Last week the University of California Board of Regents voted 19-2 to cut this fall’s freshman enrollment by 2,300 students, a move that will likely be as ineffective as it is unfair.

The decision will make it more difficult for 2,300 of today’s high school seniors to get into a campus of their choice in an already record-breaking admissions year. More students will be deferred to UC Merced, even without applying there, apparently in hope that they will decline the offer and go outside the UC system.

Pushing out these 2,300 students will save the UC system $20 million next year – a paltry 0.1 percent of the $19 billion budget.

The savings amounts to merely a drop in the bucket of the overall budget but will drastically change the lives of 2,300 students who’ve worked hard to get into an established UC campus like so many before them. With the California State University system experiencing even more dramatic cuts, these students are ending up with fewer and fewer options through no fault of their own.

While the regents‘ decision was unfortunate, the fault ultimately lies with the California state government – both past and present. California politicians have shown over the last 20 years that they don’t consider higher education a priority, despite their ostentatious displays of outrage during campaign cycles. Since 1990, state spending per student, adjusted for inflation, has fallen by 40 percent. This is unacceptable in a state that just one generation earlier promised its people a world class, tuition-free education in the 1960 Master Plan for California Higher Education.

State spending on education – especially higher education – is an investment in the future. An investment that so far in California has seen initial returns such as a booming entrepreneurial sector and cutting edge advances in research, not to mention the Silicon Valley to a large extent. Furthermore, there are currently around 1.5 million living UC alumni, 75 percent of whom reside and pay taxes in California.

When the state shirks its commitment to educate its people, it does so at its own peril. California needs to reinvest in its future and keep the promise it made to its people 50 years ago.

The article “Concealed weapons at UC Davis? Looks unlikely” in the Tuesday, Jan. 20 issue of The California Aggie discussed whether or not students should be allowed to carry concealed firearms on campus.

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is a nationwide grassroots organization that promotes the idea of students being allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus because, according to their website, they can do so in other, more public places and want to be able to do so on school grounds, too. Members of the organization quoted in the article cite the school shootings across the United States as another reason for college students to be allowed this right.

Whatever the reasoning, this idea misguided.

Numerous studies have concluded that having a firearm in the home increases rather than decreases the chance of a violent incident. Surely increasing the number of firearms on a college campus would have a similar effect.

Proponents of this group note that students are allowed to have concealed weapons on select college campuses in Utah and that there have been no shooting at these schools.

While it is fantastic that there have been no incidents of gun violence in these places, this is not an indication that more guns on campus make for a safer environment. A lack of misfortune is no reason to do away with safeguards.

Furthermore, if it could be guaranteed that everyone who had a concealed weapon was a calm, reasonable individual with no intentions beyond protecting themselves, it would still be a bad idea. The fact that this cannot be guaranteed makes it an even worse idea.

It is hard to believe that students would be more at ease with the knowledge that their peers might or might not be carrying a concealed weapon.

Situations that call for self-defense should be addressed with self-defense classes. Situations like the Virginia Tech shooting should be dealt with by professionals. While a student might be as well versed in wielding a handgun as a police officer, the police officer has had extensive training on how to deal with dangerous situations … not just handling a firearm.

The arguments against adopting such a policy are extensive and the arguments in its favor are not nearly good enough.

If you were to ask me at this very moment what I think the second-cutest thing in the world is, I would tell you, straight-up, that it’s bromance.

The first, because I know y’all are wondering, is Knut the German polar bear.

Guy love is the kind of close-knit relationship between two straight dudes that just barely straddles the line between friendship and something just a little more. Guy love is patient. Guy love is kind. It is never jealous, dot dot dot, guy love never fails.

In a society where guys are ragged on by their buddies for sponging grease off their pizza, it’s refreshing to see that some are so open about their devotion. I credit the likes of Turk and JD of “Scrubs,“ who, like Crockett and Tubbs, have managed to balance the expression of their affection while still maintaining socially appropriate levels of manly dignity on TV. Except for JD, kind of.

