Volume 115 | Issue 39 | Thursday, April 17, 2014

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Putting on the PressureAttorney General Eric Holder

has offered to work with Congress to reschedule or de-schedule mari-juana. He should be commended for his willingness to advance the issue of marijuana prohibition. Even though he has been some-what rebuffed, we should write and encourage him to act in ac-cordance with the 1970 Controlled Substances Act and just do it as he

is allowed by his position. In that light I am start-ing a letter writ-ing campaign to bury Holder in letters that will pressure him to act.

The Attorney General can be emailed at-- Ask-DOJ@usdoj.gov

A hard copy address is--US D e p a r t m e n t of Justice, 950 P e n n s y l v a n i a Ave, Washing-ton, DC 20530-0001

The following letter is a sample letter that can be used as a tem-plate to write Mr. Holder and encourage him to go ahead and act.

Sir,I am writing

you today to commend you on your offer to

work with Congress to de-schedule or at least reschedule marijuana. You join a majority of Americans who favor ending the unjust, un-scientific and racist policy of mari-juana prohibition that has been a plague on minorities and the poor for the last 77 years.

Please do not shirk from your goal. Even if Congress fails to act you have, in accordance with the 1970 Controlled Substances Act the power to de-schedule or re-schedule any drug as you see fit. There is no doubt the current schedule of marijuana, schedule1, has absolutely no bearing on either its danger or medical uses. Mari-juana was made schedule1 so its prohibition could never be ques-tioned.

As history records, the first Drug Czar, Harry J. Anslinger said mari-juana should be illegal because, “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men”.

You Sir have the power to end this travesty. You Sir have the pow-er to end 77 years of racial injustice and outright lies used to suppress those who look or think different.

Please use your power and end this injustice. Use your power and finally set things right. Use your power and your place in history to end the injustice that is marijuana prohibition. Use the power in your pen and de-schedule marijuana now!

Thank You,If we act now and act together

maybe we can convince him! Write as often as you can and spread the word!!!!

-Thomas Tony Varce

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#DoItForThe Vine

LETTERS

 

Dear Editor,Currently obesity in the U.S. - Mexico border area is at an all time high.

With this high prevalence of obesity in our local area it is often hard to find creative ways to exercise. Exercise is a fundamental part of staying healthy and active. Benefits of exercise vary from increased mobility and stamina for all ages and genders. Recently we came across a compelling promotion for healthy living in the border area. Inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative to reverse America’s obesity epi-demic, Move! El Paso. This unique program offers safety tips for exercis-ing and physical activity recommendations and benefits.

Experts recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate level exercise daily. Regular exercise helps to regulate blood glucose levels, strengthen your heart and lungs, and help to manage and maintain a healthy BMI (Body Mass Index) level. To facilitate exercising, start out slowly and work your way towards the pace that you feel comfortable with. It is always important to remember to be safe when exercising.

In efforts to reduce the prevalence of obesity in the El Paso border area we think it is very import that local citizens know about these creative exercise programs such as Move! El Paso. In the months to come the City of El Paso Department of Public Health is holding community walk by Move! El Paso. More information can be found at home.elpasotexas.gov on walk times and meeting locations. I encourage all to come to these upcoming events and help fight the prevalence of obesity in our local communities.

Thank you,Kevin Guerrero, NMSU StudentChristian Hart, NMSU StudentMichael Stewart, NMSU Student

To the Editor: Volume 115 | Issue 39 | April 17, 2014

AdministrationExecutive Director

Alexandra Von Wolff

Director of FinanceMichelle Tejeda

Administrative AssistantsTatiana Miyazaki

William Peck

EditorialManaging Editor

Jesca Cervantes

News EditorBethany Blundell

Sports EditorLewis Harry

Culture EditorShaless Robinson

Staff Writers

DesignDesign Specialists

Ana AyonFernanda Teixeira

Graphic DesignersHeather Miller

Web EditorNate Turner

PhotographersKyle Chancellor

Jenny Marin

SalesAdvertising Manager

Ashley DeMott

Director of MarketingZak Baeza

Submission PolicyThe Round Up welcomes submis-sions for publication. Submissions can be dropped off , faxed or emailed. Submissions become property of The Round Up and will not be returned. The Round Up reserves the right to edit articles and cannot guarantee publication.

