Opinion

iPads are easily one of the most innovative Apple products yet. They are changing the way we do everything from entertaining ourselves to organizing professional business presentations. There is even talk of the iPad replacing the clipboard in our hospitals. It is staggering to consider the technological progress of the past 50 years. This quantum leap can’t help but tease the mind with visions of what may come to be 50 years from now.

We, as human beings, are known to do some pretty odd things. Just like the rest of the natural world, we as a species exhibit certain behaviors and rituals that are exclusive to our race alone. We gasp spastically when we find something to be amusing. We clap our palms together to show appreciation. We move around in metal boxes on wheels. And due to the repetition of habit, along with the apparent popularity of such customs, we often fail to recognize the peculiar nature of these practices, as seen from a detached and unbiased standpoint.

The times they are changin’, Mr. Dylan. They’re changing, indeed. I remember growing up in a time that now seems long ago, when the government actually encouraged people to vote. They had entire campaigns dedicated to it. They even got Jason Mraz to tell me to do it. That was back in the day. Back before the Republican party decided that it wanted to try and stop people from voting. And I’m not talking about the good old-fashioned “put the fewest number of voting booths in the most inaccessible part of town, to prevent all the minorities from voting” trick. I’m talking about the newest war on Americans that the GOP is fighting.

After six months of debating, campaigning and pandering, the official race for the GOP nomination has begun. Over the next five months the frontrunners will continue to claw at each other and wrestle with capricious Tea Partiers and the feisty Republican base until the dust settles in June and Barack Obama’s challenger emerges. The great irony of this circus is that the person whom Republicans have been trying to avoid will end up leading them. I am talking, of course, about Mitt Romney.

In 1995, when Kim Jong-il consolidated power, an alarming number of frogs disappeared from North Korea. The reason was that desperate North Koreans were eating frogs to ward off starvation. The famine that occurred between 1995 and 1998 ranks among the most underreported and obscured man-made tragedies. Half a million to 2 million people died; yet no one believed these estimates because the insular nature of the North Korean government turned any information about it into propaganda or rumors.

The new year has arrived, and college students are all probably feeling the same post-holiday blues and agitation in regards to us not being accustomed to writing 2012 on our homework assignments and papers. 2012 is here though, and whether this is our last year on Earth or not, with the looming predictions by Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar, we must continue living our lives here at Irvine.

UC Irvine students weigh in on the Occupy movement.

I really don’t know if I’m supposed to be disgusted or amused by Coach Lynch’s antics. In case you’re lost, here’s a quick recap: A football coach in Wyoming gave his players a questionnaire every time they raised concerns or complaints about something. Seems logical so far. Some of the items asking why a student filed this “Hurt Feelings Report” included: “I am a pussy,” “I am a little bitch,” “My butt is easily hurt,” and my personal favorite, “I have woman-like hormones.” This report also needed a “girly-man signature” at the bottom, and required you to print your name next to “little sissy filing report.”

They break into our country and steal our benefits. This statement is harsh and unforgiving, but for many Americans who have a possessive and protective grasp on their country, it is a fair sentiment in response to roughly 13 million illegal immigrants.

A common argument that people who oppose nationalizing health care make is that they should not hold the burden for other people’s mistakes, such as their own self-inflicted addiction to nicotine or inability to exercise and eat healthy. And although this argument is rational and valid, it does not mean that those with health problems should have to pay a significant more amount than a “healthy” person.

Letter to the campus community from Federated University Police Officers Association (FUPOA)

The Penn State scandal is a story about one man whose legacy has been tarnished because of his failure to report his knowledge of his defensive coordinator’s alleged rape of a 10-year-old child. Joe Paterno is a man who claimed to put integrity and character above the game of football. A seasoned champion of the game like what John Wooden was to college basketball. Now his career is tainted and the reputation of the Penn State Nittany Lions lies in question. This is the story right?