OHLONE COLLEGE

MONITORSEPTEMBER 10, 2015

Vol. L No. 1

FREMONT, CAOHLONEMONITOR.COM

THURSDAY

Virtual reality gaming is on the rise. See story on Pages 4 and 5.

Parking structure opens

College officials cut the ribbon for the new parking garage Wednesday evening. Left to right: Rahul Patel, student representative to the Board of Trustees, trustee Ishan Shah, trustee Vivien Larsen, trustee Greg Bonaccorsi, college President Gari Browning, trustee Teresa Cox and trustee Jan Giovannini-Hill. Below-left: Attendees gather for the grand opening. Below-right: Construction continues on the Fremont campus after Buildings 1, 2 and 8 were demolished over the summer.

IVAN VARGAS / MONITOR

900 new spots available on south side of Fremont campusSEAN DAVIEStaff writer

The first of Ohlone’s many construction projects has been completed and is now officially open to the public.

Although the new parking structure on the south side of the Fremont campus has been fully accessible since the beginning of the semes-ter, college officials held a ribbon cutting Wednesday evening.

The construction project began with a ceremonial groundbreaking on Feb. 12, 2014 – nearly 19 months ago.

The new structure con-tains 906 parking spaces, including disabled, staff and student carpool spots. The structure adds 563 new spac-es, compared with the lots it replaced. It also includes an elevator system, EV charging stations and bike racks.

One of the worst aspects of life at the main campus, especially lately, has been the dreaded march up the hill. Luckily, however, park-ing in the new structure will save up to 250 stairs’ worth of climbing.

“I find that it’s a lot easier to get up to the classrooms, especially since it’s a lot closer here,” student Steven Mendez said. “There’s a lot more parking spaces than there used to be down there. It’s just very convenient.”

Not all the parking news is

Continued on Page 2

McMahon, longtime professor, dies at 63

New women’s basketball coach takes reinsBRIANNE O’SULLIVANNews editor

Ohlone has recently hired Steve Picchi as the women’s basketball head coach. Dur-ing his impressive coaching career, which began with him unofficially coaching a sixth-grade team as an eighth-grader, he has held positions at places such as Sequoia High School, Santa Clara University, Notre Dame de Namur University, Bur-lingame High School, and Chabot College.

Picchi’s Sequoia High School team, his most re-cent before joining the Ren-egades, qualified for the

Central Coast Section play-offs three times and in 2012 netted a Peninsula Athletic League title.

“Steve brings with him a long history of success with student athletes in the Bay Area and we hope to con-tinue that trend here with our women’s basketball pro-gram,” Chris Warden, dean of the Kinesiology and Athletics Division, said in a statement.

At 16, Picchi was hired to coach a youth basketball team. After that first week, he went home and told his father, “I know what I am going to do when I grow up.”

Picchi has been quite successful in his coaching

career. During his time at Burlingame High School, his team won a Division III

Continued on Page 2

VANESSA LUISEditor-in-chief

Retired Ohlone psychol-ogy professor and counselor Tom McMahon died over the summer in Carlsbad. He was 63.

McMahon, who retired in 2011 after 35 years at the college, died on June 25 after a long battle with fron-totemporal degeneration, a non-Alzheimer’s form of dementia.

“He was kind, considerate, and funny,” math Professor

Geoff Hirsch said. “I enjoyed our many conversations.”

Born on July 1, 1951, Mc-Mahon grew up in San Diego and began working at Ohlone in 1976. He was a successful writer, the author of three books and a nation-ally syndicated parenting newspaper column.

Retired Ohlone professor Alan Kirshner, McMahon’s former colleague, described him as “a great mind, a cre-ative mind, an active mind.

Continued on Page 2

COURTESY OF OHLONE COLLEGE

M O N I T O R NEWSSEPTEMBER 10, 20152NEWS BITESTransfer Day at

Newark campusStudents can meet

with college representa-tives to ask questions and explore transfer options Sept. 29 at Transfer Day 2015.

Representatives from 45 colleges and univer-sities across the United States will attend the event to offer informa-tion about academic programs, admission re-quirements, and student life on their campuses.

Transfer Day will begin at 10 a.m. in the first floor lobby at the Newark cam-pus. For more informa-tion, go to www.ohlone.edu/org/transferday.

Speaker to discuss social media

The Communication Studies department will present its first speaker of the Fall 2015 Communica-tion Colloquium Series on Friday. Anu Khanna, edu-cator and entrepreneur, will speak about “Defining Your Professional Iden-tity: What Does Your Social Media Say About You?”

