Some shake

If you have ever been curious about the mind-bending effects of hallucinogens, but have been scared by the fact that most are illegal, then you’re in luck.

There are many over-the-counter hallucinogens that are natural and safe and that won’t make you fail your drug test.

The most intense and exciting of these is definitely a little sage plant known as Salvia. Native to the Sierra Mazateca in Mexico, this plant is famous for its immediate psychoactive effect.

It looks like sage, and it is usually sold already ground up and ready to smoke. If you’ve never smoked anything in your life, I would recommend you use a bubbler. It’ll be easier on your throat.

I would also recommend trying it in a safe, comfortable place where you wouldn’t mind embarrassing yourself a little. It will make you hallucinate, so you shouldn’t try it on the roof or while driving or near any fiery or sharp objects that you might mistake as talking pieces of candy.

While everyone trips out differently, the high usually only lasts for about 15 minutes.

However, it is a very intense high, and these 15 minutes may feel like a lifetime.

It is very difficult to describe a salvia trip. It’s like trying to describe a nightmare. The longer you wait to tell it, the more you forget, and no matter how much you talk about it, you always feel as if you’re leaving something out.

But you are nonetheless left shaken by all the horrible, impossible things you experienced.

One of the first effects most people experience is what feels like a shift in gravity. It might be really slight, and you might simply find it a little difficult to stand without tipping over. Or it might be really intense and you might feel as if you are literally being pulled up out of the earth. This usually leads to an intense fear that if you don’t hold on to the floor or to the bed or to others, you will uncontrollably fly away into outer space.

Another common effect of Salvia is unstoppable laughter. It feels as if your mouth forces itself into a smile, and there is a general tickling throughout your body that makes it impossible to open your mouth without laughing wholeheartedly.

The hallucinations are a lot harder to describe. Liquids turn into solids, objects turn into one-dimensional drawings, space-time moves unbearably slow and it gets hard to tell where the self ends and where the rest of the universe begins.

Some people say they feel as if they have died and their souls are just floating around, and that any source of light becomes a glorious, terrifying entrance into heaven.

Others compare it to accidentally falling into a black hole or to getting trapped inside a mirror.

I’ve heard accounts of people who feel as if their world turns into a coloring book, and that the walls, which become giant book covers, constantly feel as if they’re about to close in on everything.

Inanimate objects turn into charming companions, and the floor turns into lava, except when it turns into water.

Sounds and noises freeze in midair and become concrete and tangible, and it becomes possible to count every single beam of light as it slowly spins and fills the room.

There is sometimes a feeling of claustrophobia or suffocation, and clothing and jewelry feels extremely restricting and hot.

There is also a feeling that you have gotten yourself permanently lost and isolated, and even though the rest of the room is within arm’s reach, you feel as if you’ve slipped into a different dimension where no one will ever be able to find you.

Again, everyone has different reactions, but it’s usually the case that they only last for about 15 minutes. So while you might think that you’ve died and gone to hell or that you’ve gone completely crazy, I can assure you everything will quickly return to normal.

There is not much of a risk for overdose or dependency on Salvia, which is probably due to the fact that most people only try it once and then hate it.

So if your connect is out of town, or if you’ve never talked to flowers before, head on over to Illusions for a legal high that will change everything about everything.

LEO OCAMPO can somewhat be reached at gocampo@ucdavis.edu.

Memory

I like to say that my favorite class at UC Davis was Math 16A. I enjoyed it so much that I took it twice. I managed to pass it the second time.

It wasn’t just that I was lazy. I was absolutely disinterested in calculus. I couldn’t see how it would be useful after college.

It was as if the doors of the lecture hall sealed off any connection to the real world. Attending class was like learning in a vacuum. All context was erased. It was simply calculus. It was simply suffocating.

My teacher never told us why we should drill ourselves endlessly on derivatives. It seemed the sole reason for the course was that it was required for an economics degree.

So I switched off during lecture, bored by abstract concepts that seemed applicable to nothing but the dreaded midterm and final. I skated by with a low grade my second time through, changed my major and vowed never to take the subject again.

