Tacos are an important part of my life. You might even — if you were so inclined — call me something of a taco philosopher. Now a taco philosopher ponders the deeper questions of taco existence. What size tortilla is best? What is the ideal cilantro/onion ratio? And of course, the question which still keeps me up at night and which has confounded taco theorists since the dawn of the taco: salsa verde or salsa roja?

But nowadays, other, more pressing metaculinary questions keep me sleepless and away from pleasant taco-filled dreams. Namely, why is Davis such a terrible taco town?

Now I know some Davisites may take issue with my framing of the question. And I certainly don’t mean for this to be an unfair attack or snobby takedown of Davis taco culture, or the many taco dispensers which make their home in Davis for that matter. But I do intend to shine an unapologetic light on the path to taco nirvana. And folks, pardon the tough love but it sure as hell is not a path found in Davis.

For one, if you are frequenting a Mexican restaurant which prepares in any shape or form the monstrosity that is carne asada fries, you can rest assured that this is in no way a Taco Philosopher-endorsed taqueria. This puts me in a perilous position and limits my options drastically given that most taquerias in the States have shunned tradition in favor of cultural pragmatism i.e. profits. There is nothing wrong with this on the face of it, and while I may seem to be overly critical I nevertheless sympathize with these business owners. They craft these unholy creations because no matter their cultural allegiance, at the end of the day they’re a business first and foremost, and American college kids for whatever reason enjoy a side of fries mixed in with their serving of steak and cheese. Mexican culinary traditions be damned!

But why then this undying love for the taco? After all it’s a quite simple and ordinary being: a corn tortilla (not flour, obviously), some meat — popular options include carne asada, al pastor, the slightly more exotic cabeza (head meat), lengua (tongue), tripas (tripe i.e. guts) — cilantro and diced onions, and to top it off a nice dressing of salsa, be it salsa de tomatillo, salsa de jitomate, what have you — the salsa is not the issue here. This compendium of deliciousness is what comprises the existence of what Mexicans collectively refer to as the taco — keeping in mind that there are variations of the taco; add-ons if you will (it all gets very complicated).

Now on to what a taco isn’t. A taco is not bathed in sour cream. A taco is not sprinkled with cheddar cheese (there should be no yellow colors in the taco). A taco does not come in a hard-shell tortilla. A taco should, but does not necessarily have to be, accompanied by a Mexican lager — beer snobs rejoice (Corona can be ignored; better options are Pacifico and Modelo, which are quite good). And finally, but most importantly, a taco should be referred to as a taco, not a taquito — that is an entirely different being — not a burrito, and certainly not a chalupa, for that is a wooden boat.

My call is not to shun these neighborhood institutions but to supplement them with more daring acts of culinary exploration. Maybe give a taco truck in Sacramento a visit (the mobile aspect, while potentially off-putting, only increases the authenticity given the hustle and bustle nature of a place like Mexico City), order some tacos de lengua, work your way up to tacos de sesos.

Food is a major component of culture and can reveal a lot about a people’s traditions and ways of being. The taco is as symbolic as it is delicious. It’s a marriage of Mexican ingenuity and historical tradition. It’s a synthesis of Indian, European and Middle Eastern traditions (much like Mexico herself), which borrows as much from the Lebanese kebab as it does from German sauerkraut. The same might be said of the Mexican-American fusion resulting in carne asada fries. But I’ll leave those philosophical investigations for the carne asada fries philosophers. I am sure our theoretical jousting will be both tasty and fruitful.

If you also share this writer’s dislike for carne asada fries, you can find a friend in JORGE JUAREZ at jnjuarez@ucdavis.edu.

If you are looking to be impressive, but do not want to put in a lot of effort, I have the book for you. Voltaire’s Candide is short, exciting and, heck, a fancy-schmancy historical figure like Voltaire wrote it so it’s the perfect literary reference for any snobby dinner party. What is also awesome about it is that it’s an honest-to-goodness wonderful book. It’s no Being and Nothingness, no War and Peace and definitely no Ulysses. It is just a solid and riveting novel that makes reading classic literature more enjoyable and less like homework. It also has a lot of applicable life lessons for any era, especially when it comes to dating advice.

In short, Candide works at a palace and has a big crush on an aristocratic girl, Cundegone. A revolution then goes down, followed by general havoc for about 100 pages until everyone decides that simple is better and becomes farming hippie folk. Oh, and every time you’re 110 percent sure someone is dead, they are not.

