Cherish this day, for tomorrow will be different, and today will be gone forever.

As I have alluded to in previous columns, I run for the UC Davis Track and Field team. Because of two partial lung collapses my freshman year, and the resulting surgery and loss of fitness, this is only the third year out of my five-year college career that I am on the team. It is early in the season, but the season is also my last. This thought sticks with me often.

There is no way I would have the confidence, strength, ambition, resilience, determination, social skills, self-respect, fitness and knowledge of fitness that I do if I had not listened to my high school P.E. teacher and joined the track team. All of these qualities were immeasurably reinforced by making it as a walk-on here in Davis. I am far from perfect, but I owe much of my improvement to the sport.

Nevertheless, thanks to the conclusion of my college career and my athletic eligibility, I am beginning to see the big picture of track in my life, beginning to see what is ending.

I will miss hearing runners to your marks and stepping forward, over my blocks, stretching as I load myself into them. I will miss the feeling I have when the gun goes off and I am in an instant liberated to run as fast as I can. I will miss having a quarter of a mile of track allotted just for me, to cover with all possible speed God and my coach (it can be easy to confuse the two) have given me.

I will miss the sound my sprinting foot, tightly wrapped in a purple and gold running spike, makes on an all-weather track. I will even miss the pain that comes after 250 meters, 300 meters, 350 meters, of my 400 meter race. And I will miss crossing that line when I have run well, when all eyes of the stadium are on me because no one was before me. In Division I, that is a rare experience for me. It is a feeling made all the more sweet by its rarity.

But most of all, I will miss something that is not even exclusively mine to miss: being part of a team. The fondest memories of my entire track career are of the 4×400 meter relay, in which four people each cover a quarter mile. There is something that members of a small team feel that is perhaps akin to what soldiers of a platoon feel in combat, an unspoken camaraderie and shared fate, both of which drive us further and harder than we would be alone.

When that baton is in my hand for those 49 or so seconds, I am running half for me, and half for others. This is to say nothing of the awareness of the greater team, those we spot around the track and in the field who are wearing the same uniform as we are.

We on the team know how it is to train and race at this level of competition. It puts us in touch with a part of the human spirit that for many is atrophied, a certain intimacy with pain, a physical hardness that translates elsewhere in life as simple dedication.

I have a little longer than two months left before I retire. In the future I may run at all-comers’ meets, and I hope to coach track in high school one day. But I will never be in the shape I am now, never turn in the times I do now, never have the team I have now.

But it is not over yet. Putting these thoughts into words is not just a summary of the past, but also a preparation for the future. I still have time to relish the last few meets of my athletic career, to be on a great team with great people, to improve the times in my personal record book before that book is closed. This time of my life is precious. This time of my life is almost over.

Almost.

ROB OLSON is glad to have company in retiring with Brett Favre. To give him more company, e-mail him at rwolson@ucdavis.edu. XXX

The conservatism President Bush has practiced in the past few years was one often based on an unyielding conviction, seemingly oblivious from any form of doubt. Yet that’s not what conservatism, as a philosophical thought, demands. Instead, [a]ll conservatism begins with loss, so declares Andrew Sullivan in his book The Conservative Soul. And it is: Conservatism is a natural response to loss, an approach that embraces the need to conserve and preserve in times of challenge.

A conservative is defined by his application of doubt to far-reaching rhetoric. A conservative, characterized by his profound grasp of the limits of human understanding – as Sullivan remarks – recognizes his inherent limitations in the face of unlimited possibilities. A conservative does not subscribe to a monolithic certitude or a status quo, but relents to a wavering, skeptical questioning about the aggrandizement of promises. Conservatism, in this sense, is a cajoling to reconcile the strands of idealism with realism.

Conservatism champions the rights of an individual to be the legislator of his own destiny, all while free from government oversight. An individual, after all, knows himself best. The government, as Sullivan suggests, should play little in dictating or regulating an individual’s life. Instead, its only function should be to protect the nation’s broader security. For a conservative, this absence is an incentive, even empowerment, for the individual to make his own choices, to determine his own direction, to utilize his own resources for maximum gain and to attain his own goals. Such liberty invites self-sufficiency.

