Members of Bay Area Coalition of Welcoming Congregations lead the march from Church Street to Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco On May 26 in support of overturning Prop. 8. RAMSEY EL-QARE / THE GUARDSMAN

Supporters of same-sex marriage gathered in force early Tuesday morning at St. Frances Lutheran Church and marched chanting and singing to hear the state Supreme Court’s decision on the fate of Proposition 8. The cautiously optimistic crowd erupted into boos and shouts of, “shame on you,” when the decision was announced at approximately 10:03 a.m.

Of the three arguments before California’s highest court, two challenged the constitutionality of Prop. 8’s denial of marriage to same-sex couples. In a 6-1 vote, those constitutional challenges were rejected, and the amendment to the state constitution stating “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” was upheld.

The third argument before the state Supreme Court, raised by attorney’s representing The Official Proponents of Proposition 8 and asking for the annulment of roughly 18,000 same-sex marriages conducted before the passage of the amendment, was unanimously denied by the court. Common supreme court practice denies the retroactive application of new laws unless the legislation contains specific language requiring it. Prop. 8, as it was presented to voters, contained no such language.

Protester of the state Supreme Court's decision on upholding Prop.8 being arrested for blocking the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street in San Francisco on May 26. RAMSEY EL-QARE / THE GUARDSMAN

After the announcement, angry protesters moved to block the intersection of Grove Street and Van Ness Avenue, just outside City Hall. San Francisco Police Department Lieutenant Slade said, one platoon — or about 60 officers — were present at the civil disobedience following the announcement. According to sfexaminer.com, 175 protesters were arrested and released.

“This is a great demonstration between community activists and local clergy who are really outraged by the decision of the Supreme Cxourt to uphold Proposition 8,” said Rev. Roland Stringfellow of The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry. He said despite the Court’s decision not to nullify previous same-sex marriages, many protesters still saw the ruling as a defeat. “That is why we’re out on the streets today to make our voices heard and also put our bodies on the line.”  Rev. Stringfellow was arrested roughly 30 minutes later.

United Methodist Minister Israel Alvaren, who helped to coordinate about 40 clergy members with the organization One Struggle, One Fight, said he had cooperated with the SFPD to stage the protest. “Yes. We had a liaison,” an SFPD Leiutenent said. “We’re going to give them their time to express their opinions and differences, possibly for about an hour. At that point, we have to restore order.”

Proponents of Proposition 8 also made a smaller appearance Tuesday, hoisting signs reading “‘Gay’ = Perverted” and “Marriage is still one man and one woman.”

“Our social fiber is based upon the relationship between a man and a female,” said Steve Macias, student body president of Sacramento City College. “That is the beginning of the family; the beginning of society. [The] ruling upholds the right way to conduct society. Without this, we have a degradation of society.”  He also said the state Supreme Court’s decision against nullification was “politically motivated.”

Frank Parish, who said he had worked for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, was outside the Supreme Court building collecting signatures for an initiative to strike down Proposition 8. He said more than 700,000 signatures would be required, since some would disqualified. Rev. Stringfellow said they would, “get marriage equality back on the ballot hopefully as soon as 2010 and, if not, 2012.”

“As a person of faith I would just say that the fight is not over; that we struggle in the tradition of the leaders of the civil rights leaders of the past,” concluded Alvaren. “This is a civil rights issue. For those who are on our side, let them have hope that this will, in the end, be a triumph for justice and equality.”

Ramsey El-Qare contributed to this story

If you know of any places around the city where people can participate in Prop. 8 event let us know by sending us an e-mail via our contact us page.

Follow The Guardsman on Twitter via sfbreakingnews for any breaking news in San Francisco, or at City College.

In response to possible violations of a federal law requiring regular crime reporting, the San Francisco Community College District Police Department has created a crime log and is beginning to train officers to update the log, according to department personnel.

Rod Santos, acting dean of student affairs and public safety, said three officers and one sergeant are being trained to maintain and update the crime log, supplementing the single officer now tasked with the job. The log is posted on the SFCCDPD’s section of City College’s Web site.

The officers and sergeant will be part of a team Santos said will ensure the college is complying with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, a portion of federal law requiring all educational institutions receiving federal funding to regularly publish information on campus crime.

The college’s revamped crime log, introduced in April, is currently maintained by SFCCDPD officer Christian Smith. The crime log format was changed specifically to comply with the Clery Act, which mandates the log must be updated within two business days of any crime reported to the SFCCDPD.

The crime log will contain a minimum of the date, type, location and current disposition of each incident reported to the SFCCDPD.

