I tried to avoid it. Really, I did – for as long as I could muster. There’s been a lot of melodrama and narcissism about this “Student Activism Team” that so fiendishly infringes on our First Amendment rights. I really wanted to keep my hat out of that particular ring, I did. I didn’t think many people are as self-deprecating as I can be and see that we’re hardly worth “iIinfiltrating,” but this morning I simply could hold my tongue no longer. This morning it’s not the administration’s narcissism I’m having trouble with. It’s ours.

When an organization like UC Davis pacifies a protest, peaceful or otherwise, with a secret task force or otherwise, it’s probably going to be for one of two reasons: either it recognizes the protest’s ambitions as salient and fears its people rising up against it, or it realizes the futility of the protest’s ambitions and instead has legitimate concerns about the safety of the protestors and those they’re protesting against. The first could be malevolent. The latter is actually sort of generous.

As a student body, we need to consider this distinction with respect to our own protest effort. We need to decide whether the university actually thinks we’re dangerous. Does it recognize the salience of our ambitions and seriously fear our potential as protesters and therefore feel it must infiltrate and undo us? Or is it just trying to protect the physical safety of both its staff and its students in the face of a misguided campaign?

Now, because our protest effort against the UC has been ongoing for a few years now, I suggest that in order to make this assessment in earnest and determine whether we’re a legitimate threat or simply a liability, we need to look at our measurable successes as an opposition movement. Have we kept tuition from increasing multiple times to the tune of over 32 percent? No. Have we ensured that UC campuses will accept Californians at the same rate they have for the past decade? No. Have our sit-ins and walk-arounds and microphones-on-the-quad protected the employment of any of our beloved professors and staff? No. Is it even possible to pin the fiscal irresponsibility of the UC system on a group of individuals small enough to hold accountable this late in the game? I argue probably not.

I’d go so far as to say we’ve achieved zero of our objectives as student protesters so far.

Successful protest movements can be defined by their ability to incite change. In this capacity, we’ve come up remarkably short. I know Girl Scouts who’ve done more for their cause by selling a few boxes of cookies than we have “Pprotesting.” In our defense, samoas are bomb.

So if we’ve been a demonstrative failure by almost every metric of success, what does our administration need to pacify so badly that it must turn to secrecy and infiltration?

I’d like to propose an alternate but equally plausible reality about why our administration found an initially secret Student Activism Team necessary: they think we’re a joke. They don’t think we’re even capable of managing a peaceful protest without forgetting our stated objectives and doing something rash either to UC Davis personnel or to each other. They think we’re all bark and no bite, like a blind dog. In this vein, there is no motive to infiltrate, only motive to make sure our efforts don’t go so awry that someone gets hurt, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s what our public funds are meant for. They even tried to be nice about it and keep it to themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather they fear our unity, because I feel the worst part of all this is that we made the Student Activism Team so. We protested so poorly, achieved so little, that our administration decided it had to babysit us instead.

So stop being so melodramatic. This whole thing is self-indulgent. I’m sorry, but we have failed to make our protest important enough to provoke a secret task force to take us over from the inside. We could have, and I would’ve been there with bells on. I believe our cause is one of the most important policy reform concepts in California. I believe it deserves either a protest force that will stop at nothing that would provoke such an insidious plot, or it needs students forging meaningful relationships with our administration and becoming instrumental in the real decision -making on this campus. Because if we can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Does the Student Activism Team seem like a shady method of handling our protest efforts on campus? Sure. Is there clearly an incompatible public and private vision for our university as Professor Clover argues? Without doubt. Are our campus protests really so effective that they incite administrative conspiracy? Check out your tuition bills or for faculty, your salary checks, and ask yourself if we’ve accomplished enough for all that trouble.

No, JOSH ROTTMAN is not Spartacus. However, immediately upon standing up, he became the real Slim Shady, and can therefore be reached at jjrottman@ucdavis.edu.

Editor’s note: This column may contain spoilers from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
“The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen 19 years. All was well.” Cue tears. Cue hearts dropping. Cue the end of an era.