I have noticed that these days, love has lost its permanence. It seems that when we love others we imagine them to always be how they currently are, and we try not to think about them changing in some unsavory way. Unfortunately, the bane — or maybe the miracle — of existence is that we do not stay young, adventurous and youthful forever. For those older students, you may even be realizing it now. “Why do my knees hurt?” “Am I too old to have pastel lilac hair?” Moreover, just as we will not stay wrinkle-free and bangin’ forever, neither will our loved ones.

Candide fell in love with Cundegone because as far as one can ascertain from Voltaire’s writing, she was hot. I imagine her with a curvy ’50s pinup bod. However, although he fell in love with her during her prime, he stayed in love with her. And let me tell you something, by the end of the book she was missing a leg and had a degenerative skin condition, and was generally not looking too great.

I am all for living in the moment, but the next time you are on a date, maybe ponder this: if this other person looked completely different, would I be on this date? This is a fair question, because if you end up with this other person, in about 30 years, they are going to look completely different.

Or maybe ponder this: if I had a complete change in my social stature and wanted to do something revolutionarily different with my life, would this other person come along? This is also a fair question, because in 30 years, you are most likely not going to be doing anything near what you imagine you are going to be doing right now.

Life changes and people change, but if you want a bit more depth in your relationships, you might want to read Candide. It is so easy to be superficial these days. Everything is photoshopped, ridiculously attractive people apparently are the only people who exist — at least that’s what my TV tells me — and going to loud parties to get wasted seems to be preferable to sitting around and talking with others. Worse, having relationships via text and Facebook is a completely viable option.

Candide had it easy in a sense. Yes, it may have been a more difficult historical period in a lot of more crucial-to-survive kind of way, but in the ability to find real love it was much easier. He knew that things were going to be different, but it didn’t matter.

Maybe I’m getting nostalgic for an era that I never experienced, but loving someone as they lose limbs and social standing and parts of their face seems like an anachronism in today’s world. On the other hand, maybe this kind of love is still alive; it’s just not interesting enough to show on TV or in a magazine. “Celebrity Falls In Love and Stays With Companion Forever” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as “Celebrity Cheats on Husband of Two Weeks.”

I’m not sure if life imitates art, or art imitates life. What I can say, however, is that either way I am feeling a little worried about the future of dating and love in our society. Maybe the stress of midterms is getting to me, but where did all the Candides go?

To fantasize about the Enlightenment with EREN KAVVAS, you should email her at ebkavvas@ucdavis.edu.

As a professor at UC Davis, I have witnessed over the years the saga of UC budget cuts, tuition hikes and increased pressures on departments to teach larger numbers of students. Teaching assistants have become the frontline instructors for our large undergraduate classes at this university. I write as a faculty member in support of their campaign for a new contract, one that will guarantee the quality and accessibility of a UC education.

In my Department of Art and Art History, our graduate students in art history rely on teaching assistant (TA) appointments as their primary form of fellowship support, and we are hard pressed to offer even half-time TA employment to them. We are not alone; UC’s average yearlong graduate funding offer is nearly $5,000 less than that of any competing university, according to an Academic Senate report, when accounting for California’s high cost of living (http://www.ucop.edu/student-affairs/_files/gradsurvey_2010.pdf). So that we can extend financial support to as many of our students as possible, most of our TAs in art history are paid at 25-percent time, a remuneration that amounts to less than the typical rent for one adult in Davis, according to the Living Wage Calculator.

We in art history grapple with large teaching workloads and multiple classes. We benefit from talented, conscientious and hard-working TAs. However, when our TAs have only 10 hours a week to serve 40-60 students, those TAs only barely cover the minimal weekly requirements of attending lectures, completing readings, preparing and leading sections, let alone giving individual attention and feedback on papers. Such constraints hardly make ideal learning conditions for the undergraduate students in those classes.

Departments who do not meet the expectations to teach ever-larger classes face budget cuts and cuts to the number of sections they can offer. As fewer TAs serve more students, it seems this campus will regrettably — and inevitably — move toward only the most superficial education at what is supposed to be one of the nation’s top public universities.

This Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 10 and 11, the UC Student-Workers’ Union (including TAs, Readers and Tutors) will be bargaining on the UC Davis campus for a new contract for TAs. Among many other things, they are demanding higher wages and more input on class sizes. Unfortunately, UC refuses to even consider TA input on class sizes, arguing that class sizes are not part of TA working conditions — a refusal which TAs say is unlawful and constitutes an Unfair Labor Practice.

I ask that you support our campus’s TAs by speaking on behalf of them or simply attending their bargaining session. You can sign up at: tinyurl.com/testifydavis.