Alexandra Fieber, a 20-year-old interior design major at city college said she is very concerned about crimes on and around campus and hopes the college will put out more information about campus crime.

“I feel I can be better prepared for what could happen on campus if I know what to expect,” Fieber said.

In addition to the new crime log, Santos said SFCCDPD officers have mentioned other colleges and universities use specialized software to help streamline and simplify Clery Act compliance, as well as reduce the amount of time and paperwork officers must do during their shifts.

Santos said the current procedure to update the crime log is done manually by Smith. Any applicable incident reports must be complied by hand, and then entered one by one into the log, which Santos said can take up a considerable amount of an officer’s shift at the department.

If a request is made for crime log records not included in the crime log, which include incidents older than 60 days, an officer must again go through old reports and include each incident manually. To be in compliance with the Clery Act, a college must make any portion of the log older than 60 days available within two business days from date the request is made.

Due to these concerns, Santos said he has requested SFCCDPD officers Smith and Jose Fiscal to recommend a system the college could purchase. Once the officers pass their recommendation onto his office, Santos said the process to purchase the officer’s recommendation will begin “immediately.”

Fiscal said the department is looking into different options for automating the SFCCDPD’s records system, but no official recommendations have been made yet.

Currently, the SFCCDPD uses a report writing system that Fiscal said he created, utilizing a word processing template with form fills. The template allows officers to first type up a report and print it out for approval by a sergeant. Before this system was put in place in 2005, Fiscal said the department was handwriting each report on San Francisco Police Department report forms.

“[The system] works for now, but it’s a big Band-Aid for us being behind on technology,” Fiscal said. “The truth of the matter is we do need to be up-to-date with what other police agencies in the state are using.”

According to Smith, other police departments began making the move to using reporting writing software in the ’90s.

If purchased, Fiscal said “[the software] will be report writing software. It could basically be an all-in-one software, similar to what a larger agency would use.”

The software the department is considering could potentially come with the ability to publish incidents reports automatically, specifically to comply with the Clery Act. The same software could also display reported incidents on a map, allowing a viewer to see how crimes are related geographically.

The cost of the software is also a factor, according to Fiscal and Carlos Gaytan, a supervising sergeant at Ocean campus.

“Little by little we are making progress. It’s going to take a while and everything comes down to money,” Gaytan said.

Estimates for the cost of purchasing a entire system could vary widely, from $20-30 per month per officer using the system to a $50,000-$60,000 one-time fee to setup and configure the software for City College.

Regardless of which system is purchased, Santos said City College’s Information Technology department may assist with the installation and configuration of the new system.

“The new system could be installed as early as May, once things calm down after finals are over,” Santos said. “It’s not a matter of which software we end up using, it is critical that we comply with the Clery Act.”

A statewide special election aimed at fixing California’s broken budget will be held May 19. Several state programs, including funding for kindergarten through community college institutions, will be directly affected by the outcome of this special election.

Proposition 1A

The California Legislature and the governor passed an emergency tax increase package in February to balance the budgets for the fiscal years 2009 and 2010. Three separate taxes were increased in the measure.

Sales taxes were raised by one percent — from eight cents on the dollar to nine. Vehicle licensing fees were raised from 0.65 percent of the vehicle’s value to 1.15 percent. Both of these tax increases will remain in effect through the 2011 fiscal year, regardless of whether Proposition 1A passes.

Personal income taxes were also raised as part of the emergency tax measure by 0.25 percent   for all income brackets. The amount of personal income taxes Californians are obligated to pay ranges from one to 10.3 percent depending on income. Those in higher income brackets paying a higher percentage. This measure affects the 2009 and 2010 income tax returns.

Proposition 1A would extend the measure through 2013, generating an estimated $16 billion for the state’s general fund, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Jenifer Warren of The LA Times described the LAO as “a snoop paid by the Legislature to prowl the massive state budget and bureaucracy in search of waste, bad ideas, and dirty tricks.”

The measure would also require more money to be funneled into California’s Budget Stabilization — or “rainy day” — Fund. According to the language of Proposition 58, the California Balanced Budget Act, the fund can be raided by the governor or legislators for any purpose through the passage of law.

Proposition 1A would also limit the governor’s ability to cancel the transfer of money into the fund, which happened this year due to the budget deficit.

Proposition 1B

California voters passed Proposition 98 in 1988, mandating a minimum level of funding for K-14. The state uses one of three tests to determine the minimum amount paid to schools each year. If the state utilizes Test 3, which provides less money to schools, it is required to make up the difference in following years in the form of “maintenance payments.”

Proposition 1B would release $9.3 billion from the BSF over five or six years to close the funding gap that has accumulated between the amount of money required by Proposition 98 and the amount actually given to K-14 schools.