The free event will be from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in Room 3101 on the Fre-mont campus. All stu-dents, staff and faculty are welcome to attend.

– Compiled by Monitor staff

Food available from TOP

Students in need can receive food from The Ohlone Pantry by visit-ing the Student Activi-ties Department on the second floor of Building 7 from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Thurs-day.

For more information, contact Student Activi-ties Coordinator Renee Wong Gonzales at 510-659-7311 or rgonzales@ohlone.edu.

USFADVANTAGE.

EXPERIENCE.PLEASANTON

160 years in San Francisco3O years in the Tri Valley

DEGREE PROGRAMS IN: Management • Education • Nursing for the RN

Classes conveniently held evenings, online, and some Saturdays

Financial aid and scholarships available

Call to schedule an advising appointment

925.867.2711

Information Meetings held at least once a monthFor dates, visit:

www.usfca.edu/pleasanton

CHANGE THE WORLD FROM HERE

International Club to host party

The International Club is hosting a Welcome Party on Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the cafeteria on the Fremont campus.

About 150 new inter-national students will begin their studies at Ohlone this semester. Students from 53 differ-ent countries have en-rolled at Ohlone over the years.

Tom McMahon, shown here teaching at Ohlone in 1984, died in June.

McMahon ‘was a great teacher’

Ohlone hires new coach

Parking structure opensContinued from Page 1

Continued from Page 1

MONITOR FILE PHOTO

California State Champion-ship and was honored with a place in the Burlingame High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

When asked what his favorite aspect of coach-ing is, Picchi jokingly said, “winning.”

More seriously, Picchi added that the game is all about the student athletes. His goal is “to help student athletes be as successful as possible,” and said nothing is more rewarding than to “watch an athlete exceed their own expectations.”

Picchi wants local stu-dent athletes to know that Ohlone College is a place with rigorous athletic and academic programs that holds great potential for all.

He hopes to instill in his team the philosophy that success is “not measured by wins and losses, but rather by the experience.”

Wo m e n’s b a s k e t b a l l games begin in early No-vember and last through-out February. An official game schedule can be found at www.ohlone.edu/org/athletics/womensbas-ketball/.

Continued from Page 1

He was a great teacher.”McMahon is survived by

his wife, Nancy; children, Amber McMahon and Kelly McMahon; sister, Debbie Cogan; and brothers, Bill McMahon and Leon Mc-Mahon.

Services were held July 11 at Valley Community Church in Pleasanton.

“It was hard” Kirshner said. “It was too early.”

Donations may be made to the Association for Fron-totemporal Degeneration: www.theaftd.org.

good, however. Parking fees rose steeply this year, with semester permits going for $40 and day passes for $4, and an additional option of one- or two-hour passes costing $1 or $2 respectively.

Also weighing on the minds of some Ohlone stu-dents are the inherent dan-gers of parking structures, especially for those walking back to their cars after late-night classes.

However, there has been only one recorded instance of rape at the Fremont cam-pus within the past decade, and a total of 15 instances of motor vehicle theft, ac-cording to campus crime records.

For students who still

feel nervous, student es-cort officers are available to walk students from their classrooms to their cars any time from 7 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. Monday through Fri-day. Ohlone students can request an escort by calling campus police at 510-659-6111. This service is only available on weekdays at the main campus, not on weekends or at the Newark campus.

At any other time from 7:45 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mon-day through Friday, or 7:45 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, campus police can escort students safely to their cars. To request an escort, call 510-659-6111 on the Fremont campus or 510-742-2311 on the Newark campus.

A fence marks the construction site in the upper campus.IVAN VARGAS / MONITOR

FEATURES M O N I T O RSEPTEMBER 10, 20153

OHLONE COLLEGE

MONITOR

Opinions expressed in the Monitor are those of the re-spective authors and are not necessarily those of the staff, the college or the Associated Students of Ohlone College.

STAFF:

Editor-in-chief: Vanessa Luis

News editor:Brianne O’Sullivan

Features editor: Agnes Madriaga Opinions editor: Sam Campbell

Photo editor:Ivan Vargas

Staff: Sean DavieShuai LiuJoy Moon

Adviser: Rob Dennis

Printer: FP Press

CONTACT US:

Offices: Room 5310 Call: 510.659.6075 E-mail: monitor@ohlone.eduWebsite: www.ohlonemon-itor.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/OhloneCollegeMoni-torTwitter: @OhloneMonitor

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Halsey carves own pop path with debut album

Photography instructor Naomi Vanderkindren works with a student. Vanderkindren’s ‘Paramnesia’ exhibit will run through Sept. 28 in the Louie-Meager Art Gallery on the Fremont campus.