Our generation has been fortunate enough to witness and experience dramatic transformations in the modern world. Some will feature as catalysts of change in our children’s history books, and others will be remembered as revolutionary, but obsolete, advances in technology.

When we were in elementary school, we started reading. When we were in middle school, we were completely hooked. And when he finished growing up, so did we.

One thing that sets our generation apart, that makes us different from anyone who came before or who will come after, is Harry Potter. Now, before you roll your eyes and grumble: “Great. Here’s another wizard freak,” think about how many people you’ve seen reading a Potter book. How many people you saw standing in line at Barnes & Noble wearing bathrobes and strange hats.

I hope you said hi, because that was me. That was the person sitting next to you in lecture. And your high school English teacher.

Call me Exaggeration Ernie, but I don’t think you can deny that a lot of people would give Harry Potter a Facebook thumbs up. And I would say they don’t just like Rowling’s work – they believe in it.

On October 19, 2007, I came to see just how much faith surrounds Harry. After writing 200 words about why Rowling’s books inspired me and paying 30 cents for postage, I stood face to face with the woman herself. Besides having a little panic attack, I managed to take in the vastness of the experience. The room was filled with 2,500 fans, each of us completely aware that there truly was no place we would rather be. The aura of appreciation in that room was incomparable.

With 10 years of work, seven books and 4,176 pages, J.K. Rowling gave people across the world something to believe in. She gave the founders of mugglenet.com a network to jumpstart their careers. She inspired two brothers to harness their love for music and create “Harry and the Potters,” the first Wizard Rock band in history.

But Rowling isn’t the only one who is causing and has caused this eruption of creativity and expression among readers.

Janeites: devotees to the work of Jane Austen. Twi-Hards: those who find themselves obsessed with sparkling beings.

As easy it is to scoff at Twilight fans, it isn’t our job to criticize what sources of inspiration other people are drawn to. It is our job to understand why someone would fly to Orlando just to have some butterbeer. Why your sister feels like the world is fuzzy without her Kindle.

Just because someone hasn’t read The Fountainhead or Great Expectations, doesn’t mean they don’t get the same jitters you do when you open your favorite book. Books are friends, not subjects of stigma and judgment.

Maybe you hate J.K. Rowling for being one of the richest women in the world. Maybe you think this whole Potter business is just a bunch of useless hype. After all, they’re “just” books.

And maybe for you they are. But before you rant about why you despise the kid with the scar, think about your favorite book. Recall the first time you watched “Reading Rainbow” and felt like you were sitting on a rainbow of knowledge (Thanks, LeVar). Then relive the oh-so-familiar “Ah, ha!” moment when you realized your favorite movie was based on a book.

We believe in books. We know that it only takes one book to change the lives of millions of people – to inspire the hearts and minds of a generation, because we’ve experienced it.

Even if you haven’t picked up a book “for fun” since you were twelve, you believe in books, or at least you should, because expressing belief doesn’t just mean sharing your passions. It means supporting what others believe, and standing up for their greatness.

If your younger brother would rather stay at home and read The Chronicles of Narnia than go laser-tagging, let the little guy read. Even if you have no desire to open the wardrobe, you can still believe in books for him.

I can only hope that everyone will find that one book (or seven) that truly makes the difference for them. There is nothing quite like knowing your bookshelf houses a world of adventures, just waiting for you to step in when you need it most. When that day comes, you, like some wizard-rockers, will come to see that yes, “It’s only a story, but for so many it’s more than that. It’s a world, all on its own where we want to put on the sorting hat.”

MAYA MAKKER imagines that there’s some sort of metaphorical sorting hat in every book. Allegedly. Support the house elf cause via mgmakker@ucdavis.edu. They have beliefs too.