A desire to preserve, moreover, doesn’t imply that conservatives resist change. Chance favors the bold, an idiom often rhapsodized, but change, radical or not, isn’t merely the product of lofty plans or the privilege of grand beliefs. Instead, for the conservative, change is the consequence of gradual planning and accumulating wisdom, a sometimes slow, but authoritative, process. The focal point of this ideal is to prepare oneself to meet expectations through a sense of fortitude, gained from deliberative practice. The practitioners, in this construct, are not static bystanders; they are active participants facilitating change.

While a benefit of a conservative’s independence is the pursuit of mastery, few ever achieve it. But this challenge is not a reason for not trying. It is an imploration to resist in defiance. It is about the human endeavor, the commitment, the devotion, the dedication, the passion, the investment and the strides, all performed irrespective of the final result. In acting without unnecessary restraints, the attempt might not necessarily succeed, but in the process of trying, one learns. One approaches the height of human consciousness.

Undoubtedly, conservatism’s premise can be flawed – individuals frequently make irrational decisions, violating the precepts of logical, gradual increments. But the choice is left entirely to the individual. As Aggie columnist Rob Olson recently noted, [C]onservatives favor certain kinds of actions. The opportunity to succeed in life is fully dependent upon one’s own actions, whereby one is provided the chance to strive for the best despite or because of another’s influence. However, it is not privilege obtained through the effort of another. Conservatism, thus, is neither a barrier to progress nor what it seeks to rebuke. Instead, it makes the individual’s decisions, filled with triumphs and failures, the central focus. In the end, the individual has tried. And that’s where one finds meaning.

Ultimately, for a conservative, the final goal is to live a life one simply desires. To quote Sullivan’s flourish, [Conservatism’s] modesty is the point. It is austere and restrained. It makes no grand claims about humanity…. [Conservatism] just accepts the fog of human existence … But why? As we inch toward the least we can say, we stumble across the thing we have been looking for all along. We have discovered freedom.

That’s a premise of a conservative.

ZACH HAN is conserving for his finals, but he will preserve your e-mails at zklhan@ucdavis.edu. XXX

In response to Rob Olson’s Feb. 21 column “The condompushers” we would like to clarify the purpose of our efforts toincrease access to condoms for sexually active students. This year,in honor of National Condom Week, we at Health Education andPromotion, hosted our third annual Ask Me For a Condom (AMFC) days. Marketing materials mentioned the availability of condoms if you or a friend is sexually active and as the name of the campaign implies, students have to ask to receive a condom.

AMFC is part of a larger effort on the UC Davis campus to make condoms readily available for those who choose to engage in sexual activity, to reduce sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies. According to the National College Health Assessment conducted in spring 2007, 62 percent of UC Davis students were sexually active within the past year, and among them 53 percent reported using a condom the last time that they had vaginal sex. Other campuses that have increased access to condoms, along with education on how to use them, have found that their efforts increased the use of condoms and safer sex products to decrease the transmission of sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy, while the percent of students reporting sexual intercourse did not increase. We provide information not only about condoms, but also other forms of birth control, STIs, relationships, sexuality, communication and abstinence (the only 100 percent effective method of protection against STIs and unwanted pregnancy).

The mission of HEP is to enhance student wellness through student-centered education and creating health-promoting environments. HEP functions in a non-assumptive, non-judgmental, confidential and respectful manner. We provide a resource for students with questions about their health and personal choices. We are comprised of professional staff and student interns who focus on issues related to nutrition, physical activity, sexual health, wellness, stress management, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

Rob Olson’s message that condom usage necessarily implies hook-up sex, unplanned sex, or other irresponsible sexual behavior isinaccurate. Condoms are an extremely effective way to protectyourself and your partner from pregnancy, and the only way to protect yourself and your partner from STIs. We appreciate hisacknowledgement that condoms can be used in a loving, monogamous relationship. However, his implication that knowing or trusting one’s partner somehow guarantees protection from STIs is dangerously misleading.