AGNES MADRIAGA / MONITOR

Instructor to discuss ‘Paramnesia’ exhibit at gallery reception

AGNES MADRIAGAFeatures editor

Ohlone photography in-structor Naomi Vanderkin-dren will discuss her photo series “Paramnesia” during an artist talk and reception from 4 to 5 p.m. Sept. 17 at the Louie-Meager Art Gallery.

The exhibit is on display at the gallery, in the Smith Center on the Fremont campus, until Sept. 28.

Other exhibits at the gal-lery this year:

• Oct. 5–Nov. 4: Draw-ing and sculpture from Kevin B. Chen, artist, curator and director of the De Young Museum’s

Artist in Residency Pro-gram.

• Nov. 16–Dec. 14: Paint-ings of artist Deirdre White.

• Jan. 18–Feb. 17: Paint-ings and Drawings of artists Kenny Mencher, Gabriel Navar, George Rivera and James Wu.

• Feb. 22-March 12: Ohlone College Mul-timedia Department. Work from Professors Isabel Reichert, David Folker, Alejandro Jauco, Merav Tzur and Yinghua Wang.

• March 18-19: 2016 High School Theater Festival

• April 11-May 13: Annual Juried Student Awards Exhibition, showcas-ing the work of Ohlone students.

The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

MANIKA CASTERLINEMusic correspondent

In the spectrum of pop acts, Taylor Swift reigns supreme as the red-lipped saccharine superstar with hits like “You Belong With Me” and “Shake it Off,” while the younger import to her squad of female pow-erhouses, Lorde, topped international charts with the darker sound of “Roy-als” and “Team.”

Halsey (born Ashley Fran-gipane), New Jersey native and the freshest face to the genre, at 20 could distinctly be the “middle sister” con-glomerate of both Swift and Lorde, but instead carves her own path in pop as she releases the gritty yet cinematic debut album “Badlands,” which lyrically explores the enclaves of sex and drugs that her prede-cessors retreat from.

Halsey welcomes you to “Badlands” with fe-male empowerment tracks “Castle” and “Hold me Down.” “Castle” sees her entering a kingdom where its people already want her to be queen even though

she has barely arrived. It has a no-holds-barred attitude behind it that is reminiscent of Beyoncé’s repertoire, while “Hold me Down” is the fight song that stays light on its feet and poised for the next chal-lenge to her takeover.

These songs set up the landscape for “New Ameri-cana,” in which Halsey is defining her generation with an anthem as she sings, “Self-made success now she rolls with Rock-efellers. We are the new Americana, high on legal marijuana, raised on Big-gie and Nirvana. We are the new Americana.”

In an album that is laden with heavy and haunting lyrics and overall produc-tion value, “Roman Holi-day” can be easily forgotten because of its simplicity. However, “Roman Holiday” holds its own as the one track that will be added to a road-trip playlist and sung loudly to. Halsey ulti-mately speaks in this song to the wind in your hair, do-not-care vibe, whether you are driving down the California coast or on a Vespa in Roma.

“Hurricane,” on the 16-track deluxe version of “Badlands,” was previously released on Halsey’s “Room 93 EP,” and she has called it the trippy song where she zones out when perform-ing. “Hurricane” is sampled in “Gasoline” during the line “Do you call yourself a fucking hurricane like me?” The production of

“Gasoline” contains what sounds like a guqin, a Chi-nese stringed instrument. “Gasoline” as well as “Com-ing Down” and “Drive” are produced with an inclusive theme that utilizes the sound of keys, windshield wipers and rain.

These details lead to a cohesive but unique sound that draws in the listener and through audio creates the visual perspective of a relationship between two forces of nature. “Coming Down” is the sole track that ties Halsey’s metaphori-cal references of climate and spirituality together, whereas “Ghost,” “Strange Love,” “Haunting,” “Con-trol” and “Young God” ad-dress how the relationship elevates itself to a religion to which the protagonist is masochistically commit-ted. The final track of the deluxe album is a cover of the Johnny Cash classic “I Walk the Line,” fitting per-fectly with the message of the Halsey-written tracks that espouse never being the victim of your circum-stances.