Advertising PolicyThe Round Up welcomes paid adver-tisements for legal products and ser-vices. The Round Up does not accept ads deemed discriminatory by the editor. Any advertisement that might be confused with editorial content must be clearly labeled (paid adver-tisement.) Positions of ads cannot be guaranteed. The Round Up reserves the right to refuse publication of any advertisement.

About UsThe Round Up is published during the academic year by the students for the university community. Cor-rections of the print edition will be made of www. nmsuroundup.com. Editorial content of the newspaper is independent of advertising content. Opinions expressed in The Round Up are not necessarily those of the staff , New Mexico State University or the Associated Students of NMSU.

Box 3004, Dept. CC New Mexico State University

Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003Phone 575-646-6397

Fax 575-646-5557

Anthony AlbidrezLiz BakerChris BrillianteKyla HollisterDavid De Ale-jandroS.O NicliFiliberto Perez

Maria HarrisBrynn HerndonTy Stevers Robin HowzellChristina SolisSkyler WilsonJarrett Trantham

To the Editor:

| page 3 |

Thursday, April 17, 2014 #420

NEWS

NEED COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS?Come help us and landscape Chaparral Middle School When: Saturday, April 26Time: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.Where: Chaparral Middle School (290 E. Lisa Drive Chaparral, NM 88081)Who to Contact: Cristina Abeyta ovaldezn@nmsu.edu

STEM Outreach Center at NMSU

by David De AlejandroStaff Writer

On Wednesday, April 30, New Mexico State University will hold its traditional ring ceremony, which will honor the achieve-ments of students.

The ceremony occurs every fall and spring semester and is meant to keep the univer-sity’s traditions alive and bring them to a new generation of students.

The event is sponsored by the NMSU Alumni Association.

The official ring, which will be distrib-uted to students during the ceremony, is purchased by NMSU juniors and seniors. In the last 10 years, more than 2,000 rings have been purchased. The ring was designed to symbolize the values that the university strives to uphold.

The top of the ring features NMSU’s tradi-tional symbol, which consists of three trian-gles that represent the university’s land-grant mission of education, research and public service. On one side of the ring is an image of Aggie Memorial Tower and on the other is the Organ Mountains, which feature the well-known “A Mountain.”

The ceremony takes place at Aggie Me-

morial Tower, which was created to honor Aggies who lost their lives in World War II. Photos of these soldiers are featured at the bottom of the tower. The tower’s placement on the ring serves to further honor these Ag-gies.

During the ceremony, all of the rings are placed on a red chile ristra supplied by Jo Lytle, an NMSU graduate from Hatch. This ristra represents the agricultural background that is prominent within Southern New Mex-ico.

Charlotte Tallman, alumni relations of-ficer, said she believes the traditional ring ceremony not only serves to highlight tradi-tion, but is also meant to honor students who receive the ring every semester.

“The official ring is a source of university pride,” she said. “The ring ceremony is an opportunity for the Alumni Association and the university as a whole to recognize the tra-ditions symbolized on the ring and the ex-cellence of the students that are wearing the ring.”

The traditional ring ceremony stands as one of most valued customs at NMSU. It is representative of the university’s values and it honors the students from the past as well as the future.

Ring ceremony upholds university traditions

by Kyle ChancellorContributing Writer

For the second time this semester, the Kappa Sigma fraternity will bring leaders to campus to inspire and educate stu-dents.

In part of the Leadership Speaker Series, Senator Tom Udall will speak at New Mexico State University Thursday. Earlier this semester, Marci Dickerson, owner and CEO of the Dickerson Group started the speaker series.

