Opinion

Last weekend, while reveling in the new Star Trek movie's general awesomeness vision of a unified, space-faring humanity, I realized how little we are currently doing to make this vision a reality.

My father used to tell me ridiculously inaccurate "factoids" when I was a kid. When the mood striketh him, he told me stuff like: the Native Americans built the Statue of Liberty to scare white people away from their land; that people had four toes because a powerful earthquake can fuse two random toes together; and that those huge white windmills on the hills were actually depressed airplane propellers that did not get to live out their dreams of being part of a plane. (He also told me that communism was the world's worst evil, but I don't think he was joking with that one.)

Part of growing up means coming to the inevitable realization that, sometimes, things will not go the way you had hoped. Unfortunately, for those of us currently doing our growing up here at the University of California, Davis, it would appear that these unfortunate times occur more often than not.

Proposition 1D is an attempt by state lawmakers to avoid cuts in general fund-supported state spending. It would overturn Proposition 10, passed in 1998, which earmarks tobacco tax revenue in California for First 5 early childhood programs throughout the state. Both proponents and opponents of Proposition 1D will tell you one thing - look at the facts. The proposition would divert $268 million in annual tobacco tax revenue and the $340 million First 5 has in reserve away from First 5 and into the state's general fund. The state will have to find $608 million from somewhere else if 1D does not pass.

One of President Obama's most popularly recognized speeches is on the topic of race - a subject that pits histories of injustice against the American promise of equality. Since the civil rights movement, strategies for overcoming social barriers have been as diverse as the groups they attempt to represent. And UC Davis students need not look far for a case in point.

Admittedly, a few of the things on my Cap and Gown List were after-the-fact add-ons; they were things I did and only subsequently realized their importance. There are also things I wish I could put on my list but don't because writing about them seems a little too revealing (or perhaps like it would get me in too much trouble to be worth the 750 words).

Over the past few weeks I've tried to motivate those readers who still don't know what they're doing in college (read: undeclared majors) into becoming reporters. Really, no matter what happens to newspapers, there will still be a demand for people who can report the news, I swear.

Behind the veil of mainstream-media anonymity and the numbing distractions of whitewashed advertising culture, the Federal Reserve is guiding our nation to a condition of terminal debt. The United States was once the world's wealthiest and most productive state. Now, the U.S. is reduced to holding, strangely, only the title of "wealthiest." How is this possible?

I can't help but feel like I've gotten away with something.

I just graduated from the 12th ranked public university in the country with a BS in biological sciences and a 3.38 GPA, but I'm not sure I deserve it.

Because it was never supposed to be that easy. It was never supposed to be routine. It was never supposed to amount to intellectual bulimia (binge, purge, fast; cram, exam, nap).

Super Senior,

About two weeks ago I asked my girlfriend to give me a massage, and frankly it was a bit of a disappointment. But I told her it was great because I didn't want to make her feel bad, but now she's offering to give me another one. What should I do here?

- Suffering in Silence

We're approaching the final countdown, people: five weeks left in the quarter. That's five more weeks of cushy, "it's okay to be unemployed" college living, four more weeks of lecture and four more weeks of silly column mugs from yours truly.

More importantly: Only five more weeks I have left to use the Activities and Recreation Center, better known as the ARC.

The ARC has been sadly underutilized by me ever since I was a wee freshman. In fact, I didn't visit the ARC until midway through my first year, when I arrived in jeans, sandals and mascara. (I was one of those girls, I know.) Since then, my visits have been few and far between.

Most of you have heard the old adage: "Using swear words shows that you have a poor vocabulary." This is somewhat true - people with a poor vocabulary have to improvise with the smaller collection of words. When fueled with anger, their mind retrieves the most salient insults lying dormant in their mind. Taking note of their belligerent use of the language, you'll find the same insulting phrases being parroted over and over again.

A recent invention is threatening to become even more personal than Google. As The Independent reported, Wolfram Alpha promises access to a world designed uniquely to oneself: It "will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before." Alpha, in other words, delivers what humans always sought: immediate, accurate answers. This era is an era of looping, endless mass production and mass consumption. Products proliferate and advertisements abound. For many, this can be jarring as it can be disorienting - too much is also too little.

It's always good to get an outsider's opinion, because they can tell you things you may not realize. Like when Oreo cookies make your teeth look disgustingly brown or when you're just plain acting like an idiot. We Americans are pretty set in our ways; in general, we like action films, barbecuing and watching celebrities get DUIs. Other people may see us as more of the obese, stupidly conservative, pornophobic Evangelist bible-hugger type. I guess we kind of deserve it - we are the country responsible for the production of Eurotrip. But hey, it's all about perspective.

Public attention for the past week has been centered on the H1N1 swine flu virus and its potential pandemic effects. Despite what the ubiquitous news coverage and conversations would lead you to believe, many experts says the virus is currently no more dangerous than the regular flu virus.

While H1N1 may be unnerving because it emerged after flu season, scientists at a forum at UC Berkeley on Monday stressed that it is no more infectious than the regular flu and urged calm.