In “Badlands,” the crème de la crème is “Colors.” The other tracks are the fancy bow wrapped around “Col-ors,” the exquisite treasure that stands alone as the beating heart and soul of Halsey’s freshman effort. “Colors” has been decon-structed by fans to be about the artist’s former romantic interest, Matt Healy, the lead singer of The 1975, a Manchester-formed band

that is known for their black and white aesthet-ic. Healy’s drug addiction is alluded to in the cho-rus, “Everything is grey. His hair, his smoke, his dreams. And now he’s so devoid of color. He don’t know what it means. And he’s blue.”

Throughout the track, Halsey dapples in the de-tails of their involvement while painting an immer-sive visual masterpiece of what they once were. “You were red and you liked me because I was blue. But you touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky. Then you decided purple just wasn’t for you” – the bridge of “Col-ors” sums up and stains the listener in vibrant hues long after hearing.

Prior to the Aug. 28 release of “Badlands,” Halsey sold out the ma-jority of the dates on the “Badlands” tour in-cluding one historic San Francisco venue, The Fillmore, on Nov. 16. The momentum surrounding “Badlands” makes sense when giving the album an auditory spin and it’s worth dropping the spare cash on the deluxe edition for the complete narrative. The storytell-ing is consistent from start to finish while mak-ing grandiose production overtures that set Halsey apart in the bubblegum genre and establish her as the newest queen in the pop scene.

Album: “Badlands”Artist: Halsey

Upcoming events include sculpture, multimedia

M O N I T O R FEATURESSEPTEMBER 10, 20154 FEATURES M O N I T O RSEPTEMBER 10, 20155

ALEXANDER LYKINSContributing writer

It started in the midst of a tropical jungle, standing under a cliff in a nest full of large eggs. In front of me, I could see tall trees tower-ing over me, the rich foliage rustling as different creatures roamed by. A dragonfly whizzed by my head mo-ments later, and I ducked as it flew around me, attempting to dodge the insect.

Suddenly, the forest shook. The sound of low, thudding footsteps approached. From the densely packed foliage emerged a terrifying Tyran-nosaurus Rex, letting out a loud roar. It approached me, but it didn’t appear to want me for lunch. After it left, my attention turned to the eggs nearby. I brought my head forward to nudge the egg nearest me, and soon it began to crack. As the scene began to fade to black, I could hear the screech of an infant dinosaur, probably one of my brothers and sisters.

At that moment, I reached up to remove the headset. The scene before me was no longer a primordial jungle, but that of a packed Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco for the 2015 Game Develop-ers Conference, or GDC for short. I had just participated in a technical demonstration of “Back to Dinosaur Island” by game developer Crytek. In my hands was an Oculus Rift headset, one of the first of a new generation of gaming devices tailored toward a not entirely new, but now more fully realized frontier: virtual reality.

At GDC, the world of video game development was on display, and at the center of all the buzz and excitement was virtual reality gaming. Developers from across the world shared their visions and technology in many

different aspects of gaming, especially in virtual reality technology.

In the wake of Oculus’ $2 billion purchase by Facebook last June, several companies have come to the forefront of the new virtual frontier. Sony’s Project Morpheus for the Playstation 4 was on dis-play at the convention, along with the Vive, a virtual reality headset designed by Valve and HTC. The technology of virtual reality even included smart phone compatibility, with Samsung showing off the Gear, which you can pair with your phone and watch virtual movies or play games.

With the rise of virtual reality gaming also came the challenge of making the experience as authentic as possible. At the conven-tion, tech developers paired motion tracking peripheral devices with virtual reality headsets, simulating such nerd fantasies as light saber combat.

One company, called Vir-tuix, took this concept a step ahead with the Virtuix Omni, a platform used to simulate movement in the virtual world as if you were walking or running in the real world. At their demonstra-tion booth, those who made appointments to try out the technology ahead of time lined up to literally step into their virtual worlds.

From the outside, they looked like your average treadmill joggers at the gym, only with plastic guns and a bulky headset over their eyes. In the virtual world, however, they appeared to be living out their wildest fantasies as space heroes or bionic soldiers.

What was once a novelty has grown into a potential technological revolution with applications beyond just gaming, with virtual re-ality potentially being used

By Trish Tunney, https://secure.flickr.com/photos/officialgdc/16115909113. Licence at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0.

By Official GDC, https://secure.flickr.com/photos/officialgdc/16719560675. Licence at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0.By Official GDC, https://secure.flickr.com/photos/officialgdc/16532138880. Licence at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0.

in medical fields, sports, science, the military, and simply in everyday life.

The concept of vir-tual reality evolved out of the early 1960s, when Morton Heilig, a cinematog-rapher, developed the Sensorama, an interactive theater experience with an enclosed viewing screen with ste-reoscopic images, oscillating fans to simulate weather ef-fects, speakers, and a device that emitted smells.

