Opinion

By 2009, major restaurants in California will be required to serve up nutritional information in addition to their food.

Senate Bill 1420, signed last week by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, requires restaurant chains with 20 or more locations in California to post nutrition information on menus and indoor menu boards by Jan. 1, 2011. By July 1, 2009, restaurants must provide brochures with either caloric content information or other nutritional information, such as grams of saturated fat, grams of carbohydrates and milligrams of sodium at the point of sale, including drive-thrus.

As this is my first column, I suppose it would be best to introduce myself to you, my readers. I am a senior political science and history double major. I work at the ASUCD Coffee House as a Cashier Supervisor and I am a brother of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. This summer I worked as a Congressional intern in Washington, D.C. I love dogs, chocolate, and the History Channel. The Nintendo Wii sent me to the emergency room once. I am a quarter Nicaraguan and three-quarters random European and my favorite color used to be green, changed to blue, and is now somewhere in the blue-green range. Great. Now that we are acquainted, we can move forward.

Well, friends and neighbors, it looks like another school year has officially begun and once again, I tricked those poor bastards down at The California Aggie to give me another opportunity to spew my words of love all over the face of Tuesday.

Honestly, I am just bubbling with excitement for the new school year. These past three months have felt like the longest summer ever and a lot of shenanigans went down. Some were good, some bad, and most of them humiliating, which is actually different from bad. (Don't worry; when your life gets to be really lame, you'll be able to identify all the different levels and nuances of complete suck-dom).

After reading your article "Report finds Shields Library under-financed," there are a couple of facts that I would like to point out.

First let me say that this, like most college campuses' main focus, is the professors. We want to make them happy. Heck, just look at the money that they make. What makes them happy? Besides making money? Happy students. One thing that makes happy students is having the books that they need in the library. How do those books get on the shelves? The people behind the doors. I am one of those people.

Last week, as news stories of skyrocketing student fees once again littered the pages of California newspapers, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi sat down with The California Aggie and informed UC students that they must be the ones responsible for stopping their own financial fleecing. Garamendi was quoted as saying, "The students need to rise up and raise hell. If that doesn't happen, then this fee increase will continue."

First loves are intense and always leave an indelible impression that never fully goes away. In the years after those relationships end, looking back often leaves you with strong feelings of hatred, sadness, longing or regret.

It's time for students to take action.

The governor, legislature and Regents have shown year after year that they are not interested in stopping fee increases any time soon.

UC Davis is known for its advancements in environmental science.

Now, it's faced with cleaning up its own mess.

I recently read the Letter to the Editor dated Oct. 2, 2008, "Starbucks on campus not OK" and would like to provide some information regarding our ethical sourcing practices for coffee and cocoa.

As North America's largest purchaser of Fair Trade Certified™ coffee and among the largest worldwide, we share common goals with the Fair Trade movement. In 2007, we purchased almost a third of the Fair Trade Certified™ coffee imported into the U.S.

For the past three months the University of California Board of Regents has been considering a proposal that would eliminate the requirement for applicants to submit SAT II subject test scores in order to have their applications reviewed.

Drivers in California will no longer be legally allowed to send text messages while they drive starting in January 2009. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed SB 28 into law, a belated addition to the recent legislation regarding cell phones and motorists.

After months of discussion, the Davis City Council made progress toward approving a living wage for some people employed by the city through contractors. The ordinance, which would only apply to contractors who meet a certain threshold of business from the city, is being examined on a scale that would pay between $10 and $14.21 per hour. Currently, these employees may be paid as low as the state minimum wage, $8 per hour. People employed directly by the city are already on a living wage pay scale.

Under current state law, illegal immigrants qualify for in-state tuition at the University of California if they attend a California high school for at least three years and graduate with a diploma or GED. A lawsuit working its way through the court system, Martinez v. Regents, threatens to take away this tuition break.

Editor's note: Tiffany Gilmore is a graduate student at UC Davis who wrote into The Aggie to raise awareness of the plight faced by Haitian citizens after the recent hurricane.