Opinion

Fall of 2011 will be remembered as a dark time for the students of the University of California. The regents approved a controversial second fee increase on July 14, adding a 9.6 percent increase to the previously approved 8 percent increase. Student protesters at UC Berkeley were met by police wielding batons and bean bag guns, and police use of pepper spray at UC Davis on Friday, Nov. 18 drew outcry from across the nation. At the same time, Congress began pushing through legislation that would change the Internet on a fundamental level, allowing copyright holders the power to dictate which websites could be or could not be reached, despite near unanimous opposition from technology companies.

A video of U.S. Marines defiling unidentified corpses, which was taped by a fellow Marine, has circulated the web on sites like YouTube, CNN, The New York Times, and internationally on Aljazeera and the BBC.

Recently, the White House has announced it will help create over 180,000 jobs over the summer for youth aged 16-24. The plan calls on companies like Jamba Juice, Wells Fargo, Viacom, AT&T and others to increase the amount of young people they will hire this summer for temporary jobs.

You are behind the ever-quickening times if you are yet to jump on the latest cyber bandwagon that began with the “Shit Girls Say” YouTube videos. Since the three-episode sensation made its debut one month ago, a series of parodies have followed in its footsteps, thanks to fans that can “relate” to the stereotypes portrayed and exaggerated in the videos. The makers of the videos are often people who embody certain characteristics due to their race, sexual orientation, physical appearance, interests, or even relationship status, and are stereotyped for it.

The other day I found myself indulging in one of my many vices – reading the frivolous articles on Yahoo news. After scrolling through one insane article after another, primarily Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian news, I came across an interesting topic about freedom of speech in school.

This being only my second quarter at UC Irvine, I’ve made quite the shrewd observation in regards to the student body of this great university. I realized that all those stories and rumors of the different majors possessing their own unique and random quirks and traits apart from one another is actually very true. I came to this conclusion just last week when I was exploring the school attempting to find all of my classes for the new quarter. Being an English and literary journalism double major, I only had classes in the humanities wing last quarter, and all within Humanities Hall.

It’s that time again. Cuddle Season, a season where cold weather has you grabbing for the covers, snuggling with your loved one and drinking some hot cocoa. Yet with this hazy post-holiday joy comes the dreary, gloomy months where loneliness kicks in, and depression wreaks havoc on your personal and academic life.

The tents have been disassembled, blankets and lawn chairs folded and crammed into cars. The “We are the 99%” signs have been tucked into the backseat along with, “Take the money out of politics” and “Government of the People.” The Occupy Orange County protest took their last stand last Wednesday, Jan. 11. The protest was arguably victorious, but certainly amicable in nature.

Good news and bad news. Bad news is I just found out that Gov. Jerry Brown is a secret Republican. The good news is ... well, there isn’t any, actually. I just didn’t want to start out as such a Debbie Downer. Like a true secret Republican, Brown decided it would be in the best interest of the people of California if the educational budget was slashed. How much? Only a measly $4.8 billion. Yes. That’s right. Brown infiltrated his way into the true blue party over 40 years ago, only to cut almost a month’s worth of funding from public schools, and reveal he was a GOP ninja the entire time.

The UC System is broke. California is broke. You know that. I know that. The question now is what the heck can we do about it? Strikes, protests and petitions are the first things that come to mind, and while these are great tools to let everyone know what we support and don’t support, what may be working and what must change, these methods do not really produce solid, tangible results. This is where some active and innovative minds from the University of California, Riverside, come in. Over the course of nine months, students at UCR, some of whom are members of the UCR Highlander Newspaper Editorial Board and ASUCR, have developed a Student Investment Proposal which outlines a revolutionary new way to have UC students pay for school.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney beat former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucus last Wednesday by a razor-thin 8 votes. Undoubtedly, the common saying that “every vote counts” holds true in this case. While the event was historical due to Romney’s slim margin of victory, one needs to consider a couple of facts before referring to it as “unpredictable” and “unexpected” as some news pundits and analysts have dubbed it to be.

Who the hell is Ronald Ernest Paul? To his supporters and admirers, he is a shining beacon of hope, honesty and true politics. He signals a return to a politics for the people, not for the government, a philosophy steeped in the work of Ayn Rand and the ideals behind libertarianism.