While far removed from the technology of today, the Sen-sorama was a water-shed moment in the creation of virtual reality technology. The research and development in the field boomed going into the1980s and 1990s as computers became more wide-ly available. But the consumer expecta-tions for virtual real-ity did not match up with the current technology, and with the Internet opening up new technological fron-tiers around 1995, the desire to explore virtual worlds was left to science fiction as more focus went toward the World Wide Web.

In 2012, Palmer Luckey, who described himself as a “virtual reality enthusi-ast and hardware geek,” founded Oculus and devel-oped the first Oculus Rift headset with the help of Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website that helps would-be entrepreneurs, artists and developers obtain funding for their projects through public support. The Rift raised about $2.5 million

from more than 9,000 backers, and their work caught the attention of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, who bought the company for a staggering $2 billion in a move that drew both praise and criticism from game and technology developers. From Oculus’ work, a new field of game development emerged, one wrestling with the challenges of making the most authentic virtual reality experiences.

The improvement of 3D graphics over time has helped make those experiences more authentic, and the new peripherals at GDC, like the Virtuix Omni, help to deliver those experiences with more au-thenticity. But developers like Tom Forsyth, an Oculus software architect who gave a speech at last year’s GDC about his experi-ences with developing the Oculus Rift, recognized the challenge of creating an immersive environ-ment for players. He described the challenges of making sure the virtual world scaled correctly with real world perception, especially in terms of player height or character height, and working to make cer-tain animations not seem awkward or out of place, especially for player controlled avitars.

The challenges are technical and psychological, as pioneers in the virtual reality field are trying to discover ways of making the experience feel as real as possible.

Not far from Oculus’ headquar-ters in Menlo Park, and about a 45-minute drive from Moscone Center, is Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. The lab, founded and directed by Associate Professor of Communi-cations Jeremy Bailenson, deals with the application of virtual reality beyond gaming. Bailenson and the students of the lab have

explored the psychology and real world applications of virtual real-ity, such as empathy, learning in a virtual classroom, immersion, communication, and teaching conversation and sustainable behaviors for the benefit of the environment.

The lab has been the subject of many stories surrounding the advancement of virtual reality technology. A CNN report on the lab featured Bailenson leading Morgan Spurlock over a virtual plank placed over a deep pit. While Spurlock had plenty of carpeted floor around him to walk on, in the headset he could only see the plank and the pit, and his mind tricked him into thinking the situ-ation was very real.

In another story, ESPN demon-strated the use of virtual reality as a training tool for Stanford’s quarterbacks to simulate the line of scrimmage and assist players in reading defenses in the virtual world, which they could, in turn, apply to reading defenses in the real world. Bailenson consults regularly with government agen-cies such as the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Health on policy issues concern-ing virtual reality. He co-authored a book with Jim Blascovich, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, called “Infinite Reality,” in which he and Blascovich explore the psychology of virtual reality.

“We’re the first team to come out that’s not as technologists, but really, fundamentally, as psycholo-gists,” said Bailenson in a promo-tional video for the book. “Our goal, even though we do act as engineers and build these virtual worlds, is to really study how the mind operates

inside of virtual reality.”The advancement of vir-

tual reality over the years raised many ethical ques-tions about how we interact with the virtual world, and if it has any lingering effect on how we interact with others in the real world. Studies by Bailenson and his students revealed that behaviors in the virtual world influenced how people behaved when back in reality. In one study, participants who cut down a virtual tree began to use less paper.

Other studies revealed that the use of virtual avatars could help those with anxiety in social situations, and that virtual simulation could help

those with crip-pling phobias. One recent study even covered the issue of sexual-ized female ava-tars in video gam-ing and the real life implications of sexualization and rape myths, finding that those who were as-signed sexualized avatars believed rape myths more than those who were assigned non-sexualized avatars.

Beyond the p s yc h o l o g i c a l ethics, there also have been ques-tions pertaining to identity and privacy. Bailenson argued in a BBC News article that virtual technolo-gy, such as Micro-soft’s Kinect for the X-Box, could be hacked into by criminals and used to steal not just your likeness and identity, but

also nonverbal behaviors and cues, using that information to create an avatar copy of you.

This new form of identity theft has the potential to be used in robots, using the stolen Kinect data to create a false identity. In addition to psychology and cyber crime, Bailenson expressed concern about the use of virtual reality in a commer-cial setting, expecially with Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus. He feared that, like the cyber criminals hacking the Kinect, companies and advertisers would use pho-tos of a person in Facebook to create false identities or even morph faces of politi-

cians to make them appear more like the person, foster-ing feelings of sympathy for the politician in question.

