Opinion

If there’s one thing we can say about Chancellor Katehi since the pepper spray incident of Nov. 18, 2011, it’s that her public relations campaign has been extremely effective at quelling calls for her resignation. Excessive pandering to student concerns with town hall forums reached absurd, almost pathetic levels before winter break, not to mention […]

Welcome to 2012, a year wrought with the promise of anguish and disappointment. Hell, add fear to that list as well. The President has just further secured his legal ability to detain you without trial through the National Defense Authorization Act For The Fiscal Year 2012, and though the legislation was passed in 2011, this […]

Students following the UC budget battles would do well to remember Sun Tzu’s well-worn maxim: “All war is deception.” With the latest round of budget cuts prompting the usual protestations from UC administrators, one might be excused for believing that the UC system has been, in the words of budget VP Patrick Lenz, “cut to […]

The pepper spray incident of Nov. 18 placed the UC Davis administration in uncharted waters. We all know about the calls for Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi’s resignation and the six ongoing investigations, but what has largely been ignored are the more subtle effects the events of Nov. 18 may have had on seemingly unrelated decisions. […]

Recently, I was reading a certain popular women’s magazine and wondering if my masochistic streak was widening. It was the only reason I could think of for why I continue to read articles entitled “500 Ways to Please Your Man” (because apparently only straight girls read it), even though I know it will be the […]

In November, Maciej Ceglowski, founder of the grossly underrated bookmarking site Pinboard.in, wrote on his blog that “asking computer nerds to design social software is a little bit like hiring a Mormon bartender.” I personally do not believe (all) computer nerds to be asocial (per se), and I disclaim this outright lest I be subject […]

I have this habit of putting the cart before the horse, which is why, having recently dusted off my grandiose High School ambitions of fame, I feel free to act like I’m already a star. This is much easier than actually accomplishing anything that would earn me fame and explains why (as you’ll come to […]

This is yet another piece whose drum beats are as old as Methuselah. I for one would beg to differ at best or remain a skeptic at worse. Here is why: Most human population growth predictions say that the global population should stabilize by 2050 as more and more couples are having lesser number of […]

Chancellor Katehi: At town halls over this last week you have invoked the Virginia Tech massacre on multiple occasions to defend a need for a weaponized police forces on college campuses. When students and faculty are professing concerns about the campus police, I ask you if such a reference is relevant or appropriate. As a […]

On Monday, the UC Regents meeting took place on four different campuses — UC Merced, UCLA, UCSF and UC Davis. The regents gave students a chance to speak and share their opinions, and public comment was even extended for an extra half hour, which was good. However, this was followed by a decision to raise […]

During public comment at Monday’s Regents meeting, we learned exactly how much say we are allowed at this university: one minute’s worth per student. And, as students spoke, we saw how carefully the administration listens. While one student condemned police brutality on campus, Chancellor Linda Katehi stared intently at her lap, looking as if she […]

On Oct. 31, the United Nations announced that the world human population reached seven billion. Obviously the number is just an estimate, but since the population reached six billion only 13 years ago, there are many hard questions that need to be answered of how we can deal with such a crowded world. Here are […]