As a student suffering the quarter system, it is likely you or a friend has turned into a pot-hugging coffee addict. You are not alone. Among coffee consumers — myself included — the average American has 3.1 cups per day. But before you decide to cut back or drink more, read on. You may finish this article with reason to have less. On the other hand, I may introduce a statistic or two that will leave you enjoying your cup of Joe even more.

In the words of the Dutch proverb, coffee has two virtues: it is wet and warm. This is true, but I have a rebuttal. According to studies, coffee has a dark side, no pun intended, but it might not be all that bad — perhaps, even beneficial.

Coffee contains potent antioxidant activity that may help ward off cancer. In fact, chronic consumption is correlated with the lowest risk for several cancers. For example, long-term studies have shown that drinking three to six cups per day of either caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee is associated with a lower risk for uterine and prostate cancer compared to those who drink none. The chemicals kahweol and cafestol have also been linked to a decreased risk for digestive cancers by improving cellular defense and inhibiting carcinogen activity.

Not only that, but consuming about two cups of coffee has been shown to burn more calories by as much as 3 to 23 percent for up to three hours. Decaf, unfortunately, does not show the same effects. Yet, for both types alike, there are very few calories in coffee: only seven per cup. That is, of course, sans milk and sugar. Personally, I take coffee without sugar. You know, just cream.

You still won’t want to skip your daily vitamin, but coffee also has its vitamins and minerals. One cup yields a decent amount of niacin, magnesium, potassium and phosphorous, in addition to small amounts of choline, copper and calcium. These vitamins and minerals will help boost your mood and immune system.

Despite these benefits, there are a few things to watch out for, whether or not you drink coffee regularly.

Coffee can greatly raise blood pressure from the moment you drink it. As we all know, consistent high blood pressure can be dangerous, leading to vision loss, stroke, kidney failure and erectile dysfunction.  Most of the time though, coffee will only increase blood pressure for a few hours after drinking it — even regular coffee drinkers don’t typically see a permanent rise in blood pressure. That being said, non-habitual drinkers are more sensitive to the effects of coffee and are likely to experience higher blood pressure, even with decaf. However, decaf is a must if you do have high blood pressure or a vascular disease.

Coffee addicts (you know who you are) also need to beware of withdrawal symptoms that can result from over-consumption. Susceptibility varies among individuals, but not getting your coffee fix within 12 to 24 hours can leave some with headaches, fatigue, depression, irritability, vomiting and muscle pain, lasting up to nine days. Even decaf has a small amount of caffeine — roughly one-tenth the amount of caffeinated coffee — and can result in dependence among sensitive drinkers. It took me an entire year to wean myself from three cups a day, down to just one. On the upside, withdrawals don’t mean you have a problem with caffeine; just that you have a problem without it.

Like every food, coffee has its pros and cons depending on the individual. There is no set limit to how much coffee is too much — it all depends on the person and how his or her body responds. Students can choose what amount of coffee will best give them the right balance of its benefits. If you decide you are a person who should lay off the beans but needs alternative pick-me-ups, next week’s column will cover brain foods that help keep you alert and focused through Winter quarter.

THERESA RICHARDSON is bringing you the latest research to keep your college waistline and health in check. For questions or comments contact her at terichardson@ucdavis.edu.

Beer, party, overslept, studying, finals, houseboats, Picnic Day (Picnic Day, Picnic Day), poor and starving. What do all of those words have in common, you might be wondering? Well, odds are if you go to Davis (which, seeing as you are currently holding the Davis paper in your hands, is a good bet), you’ve probably said them at one time. Today I’m going to talk about those last two.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the adage “a penny saved is a penny earned,” but ignoring the IRS for a moment (usually not the best idea), why can’t the reverse be true? Aside from getting a job, one great way to start earning extra money is to invest in the stock market.

With interest rates so low, the stock market is a great alternative for your hard-earned cash. However, very few students choose to invest in the market either because they don’t think about it or don’t know enough to make good decisions. The great thing about the stock market is that in any 10-year period the stock market has gone up, so being students, we have time to make long-term investments. If you are interested in learning but don’t know where to begin, I guarantee either a parent, professor or friend can help you out, but for now I’ll do my best. So without further ado, here is Stocks 101.

Today’s lesson: How exactly does the stock market work?  For that matter, what are stocks? Why do they exist? What determines the price of a stock? How come some companies are publicly traded and others are not?

The logistics of the stock market are actually pretty simple.  Stock owners decide what price they are willing to sell at, those who want to buy decide what price they are willing to buy at, and when those two numbers are in congruence a transaction occurs and the stock trades hands. But where exactly did the stock come from in the first place?