Diana Strazdes

Department of Art and Art History

It’s not exactly easy to keep up with legislation. There’s a whole lot of political jargon and confusing legalese. Not to mention after sitting through class all day, it’s not the most riveting read. However, it’s crucial that we keep up with legislation that directly affects us as both students and taxpayers. So let’s buckle down for a minute and look at something important, shall we?

Let’s talk funding a college education — something I imagine is close to many of our hearts. Moolah, dough, greenbacks — you get my drift. We fork out a lot of it to attend university, as do California’s taxpayers. There’s not a single public university student who doesn’t have their education partially underwritten by the California taxpayers. It only makes sense that we make sure we are getting the maximum benefit from that investment.

Today I want to draw your attention to two bills, SB 798 and SB 174, both of which aim to increase the under-funded Cal Grant B Access Awards for over 170,000 California students.

When the Cal Grant B Access Award was first established in 1969, the amount granted per student for the year was $960. In a perfect world in which the grant had kept up with inflation and the growth in student expenses, it would currently be awarding students around $5,900 per year. It’s not doing that. Forty-five years later the amount has grown to only $1,550 per year, and it doesn’t take an economics major to see that doesn’t even come close to keeping up with inflation.

Basically, these two bills seek to leverage federal dollars to help offset the skyrocketing college costs. SB 798 would establish a College Access Tax Credit Fund, the contribution  which would return to taxpayers a percentage of that contribution in the form of a tax credit.

For instance, an individual or a corporation gives, say, one dollar to the College Access Tax Credit Fund. In turn, California gives the taxpayer a 60¢ credit for the $1 donation and the College Access Fund retains 40¢ of the original donation. Then, good ole’ Uncle Sam gives the taxpayer a deduction for their charitable donation to the state (about 15¢). So the taxpayer is only out of pocket about 25¢, but there is a credit in the College Access Fund. That’s not very scary, certainly doable, and also optional.

SB 174 would then draw upon this credit fund to supplement the Cal Grant B program to increase the maximum reward from $1,550 to $5,000 (Take that inflation; we’re gaining on you). The Franchise Tax Board predicts that the College Access Tax Credit Fund would net over $500 million the first year at no cost to the state.

College graduates are the future innovators, educators, engineers, doctors, executives, etc., that help make California the eighth largest economy in the world. And as a college student, I can also personally testify that we’re pretty awesome. SB 798 and SB 174 have wide support from student groups, and have received bipartisan support in both houses. These bills are currently being read in the legislature as urgency statutes, meaning that these programs will go into effect immediately upon passage if they receive a two-thirds majority support. It’s not in our nature to stay silent — make sure your voice of support is heard alongside.

If you’re looking to get involved or stay up-to-date on student relevant legislation (who am I kidding? Of course you are!), follow us at facebook.com/ASUCDLobbyCorps — we’ll try to make it as fun and painless as possible.

Allison Butler

Communications Assistant, ASUCD Lobby Corps

akbutler@ucdavis.edu

As a transfer student, I only have two years at UC Davis. The filing period for graduation began a few days ago and I don’t feel ready to graduate just yet. Which is surprising — I always assumed I’d just feel “ready” to move on when the time came.

I assumed I’d be ready to take all of the skills I’ve acquired and make use of them in the real world. I figured I’d be sick of writing research papers and spending hours upon hours studying for midterms and finals in the library. I thought that senioritis would just hit me and I’d be ready to graduate.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case here. I don’t feel ready and I don’t want to leave.

I guess I feel like I’ve just started to settle in. I finally know where most of the buildings on campus are, the best places to eat downtown and I feel like I’ve just now gotten used to Davis — its wonderful quirks and secrets.

I’m getting to know all my classmates and teachers and learning how to adjust to the (insane) quarter system. I’ve settled into my job, found an internship I enjoy and love writing for The Aggie.

I’m not ready to give all that up just yet — which seems odd to me, considering how satisfactory it was to graduate from high school and community college.

I absolutely could not wait to get out of high school. Sure, I was only going to be moving on to community college, but still — I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

I was sick of the bell schedule. Sick of feeling like I had more important things to do than go to class. Sick of constantly working my butt off knowing that none of it would really matter.

By the beginning of my senior year of high school, I was done. Senioritis hit me and that was it. I was ready to leave and move on. I was excited to make a big change and (begin to) embark upon my college education.

And during my preliminary college education, I had senioritis within my first semester of community college.

And I spent three years there, all patiently awaiting those final weeks. I counted down the days until graduation. I gleefully sent out my announcements and said goodbye to my peers.

So why can’t I do that now?

After many hours of pondering, countless forced-grin smile-and-nod responses to “Oh you’re graduating? Isn’t that exciting?” and fleeting weeks passing me by, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

Firstly, no one in their right mind would say that they felt ready to graduate after only their sophomore year of college, so at least I know I’m not alone. It would be unnatural to want to leave at this point.

