Opinion

There is much to be said for the great experience of a thing we call “college.” The incredible opportunities it has to offer, the interesting people poised for encounters, the barely recollected parties. It’s pretty grand, this college life.

Last week, Davis College Democrats (DCD) featured prominently in The Aggie – from voter registration to Davis City Council engagement. I actually have been approached several times on campus by DCD, Students for Barack Obama and CalPIRG associates about registering to vote or voting for particular propositions, especially recently. This last-minute drive by the Democrats to get an apathetic base to go out and vote in the next couple days is frantic, to say the least. Two things, though: There is no national message and “lackluster” comes to mind as a description of their ground game.

Nov. 1 marks the deadline for students, faculty and staff to change their Kerberos passwords. After that they will be forced to switch from their current eight-character password to a passphrase with a minimum 12 characters.

“Legalization” seems to be the word on everybody’s minds these days. Celebrities from Willie Nelson to Lindsay Lohan are taking Proposition 19’s place on the ballots to be a symbolic victory for the green coast. Even the Dude abides, lest we forget Jeff Bridges’ endorsement of the campaign.

On the editorial, \

The new law SB 1440, signed recently by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is indeed something to be concerned about.

It is very possible that many of you have never heard of the Lieutenant Governor of California and what he/she is responsible for, and that is understandable. The position of Lieutenant Governor has historically stayed below the radar and has gone unnoticed even by many politically aware citizens. However, the position holds a key role in the lives of all Californians and especially the students of this great state.

Amongst the minefield of clipboards, fliers and CalPIRG-atory outside the CoHo last week, Delta Delta Delta sorority’s table caught my eye with a sign that read “Trash Fat Talk!”

The quest for Basisdemokratie, that is, democracy from the base or grassroots, lives on in Austria, as students celebrated the one-year anniversary of the “Uni brennt” protest this past weekend in Vienna. Inspired partly by our own University of California walkout in September 2009, students at the University of Vienna took over their largest lecture hall, called the “Audimax” (short for “Auditorium Maximum”), on Oct. 22, 2009 and stayed there for two months.

I’m doing a Google search on “Proposition 19 flawed” and I’m scrolling through 815,000 results of opinion columns and newspaper headlines. There are some impressive lines flying at my face.

Proposition 23 is an attempt to shut down California’s landmark climate change legislation.

This upcoming Tuesday, the Davis City Council will be deciding the fate of the Pacifico student housing project on Drew Circle. The project is currently part of the City of Davis affordable housing program, and is the city’s only affordable housing project that was built with the intention of serving low-income students. Out of 1,550 units in our affordable housing program, only 450 of them allow all-student households. That includes Pacifico, whose future is being decided next week.