A new season is about to begin and hope springs eternal. The familiar stalwarts from yesteryear are gone, and its time to evaluate the fresh crop of hopefuls. Yes, the ballot season is upon us, and it’s time to break out the voter information guides.

A number of significant initiatives will appear on the June 8th ballot, breaching complex issues that require deep analysis and difficult choices. There are, however, some that are merely written in an effort to confuse voters and are proposed to protect narrow interests. Proposition 16 seems to fall into the latter category.

Called “New Two-Thirds Requirement for Local Public Electricity Providers Act,” Prop 16 will make local districts obtain a two-thirds vote before setting up their own electricity utilities. Currently, the governor-appointed California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) can make this decision without public approval. On the surface it may sound like a good deal for the people of California by giving greater freedom to choose our own energy provider. Unfortunately, the intent of this law and its inevitable impact will be just the opposite.

Due to the technical challenges of supplying energy to a large population, it is necessary that each district be controlled and serviced by a single monopoly. In the case of most California districts the monopoly is a privately operated but publicly regulated utility: Pacific Gas and Electric Company. CPUC attempts to control costs and ensure that everyone in a district has access to energy, but inefficiency, waste and high prices are still the norm.

What districts can do to get around the abuses of PG&E is to create their own publicly operated energy utility, or at least threaten to do so. Local California governments can decide to enter a Community Choice Aggregation Program (CCA), and effectively set up their own energy provider. While this by no means ensures better service, efficient energy use, or lower prices, it does create a competitor for PG&E. This choice could give both organizations a reason to improve. This isn’t a case where there is a clear-cut “good” option. The choice is basically to pick from two monopolies, one run by the government and one that is quasi-governmental in nature.

Prop 16 was crafted to basically stop local governments from leaving PG&E. Since most districts already use PG&E, any future change would require a two-thirds vote from a local population to change. PG&E claims that this will prevent local governments from abusing the voters and will stop them from taking risks with people’s money. This reasoning is pretty flimsy given that setting up public utilities does not require an increase in taxes, and the system will work like the one already in place. You will simply pay for the energy that you use at whatever rate the company or government agency dictates. A two-thirds vote is extremely difficult to attain, and it would virtually lock in PG&E’s monopoly.

It is no wonder that Prop 16 was crafted and funded by PG&E, and that the company has poured tens of millions of dollars into a massive ad campaign. It’s in PG&E’s interest to solidify their monopoly to ensure that they never have competition. Wording the proposition in order to make it sound like they want to give voters more of a choice is a deception. PG&E wants to write its monopoly into our state’s constitution and disguise itself as a protector of citizen choice.

Had there been a true free-market solution to the problem of electric utilities then Prop 16 would have validity, as injecting large government run monopolies could run better, privately owned companies out of business. Given that Prop 16 essentially protects a single company’s monopoly gives no real advantage to California citizens. The fact that PG&E has pushed so aggressively and has expended such great resources to this effort with little opposition should be a clear warning sign.

California citizens have to decide whether or not they are willing to let one company solidify its control by essentially signing a monopoly into law. Government-run energy utilities won’t necessarily be any better, but at least we can fire the managers.

JARRETT STEPMAN doesn’t want to give a single company constitutional protection of its monopoly. You can send him your comments at jstepman@ucdavis.edu.

Alice, the girl I had a crush on for two years, was the first one out of all of us to do weed in high school. Five years later, we’re at McDonalds – somewhere she only agreed to go to because it was Filet-O-Fish Friday – and she’s telling us about ayahuasca, a root drug she took during her trip to Peru last fall.

“The shaman put a bowl in front of me,” she said, “because a lot of people who take it for the first time vomit and have diarrhea.”

When she took it, the shamans were motioning as if they were sucking in and spitting out snakes from her head with a straw. Though Alice’s friend was laughing the whole time, she said she didn’t hallucinate. Alice asked her afterward why she was laughing. She said it was because Alice was pointing to her head the whole time, yelling “Serpiente!”

Apparently, ayahuasca is a drug a lot of foreigners use to overcome heroin addictions or clinical depression.

“It forces you to confront parts of yourself that you don’t want to face in your every day life,” Alice said.

As she tells me, I keep my eyes fixed on her, hoping to catch something no one else sitting around the table would pay attention to. I’m hoping for her to slip something in that only I notice.