Udall has been involved in politics since 1991. He served as the New Mexico Attorney General from 1991-1999. He then served in the House of Representa-tives between 1999 and 2009. Udall now sits on several key United States Senate committees including appropriations, foreign relations and environment and public works.

His talk will cover his background,

what got him interested in politics, leader-ship and current issues facing New Mex-ico and the rest of the nation. Udall will also answer questions from students.

Karl Lopez, Kappa Sigma member and event manager, said Udall is excited to be speaking in the series.

“Initially this speaker series was just going to be a program for the Brothers of Kappa Sigma, but after talking about it, we thought it’d be a great opportunity for all students to participate with some of New Mexico’s and the Southwest’s mov-ers and shakers,” Lopez said.

Kappa Sigma is planning to continue the speaker series for the next school year, but as of right now, a speaker has not been scheduled.

The event takes place at 7 p.m. in the East Corbett Ballroom and is expected to draw about 100 attendees. For more information, contact Kappa Sigma at kap-pasigma.nmsu@gmail.com.

Senator Udall to speak on campus tonight

The Alumni Association holds the annual ceremony at the Health and Social Services for graduates who purchase a ring. photos courtesy of the Alumni Association

Thursday, April 17, 2014

FEATURE

prohibition The new era of

The 21st century bootlegger

Under the Organ Mountains dwells a large secret society or a not-so-secret society: the world of marijuana. This world has uncovered itself and has become a social norm in the college experience.

With more and more states jumping on the bandwagon of the legality of marijuana, the plant has become more visible and acceptable in the

public eye.New Mexico is one state that has not jumped on this bandwagon, and the black mar-

ket continues to exist.Black Bird, New Mexico State University student and retired pot dealer, created a

signature for himself with the social drug. Deep in the corridors of Garcia Hall, Black Bird made his first marijuana deal. “I bought a gram and fell in love with the high,” Black Bird said. “I felt more moti-

vated to learn. I focused in class and generally was happier with myself.”He continued using marijuana recreationally. His roommate and he made the next

move. They purchased two ounces of high-grade marijuana.Black Bird said two ounces is worth $1,120 if the weed is good quality. He was at-

tracted to the business because of the high-pay and low-time commitment.Black Bird broke from business with his roommate and developed an extensive cus-

tomer base of mostly NMSU students but also other community members with “re-spectable jobs and families,” he said.

Black Bird developed a two-and-a-half year career distributing marijuana. By the time he left the industry Black Bird had sold to about 100 loyal customers.

“I’ve dealt with numerous suppliers, all with connections to medical dispensaries or growers in multiple states,” Black Bird said. “Most of the people who I bought from were decent people, but there were bad apples.”

His first supplier agreed to travel to Denver and retrieve about $1,000 of product for him and bring it back to Las Cruces. The supplier blew all of Black Bird’s money in Las Vegas and Black Bird never heard from him again.

“I was almost stabbed by a one-time supplier on one occasion as a result of miscom-munication,” Black Bird said. “It’s odd, but I value those experiences. They gave me perspective and taught me resilience.”

But suppliers were not the only negative business negotiations. Customers led to

“I was almost stabbed by a one-time supplier on one occasion as a result of

miscommunication,”- Black Bird Photos by Kyle Chancellor

by Anthony AlbidrezStaff Writer

| page 5 |

prohibition

stressful situations. Black Bird has had more than $500

worth of product stolen from him. He gen-erously loaned out product and was never compensated.

Black Bird said: “Admittedly, I loved it. The job turned me into who I am today, and who I am today knows that in order to fulfill my ambitions I can’t be mixing my-self in illegalities like selling weed, so I quit and have been out of that work for about six months.”

New norm flies high in American

The world of marijuana is making land-mark changes in the United States.

Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize recreational cannabis and more states are soon to follow.

New Mexico has yet to decriminalize or legalize marijuana except in the cases of medical use.

Decriminalization of cannabis would be treated as a minor traffic violation with no prison time or criminal record attached for violations.