Rob Olson’s April 5 column “The Israel Question” touched on some interesting points. Yes, dialogue and context is necessary in any situation. Yes, both Palestinians and Israelis have their faults. But there are certain facts that can not and should not just be pushed under the rug. College students may be liberal thinkers, but giving gays and women rights does not cover up the fact that Israelis are stealing land from those who were there before them and putting Palestinians through the humiliation and torture of check points, arrests, and limited rights. College students should be discussing how the world has allowed Israel to carry on in such a manner. Why does the U.S. send over $8.2 million dollars of military aid per day to Israel when right in our backyard, education at all levels is suffering and we have yet to recover from the housing crisis? We should be discussing how the world’s hegemonic power, that which prides itself on equality, liberty, and freedom for all, can support a nation that segregates people based on race, down to the license plates on the cars and the roads they can travel on. Israel puts on a good front, but their true intentions are to continue building scattered and expanding settlements, despite the United Nations condemning them, making the goal of a Palestinian state ever more difficult to reach.

LYLA RAYYAN

Junior, International Relations

Tipsy Taxi credit due

While we appreciate having our efforts regarding Tipsy Taxi service improvements recognized in coverage by the newspaper, we feel that the editorial board might have given us too much credit. The real heroes in the Tipsy Taxi Thursday service expansion were Sabastian Belser, an undergraduate student who serves as the director of STS Tipsy Taxi, and Geoff Straw, the director of Unitrans. Both deserve the lion’s share of credit for formulating and implementing Thursday service in a manner that ensures student funds are used wisely.

ASUCD President Adam Thongsavat was also directly involved with planning the proposal. We hope that this statement will provide the three of them with the recognition they most certainly deserve.

As ASUCD senators, we have found time and time again that success happens because of team effort. We would like the UC Davis community to know that Sabastian, Geoff and Adam were part of that team, and that it was, and continues to be, a privilege working with them.

Sincerely,

ANDRE LEE

ASUCD Senator

MATT PROVENCHER

ASUCD Senator

Putting your children to bed with stories about what you could have been and what kinds of opportunities you missed earlier in your lifetime is terrible. Too often people are paralyzed by fear of failure or inadequacy and find themselves painted over with regret later in their lives. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “Our lives are defined by opportunities. Even the ones we miss.”

This rings true for just about anything and everything, but I am not talking about opportunities like impulse buys. Those are coin flips for disaster – – trusttrust me. I spent five minutes in Fry’s Electronics just looking to browse and came out with a Playstation 3 that I hardly ever use. Smart buy, Larry! No, I’m talking about things that could matter in the long run, such as activities or even relationships that possibly interest you. You know, things that can make you happy.

I first adopted some of this mentality last spring. Now, I’ve never thought of myself as a fitness god, let alone a runner. Sure, I did some short leisure jogs in South Davis and a few workouts at the ARC every other week. Otherwise, I lived a mostly sedentary lifestyle up until one sunny Wednesday. That faithful day, my friend Stephanie invited me to join her on one of her “trite” five-mile jogs. I learned what five miles really meant to my feet.

“Fuck that,” I initially thought to myself. My mind was plagued with questions of failure, like “What if I can’t last?” or “What happens if I die?!” But I had never done anything like this before, so I threw away my inhibitions and ran on a whim. What was left afterward was a sore, teary-eyed Larry with some of the worst blisters on his feet, but he had no regrets. In fact, he wanted more.

Perhaps my pride was hurt from putting up such a poor performance, but that following weekend I waltzed into a running shoe store without a second thought. I walked out a little over $100 poorer, but had obtained a fine pair of silver Brooks.

After a couple of runs, I was hooked. I found that I really did enjoy running and haven’t looked back since. I eventually found myself sore and spent again – only this time, I had just run my firstthe Davisville Moo-nlight half marathon and had the best macaroni and cheese ever to nourish myself.

Don’t go on cowering underneath that big ol’ safety blanket of yours when it comes to good opportunities that could potentially prove fun and worthwhile. It simply isn’t worth it. If you do, you may find yourself unhappy and plagued with regret.

