t recommend children under seven going into either haunted house, they pull in a wide range of audiences and ages from families and groups of 40 to 50-year-old men and women out for a scare to college students and haunted house enthusiasts from the Mid-

west, where haunts are a popular past time.

“It’s a great date night,” Walker says. “We even get grandma and grandpa coming through.”

Walker, Dominguez and their crew of monsters will be terrifying from dusk (approximately 7 p.m.) till 11 p.m., except on Sundays when the haunt closes at 10 p.m., Oct. 25 through Halloween. Lo-cated on the Corby Auto Mall in the Manly Used Car Superstore at 2770 Corby Avenue, Blind Scream and Doc’s Horrortorium cost $15 a piece or $25 as a pair at the door and $20 online at blindscream.com; The Last Ride costs $7.

Walker will also hold two nights of fundraising in which a portion of the haunt’s proceeds will go to support community based non-profits; the Santa Rosa High School ArtQuest fundrais-ing night will be on Oct. 26, and the Cardinal Newman Youth Em-powerment and Service night on Oct. 27.

Blind Scream, The Last Ride and Doc’s Horrortorium

Students looking for a good fright this October can choose from three horrorific haunts summoning the ghoulish spirit of Halloween in Sonoma County.

This year’s activities range from fear-fueled events including haunted houses and mazes to live-screened horror flicks, panic-pumped amusement rides and an extreme yard haunt with a full-blown light show.

-Michael Shufro

Night Terrors: Creeps, freaks and caskets lure locals to halloween haunts

In the West County, another deranged doctor is skulking about his haunted home leaving guests with a perpetual case of the goose-bumps. Owned and operated by Tracie Skaggs and her husband, Michael Skaggs, Dr. Evil’s House of Horror offers visitors to walk through their monster-riddled maze and explore the doctor’s many rooms of terror.

“You’ve got to watch it,” Tracy says to folks going to see the doc-tor. “You will be touched, you will be moved and you could very well get slimed.”

While the annual event can bring lines of people, the Skaggs have set up a big fire pit and live-screened horror films this year to keep their guests cozy while they wait.

Inside the maze, walls and doorways open up, close in and increasingly shrink in size. Vol-unteer actors play out a variety of bloodcurdling freak shows throughout the different rooms including one man who performs sacrifices.

“The best way to describe it is as an obstacle course of horror,” says Michael Skaggs, who builds the sets, which take more than two months to construct.

The House of Horrors, now celebrating its 10th Halloween, first came to life when the Skaggs owned an amusement park and decided to create a haunted house for their customers. One year a family in town needed to raise money for a wheelchair accessible van, and the Skaggs offered to do-nate what money they made from the haunted house to their cause.

While the amusement park shutdown eight years ago and is now a campground, the Skaggs have held onto their Halloween spirit, and donate all the haunt-ed house’s proceeds to different charities each year. Proceeds this year benefit The National Kid-ney Foundation and Elves with Shears, a local charity group that provides Christmas to the needy via donations of decorated trees, gifts and food.

Dr. Evil’s House of Horrors runs from sundown to 11 p.m. ev-ery Friday and Saturday through the month of October at 16101 Neely Road in Guerneville. Tick-ets cost $10. While the Skaggs don’t recommend anyone under the age of 12 inside the house, a spooky maze designed for chil-dren is also open to the public on the property.

Dr. Evil’s House of Horror

Outside the warped chambers of sadist surgeons, Halloween enthusiasts looking for a high-quality, free haunting experience can go to the Wicked West Ghost Town of Jose Ramon Avenue.

In its fourth season , the ex-treme yard haunt follows a story-line called the Legend of the Rosa Witch, and includes several rooms and a maze with 8-foot-tall walls. The ghost town also contains an interactive monster that allows visitors to activate different props in the yard and a constantly run-ning light show, which creator Bill Wolcott says has never been done in a home haunt before. A computerized setup using an 80-channel Light-O-Rama system to sequence the lights with music, the haunt includes more than 20 Halloween related songs from the past to the present.

