Opinion

There’s a rather famous anecdote frequently tossed around in Mexican literary circles. The story concerns famed French poet André Breton’s first visit to our country in 1938. On arrival — and presumably still reeling from the merrymaking on the Parisian party boat — he issued the following statement which, while fitting at the time, seems […]

Three years of full-time community college classes taught me a lot. I covered the first half of my formal education; I took classes on astronomical formulas, philosophical paradoxes, anatomy, women’s history and more. But that’s not what I learned. The community college system created an interesting paradigm for me. Students are fresh out of the […]

I’m tired of the word “sustainability.” I’m equally tired of the words meant to supplant it such as “eco” and “earth-friendly.” As a fourth-year sustainable agriculture and food systems major, I am well aware of the novelty attached to the title of my degree. What exactly am I conveying to others? What value do the […]

“ANIMAL WELFARE LEGISLATION NEEDED” Our state legislature reconvened on Jan. 6. Now’s the time to ask your representatives to introduce legislation to protect animals, both wild and domestic. A few suggestions: ban all “wildlife killing contests” of coyotes, rabbits, ground squirrels, crows, whatever; they are unethical, ecologically-unsound, and give all hunting a black eye. Ban […]

National elections in Honduras were held on Nov. 24, 2013. I went with a delegation from the National Lawyers Guild invited by the government. In 2009, a military coup kicked out the president and took over the country with a fraudulent election. Unfortunately the same ruling party of the coup has now also stolen this […]

I’m still trying to understand everything. Well, almost everything. Not sweatpants. I completely understand sweatpants. My goal in this quarter’s worth of columns was to explore some random and commonly unthought-of things in life and that’s exactly what I did. However, even though this column marks the end for this quarter, I still find myself […]

It’s that time of year. You’re scrambling on gift ideas for your family before finals hit. You’ve settled on buying some nice UC Davis mugs, T-shirts and sweatshirts for the parents and cousins. Soon, you’ll be getting hosed by one of the best — and worst — strategies this university has cooked up. Combine terrible […]

What is a hippie? A hippie was a member of the 1960s counterculture movement, characterized as a rejection of the 1950s ideals of middle class lifestyle. At its core, the hippie movement was about breaking away from the norms of society and experimenting with ideas to create social change for a better existence. From the […]

I tend to romanticize problems. It explains a lot about my childhood. Like most Harry Potter fans I aspired to be an orphan. In first grade I met my best friend by tragically recounting a fantasy in which both my parents had died horribly in a car accident. We hit it off when she exclaimed […]

How many of us have the courage to speak our minds at the risk of offending others? For example, if we cannot understand a professor due to a thick accent or mumbling, would we go to the professor after class and say so? If we lack the courage to stand up for ourselves, others will […]

On Nov. 15, it was announced that The Campaign for UC Davis reached its fundraising goal of $1 billion from over 100,000 private donors. This was the University’s first-ever comprehensive funding campaign, which began in October 2010 and reached its goal one year earlier than its scheduled end date of December 2014. The funds will […]

If you’ve been following my column all quarter, then I’d like to take a moment to sincerely thank you for your support. Without readers, we writers would have nothing to write for. If you listened to everything I had to say, then awesome. You have my gratitude. If you accepted everything I had to say, […]