Opinion

For the most part, the Beatles got it right about a lot of things: Yes, money can't buy me love, all my troubles really did seem so far away yesterday, and of course, happiness is indeed a warm gun.

Politics can be a pretty confusing thing to follow. Amidst all the talking, making promises and failing to talk about past promises, it's sometimes hard to tell whether the system is working for or against you.

ASUCD politics are no exception, and despite my somewhat slanted history when it comes to discussing matters of student government, I'm sure there are examples of the system doing its job and benefiting students.

UC Davis has accepted 18,146 out of 39,288 applicants, or 46.2 percent for fall 2009. This is a drop from last year's 52.4 percent admissions rate.

This increased selectivity was due to a huge increase in the number of freshmen applications as well as the regents' vote to reduce the UC's overall enrollment target for fall 2009. At Davis, this vote reduced the freshmen enrollment target from 5,000 for fall 2008 to 4,600 for fall 2009.

A new class of senators and executive officers took its place within ASUCD in March, but a small group of dissenters continues to fight the results of the election.

Two complaints have been filed alleging that February's election was unfair and that students were "disenfranchised" when the voting website went down for a three-and-a-half hour period.

Golly gee, Aggies, there's nothing like the old time cinema to make you long for the days of musical numbers, synchronized dance steps and dresses with more personality than Howard Stern. After a post-Passover, late night viewing of Easter Parade with my friend and her mom, I became painfully aware of a serious deficit in my viewing library: the classics, and classic musicals more specifically.

    Hello and welcome to Monday! Hoping to prolong the warm, fuzzy feeling from your holiday weekend, I’ve put off my “what aspiring journalists should be good at” column for a week.
    Instead, let’s take a closer look at Easter’s second-most loved (hard to compete with Jesus in a popularity contest) representative, the Easter Bunny.

The deep interplay between language and power blurs the distinction between the two. To control how something is spoken about is to control how something is perceived.

As with any source of power, such as money, drugs and the capacity to really fuck you up, language has been heavily politicized.

Super Senior,

What are the important dates coming up in spring quarter?

Workin For The Weekend

Ah yes, spring quarter. When the nights are short and the skirts are shorter. Generally speaking, the next two to three months will be the most rockin' two to the three months of the year. Almost every weekend has something going on that's either fun to watch, fun to do or fun hear other people tell you about how much fun you seemed to have watching or doing. Here are the obvious standouts in very particular, some might even say chronological, order:

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been a busy man. Besides the ill-conceived PPIP and TARP-forever resolution authority he laid out a few weeks back, he also proposed some legislation purporting to strengthen financial regulation. And, per the usual, I don't think it'll work; his focus on "systemic risk" is troubling, because it ignores the central problem.

The education system has failed to teach students what the truth means and why it matters. As an analogy for this failure, imagine a student entering college, Sarah, who has previously been under the watchful eyes of her over-protective parents.

The recent World Chess Championship loss of American Grandmaster Gata Kamsky to the current world number one Veselin Topalov was, in many ways, a setback to the forward development of American chess and, in particular, a disappointment to Kamsky's fans.

At some point in our lives we've all heard that line that adults (the real ones, with jobs and houses and stuff) use to describe a student: "He's smart, he just doesn't apply himself." This brings to mind that stoner kid who owned the SATs because stoners are either really smart or really dumb. Or maybe those words describe you, because it's the perfect excuse for your GPA and no one ever wants to admit that they're stupid.

The University of California Board of Regents was recently criticized for its new admissions plan passed in February, which interest groups claim unfairly affects Asian & Pacific Islander applicants.

The plan, which eliminates the SAT II as a requirement to be considered, is intended to decrease the number of applications denied consideration for reasons that could be due to poor advising.

Right now there is a proposed law in Afghan parliament that states, according to Shia law, that women would not be allowed to refuse sex with their husbands. God damn it. It's one step forward, two steps back.

Afghanistan has been through a diverse and tumultuous history. However, it was not always so conservative. I refuse to allow Afghanistan to succumb to the propaganda claiming it is a backward nation without some clarifications.

I was watching old episodes of "The Office" the other day because that's what I do when I have tons of work and no motivation to do it. For those of you who aren't familiar with this particular show, you're missing out. To give you a short summary, this mockumentary follows a group of people and their mundane lives working in a paper supply office. Think "Seinfeld" in an office, but funny.