The town, last year listed as 4th in the nation out of more than 300 registered home haunts, comes together each year as a neighbor-hood project in which Wolcott and his neighbors volunteer their time for three months to scare the bejesus out of people. This year he plans on ranking in the top three.

“We have at any given time an average of ten monsters working within the haunt,” Wolcott says. “Their main job is to do anything they can to make our spectators wet themselves.”

Last year Wolcott estimates about 8,000 people flocked to the ghost town, about 2500 of whom came on Halloween night alone.

Guests begin their journey into the ghoulish underworld by entering the Mead Clark Lumber Co. doors. “After that it all de-pends how they can manage their

fear and find their way out,” Wol-cott says. “We don’t assure a good scare, we just want them to make it out alive.”

Built entirely out of 100-year-old redwoods, the town is meant to replicate the look of some of Sonoma County’s first buildings. The “insane Shaking Marshall” and brand new 2011 scarecrow are the town’s most extreme props. Almost all of the props inside the haunt are handmade and range from authentic Old West saddles to wooden tombstones.

The Ghost Town, located at 472 Jose Ramon Avenue in Santa Rosa, operates from 7:30-9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and from 7:30-10:30 p.m. on Fri-days and Saturdays; Halloween night the haunt will carry on until 11 p.m.

Wicked West Ghost Townof Jose Ramon Avenue

8 October 24, 2011ARTS &ENTERTAINMENT

A toe-tapping rhythm, catchy guitar riff and a man pouring out his soul: the essence of the blues. In this day and age, many people don’t give the blues its due respect. Blues is the forebearer of rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and even hip-hop. And yet, many in today’s generation have little to no idea of these musical inspirations.

One of these Blues originators is Robert Johnson. “If he’s not the father of the Blues, he’s one of the suspects,” said SRJC English in-structor Richard Speakes. Speakes will deliver a lecture about Robert Johnson titled “Robert Johnson’s Beautiful Malady” from noon to 1 p.m. Oct. 26 in Newman Auditori-um. He will tell about Johnson’s life growing up in the Mississippi Delta, and punctuate the lecture with re-corded blues music for education

and enjoy-ment.

Speakes explained how Johnson’s music led to musicians like Muddy Waters, which in turn inspired rock ‘n’ roll bands like the Rolling Stones. Eric Clapton revered Johnson’s mu-sic as if it was holy, and for a long time refused to do covers or tributes for that reason.

The lecture is part of this year’s Works of Literary Merit series ex-ploring Sherman Alexie’s book “Reservation Blues,” currently fea-tured in many English classes. In the book, the spirit of Robert John-son plays a part, as does his guitar,

which magically endows its player with incredible ability.

The faculty assumed 1A stu-dents wouldn’t know a thing about Robert Johnson, and knew how Speakes loved the blues. “I’m not talking about the book, I’m talking about the music and it’s effect on culture,” Speakes said.

For students, Speakes said being exposed to Robert Johnson and the Blues is like “finding out about a re-ally hip grandfather who you have more in common with than your father.”

The audience may not have got-ten wet, but the sound of pouring rain drops roared through Bur-bank Auditorium on Oct. 20 as the SRJC Music Department presented Music for a Rainy Day, an evening of performances by the Maria Car-illo High School Band and SRJC’s Symphonic Band.

Under the direction of Joe Perea, the 40-member ensemble performed five pieces ranging from soft, dramatic and sombering numbers to a fast tempo, circus-like march. While only one piece of music actually represented a rainy day, each piece chosen by Perea had some sort of title that dealt with the theme of the night.

Opening the performance with a piece titled “Whirlwinds” by Richard Saucedo, the Symphonic band’s talented percussion section steadied the crazy tempoed fan-fare. The Saucedo arrangement was a perfect opening number as each piece increased in difficulty.

The soft humbling entrance of the woodwinds to begin the next piece, “After a Gentle Rain” com-posed by Anthony Iannoccone, featured a near flawless flute sec-tion with a strong and steady clari-net accompaniment. The different instrumental sections slowly built momentum until it became a full melodic wonder. However, at the end of the piece the notes seemed too long for the woodwinds to hold until the conductor dropped his hands. It seemed the musicians could have used better phrasing, or

at least scattered phrasing among the sections to sustain the note.

