Opinion

I want to murder my toilet. Lately, it has decided to go rogue and do everything it's not supposed to do. One day, I'll open the lid in hopes of (ahem) "dropping the kids off at the pool," and see that there is absolutely no water in it.

Being a student at one of the world's largest public universities makes avoiding passionate debaters practically impossible.

Most of the time such debate appears to be intelligent. You'll simply overhear a few of your peers calmly tossing out points and counter-points, secretly nod your head at the validity of their claims, and decide to get moving to your next class.

Dear editor,

The recent opinion piece by Jan Weeks, "Animal Welfare at UCD," makes a number of inaccurate statements about the animal research at UC Davis and at the California National Primate Research Center.

Dear Editor,

I was deeply troubled by the guest opinion article by Jan Weeks, entitled "Animal Welfare at UCD." I am also a UCD alumna and I currently work in a research lab at the UC Davis Medical Center. My research on liver fibrosis requires animals be sacrificed frequently for experiments.

University officials are considering a change to add a Middle Eastern category on the University of California application.

Currently, students who self-identify as Middle Eastern are typically expected to categorize themselves as white on the UC application, although some opt to choose African, Asian or other.

The decision by UC Davis to secure housing for future transfer students shows a positive shift by the university toward caring for the entire student body.

By securing housing agreements with Primero Grove, The Lexington and The Arbors, the university has guaranteed that it will be able to provide housing to incoming transfer students. Previously, UC Davis was the only UC campus that could not guarantee housing to this group.

Yogi Bear would have felt right at home here Saturday. Plenty of picnic baskets for him and Booboo, and nary a Ranger Rick to spoil the fun.… That is the Marvel of the annual Davis Picnic Day. It's like the entire Davis area had been transformed into our own Cartoon Network classic.

Another Picnic Day has come and gone, and now the UC Davis campus has a week or so to recover from the trampling it took from the billion or so people that visited on Saturday.

Meanwhile, students will spend the next few days contemplating, avoiding and ultimately studying for the quarter's first batch of midterms.

In Oceania, the decaying socialist military state George Orwell imagines in 1984, an omnipotent governmental party continuallyengineers and imposes "newspeak" on its citizenry

Super Senior,

I've been dating my girlfriend for about nine months and it's come to my attention that her parents don't like me. At all.And they show no signs of warming up to the idea of me dating their daughter. I think it's got something to do with my political and religious views, so you seem the right guy to ask; should I even bother worrying about this and what, if anything, can be done to ease the tension?

From the House of Montague

Americans are obsessed with the mass accumulation of stuff. The bigger the heap of stuff they have, the happier they are. And nothing, not even loved ones, dare get in their way of amassing more stuff. People abandon their families for higher paying jobs and divorce their spouses because of avoidable money issues.

America has become introspective. She is reexamining her mistakes and myopia, symbols of a deep crisis of identity. And the problem is this: Her values have, for a while now, been altered by heightened expectations and excess of modernity. America, here, desires to re-embrace her past and her classical values.

Some days it seems like Davis is a sad little pool of incest. It's necessary to state this only figuratively. I'm not hating on people who actually partake in incest because, hell, you never know who you're gonna offend.

UC Davis hosts its 95th Picnic Day on Saturday. The annual open house is one of our school's most time-honored traditions.

Showcasing a century's worth of education, Picnic Day boasts demonstrations, exhibits and tours throughout the day. Of course it's a lot of fun too, featuring the annual parade to kick off the festivities, the Doxie Derby, the Battle of the Bands and more.

Ah, the Internet. What more of a love-hate relationship could anyone have than with this intangible, all-encompassing, digital world? There are serious pros and cons to the World Wide Web-world. And although I'm personally prone to focus on cons, I'll try to keep this balanced.