“Prop. 1B corrects the attempted unlawful manipulation of the state’s minimum school funding law and repays $9.3 billion that is owed to education,” according to the California Teachers Association’s endorsement of the measure.

Proposition 1A must pass in order for 1B to have any effect, but 1A does not require passage of 1B. The LA times endorses all ballot provisions except for 1B because it is an example of “ballot-box budgeting” that doesn’t add money to the general fund.

Proposition 1C

Current law dictates California Lottery profits go directly to educational institutions including K-14 as well as CSU and UC colleges. Proposition 1C would allow the state to borrow $5 billion in future lottery profits in order to balance the budget. The ballot measure dictates that Proposition 98 be expanded to make up for the loss of educational funding incurred through the passage of Proposition 1C.

Proposition 1D

In 1998 voters passed Proposition 10, the California Children and Families Act, allocating a “sin tax” of fifty cent increase per pack of cigarettes to First 5 California, a commission supporting early childhood education. The commission uses 20 percent of these funds to implement school readiness, health care access and programs for new parents.

The remaining 80 percent is distributed to 58 County Commissions throughout the state whose programs include family functioning, child development, and child health. Proposition 1D would reallocate a significant portion of the fifty cent cigarette tax directly into the state general fund, cutting $608 million from early child development programs in the 2009 - 10 fiscal year and $268 million in following years until 2014.

Proposition 1E

Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, was passed in November 2004. Children and adults lacking private health insurance that covers mental illness can benefit from services under Proposition 63.

Under the act, five major programs are financially supported by a one percent personal income tax surcharge required from California residents earning $1 million or more taxable income. Revenues have varied annually from $900 million to $1.5 billion, according to the LAO.

The Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment program is a federally mandated mental health initiative which is only partially funded by the federal government. Proposition 1E would reallocate $226.7 million from the Proposition 63 fund to the EPSDT fund. This would offset costs that would otherwise be borne by the general fund, thus generating a savings of approximately $250 million for the state.

However, Proposition 1E would make less money available for mental health programs, which could cause the state to incur future fiscal problems due to increased homelessness and higher prison populations.

Proposition 1F

Legislators in California currently make approximately $116,000 per year, the governor makes $212,000. Most elected officials’ salaries are set by the California Citizens Compensation Commission, a board of seven members appointed by the governor. Proposition 1F would restrict the commission from raising salaries in projected deficit years. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows a compelling majority in favor of Proposition 1F — 81 percent.

According to official Associated Students Ocean campus election results released Friday morning, Joshua Nielsen and Ryan Vanderpol were elected to the posts of student trustee and AS president, respectively.

The results were first released via text message by a member of City College’s AS to Rod Santos, acting dean of student affairs and public safety and Diana Munoz-Villanueva, the current student trustee for City College’s board of trustees.

Munoz-Villanueva announced the results of the race for student trustee during the Thursday meeting of City College’s board of trustees at the John Adams campus to the standing room only crowd attending the meeting.

The official results were released to The Guardman by City College student Jimmy Young, an AS senator candidate who ran on the O.S. slate. The results were verified by Pamela Ward, election commissioner, Philip Conklin, assistant elections commissioner and Skip Fotch, associate dean of student activities.

Election Results from Ocean Campus

Vote counts for a candidate appear after the candidate’s name.

Winners of each race are denoted in bold.

District-wide election results:

Proposition S

Proposition S Approved

Yes 467
No 207

Student Trustee Candidates Votes

Joshua Nielsen 846
Bivett Bracket 197
Aito Compton 157

Ocean campus vote tallies:

AS Ocean President

Ryan Vanderpol 277
Alecia Dominguez 265
Paolo Marquez 172
Olivia Franco 118
Jerry Scripter 54

AS Ocean Senators Votes

Nicole Blas 382
Yoowi Jang 281
Marielle Bautista 280
Pedro Alforque 357
Keyla Medonza 325
Laura Medina 311
Moose Adewunmi 308
Choco (Vinci-Paolo) Vilbar 274
Daniel Mancia 266
Eloy Najera 262
Diamond Dave Whitaker 262
Zenryo Trenholm 260
Mei Xuan 257
Rheana Rios 255
Faafetai Tupua 255
Wen S. Li 240
Johnny Lee 239
Raymond Tan 238
Jimmy Young 232
Ashley Brown 227
Christopher Gomora 223
Stephanie Nuttman 217
Joshua Bohar 192
Jacob Anderson 183
Barbara Jefferson 188
Vincent Finkowski 185
Josh Terry 160
William McSwine 152
Tayana Drevaleva 150
Micheál McLoughlin 150

Source: AS Elections

For updates on CIty College’s Associated Students election results, check back with The Guardsman or follow our election twitter feed @ccsfelection.