With any new technology, there will always be ques-tions of how it will affect daily life and the new benefits and problems that come with them. While those questions remain to be answered, it won’t be long before we see virtual reality as a consumer product. Next year seems to be the year that virtual reality will become a very real real-ity, with Oculus releasing its first consumer headsets in early 2016, and Sony releas-ing the Morpheus sometime that year as well. Steam’s Vive hopes to beat both Sony and Oculus to the punch, plan-ning to release its headset in the winter of 2015.

Most recently, a virtual theme park called The Void was announced, with the first one to be built in Pleasant Grove, Utah, by the summer of 2016. The park will have continuously reconfigurable rooms, and patrons will be able to walk around in virtual reality headsets and suits around these rooms through different simulations, work-ing together or competing to survive. The park also will have motion simulators and “fourth dimension” effects to offer as much immer-sion as possible. The Void is the brainchild of former cybersecurity business owner Ken Bretschneider, who has invested $13 million of his own money into the project. He plans to work with outside gaming studios to create dif-ferent gaming experiences for those visiting The Void.

The virtual playground of The Void seems to be a combination of everything that Morton Heilig hoped for in the Sensorama, and then some, delivering a virtual experience as close to the real thing as possible and with

near endless possibility and application.

Virtual reality doesn’t stop at gaming, either. Hollywood has already approached Bailenson to consult him about the possibilities of vir-tual movies, and a tip from the owners of the Golden State Warriors led NBA Commis-sioner Adam Silver to the Vir-tual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford to explore the idea of improving the experience of a game for both fans and players, with virtual courtside seats and virtual rehabilita-tion for injured players.

Virtual reality’s applica-tions are far reaching, and we may only be at the surface of what can be done with the new technology being developed. It could stand to reason that in a few decades, we could be taking virtual tours of Mars or going on virtual vacations to exotic lo-cales from the comfort of our couches. Doctors could even make diagnoses without having to leave their offices for patients a continent away.

That sort of advance-ment might be far off, and the current technology isn’t perfect by any means, but for a moment, I left the Moscone Center, the city of San Francisco, and even the year 2015 and traveled back to a prehistoric age, to towering tropical jungles and reptilian titans that roamed the primordial earth.

My “devolution” rein-forced the rapid evolution of virtual reality, which has grown from a novelty to a revolution that’s not just for video games and entertain-ment, but for the way we interact with one another and the world around us.

Whether it will have the impact we expect remains to be seen, but we’ll be seeing it through a virtual headset and into a world beyond our reality.

Intriguing Destiny

Destiny: The Taken King is set to be released on Sept. 15. If you are a returning player, your characters will begin at their current level. New players and/or characters will automatically start at level 25. The sequel to the original Destiny brings with it many new features, including a more developed plot and new subclasses and abilities.Many veteran players

know the struggle of the original Destiny story mode – vague cut scenes and mystery characters. Trailers for the new game are showing signs that we may be in store for a more interesting plot along with enhanced characters and a central enemy: Oryx, father of Crota. The Taken King will come with a new Subclass in addition to your original character’s other two subclasses:• Titan Subclass: Sun-breaker – the Titan will possess a hammer that can be used from a dis-tance and will rain fire on the enemy. • Warlock Subclass: Stormcaller – the War-lock will have the ability to manipulate Arc en-ergy, creating a chain of lightning. • Hunter Subclass: Nightstalker – Hunters will have a bow and ar-row made of what looks like Arc energy.I don’t know about you,

but I am already stoked about the new subclasses, particularly the Warlock. So far, between Hunter and Warlock, the Warlock has easily been my favorite class in both crucible and story mode. I have not, however, tried the Titan class; I am curious to see how the hammer works as a long-distance weapon against enemy defense, es-pecially against Titan Arc shields. Bungie was more vague in the description of the Hunter Subclass and ability, leaving much to the imagination. If you are a new player and interested in the game, you can get the legendary pack, which includes The Taken King, Destiny, Expansion I: The Dark Below, and Expan-sion II: House of Wolves. Returning players can easily order the Destiny Expansion online in the PlayStation Store.

Play with me on the Play-Station Platform! PSN: valarmorghulis8_

The rise of virtual gaming

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset was on display in March at the 2015 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Users try out virtual reality gaming technology at the 2015 Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in March. Visitors flood the Expo Floor at the 2015 Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in March.

