As I perused my Facebook timeline to find photos from a skinnier and more athletic time in my life, it came across my mind to check my old MySpace account. I have some great pictures on there, I thought to myself.

During an obnoxious process of resetting my long-forgotten password — which I only got to after resetting the password to my long-forgotten email (aZn_Sp0rtz_ gurLxx or some embarrassing name like that) — I was asked the security question, “What is your favorite color?” I thought, easy, blue!

But alas, it was not so.

My complicated adolescent self had to write some obscure shade called “synthetic ultramarine.”

Finally, I made it into my MySpace account. Good grief, has that site changed since 2007. What I had come to learn after this educational excursion turned out to be a universal truth that we all already know … we were all once idiots.

I mean, I knew I was angsty at 16, but I thought I was a pretty cool kid overall. Boy, did my image of my past self drop 10 flights of stairs.

Who knows what I was thinking when I reposted the chain letter about the bloody 6-year-old with no legs hiding under your bed. It couldn’t possibly be because I actually believed he would come into my house and kill me if I didn’t repost it in 13 seconds. Of course not. And I couldn’t possibly have thought that reposting the I-love-Jesus-forward-this-only-if-you’re-a-true-believer bulletin would prove my undying faith and keep me from getting bad luck for seven years.

Oh, but I did.

And after I got over my initial shame, I concluded that everything was okay. I reminded myself that all of this was just a necessary part of life that everyone goes through. However, after that relief, I came to another realization — I’m still ignorant.

Everyone is. Our friends, our professors, Romney, Obama. If we combined the knowledge of every human being on earth, it would amount to an infinitesimal grain of stardust compared to the vastness of all existence. We only inhabit this moment of time and space that we call the present, but really there’s everything that came before and everything that will come after us, and of these matters, we have little knowledge.

We know so little, yet we are naturally inclined to feel that our perspective of the world is the correct one and that the way we do things is the way that makes the most sense — true objectivity has never been mankind’s strong suite.

But this kind of ignorance is not completely bad.

In fact, our brains would probably explode if we tried to comprehend everything in existence.

The good news is that our perpetual state of unknowing drives us to keep growing, keep striving and keep moving forward. It’s how we were designed — to go through this natural undulation of peaks and troughs, cycles of feeling like we’re on top of the world followed by feeling like the weight of the world is on our shoulders.

It’s how we stay confident in ourselves yet are simultaneously humbled so that our pride doesn’t swell and go unchecked. Not knowing everything gives us the drive to continue learning and working toward a goal, yet it also reminds us to stop occasionally and appreciate the flowers that we know won’t be there forever.

It’s how we’re able to look back at our old selves and see how far we’ve come, how we’ve grown from dorky teenagers to more mature college students. It’s because of this ignorance, this unknowing, that we are able to look to the past with a clearer vision of who we are and also work toward the future with hope that we will become better versions of our present selves.

So, MySpace, thank you for being with us in our early years and providing us a window into our past — even though some of us would rather forget the pictures of our terrible bright red lipstick phase when we thought we looked so hot. Facebook, good job recording the present and connecting us with friends and family around the world.

To whoever’s next in line, I hope you can fill some pretty big shoes.

JHUNEHL FORTALEZA is embarrassed to still have a MySpace. Tell her your social network woes at jtfortaleza@ucdavis.edu.

Today, former President Bill Clinton will speak on the Quad at 10:30 a.m.

It certainly says something about UC Davis that we are a destination for a well-known political figure. While Clinton’s decision to visit Davis is likely related to the proximity to the state capital, the fact that UC Davis is becoming a more prominent and successful university certainly played a part in grabbing Clinton’s attention.

This year, UC Davis was named the No. 8 public university in the nation by US News & World Report and ranked No. 3 (tied with UC San Diego) within the UCs. It’s exciting to see UC Davis recognized for its excellence, and Bill Clinton’s visit is yet another form of recognition for our school.

Regardless of political affiliation, every student should be on the Quad this morning, taking advantage of an amazing opportunity to see national politics in action on our very own campus.

The upcoming election could easily change the lives of every college student in America, so college students should be showing that they care. We hope professors understand if their classrooms are pretty empty this morning.