Incidentally, the mathematician Eric Schechter voiced similar concerns in his essay, “Why Do We Study Calculus?” Devoid of context, of history, calculus can seem esoteric and purposeless.

A history class taught me more about calculus than I ever learned as an economics major. History 136 spanned the age of enlightenment, focusing on the greatest developments in physics and astronomy.

We read about thinkers like Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Leibniz.

Tl;dr, Ptolemy thought the center of the universe was the earth, Copernicus said it was actually the sun, Galileo agreed with him, Kepler said the sun primarily dictated planetary movement, and Newton and Leibniz said it was more complicated than that. It always is.

Though Kepler was right in stating that the sun plays a massive role in planetary orbits, it is not the only influence. He could not account for anomalous movements that didn’t fit his system of understanding. When planets went temporarily off-path, Kepler could do nothing but chalk them up as “perturbations,” an astronomical term.

Newton and Leibniz came up with calculus, which offers explanations for these perturbations. They actually synthesized the idea of calculus around the same time and argued quite nastily about who was first.

More importantly, calculus could explain that functional relationships between planets of different mass influenced the complex movements of the universe. All bodies in the universe are attracted to each other, not just to the sun.

As Newton stated, the gravitational attraction between two bodies is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the two bodies and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

What we have then is a way to determine how the variables of the universe interact with one another. Calculus is a kind of music that all the planets dance to. Better poetry about calculus has been written, I’m sure, but you won’t find it in a math textbook.

Since calculus spends so much time talking about functional relationships, perhaps some time in class could be spent on how the past influences the present. Giving calculus this context is indispensable to the equation.

As Schechter suggests with his essay (and I suggested with my GPA), math and history should not be separated. We should know already that a deep understanding of the past is necessary to learn in the present.

By remembering the thinkers of the past, the beginnings of calculus, perhaps we can break the vacuum seal on the doors of lecture halls. Students will breathe easier and be able to see why calculus is so relevant to our society.

We use calculus to show what will happen in economic markets, to analyze survey results, to determine rates of bacteria growth, to construct sloped structures like domes and tunnels, to compute the probability of meteor strikes and countless other applications.

I accept that failing calculus was primarily my fault. I did not try hard enough. However, I think some teachers would do better to give background on why their subject is so important. In this way, they can promote better learning.

We can see that calculus is a means for predicting the future, but that doesn’t mean it should ignore the past.

If you don’t know what tl;dr means, or you think tl;dr applies to SEAN LENEHAN, please email splenehan@ucdavis.edu.

Sequestration, enacted by the Budget Control Act of 2011, went into effect on March 1. As part of the deal reached in 2011 regarding the debt ceiling, $85.4 billion in cuts will be enacted, slashing budgets for federal agencies across the board.

This is bad news for the United States, for California, for UC Davis and for us. It is the ill-begotten child of a dysfunctional congress that places politics and dogma above proven facts and the nation’s well being. It will have dire consequences for the University of California and its students.

We must hold our elected officials accountable.There is a problem when so many Americans find Congress less favorable than lice, Genghis Khan and colonoscopies.There is a problem when those in charge of the nation don’t seem to care.

More than $335 million in federal research support, the lifeblood of scientific research, will be lost as a result of the sequestration, according to the University of California Office of the President (UCOP).

And according to The Davis Enterprise, UC Davis took in over $400 million of federal grants in 2011, accounting for approximately half of the total grant money coming in. The federal agencies responsible for these grants will be on the chopping block, facing budget cuts of 8 to 10 percent.

This translates to cutting researchers, fewer grants, less research and the death of a generation of scientists, Jodi Nunari, professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, said to The Enterprise.

The sequestration will place higher education even further out of reach for many. Over 12,990 California college students will lose their financial aid or work study, the White House stated in a press release.

Federal Work Study will be cut. Loans made after July 1 will see an increase in fees. Pell Grants will be reduced beginning 2014. Students will be hurt.

We are looking at the result of a series of manufactured crises where the Republican-led Congress took the nation hostage until its demands were met.