In the same way I doubted her political sincerity during her vegetarian phase in high school, I’m trying to figure out how genuine she is – or if she’s just another cultural capitalist looking for an exotic experience overseas. It’s kind of like how my high school friends doubt if I actually am queer as I say or if I just want attention.

When Alice took ayahuasca, she said there were inky figures that came out of the back of her head. She told her sister, who said not to try it again because they could be real spirits. The pastor’s wife at their Korean church in Diamond Bar used to say she saw demons in the corner of rooms or sliding down from the ceiling. When people asked her what they looked like, she said they looked like ink.

I wonder what those inky figures would become if they’d leaked out of my brainstem or through a hole in my ear instead of Alice’s, taking the form of images and memories I try to forget so I can get through the day.

Perhaps one would become my childhood neighbors who jumped over the fence while my family was at church. They reached in the fountain to crush the goldfish with their hands.

Once I heard my mother screaming in the backyard, I rushed out to see if she was okay. It turns out she was screaming because the spout of her watering pot was clogged with dead goldfish.

Perhaps another would become the girl whose heart I broke, because for nine months, I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t have feelings for her without lying. She was crying in the passenger seat of my car when I said I was sorry she had so much love to give and nowhere to put it. I was sorry I wasn’t big enough to take it all.

One of the active ingredients in ayahuasca is DMT. It’s called the dream drug, because your brain produces small amounts of DMT when you’re dreaming. But only in birth and death does your brain release large amounts. That’s why people describe their experiences on ayahuasca as a death and rebirth experience.

I hadn’t taken hallucinogens in a long time since I quit after a string of bad trips. The last time was when I smoked weed at a friend’s apartment. She was crying because she said there was so much beauty in the world she couldn’t handle it. She said if she could have any wish, she would take all the sufferings of the world on herself.

After a few hits, I thought for a moment that Jesus had come down to me in the form of a bisexual Indian girl from Fresno that I was smoking with.

“You’d probably die,” I said.

“Yeah, I think I would.” She smirked.

These days, I kneel down beside my bed at night like the cartoon illustrations of good Christian boys I’d grown up seeing during Sunday School. The lights are off. It’s so dark that even the walls and the windows look covered with ink. The book of Psalms is in front of me. Though I can barely read it, I imagine this is how dark it is beneath the shadow of His wings.

I pray because I think Jesus actually could bring the dead to life.

GEOFF MAK hopes the Easter Bunny will make a revival in Davis this Sunday. The day he was declared kitsch was a sad day indeed. E-mail him at gemak@ucdavis.edu if you think economic incentive to legalize opium in Marja and weed in California is justified.

I feel like I forgot how to write. I think it’s because I’m no longer chilling out next to the newspaper crease, which is making me feel out of my element.

I spent most of this break dazed and confused in San Luis Obispo as I ate bomber sandwiches from Gus’s, flew green kites and drank shitty Barefoot wine. Aside from that – and running around in my underwear at The Pirate Cove nude beach – there wasn’t much going on. Actually, my friend Loaf and I got buried in the sand. Which, for those of you who haven’t been buried in the sand, makes you feel like your heart is about to explode.

Or maybe I’ve been dazed and confused because I had an experimental run-in with chewing tobacco – or “dip,” as they call it. I tried it two Saturdays ago, on the day I had to write my final paper for Philosophy 178 (which was worth 100 percent of my grade – a lot of pressure, obviously). And I have to admit, the experience was pretty ethereal.

It was borne out of my desire to finish my paper with some flair. Flair is synonymous with Nicotine in most parts of the South, so I threw caution to the wind and took a ride down Nicotine lane. What better chemical than Nicotine to help me finish my paper? Nicotine is one of America’s favorite drugs – aside from caffeine (which is still a drug, people) – and it comes in a tiny, tubular (gnarly, brah!) receptacle called a cigarette.

But I didn’t care for cigarettes. I wanted something foul to stick in my mouth. So I opted for chewing tobacco – Copenhagen pouches, to be exact. They look like little mini bags of shit. Literally. And it smells like a rotting vagina. What does rotting vagina smell like? Good question. Take the original smell of vagina, which is a potent combo of sour milk and wet pennies, and then have it rot in a bag so people can gently nestle into their fat, lower lips.

