“We took possession… in accordance with our customs, and we caught all the people,” the imperialist conqueror proclaimed. “Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed – but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom.“

The people he referred to were the Moriori of the Chatham Islands, 500 miles east of New Zealand, who were enslaved and slaughtered wholesale by men arriving on ships with guns and other weapons. The Moriori were a peaceful people, resolving all their disputes with diplomacy and renouncing war. They found themselves quickly overwhelmed by the advanced and merciless foreigners.

But the invaders weren‘t European. They were another indigenous Polynesian people, the Maori of New Zealand, who 800 years before had been one with the Moriori. Upon hearing of their pacifist neighbors, they set sail and arrived in November and December of 1835, taking whatever they wanted and annihilating the Moriori‘s way of life.

So renowned physiologist and anthropologist Jared Diamond explains in his masterful work, Guns, Germs, and Steel. His is one of the most important books to ever read, in order to see the world and all its peoples with a far greater understanding. He reveals how some continents happened to have better crops and livestock, with more resistance to disease and better trade, which all facilitated the more rapid growth of population and development of technology.

The above account was a particularly illuminating example of the differences in power that farming and technology produced. It is a terrible tragedy whenever one group of people so ruthlessly victimizes another, but in this one, the aggressors are not the usual European villains we learn about in our progressive universities.

I was reminded of Diamond‘s book and its lessons when fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill came to UC Davis last fall. Despite falsely claiming to be a Native American, Churchill sells himself as an expert in Native American studies, and he especially dwells on the clash between the peoples of the Old World and the New. But he would never have the courage to tell the history that Diamond included in his book.

The Maori‘s conquest of the Moriori, among other accounts of wars between indigenous peoples in the New World and elsewhere, reveals that imperialism was not some uniquely European phenomenon. We constantly focus on the crimes of the conquistadors and Europe in general, but their indifference to the suffering of others was simply made more visible by the much greater technology gap between adversaries.

If the Native Americans had been given the environmental strengths that Europeans had, sailing across the ocean in a time long before the Geneva Conventions and a sense of international morality, there is no evidence that they would have treated their hypothetical European subjects any better than they were treated.

When perhaps the most infamous of the conquistadors, Francisco Pizarro, came upon the Incas of South America, they were already weakened by a bloody civil war for control of an empire. Who were they fighting then? Other Native Americans.

Diamond‘s central thesis is that non-Western peoples should not be looked down upon for being left behind based on geographical happenstance. He is correct. But the flipside to that coin is that Western peoples should not be especially condemned for the advantages with which they were blessed. Chance is chance.

When we study history in our classes and form our opinions on the interactions between peoples, especially those of Europe with the rest of the world from 1492 to the present, we should remember that Europe was in general imperialist, domineering and brutal. Yet they treated native peoples just like they treated each other, and just like native peoples interacted with other native peoples. The sad fact of human history is that morality on a national and international level is a very new concept.

But don‘t expect to hear such an admission from the Ward Churchills of the world. They are consumed by a hatred of all things European, applying their standards unequally, passing on a view of history that ignores so much of what really happened.

ROB OLSON has been meaning to write this column for a long time. If you‘ve been meaning to e-mail him for a long time, do so at rwolson@ucdavis.edu.

Seventeen-year-old Magnus Carlsen recently reached the number five rank in the chess world. Like other prodigies past and present, his rise has been meteoric. But Carlsen is possibly the youngest player ever to accomplish so much in so little time. By any measure, his brilliance is so phenomenal that he has even been nicknamed the “Mozart of Chess.“

But Carlsen emerges at a time when chess itself is undergoing a period of subtle transformation. While primarily an individual sport, chess once functioned as an active process of collective endeavor, players frequently corresponding through group banter and shared analysis. Now, however, chess is increasingly individualistic.

And the reason for this change is the invention of computers and chess-playing programs. These programs have classified, researched and analyzed much of preexisting chess knowledge. Consequently, modern opening theories can run up to 30 moves long. The element of surprise has been digitally removed. Computers solved the secrets of chess in ways humans never did.

What this small incident truly illustrates is a larger symptom of mechanization. Simply said, every facet of life has become more connected to technology. And it is taking over, slowly but surely.

We live in an era of increasing predictability. Through GPS, we bypass the process of learning new directions, instead simply following the arrows on the map. We no longer have to patiently rummage through the towering stacks of books, but obtain immediate Wikipedias at the click of a mouse. Online, we fulfill the promise of the Internet and become the person we want to be through MySpace.

We shut ourselves out from the world by listening to iPods when cycling to class, and we limit ourselves to the same DJ Tiesto webpage we visit everyday. In sync, we mouth profanities at a disliked presidential candidate and glorify the other by joining the chorus of fellow Huffington Post message boarders. We surround ourselves with selective, and intense, affirmation. In a limited world, we sense the unlimited.