The debt ceiling crisis of 2011, precipitated by newly elected Tea Party congressmen, led to the credit agency Standard & Poor downgrading the United States’ credit rating from AAA to AA+.

As part of the compromise to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debts, the sequestration was planned for the 2013 fiscal year if there was no bipartisan legislation to reduce the budget deficit.

Bipartisan legislation was not produced, leading to the fiscal cliff at the end of 2012. A compromise was not reached until 2 a.m. on Jan. 1, after weeks of fruitless debate. The solution was simple: avoid the hard decisions and work by putting it off for another three months.

Now we’re back to where we started: hurtling off the fiscal cliff.

Thank you, Congress.

In a recent NPR piece, UC Davis “Director of Energy Sustainability,” Amy Jaffe, was quoted saying, “Once we reduce our [oil] consumption, we can have the luxury of rejecting Canada’s oil.” As a UC Davis alumnus, I am appalled that this message, apparently supporting the ultra-dirty Keystone XL pipeline, came from my campus.

Yes, it’s true that we need to reduce our energy consumption and our carbon footprint through smart government policies that change our collective behavior. But, if President Obama stands up to big oil and rejects Keystone XL, it would be just that — a smart government policy that would keep a huge amount of carbon pollution underground, where it belongs.

Because Canada’s tar sands are so thick and take so much energy to process, gallon-for-gallon they dump about twice as much carbon pollution into the atmosphere as normal gas. Constraining access to the dirtiest and most polluting oil would result in more sustainable collective behavior.

Joseph Stewart
UC Davis class of 2008
Environmental Biology and Management

There’s a book whose name I will not mention, as I’ve seen it so often that I’m tired of reading it. All I’ll say is that it’s title involves the words “50” and “Grey,” and that it involves graphic depictions of BDSM sex. Once it came out, there was a surge of interest in BDSM. Unfortunately, the book itself does a terrible job of representing what real, healthy BDSM sex looks like.

BDSM, for those of you who may not know, stands for bondage, discipline/dominance, submission/sadism and masochism. It encompasses a wide range of behaviors and lifestyles, so giving a comprehensive how–to guide is a heavy task for a column. Instead, I want to focus on one of the aspects of BDSM that the aforementioned book really gets wrong: how to do dominance and submission in a safe and consensual way.

Today’s advice is primarily aimed at vanilla folks who have some BDSM inclinations but aren’t sure how to get started. Now, there are a few main things that need to happen before you begin your BDSM adventure. I covered some of these items in last year’s column on bondage, but they are critical enough to merit restating here.

First, the motto for BDSM is, “safe, sane and consensual.” So, if you think it’s acceptable to just pounce on your partner and restrain them (or spank them) without asking, I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the handcuffs.

The other key thing to remember is that it is the submissive (sub) partner and NOT the dominant (dom) partner who is in control of the interaction. The dom may act out the fantasy of being in charge, but it’s the sub who sets the limits of the action.

It’s good to get a sense of both you and your partner’s preferences around dominance. Are you more aroused by the idea of being controlled, or controlling someone? Does one of you have a stronger preference while the other feels like they could do either (this is referred to as being a “switch”).

After that, you need to establish some rules. Is there anything the sub absolutely does not want done to them or the dom is positively uncomfortable doing? Be as detailed and explicit as you can in communicating these boundaries.

Next, establish a safeword that the sub can use to end an interaction. Avoid words such as “no” and “stop,” especially if your fantasy involves a fake struggle. Colors work well (“green” for good and “red” for stop), as do silly words that are unlikely to come up in your fantasy such as “aardvark.” If the sub is in a position where they can’t speak (such as gagged), they need to hold something (like a bell) that they can drop or ring to signal stop.

When it comes to instigating the interaction, when you’re first starting out it’s easier if the sub makes the suggestion. Saying something along the lines of, “Honey, treat me rough right now” lets your partner know you’re ready for them to be in charge (doms, this is your cue to ask “Anything specific I should do to you?”).

If you’re learning how to be the dom, there are few tricks to help you on your way. Sometimes it is easiest to start out with text messages where you flirt with and compliment the sub, but make it very clear that they are “yours.”

