I work in Sacramento three days out of the week so I spend an unholy amount of time sitting on the bus commuting. I happened to pick up a copy of the Sacramento News & Review, a Sacramento alternative weekly, a few days ago while waiting for the bus to head back into Davis. The feature story that week, “Legacy,” was written to Fred Branfman, an old friend of the author. This letter reminisced on the past and touched upon a range of issues, both political and apolitical.

In the letter, Branfman writes about the years spent in protest of the Vietnam War and about a successful career in politics that left little room for a personal life. He speaks about the disappointment of working for decades to pursue the great Anglo-American ideal of trying to make the world of tomorrow a little better than it is today only to witness the gradual, ungraceful decline of his country and the steady destruction of the biosphere.

It’s not an uplifting letter, but there are passages that left me thinking deeply. Branfman writes about the corrosion of discourse and civility in public debate. To him, the trait of seeing which political party can gut the other first is a recipe for the end of any semblance of national greatness. Instead, the America of future generations will only be a shadow of what could have been.

So why does this matter? So what if the politicians in Washington can’t agree on, well, pretty much anything? Why should you and I care?

Put simply, the country we’re going to inherit and run ourselves in a few decades will be the equivalent of a faulty car moving forward simply due to the sheer weight of the system. It will be an ugly decline. Unless your plan is to immigrate to New Zealand when the going gets rough, we’re going to have to fix this mess ourselves. Clearly hoping that the politicians are going effectively tackle the mess labeled USA as a misguided dream.

Yet, many younger Americans did have faith a few years ago when the Obama campaign was peddling its hope and change mantra. And they tried. The corrosiveness and partisanship of Washington, however, clearly proved more than a match for the change we wanted to believe in. When you have the top Republican in the Senate saying that his party’s main goal is to defeat Obama, clearly it’s a hopeless cause to think anything productive is going to be accomplished.

Clearly, we have a problem and it begs a solution. Honestly, I say we just ban the Republican and Democratic parties. It’s impossible to get to work on the big issues facing the country – maintaining prosperity in a globalized economy, raising the quality-of-life for all Americans, figuring out what exactly we’re going to do with an Earth we’re seemingly racing to destroy – when politicians are taking potshots at each other from across the Capitol aisle. We need post-partisanship, non-ideological coalitions who could care less about whether there’s a donkey or an elephant on the official letterhead of White House Christmas cards.

While we’re at it, let’s limit corporate and private individuals’ money in the political field. God, this is such a no-brainer! The notion that one wealthy casino could bankroll a major Republican contender for the presidency is sickening (go Google the words ‘Gingrich’ and ‘casino owner’). Yet that’s the system in which we live in. The voice of ordinary people will always be a second-class citizen to the moneyed elite. Democracy? What democracy?

Branfman is still fighting for his democracy despite its battered appearance. He’s in his 70s now yet the setbacks and lack of progress – indeed, the reversal of progress – hasn’t led him to give up. This refusal to admit defeat is what left the greatest impression on the article. He simply hasn’t grown apathetic.

I’m sure he has his own reasons as to why he still cares. No doubt some of them are deeply personal. But there’s also the simple fact that his prosperity was and still is integrally intertwined with his country. He fought for his political causes over the years because he knew that his fortunes would be unlikely to rise if the collective health of the country was in decline.

The same holds true for us. If our country is a wreck thirty years from now, that can’t possibly bode well for our own future prosperity.

Contact JONATHAN NELSON at jdnelson@ucdavis.edu. Just do it.

You know Mr. Crocker from “The Fairly Odd Parents,” the evil teacher who enjoys giving out pop quizzes just so he can gleefully give out Fs for everyone? I like that guy! I’ve had a taste of giving people exams and grading their efforts. It tastes good. It tastes of power and domination … kind of like German food. I love knowing that in my hands I hold a piece of these students’ futures. Pass or fail, win or lose, live or die: The GPAs and bright futures of all those shining undergrads are mine to do with as I please. The class is afraid of me: I have seen its true face. The accumulated anxiety of all their missed homework and sleeping in class will foam up about their waists, and all the slackers and procrastinators will look up and shout, “Grade us on a curve!”… and I’ll whisper, “No extensions.”

Then my delusions of grandeur fade away and I give everyone an A, give or take a grade point, and go home and cry into a bowl of ramen.

OK, the truth is I’m actually a benevolent T.A. that wants his students to get As, because that means they were taught well. I grade responsibly, giving students the score I feel they deserve. For some exams, especially when the professor has already dictated how many points to take off for what type of offense (“One bone broken for each taxonomic family misidentified”), grading is easy. For other assignments, like essays, grades are more subjective. I’ve come to realize that the spread of grades on such projects is often highly dependent on the grader. Poor students always score less than the exceptional ones, but the range between the highest and lowest scores will change.

I once T.A.-ed a class where the final project, a PowerPoint, was graded in a group: Besides the instructor, the students and any available grad students also graded, with the idea being to simulate a symposium talk. Boy, some people were really picky! There was much variation, with some graders deducting points for minor offenses while others being more lax. I thought I was being harsh on those who deserved it, but overall I was actually quite generous with the grades and consistently gave everyone higher scores than the average.