Our relationships are similarly evolving. We don’t write letters as much as we Facebook to keep in touch. What for a previous generation was a necessary commonality is for us a casual accessory.

Moreover, entertainment, once a pejorative of theaters and sporting arenas, is now transported directly to our comfy homes. Bowling on Wii doesn’t just look real – it recreates reality. Grand Theft Auto 4 is no longer leisure, it’s a lifestyle. Our lives outreach in ways nobody could have ever imagined. It’s no longer the same.

But what does all the new things we do mean? In many ways, atomization takes over. Our modernity becomes postmodern, reality becomes surreal. We depend less on society and more on computers for the tasks we want to accomplish.

Personal freedom has never been greater, yet as we isolate ourselves in devoting attention to the familiar, repetitive routine, we become the sole occupant of the worlds we inhabit. We somehow take ourselves apart from the society we want to be part of.

Do we lose anything? We do. Pivotal to reason and emotion is not just our newfound order but disorder. Disorder is an unpredictable encounter with an old friend, the surprise of walking by and hearing the roaring energy of a street hip-hop show. It is the moment when we become lost during the road trip, and in wandering, we chance upon the far-ranging golden mountains and crystal-clear blue lakes that leave lasting impressions.

Disorder is the moment when, searching for the library assignment, we accidentally find a book that radically challenges our views and dramatically reshapes our thinking. It is not the things that we expect because we expect nothing. It is instead the moment we feel genuine joy when we witness the unexpected. Chaos disturbs our equilibrium, yet it keeps teaching us something new about life. It becomes life.

So technology means that our lives have changed. It is frightening and promising, monumental and miniscule. And you know what? The choice is ours. It is up to us to choose how to make the best of it. For Carlsen, the answer is clear.

ZACH HAN isn’t really sure anymore of what’s real and what’s surreal. Wake him up at zklhan@ucdavis.edu.

The end of my time on this page is fast approaching, hopefully, that is, until next year. But as I was thinking about this fact, it occurred to me that you, my readership of various levels of faithfulness, will have to go without your weekly dose of damn-the-man journalistic fury. With that in mind, I compiled a list of books, movies, songs and miscellaneous crap to fill the void in my summer absence.

Books first, in no particular order.

Brave New World. Aldous Huxley. Considering its influence, I’m amazed at how few people have read this. It’s a 21st century global dystopia as conceived (remarkably well, actually) by a Brit in 1932.

1984. George Orwell. Duh.

In Dubious Battle. John Steinbeck. Often overshadowed by, oh, everything else Steinbeck wrote, but it’s my favorite book of his ever published.

A People’s History of the United States. Howard Zinn. The most comprehensive collection of dirt on American government and corporate malfeasance ever compiled. If I could, I would have just run excerpts from this book as my column all year long.

The Monkey Wrench Gang. Edward Abby. Not only is this a totally badass story, but it’s also an exceedingly well articulated argument for conservation.

The War Prayer. Mark Twain. If you only read one anti-war piece in your life, read this.

Johnny Got His Gun. Dalton Trumbo. If you read a second, make it this one.

Catch-22. Joseph Heller. And here’s your third.

The Jungle. Upton Sinclair. Sinclair said of the book, “I aimed an arrow at America’s heart, and hit it in the stomach.” Probably the best muckraking novel ever written; Fast Food Nation doesn’t hold a candle to it.

Ishmael. Daniel Quinn. Read it and weep. Literally.

The Fever. Shawn Wallace. A single character play written as an extended monologue, it’s a powerful meditation on the contradictions between wealth and want.

The Lorax. Dr. Seuss. The single greatest economic, political, social and environmental book ever written.

Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë. Just kidding. If you see someone reading this book, slap it out of their hands and tell them to get a job.

But if you’re too lazy to read, even something as basic as Dr. Seuss, check out these movies.

Goodnight, and Good Luck. Quote of interest: “Television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live.” Watch it.

Platoon. Ever wonder what Ira… I mean Vietnam, was like?

This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Ever wonder what goes on at the MPAA?

They Live. Ever wonder what those “Obey” stickers are from?

The Corporation. You’ll shop at the Co-op.

Who Killed The Electric Car. You’ll tag hummers.

Jesus Camp. You’ll crap your pants.

American History X. You won’t sleep tonight.

No End in Sight. You won’t sleep for a week.

KIDS. You won’t sleep again. Ever.

As for songs, there’s far too many for me to comment on, so I’ll just throw a list at you.