M O N I T O R OPINIONSSEPTEMBER 10, 20156

What do you think of the new parking structure?AOLANI GATANPsychology

“This parking structure is actually really nice and I really like it”

MARIO RAPPATheater

“I’d say, ‘Good job Ohlone, you’ve earned my respect’ ”

CASS LANGTheater

“It’s a lot easier finding a park-ing spot up here than say, at the bottom of the hill”

SEAN DELBARIOComputer Science

“It’s convenient because I don’t have to worry about the long walk

WENDY MILLSGeneral ed toward BSN

“I love the new parking structure. It gets me right up to the top”

CAMPUS COMMENTContinued on Page 7

End marijuana prohibition nationwideI hear Colorado is collectingso much marijuana tax revenue, they want to build schools with it.

Oh, no. You can’t educate the youth, then Donald Trump won’t have ANY chance!

JOY MOON / MONITOR

VANESSA LUISEditor-in-chief

Weed, Dank, Tree, Doja, Mota, Indo, Chronic, Mary Jane; we all know it by a differ-ent name. Marijuana, or can-nabis, is a widely used plant that is illegal for non-medical use in 46 out of 50 states in our great nation. Twenty-three states have legalized the use of marijuana with a cannabis club card.

Marijuana-related arrests are a small but significant part of the crime rate in the United States that could be disintegrated upon legaliza-tion. According to an article at drugpolicy.org, “Nearly half of all drug arrests each year are for marijuana-related offenses, the overwhelming majority of which are for personal possession.” That means that for just having the substance, people are be-ing arrested and imprisoned at a significant cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Not only are we using re-sources to continue this war

on marijuana, but we are also losing out on immense economic opportunities. According to drugpolicy.org, in Colorado legal mari-juana sales accounted for approximately $40 million in taxes in just the first 10 months. With that kind of extra revenue, we could make our communities flourish with the improve-ment of schools, after-school programs, music and arts programs, and

so much more. In addition, there would be a significant increase in employment in the marijuana industry, both in cultivation and sales of the plant.

According to Drugpolicy.org, “Marijuana has been shown to alleviate symp-toms of a huge variety of serious medical conditions, including cancer, AIDS and glaucoma, and is often an effective alternative to syn-thetic painkillers”. However,

with most states limiting access to the plant, many people are not receiving the benefits of this substance.

Furthermore, with the legalization of marijuana, we could incorporate testing and standards of the final product. Regulation of the plant would allow custom-ers to have a profile of the strain they are purchasing, including facts on cultiva-tion and potency.

You cannot ignore the

economic and community benefits that come along with the legalization of this product; more tax money for our schools, more jobs for our unemployed, fewer peo-ple in our legal system, and regulation of the product for the safety of customers.

We should end the prohi-bition on the consumption of marijuana nationwide.

See our next issue for the reasons why I believe in le-galizing prostitution.

Ohlone should provide gender-neutral bathroomsSAM CAMPBELLOpinion editor

Over the last couple of years we have begun to see a spike in the fight for equality within and around the LG-BTQIA+ community. With the legalization of same-sex mar-riage passing in the United States this past June, most Americans believe the fight is over; but a single marriage license does nothing to stop the constant harassment of people who fall within these

categories.Even with some big

names coming out as transgender (trans) or gender nonconforming, such as Ruby Rose, Caitlyn Jenner and the wonderful Laverne Cox, society’s view of the Trans community continues to be based on ignorance.

Last spring, Ohlone Col-lege students in the Speech and Communication Club took it upon themselves to advocate for the Trans

community here on cam-pus. Students and faculty of the Communication Department went to Col-lege Council and Associated Students of Ohlone College meetings to petition for gender-neutral restrooms on both the Fremont and Newark campuses.

The current male/female restrooms are non-inclusive to gender nonconforming students, and potentially dangerous (mentally and/or physically) for our trans-

gender students on campus.Society, for the most part,

adheres to what is called, the gender binary. This means that people exist mainly as male or female while not recognizing the possibil-ity that someone may not identify with either gender.

In contrast, there is the gender spectrum that rec-ognizes some people may identify with the gender binary, some may identity with both, and some may not identify with any gender.

To be transgender is to no longer identify with the gen-der expected of you at birth due to your assigned sex.

“When I use the restroom, I am often faced with people who become obviously un-comfortable by my appear-ance,” said Trent Triskelion, an openly trans student here at Ohlone. “They stare at me as if they are trying to figure out whether or not I have the acceptable genitalia

Legalization would raise taxes, reduce prison population

M O N I T O RSEPTEMBER 10, 20157NEWS/OPINIONS

Show Ohlone students they are being heard

Continued from Page 6

to be in that restroom. Other times they see me washing my hands at the sink, as they come in, and they stop to double check the door, to make sure that they are in the right place. Either way, it leaves me feeling awkward and unwelcome in the rest-room.”