Around Campus

9 a.m. - 7 p.m. (4/22 and 4/23) — New compost bins on Ocean campus with student “compost hosts” instructing how to use them.

10:15 a.m. - 2:15 p.m. — Tabling at Ram Plaza, Wellness Center Ampitheater, Cafeteria and area across from the Lunch Box. There will be music from Otto Mobile in Ram Plaza. Enter to win a Chico bags, t-shirts and other prizes by taking the Academic Quizzes or getting a stamped passport.

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. — Panel Presentation in the Diego Rivera Theatre on Environmental Responsibility in and Around CCSF. Panel includes Bonnie Sherk: A Living Library - our Islais Creek watershed, David Liggett: CCSF’s new buildings, and Carlita Martinez: CCSF recycling programs and new compost bins.

12:30 - 1: 30 p.m. — Speakers at the Wellness Center Ampitheather. There will be speakers from the PUC, Raiwater Harvesting, DOE and Sunset Scavenger.

2:15 - 3 p.m. — Debate on the pros and cons of carbon offsets in the Rosenberg Library Rm. 305.

—–

Films

Below are film showings that will be happening throughout the day. All film showings will be in Rosenberg Library Rm. 305.

9:15 – 11:00 — Ted‟s Talks: short presentations by leading experts on climate change and waste management Discussion moderator: Katryn Wiese, Earth Sciences faculty

11:00 – 11:15 — Story of Stuff 11:15 – 1:00 The Electronic Wasteland (PBS Frontline)

1:00 – 1:15 — Story of Stuff

1:15 – 2:00 — TBA

2:00 – 3:00 — Debate: Pros/Cons of Carbon Offsets

3:00 – 3:15 — Story of Stuff

3:15 – 5:00 — Inconvenient Truth & new Al Gore presentation discussion moderator: Darrel Hess, Earth Sciences faculty

5:00 – 5:15 — Story of Stuff

5:15 – 7:15 — Heat (CBS News; Sixty Minutes)

7:15 – 7:30 — Story of Stuff

7:30 – 9:45 — Oil on Ice [Connects the fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to critical decisions about energy policy.] Discussion moderator: David Brown

Thousands of students, faculty and staff from colleges and universities all over California gather at the State Capitol in Sacramento protesting the budget cuts to education on March 16. RAMSEY EL-QARE / THE GUARDSMAN

By Lauren Tyler and Ellen Silk
FEATURES EDITOR AND NEWS EDITOR

Thousands of students, teachers and college staff, upset with a state budget that severely cuts money from education, rallied on the steps of the State Capitol March 16, fervently chanting, “You say cut back, we say fight back.”

Marchers came from all over California to assemble in Raley Field in Sacramento for the 10 a.m. march. An estimated 2,500 City College students, faculty and staff gathered at 7 a.m. to board 47 buses bound for Sacramento.

Matt Holms, an English major at City College, said he came out to support his American Government teacher who is losing his cost-of-living increase. “I hope [legislatures] will see it does affect a lot of people,” he said.

De Anza City College student Alex Jimenez rallies the crowd outside the Capital in Sacramento, Calif. on March 16. RAMSEY EL-QARE / THE GUARDSMAN

The crowd’s chant, “No cuts. No fees. Education should be free,” could be heard as they made their way across the Old Sacramento bridge.

“It would mean fewer hours for people, fewer jobs. We are already reeling from having to do double, sometimes triple, the work. We’re all hurting but we do the best we can. Cuts would be really disastrous, jobs just couldn’t get done,” said, Steve Kech, public information officer and member of Service Employees International Union Local 1021.

The buses that ferried City College students and staff to Sacramento were sponsored by SEIU 1021, AFT 2121 Teachers Union, the Associated Students, the City College Bookstore and the CCSF Administration Association.

Edith Urrutia, a student in the Culinary department who was marching holding the department banner, is worried about classes in her major program. “Some classes have already been closed because there isn’t enough money to keep them open,” she said.

City College students carry a banner on their way to the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. on March 16. RAMSEY EL-QARE / THE GUARDSMAN

Students blocked traffic as they walked down Capitol Mall towards the capitol building. Many held signs stating California is ranked 48th in the nation in spending on education and number one in spending on prisons. They chanted, “We want education, not incarceration.”

A drum circle formed on the stage in the plaza as thousands of students reached the steps of the capitol building. The speakers took the stage at 12 p.m., starting with President of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges Richael Young.

Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, one of the key-note speakers at the event, asked students to “not stop your protests until every quality California student has the best education.” He turned towards the capitol building and asked the legislature to “stop the disinvestment.”

Josh Nielsen, president of Associated Student Council at City College, also spoke. He told the audience that “education is a right, not a privilege.”

Over two thousand City College students, faculty, staff march to the Capital in Sacramento, Calif. protesting the budget cuts to higher education, March 16. RAMSEY EL-QARE / THE GUARDSMAN

City College board of trustee member John Rizzo spoke in regards to the $80 billion in “rosy projections” by the state budget on top of an $8 million City College budget shortfall. “At that kind of level we’re going to have to make some tough decisions. This year we are making due with not filling open positions. Next year, if this continues, it looks like we are going to have to make some really hard decisions, possibly layoffs. We don’t want to do that. That’s why we’re here today,” he said.

Chancellor Dr. Don Q. Griffin said, “The major impact of the budget for us at City College is that we have to turn away thousands of students.

Approximately 10,000 students who wanted to take classes at City College we could not give them access. Many students who are attending might not get all the classes they need for their training or retraining for jobs.”

Graph detailing City College's recent Clery Act compliance. INFOGRAPHIC BY ALEX LUTHI / THE GUARDSMAN

By Fleur Bailey and Alex Luthi
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR AND ONLINE EDITOR

In response to an article in the March 11 issue of The Guardsman, City College has begun efforts to comply with a federal law mandating regular reporting of crimes on campus, according to college officials.

Peter Goldstein, vice chancellor of finance and administration, said the college is now in the process of recruiting three college employees to help keep the police department’s crime log up-to-date, a requirement of the Jeanne Clery Act, enforced by the Department of Education.

“We are getting three people trained so we feel assured we are complying with the act,” Goldstein said. “They will be working within the office [of the department of Public Safety]. As I said before, the law is the law and we have to comply.”

Rod Santos, acting dean of student affairs and public safety, confirmed that additional people will be working in the department to tackle the required reporting. “It’s very clear to me that we can’t have just one person doing [updating] this,” Santos said.

A crime log should be updated every two business days to comply with the act, officially called the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, which requires colleges receiving federal funds to report crimes that happen on or near their campuses. The most recent entry to the San Francisco Community College District Police Department’s crime log is dated Feb. 12 2009.

Officer Christian Smith of the SFCCDPD is the only person currently updating the crime log on the department’s Web site. Smith said a lack of time is the reason for infrequent entries to the crime log. Santos plans to put Smith in charge of training the additional staff members to keep the log up-to-date.

“The current crime log has really been misnamed,” Smith said. “It’s more like a summary of reports. The new log won’t be as detailed, but it will comply with the act.”

The act is named after Jeanne Clery, a freshman at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn. who was raped and murdered in her dorm room in 1986. It was established to inform students and the public about campus crime, so that students could protect themselves while on campus.

S. Daniel Carter is the director of public policy for Security On Campus, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to safety on campuses for college and university students. Carter said the organization is constantly working to ensure all federally-funded institutions across the U.S. are able to gain access to training for Clery Act compliance.

“We make the training for everyone — officers, non-police employees, security, civilians — so that more people will take it,” Carter said. “I can understand that an officer wants to be out in the field, I appreciate he may feel he’s being pulled in all different directions. But if the community is informed, they can be his power. The purpose of the Clery Act is to involve the whole community.”

San Francisco State University Police Department’s Web site is updated every night using a records management system implemented about a year and a half ago according to records supervisor Julie Shearer.

“The Department of Education Web site was not very helpful but I found a link to the Clery Act Web site, securityoncampus.org, and attended one of their training sessions in San Diego,” Shearer said.

In addition to keeping a daily crime log, the Clery Act requires colleges to collect and produce yearly statistics on different crimes occurring on and near campus, as well as producing crime alerts regarding ongoing threats to the college community.

“All I need is to get a few people trained and we can do it,” Santos said.

Editor’s note: The graphic used for the Clery Act story in the March 11 issue of The Guardsman may have confused readers by not clearly displaying the gathered data. An updated graphic is available at http://theguardsman.com/cleryact.

Bergman in front of Korphe School, Pakistan. 1996. PHOTO COURTESY OF CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE

By Lauren Tyler
FEATURES EDITOR

Winter came early in the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan during October of 1996. In the skies of this remote region of the world, a Russian MI-17 helicopter, equipped with plastic lawn chairs as seats, maneuvered towards Korphe village, in the northern region of Baltistan.

For City College librarian Julia Bergman and nine other foreigners on board of the helicopter, this was the last stop of their six-week long trip through Central Asia.