“Imagine” A Perfect Circle (Beatles cover), “War Pigs” Black Sabbath, “Masters of War” Bob Dylan, “Redemption Song” Bob Marley, “Fortunate Son” CCR, “Makeshift Patriot” and “Sun Vs. Moon” Sage Francis, “The 4th Branch” Immortal Technique, “Southern Man” Neil Young, “No One Left” The Nightwatchman, “Shadow Business” Jedi Mind Tricks, “Idiots Are Taking Over” NOFX, “One” Metallica (based on Johnny Got His Gun), “Soldier Side” and “War?” System of a Down, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” The Who and “Let the Eagle Soar” John Ashcroft (yes, that John Ashcroft). And when it comes to Rage songs, you can’t go wrong, but if you have to pick, “Darkness,” “Freedom,” “No Shelter” and “Hadda Be Playing On The Jukebox” (an Alan Ginsberg poem) are your best bets.

Finally, some miscellaneous crap to keep the fire burning when I’m not around to keep you juiced.

Go for anything with Saul Williams‘ name attached to it, every episode of South Park ever aired, Lewis Black’s stand up comedy and the online archives of Rob’s column. Because really, you can never get enough Rob Olson… or Charlotte Brontë, for that matter.

K.C. CODY realizes the contradiction between this column and his last one. He doesn’t care. Give him something to care about at kccody@ucdavis.edu .

UC Davis recently became one of many universities across the nation to participate in Apple‘s iTunes U program. iTunes U allows college campuses to share multimedia podcasts through the popular iTunes software. This new tool can be beneficial to students, faculty and prospective students alike.

Podcasting is not new to UC Davis. A handful of professors have been podcasting their lectures for the past several years. Many departments such as IET-Mediaworks, University Communications and KDVS 90.3 FM have podcasts on their own websites. The only setback was the accessibility and visibility of the content for students.

With the introduction of iTunes U, podcasts from various sources can now be organized and distributed in a highly visible and popular media outlet. This tool can be used for much more than distributing class lectures. Academic departments and student groups can take advantage of iTunes U to showcase their work to the masses.

The performance arts departments are one group of many that could benefit greatly by publishing podcasts. This could give prospective applicants interested in the arts and music department a taste of what UC Davis has to offer. Other events including the Last Lecture series, student performances and the Mondavi Center‘s Distinguished Speakers series have potential to be popular podcasts. Students and faculty can also upload their own independently produced films or music.

However, one possible speed bump when it comes to publishing material online involves ensuring copyright compliance. Administrators have resolved this by requiring a comprehensive series of requirements before any material goes public. This includes obtaining copyright clearances and the signed consent of those featured in the recording.

This project is still young, and podcasting is still relatively new. The administration is clearly pushing this trend forward. Over 15 lecture halls have now been upgraded with permanent digital recorders to optimize podcasting resources. Students and faculty alike are highly encouraged to make use of these new resources and to bring out the full potential that iTunes U has to offer. 

The bugs are coming out. Little fly things, spiders, mosquitoes – they are creeping through the cracks of our doors and windows, hiding in the threads of our carpet and coming out when we least expect them.

This makes me nervous. The other day, I was at home in San Jose. While taking a shower, I lifted the bottle of shampoo to find a giant spider lurking in a corner of the tub. I screamed, naturally.

I think my fear of spiders is inherited. My mother used to tell me stories of the fist-sized spider that sat in a corner of their bathroom in Vietnam. She was terrified of it. To worsen matters, her aunt used to tell her that if she was bad and went to hell, there would be nothing but spiders – millions and millions of them – crawling all over her. As a result, I grew up learning that it was perfectly acceptable to crawl into a corner and screech for my father whenever I saw a spider in my room. Even to this day, I’ll hand my brother an old magazine or rolled up newspaper and beg him to carry out the task for me.

My fear of cockroaches, on the other hand, is not inherited. This comes from all the nights I’d spend at my grandmother’s house in Orange County. First of all, the house was already large and creepy. As a child, I would hold my breath before walking through the dark hallways at night, cringing for fear that a hand would shoot out of nowhere and grab at my shoulder. Secondly, going into the kitchen for a drink of water would produce an unpleasant scuffling across the tiles as the shiny black roaches scuttled past my slippered feet and ducked underneath the cabinets.

I live in perpetual fear of tiny feet and antennae tracing up my back and trailing over my feet. I hate bugs. I kill them without remorse. Sometimes, when I’m bored, I fantasize about living in a world without insects. Screw pollination and whatever else it is that makes insects useful. We could make do without.

It’s funny how irrational fears can be sometimes. I’ve never had a truly traumatizing experience concerning insects, unlike my friends who have had bugs fly into their mouths while they’re simply standing there. My mother’s friend has a son who bit into a sandwich only to discover that a bee had lodged itself between the slices of bread. It stung him on his palate, and the experience was so disturbing that the next time a bee flew into his car, he literally panicked and drove into a flagpole.

But nonetheless, I fear. I dread the idea of cockroaches taking over my apartment; I cringe at the thought of spiders hiding underneath the sinks.