In the bedroom, get bossy. Tell them exactly what you’re going to do them or what they’re going to do to you, ask them to praise you and ask them things like, “You like that?” Pay attention to your sub’s responses so that you can gauge whether you need to increase or decrease intensity. If you’re the sub, it’s important to reassure the dom that you’re enjoying yourself. Moan, lick your lips and use your words to show how much you like what’s happening.

Once you’ve had your fun, aftercare is really important. Sit in your partner’s lap, kiss them, cuddle them or whatever you need to do to express that you love/care about them. Reassure one another that you like what happened and maybe even talk about what you’ll do or not do in future interactions.

If you’re interested in learning more about BDSM, shops like Good Vibrations and Babeland carry great books on the subject. And, of course, there’s always the internet (I find fuckyeahsexeducation.tumblr.com is a great place to start). Just promise me that, whatever you do, you won’t use the adventures of Christian Grey as your guide.

SAM WALL wants you to check theaggie.org for her previous column on bondage, “Tie me up,” or email her for questions at sewall@ucdavis.edu.

Having followed the Christopher Dorner manhunt with the sort of scrupulous and morbid curiosity that today’s sensationalist mass media seems to arouse at every possible opportunity, I began to notice remarkable parallels with an incident not too dissimilar that took place across the pond back in 2010. I refer to the case of Raoul Moat who — two days after being released from prison — sparked the biggest manhunt the UK has ever seen after shooting his former girlfriend and her new partner before targeting a police officer the following day.

While the grievances motivating the two fugitives derive from opposite sides of the law (Dorner being an ex-officer, Moat an ex-convict), there are still some striking similarities to be drawn. The two shared a common enemy in declaring war against the police, and both published lengthy, aggrieved and hate-fuelled manifestos via social media in which they named targets, before going on the run and provoking widespread manhunts.

Both expressed feelings of isolation and having seemingly relinquished any semblance of a desire to live, declared they were prepared to fight to the death: a fate they would both eventually endure.

There is a more bizarre similarity, however, which edges each story into the realms of absurdity. Both cases compelled two unusual public figureheads to emerge from the fringes of celebrity back into the limelight, offering to liaise with their respective fugitives and bring each case to a swift and peaceful resolution. In the case of Dorner, cue Charlie Sheen, who, not too long after our perpetrator went on the run, posted a video on entertainment site TMZ.com urging his admirer to “Call me. Let’s figure out how to end this thing.” And as Sheen’s slightly less successful, slightly more eccentric transatlantic counterpart: Paul Gascoigne.

Amongst the YouTube generation, Sheen’s perpetual tiger-blood-fuelled quest to waltz through life hoovering up any narcotics and/or prostitutes in the reach of his immediate vicinity has become such a staple of US popular culture that he needs no further introduction here.

Gascoigne’s rise to cult status perhaps warrants more of an explanation. Gateshead-born “Gazza” was best known for an illustrious soccer career spanning 19 years with nine different clubs before engaging in an interminable and well-publicized battle with alcoholism. He captured the hearts of the nation by emanating small watery particles of ultra-patriotism from his eyes during the 1990 World Cup semi-final, inexplicably reaching No. 2 in the UK Top 40 and attracting a cult following on the back of a baffling popular wave of “Gazza-mania” before veering in and out of anonymity for the better part of the 21st century.

Fast–forward to 2010 and, with the Moat situation culminating in a hopeless standoff with armed police, Gascoigne capitalized on a tenuous social link to the former bouncer to offer himself up as a mediator. During the standoff, Gazza rocked up in a taxi armed with a six-pack of lager, a fishing rod, a bucket of chicken and a dressing gown to coax Moat into submission.

“Moaty, Moaty! It’s me, Gazza!” rang out the would-be peace cry from the scantily clad Geordie. Somewhat surprisingly, he was denied access to the gun-wielding fugitive.

So what is it exactly that compels this bizarre calibre of celebrity to have such a vociferous presence in disputes between the public and police? Opportunistic publicity? Unconditional altruism?