When a company needs to raise capital in order to invest or finance a new escapade, they have a number of options — some more complicated than others. The two most popular are borrowing money, a fairly well-known route, or selling stock. Stocks are referred to as equity because they are just that: a stake in the company. When one owns stock, even just a single share, one does in fact own a part of the company and can therefore attend shareholders meetings and voice one’s opinions (think Adam Sandler in Mr. Deeds).

All companies start out as private. However, the owners have the option to take the company public and have it publicly traded through a stock exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (NASDAQ). This is usually done either to expand or to raise capital. At this time, they can offer an Initial Public Offering, or IPO, for, say, $10 a share.

As soon as the stock goes public, the company is now partially owned by thousands of people all across the world. The first few days of trading are usually very active and volatile, but eventually the stock will settle at a price representative of what people are willing to pay for it. Within one day, that $10 share could either decrease by half, triple, or remain very close to where it started — it all depends on public perception of that company and what a share is worth. As time goes on, the price of a stock will either rise or fall, depending on a number of complicated factors that affect public perception of that company’s future.

The simplest answer to the question of what factors determine a stock’s price is the company’s current and future earnings. While the former is (usually) well known, the latter can be rather hard to predict and is determined by a combination of many factors. These elements can be nearly anything, from changes in the company, industry or world, to stock momentum, oil prices or the economy. There is no way to know or predict exactly what the price will be, but stock prices tend to follow the expectations of the company’s future.

If you do find a way, DANNY BRAWER would love for you to make him very rich by letting him know at dabrawer@ucdavis.edu.

Imagine waking up every day, getting ready to go to class and fearing for your life as you walk to campus. That is the experience that I, along with my neighbors on Russell Boulevard face daily. Crossing Russell at California Avenue to get to campus is like playing a twisted, real-life version of Frogger. It’s dangerous — cars don’t stop for pedestrians; pedestrians do not make the necessary safety checks to cross.

The problem stems from a false sense of security for pedestrians. When they press a button, they expect a protected cross signal, as happens at other intersections. Instead, a yellow flashing “yield” light is triggered, which drivers and pedestrians alike seem to misunderstand.  Approximately 20,000 vehicles drive on Russell each day. According to one source, only 25 to 30 percent of people actually stop when seeing the “flashing beacon.”

There are several options for improvement to the intersection.  At a December meeting, three members of the Safety Parking Advisory Commission recommended making this a fully functioning signaled intersection, which would cost $250,000.

One nearby resident commented:

“People drive so fast through this crosswalk and ignore the flashing lights that it’s only a matter of time before some is killed here […] Wouldn’t traffic signals be cheap compared to a tragedy like that?”

Supposedly, several steps were taken to improve safety, such as a police presence and added signage over the summer. From my observation, the added “safety” measures have done little to curb the dangers or the misunderstandings between driver and pedestrian.

To date, three people that live at my complex have been hit crossing the street at this intersection. In some instances, this was even after they took the necessary steps to ensure safety, and drivers did not stop.

In the most serious incident, a certain student was hit by a City of Davis vehicle while crossing, throwing her to the ground and leaving her with a skull fracture, a serious concussion and an overnight hospital stay. The victim, junior Liana Glicksman, commented, “It is even scarier for me to cross the street here after being in an accident…The thing that scares me most is that I cannot think of a way in which to prevent something like this happening again. I was…crossing at an intersection…in a town where I felt safe and secure. If something like this could happen to me, someone who knew to be careful at this crosswalk, and in optimal conditions, it terrifies me to think about the future.”

On a party night during Fall quarter, I noticed some drunk freshmen, too unaware of their surroundings, attempted to sprint across Russell without making safety checks. Now imagine the dangers of being located on Frat Row, especially when typical Davis conditions like dense fog and rain occurs.

The Facebook group “I have almost been hit Crossing Russell at California” has 65 members, who have been active in trying to improve the situation. When I spoke to city traffic engineer Roxane Namazi, I told her it was dangerous and one day, someone will likely get hit and they will not survive, and it will be the city’s liability. Namazi admitted that the city would be liable if someone were seriously wounded or killed, though the city does not have the money to properly address the situation.

It’s time you take action. It’s time the others who live, work and cross the street here take action. Pi Beta Phi, Theta Chi, SAE, SAE∏, LDS Office and the other residents who live and cross here — please join me in urging the city to finally take action, and keep us safe.

If there’s one thing we can say about Chancellor Katehi since the pepper spray incident of Nov. 18, 2011, it’s that her public relations campaign has been extremely effective at quelling calls for her resignation. Excessive pandering to student concerns with town hall forums reached absurd, almost pathetic levels before winter break, not to mention her duplicitous e-mails that sought to rationalize her judgment in calling on riot police to handle non-violent student protests. Katehi should have known full well that when riot police wield hammers, everything to them looks like a nail.

