Opinion

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.

During a recent trip to Spain, Chancellor Linda Katehi examined the possibilities of putting a UC Davis satellite campus in the Spanish capital.

Davis is a wonderful community with a vibrant downtown scene and diverse residents. As fall approaches, our green town is covered by dry leaves of all colors and sorts.

Generally speaking, my parents and I get along. My political existence is admittedly the crossroads at which their respective ideologies meet. I find it difficult to find gaping chasms in life perspective with the people who taught me to tie my shoes (by shopping Velcro). Our ideologically symbiotic activity aside, however, there is one issue that comprises the meat of the debate between the walls of the Rottman household. We disagree fervently on the role of student activism and protest in modern American politics.

A very prominent feature of the California gubernatorial race has been money, and not in the usual sense of campaign fundraising and expenditures. As in, who has it – lots of it.

Krystal Ball, a 28-year-old democratic congressional candidate in Virginia, has made headlines this past week because photos of her at age 22 were released on a blog (a completely unbiased and respectable one I’m sure). In these photos she is dressed as a kinky, pirate, Santa Claus leading around her then-husband on a leash with a dildo strapped to his nose. In some pictures she mimes rubbing the dildo-nose, and in others she pretends to fellate the dildo-nose. Even one of her girlfriends got some dildo-nose action in another photo (this last point is not as relevant I guess but I’m having too much fun with the phrase \

Urban Dictionary defines “spitting game” as “when a person tries to pimp someone of the female persuasion. Many times it involves one male macking on many other females.”

I had a horrible realization last Wednesday: I’m not perfect.

Am I a freak for encouraging my parents to have sex?