I was debating between “Copenhagen” and the “Grizzly” brand of chewing tobacco. But then I realized I didn’t drive a massive Ford truck with rusted barrels in the trunk and a bumper sticker that says, “Welcome to America – Now Speak English” next to another that reads, “Bomb their ass and take their gas” and a picture of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes praying to Christ, our Lord and Savior. (I must say I love the quaint juxtaposition between the slaughtering of innocent children and Christ. It always makes me feel warm.) Oh – and it would also have a fading bumper sticker on the back window that barely reads, “Impeach Clinton.”

In the end, it’s all about speed. We need more, we need it now and we can’t stop. Fuck yeah. Give us a shit load of caffeine, soda, cigarettes, cocaine, adderall or whatever fucking thing that launches us into the stratosphere so we can get loaded enough to finish our shit just in time to watch Simon Cowell browbeat attractive singers in his massively deep V-neck muscle shirt.

Putting the Copenhagen pouch in my mouth felt odd, however, dare I say slightly satisfying. The tight pressure against my bottom lip coupled with the tickle on my bottom gums was beyond compare.

But for every high, there is most definitely an equally shitty low. The juice from the bag of rotting vagina was slowly making its way down my throat despite my furious attempts to eject the slime from my body. It felt like I was drinking the most nasty-ass tequila this side of the Mexican border. I was spitting like a mad man into a stray old red cup that was lying on the ping pong table at my friend’s house that had rotting beer in it (or, in actuality, more fermented beer).

Alas, my furious spitting did not help the situation … I was on a fucking cloud. I started floating away as I read the incoherent writing on my Macbook. It was all a dream now. Ice cold sweat started to run down my forehead and (oddly enough) I felt like I had to take a shit – not the best feelings to combine, in my opinion.

The feeling was so heavy that I had to lie prone on the couch until I could get out of my stupor. I was floating through molasses and there wasn’t a dern thing I could do to stop it.

I ended up getting an A on the paper.

DAVE KARIMI has been playing Pokémon Soul Silver all break. He is now trying to beat the Elite 4, but Lance is being a stubborn bitch right now. How is it fair that you can use a full restore on a fucking Dragonite during battle? Shoot him an e-mail at dkarimi@ucdavis.edu to vent about your Pokémon struggles.

When I was in elementary school, this was this time of year when my Jewishness was most obvious. For eight days, instead of enjoying my usual peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread, I’d eat it on matza – the cracker-like substance I loathe to term “Bread of Affliction.”

By the end of lunch recess, my shirt and pants were inevitably covered with crumbs. I had also often explained – to those who didn’t know already – that yes, I’m Jewish, and I was eating matza because it was Passover.

I’d always lament the coming of Passover. Not only did it mean that I’d have to eat matza (which I don’t particularly enjoy) and explain to my gentile friends the purpose of the holiday and its prohibition of eating leavened bread, but also that I’d be discernibly different from my friends. Thankfully, nothing bad ever happened to me because I was a Jew, but what fourth-grader doesn’t have trouble embracing whatever makes them different? I certainly did. I wanted to be perceived as normal, like everybody else.

As college students, older and wiser, we appreciate what makes us different more than we did in elementary school. However, I can understand why some Jewish students at UC Davis might not be so excited to observe Passover this year.

With six swastikas found on campus since this academic year began – five within the last month or so, the most recent carved into a hallway bulletin board in the Kearney Residence Hall – it’s hard for a Jew to be totally without concern.

Not to avoid playing Devil’s Advocate, but there’s some truth to the notion that since some of those swastikas were backwards, they could just be Hindu or Buddhist religious symbols. Indeed, a swastika with arms broken in a counterclockwise direction differs from the one adopted by Hitler and the Nazis. Both the counterclockwise and the clockwise swastikas have special significance among a number of Far Eastern religions and spiritual movements.

Let’s be honest, though – this is not the Far East. Just as we generally associate a burning cross with the Ku Klux Klan rather than with historical Scotland’s Crann Tara, or “fiery cross,” we associate a swastika, clockwise or not, with Nazism and anti-Semitism. So let’s assume that whoever perpetrated such vandalism wanted to carve or spray-paint a Nazi swastika, shall we?