Regret can be a pretty big burden. Truly. A study at Columbia University found that feelings of regret often increase over time for most people who decided to pass up opportunities for fun. They sampled college students (that’s most of you) and found that many of them expressed more regret for inactions seeded in the distant past than the recent ones.

Don’t be the one wondering “What if?” and day dreaming about what could have been down the line. We’ve all been down that road, and we should all know that it goes nowhere. Get the answers for yourself and you should be in for a jolly good time.

A friend of mine once told me, “Just know what you want.” If you want it bad enough, take the dive. Jump in with your feet first and eyes closed. Should you experience failure as you initially feared, you can’t say you never tried it, and that is a feat in itself. It would sting only momentarily. Life barrels on, so live a little and give it your best.

LARRY HINH has missed some big opportunities for sweet things. Don’t miss yours, and let him know if you succeed at lthinh@ucdavis.edu.

Those who know, have played for or have consistently been around Gary Stewart are aware that the UC Davis men’s basketball program lost a tremendous asset last week when he stepped down from his role as head coach.

I had the privilege of playing my Aggie career under coach Stewart – an invaluable experience that taught me much more than the fundamentals of basketball. In an era where college athletics, and more specifically college coaching, has become a greasy business, coach Stewart conducted his program in a disciplined and principled fashion, with the goal of developing his student-athletes into well-rounded individuals. He no doubt practiced what he preached, and demanded the same consistency and attention to detail from his players that he expected from himself and his staff. And it was his quest for perfection or the elusive “Magical level” that so often had his team performing on the court and in the classroom at levels that had previously seemed unattainable to them. In short, in terms of leading an institution through the arduous four-year transition to Division I, coach Stewart was the ideal leader and coach for the challenge.

To call coach Stewart’s practices laborious may have been, at times, an understatement. Our Aggie regimen included 4:45 a.m. wake-up calls, limitless one-on-one full-court battles, gym-to-track-to-pool-to-weight-room workouts before the sun woke up, never-ending IBA drills and championship sprints, stance with bricks, slides with bricks, sprints with bricks, the swimming pool with medicine balls, sprints on the track with medicine balls, Social Science building climbs with medicine balls and nightly study hall (with no bricks or medicine balls, thank goodness). Coach Stewart was instilling in us a blue-collared and team-first mentality that would serve us well as we made the leap from Division II to Division I competition. No longer the Goliath of Division II and the CCAA, our margin for error had become slimmer than Robert Ehsan’s waist and my vertical leap. It was this coach Stewart-esque approach by our team bond that would aide us through times of adversity. His principles had infected our team and this approach paid dividends for us during our institution’s inaugural Division I basketball schedule.

More importantly than preparing us for our future on-court challenges, coach Stewart, with his demanding agenda and classic, “It’s not going to be that easy in Logan, Utah,” or, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” one-liners, was indirectly teaching us how to excel as young men. Excuses were not tolerated, mediocre efforts were reprimanded and selfish acts were punished. With coach Stewart, we grew up quickly and learned to become accountable contributors, both on the court and in the community. He stressed the importance of preparation with lines that Aggie alumni can today replay without thought. One of my personal favorites: “You can’t be a quarter-mile horse in a mile race.” Admittedly, I often took these words of wisdom for granted, and construed them as simply his daily rhetoric. However, today, these words resonate with me deeply and are often replayed in my head when I least expect to hear them.

See, for coach Stewart, the process of preparation was the essential ingredient to being successful. X and Y was not just about practicing our jumpers or perfecting our passes-and-catches during three-on-two drills. X and Y was a product of our mindset and our approach to life. If we coasted during a drill or took a play off during a practice, chances were high that we would coast in a political science course, or skip a lecture. If laziness settled in on a routine box out, chances were high that laziness would have settled in during a final exam. We were being molded into sound basketball players, but more importantly and unbeknownst to us at the time, we were learning to be fundamentally sound human beings.