“We were flying over the most amazing landscape…crystal-clear blue skies and the turquoise Indus river,” Bergman said. “The Karakoram Mountain contain the highest concentration of high peaks in the world, it’s simply shocking.”

The pilot landed the helicopter in a valley. The mountaineer asked if anyone wanted to visit a village and when Bergman asked if it was appropriate for her to go, a group member with mountaineering experience assured her it was fine. Bergman made her ascension up an arduous, rocky trail.

As they got closer to the top they heard the voices of children. “All of a sudden we were surrounded by a dozen adolescent boys,” Bergman said.

Greg Mortenson with students at Sitara school, Wakhan corridor, Afghanistan. PHOTO COURTESY OF CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE

The boys questioned where Bergman was from. “I said I was from the United States — that wasn’t good enough. So I said I am from California and that wasn’t good enough either. So then I said I am from San Francisco. They put their hands on me and started leading me back down the trail.”

They were leading her back to the valley where a sign, literally and figuratively, would forever change her.

“On the far edge of this open area there’s a metal sign and it reads ‘The American Himalayan Organization, San Francisco, California. Thank you Jean Hoerni,’” Bergman said.

Hoerni was Bergman’s cousin, Jennifer Wilson’s, husband. The renowned Swiss-born physicist made much of his fortune in the Silicon Valley, but was also an avid mountaineer when he was younger. Based on his own travels through the Karakoram Mountains, he had acquired a fondness for the area and donated thousands to build schools in the region.

Bergman remembered, “before I had left that July…he had given money to build a school.” She also recalled Hoerni talking about a bridge over a mighty river leading to a school on top of a mountain. She asked the boys if those things were there, and they were.

“I am neither religious or spiritual. I am rather pragmatic, but I got so emotional, I started to cry,” she said.

The experience left a lasting impression on Bergman — in 2003 she became the chair of the board of directors of the Central Asia Institute.

When Bergman returned to San Francisco in mid-November of 1996 she immediately picked up the phone and called her cousin. The phone rang but nobody answered. Two hours later, Bergman’s cousin Jennifer Wilson called her back.

“Where have you been?” Wilson asked.

“I just got home a couple of hours ago,” Bergman said. Wilson explained that she and Hoerni were visiting San Francisco from their home in Seattle because Hoerni needed a blood transfusion. Bergman asked Wilson to put Hoerni on the phone. “Jean, I saw the Korphe school,” she said. “No?” Hoerni gasped.

The writing on the bathroom mirror in Mortenson’s home in Bozeman, Mont. reads, “When your heart speaks, take good notes.” His heart spoke to him when he attempted to climb K2 in Baltistan, Pakistan, which, at 8,611 meters, is the world’s second highest mountain.

Greg Mortenson, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and co-author of New York Times bestseller “Three Cups of Tea,” spoke at City College on March 4, on account of his work as co-founder and executive director of CAI, an organization which has built 78 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, primarily for girls.

He grew up near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, where his parents developed a teaching hospital and an international school, and had always taken well to climbing.

Climbing K2 was much more sentimental to Mortenson. His sister Christa, whom he loved tenderly, had died at the age of 23 from a severe epileptic attack. In her honor, Mortenson wanted to place Christa’s amber necklace at the peak of K2.

While he attempted to climb K-2 he encountered a theme he would become readily familiar with what he considered failure.

“Failure”, the title of the first chapter in Mortenson’s book “Three Cups of Tea.” To him, failure meant “not the end of the road, but its a way to grow and find a different path.”

Greg Mortenson, co-founder of the Central Asia Institute and Julia Bergman, retired librarian discuss his book Three Cups of Tea outside the Diego Rivera Theatre on March 4, 2009. RAMSEY EL-QARE / THE GUARDSMAN

On his journey, after having been lost for days, emaciated and not bathing for nearly three months. Mortenson found a path - it was the path leading to Korphe Village. Haji Ali, the village nurmadhar — village chief — stood placidly at the edge of the village.

He welcomed Mortenson graciously, which is an important tradition in Baltistan culture. Haji Ali and the villagers nursed him back to health. It was then that Mortenson had his first three cups of tea.

As a trauma nurse, Mortenson was able to mend wounds and set bones, a luxury previously missing from the villager’s life. The angrezi, or strange white man, soon acquired the name Dr. Greg.

One day, with Haji Ali standing beside him, Mortenson looked over the ledge to the valley. He saw 84 school children without a teacher copying multiplication tables in the sand with sticks.

“A girl in the village came up to me and asked, ‘can you help us build a school?’ I promised her I would,” Mortenson said.

