Opinion

The state senate recently passed Senate Bill 1168 in order to aid sick college students. The bill, known as “Michelle’s Law,” will allow dependent college students to take up to 12 months medical leave with a physician’s signed consent. This even includes students who are covered by their parents’ health insurance plans. In addition, this effectively means that students can be absent from school or reduce course load to part-time and still be covered. This is important to students who, due to a medical condition, can no longer be full-time students. UC Davis students are covered by the Student Health Insurance Plan unless they opt to use another plan. Under SHIP, students who have to leave school or reduce their load are covered until the end of the quarter, at which point they can opt to extend their health coverage – at non-student rates.

For the past 12 weeks, this column has attempted to avoid the appeal of commenting on global and national affairs. However, this week I have decided to step off the proverbial soapbox and reserve my endless supply of regent-bashing comments for columns to come. In the past months, the world media has been made very aware of the political turmoil surrounding the upcoming Beijing Olympics, and reports of protests and unrest have littered the route of the symbolic Olympic flame. Upon hearing such reports, some people are appalled at the way in which the Olympic Games, arguably the largest spectacle in world sports, have been infiltrated by the several political agendas of participating nations. Talks of potential boycotts only further highlight the fact that the 2008 Beijing Games will serve mainly as a political arena, rather than an athletic one. However, what some people fail to realize is that the tradition of the Olympic Games has been consistently spoiled by politics for close to 100 years.

Despite protests all over the world, China is keeping the Olympic torch burning as it embarks on a turbulent journey toward Beijing. From London to San Francisco and to Buenos Aires, protesters are strongly demonstrating against China’s crackdown on dissidents and the violations of human rights in Tibet. With world leaders divided on the issue of boycotting the Olympic Games, now is the best time for the United States to take a stand and show its condemnation against the oppressive Chinese rule in Tibet. Through times, the Olympics have been a symbol of peace and unity in the world. It serves as an avenue for more than 200 countries, which share the same ideals and goals, to come together in harmony to celebrate their aspirations and dreams. But how can the 2008 Olympics be a representation of peace and unity if China itself does not believe in the values of democracy and freedom?

After seeing a poodle-golden-wiener-dog in the park, I got this great idea: Let’s domesticate penguins and hippopotamuses. It’ll be fun. You can keep them in your backyard (which, I’m sure, is close enough to their natural habitat that they won’t even notice) and leave out a bowl of the same kibble year after year while you’re at work or at school. They’ll be jumping at the door by the time you get home, and of course, what else could that mean but, “I love you?” It couldn’t mean anything else – not, “thank goodness, I’m going to get my one walk of the day.” Or, “thank goodness, finally some stimulation. I have no friends or family.” Or, “please, please, kill me.” I think it’s safe to assume they love you wholeheartedly.

I’m sure you already know, UC Davisites, that Picnic Day is just around the corner! Time to get your flasks, your bota bags and your Nalgene bottles ready. But before you get too drunk on that hallowed day, I suggest you go to the ARC Pavilion to see the Doxie Derby. The Doxie Derby is pretty much the greatest sporting event of the entire year (even better than the Super Bowl or whatever the final game for basketball is called, I really don’t know). The Doxie Derby pits dachshunds against each other in an all-out, free-for-all race. Hundreds of humans cheer in the stands. The event features big screen instant replays and commemorative t-shirts. I’m pretty sure the Doxie Derby is one of the few sporting events in the world that offers dachshunds the chance to achieve TOTAL DOMINATION (ation-ation-ation).

American culture is a toddler who has just made the transition from training wheels to big kid bike, accelerating like never before, redefining speed. Except we can’t feel the wind running through our hair as we move forward. And unlike the undeveloped nations of the world, nature is not a big player in the way we define our culture. Take the tribal areas of New Guinea for instance, who live directly in accordance with their surrounding terrain. They’ve learned the forest like a roadmap and know exactly how to handle themselves in the various calls of the wild. If the world suddenly reverted to how it was 250 years ago (into the far more natural state before mass production), it would be these societies that would fare best. Likewise, if all industry were suddenly to shut down and wilderness were to grow over our machines, we would have to completely readapt for new sources of dependency and very few of us would be able to survive.