With coach Stewart at the helm, the UC Davis basketball program played and carried itself in a manner that was a direct reflection of its head coach. The Aggies were tough and hard-working – similar to past programs, which had been established and carried out by previous Aggie coaching legends – most notably coach Hamilton and coach Williams. Coach Stewart, with the help of his tireless staff – coaches Nosek, Dubois, Lamanna, Clink, Laird and Kouba, among others – had placed a premium on selflessness and teamwork. A set of “best practices” had been instituted, and these attributes truly characterized what it meant to wear white, blue and gold on game day. And it was these guiding characteristics that ultimately paved the way to a strong CCAA finish, an upset win over Riverside on the road for the program’s first Big West victory, the defeat of The Cardinal, wins over every Big West program and a game at Cameron Indoor on national television, among many others.

So as I walked off Hamilton Court, with fellow seniors and co-captains Thomas Julleriat and Rommel Merentez, after we had wore down Bobby Brown, Frank Robinson, Scott Cutley, and the rest of the Fullerton Titans on Senior Night, 2007, I quickly reflected on our four years together with coach Stewart. Relief set in as I realized we would never have to execute another championship sprint, make another down-and-back under 10 seconds, sit in a 30-second “Carlyle Position” or hold another brick or medicine ball at the break of dawn or on the court.

Subsequently, sadness hit me as I realized that we had reached the end of something special. I was going to miss coach Stewart’s memorable one-liners, and “circles” and corresponding hugs at the outset of practice. Then satisfaction and a smile crept over me as I realized that our team had together reached the elusive “magical level” and had spent the last four years learning the invaluable lessons of life from coach Stewart. And finally it hit me – we were the mile horses and had just spent the last four years of rigorously preparing for the “mile race” that was life after college basketball.

For that, and many other reasons, thank you coach Stewart, and go Ags!

A recent Public Records Act request revealed a formalized Student Activism Team (SAT), a group of UC Davis administrators in charge of monitoring campus protests.

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything inherently wrong with this. An official group with the task of ensuring student safety during protests actually seems beneficial. Given the attempt to block Interstate 80 last spring, it’s understandable that the administration wants to keep a closer eye on campus action.

What is puzzling, however, is the group organizers failed to acknowledge the existence of the team, that is, until students requested documents bringing it to light. Team organizer Griselda Castro, assistant vice chancellor of Student Affairs, said that the reason members of the administration didn’t go public is because the team’s protocol and name weren’t finalized yet.

This is shady and the excuse doesn’t make it any less so. Regardless of the finalized protocol and name, the team was already present at protests all year. If they had just been open from the beginning, such a vehement reaction would have been less justified.

Then there was the problem with UC Davis police officer Joanne Zekany. Dressed in plain clothes, Zekany joined a group of protesters on the March 2 Day of Action and lied about her identity. Vice Chancellor of Administrative and Resource Management John Meyer, who is in charge of communicating with the police, called Zekany’s actions a misjudgment and regretted that it happened – as he should. Police should be adequately trained on SAT’s protocol before getting involved in protests. To Meyer’s credit, he said that it won’t happen again and that police and team members will wear nametags in the future.

Regardless of the team’s poor implementation, the public outrage is not entirely merited. It’s understandable that one’s spirit would be dampened with the knowledge that they are being monitored, but any public action is just that – public. When you paper the campus or post an event on Facebook, anybody can access it, including administrators. You can’t have an expectation of privacy in public. You can’t exclude people from action. That goes against the message of a public university.

Also, the point of a protest is to garner attention and if nobody shows up, the protest is pointless. Along the same lines, it would be more disconcerting if administrators didn’t show up because it would seem as if they don’t even care.

The situation would be different if we learned administrators were trying to infiltrate private meetings or if they were hacking into student e-mail accounts. This would be a direct violation of students’ rights to privacy and free speech and should not be tolerated. However, this invasion doesn’t seem to be happening, and we need to acknowledge the difference between private and public spaces.

It seems like a lot of these problems could have been solved easily – the administration could have trained the police, the team could have worn nametags and they could have publicized their existence. Unfortunately, their failure to do so led to student concern and outrage.