The third and fourth pieces of the performance were the band’s most provoking and memorable. The “Hymn for the Lost and Liv-ing” by Eric Ewazen is an instru-mental account of Ewazen’s expe-rience in New York following the tragedies of Sept. 11. With a single brass solo to open, the piece cre-scendoed from soft, light harmo-nies to powerful, dramatic melo-dies. The piece evoked every single emotion the composer meant the audience to feel.

Eric Whitacre originally com-posed “Cloudburst” as a choral

piece, but the instrumental adapta-tion the band performed was noth-ing short of amazing. Small vocal sections were strewn between the full band and the masterful solos by oboist Tess Woodbury and Jim-my Decicio on bass clarinet. Perea told the audience before the piece began that it needed a bit of crowd participation, though no one ex-pected the snapping of fingers to become the highlight of the piece.

If you closed your eyes as the crowd of 50 snapped their fingers it sounded like rain falling from the sky. As the snaps sped up and slowed down at the audiences’ own discretion, the cloud actually

seemed to burst into a full-fleged rainstorm.

The band’s performance ended with a March titled “Rolling Thun-der” by Henry Fillmore. Though the piece seemed extremely short, fast-paced trills of each section once again showcased the remark-able talent of the SRJC musicians.

Music for a Rainy Day had very little to do with a rain, but the SRJC Symphonic band is comprised of so many brilliant musicians that it did not matter what they played. With only a limited amount of per-formances a semester, it would be a shame to miss out on seeing this band perform in the future.

Mischa Lopiano/Oak LeafJoe Perea and the SRJC’s Symphonic Band delighed the audience with their Music for a Rainy Day.

Keshia Knight

A&E Editor

Parris Mazer

Staff Writer

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Thunderous applause brings Music for a Rainy Day to its conclusion

9www.theoakleafnews.com ARTS &ENTERTAINMENT

The tale of Beowulf is an un-dertaking to behold. Even though the story has been told countless times, local newspaper cartoonist and graphic novelist Alexis Fajardo has successfully created a new ad-venture based on the history of Be-owulf, but not in the classical sense. Fajardo has taken the violent nature of the tale and turned it into a chil-dren’s version called “Kid Beowulf.”

Fajardo talked to a crowd of stu-dents in Newman auditorium about his book and unusual techniques on Oct. 10 in a lecture titled “Com-ics and Classics: art, literature, and pop-culture.

“Kid Beowulf ” focuses on two young brothers named Beowulf and Grendel who embark on adventures that take them far off places around the world. Each story surrounding Beowulf ’s childhood presents his-torical significances from ancient figures that bring the legend of Be-owulf to life.

Fajardo has worked on this graphic novel series for the better part of his life. “Kid Beowulf started as a mini-comic about 10 years ago. It was just a side-project I was doing as I tried to get my comic strip ‘Pla-to’s Republic’ syndicated,” Fajardo said. “The story continued to grow and grow until it turned into a full blown creation.”

“Kid Beowolf ” is intended to be a 12-part series each containing a three-block set with the first two books already released. “There are

roughly 12 ‘Kid Beowulf ’ books planned, each averaging 200 pages,” Fajardo said.

The first two books are titled “Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath” and “Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland.” The third novel, “Kid Beowulf vs. El Cid” is current-ly in the works and is set for release next spring.

“Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland” is based on a story of King Charlamagne and a group of his-toric knights led by a hero named Roland. Each novel travels to at least one country. “Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath” is based in Denmark and Sweden with the sec-ond and third books taking place in France and Spain.

Most of the story ideas come from international ancient poems that help Fajardo keep his ideas fresh and consistent. “The source material! Great epic poems like The Odyssey, Gilgamesh and others are what inspires me the most,” Fajardo said. He also wishes to venture into areas that aren’t quite as well known as Beowulf to help educate people.

The next books in the series will continue the journey of Beowulf and Grendel as they travel to the far reaches of Europe and Asia.

Fajardo takes great pride in his work, creating each book from the ground up. He has a great love for history and does a lot of research.