Secondly, of course my transition from high school to community college, and community college to UC Davis didn’t seem as scary as this … I had that cool “comfort zone” thing going on. I knew exactly where I was going and what I would be doing. Again, that’s not the case here. I have no idea what I’m doing (please don’t tell my parents).

Lastly, there’s a big difference between senioritis as defined by “I’m sick of” as opposed to “I’m not ready for.” Sure, leave the semantics of defining “senioritis” to the English major, but it makes sense.

I’m not sick of school. I’ve just started to settle in to UC Davis and am now planning out my career options …? It’s weird.

Though I might be apprehensive to graduate, I’m not unprepared. I’ve held a steady job since I was 16, been taking college classes for five years and have lived on my own for the past two years now. I’m prepared enough to do this, I’m just scared.

But they say that life begins outside your comfort zone and I guess it’s about time I started listening. So with this column and my application to file for graduation complete: L’Chaim! Here’s to being scared, having no idea what we’re doing, and loving every step of it!

To step into the unknown with SARAH MARSHALL, email her at smmarshall@ucdavis.edu.

For their size, it’s impressive how much confusion seeds cause. “Haven’t we been genetically engineering seeds for years?” “Don’t GMOs occur on their own in nature?” These are common questions people less familiar with plant science might ask. In order to understand the politics of seeds, it is imperative that everyone involved in the debate has a common understanding of basic seed biology. Otherwise, the debate rages without moving anywhere.

Debates about genetically engineered seeds, the intellectual property of such seeds and the socioeconomic impact on people who feed themselves from seeds they’ve sown is crucial. Informed debate on such topics is essential if we are to make informed decisions at the personal and policy levels.

In my own experience, many hot-tempered debates about the politics of seeds end in me realizing that the person I am conversing with lacks an understanding of the biology behind what we are supposedly arguing about. Thus, this column will be the first of a pair. This week, I will clarify the biology of seed breeding, and next week I will offer my arguments for regionally-based breeding programs as opposed to GMOs.

First, let’s clarify the difference between genetically engineered, hybrid, heirloom and open-pollinated varieties. Many people incorrectly posit that mankind has been genetically engineering plants for millennia. This statement has one foot in reality and the other in ignorance.

It is true that people have bred plants for thousands of years. The indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and the Middle East exerted intentional selective pressures — purposely saving seeds from useful plants — in order to develop foods and materials that suited their needs. This is considered conventional breeding. People still do it today.

Conventional breeders work in labs and in garden plots as we speak, selecting the most suitable seeds to save. This process can be sped up through hybridization depending on the end product one is hoping to achieve.

Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, gave us the Mendel square that helped us figure out what the probability of having a blue or brown-eyed baby was. Mendel was a pea fanatic, and he is credited with being one of the earliest European scientists to experiment with intentionally crossing pea plants to produce a desired offspring. This process is called hybridization.

Where traditional breeding and hybridization start to differ is in the behavior of their seed. Traditionally-bred varieties are bred to be stable and open-pollinated; or rather, their seed will grow out to resemble its parent plants. Hybrid plants, however, are bred for hybrid vigor; the first seed will produce exceptionally well the first time you plant it, but the favorable characteristics will begin to wane each generation thereafter.

Hybrid varieties were introduced to the U.S. markets in 1951, much to the delight of some plant breeders and home gardeners. Hybrid seeds, however, never replaced open-pollinated varieties completely, because they required gardeners and farmers to purchase new seeds each season. Many felt this was an unnecessary cost.

Many small growers continued planting and saving their favorite seeds, which we now call heirloom varieties. For a variety to be considered heirloom, it must have been cultivated before 1951, the birth year of commercial hybrids. The seeds inside the juicy heirloom tomatoes you see at the Farmers Market were developed in our grandparents’ youth.

As technology progressed throughout the second half of the century, hybridization became more sophisticated, and techniques for modifying the specific genome of a plant were developed. Genetic engineering deals with organisms at the DNA level. By looking at an organism’s genome, scientists have begun to replace, alter and add genetic information between species. These seeds are then patented as intellectual property by the companies that produce them, and they become commodities which can be bought by consumers and protected by patent laws.

Open-pollinated, heirloom varieties function at the scale of a population, whereas hybrids function at the scale of selected individuals within a population. Genetically engineered varieties function not at the population or individual scale, but at the level of a gene. These differences are crucial, and the terms should not be mistaken for each other.

For more biological clarifications on seeds, email ELLEN PEARSON at erpearson@ucdavis.edu.