After consulting with experts on the area, Mortenson realized he needed $12,000 to build the school.

Upon his return to Berkeley, Calif., he began his quest for funding. He hand-wrote 580 letters, but of all the “Dear Mr. Michael Jordan and Dear Mr. Sylvester Stallone” letters, Mortenson only received one check from Tom Brokaw for $100.

As he was walking through the dismal fog on his way to a graveyard shift at the University of California Hospital, Mortenson felt that his hope was dampened.

His mother suggested he fly to River Falls, Wis., where she was the principal of Westside Elementary school. Timidly, her son spoke to the students about the children in Baltistan and his desire to build a school there.

“A fourth grader named Jeffrey came and said ‘I have a piggy bank and I want to help you,’” Mortenson said. Six weeks later, Westside Elementary raised 62,340 pennies. This was the beginning of Pennies for Peace, a fund raising effort 3,400 schools nationwide are now involved in.

“The irony is that movie stars and adults didn’t help, it was the children,” Mortenson said.

With meager capital and all of his belongings sold, Mortenson was frustrated but fastidious. Tom Vaughan, a fellow mountaineer and doctor at UCSF, had listened to Mortenson’s troubles. One morning, Vaughan handed him a prescription pad with the name and number of Jean Hoerni, who had read an article about Mortenson.

Mortenson called Hoerni, who immediately asked whether Mortenson would run off with his money if he were to give it. Mortenson said he simply wanted to educate children and said he needed $12,000.

“You’re not bulls—ing? You can really build your school for 12 grand?’’ asked Hoerni. “Yes, sir,” Mortenson humbly replied.

The money was transferred and CAI was born. Months and checks later, Hoerni died on January 12, 1997. In his will he left Mortenson $22,315 along with an endowment of nearly one million dollars for CAI.

Mortenson spoke at Hoerni’s memorial service at Stanford University Chapel.

“The last person who got up to speak talked about Baltistan. It was the most emotional speech. Of course this was Greg Mortenson,” Bergman said.

She approached Mortenson and said that she had seen the Korphe school. “You’re the blonde in the helicopter,” he said. Bergman told him about her impression of the school and said she wanted to help.

“Well, I want to build a library,” Mortenson said.

“I’m a librarian,” Bergman said matter-of-factly. “I was the token educator. Teacher training became my fixation.”

Originally, most CAI board members were mountaineers. Bergman changed that structure and began introducing more educators.

She inducted three City College faculty members. Abdul Jabbar, an English and interdisciplinary studies professor and ESL instructors Joy Durighello and Bob Irwin. Jabbar is a member of the board. Irwin and Durighello assisted with teacher training and wrote the Balti Handbook.

The official languages of Pakistan are Urdu and English. Through the use of English the Balti Handbook was developed. “We developed exercises in reading, writing and comprehension. We wrote it as we were teaching” Durighello said.

“Half of our organization is from City College,” Mortenson said on March 4 at the Diego Rivera theater. More importantly, he discussed the pertinence of CAI and its influence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“It took three years to build one school, now we have 78,” Mortenson said. “The more I do this, the more I am convinced that global literacy should be our top priority.”

Pakistan and Afghanistan are continuously in tumultuous states. Insurgents from the Taliban and al-Qaida continue to mar any progress, especially in regards to education for girls. The Taliban, for example, bans education for females, according “Journey of Hope,” a CAI publication.

“Jihad is really a spiritual quest. A boy has to get his mother’s permission to go. If she is educated she’s not going to let him go. People want to find ways to create peace…its literacy, its educating women,” Bergman said.

“We can drop bombs, or build roads or hand out condoms. But unless the girls are educated, the societies won’t change,” Mortenson said.

Mortenson demonstrated to the audience that in 2000 only 800,000 students were enrolled in school in Pakistan. The majority were boys, ages 5-15. In 2008 that number exploded to 7.2 million students, two million of those girls.

“Their [extremist groups] biggest fear is not the bullet, its the pen,” Mortenson said. “The real enemy that we’re fighting is ignorance. It’s ignorance that breeds hatred.”

While meeting with General David Petraeus and Admiral Michael Mullen of the United States Central Command Mortenson came to an important realization. “They all said there’s no military solution in Afghanistan. They say education is the key,” he said.

“Three Cups of Tea” is now required reading for counterintelligence training and for U.S. special forces about to be deployed to Afghanistan.

CAI continues its mission, from its board members in San Francisco and its staff members in Bozeman, Mont. to promote peace “one school at a time.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MCT CAMPUS

By Alex Emslie and Ellen Silk
STAFF WRITER AND NEWS EDITOR

The invention of video games represented a renaissance in the field of entertainment. Games were no longer hindered by the imagination of their players but instead by the artistry of their creators.