“Simply put, history happened. All of these stories, though fanciful, are still rooted in places that exist,” Fajardo said. “If I wanted to go see Beowulf ’s homeland, I can go to Sweden and get a sense of it.”

Though the series is geared to

children he wants both children and adults to learn something form the experience of reading.

Fajardo’s books have all the characteristics of something that can be translated into a cartoon or movie. “I’m a big fan and really enjoy classic 2D animation,” Fajardo said. “I try to bring some of that movement into my work and would be open to the idea of doing animated movies; but the story has got to be right and so does the application. These days everybody wants something done in CG or motion capture and that’s less interesting to me than traditional 2D.”

Fajardo would like to stick to his origins and keep going with the classic style. He’d rather stay with historical-based ideas rather than adventure into the realms of superheroes and villains.

“I grew up reading Marvel and DC comics but I haven’t kept up with them,” Fajardo said. “My art style isn’t of the super-hero genre and even so, it comes down to the story for me; superheroes don’t evolve and their actions have no consequences, the risks they take are super-ficial.”

Mischa Lopiano/Oak LeafThe Scandanavian Rock Art exibit displays art from two different regions in Sweden dating back from 1,500-5,000 BCE and 3,500-2,500 BCE. The exibit is free to students.

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Ancient relics and artwork from Northern Europe fill the walls of Santa Rosa Junior College Museum. “Transformations,” the new Scan-dinavian Rock Art exhibit provides viewers with a look at several old ta-boos still culturally significant today.

SRJC Behavioral Sciences Chair Jürgen Werner Kremer, who ar-ranged the exhibit, presented a lecture on the artwork Oct. 17 in Newman Auditorium. The exhibit features a photo documentary and his own artistic exploration of pre-historic Scandinavian art.

The art collection originates from two different places in Sweden: Bo-huslan in Southern Sweden and Nämforsen in Northern Sweden. The rock art images from Bohuslan are dated from 1,500-5,000 B.C. and the Nämforsen art from 3,500-2,500 B.C.

As Kremer approached the po-dium excitement hushed the crowd. Kremer expressed the significance of ancient culture. “I am hoping that

people are able to engage more deep-ly with an indigenous world view and look more deeply into ancestry,” hesaid.

The exhibit showcases Kremer’s adopted versions of Scandinavian rock art, such as the Snake Prayer, a piece based on the Midgardsnake, a serpent in Old Norse mythology that holds the world.

NetWoman or Women of Mem-ory is another piece that has been interpreted by Kremer. The Net-Woman has the capacity to take in shadow material or bad memories and to breathe them out purified and healed.

During the lecture Kremer delved into cultural tragedies and explained through his art collection how people can begin to acknowl-edge these tragedies in order to heal. “I want people to be able to deal with the shadow aspect of our history,” Kremer said.

Two wooden waist-high guard-ians flank the entrance of the exhibit; one is female and the other male. The statues are inspired by Northern Germany, dating back to the Iron Age. These statues are protectors of

dangerous passages, Kremer said.

Behind the guardians is a por-tal, a passageway through physical space. On the arch-way of the portal are ravens, called the Openers. The raven’s names are Huginn, meaning intent or conscious-ness and Muninn, meaning memory.

To the left of the entrance are works of art from the south; to the right are works from the north. “It’s an experi-ence. You can feel the power of these objects; you get an experience of the Shamanic culture,” said Sharon Ko-cher, an SRJC community member.

The lecture ended with a tribal dance performed by SRJC stu-dents Kelsey Smith, Lucy Lewis and Natalie Makardi. The dance started off with the three women covered in blankets lying on the floor. The lights were brought down low and a hum rose through the air as Kremer

played Shamanic drums. The dancers caught the beat of

the drum and slowly began to writhe under the blankets. Gradually the drumbeat became softer and the women revealed their arms, reach-ing up toward the sky. Bit by bit each body part was revealed until the blanket was no longer covering them.

Gracefully each woman began to dance. As the drum beats, the pure and fluid movement of the dancers wove a story that captivated the au-dience. The dance ended with one

last moan lingering in the air until all three women stopped. With the power of the drum still echoing in the air, the audience sat in silence locked into a state of awe. 

