In a Feb. 28, 2012 discussion on the official Facebook page of the UC Davis chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), members directed anti-Semitic slurs at me.

One member referred to me as “shitstein.” Clearly the use of “stein,” since it has nothing to do with my name, is a direct reference to Jews.  This epithet, which was “liked” by several members, followed an exchange where members discussed efforts to identify me and then ridiculed my name. One member commented, “his last name is Siegel. WHO WOULDA THOUGHT.” To which someone responded, “what kinda last names did you think i (sic) was looking for lol.” Another went on to comment that “they,” in apparent reference to Jews, “all look WAY too similar.” One person referred to me as an enemy, “spewing his crap.”

I consider this threatening behavior. Since SJP members appeared to have a number of questions about my identity and academic rank, on March 20, I sent an e-mail offering to meet with SJP. So far, they have not replied.

The Facebook discussion followed a Feb. 27 presentation at UC Davis by two young Israelis meant to convey some of the realities of living in Israel. That event was disrupted by several UC Davis students who attended the lectures and heckled the presenters. Particularly notable were comments made by one student who accused the speakers of turning “Palestine into a land of prostitutes,” and called the presenters “rapists and child molesters.” I quietly attempted (my actions are well documented on YouTube) to get this student to stop his disruption of the meeting. Several members of the audience appealed to the UC Davis police. All to no avail.

On March 8, 2012, University of California President Mark Yudof issued a strongly worded letter to the UC community condemning the disruptions during the event and calling the comments reprehensible.

Unfortunately, these kinds of anti-Semitic slurs are all too common on college and university campuses and, clearly, UC Davis is no exception. What appears to be challenging is to motivate UC Davis administrators to take strong action and do what they are supposed to do (maintain academic integrity) in the spirit of President Yudof’s comments.

I wrote an e-mail to UC Davis Provost Ralph J. Hexter, asking the university to take action against SJP for their hate speech directed at me, which I believe has no place on the official Facebook site of a UC Davis-sanctioned student organization. Provost Hexter referred my complaint to Courtney M. Robinson, Asst. Director for Policy and Conduct at UC Davis. She e-mailed me in response.

“(I) have thoroughly reviewed it in the context of the UC Standards of Conduct for Students. While the comments posted on the Facebook page are understandably offensive, the actions of the students that posted them do not violate any of the standards. Additionally, such speech is protected under the First Amendment, and although the comments are not consistent with the campus’ Principles of Community, those principles do not constitute a policy,” she wrote.

I am deeply troubled by these findings. If they do not violate UC Standards of Conduct for Students, then there is a serious problem. UC Davis administrators should not shrink from their responsibilities. When faculty are the target of racist and threatening behavior from students, university administrators should not hide behind misguided notions of “First Amendment” rights. If analogous comments had been made about any other minority or LGBT individuals, Ms. Robinson’s findings certainly would have been different. It appears that Ms. Robinson and the UC Davis administration do not take hate speech and threats seriously when directed against Jews. An intolerable precedent has been set.

David Siegel MD, MPH, FACP, FAHA
Chief of Medicine
VA Northern California Health Care System
Professor and Vice Chair
Department of Medicine
UC Davis School of Medicine

When I landed in Sacramento Airport seven months ago at the beginning of my exchange year at UC Davis, I was all confused. I didn’t lose my luggage on the trip halfway across the world, I wasn’t interrogated when entering the U.S., my flights weren’t delayed and I even managed to let my parents know about my safe arrival (although I had to borrow a phone from a very nice Canadian person as mine didn’t work). I was confused because I wasn’t freaking out. Not enough, that is.

If you are friends on Facebook with a foreign exchange student, the endless location updates from different places in California and the constant stream of pictures from house parties, football games and picnics on the Quad might make you think that we do nothing else but travel, party and sunbathe. Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg as there is so much more to studying abroad: It’s about meeting new people, being immersed in a different culture and experiencing a new learning system. For many, it’s also the first time living on their own.

It doesn’t sound that much different from a normal college experience, though. So what is so special about being a foreign exchange student in America? After all, thousands from all over the world choose to come for a year abroad nowhere else but here, the U.S. While as students we might be very similar, our time here is nothing but normal. Try squeezing four years of the (American?) college experience into one extraordinary year — or one quarter! No wonder that there are plenty of reasons for freaking out.

In addition to homesickness (the 10-hour time difference does not help either), we are freaked out by the sheer amount of work we need to do for our classes, by TAs giving unnecessary Cs, which will mess up everything back home, by planning weeks-long trips across California without a car and by the prices of textbooks and study materials. But most of all we’re freaked out by the thought of going back home and leaving everything and everyone (in America? Davis? California?) behind.

I’ve experienced this twice already. I am from Lithuania, but I chose to go to university in the UK as I found the quality of higher education at home insufficient. So for two years before coming to Davis I’ve been studying ecology at the University of Edinburgh. This makes my experience here both more exciting and challenging. Davis has a much better climate and the feel of a small town, which is new to me, but at the same time I am not only homesick but also Edinburgh-sick!