To take each argument in turn, the former certainly has cynics sharpening their pencils. Are both thinly veiled attempts at attention-seeking, last-ditch stabs at retribution in the discerning eyes of the public? Are they a mere fame-induced clutching at straws, aimed at prolonging cataclysmic falls from grace? Whilst neither intervention could reasonably be considered tantamount to UN peacekeeping missions, there is a case to be made that successfully negotiating a resolution would have surely secured the public salvation sought by both.

On the other side of the coin, maybe it is a genuine concern for the individuals involved that provides the underlying motivation. Perhaps Sheen and Gascoigne truly believe their elevated public profiles may have been persuasive bargaining tools when it came to convincing the perpetrators to concede and turn themselves in, thus reaching a swift and peaceful conclusion. Indeed, Dorner explicitly described Sheen as “awesome” in his manifesto, and perhaps such admiration ought not be swept away so lightly.

Similarly, Moat hailed from more or less the same area as Gazza, and while their acquaintance was fleeting at best, what could be more flattering to know that a local-born celebrity had your safety at the forefront of their concerns? A few words of comfort might have yielded the solace both fugitives sought, safe in the knowledge that a celebrity genuinely wants to see them survive their ordeal. Then again, both involvements could just be the products of excessively delusional narcissism, or vocalizations of egos ravaged by years and years of substance and alcohol abuse.

No one can be quite sure what could have transpired had Gascoigne or Sheen been allowed to get involved. Perhaps their influence would have proved to resolve, rather than exacerbate, what were precarious and ultimately fatal impasses.

The fact still remains that both situations culminated in bloody circumstances that nobody stood to benefit from. Two fugitives were stripped of the chance to stand trial for their crimes whilst the families of their victims were left bereft of justice and the sense of closure that accompanies it.

Why not then, with any other more constructive options not forthcoming, simply allow the two celebrities to act as peacemakers in earnest? And should this yield somewhat more desirable consequences, why stop there? Why not have the pair strapped into a plane and parachuted into the West Bank? Probably best to leave the lager and fishing rod at home though, eh Gazza?

JOE STEPTOE is an Aggie city news writer, and third-year political science and sociology double major. He can be reached at jsteptoe@ucdavis.edu.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks talking about money: spending it, saving it, bathing in it, etc. I have no say in whether money will bring about happiness or anything deep and cosmic like that, but it’s something that the majority of the population is in constant need of. Money to eat, money to go out, money to make it rain at the strip club, money to pay for the rent, money to pay for gas, money to pay for alcohol, the list goes onward to infinity.

There is the old adage of “time is money,” or the updated classic, “If I ain’t getting paid then I’m getting laid,” which are both venerable mottos to live your life by. But more importantly, they bring up an alternate currency that is just as valuable (or possibly even more so) than money: Time.

Time is an incredibly deceitful beast. In a morbid sense, I don’t think anyone in the world knows how much time they have, save for prisoners on death row and wizards, I guess. Even though one must put in time and effort to get money, the reverse does not usually apply.

A normal person cannot extend his or her life by sacrificing money. An ailing patient can gain a few more years by paying for a new wonder drug or undergoing a costly surgery procedure, but a healthy person cannot extend their livelihood by putting their head in a glass jar (à la Futurama) or putting their body in a robot. Not yet, at least.

How anyone chooses to spend their time is entirely left up to them. In economics, we have a concept called opportunity costs, that compare the tradeoffs between doing A or doing B. The special part about opportunity costs compared to most other tools in economics is that it takes into account measures other than specific monetary costs like forgone time or pleasures.

For example, one may think that the only opportunity cost to working a three–hour shift is three hours of said person’s time. But it also can be considered that it is time lost towards being able to do homework, to shower, to have sex, to watch a movie, to take a tour of a submarine, not all necessarily in that order, but you get the picture. So it boils down to whether those three forgone hours were worth the wage earned.

Of course, no one really has exciting things planned for every minute of their day and that’s why people are willing to work. Because otherwise, they’d realistically just spend those hours sitting on their asses surfing Reddit or something. The best of both worlds is getting away with browsing the internet whilst still getting paid. Boring office cubicle jobs can be nice after all.

