March 10, 2006. I sat with 10 friends in a crowd of 2,817 at the Bren Events Center, watching and cheering for our then second- ranked men’s volleyball team in the nation as they played the top- ranked Brigham Young University. The atmosphere was like nothing I had ever experienced. It was about three-quarters of the way through my freshman year of college and I remember turning to my good friend Iris and saying, “This is the best night of my life.”
UC Irvine and the University of Southern California faced off last weekend in Provo, UT for the national championship. No matter what the result, get used to seeing these two programs squaring off against each other for some time to come.
As much as Trekkies may dislike the idea, J.J. Abrams’ take on Gene Rodenberry’s famous space-faring series is actually good. Fans of the original series and its film spin-offs may cry foul at this alternate take on their beloved space soap opera, but it’s precisely because the new “Star Trek” film doesn’t cater to the old television show’s motifs that makes it watchable and entertaining.
Shapan: Getting excited about a movie is fun. A lot of people hate being late for movies not because they missed that critical first five minutes of the movie, but because they missed the trailers. Trailers are like Christmas gifts you can tuck under a tree. You might have an idea of what it is, but you’ll never know for sure. Isn’t that exciting? And isn’t that excitement refreshing?
Those of us who crave new culture and new experiences usually look to the Education Abroad Program or study abroad programs to flee the bland office buildings of Irvine and immerse ourselves in Chinese, British or Russian life. However, in a rare opportunity, a little bit of Iranian culture came to UC Irvine last Friday. The Iranian Student Union’s (ISU) second annual Culture Show filled most of Crystal Cove last Friday night and stirred its audience with native music, singing, fashion and comedy.
Last week, the Obama administration hosted Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., for talks and friendship-building fun-tivities. Usually, the mutual failure to deal with the Taliban and its associates is a source of tension between the two countries. But on this trip, Pakistan could not deny that it was the primary architect of its latest problems. Luckily, the solution lies within as well.
Every May, the Muslim Student Union, along with a coalition of various student groups, puts on a series of events about the Palestinian-Israeli issue in which the goal is to promote a better understanding of the conflict and to foster critical thinking and debate. Through dynamic talks and interactive installations, we hope to pave a path to engage the student body and faculty in exploring the potential for change. By empowering students with more knowledge, independent of western media bias and bigoted perceptions, we hope to encourage active involvement in promoting a just solution in the region. This week, we will show the tragedy in the loss of humanity when rhetoric and politics take precedence over coexistence and compassion.
“[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people have developed their [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land … It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: ‘We desire death like you desire life.’ ”