In case you’re wondering, I’m on a fellowship now and won’t be T.A.-ing any classes ever again. Nice try, though.

My baseline grading may be generous, but if there’s one thing I don’t plan on doing once I become a professor it’s changing my grading system to accommodate the lazy or the self-entitled. You know who you are! If the question “Will this be graded on a curve?” has ever left your lips, then I have no sympathy for you. Why should I curve? What does that even mean? Seriously, I never bothered to look up the definition of that phrase until a few minutes ago, and now that I know what it means I like it even less. Curving is done only if the grade distribution deviates from the expected; it is NOT decided on before the test is given. Even so, why should you care? The maximum score is an A or A+, so that is the score you should strive for. If the test is curved will you study less or something? Where’s your work ethic? You should always strive for perfection! Like me!

The worst are the grade grubbers. They want perfect scores; they just can’t get them. Instead of asking why they got points deducted so they can learn and improve next time, they find reasons why they should get those points back now. Pre-meds and pre-vets are universally the worst offenders, hunting bonus points like pigs hunt truffles. What’s that? You need an A to get into Johns Hopkins so you’re nagging me for two extra points? No points for you! Only Fs! What’s that? You got a C- but you really, really want an A? Know what you get? F-! What’s that on your exam? Is it a D? Is it an E? No, it’s Super F! Fs for everyone! Bwahahaha!

MATAN SHELOMI uses red pens to grade: If your self-esteem can’t handle that, e-mail mshelomi@ucdavis.edu and he’ll gladly explain why you’re too dumb for vet school. Ooh, burn!

On Friday, 11 UC Davis students and one faculty member went to court for an arraignment on the charges of the obstruction of movement in a public place and conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor.
While it will be up to a judge to determine whether the protesters are guilty of going beyond the limits of the right to free speech, the fact of the matter is these 12 individuals should never have had to step foot in court in the first place.

The decision to go forward with the prosecution was ultimately up to the Yolo County District Attorney, but it was the University that recommended the charges and provided the information for the prosecution.

According to an article from UC Davis News & Information, on March 16, “UC Davis police had forwarded six cases to the Yolo County district attorney’s office, recommending prosecution for violating Penal Code sections that make it a misdemeanor to ‘willfully and maliciously’ obstruct the free movement of any person on any street, sidewalk or other public place, or to intentionally interfere with any lawful business.”

That UC Davis personnel initiated and recommended the prosecution of its own students is a loathsome set of actions to add to the list of wrongdoings the administration and their cohorts have taken against students this year. Alleging a “malicious” intent by the protesters that could lead to these individuals facing 11 years in prison and $1 million in charges is a hugely disappointing and inappropriate step by UC Davis. This seems to go against the Principles of Community the University should be trying to promote.

In a letter released last week, Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter wrote that UC Davis “only wishes to see the rights of everyone on campus preserved.” Yet, we fail to see how allowing students to face time in jail is a proportionate way to preserve the rights of the campus community.

This is not about whether or not we agree with the motives of the protesters blockading U.S. Bank, but the failure of the administration to properly handle the situation. The administration should have dealt with the situation directly rather than through retroactive charges passed down by a district attorney.

After what has happened this year, we would expect that the leaders of this campus would have learned from past mistakes and be actively engaging with students.

It is unacceptable that Lieutenant John Pike is still on paid administrative leave after pepper spraying students in their faces, while UC Davis students and faculty are facing prison time for blocking a doorway. It is time that the University gets their priorities straight and decides under what type of principles of community they really want to operate.

Current UC Davis students pay more for their education than any classes before them, and we all know the effects that the high costs of education have had on the university populace.

It seems that, with the overwhelming burdens that come with high fees and the mounting debt that surrounds many students, the University should be doing everything it can to make the financial strain on students more bearable.

But when it comes to Summer Session, UC Davis’ stance has been quite the opposite.

Students are charged $271 per unit for summer classes, even if the units come from off-campus internships rather than on-campus courses. For a student hoping to get a 10-unit internship that spans both Summer Sessions, the cost would be $2,710 — for which the University will do nothing more than read a 12-page paper summarizing the experience gained.

Even looking through the lens of our already astronomically high tuition, charging over $225 for each page read seems utterly ridiculous.

This also applies to students who are going part-time and need to avoid going over the 10-unit maximum.

UC Davis should be encouraging its students to get applicable work experience during the summer months, rather than hamper the incentive for them to continue educating themselves by burdening them with fees.

Furthermore, UC Davis charges students who are not enrolled in Summer Session at least $28 per month for use of recreational facilities, including the Activities and Recreation Center and the Recreation Pool. This is both frustrating and unfair.

UC Davis student fees cover the costs of recreational facilities, and forcing students who are still registered to attend classes the following Fall Quarter to pay out-of-pocket is a frustrating inconvenience.

Additionally, with fewer students in Davis during the summer, recreational facilities face significantly less use during that time than they do during other seasons, so why not allow students to take advantage of the resources that are sitting unused?

The University should be encouraging students to use the resources available to them, rather than over-charging them for services they already pay for.