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. I could not be happier that EAP, the UC-wide Education Abroad Program, placed me in Davis even though it was once my second choice. Studying on campus in California has been just as amazing as I imagined it would be when watching the now-cancelled TV show “Numb3rs” and marveling at shots filmed on location at CalTech. A rather embarrassing reason for coming to California, but completely true!

During my seven months here I’ve traveled across beautiful California and taken a 20-hour train ride to Seattle to see the different landscapes of this vast country. I celebrated my 21st birthday, went to countless house parties, had s’mores, celebrated Thanksgiving and have been a proud Aggie — all while being a straight-A student.

Something that will stand out from this freakishly fast-paced year, however, is the friendships that I’ve made. Going to Burgers & Brew with fellow exchange students, ordering real cheeseburgers and sitting there for hours chatting, laughing, and listening to them speak in English in all these different and funny accents and then taking another hour to split the bill and calculate the appropriate tip — it’s a memory that for me will perfectly blend the international and American experiences.

Being on exchange is some sort of rite of passage: You get to do things you might have never done before and it is a scary but also very exciting and all-encompassing experience. I still have three months left to truly make it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And I don’t mind some more freaking out along the way.

To discuss international living in Davis in more detail you can reach KRISTINA SIMONAITYTE at ksimonaityte@ucdavis.edu.

The blockbuster film The Hunger Games, based on the novel by Suzanne Collins, depicts a post-apocalyptic country in which 24 teenagers are chosen by lottery each year and forced to participate in nationally televised blood sports. Everyone must submit their name to the drawing once, but the most destitute can put their name in multiple times in exchange for additional food. As a result, in Panem, the poorest citizens are also those most likely to fight and die in gladiatorial combat.

Despite all its science fiction trappings, I would argue that The Hunger Games is not a cautionary tale: it’s an allegory. We already live in a world in which the risk of injury and premature death is distributed unequally.

As Ulrich Beck has demonstrated, our probability of suffering misfortune is closely tied to our socioeconomic positions. While no one is totally safe, the most affluent are able to rely on risk management strategies like health insurance or preventative care while the working class and the poor have become increasingly exposed to risks.

We can see this quite clearly through statistical measurements like mortality rates. On a global scale, the differences in life expectancy between the richest and poorest countries are shocking. The average American will live a quarter of a century longer than the average citizen of a country in sub-Saharan Africa.

Part of this discrepancy can be attributed to world hunger. Though we currently produce more than enough food calories to feed the world, 925 million are undernourished, with the vast majority in developing countries. As in Collins’ dystopian future, food is rationed unequally between geographic regions.

But even in America, class plays a significant role in mortality, determining things like access to health care, nutritious food, reliable protection from violence and a safe working environment. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the average white male born into the highest socioeconomic category in 2000 will live 4.5 years longer than one born into the lowest. Life expectancies are even worse for African American men who, on average, die six years younger than their white counterparts.

When we get into the details, though, the chasm between rich and poor becomes even wider. One Gallup poll discovered that those with the lowest income level were more than four more times more likely to report significant health problems than those at the top.

Meanwhile, one in seven households in the bread basket of the world is unable to afford enough food for a healthy diet.

If some totalitarian government decided to withhold adequate food rations from one-seventh of the population, many would sure rise up, but when the markets decide so, it’s business as usual.

Moreover, there’s something about the nature of risk that makes it difficult to appreciate and grasp. Most people seem willing to accept that those who earn the least are much more likely to die because it seems like pure randomness, individual failings or the work of some invisible, unknowable fate.

But the genius of The Hunger Games is that it takes abstract statistics and renders them concrete. Dramatizing bloodless numbers, The Hunger Games turns statistical risks into deadly games of chance, giving them greater emotional and moral force.

Nevertheless, many are willing to tolerate massive inequalities in risk distribution because, like the citizens of Panem, they still believe the poorest still have a chance to win. Rather than face these realities, they fantasize about winning the Mega Millions jackpot or climbing up the income ladder. These daydreams play out on shows like “America’s Next Top Model,” which suggest that if you work hard and have ambition, you’ll make it.

But the numbers reported by the Pew Economic Mobility Project reveal the American Dream to be more of a delusion: Class mobility is considerably lower in the U.S. than in most other developed countries. A mere 6 percent of those whose families were in the bottom fifth income category will make their way to the top fifth. Statistically speaking, your parents’ socioeconomic status is a far greater determinant of financial success than the amount of work you do.

The Hunger Games travesties these false hopes, revealing them to be part of the system that maintains wealth and power inequality. As the dictatorial President Snow suggests, far more than fear, it is the insignificant chance of beating the odds that keeps so many in the exploited class cowed. Sure, the impoverished live miserably and die young, we are told, but you can’t win if you don’t play the game.

