Opinion

Private Joseph Dwyer entered Iraq in 2003 as part of the American spear heading for the heart of Baghdad. He became an instant celebrity when a photographer captured him carrying a helpless child to safety during a battle near the Euphrates. The photo was widely circulated, as it represented the ideal of the heroic American soldier risking life and limb to save innocents.

Is it just me or are a lot of people breaking up everywhere? And I mean everywhere: On the bus, in front of Olson, even over the phone on the sidewalk at two in the morning. A couple once broke up right in front of my apartment. My roommate and I crouched down, popped some popcorn and put our ears against the door as the girl from apartment 124 took two hours to break up with Joe-shmoe because she caught him cheating. Oh man, it was so golden, I peed in my pants a little.

When those around you begin to cling to a rotten lie, reeking of desperation, ignorance, and often times paranoia, the best course of action for a reasonable person to take is a step back and posing the question of, "Why?"

The UC Davis physical education department is in talks with Campus Recreation to implement participation fees for some of its classes.

Students currently have unlimited access to P.E. courses, which are paid for through registration fees. However, certain courses offered under the P.E. department use facilities operated by Campus Recreation, which is where the department is looking to apply an activities fee.

It's about time UC Davis passes a T.G.I.F. initiative, but the language of this particular initiative may not be worth the YES vote. The success of this program at other UC's has shown the things students can accomplish when given the funds. Senator Bianchi's claim that this fee doesn't benefit all students is very odd given the many programs that ASUCD funds that only affects some students.

Last Thursday, the ASUCD Senate passed Senate Resolution 16 unanimously, urging the administration and faculty to take necessary steps to curtail Peter J Shields Library's national ranking decline. Shields library once prided itself as one of the top one-third of research libraries in North America, but within 15 years due to a negligent chancellorship, an incompetent and corrupt university administration, and an irresponsible faculty, Shield's ranking toppled to an all new low of 64th.

Ever since I can remember, it's been a fact of life that my mother's father, or Papou as we call him, likes to talk to strangers. And not just a quick "How you doing" to someone he passes in the street. I'm talking the full-on "you don't know me but I'm about to talk to you like we're friends" kind of thing. He'll pause in the middle of a restaurant, walk up to a table where a parent is sitting with two smiling children, and remark how blessed the parent is: "you are a lucky man."

By now you've all noticed that there was no print edition of The Aggie last Friday. Hopefully all those notes on the front page prepared you for the shock. You've also probably read our reasoning behind the cuts (if you haven't you can check them out online at theaggie.org/article/2474). I'm also pretty sure a lot of you are wondering what this means for The Aggie and other college newspapers down the road.

In a formerly unused lot in East Sacramento, seeds of a food revolution are beginning to take root. Tilled rows of soil cover about a quarter-acre of land in an open field between homes, a Universal Unitary Church and a public school. It's what's called an urban farm.

Throughout my time in Davis I have encountered many things that grind my gears i.e. things that annoy me (for example: naggers). Hence, I decided to make a top 10 list of things that grinded my gears throughout my stay here. I hope I don't end up sounding like a grandpa complaining about his retirement center; I just want to share my gear-grinding list with people who may be able to relate.

President Obama has begun our first sustained effort to rescue our automobile industry. As The New York Times reported, his recent signature of a law that allows certain states to "begin producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national standard" is a step to reshape the contour of our national automobile industry.

Ha. Haha. I bet you're gonna have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Now that your darling heads are ringing with the sweet sounds of an arena rock classic, I can delve right into my main point: Some of us are weaksauce.

I hail from the Bay Area. A freakish number of you hail from the Bay Area. Few of us have actually ever partaken in the phenomenon that is ghost riding.