Opinion

As hopefully all of you know by now, we had to vote on two ballot initiatives this election — the ASUCI Initiative and Anteater Express Initiative. There’s no doubt about the appeal of these two referendums; what’s not to like about a more robust campus life, or the retention of necessary transportation services? Furthermore, both initiatives had strong support from ASUCI.

1,426 children are dead in Palestine since September 2000. These children were caught in the middle of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Since 1948, there have been about 171 Jewish settlements built in the occupied Palestinian territories, more than 8,500 Palestinians have died, and a 25-foot wall that encloses them into a small densely packed territory has been put up. This by definition is apartheid because the sole reason of their separation is because they are Palestinians.

Election season is in full swing and we’ve already endured nearly a month of back and forth controversies and accusations that one side or the other has engaged in cheap tricks. President Obama politicized the death of the world’s most notorious terrorist (at least until Kony came along), and Mitt Romney politicized Obama eating a dog as a child after the Democrats politicized him putting his dog on his car.

When Obama decided to “slow jam” the news he knew he was not going to be able to get away with pulling this campaign stunt without backlash from his critics. He took a risk by appearing on a late-night talk show, aware that his opponents would not shy away from the fight.

In the last few months, a push for individual UC schools to have more autonomy has increased, with UCSF calling for more independence and the Center for Studies in Higher Education at Berkeley releasing a memo in favor of local governance.

The explosive popularity of social networking websites in the past few years has presented us with some engaging issues, especially those concerning privacy and what should or should not be posted on the Internet. Thanks to the Internet and social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, people are capable of typing something into their computer and making it available to everyone else across the globe.

April 24, 2012 was the 97th year since the Armenian Genocide. Under the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey) 1.5 million men, women and children were shot, beaten, raped, drugged and drowned. This massacre predates the Holocaust and marks the beginning of modern genocide. And yet, there are some who claim that the piles of severed heads and images of starved, rib-caged corpses were merely byproducts of a civil war. Such denial has bludgeoned the Armenian Genocide into obscurity for nearly a century, but there has been and continues to be resistance.

What if I told you that no matter how many years you’ve been improving your intelligence here at UC Irvine, you have been neglecting a portion of your brain’s capability? What if I told you that right now, this portion is at its peak, and it is only going to get weaker? If you were told you could strengthen this portion, would you? The better question is: How could you even resist?

I was recently informed that men are no longer allowed to write about women’s issues in many newspapers across the country. Of course, this didn’t surprise me. Being a white, middle-class male, I’ve always had to deal with blatant sexist discrimination like this. While this article might surprise you since I don’t have a history of writing anything controversial, I beg you to read this so you can also be armed with the information needed to fight back against the oppressive vagina regime.

As the upcoming election approaches, all eyes and ears are centered on the candidates, but who is watching and hearing us? Every four years, presidential candidates stretch the horizons of their campaign to cover as many demographics as possible in hopes of attaining a multifaceted base of supporters. Amongst the many minorities that politicians lobby for, the vote of the youth continues to get overlooked.

It is that time of year when the community, the prospective students, alumni and fellow Anteaters come out to play. Saturday, April 24, was UC Irvine’s annual Wayzgoose, also known as Celebrate UCI. This student-run outdoor festival had it all, from live entertainment, to the car show, food, rides and games. It was the perfect way to welcome in the spring.

Every presidential campaign in the history of American politics has been built upon a characteristic platform — a definitive set of values, beliefs and qualities that the candidate is hoping to embody and sell to the voting public. Abraham Lincoln ran on unity and abolition. Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to fix the Great Depression. Lyndon B. Johnson promoted a Great Society and Reagan pushed for a balanced budget.