The Davis College Democrats should also be commended for coordinating with the California Democratic Party to organize the Bill Clinton event. It’s encouraging to see student groups being proactive in getting important information to the students.

So, Mr. Clinton, welcome to our university. And students, we hope to see you out there this morning.

The UC system saved my life.

I was diagnosed with stage one Wilms’ tumor just before I turned 3 years old, and I was treated at UC San Francisco. After having the affected kidney removed, I continued onto chemotherapy, receiving treatments every other week. I am now proudly cancer-free and dealing with minimal long-term side effects to treatment such as small teeth and diminished abdominal muscles on my left side.

For cancer patients and their families, having more high-quality cancer centers across California is a necessity, and communication between pediatric cancer experts and regular cancer professionals is vital, especially for children transitioning into adolescence and adulthood. Being a childhood cancer survivor, I am excited to see that the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center connected its pediatric center with the main location.

It is a sign of progress that pediatric and non-pediatric professionals are making an effort to connect and communicate. It will surely make a difference in some young child’s life — fewer long-term side effects to treatment and more years ahead.

Jennifer Sheffield

UC Davis sophomore mechanical engineering major

The editorial board’s accusation in its Thursday editorial that ASUCD President Rebecca Sterling “unlawfully” attempted to remove former Senator Yara Zokaie from ASUCD is misinformed and factually inaccurate.

Zokaie’s actions — completing her coursework and graduating from Davis last spring, and enrolling in an outside law school this fall — necessarily entail she has resigned her seat.

ASUCD Bylaw 703.2 states that only enrolled students may serve as a senator and Section 3 of the ASUCD Constitution states that graduate and professional students may not hold an elected or appointed office in ASUCD. These are in addition to university employment rules specifying that only undergraduate students may be student employees — a category that includes ASUCD senators.

Although ASUCD has traditionally allowed for a grace period of one quarter after completion of coursework to continue employment, Zokaie exhausted this option when she did not enroll in this calendar year’s Summer Session.

The “bylaws” that the editorial vaguely claims Sterling violated simply do not exist, and the premise that Zokaie, after leaving Davis and enrolling as a law student at another university, can somehow have the luxury of choosing whether or not to resign is nonsensical.

The reality that Zokaie is no longer an ASUCD Senator is evidenced by the fact she was removed from university payroll due to her non-student status — something entirely outside the control of any ASUCD official.

A commonsense understanding of university and ASUCD policy would clearly lead to the conclusion that Zokaie has resigned, de facto, by virtue of her actions.  Since Zokaie has resigned, the Elections Committee is required to commence a count-back election, and if no student is eligible to serve from the count-back, then Sterling must post the vacancy for a specified period of time, after which she will make an appointment with the ASUCD Senate’s confirmation.

This is exactly what Sterling is lawfully and responsibly attempting to do. Contrary to The Aggie’s specious assertions, the ASUCD Court has no stipulated or required role at any point in this process.

To the best of our knowledge, the editorial board determined it was unimportant to seek out Sterling’s justifications.  While the board is free to do as it pleases, it should have made a good-faith effort to listen to both sides before calling her actions “ridiculous.”

More worryingly, the board appears to have been co-opted by one or two sources with a political agenda, and relied solely on those sources in condemning Sterling.

The students deserve better from their newspaper.

With the economy still struggling to get on its feet and a tepid recovery, the battlefield is set, and the most effective policy arguments will revolve around job creation and economic growth, right? As James Carville famously posted on the wall of President Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Voters always vote from their checkbook — some more literally than others — right? With unemployment stubbornly sitting above 8 percent nationally and Gross Domestic Product growth less than 2 percent, the presidency seems ripe for the picking by anyone with a plausible recovery policy.

Where then, is that grand policy debate? Where are the competing policy proposals from Barack Obama and Mitt Romney — the Keynesians versus the laissez faire soldiers? Who’s telling it to us straight — that the reality is, cutting government spending will physically remove GDP and slow the economy? — and may lead to recession. Who is arguing that we all must be prepared for inevitable and necessary sacrifice — to bite the bullet and cut the debt for future generations?

Instead the candidates spend the most time chalking up out-of-context slogans (see “you didn’t build that,” “corporations are people”) to create imaginary positions for imaginary candidates to run against.

