Opinion

Just like every other member of the “Religious Right” in the state, I was nervously awaiting the court’s ruling on whether or not the California ban on same-sex marriage violated the U.S. Constitution. Lo and behold, the liberal judges decided that it was, in fact, OK for the gays to get married. Great. What next? Are the Dems going to allow people to marry animals? Are we all going to be forced to share our beds with furniture? These liberal judges have gone too far with this one.

A few weeks ago, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a nonprofit organization that helps fund charities aimed at curing breast cancer, made a huge booboo. They cut funding from Planned Parenthood. That’s over $500,000 worth of grants that the womens’ rights organization desperately needs, and it was taken from them for some fishy reasons.

Is it a necessary and convenient tool for officers to be able to pull over people based on their race, or is this a direct violation of our civil rights?

A month ago it was Newt Gingrich; now it’s Rick Santorum. Mitt Romney was trending at some point in between, but no one really noticed, or maybe no one wanted to. Romney is the candidate the GOP yawns over, with the candidate of the month consistently coming in and stealing his thunder. The thread I see running through all these other candidates is their authenticity, or at least the appearance of it, especially in relation to Romney.

We don’t know if you know this or not, but our school was essentially a hippie commune at one point. Yeah, UC Irvine (the land of bro tanks, $2 boba and dance crews) was full of hippies. As in there used to be a parking lot where you could park your trailer or RV and live there on the cheap. Try doing that now, and enjoy explaining yourself to the impound lot.

On a beautiful, sunny day in mid-1959, the University of California purchased 1,000 acres – what would eventually become the beautiful University of California, Irvine – from the monopolizing Irvine Company for a hefty price of $1. And it’s all been downhill since then. OK. I joke, but seriously: with this year’s freshman class, the 50th graduating class, I think it may be safe to say that this campus peaked in its mid-20s.

Throughout the last 50 years, the UC Irvine campus has exhibited vast changes. What started out as 1,589 students is now 28,000 students and has a reputation as one of the most distinguished universities in the world. So, what kind of changes has UCI made in the last 50 years?

Introductions: In this corner! Wearing a red Michael Jordan No. 23 jersey, standing approximately 6 feet and 2 inches tall, and weighing in at 175 pounds, he is the Sultan of Strut, the epitome of swagger. He walks at a pace of 5.5 miles per hour, never sacrificing style; yet somehow he has yet to be inducted into the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame for speed walking. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Charles Jock’s hero, the Pacer of Peltason himself — Swag Maaaaaaaaaaan!

America was still in Vietnam when UC Irvine opened in 1965. Jobs sprung from the dirt along with new housing complexes and turfgrass and thousands were attracted to the palm-treed paradise. War vets, Asian immigrants, Latino immigrants, African-Americans —pretty much everyone flocked to California. Meanwhile, UCI was just a few buildings situated in dry isolation surrounded by miles of dirt and blue sky.

There was a poster, quite some time ago, that circulated around the Internet in support of marriage equality that depicted exactly how this issue should be treated. In a nutshell, it asserted that gay marriage shouldn’t be referred to as “gay” marriage — it’s just marriage. Because, you know, you park your car. You don’t gay park it.

There’s a part of me that sometimes feels some sympathy toward our regents. I mean, they’re not necessarily in the best position to get things done if there’s no money coming from the state, right? But there’s also a part of me that gets really pissed off when I hear the rhetoric thrown around by protestors who say that the regents are greedy individuals only interested in privatizing the University of California system.

I love the beach: Running, biking, swimming, sitting, sleeping there, is Metta (beyond) Therapeutic (shout out to my boy Metta World Peace). The soft sand when it falls between your toes, the sound of the waves, the caress of the ocean, the colors of the sunset, are all purely amazing.