Opinion

On Dec. 21, 2012, the Ancient Mayans' Long Count calendar will end during the winter solstice, marking what many claim will be either the end of the world or the beginning of a new age of human prosperity.

There are some things in life you should never find yourself saying and if you do, you know that at some time or another, your life has gone off its rocker.

I've always been told that economics issues work in cycles, and while I'll be the first to admit that the complexities of fluctuation and equilibrium are far beyond my understanding, I'd venture that this belief is at least somewhat true.

When a smoke shop opened up in the historic and highly visible Anderson Bank Building on the corner of Second and G Streets this month, some Davis residents raised their eyebrows in disdain. Concerned about what some saw as thinly disguised drug paraphernalia, the Davis City Council took note and discussed the possibility of creating an ordinance that would limit the ability of smoke shops to set up in prime spaces downtown.

Science researchers across the U.S. received good news earlier this month when President Barack Obama reversed a ban preventing federal funding for stem cell research. The ban, which was put into place in 2001 by former president Bush, limited taxpayer money to the 21 lines of embryos produced before 2001.

Lately it seems like every person I encounter asks me how I feel about starting my last 10 weeks of college. Almost every person immediately assumes the head-tilt, concerned-eyes, soft-voice position and expresses their best wishes for my attempts to get a job in this economy with the job market long on demand and very short on supply.

So despite the sad, tattered, tortured state of my March Madness bracket, I've decided to keep making predictions until someone stops me. Here I go: in 10 years there will not be a major metropolitan newspaper in the U.S.

I've got four main reasons guiding my thinking here.

Over the last week, I spent a lot of time staring at my computer screen. Due to a flare-up in my arthritis, I found myself with a lot of forced relaxation. One such day, I loaded my Firefox homepage and spent six hours straight surfing the web.

Top O' the mornin' to ye, lads and lasses. Happy day before St. Patrick's Day, a holiday celebrating the lack of snakes in Ireland! That seems like an odd thing to celebrate across the world, let alone in America? Well, it's also an excuse to drink heavily.

Hollywood is dead. The shining Western beacon of filmic expression and exportable art that has defined American culture for decades has now assumed the status of a vestigial organ. Where modern film was once the most promising of artistic mediums, the relevance of Hollywood products to present and future generations has gone by the wayside. Mainstream film just doesn't matter anymore.

Super Senior,

I just got a Facebook invite to an Apr. 2 screening of Pirates II in SciLec. What the crap is going on? Is this legit?

Pee-wee Herman

"This is not cool, man."

"This is bullshit is what it is."

"At least they left us our tire swing."

"Well at this point it's really just a tire."

Is it just me, or has there been an onslaught of college-centered movies and television shows lately? There was that film College last year and ABC Family has "Greek" and their new show "Roommates" premieres on Mar. 23. Not to be outdone is MTV, which has two new shows - the unscripted "reality" show "College Life" and the sketch comedy show "The CollegeHumor Show."

Why do you want to go to Wendy's instead of Burger King? Why did you buy Tylenol instead of Advil? I have realized that a lot of people lack the introspective prowess to understand why they like something. Especially when asked why they prefer one thing to another that is substitutable or just very similar.

The American superhero is dead. For a while now, the anti-hero phenomenon has been permeating. In the last decade, our superheroes have been increasingly exhibiting fallibilities often associated with regular people, such as pathological inconsistencies (Batman), general clumsiness (Superman), addiction to alcohol (Hellboy) and extreme temperance (the Hulk).