Opinion

Whenever I’m in need of inspiration, I Google “quotes about [insert feeling or random thought].” There’s something particularly unique about famous quotations. When we read them on our computer screens they have no context, and exist as independent blurbs of reason. On those occasions when my brain is as confused as Legolas in the Lord of the Rings movies, I turn to Mark Twain. The guy has made a comment (sometimes strange) on every subject I’ve needed him for.

An attorney representing over 25 UC Davis undergraduate and graduate students recently wrote a letter to Associate Executive Vice Chancellor Rahim Reed and Chancellor Linda Katehi challenging the campus website’s definition of religious/spiritual discrimination.

Picture this: On a warm spring evening in April, you ride your bike up to Sciences Lecture Hall. But instead of packs of bleary-eyed, backpack-wearing chemistry majors, there’s a red carpet. And photographers. And all the local news media.

In the aftermath of UC Davis receiving an F grade on its recent transparency audit from Californians Aware, I had the opportunity to sit down with the man responsible, one of UC Davis’ most important administrators, our “high priest of transparency,” Charlie Sheen.

Last week’s guest opinion, “The grass is greener on the other side … or is it?” discussed a range of topics – Meatless Mondays, antibiotic use in animal husbandry, organic farming, the word “sustainable,” media bias and feedlot beef vs. free range. The information offered appeared to promote large and conventional agriculture, the consumption of meat and a fair and balanced discussion of topics such as sustainability.

So, I shaved my legs the other day. If you are a normal girl, this isn’t anything out of the ordinary.

Soon we will all take on our spring break characters. Some will travel; others will doze off to a world of sleep. Just as some of us will be wrapping up our third R.E.M. cycle, somewhere along the fringes of the UC Davis quad will emerge a group of people, almost camouflaged, swaying in stroke with the leaves.

History reveals that there has always been a stigma attached to alternative sexualities. Our current fight for marriage equality is a far cry from the days when homosexuality was classified as a psychological disorder in the 1973 edition of DSM-IV, or from when police raided gay bars looking to arrest anyone engaging in homosexual conduct.

Life is increasingly digital. We spend a lot of time living online, be that through e-mail, social networking sites, research or web browsing. Even when our experiences take hold in the physical world, they are beholden to status updates, photo albums, tweets, e-mails and procrasti-reading (e.g. when you hear an artist on the radio and then spend half an hour on Wikipedia reading their life story in lieu of writing your term paper). One might conclude that our entire lives both take place and are actively archived online.

I was getting worried for a bit there.

Californians Aware, a nonprofit open-government advocacy group, recently gave UC Davis a failing grade for inadequately responding to public records requests.

I am just as mad as any other student about the budget cuts and tuition hikes that are happening on our campus and the rest of the University of California. Yes, it makes me steam to hear about the inflated salaries of top administrators! Yes, it pisses me off that there is no transparency between students and the higher rungs of the university ladder! But in these moments of anger and frustration, I feel we are losing sight of what is the bigger issue at hand.