Romney is quick to point to Obama’s 2008 campaign, claiming it was built on cheap words and empty rhetoric, yet invents false policies and ideologies (see SOCIALISM) from three words Obama uttered in reference to the “roads and bridges” that businesses rely on to run. From this statement, they created the entire Republican National Convention theme, “We built it,” and spent the entire convention talking about their commitment to creating jobs as if simply by saying it enough times, they could cut unemployment in half.

Obama spends a good portion of his campaigning reminding people that Romney enjoys tax advantages that allow him to pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us and that in his tenure at Bain Capital, he fired a lot of people and ended up with huge profits from failing businesses. While that might not excite you to vote for him — it doesn’t provide any insight to what he would do with the presidency (a public, NOT private, institution) or what Obama can do to continue to improve the economy.

Show me the policy.

Is it wrong to expect presidential candidates — to whom we are expected to give our time, money and the keys to the White House — to sit down and spend time making policy before they campaign? Goals and objectives are fantastic but in the absence of mechanisms by which to accomplish them — they are purely fantastical (see Newt Gingrich’s promises for $2.50/gallon gas and a permanent colony on the moon). Rhetoric provides energy, vision and an idea of what our country should look like, but the presidency is not a ceremonial position (see the Queen of England) — it is the inventor-in-chief.

You may not always have a friendly Congress but you damn well better jam enough policy proposals down their throats until they listen and cough up a signable bill. Call me a “policy wonk” but I want your blueprint for the country before we give you the office — I’m not going to vote based on your bumper sticker or your expensive negative campaign ads.

The campaign website shouldn’t be full of cheap talk but filled with bold, detailed policy proposals so the American people can see all your cards laid out on the table and get the debate they deserve.

Campaigns should educate — not mislead, misrepresent or distract.

Want an educated populace?

Educate them.

Formulate real policy and let the voters decide with all of the facts, not only rhetoric. We shouldn’t have to translate the “visions” and campaign ads into what you would do with the highest office in the country for you. We shouldn’t have to wait and hear what you’re going to do until after we cast our vote.

It’s your job to scare the living daylight out of us with the hard truths and inspire us about the future. But if you’re not going to tell us how you’re going to fix it — I think you’re misunderstanding the job you’re applying for.

If you have anything more to offer than cheap talk, email KEVIN PELSTRING at kpelstring@ucdavis.edu.

In response to incidents of “racial intolerance and homophobia” on various UC campuses, UC President Mark Yudof launched the Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion in June 2010. The council, which is comprised of various administrators and cultural and religious leaders, was tasked with outlining ways UC can attempt to make their campuses more accommodating for students of ethnic and religious minorities by minimizing hate speech on campus.

Plans of the report, which will come out in November, were met with skepticism and claims that the report was only created to silence these minorities, while little would be implemented. The council created a public survey for the campus communities of the UC system to participate in, giving them the opportunity to share their opinions on campus climate.

In actuality, Yudof also recognizes that little can be done to completely remove hate speech completely from UCs. In his words: “We can’t do it.”

This September, The Aggie, along with eight other UC campus newspapers, spoke with Yudof about various issues of concern to the UC system.

Among those issues was the creation of the council, and in response from questions from editors at UC Irvine and UC San Diego, Yudof was pragmatic. Yudof said that in an ideal world everyone would respond to the climate survey and the report would have an acceptable sample size. However, if the report does not garner responses from at least 30 percent of UC campus communities the report will not be accurate. This may be unlikely, considering many college students just don’t seem to care and the report would take 45 minutes to complete.

While we value his frankness on the issue, we don’t think coming to terms with the nature of hate on campuses and the laziness of college students should be quite that easy.

Yudof, who was a professor that taught the First Amendment for 30 years, explained that they have just about gotten it right, but we’re wondering if that is actually true.

“I’m not planning on trying to go further than our constitution permits,” Yudof said.

That statement is acceptable and we admire his realism, but more needs to be done to get people to actually care. The survey should be mandatory or an incentive should be offered for completion, not allowing students to register for classes until the survey is completed. While it is admirable that Yudof can be honest, the Office of the President could be doing more to get students involved in making our campuses hate-free.