JORDAN S. CARROLL is still reading the second book in the trilogy, so no spoilers. He can be reached at jscarroll@ucdavis.edu.

The University of California’s plan to ask students their sexual orientations on their Student Intent to Register (SIR) forms is still in the works. The intention of the proposal is to collect data on the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students at UC and to inform campus climate assessments.

Having this information is projected to allow the University to provide students with resources to make them more comfortable on campus.

Unfortunately, the main issue with this proposal is that since the survey is optional, there probably would not be accurate data. With potential inaccuracy, these statistics may not be entirely helpful in providing resources if not all students participated.

Unlike demographic studies asking about what ethnicity one most identifies with, sexual orientation is less concrete and is much more complexly defined. The question remains: How many options would be on the survey? Is it open to adjustment for students at later times?

If the school proceeds with the measure, it should offer more than just heterosexual and LGBT sections. Potential categories could also include queer, questioning, intersex, asexual and ally. Still, it may even be difficult for some freshmen to pinpoint what sexual orientation they identify with precisely. The plethora of options alone show one possible issue with asking students to self-define their sexuality.

Creators of the study acknowledged that including the survey as part of the admissions application could be awkward for some students working with their parents on application. Whereas in the SIR forms, students spend less time working with their parents. Officials said that they would revisit the issue of including this on the application in a couple of years. We encourage the UC not to do so, as they are correct that for some students it is uncomfortable to talk to their parents about sexual orientation. Sexual orientation should not play a part in admissions.

The purpose of the proposal seems noble, but the application of the survey lacks in practicality.

Should we watch another? I find myself asking this question often. Like many, I watch TV shows online. It seems obvious. All the shows I always felt out of the loop of are at my wireless fingertips, for either free or semi-free access. This may very well be the definition of the “on-demand” generation.

But while I love not having to wait a week to see Stringer Bell’s next move or if Carrie B. will actually dump Big, I often wonder whether watching these shows in marathon form is taking away from the meaning. That is, do we as an audience need that week to mull over and fully understand last episode’s events? How important is distance when it comes to television?

In regular conversation I and many others talk about these high-end HBO, SHOWTIME, AMC, etc. dramas with language that was previously saved for books. This is a result of higher-quality television, a smarter audience base and the internet’s propensity to analyze, overanalyze and .giffify. Even in premium escapist anti-reality shows such as “Game of Thrones” or “True Blood,” common discourse is centered around character development, motives and real-world motifs.  If we put extra meaning and significance on something like Walter White’s calculated rage, there are higher stakes when it comes to how we viewers consume such content.

I’ve watched “Mad Men” both ways. First, when it originally aired I watched it every week as each episode came out. The anticipation was both rewarding and annoying, yet I felt a connection with the characters that slipped to some extent when watching at will at my own fast pace.

With the slow way, the episodes did not mesh together the way they often can, and I learned to appreciate every scene equally, not losing focus during those that did not contribute to the advancement of the plot.  Most importantly I found myself with a real stake in the lives of the characters.

This is the part where you disagree and argue that “Mad Men” is good enough to still bring this feeling to all its viewers, nevermind the rate at which you watch. While true, the added distance allowed each episode to sink in. That week, I talked about the episode, focusing on one of Pete Campbell’s grievances instead of making sweeping statements about the character as he relates to the series as a whole. This ability to separate each episode into what it is — an episode — provided a view that was overlooked when cranking out an entire season during spring break.

“Dexter” is a show that I watched in all-at-once marathon form, once during a winter break, and once during a procrastination binge in the infamous Winter of ‘09. I found the show to be absolutely terrible mostly for the acting, but also because I gave under one fuck about any of the characters. Somehow the show made a psychopathic vigilante murderer with dream visions of his father boring, and also featured his sister Deb, the most unrealistic character in television history (with all due respect to Hank Moody — nothing but love, bro).

Trusted friends, however, loved the show because they watched the episodes as they originally aired, spacing a week in between their relationships with the characters and the plot. This time interval allowed them to focus less on the glaring character flaws that ruined the show for me, and more on the overall plot development and story arc of each season. In this instance, my close proximity to the show for sporadic periods of time made me hyperaware of such brooding characters instead of the plot, the most compelling part of the show.

Of course, our busy lives make it hard to adhere to a television schedule, and with thousands of legal and extralegal sites, it’s almost silly to think about not being able to watch any episode at any given time. Many of the “best-watched” people I know don’t even own a television.

Although the medium is becoming more and more suited for your computer, it still airs in its original form on the TV once a week, and this is the way the writers and directors originally meant for their art to be consumed.

Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new, have a fonder appreciation for your favorite characters or realize that we need an Andy Botwin spin-off show.

If you want to talk about how quickly you watched the first season of “Homeland” or need to find practically anything for free on the internet, contact ANDY VERDEROSA at asverderosa@ucdavis.edu, although he prefers Twitter because this is 2012 after all.