Which takes us to her first public appearance after the incident. At the subsequent General Assembly, Katehi spoke to an angry but open-minded audience of students who sought answers. Her voice began to quiver as she apologized, and for just that moment, I felt compassion and clemency for her. Who would want this sort of international embarrassment and ridicule anyway, from Jon Stewart to Icelandic TV? But my sympathy was a profound reminder of how easy it is for powerful and personable technocrats like Katehi to slip somas to upset but forgiving students and watch while our anger melts away.

After she had finished speaking, the crowd was almost unsure of what to do. We felt angry but couldn’t remember why. We are humans after all, and we like to give people second chances because we would want the same. However, this principle of “the golden rule” undermines our fervor in ending Katehi’s tenure at UC Davis. Katehi’s power and sphere of influence — including her access to the media and ability to control the narrative using her massive 30,000 student e-mail list — practically negate any accountability that she might be subject to at the university level, which ought to make her unworthy of sympathy from those who are subject to disciplinary measures. Ultimately, Katehi’s diplomatic but empty gestures mask her sincere lack of culpability, but considering her level of wealth and position within the university, who else but her should be held accountable for this miscarriage of justice?

So I say this to all students in the strongest terms possible: boycott Katehi’s town hall meetings! Legitimate answers to student concerns are clearly secondary to Katehi, who is seeking to pacify us until the momentum for her resignation dies out. Katehi’s fabricated solidarity with students over fee hikes and her collapsing of complex issues of state violence against student dissent into canned arguments about “health and safety” is revolting and unworthy of our diplomacy. Let our silence be our power!

It is clear that the only hope we have as students is to send this message to anybody in power, including the chancellor: “If you fuck with us or do anything to endanger our safety or raise our fees, your job is finished.” Isolating Katehi, unfortunately, seems to me to be our only way forward if we wish to produce her exodus. We’ll worry about who’s installed next by the regents and the university’s internal corporate structure when we get to that bridge. Remember, Katehi’s resignation and structural change of the UC system are not mutually exclusive; the former is simply the first step.

So in the end, just like with every other movement for systemic change, the burden falls on us,  the people. The question is, are we angry enough to make the change, or will this be our dream deferred? The fierce urgency of now is upon us. May we not wait for another Lt. Pike to inspire us to act again, only this time after something far worse than pepper spray.

Game Over, Katehi: Jan. 27, 2012.

Welcome to 2012, a year wrought with the promise of anguish and disappointment. Hell, add fear to that list as well. The President has just further secured his legal ability to detain you without trial through the National Defense Authorization Act For The Fiscal Year 2012, and though the legislation was passed in 2011, this is the year where we’ll really see results. That is, assuming it’s not done in secret.

If you’re concerned about the implications of such a law, you’re a rational human being. If you choose to express such concern in a public forum, we wouldn’t be surprised if you are labeled a terrorist and disappear without notice.

While President Barack Obama has said that his administration won’t detain American citizens without due process, he might not be in charge for much longer. The 2012 election will likely not bring about any real change, no matter who is elected.

Additionally, Congress is currently sitting on the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would essentially mandate the censoring of websites accused of copyright infringement. Search engines and internet providers would be expected to prevent their users from accessing such sites.

If you don’t have an opinion on “intellectual property law,” it’s time to form one. If you want one ready-made, here you go. Copyright laws in the United States have evolved past their original purpose to protect individuals into protection for large, wealthy corporations to ensure that they can profit from products, such as Mickey Mouse, long after they have become embedded into popular culture.

A vote on the act has been postponed until Congress is back in session. The act could be voted on as soon as Jan. 17, which means you’d better start cramming in the illicit episodes of “Breaking Bad” now.

Back on the home front, University of California students can look forward to having their livelihoods, once again, put in the hands of the UC Regents. The regents meet every two months and could be voting on fee increases at any time.

As for America’s progress on universal health care, the Affordable Care Act is off to the Supreme Court this year for a possible repeal. Even if it does slide through the Justice Department unscathed, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced in December that all states will be allowed to determine their own minimum health care standards, meaning going from uninsured to insured might not be much of a leap.

But as with all things, there is a silver lining. According to reliable and not-insane experts on the Mayan calendar, the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012. And not even Congress can escape death.

Students following the UC budget battles would do well to remember Sun Tzu’s well-worn maxim: “All war is deception.”

With the latest round of budget cuts prompting the usual protestations from UC administrators, one might be excused for believing that the UC system has been, in the words of budget VP Patrick Lenz, “cut to the bone.” But the reality is that administrators’ version of fat-trimming is predictably self-interested.

The problem is a typical one. Like most bureaucrats, administrators tend to prioritize political correctness over academics. As a result, students find themselves facing the twin menaces of a cash-hungry army of paper pushers, and a slew of redundant and expensive “diversity” programs.

