Opinion

So I was standing in line at SaveMart, buying my usual DiGiorno pizza, when I saw a Cosmopolitan magazine. Of course, there was some half-naked woman on the cover looking at me like I was a DiGiorno pizza. What made it even more uncomfortable was the fact it was Lady Gaga. (I think I’m the only person on the face of the Earth that hasn’t gone gaga over Gaga. Her outfits are stupid and her songs bug me. What the hell is a disco stick? Why don’t you just turn off your phone when you’re at a club? What if I just dance and things aren’t okay?)

Last week, the UC Commission on the Future came up with several ideas to reduce the impact of the budget deficit. One scheme expanding access to courses is online instruction through a pilot program that tests its effects.

I’m sure that by now many of you have read or heard something about the gravity of the financial problems at UC Davis and the potential impact on the Intercollegiate Athletics program. In recent weeks, hundreds of students, staff, faculty, alumni and friends of the university have contacted me to express their heartfelt concern for particular sports programs or for the future of Intercollegiate Athletics overall. I’ve also had numerous meetings with internal constituent groups. I appreciate your interest and your concern, and I want everyone in the UC Davis community to understand that I feel and hear your worry and distress.

With the exception of cleaning up after myself, I don’t do anything half-assed. I take normal shit – shit most people would consider to be blah and mundane – and go way over the top.

My brother’s friend Peter died a few months ago in a head-on collision on a two-lane highway near the bombsite he worked at in the Mojave Desert. I got the phone call during the third act of the Third Eye festival, and left in the middle of the performance to pick it up. My brother said he was going to the funeral that coming Sunday.

Holidays are wonderful, and most people look forward to and prepare for their favorite ones. You don’t have to work, you can spend time with family, or you can go on a vacation. On top of the immediate effects of a holiday are the joyous feelings of a shared experience with millions of other people.

Being a gay individual, I get asked lots of questions. “When did you realize you were gay?” is a popular one. “How did your parents react?” gets asked a lot, too. My personal favorite is, “How many guys have you slept with?” But the question that everyone seems to want me to answer goes something like this: “So, uhh … when you and your boyfriend go out on like a date or something, who pays?”

Sometimes I wish I were a chimpanzee. I’d finally have license to fling poo at people who annoy me. I’d draw fewer weird looks when crouched in the upper branches of a tree, surveying the quad. And best of all, I’d be at least twice as strong as the average human. This would make Chimp-Beth about four times as ripped as Human-Beth, who is a total weakling. Four-year-olds routinely beat me in arm wrestling matches. Climbing stairs requires frequent time-outs. In the winter, children try to take my arms for snowman limbs.

I’m in the middle of the everyday hustle and bustle of the Sacramento International Airport.

The UC Commission on the Future revealed several strategies to cope with budget cuts and student fee increases at last month’s regent’s meeting. Some ideas are drastic, while others are vague in their predicted success.

Why am I not rejoicing over what happened last week? No matter where you were over spring break, you surely heard about the major health care reform that finally went down in Washington. Despite the Tea Party protests, national ambivalence and congressional gridlock, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on Mar. 23, 2010.

After over a year of partisan back-and-forth, infighting and debate, President Barack Obama signed the final parts of the healthcare reform bill into law earlier this week.