It wasn’t until the tail end of 12th grade that we realized how little our actions mattered. I’d already been accepted to Davis, and nothing outside of my getting arrested for treason was going to dissuade the campus from assimilating me. Cal Poly and Santa Cruz had similar designs on my buddies, leaving us coasting through our last classes – an impressive feat of laziness considering how ably we’d underperformed even beforehand. Once we’d impressed our revelations on our less scholastically-inclined friends, we were home free. To get a mental image, picture the Almighty reaching down and handing us a celestial get-out-of-jail-free card; that’s about what it felt like.

The city of Davis’ Climate Action Team recently completed an inventory regarding the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. In the study, it was revealed that 225,200 equivalent tons of carbon dioxide were emitted in 1990. If conditions remained constant, the city would produce 313,006 tons of emissions by 2015, according to the study. While the numbers themselves are not encouraging, where the emissions are coming from is actually a positive. According to the CAT inventory, transportation accounted for 57 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Davis in 1990. This number is, in a sense, both promising and discouraging. The fact that over 100,000 tons of emissions were released by transportation alone is certainly an issue, but it’s an issue that we as a community can resolve. Davis’ public transportation system and bicycle-oriented landscape means there’s little need to drive a personal car from place to place. Additional changes to infrastructure could further promote alternative transportation methods and a diminished reliance on personal automobiles.

Elliot Spitzer is an idiot. But not because the former governor of New York paid upwards of $4,000 for two hours of “relaxation therapy” with a 22-year-old failed musician. That makes him a selfish prick. No, Elliot Spitzer is an idiot because he got caught. That said, I don’t think what Mr. Spitzer and Miss Swallows did was inherently wrong. I’ve used a loaded word there: wrong. Right and wrong are brought up in politics far too often for my liking. Rather than evaluate things on their effects, many people simply denote things as right and wrong, entirely disregarding context. But context matters. Is smoking pot right or wrong? Well, is the person in question a doctor on call, a patient on chemotherapy or a kid on a couch with a bag of Funyuns and the complete first season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force? What about paying for sex? Well, is the prostitute safe? Are both people disease free? Does the John have a family? The point is that context determines if an action is good, bad or neutral for those involved. That’s why I don’t buy the whole morality bid; it’s based on the premise that context is irrelevant.

Arriving at the Philadelphia International Airport and armed with the motivation of contributing to Senator Obama’s campaign as a “springtern” – a colloquialism for a spring internship – little did I know what to expect. But experience I did, and it was uncompromising, rewarding and ultimately, eye-opening. Philadelphia is a city that is distinctly heterogeneous. Buildings appear segmented, even aloof, from each other. On the one hand, the neoclassical architecture harks as a reminder of the past, intent on maintaining the memories of patriots pursuing independence. Meanwhile, symbols of the capitalist advance – the leaden, towering skyscrapers – juxtapose these cultural ancients. Coexisting, they both brim and bore, at times seemingly conflicting between a steely desire for progress and a poignant nostalgia to preserve.

“They say times have changed, and they have,” a well-dressed plump woman in her fifties told me. “But some things are still the same.” I listened attentively as I pushed the cart out to her car, and she continued talking with ease, perhaps because she was a regular customer of mine. She explained that she was shopping in produce and thought the cherries looked a bit old, so she asked Vinny, who was working nearby, if there were any newer ones in the back. He said no, but a short time later a second customer asked him the same question, and he said yes, and dutifully went to the back to retrieve them. The second customer was white. Vinny was white. My customer was black. Curious after her explanation, I asked Vinny what the deal was. Very thin and not exactly attractive, Vinny adjusted his glasses 20 years out of style. “I know, she said something to me. I thought we had no cherries in the back when she asked. Then next time I was back there, I see that we did have more. What am I supposed to do, lie to the next customer because she happened to be white?”

Something I’ve come to realize about UC Davis, the public school system and perhaps the whole of American intellectualism is just how much emphasis there is on reason, so much so that I believe that there is an over-emphasis on it. A quick word of caution to all you rationalists out there – stop for a second, take a few breaths into a little brown paper bag and read the rest of this before you decide to somehow reason me into a small poof-cloud of nonexistence. In order for any claim or argument to be accepted by our community, it must first be logically proven or at least sound enough to provide a working foundation to build upon with further claims to knowledge. In many cases, this is rightly so because it’s not wise to take anyone’s word on just anything. In the process of learning, being scrupulous is fundamental. However, I wish to distinguish between learning and discovery.