Since 2006, full-time administrators have outnumbered faculty nationally. While students face tuition hikes and professors see class sizes expand, administrators preside over an almost sacrosanct collection of programs that are best described as wasteful irrelevancies. The traditional model of faculty-run universities has gradually given way to a vast apparatus of lawyers, administrators and generic bureaucrats who have expanded overhead functions while prolifically fabricating new roles for themselves.

Faddish “diversity” institutions are often the administrators’ weapons of choice, benefiting from the reluctance of critics to risk accusations of bigotry by questioning their importance or functionality. Not surprisingly, diversity administrators ride the coattails of a generationally tolerant student body, while doing little to reach the vast majority of students.

Here at UC Davis, a vast network of such institutions exist. They are headlined by the Office of Campus Community Relations (OCCR), which oversees a dizzying array of programs that funnel precious tuition dollars into the pockets of needy administrators.

OCCR itself, headed by Vice Dean Rahim Reed (annual compensation $156,000), oversees a morass of often redundant entities such as the Staff Affirmative Action & Diversity Office, The Center for Human Services – Civil Rights and Diversity, The Multicultural Immersion Center, The Diversity Education Program, The Cross-Cultural Center, The Consortium for Women and Research, The Women’s Resources and Research Center, The Sexual Harassment Education Program and Campus Council on Community and Diversity, to name a few.

And each center or consortium comes with its eager contingent of program directors, staffers, coordinators and education administrators, all striving for their slice of the budget pie.

Of course, UC administrators at the top see the impenetrable thicket of extracurricular programs as essential. Speaking of the budget crisis last year, UC President Mark Yudof protested: “We cannot save or streamline our way around a problem of this magnitude.”

Meanwhile, administrators at Berkeley pressed forward with the Initiative for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, a costly program that funded five newly endowed chairs in “diversity-related research.” And while UC San Diego was eliminating degrees in electrical and computer engineering, it was simultaneously creating a new full-time “vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion,” who supplemented the apparently inadequate Chancellor’s Diversity Office, which already had an associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, and an assistant vice chancellor for diversity. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, no one wants to live on a campus marred by hatefulness, discrimination or bigotry. But the intellectual ferment of the classroom and the rich social experience of the student body are the true guarantees of a tolerant and diverse university. The fiction that eliminating condescendingly named enclaves of political correctness would lead to a hate-consumed campus is demeaning to students and teachers alike. In short, I trust my fellow community members to remain open-minded without the assistance of campus-funded enforcers.

Finally, the idea that grandiosely named programs somehow prevent the rare acts of universally condemned on-campus hate crimes is a ludicrously thin disguise for the real purpose of academic bureaucracy; to create a bigger trough for self-interested administrators to feed from.

Which brings us back to Sun Tzu. The great strategist was right when he posited deception as the moving principle in all wars. In the current UC budget battles, well-paid bureaucrats are pulling the wool over students’ eyes by claiming solidarity while simultaneously robbing us blind. For what it’s worth, Sun Tzu also famously said: “Know your enemy.” Perhaps it’s time for students to get to know the administration.

SAM HOEL is a law student at UC Davis School of Law and can be reached at swhoel@ucdavis.edu.

The pepper spray incident of Nov. 18 placed the UC Davis administration in uncharted waters. We all know about the calls for Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi’s resignation and the six ongoing investigations, but what has largely been ignored are the more subtle effects the events of Nov. 18 may have had on seemingly unrelated decisions.

During October and November it looked almost certain that the university would be hiring a big-time athletic director, and UC Davis would be following the recommendations for sweeping change made by the Dempsey Report — possibly including the cutting of sports.

But Friday, Katehi released a letter stating that she has no intention of making major changes to UC Davis athletics. By no means does this statement translate into any type of official action, but it does present a drastic departure from previous expectations of what Katehi had in mind for UC Davis athletics.

We may never know the true motivation behind Katehi’s statement. Maybe she was swayed by the strongly anti-Dempsey Report sentiment expressed at each of the four town hall meetings. Maybe she was truly convinced that UC Davis could not support a major sports program.

Regardless, the immediate reaction of many was that Katehi’s decision was based on a post-pepper spray desire to avoid another controversy, like the one seen when four sports were cut in 2010.

While we have publicly opposed the cutting of sports by a new athletic director, we also believe it is important for the UC Davis administration to not only make the right choice, but to make it for the right reasons.

Judgments that affect the lives of UC Davis students need to be made based on logic and reason, not a fear of controversy. The university is constantly being faced with difficult decisions, and simply choosing the less-controversial option could ultimately cause more harm than good.

The pepper spray incident remains a black eye on this university, but our administration cannot have its hands tied by past events.