The Scandinavian rock art exhibit runs from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mon-day thru Thursday and from 9 a.m. to noon Friday until Dec. 16. in Buss-man Hall at the SRJC Museum. The exhibit is free for SRJC students and community members.

Scandinavian rock art on display at SRJC Museum

Local artist transforms ancient tale into graphic novel Ken Kutska

Staff Writer

Domanique Crawford

Staff Writer

Oak Leaf Cookies: 645 Analy Village

10 October 24, 2011SPORTS

Led by top-ranked twin sisters Cara and Laruen Curtin, the SRJC women’s soccer team remains un-beaten at home despite a penalty ridden game against the Modesto Junior College Pirates on Oct. 21. The Lady Bear Cubs suffered their first and only loss earlier this season at Modesto 2-nil.

“They [Modesto] have one very, very good player on their team, a foward,” head coach Luke Oberkirch said. “They’re a well-rounded team. Once they beat us they went on a little bit of a downslide, where after we lost, we went on a upswing.”

The latest game was a physical grudge match that ended in a 1-1 tie as the Pirates were able to come from behind and score a late cor-ner kick goal. Ten minutes into the beginning of the match freshman defender Alex Coffaney was able to find forward Cara Curtin for an assist with Curtin finishing with a spectacular goal from 50 yards out to take the lead 1-nil.

However, that is the most action Curtin saw the entire match due to her aggressive tactics. With 20 min-utes to go in the first-half Curtin and an opposing Modesto defender engaged into an embarrasing tussle. Curtin received a red card and was forced out of the match. “She lost her composure and deserved a red card,” Oberkirch said.

In the team’s last home game on

Oct. 14, the team exhibited its home field dominance against the Sacramento City College Panthers crushing them 5-nil behind an impressive display from Lady Bear Cub forwards.

Cara and her twin sister Lauren have been a force to be reckoned with this sea-son and are the undisputed top siblings competing in California community col-lege soccer. Cara is current-ly ranked first in the state in points, which is a combina-tion of goals and assists, with 44 and is second in the state in goals with 18. Meanwhile, Lauren is 18 in the state with 20 points and is projected to end the sea-son in the top 10.

Twice this season the Curtins have combined for five goals and at least one sister has scored in 10 of the 12 games played this season. Since Cara plays forward she sees more of-fensive action scoring 18 goals and earning eight assists, while Lauren at midfield has managed to score nine goals and find two assists.

“I actually want her to score, I feel bad when I score all the goals and not her. Were not that com-petitive with each other,” Cara said. Both the sisters are sophmores and their prospects for transferring next year are bright.

“Their options are open at this point. They can run track and play soccer at a school if they wanted to,” Oberkirch said. The Curtins were both All-League in cross country and track while attending Maria Carillo High School.

Currently, the Lady Bear Cubs are in a battle with Diablo Valley to control the Big 8 conference. Diablo Valley has an overall record of 11-1-1 while Santa Rosa is at 9-1-2. The

teams will face each other again at 1 p.m. Nov. 4 in Santa Rosa.

According to California Com-munity Soccer News, Santa Rosa is ranked not only number one with a power rank of 2.56 in the confer-ence and region, but the entire state based on its strength of schedule. In the latest National Soccer Coaches Association poll on Oct. 18, Santa Rosa was ranked number 7 in the country.

Whatever this season has in store for the Lady Bear Cubs it will be a memorable one for first-year coach Oberkirch. “They don’t like to lose; I found that out real quick,” Oberkirch said. He comes to SRJC with an impressive resume spend-ing 15 years at Sonoma State Uni-versity as the women’s soccer head coach with a overall record of 189-97-33 and earning two trips to the NCAA tournament.

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Curtin sisters rank at the top in the state

Mischa Lopiano/Oak LeafCara and Lauren Curtin performing their trickery against conference rival Modesto earning the team’s second tie.