Now, not to be alarmist, but what’s to stop these swastikas’ perpetrator(s) from doing something to a Jewish student who munches on some matza between classes or asks for it at the DC from now to Passover’s end next Tuesday evening? Any reluctance to publicly – what with the crumbs and everything – eat matza is rather understandable. As is a queer student’s hesitancy to publicly visit the LGBT Resource Center, itself a recent target of vandalism and hatred.

So what’s to stop it? Eating matza.

A post-World War II story tells of Danish King Christian X’s willingness to don a yellow Star of David should the Nazis force Denmark’s Jews to wear it. Though apocryphal, the legend speaks volumes about the Danes’ factual commitment to not stand idly in the face of injustice. They might not have protested, tried to block freeways or pulled fire alarms, but they’d have helped the would-be targeted victims of cruelty seem just a bit more like everybody else.

This week, we can do the same. Between now and next Tuesday evening, all of us – Jews and gentiles alike – can eat matza loudly (it’s a bit crunchy) and proudly. Besides, the crumbs aren’t so bad when it’s not just you.

In California one of our most prized democratic principles is keeping government proceedings open and transparent. A loophole in the law, however, means groups like the ASUCD Senate don’t have to obey the state’s open meeting rules.

Virtually every other government agency – city councils, county boards of supervisors, local school district boards of trustees, both houses of the state legislature, the UC Regents, etc. – is required by law to keep their meetings open and public by posting agendas in advance, accepting public comment and maintaining public records. Even community college student associations and California State University student governments must comply with these rules, yet student governments in the UC system aren’t covered.

There are no laws or legal precedents that require the meetings of student governments such as ASUCD, ASUC at UC Berkeley and ASUCLA at UCLA, for example, to be open. This means these groups, which collect fees from students and redistribute them to public programs, can meet secretly and hide their decision-making processes from the public they are supposed to be serving.

This became a real problem at UC Santa Barbara earlier this year, after student government officials used student money to fund an off-campus retreat. The property owner alleged that the villa they rented was left with thousands of dollars of damage. The UCSB Associated Students Legislative Council held a series of secret meetings to determine how to respond, leaving their constituents in the dark.

Situations like these are rare. At UC Davis student government officials have committed themselves to openness and transparency. Meetings are regularly held at the same time and location. Information is freely available for anyone who makes the trip up to the Student Government Administrative Office on the third floor of the Memorial Union. The ASUCD webmaster this year has posted more documents and up-to-date information online than ever before.

Nonetheless, it only makes sense to apply the rules to everyone. If the ASUCD Senate were subject to the same rules as every other decision-making government agency in California, they would be required to finalize and post their meeting agenda three days in advance of the actual meeting, something they don’t currently do. They would also be subject to strict rules on closed meetings and on what qualifies as an “emergency” or urgent piece of business. These changes would benefit everyone.

There are a number of ways this situation can be resolved. The legislature could pass a bill explicitly extending the open meeting regulations to UC student governments, or the state attorney general could issue an opinion saying that existing laws already apply to UC student governments. Whatever the avenue of action, this gaping loophole must be closed.

A $1.79 million reduction to the UC Davis Intercollegiate Athletics Department could result in the removal of up to nine teams from the 2010-2011 budget.

While it’s unfortunate fewer opportunities will be available for student-athletes, the decision to cut teams is the only solution given the present budget situation.

UC Davis has always offered a broad-based sports program – one focused on adding teams, not removing them. It was difficult enough, however, for ICA to use its approximately $20 million budget this year to provide sufficient funding for each of its 27 sports. This reduction simply makes it impossible.

UC Davis will remain a broad-based program, even if it removes multiple teams.

Take the rest of the Big West Conference as an example. The Big West sponsors 18 teams for conference play, with the nine schools in the league offering an average of 18.4 ICA sports.

Hypothetically, if UC Davis cuts six teams, it would still have more sports than any other school in the Big West. Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara have the second-most offerings with 20 sports; UC Riverside, meanwhile, provides the least at 15. Given this economy, it’s financially irresponsible to try to field 27 teams.

It’s also unfair to let this situation drag on any further. High schoolers are currently being recruited to play sports at UC Davis that may not exist next year. Current student-athletes are left in limbo, stuck somewhere between hoping their sport isn’t cut and considering schools to potentially transfer to if it were.

If UC Davis is going to remove teams, ICA needs to announce which sports will be cut as soon as possible. It’s only fair to those this difficult transition will affect most.