Opinion

Ah, box-checking day. Nov. 4 is lurking just around the bend and, as the leaves turn, American voters are preparing themselves to march to their polling places and take that final Pepsi challenge. Another four years are behind us and it's time again to exercise our privilege as white landowning Christians free and equal citizens to make our voices heard in the selection of our representative government. Yessir, you can positively smell the Red, White and Blue® in the air.

After all my huff and puff about world peace last week, I am incredibly discouraged to have to write this. I hope a lot of you on campus have heard of Nonie Darwish, the speaker that Davis College Republicans have booked to speak tonight. I'll keep this simple: She is an Egyptian woman who used to be Muslim, had a bad experience with Islam and now is traveling the country warning people on college campuses about Muslim Student Associations "recruiting terrorists;" jumping on the hater-bandwagon ... as I always say.

First off, I'd like to apologize for that awful picture of me that appeared last week. I asked to run the same mug from the previous year until I could take a new one, but to my surprise they dug up some random old picture that gave you an intimate look at my flaring nostrils. I'm sorry if any seizures occurred, but lo' and behold, the situation has been fixed. And look, bangs!

This summer while interning for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's office in Washington, D.C. one of my main duties was answering the thousands of phone calls from people from all over the country. The phone calls ranged from a sweet-sounding old lady who assured me that global warming was just God's way of hugging us closer to a man who spent 20 minutes trying to convince me that the Soviet Union had not actually collapsed.

Last Thursday, I had the distinct pleasure of opening a copy of The California Aggie and seeing a letter to the editor from Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi commenting on my previous column.

The Times, they are a-changin'. The Los Angeles Times' parent company, Tribune Company, announced Friday that it was borrowing $250 million in credit due to the current financial crisis. The New York Times' revenue is down 12 percent.

When I first set out on "Mission: List," this week's column's item was most certainly not included. It's not a list entry I would recommend anyone else add to his/her own personal list, nor was it an experience I'd like to repeat.

Come one, come all!

Welcome to another year of Aggie columnists. We'll be here for your bus rides in the pre-dawn hours, your chemistry classes in the morning and all that extra time you need to kill between classes after you've finished the Sudoku.

Hi. I'm K.C. I did this last year. I'd love to talk about how awesome I am at life and write one of those jolly little intro columns everyone seems to be so fond of, but the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse just galloped by my window so I'm gonna skip the foreplay and get down to business.

Hello Aggie readers! It's a new school year, which means a fresh start - new classes, new opportunities, and (for better or worse) new columnists! I was told that this would be a good time to introduce myself, though I was planning on waiting until June … but what the heck? My name's Danielle. I'm an American studies major in my fourth and final year at UCD; which roughly translates to: "I have no idea what I want to do with my life and I'm screwed." I hail from sunny Los Angeles and, although I now live in Davis, I still wear flip-flops every day of my life. I enjoy long walks through the Arboretum, speak Spanish fluently when I'm drunk, and have read the Twilight series more times than I care to admit. I spent my most recent Monday night driving to Woodland to buy the last 15 bags of Mother's Cookies at Target, and on my list of favorite things ever, autumn in Davis falls right after puppy dogs and just before Johnny Depp.

I see the same picture over and over again - a horde of fake smiles all bunched together to make one shitty picture.

Dear Americans,

You have a tremendous stake in this election. Our nation has reached a pivotal moment, a time that should not and must not be ignored, in her history. We face an imminent choice, and we have to make a decision - soundly, carefully, deliberately and with haste.

God, I love my parents for always trying to keep me safe. There's really nothing that says "I love you, baby girl" like sending your daughter pepper spray in the mail (which I never curiously decided to play with and misfired) or forcing her to watch a "Too Smart for Strangers" video 238,947 times by the age of seven. I grew up next door to the elementary school I attended and was never allowed to walk home alone, even after I swore to take my little keychain harmonica to use as a whistle. But hey, I recognize that it was all for my own good.

The Peter J. Shields Library at UC Davis is in a bit of a bind.

In fact, that might be an understatement. The predicament that the library has been in over the past decade is slowly turning into a crisis. Long-term under-funding has seriously damaged the library's ability to do what it does best: provide an outstanding array of research materials for students and scholars.