Male bonding practically constitutes its own genre of entertainment. There are coming-of-age classics like Stand By Me and The Sandlot, tear-inducing sports flicks like Brian’s Song, and crime films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, to name a few. And we girls get stuck with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

There’s just something about a friendship between two dudes that can never quite be paralleled by chicks. Two girls telling stories before they go to sleep is nothing special, it just sounds like a scene out of a made-for-TV movie that was based on an Oprah’s Book Club pick.

Like any other relationship, the male bond is tested in bad times and strengthened in good ones. Some guys run from cops with laundry detergent containers full of beer. Some guys rob banks in Bolivia. Some guys paddle and teabag the crap out of each other. Everyone rolls differently.

Check out Exhibit A. We’ll refer to them by their stripper names: Benji Malovina and Sylvester Bateman. I had to wait an hour and a half to talk to them because they went out for coffee, which turned into an intimate dinner, which turned into grocery shopping.

Their relationship began in the dorms freshman year, so there’s a lot of brostalgia between them. They started out as study buddies whose rapport progressed from snack runs at Trudy’s to bathroom visits in the DC via the buddy system. I’d like to point out that the buddy system is ineffective if pedophiles work in pairs.

“Shitting is very important in our relationship,” says Benji. “Essentially we bonded over shitting in the DC.” Indeed, to this day they keep the bathroom door open so they can converse while the shitting commences.

From there out it was all about snowboarding in Tahoe, getting lost in the snow, ice skating in San Francisco and country drives to watch the sunset. “We go even when it rains, so we can watch the sun intermingle with the different colors. We talk about nature a lot. And politics,” Sylvester reports.

Benji and Sylvester have had one fight, on houseboats. They made up in the bathroom sharing beef jerky and spent the rest of the weekend sneaking into the bathroom to eat beef jerky so that no one would steal it.

“He’s like the malt vinegar to my salt,” Benji told me as Sylvester downed a bag of malt vinegar and salt chips.

I really don’t think it gets much more adorable than that. Questions of sexuality aside, it’s clear that these two are comfortably involved in the mysterious phenomenon that is guy love.

I must confess, I’m a bit jealous that I’ll never get to partake in this unique, delicate experience. And I’m a lot jealous that I’ll never be able to sign my name in piss, either.

MICHELLE RICK loves bromantic stories of all kinds. Send her your finest at marick@ucdavis.edu.

President Obama at times appears less a person than a phenomenon – through a unity of acuity, poise and elegance, he captivates and inspires. For all his skills, accepting the presidency of the United States is not just accepting the toughest job in the world, but the collective weight of history and the aspirations of the world all at once. And, in reality, he couldn’t have been more prepared, because Obama embodies the character and spirit of modern America.

In many ways, present-day America has increasingly been defined by numerous internal contradictions and external persuasions, with her burgeoning cultures, races, religions, products, ideas. For many, this discordance and capriciousness are overwhelming. But Obama is the perfect expression of this state. At once he transcends the resplendent mosaic of class, race and ideology. He is part Hawaiian, Indonesian, Kenyan, black, white, Harvard, inner-city Chicago. He is America’s first true postmodern president.

Yet he also thrives in America’s sometimes difficult politics not merely because of what his life narrative is – he succeeds also because of what his life narrative isn’t. In many ways, Obama is the antithesis of the qualities that characterized the last eight years – the Bush administration’s juvenile nihilism and the Congress‘ gross incompetence. For many, conditions and circumstances demanded a genuine leader. Obama was one.

In politics, the smallest details define the biggest moments. For Obama, he chose to meet his most dangerous challenges with the finest responses. When his political candidacy previously threatened to implode, he didn’t shy away from the novelty that challenge presents. Instead, reassured with remarkable courage, he delivered a speech on race in Philadelphia, now universally acclaimed for its honest, vivid examination of the complexities of racial relations. He transformed a moment that could evoke hurt and pain into leadership, not denying and abdicating responsibility but providing us all a moment for reflection and discussion.

America tomorrow is also a time when traditional political labels will matter less, displaced by common sense pragmatism and mutual resolutions. The public’s faith in the government has dramatically crumbled – in his last year Bush often had an approval rating hovering around 20 percent – thus electing a man who built his reputation as a conciliator. For many, blind subscriptions to political constructs damaged our capacity for reason and tolerance. They worried that excessive partisanship harmed the country, and, wanting to reclaim the promise and power of the American Dream, united behind Obama.