11www.theoakleafnews.com SPORTS

The 10th annual Clo’s Classic Charity football game began with an electrifying 100-yard opening kick-off return by Marquis Fruge, howev-er, that would be the only trip to the end zone the Bear Cubs saw all game as the team lost to the Butte Junior College Roadrunners 48-7.

The season’s only game under the lights at Bailey Field was packed full of Bear Cub pride. Clo’s Carnival cre-ated a great family atmosphere with raffles, fresh food and interactive games for kids and adults. The actual game was one to forget.

The Roadrunners are ranked fourth in California while ranking in the top five in all major offen-sive categories. SRJC was excited to schedule the annual game as a Nor-Cal Conference contest against the highly touted Roadrunners, but did not expect a blowout. Butte finished the game with 510 total yards while SRJC had only 166 total yards.

“In the past some of the games have been blowouts in favor of us, so we wanted to bring a good game for the fans. You always have the risk of losing when you play the best, but that also creates areas for improve-ment,” Head Athletic Director Jim Forkum said before the game.

The game could not have started any better for SRJC. After the out-standing 100-yard effort by Fruge, the Bear Cub defense forced two straight three and outs by Butte’s of-fense making the Roadrunner’s start-ing quarterback Collin Ramirez look flustered and disoriented.

During SRJC’s second possession, sophomore wide receiver Blakelyn Birks caught a screen pass from Bryc-son King. Birks would have exploded through the defense for a touchdown except freshman offensive linemen Scott Boyette was flagged for a hold-ing penalty nullifying the six points. The drive stalled and the Bear Cubs attempted a 32-yard field goal, but Lee Aranda missed wide right. The freshman King went 10-20 with 88 yards, but due to his inconsistency was replaced by sophomore Jared Hasskamp. The first quarter ended with SRJC leading 7-0.

At the beginning of the second quarter sophomore safety Chris Col-lins forced a Roadrunner fumble giving the Bear Cubs’ offense great a field position on the opposing team’s 26-yard line. But the offense faltered again losing yardage and missing another Aranda field goal wide left

from 50-yards out.After the second missed field

goal, the Roadrunners began to gain confidence scoring two touchdowns within 20 seconds. The first Butte scoring play came on a 63-yard pass and catch from Ramirez to Shawn Conway Jr. with 10:38 on the clock. On the ensuing kickoff Tevin Ivy picked up a Fruge fumble and ran into the end zone for a 25-yard re-turn. Although Butte missed the ex-tra point taking the lead 13-7, all the momentum was shifting their way.

SRJC’s offense started to sputter punting the ball on three consecu-tive possessions. The next scoring drive came with 3:13 to go in the second quarter when Nick Lonne-gren caught a 32-yard laser from Ramirez in the back of the end zone. The Roadrunners opted to go for two and converted on a catch from Tyler McIntyre, increasing the lead to 21-7.

Then, with time expiring in the second quarter, Ramirez set up running back Tromaine Dennis on a 45-yard screen pass touchdown, and all the Bear Cub fans in at-tendance at Bailey Field could not believe their eyes. The Roadrun-ners scored a staggering 28 points in the second quarter and entered halftime leading, 28-7.

At halftime, it seemed Butte’s coaching staff knew SRJC’s playbook countering every play head coach

Keith Simons signaled in. If Simons blitzed to the right, Butte would counter with a screen pass to the left. Possession after possession, it felt like the Butte coaching staff was one step ahead of SRJC.

The third quarter was unevent-ful until Tromaine, who had 171 total yards, caught another screen pass from the left side for a 70-yard touchdown. Tromaine and the Butte coaching staff abused the right side of the SRJC defensive line all game long.

R a m i r e z would finish his night on a bang, scrabbling around to find Conway Jr. on a 23-yard touch-down earning Conway Jr.’s sec-ond of the game. But Butte missed the extra point. Ramirez would finish the game 13-25, with 328 yards and five impressive touchdowns.

D y l a n Swartz started the fourth quar-

ter at quarterback for the Roadrun-ners and on his first possession threw Lonnegren a 61-yard touchdown giving Lonnegren his second score of the game. It seemed the Roadrun-ners could have placed a cheerleader at quarterback and still would have scored. The offensive pressure from Butte was too much for the Bear Cubs to handle.