States that have decriminalized marijua-na include Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Min-nesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada,

New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Or-egon, Rhode Island and Vermont.

According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, U.S. law enforcement has arrested more than 20 million American citizens for marijuana offenses since 1965.

Advocates have deemed it the War on Drugs, the Failed War on Drugs and a vic-timless crime, while others stamp it with being a gateway drug.

According to NORML, today marijuana is more prevalent. Minors have easier ac-cess to marijuana, and the drug is on av-erage more potent. There is still violence associated with the illegal marijuana busi-ness.

Despite the medical benefits of canna-bis and the high prevalence of the plant in U.S. society, cannabis remains federally il-legal.

According to NORML, about 100 mil-lion Americans have used marijuana unde-terred by the prohibition, and one out of 10 use marijuana regularly.

“I hope that one day it will be legalized,” Black Bird said. “I know firsthand that its therapeutic properties are excellent. It is incredibly profitable and most importantly it’s not harmful.”

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Thursday, April 17, 2014

| page 7 |

#FakeDrake

SPORTS

by Skyler WilsonStaff Writer

He was just a kid coming out of Ukiah High School in California to major in PGA Golf Management at New Mexico State Uni-versity. Now Brett Walker is one of the top

men’s golfers on the team.

Walker is junior at New Mexico State and is an excel-

ling golfer for the men’s golf team.

Walker began to form an interest in

golf when he was 12 years old. Golf, however,

was not the only sport that caught Walker’s eye growing up.

Basketball, baseball, tennis and soc-cer were on Walker’s sports agenda, but golf is where he took off in high school.

Walker was selected as a first team all-League player in 2008, 2009 and 2010 while attending high school. He was also selected as an all-empire player in 2010 for his se-nior year. If that was not enough, Walker achieved the honor of his team’s most valu-able player his senior year as he averaged a score of 75.92.

With all of the many accolades Walker earned in high school, he was not brought onto the state golf team until his sophomore year of college.

“When I first came here, Brett was not on the team but in the PGM program,” said coach Mike Dirks. “I saw him play in a couple PGM tournaments and from then to now, it has been night and day. Walker had no scholarships for golf and was merely found playing by the coaches of the univer-sity.

After that point Walker took his game to another level. Walker competed in all of the major tournaments for the Aggies and preformed greatly through most of them. Last year, Walker earned an academic All-Western Athletic Conference player selec-tion and helped his team to win the 2013 WAC championship. Walker also took his talents to the NCAA tournament where he scored 2-under par, which was good enough to place No. 17 overall.

“His bad golf has been pretty good,” Dirks said.

Growing up as a young golfer, Walker enjoyed watching players like Tiger Woods dominate the game.

“I loved watching Tiger, but I honestly love watching major championships and good golf,” Walker said.

Although Walker seems like a humble player on the course, everyone has to have strength in his or her game and for him it is ball striking.

“I would say consistent ball striking,” Walker said in reference to the strongest as-pect of his game. “I usually hit the greens and when I miss I can usually get up and down for the hole.”

Walker’s play on the course has turned some heads around in the golf community in Las Cruces, and Walker has credited that to his growth as an NMSU golfer.

“Once I joined the team and got some guidance from Coach Dirks, I learned how to think on the course and actually play the game,” Walker said.

Walker is looking to take his play into the WAC tournament this May in Las Vegas.

MEET THE PLAYERBrett Walker

OPINION

by Brynn HerndonStaff Writer

On every job application there is the one section. “Are you male or female?”

Why does it matter? That is an excellent question. It shouldn’t, and many women looking for employment are very tempted to choose that nice looking check-box that says “I choose not to disclose.” And honestly, that’s probably what’s going to work for them.

President Barack Obama recently went on record saying that unequal pay “ain’t right.” Thanks, Obama. Hopefully he can get

more done than John F. Kennedy did (though he did sign the Equal Pay Act in 1963, a very big step in the right direction) when he was in office. Despite these efforts, women still make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes, and now many conservative politicians are trying to convince Americans that this wage gap does not exist.