I remember two summers ago when my cousin and her family were over. Her daughter, Kayla, was four years old at the time and was staying in my room with me. She had an irrational fear of the chirping sound that crickets made outside our window. Throughout the night, she’d wake me up with terrified whispers of, “What are those? I’m scared!”

For the first two nights, I’d mumble, “It’s just the crickets. Just try to sleep,” and try to go back to bed. How was I supposed to explain a mating call to her anyway? Finally, on the third night, I rolled over and mumbled some ridiculous explanation about cricket princes who wanted to find their cricket princesses.

“It’s like a song,” I explained. “Like a love song, or something.”

Oddly enough, this explanation was all it took to satisfy Kayla and expel her fears. For the rest of her stay, she’d lie still for a moment after getting into bed and then whisper, “It’s the cricket princes, isn’t it? Have they found their princesses yet?”

“Apparently not,” I’d whisper back.

I guess it’s easy to cure a person of some fears: crickets, strange and exotic foods, a new school. But some things are not so easy to shed: rejection, meeting new people, disgustingly large spiders.

I would like to think that with time, we will all learn to live with the things that scare us. We will be able to turn our pauses into forward steps, our fears into fairy tales.

In the meantime, though, I think I will continue to stock up on arsenals of old magazines and newspapers strategically stacked around my apartment. After all, you never know when something’s going to creep up on you.

TERESA PHAM needs a battalion of on-call spider squashers. Submit your resumes to terpham@ucdavis.edu. XXX

On Friday, fellow columnist Zack Crockett ran an interesting piece on selflessness, or a lack thereof. Without much investigation, it would seem that much of what he said was true, simply because the reality is much of the world is selfish. Selflessness is impossible – or is it?

To sum up Zack’s argument, selflessness only ends in selfishness since self well-being is the ultimate goal. Selfishness in the most commonly held sense is of course a direct desire for well-being. Preconceived notions of selflessness are characterized as being charitable, still maintaining the goal of well-being but in a spiritual sense – if not characterized by “warm-fuzzy” feelings or a step up in the world’s social view, then with the hope of having one’s name scribbled onto heaven’s guest list. This sounds vaguely similar to some sort of argument between characters on the show Friends.

If selfishness is selfish and selflessness is selfish, then according to Zack, the only way out is to get rid of the self, and then boom! Selflessness.

There are at least two well-known cases that I am certain are true instances of selfless people without having died or transcended the physical realm to achieve it: Blessed Mother Theresa and St. John of the Cross.

I don’t know a whole lot about St. John of the Cross, but I can tell you a few things. He spent a lot of time tortured and in jail for the good changes he was trying to effect, and he wasn’t a masochist. So surely he wasn’t after any temporal well-being by enduring this kind of trouble. Then, according to his own testimony and that of the Church, he experienced the second-longest recorded dark night of the soul.

A dark night of the soul is a spiritual phenomenon in which a person cannot sense in any way God’s presence, and by extension any joy or even hope. It is a total feeling of abandonment. Yet he pressed on with what he knew to be right without even the promise of heaven for over 40 years.

So, now consider the life of Mother Theresa. In the most recent book about her, Come Be My Light, she spells out her entire interior life. From what we saw of her in videos and images, she always seemed cheery and in good spirits, but she too experienced the dark night of the soul. Instead of writing about the phenomenon itself, she wrote about how she felt and what went through her head as she continued to serve the poor of India. If St. John’s experience was at all like Mother Theresa’s, it is safe to assume that he too was selfless.

If you read her book – something I encourage everyone to do – you’ll find that not only did she suffer plenty of ailments and humiliation, but she felt as though her soul was without God. “The place of God in my soul is blank – there is no God in me – when the pain of longing is so great….”

She experienced her dark night for over 50 years. There is no doubt in my mind that she did not seek that immediate spiritual well-being.

But what about her place in heaven? “If I ever become a Saint – I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’ I will continually be absent from Heaven – to light the light of those in darkness on earth.”

She goes on to say that if it pleased God that she reside in hell, then she would happily accept such a fate because it pleases God. If you don’t, think Mother Theresa embodies mankind’s potential for selflessness, then maybe you should rework your definition of selflessness.

I go through all of this, proving that selflessness is possible while you’re still physically present, because I wish to see more people like Mother Theresa. I wish to see giving for the sake of giving without ulterior motives, giving without thought to reward. And I don’t want people to think that all of religion is just another form of selfishness.

Seeing how many times I use the word ‘I,’ it’s not hard to see that yes, even I am selfish. However, something I desire and will continue to work toward is to be selfless.

Luke 6:31 is not quid pro quo. So maybe you’d like to get an e-mail from JEREMY MALLETT. But even if you don’t you should still send an e-mail to jjmallett@ucdavis.edu.XXX