Of people who are infected with chlamydia, 75 percent of women and 50 percent of men show no symptoms at all, and many do not know that they are infected. Whether someone chooses to use a condom because one partner has been previously infected with an incurable infection (such as herpes simplex virus, HPV or HIV), because a woman is choosing to not be on prescription birth control, or because one wants to avoid the post-sexual activity mess, condoms can play an important role in a person’s sexual life regardless of age, sexual behaviors, or relationship status. Contrary to what Rob says, we do not assume that students are irresponsible, poor planners, short-sighted or immature, nor do we encourage students to engage in an activity that goes against their values or beliefs. We advocate that people who are choosing to engage in sex use safer sex practices when the time comes.

Unfortunately, condoms are often quite expensive when purchased from a store. It is our goal to make the safer choice the easier choice for college students. We are proud of our fellow students who, as the responsible citizens that they are, have visited our increasingly popular Love Lab and taken our educational materials, free condoms and water-based lubricant, which we provide because it reduces condom failure and micro-abrasions to delicate tissues.

AMFC days, peer education and our other sexual health promotion efforts exist to combat this macro public health issue. We work to promote a healthier campus community for all students, regardless of whether they decide to have sex while at UC Davis. Choosing to make safe decisions about sex is a fundamental sign of respect, compassion and even love for our fellow human beings.

Health Education and Promotion is located at the Cowell Student Health Center.

This past Saturday I was riding my bike on F Street toward downtown, wearing shorts and a T-shirt with the wind at my back, allowing my thoughts to wander aimlessly, and it hit me. It hit me like a wall of bricks.

Only it wasn’t a wall of bricks. It was a pile of branches, bark and miscellaneous shit put directly in the center of the bike lane by some vindictive cocksucker hell-bent on ruining the commute of a cyclist who dared to daydream.

As I fell toward certain humiliation and debilitating bodily harm, flailing my arms like spastic flagella, I had a revelation: Davis is awesome.

If you can get past the occasional imbecile-induced bike folly and the fact that Davis seems to perpetually be in the path of some giant, bipolar tornado, you may come to realize that this city is a great place to live.

I can hear some of you SoCal types protesting, No way! Davis is lame! For one thing, there’s, like, clouds. Plus, there’s no upscale shopping, no 30 screen stadium seating multiplex, no night clubs to do coke at and nowhere to park my dad’s Escalade! Once I graduate I’m moving to Hollywood to be a fashion consultant for E! And I’m fine with that, because I don’t want you here either. In fact, Davis is quite un-lame for those and other more meaningful reasons.

Chief among them: Davis is what happens when people have jobs; the average household brings in $82,000 a year, and only 3.3 percent of the population is unemployed.

But wait! you scream, In 1999, 24.5 percent of Davis residents were living below the poverty line! This is unfortunately true. But consider that poverty level earnings in Davis have very different implications than the same sums in, say, Fresno.

The resources available in Davis to the public for free or at low cost are incredible, and the way tax dollars are used here makes Davis an exceptional example of public spending done right. So even if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, your life, while still shitty, is made a bit less so by, * gasp *, government intervention in the market and spending on social welfare! The horror!

Davis eases the pain of its poorest citizens in many ways, and housing, the largest portion of nearly all low income budgets, is where the city provides the most help. In rental projects with 20 or more units, 35 percent are required to be affordable, which means that a family of four making $32,850 annually pays a maximum of $636 per month for a two bedroom unit. That leaves over $25,000 a year for everything else.

A large portion of that $25,000 would normally go toward transportation, but in Davis, that need not be so. Huge savings are to be had by using public transit such as Unitrans, Amtrack or Yolobus rather than buying (think high interest rate auto loan), maintaining (insurance, smog and price gouging mechanic) and fueling a car (record profits for ExxonMobile). And then there’s cycling. At just six miles in length, everything in Davis is within biking distance. If you disagree, I would posit that you are either fat, intensely lazy or don’t own a bike. In any of those cases, getting a bike will help solve the problem.