The rest of the fourth quarter

involved the Bear Cub fans making an early exit as the Roadrunners ran out the clock.

The win pushes Butte into sec-ond place in the NorCal North Di-vision at 6-1 while SRJC moves into fifth place with an overall record of 3-4 and a conference record of 0-2. The next home game is at 1 p.m. on Nov. 12 against first place San Fran-cisco City College.

First 500 paid in the door Saturday

Spencer Harris

Co-Editor-in-Chief

Roadrunners cream Cubs at Clo’s Classic

TJ Verdier/Contributing photographerWide receiver Jarvis Bryant and the Bear Cubs’ offense were held to 166 yards in the 2011 Clo’s Classic Charity game against the Roadrunners.

TJ Verdier/Contributing photographerThroughout the night Butte’s offensive line pushed the Bears Cub defenders around.

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Under the trees, the aroma of caramel popcorn, candied apples and hay bales wafts in the fall air. Mud covered tractors pull cartloads of people on a hayride to an enor-mous pumpkin patch. Connecting locals to their community, the To-lay Fall Festival highlights the best of Sonoma County’s agriculture and outdoors in the autumn season.

During the week, schools from across the county visit and explore the Festival at the Tolay Lake Re-gional Park. During the two week-ends the event is open to the public.

Sonoma County purchased this ranch in 2005 from the Cardoza’s, who had a big fall festival every year, said John Ryan, coordinator of the volunteers at the festival. When the county decided to pur-chase the ranch and transform it into a Regional Park, the public wanted to continue that tradition. “The Tolay Festival started in 2006. We steered it, trying to keep it still fun but more toward the agricul-tural heritage, education and that sort of thing,” Ryan said.

A long road transitioning from badly paved asphalt to dirt leads down into the valley where the festival takes place. Entering the park, festival goers pass a maze of hay bales. The maze is two bales tall and wide for wheelchairs. Be-yond the maze is a raceway where

there is constant hopping in potato sacks and gal-loping hobby horses racing to the finish line. Behind the raceway is a scarecrow building station where the scarecrows are turned into park ranger manikins equipped with a ranger hat and name.

Up the trail from the potato sack races is a se-ries of craft village booths. The booths offer lessons in making corn husk dolls. To make these dolls you dry corn husks and weave them together to create a hand-made, unique doll. There is also a wool carding booth, where volunteers teach how to turn sheep’s wool into yarn. This is teaching not only children but adults how clothes are made and where things come from. There is also the option to dye the wool. Next to the wool dying station volun-teers teach how to make candles. The last booth has a nest of baby chicks on display.

One popular activity at the fes-tival is the pumpkin seed spitting contest, where all the competitors line up at the starting point and spit the seeds as far as they can. The furthest seeds are marked with bales of hay.

The night-time creatures’ barn is the Tolay Festival’s interpretation of

a haunted house. The barn is filled with nocturnal animals like snakes, owls, tortoises and scorpions. The scorpions have a black light on them to show their luminescent features. The owls are not encaged but on the arms of volunteers and perched throughout the barn. “They had a haunted house in this large barn, and being a parks department we want to put our public educational twist to it,” said Jeff Taylor, a ranger

for Sonoma County Regional Parks.The entry fee is $4 for adults and

$1 for ages 12 and under. “Once you’re in here unless you buy a pumpkin or buy food everything is free. The hayride, farm crafts, seed spitting and all those activi-ties are free,” Ryan said. The event is for the community by the com-munity, bringing in more than 150 individual volunteers, 30 to 40 of whom are new at the Tolay festival

this year. “We raise some money, but there definitely are costs. It’s not necessarily an event where we make money,” Ryan said.

The event’s biggest day so far brought in 2,000 people, Oct 16. The Tolay Fall Festival is the Sonoma County Regional Parks biggest event of the year. For more information about the parks visit http://www.So-nomacountyparks.org.

Tolay Festival combines education and funGrace Williamson

Staff Writer

Mischa Lopiano/Oak LeafChildren and adults were able to choose pumpkins fresh from the patch at the Festival in Tolay Regional Park.