Trent is not the only one who feels this way. Our school is full of students who fall all over the gender spectrum who have to face this inner struggle on a daily basis. A third single stall restroom would be a perfect way to open up the conversation with our transgender stu-dents on other steps we can take to ensure they are just as comfortable as any other cis-gender (a person who identi-fies as the gender they were given at birth) student. This will do so much more than just add another place to use the restroom; this will show our students that they are being heard and their struggles are not going unnoticed.

If you are gender noncon-forming, have a friend who is questioning their gender, or are just interested to learn more and understand gen-der, you can reach out to the Ohlone Speech and Commu-nication Club by e-mailing vanessamluis@gmail.com for more resources.

If you are having an im-mediate struggle with your gender identity and would like to speak to someone, contact the Trans Lifeline, a crisis hotline run by trans people for trans people, at 877-565-8860.

TV OPEN HOUSE

IVAN VARGAS / MONITORActors Joe Corso, left, and Tiffani Lopez take direction from instructor Lawrence Iriarte on Sept. 2 during the Broadcasting Television and Film Open House at the Television Studio on the Fremont campus. Below-left: The control room. Below-right: Instructor William Moore demonstrates one of the Broadcasting Department’s cameras.

M O N I T O R SPORTSSEPTEMBER 10, 20158

VOLLEYBALL

Friday, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., DVC Classic vs. Diablo Valley College and Solano College in Pleasant Hill.

Wednesday, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., Renegade Classic vs. Lassen College and Col-lege of Alameda at the Fre-mont campus.

Sept. 18, 6:30 p.m. at Sky-line College in San Bruno.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

Tuesday, 4 p.m. vs. Men-docino College in Ukiah.

Sept. 18, 3:30 p.m. vs. Modesto Junior College in Modesto.

Sept. 22, 4:30 p.m. vs. Ca-brillo College at Tak Stadi-um in Fremont.

MEN’S SOCCER

Friday, 1 p.m. vs. Yuba City College at Central Park in Fremont.

Upcoming gamesTuesday, 4:30 p.m. vs. Napa Valley College at Tak Stadium in Fremont.

Sept. 18, 2 p.m. vs. Butte College in Oroville.

WOMEN’S WATER POLO

Wednesday, 3:30 p.m. vs. Foothill College in Los Alto Hills.

Sept. 25-26, 8:30 a.m., Bockman Memorial Tour-nament in Aptos.

Sept. 30, 3 p.m. vs. Cabril-lo College at the Fremont campus.

MEN’S WATER POLO

Friday and Saturday, all day, West Valley Tourna-ment in Saratoga.

Sept. 18-19, all day, Delta Tournament in Stockton.

Sept. 25-26, all day, De Anza Tournament in Cu-pertino.

IVAN VARGAS / MONITOR

The Ohlone men’s soccer team scores its only goal of the game in a 2-1 loss to Lassen College on Tuesday. The women’s team lost the first game of the double-header.

Ohlone soccer teams fall in double-headerJOY MOONStaff writer

Both Ohlone soccer teams battled but wound up losing in a double-head-er at Tak Fudenna Memo-rial Stadium in Fremont on Tuesday evening.

As the women’s team fought to the end against

Diablo Valley College before losing 1-0, the men’s team prepped for their game against Lassen College.

“They are an incredibly strong team and today my expectations for the team are to defend well,” Head Coach David Cordova Mar-roquin said before the game.

After Lassen took the

lead, scoring two goals in the first half, Marroquin reminded the players to “shape up,” to continue to play the planned forma-tion.

Ohlone had several chances to score, but the first half came to an end with Lassen leading 2-0. During the second half, a

Lassen player received a red card and was removed from the game.

The crowd got riled up when forward Jorge Pena scored for Ohlone. How-ever, the game ended with a final score of 2-1.

It was an unfortunate day for both women’s and men’s soccer. However,

Marroquin said he was sat-isfied with the effort.

“The boys feel a little bit frustrated because they put in their best effort, but we got set up for the rest of the game because we played a quality team, and as long as we put in our best effort, I am satisfied with that,” Marroquin said.

IVAN VARGAS / MONITOR

The Ohlone women’s soccer team lost 1-0 to Diablo Valley College on Tuesday evening.