A woman with a master’s degree will very likely make less in a year than a man with only a bachelor’s degree will make for doing the exact same job. And this is actually a preferable thing for her because at least she got hired.

The fact is that women are still less respected in the workforce

today. They’re less likely to get hired, mostly because they’re expected to catch baby fever and request time off to raise a family (even though some women do not want children and have no intention of changing their mind) or they already have a family and society is telling them they’re self-ish for wanting to work.

This isn’t an income inequal-ity problem; it’s a problem with equality in general. It’s 2014, and it’s still all about gender.

The conservative right is con-vinced that the glass ceiling and wage gap do not exist. That must be nice, choosing not to see how unfair society is right now. These

are the people who think “sexism is over, we have women in office” and “racism is over, we have a Black president.”

Unequal pay is just one aspect of sexism that won’t go away. Yes, women are viewed as more than just mothers and wives (by some people), but that doesn’t mean things don’t still need to

change.Unfortunately,

the GOP recently blocked an equal wage legisla-tion on the grounds that “discrimina-tion based on gender is already illegal.” So is racial discrimi-nation, which is similar to the trivial crime of pirating music in that people will do it because they don’t believe it’s wrong.

Things are going to have to change, but it looks like the wait is far from over. Until the almost uniformly male government starts trying to understand what women go through, they’ll still live in that nice, happy bubble where they’ve convinced themselves that every-

thing is all right.

Unequal pay: stop it

#SmileForAChange

| page 8 |

Thursday, April 17, 2014

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Holiday Ave

by Ty Stevers Staff Writer

The New Mexico State Aggies and the Seattle University Redhawks will play a three game series this coming weekend at Presley Askew field.

The Aggies (13-190, 5-4 Western Ath-letic Conference) are currently No. 5 in the WAC. The Redhawks (15-15, 6-3 WAC) are tied for No. 3 in the WAC.

The Redhawks are coming off of sweeping Northern Colorado. NMSU fell in a single game to out of conference foe Air Force.

Both teams match up evenly offensively with the Aggies holding a slight edge in bat-ting average. NMSU is hitting .275 while Se-attle is batting .266.

Landon Cray leads the Redhawks with a .394 batting average and is tied for the team lead in home runs with two. Derek Umphres .350 batting average leads NMSU.

The two teams could not be more differ-ent in terms of pitching. The Redhawks have had solid pitching throughout the year while the Aggies have really struggled.

NMSU has a 5.63 team ERA compared to Seattle with a 3.53 team ERA.

Christopher Bradley leads all Aggie start-

ers, with five or more starts, with a 4.06 ERA. Conner Moore leads Seattle with a 2.31 ERA through eight starts.

NMSU returned only one pitcher from last season’s team and it has showed. The pitching staff has not been very good includ-ing both starters and relievers.

Riley Barr is the only Aggie pitcher with more than 10 innings to have an ERA under 3.00. Barr’s ERA for the season sits at 2.63.

In contrast, Seattle’s staff has been very good. However, they are still searching for a reliable number three starter in the rotation behind Moore and Mac Acker, who has a 3.02 ERA for the Redhawks.

The Aggies have seen a little more offen-sive production than the Redhawks, pushing across 200 runs so far this season compared to 131 for Seattle.

NMSU, usually known for their offensive prowess, has not been able to keep up with a weak pitching staff, which is one of the rea-sons for the Aggies’ early season struggles.

Seattle will have to find a way to manufac-ture runs. The Redhawks have a solid pitch-ing staff but offensively are not where they need to be.

The teams play at 6:05 p.m. Thursday and Friday and at 1:05 p.m. Sunday. All three games will be held at Presley Askew Field.

Aggies face Seattle Redhawks inconference series starting Friday

Quentin Mansfield in the middle of a pitch for New Mexico State University. photo by Jenny Marin

#HasheryDashVote Now.

www.nmsuroundup.com/hasherydash/