Fifth Street in Downtown Davis is notorious for the dangers it presents to bikers. The heavily trafficked street currently lacks bike lanes, creating a hazard both for bikers trying to use the street and the cars that have to avoid them.

Now that the Davis City Council has approved the Fifth Street Corridor Project for $836,000, some of these issues may finally be fixed. Even though this project probably should have started sooner and may cause inconveniences in construction, the plan will ultimately improve one of the scarier streets of Davis.

The main goals of the project are to decrease driving lanes to one lane in each direction, add bike lanes and incorporate left-turn pockets in the middle of the street. Some in the public forum and discussion of the project have been concerned about the decreasing driving lanes, worried that it would cause even more traffic congestion. However, the benefits to bikers may be so high that fewer people will drive on the street anyway.

The planners in charge of this project, Davis Community Development Administrator Katherine Hess and Senior Civil Engineer Roxanne Namazi, should be commended for how much public input they welcomed. The project website has an entire page devoted to public comments, with over 100 suggestions already on how to improve Fifth Street.

One important question that is still difficult to answer is, how long will this take? It has already taken about two years for city planners to gather community input and finalize the design. Even now, after approval, there will still have to be planning and preparing the site for construction. By the time construction is underway many current students will have graduated from UC Davis; actual construction, which is an infamously slow process, will take even longer.

These are bureaucratic problems that are almost impossible to avoid. Moving too slow is usually preferable to moving too quickly when it comes to construction, as putting the idea into place before the community could have their say would have been disastrous.

The Fifth Street Corridor Project has been a long time coming and could immensely improve safety for bikers and drivers alike. Though residents should temper their optimism, as any unexpected problem could grind the project to a standstill, the success will benefit future students and residents living in Davis.

The great Roman orator Cicero asserted that gratitude is the greatest of all virtues. With this in mind, those of us who believe in justice and human dignity should send a sincere “thank you” in the direction of that oft-maligned force, religion.

As 21st-century Americans, we tend to take some truths for granted. Murder, racism and the abuse of children are unquestionably “wrong” while fairness, tolerance and acts of compassion are “right.” In politics, corruption and hypocrisy are “wrong” while consistency and honesty are “right.” On many issues, it would be accurate to say that a near-universal moral consensus exists.

On the surface, this is not surprising. But we live in a world that claims to have grown beyond the absolute moral judgments of traditional religions. Along with his proclamation that “God is dead,” German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche also coined the phrase that still defines our postmodernist society when he said, “There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.” Nietzsche’s second statement follows from his first. The death of God and his universal morality leaves room for the individual to be his own god and choose his own morality.

In our pluralistic society, characterized by its profuse diversity of thoughts and opinions, the rejection of absolutism seems inevitable. Among young people, especially, the sentiment is almost universal; each person must follow their own personal path to their own personal truth. And if there is no God but biology, who is to say what is right and what is wrong? Which is all very well, at least until someone follows their own personal path to a horrific or antisocial conclusion.

In reality, our modern world is very far from accepting the consequences of its secular relativism. After all, if we are not created by God, but rather a glorified mammalian type, why should we not follow the example of the rest of nature, “red in tooth and claw?” The relativist can of course offer practical justifications of self-interest, or the benefits of altruism, but these arguments are a far cry from the universal moral indignation that rightly censors racism or unjust persecution. Some acts are so clearly wrong that they are excoriated with a vigor that doesn’t fit with relativism. It’s impossible to deny that people still believe that some things are absolutely good, and some are absolutely evil.

Take this excerpt from the UC Davis Principles of Community: “We affirm the inherent dignity in all of us, and we strive to maintain a climate of justice marked by respect for each other.” By affirming the inherent dignity of each individual, the Principles of Community accept an absolute proposition: Every person deserves equal justice.

But why? In the natural world, and even in the vast majority of primitive human societies, equality is unheard of. Nature is a meritocracy where dignity is given to the strong, and death comes to the weak. Of course, a relativist may be able to justify the concept of inherent dignity to himself. But he cannot impose that view on others and he cannot affirm a universal principle of absolute human dignity that all society is bound to follow. And without the universal support of society, principles of community are meaningless.

In reality, the Principles of Community are firmly based on a religious foundation. While secular materialists can appeal to self-interest to persuade people to treat each other with dignity, religion universally decrees it to be so. Christianity, the predominant Western religious influence, establishes this truth through the creation story, in which all people are descended from Adam, and all are created in the image of God. It is not coincidental that heroes in the struggle for human rights such as William Wilberforce and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used the power of the Bible so centrally. Of course, it is not necessary to be religious to be a moral person. But religion is essential if you wish to hold humanity to a universal standard of morality.

