Opinion

Compiled by the New University Editorial Board.

The UC Regents, perhaps trying to make up for their relatively low participation in staving off the budget cuts, are urging schools to...

Twitter is everywhere these days, so it’s no surprise that even our beloved elected officials use it. It is such a common part of their business nowadays that Twitter has sent a representative to the capitol to better serve those congressmen who use the blue bird. The novelty of old, technologically naive politicians entering the social networking world has not worn off quite yet, but one of these days Congress using Twitter will be as unremarkable as e-mail. When it comes to making political statements or campaigning, however, Twitter is still a powerful attention-grabbing tool and will be an important aspect of electoral strategy, not only in the next election but well into the future.

Through the course of history, protests have always proven to be an essential element in preserving the democracy that we hold on to so dearly. Protests are a form of expressing dissent to certain events and policies. Most importantly, the act of protesting is protected through our First Amendment right of freedom of speech, and to be punished for peacefully exercising this right is completely unreasonable. Despite this, the district attorney of Orange County recently subpoenaed six UC Irvine students and compelled them to testify before a grand jury regarding an event that took place about a year ago.

This truth has become self-evident in Egypt, where a grassroots populous movement calling for the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and for a new democratic government has begun. For 30 years, the people of Egypt have dealt with an exponential rate of unemployment, increasing food prices and a rapidly diminishing quality of life. However, on Jan. 25 2011, the Egyptians finally said “kefaya,” or “enough is enough,” and took to the streets with a resilient determination to overthrow their oppressive regime.

China. Does the name send shivers down your spine? Should it? The World’s Most Populous State (1.3 billion people) is the fastest growing economy in history, rocketing past Germany and the U.K. in recent years to take third place in the world market. In the past three months, Japan has reportedly fallen just behind China for yet another quarter, tentatively making China the world’s second largest economy. With that kind of track record, how long before they take number one?

One of the largest applause lines in the State of the Union was the moment when President Obama mentioned his success in repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which barred gay and lesbian soldiers from serving openly. The extended standing ovation for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is not particularly surprising, given that it was one of Obama’s signature accomplishments, one of many that happened during last December’s lame duck session.

Despite his two decades of service in the House of Representatives, our suspiciously orange Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ohio native John Boehner has only now begun to catch some major notoriety. Even as a member of the Gang of Seven, a group of (not surprisingly) seven representatives known for squashing the House banking scandal in the early 1990s, Boehner stayed pretty quiet. It’s not for his newfound power or politics, that we know him now, though. It’s for his tears. That’s right, John Boehner is the federal crybaby.

Mark Yudof has been called one of the Top Ten Best College Presidents of All Time by Time magazine. When he became president of the UC System in 2008, he stepped into a financial bear trap: Arnold had just cut the UC budget by 20 percent when the UC was already facing a billion-dollar deficit. Not to mention the fact that there wasn’t going to be much help from the rest of the state itself as California was feeling the brunt of the recession.

The proposed budget cuts on California’s Medi-Cal program show serious political failure. The beneficiaries of the Medi-Cal program are low-income families, foster care children, low-income seniors over 65 and disabled individuals. The program provides health insurance to some 6.5 million Californians. In the year 2010-2011, the approved budget for Medi-Cal was $60,163,121; Governor Brown’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year is $42,539,740. At the same time, Brown wants to increase taxes over $9 billion in the form of higher sales, income and vehicle taxes. If the state is cutting social security for low income families and increasing taxes, who will be the ultimate beneficiaries of the state savings?

After multiple rounds of brutal budget cuts and skyrocketing fee hikes, many in the UC Irvine community supported Governor Brown’s campaign in the hope that he might put an end to this nightmare. Since announcing his $500 million cut to the UC - nearly 20 percent Ń it seems that this nightmare may just be beginning. At least, that’s the way the UC administration is portraying it.

“Rejection. The exclusivity of any university is judged primarily by the amount of students it rejects.”