Most importantly, America appears to have regained her desire for renewal and reinvention at a moment when she is facing her greatest crisis in identity. Present-day America confronts her greatest challenges in decades – the multi-polar world, the crumbling financial system, the constitutional violation, the climate change, global terrorism. These tasks are extremely daunting.

So, when America’s status is in deep peril, when the world no longer views America in the same way, when America’s promise has been distorted and her ideals besmirched, Americans collectively chose action over inaction, electing Obama and, by implication, dismissing the endless political gridlock and Boomer-Vietnam-60s infatuation. In record numbers, Americans turned out to elect a candidate who is post-Boomer, post-civil rights, post-Vietnam. They wanted an America premised not on the past, but on the future. This is modern America.

At a time when the qualities and reality of modern-day America appears confused, fraught, fragmented, divergent, Americans decided to unite and save our nation. They engaged actively, and, in the end, channeled their hopes and worked to elect our new president – President Barack Obama.

ZACH HAN is watching the inauguration replays, and will share some with you from zklhan@ucdavis.edu.

As most of you are college students, by now you’ve probably all had the “drug conversation” with your friends. This stimulating discussion usually starts off when one of your friends just tried shrooms and won’t shut up about it. After he pontificates about how his whimsical journey with the drug made him a better person, the discussion digresses towards drugs-taking in general. Some conclude that they must try a hard drug at one point in their lives – others vow never to do so. Eventually, an interesting point is brought up: Is it bad to receive happiness solely from a drug?

In my opinion, this question isn’t only fun to ponder – it might determine the future of humanity! Consider the following hypothetical: some hippie scientist invents a drug that would, indefinitely, put you into a vegetative state, but the tradeoff is an infinite supply of happiness and pleasure. If people decide they would be better off on this drug, chaos will ensue.

I might be getting carried away; surely there will be people who would refuse the drug. People aren’t selfish; they wouldn’t want to hurt their loved ones by turning into a smiling vegetable. Let’s make things more interesting then. Imagine the drug only changed your preferences around, making you receive great amounts of happiness for easily attainable goals. For example, baking a cake now gives you an orgasmic feeling and taking a shower feels like winning the lottery. This drug would be changing your utility function.

For those of you who haven’t heard of this gem of a concept, it means this: a function that inputs world events and outputs “utils” or i.e. a unit of satisfaction/happiness. There are certain world events that correspond to a quantity of personal happiness; a utility function models this relationship. For example, eating an apple corresponds to some measure of utility (read: happiness). This drug would mess with your utility function in a way that would make it a lot easier for you to optimize your utility. No longer will you care about getting married and having a family; that’s too hard. Instead you’ll be baking cakes and taking showers for the rest of your life (voluntarily of course). Would you take the drug?

We are utility maximizers; we want to attain as much happiness as we can. One subtle detail about our utility function is that we receive negative utility for knowingly deciding to change our utility function to a new one that conflicts with the old one. Our utility function can and does change over time; however, we won’t want to choose to change it. Imagine I gave you a pill that would make you want to hate your family. An additional stipulation: Hating your family will give you a lot more utility than the utility you currently get from loving your family. The intuitive utility maximizing decision would be to take the pill. On the other hand, since taking the pill would leave you with a utility function that’s incongruent with your current one, you will not take the pill. Same reason you won’t take a drug that will make you bake cakes and take showers all the time. It might distract you from your current goals and aspirations (you’d make baking cakes a higher priority than, say, having friends). In other words, even if the new preferences will give you overall more happiness, you’ll still prefer your old preferences.

You might be thinking, “Who cares? This drug doesn’t exist yet.” Well, it does; this dilemma exists for people who haven’t tried shrooms yet. According to discovery.com, “61 percent reported at least a moderate behavior change in what they considered positive ways.” Assuming you won’t get a bad trip, is it rational to take the drug? Depends on whether the drug changes your utility function and whether it conflicts with the older version. I doubt a psychedelic experience can help me optimize my current utility function better than my sober self. Therefore, I conclude that it must, in fact, change my preference ordering. I would rather keep my preferences the way they are now, of course.

LIOR GOTESMAN just made your drug conversations that much more fun. Thank him at liorgott@gmail.com.