With the eroding power of religion in our time we are faced with a dilemma: We must either reconsider our rejection of religion, or lose the powerful moral force of its universal absolutes. In a world that is always inches from barbarism, we must have a reason to value humanity over self-interest.

This column is a small space in which to explore the complete contributions of religion to modern beliefs about justice and humanity, but one thing is certain: Despite the veneer of moral relativism in modern thought, we still believe in absolute truths. Or to put it another way, absolutism is dead, long live absolutism.

SAM HOEL can be reached at swhoel@ucdavis.edu.

It’s funny how you can YouTube just about any song in mainstream circulation right now and be instantly bombarded with viewer comments about what a blatant Lady Gaga rip-off it is. What’s even funnier is that at least 50 percent of these songs are just ordinary branches on the same formulaic dance-pop tree — so why are Mother Monster’s legions so cutthroat when it comes to the competition?

From the lips of a self-proclaimed Gaga fan to your ears, I’ll be the first to admit it: the Little Monsters are fucking crazy. Of course, this comes as no surprise given that the object of their idolization is more than just a little off-the-wall herself (see: May ‘11 David Letterman appearance in which she dreamily hums the theme to Batman and eats her host’s cue cards).

Yet, there’s something especially compelling about the insanity of her fanbase, something that extends beyond hoarding paraphernalia and attending concerts in elaborate drag. Many Little Monsters act as though Gaga is some sort of musical messiah and, as such, will go to great lengths to defend her from anyone they view as a trespasser on her musical turf. The biggest problem with this? When one artist is already accepted as the leader of the pack, all others are inherently viewed as followers.

A number of people have been quick to point out the similarities between all other reigning contemporary pop stars and Lady Gaga, some through gentle implications (I, for instance, do have to wonder if Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream-era chameleonic ‘do was at all inspired by Gaga’s own follicular ventures) and others with less finesse.

“Bitch aint original,” [sic] writes YouTube user LivingTheGagaLife, pointing out the fact that Nicki Minaj’s latest single “Starships”  was co-produced by one of Lady Gaga’s staple producers, RedOne.

Now, I’m not oblivious; I can see just as well as anyone else that, following the massive public response to Gaga and her bizarre wardrobe, many other singers in the pop game gave themselves proportionately dramatic makeovers. Within a span of less than a year, Ke$ha wore studded metallic eyebrows and post-apocalyptic glitter in her video for “We R Who We R,” Katy Perry donned an electric blue wig and shot whipped cream out of her bra to promote her album Teenage Dream and Nicki Minaj showed up to the 2011 VMAs sporting what can only be described as Mortal Kombat-meets-Hello Kitty chic. No one can say for certain, but it’s hard to believe that all the aforementioned stars (and then some) simply embraced eccentric fashion by pure coincidence.

Sonic imitation, though, is an entirely different boat. Danceable beats may be a commodity among pop stars of all different dye jobs, but can you imagine Gaga spitting one of Nicki Minaj’s rapid-fire verses? Conversely, imagine the self-titled Barbie even writing a line like “I want your whiskey mouth all over my blonde south” – that gem could scarcely come from the lockbox of anyone but Mother Monster herself.

The fact of the matter is that nowadays exposure is synonymous with club-readiness; the airwaves are positively clogged with the telltale thumping beats and sliding synths of pop music. But there’s a reason for that, aside from any of the arguments of #TeamGaga that all other artists are copying their musical savior.

The issue, as it usually tends to be when seeing the world through my perspective, is us. The consumer decides what is and isn’t popular and, as such, is the reason that the American music industry currently stands divided between dance-pop, hip hop and Adele. A singer’s management team is largely responsible for the direction of their music and image, and since we, the listeners, have shown such an ongoing strong reaction to dance-pop (like Lady Gaga), we’ve created an atmosphere that is conducive to the production, and success, of very similarly structured music. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken, right?

Lady Gaga just so happens to be one of those special cases who is both marketable and talented. The fact that she can blend commercially appealing tunes with some serious artistic integrity speaks volumes about her ability as a musician, and definitely offers some explanation as to why her followers seem to worship at her altar. However, this still doesn’t justify the notion that every other artist must therefore want to copy her style. Maybe I just like Nicki too much to see it, or then again, maybe the idea really is nothing but complete and utter scheiße.

Watch for Lady Gaga’s forthcoming music video in which DYLAN GALLAGHER’s pelt will be worn as a leotard. In the meanwhile, send fan mail to dylaaaaan@gmail.com.