The first video game was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann in 1947. It used analog circuitry to control a cathode ray tube beam to position a dot on the screen. The game, patented as the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device in 1948, was inspired by radar displays from World War II.

Brookhaven National Laboratory introduced “Tennis for Two” in 1958. William Higinbotham, the game’s creator and a nuclear physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project , wrote, “It might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavors have relevance for society.”

“Tennis for Two” was a tennis court on an oscilloscope screen. The ball, a moving dot, left trails as it bounced to alternating sides of the net. Players served and volleyed using remotes with buttons and rotating dials.

In 1967 Ralph Baer, chief engineer at the defense contractor Sanders Associates, and his team created a game as part of a top secret Brown Box project to use as a U.S. military training tool. The game consisted of two dots chasing each other around the screen. Baer’s team continued improving the technology and also created the very first video game “controller” — a light-gun that would work with the TV system.

Six years later the top secret status was dropped and Sanders Associates licensed the Brown Box to electronics company Magnavox. The box was renamed, redesigned and released as the very first home gaming system — the Magnavox Odyssey.

Steve Russell, while attending MIT in 1961, developed an interactive video game on a mini-computer. Russell’s “Spacewar” inspired two separate breakthroughs in the following decades.

“Galaxy” was one of the first commercial video games. It was built and installed at the Stanford Tresidder student union in September 1971 by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck.

The gameplay in “Galaxy” was based on “Spacewar”  and involved two armed spaceships — “the needle” and “the wedge” — shooting at one another. The ships had limited fuel, missiles and a last-ditch hyperspace option that would place the ship at a random location on the screen.

That same year, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created a coin-operated arcade version of “Spacewar” and called it “Computer Space.” Nutting Associates bought the game and manufactured 1,500 “Computer Space” machines in November 1971. Although the game was unsuccessful because of its long learning-curve, it is recognized as the first mass-produced video game offered for commercial sale.

The latest version of the popular video game "Madden NFL 09." IMAGE COURTESY OF MCT CAMPUS

Bushnell and Dabney went on to found Atari and released their first major success, “Pong,” in 1972. Atari and Magnavox went on to survive a slump in the video game market in the late 1970s. In 1977 Atari released a cartridge-based console called the Video Computer System, better known as the Atari 2600. The VCS had an arsenal of nine games and quickly became a very popular console.

The 1980s also saw the rise of the home computer, the most popular of which were IBM and Apple Macintosh. Both of these offered new possibilities for video games with better graphics, sound and higher quality resolution.

“The first game I ever played was probably ‘Missile Command’,” said City College computer science major William Eagleton of the Atari 2600. “My dad worked for Atari, so we would get test cartridges.”

On Dec. 7, 1982, Warner Communications’ — Atari’s parent company — stock dropped 32 percent after it was announced that VCS sales did not meet predictions. The following year, many companies who only made games — often called third-party companies — declared bankruptcy, and Atari split into two separate companies. In 1983 it was discovered that Ray Kassar, then head of Atari, was guilty of insider trading. He immediately resigned.

Masayuki Uemura, working for Nintendo, revived the video game in 1985 with the Nintendo Entertainment System. The cartridge system had two controllers with multiple buttons that allowed the player to jump, run and do more with the character on the screen. Two very popular Nintendo games were “Super Mario Brothers” and “Duck Hunt.”

Sega’s Master System, while graphically superior to the NES, failed to make any kind of lasting impression in the U.S. market. When Sega introduced Genisis, the company began an aggressive marketing campaign, not only to customers, but also to developers. Genesis quickly grew popular thanks to their line-up of quality arcade conversions, sports games, and the help of game developer Electronic Arts.

Competition between Nintendo and Sega colored the video game market through the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Sony released Playstation in 1994. The company had grown from a radio repair shop in post WWII Tokyo to a powerful electronics corporation. As of 2008, Sony had sold 140 million Playstation 2 units.

In the ‘90s parents demonstrated they were willing to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade systems and the home console was here to stay.

“I like a lot of the classic games. My favorite game is probably ‘Doom,’” Eagleton said. “Between ‘93 and ‘98 was the golden age of games for me.”

Today’s innovations in video game technology are quantified in generations.

The three major competitors of today’s gaming market — Nintendo’s Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3 — challenge each other to create an evermore immersive gaming experience measured by realism of graphics and plots. Gone are the simple days of games like “Pong” and “PacMan,” but the virtual 3D worlds of today wouldn’t be possible without the 2D screens of the past.