Opinion

Figures on the global stage stepped up to the podium with incendiary speeches, passed controversial notes, and rode the escalator backwards. These are the world’s top diplomats at the world’s most centralized communication forum: the United Nations.

It seems as if now, more than any other time in recent history, being a student is particularly difficult. As a class, we have no choice but to bear the consequences of the mistakes of our predecessors, shoulder the debt they’ve racked up and deal with an economy that is about as worn out as Amy Winehouse’s hairpiece. While a lagging job market waits at the end of our education, the massive cuts in the educational system impair the very generation meant to absolve the debt and revive the economy.

The New U is finally ready to be a part of the twenty-first century. We, the Opinion Section editors (Mengfei and Frida...more on us...

So I spend a lot of time on the Internet.  Sometimes I know what I am looking for and sometimes I am...

“I actually think the students ought to be angry about the fee increase proposal,” Mark Yudof said during his speech proposing a $585 mid-year tuition increase at the UC Regents meeting on Sept. 16, 2009. Don’t worry, Mr. Yudof. We are.

Despite the passage of Proposition 8 in Nov. 2008 and California’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of Proposition 8 in June, the battle for marriage in California is not over yet. Another fight over same-sex marriage is expected, and both sides are already preparing for the next round.

Occasionally, I cheer myself up by going to the American Library Association’s Web page to remind myself that this national librarians’ organization has an “Office for Intellectual Freedom.” Along with my union and hundreds of citizen activist groups, librarians from around the country, including here at UC Irvine, organized an annual collective warning and intellectual love-in. We hope to remind everyone that the power of silly people to misunderstand and miss the point can easily be challenged by honest, free supporters of our shared basic American right to read. And to read whatever we like, thank you very much!

Although it seemed at first that President Barack Obama’s honeymoon popularity would never end, his halo has finally ceased to exist. Since March, President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to 50 percent — the largest drop of an American President in the history of polling.

With two unexpected turnovers in Congress in the last two election cycles, the Republican Party has been a huge disappointment in the last couple of years. Following the 2008 Presidential Election, hundreds of articles declaring the death of the GOP have been written. After all, many Washington political analysts had already determined the Republican Party dead following its defeats in 1964, 1974 and 1992.

Former Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, or as he is more famously nicknamed, Ted Kennedy, was a man born into politics and raised...

It seems that nearly every first-year student coming to campus is aware of the dreaded “Freshman 15” — the fabled 15-pound weight gain caused by a diet of Ramen Noodles and Easy Mac. Unfortunately, there is one other lesser known statistic that can have a huge impact on students’ lives: 20-25 percent of college women experience attempted or completed rape during their college career.

Freedom of speech is recognized as a human right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United States Constitution. UC Irvine also recognizes that students have the right to express themselves and their opinions. Section 30.10 of the Administrative Policies of UCI states: “The University is committed to assuring that all persons may exercise the constitutionally protected rights of free expression, speech, assembly and worship.” So why do the UCI administration and Anteaters for Israel (AFI) constantly try to prevent the Muslim Student Union (MSU) from expressing their political beliefs?