There are opportunity costs to everything. Instead of studying for a midterm, you could be riding a tractor. Instead of going home for the weekend, you could take a road trip to Tijuana. It’s all relative on you and on how you value certain things. For example, I’d derive much more pleasure from just sitting in my bed and reading rather than biking to my job any day, but I’m obligated to go to work. Sometimes you’ve got to do the right thing, even if you have to forgo things you’d rather be doing.

I’m sure it’s a concept that most people would understand because nearly everyone would rather be doing something other than what they’re currently doing. Like I’m sure you’d rather be petting a dozen cute puppies than reading this column right now. Or that you’d rather be rich and comfortable living in a seaside manor instead of toiling away for a degree at this university.

Alas, we all can’t have what we want. That’s where money comes back into the equation. With the right amount of money, you could buy 12 dozen cute puppies, let them live in a seaside manor and simply visit the place and pet them whenever you’re feeling up to the occasion. I understand that some people don’t have such grandiose desires though.

Whether your aspirations be simple or grand, money and time are undoubtedly two great factors in whether they will come to fruition or not. Working on managing and balancing these two aspects harmoniously can lead to tremendous happiness.

ANDREW POH apologizes for his ridiculously corny closing lines. He borrows them from fortune cookies that he gets from Chinese take-out. If you have better ideas, shoot some his way at apoh@ucdavis.edu.

In this column I want to set aside the usual polemics to focus on some examples of heroic figures who provided us with enormous values in their pursuit of profit. If possible, I recommend listening to your preferred epic movie soundtrack while reading this, to enhance the experience (my choice would be Hans Zimmer – “Time”). In no particular order:

J.P. Morgan: American financier who funded Thomas Edison’s research to invent the lightbulb. He later financed the railroad industry to make it more profitable and stable, and helped consolidate the steel industry to make it more profitable and efficient. His activities benefited millions in the U.S. economy and he ultimately became one of the wealthiest men of all time.

James Watt: Scottish inventor who contributed enormously to the Industrial Revolution via his improvement on the steam engine (which at first was used primarily for pumping water). He made possible the wide use of steam for transportation via steam boats and trains. His firm produced steam engines with great success for more than a century. Given the importance of the Industrial Revolution in reaching our current standard of living, Watt’s contribution is staggering.

Henry Ford: American industrialist who applied the “assembly line” technique to automobile production to make reliable cars affordable to the American middle class, where they had previously only been available to the wealthy. Even as he became more and more successful, the wages of his workers improved (as he looked to attract the best workers around) and the prices of his cars dropped. Ford later developed an airplane company that produced the first successful passenger airliner in the U.S.

Ray Kroc: American businessman who turned McDonald’s into an incredibly successful restaurant chain, giving people easy access to cheap food they enjoyed. He ensured that quality would be maintained across the chain and made the restaurant so popular that it was generating $8 billion a year by the time he left. He also established the Ronald McDonald House foundation, which is involved in various large-scale charity projects to provide children with health care and educational support, among other things.

Sam Walton: The founder of Wal-Mart who revolutionized grocery stores by consistently providing a wide range of goods at very low prices and building stores in small towns close to Wal-Mart warehouses to increase efficiency. He has given access to cheap and reliable goods to millions of people and his company is now one of the largest employers in the world. His actions have greatly improved the lives of the lower and middle class in the U.S.

Steve Jobs: Jobs was a co-founder of Apple, Inc. and helped create one of the first commercially viable personal computers. He made Apple into an incredibly valuable company via the development of popular and useful items like the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. These products set new standards for a wide variety of products that make our lives more enjoyable and more efficient, and Jobs made billions in the process.

These industrialists, businesspeople and inventors epitomize the productiveness and pursuit of rational self-interest that is protected and encouraged by capitalism. These examples clearly show that the pursuit of profit should not be viewed as evil or ignoble, as I have argued in my past columns — and that in many cases everyone can benefit from the innovation and entrepreneurship that result from that pursuit.

TRISTAN DE LIEGE can be reached at tflenaerts@ucdavis.edu.