Speaking of recreation, if you want to barbeque, you don’t need to buy your own Weber. If you want to play football, you don’t need a big-ass lawn. All you need is to walk to one of Davis’s 32 parks (not counting the greenbelt), which also have Frisbee golf, soccer, tennis, basketball, baseball, skate parks, pools, playgrounds and enough picnic tables to seat a reunion of my ex-girlfriends.

Speaking of my ex-girlfriends, crime is a big factor in residents’ quality of life, and Davis does that right, too. Davis has only 0.9 officers per 1,000 people (the national average is 3.0), yet manages to have a much lower incidence of crime than the rest of the country.

And as for education, of the 947 AP tests taken in 2007 by students at Davis High (a school of only 1,694), 83 percent of the scores were passing.

What all this meant to me as I was picking myself up off the asphalt, dislodging the safety glass from my palms and the twigs from my spokes, was that Davis, for all its faults, is a pretty good place to be.

K.C. CODY bolds important words, and is pissed at whoever put their yardwaste in the southbound bike lane on F Street. Grow apair and fess up at kccody@ucdavis.edu.

The Davis City Council is currently doing extensive research in an effort to establish a standard living wage for city employees. Many council members and concerned citizens have been pushing for a standard living wage policy for some time, and it has now become a main concern of the city council.

A living wage is higher than minimum wage, reflecting the necessary income to live in a specific region and factoring in other needs such as health benefits from the employer. According to Jim Newman, superintendent of parks and general services, the living wage in this area is in the range of $9.50 to $11 per hour.

It is positive that the city of Davis is closely examining this issue. Rather than throwing out random numbers, there is a substantial amount of research being put into this project. Finding the appropriate standard living wage will have a great impact on a number of employees and families, and doing the appropriate analysis is necessary in order to best benefit these people.

Furthermore, this is an excellent opportunity for the city to examine the economic development and current demographics of Davis. This examination should stretch beyond the city of Davis and should also include the greater region, specifically less developed cities such as Dixon and Woodland.

While a standard living wage is a progressive measure, it is also important to remember the strain that it could potentially place on small, private businesses. However, the city plans on applying the standard living wage to its own employees first and then will look at the possibility of expanding the policy to private Davis businesses.

Overall, the City Council is taking on an important issue given how high the cost of living is in Davis. By imposing a standard living wage, this could enable those of lower income to live in the city in which they are employed.

It was only a week after the new UC Davis emergency alert system was tested when it actually got put to use. After the bomb scare late on the night of Mar. 5, students, faculty and staff were sent e-mail notifications the next morning shortly after 8 a.m. – after the situation was under control.

While some may criticize the administration for waiting so long before alerting the campus, the university made the right move in doing so. Since no immediate or apparent danger was present, there was no need to inform others outside of Tercero just yet. It is important that administrators first assess the severity of the present situation before alerting the masses. As stated in the police report, the materials possessed were not assembled, nor were the chemicals mixed when discovered by authorities. Therefore, a premature campuswide notification could have just resulted in unnecessary panic.

It is comforting to know that UC Davis officials handled this situation efficiently and appropriately, without haphazard decision-making. The incident showed good communication between the university and various emergency services, which is a key element to any sort of disaster response. Though some say the university overreacted to the situation, it’s better to be cautious when considering recent campus crises nationwide.

It is fortunate that the emergency notification system was implemented on what turned out to be a relatively minor and harmless incident. This gives the administration a chance to collect feedback from students and faculty, and determine any flaws in the system for it to improve upon.

At this time it is important for the university to extend its campuswide emergency preparedness education. The administration should be proactive in raising student awareness of how to respond to an emergency situation. Some of these tools could include quarterly newsletters and workshops on safety, as well as more thorough residence hall education concerning violence.