Opinion

We mammals are arrogant.

Twelve members of The California Aggie staff attended a Beyond the Binary event on Jan. 26 discussing Tiffany Lew's Jan. 22 column, Rise of the Girly Men.

In the midst of the University of California and statewide budget crises, each UC campus has adopted various techniques to try and get their voices heard. Our student representatives have tried speaking to the regents, along with massive sustained protests at Berkeley and UCLA.

I hate spam. While they're thoroughly annoying and occasionally trick me into clicking on links to black market drugs (did you know \

Police found the body of Abraham Shakespeare, who won $31 million through the lottery in 2006, in Plant City, Fla. last week.

Ask virtually anybody about what the most important part of the Constitution is and they will probably refer to the First Amendment, which gives us freedom of speech. The intensity of opinions last week, in response to Tiffany Lew's column "The Rise of the Girly Men," showed how the differences in beliefs can blow up and become a major issue.

Sex is a buffet. Well, that's my theory anyway.

I know a lot of you readers think you're hot stuff because you have an internship at the state capitol or a sweet lab job discovering the untold mysteries of the azalea genome. Well, prepare to blush green with envy.

On Tuesday, I attended a "Beyond the Binary" event about my last column with members of The Aggie's editorial board. It was an eye-opening experience learning about sexuality topics such as the "forms and modes of oppression."

I ask Josie, my coworker, if she got a haircut. She smiles (which I'm convinced is her neutral face) and says no. I tell her it's probably because she's wearing a white pea coat and her dark brown hair shows up more.

Packed classrooms are unfortunately becoming a norm for many departments. Students can cope with crowdedness, but being excluded from the crowd is another story.

Sometimes I hear people complain that the world is becoming "too PC." These people are worried that their freedom to speak, uninhibited by respect for other people, is under attack. But as long as people like Tiffany Lew are writing columns like "Rise of the Girly Men" (Jan. 22), racism, sexism, homophobia and heteronormativity will have a place in the public media.

Rural-PRIME needs support

I was in my smoking jacket admiring all of my safari trophies when I got a phone call from my mother Sunday night. My mom plays mandolin in a bluegrass band back in Southern California, and before she has a gig, she gets somewhat nervous about it:

There's this kid I thought was the last honest cowboy in the ol' Davis ranch. He's my little buddy. I consider myself his drunken fairy godmother. I do my best to ensure that he never brings home girls who look like a hybrid of Amy Winehouse and Jabba the Hutt, like his beer-goggled buddies apparently do every weekend. Quality over quantity, people! There's not much use in getting on someone's nuts if it's destined to end with a speeding ticket on your rushed quest for a disinfecting shower at the hospital. In the interest of protecting the innocent, we'll affectionately dub this fella Bambi.