Opinion

The ostensibly static life of a gamer shouldn't be disparaged. It's a passionate story that epitomizes love and determination.

In order to close California's massive deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a mid-year budget cut earlier this month to cut $65.5 million from the University of California this fiscal year, adding to the $48 million already cut this year. Furthermore, the proposed 2008-09 budget means that the UC would need to save an additional $100 million to cover student enrollment, expansion and other rising costs not funded by the state. For those doing the math, that means the UC must make $213.5 million appear out of thin air.

Like the eye of some monstrous storm, the Thanksgiving season has come, promising some kind of respite from the terrible news in the financial sector, the worse news of the opaque nature of the bailout and the fact that it's boom-time for the repo business. We can take a break, watch football, stuff our faces and forget about the world for a second.

When most people think of pirates, they probably think of recent movies or of a bygone era when wooden ships using sails were attacked by people looking for precious cargo like gold. However, piracy is running strong in the Gulf of Aden – the body of water between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia east of Africa – one of the world's most important waterways. Around 11 percent of the world's shipped petroleum goes through it.

So you're walking down Ring Mall from your Humanities class, animatedly chatting with your friends, when all of a sudden, as you turn to face forward, you get a mouthful of good ol' carbon monoxide mixed with benzene, arsenic, formaldehyde and about 3,996 other slightly calamitous chemicals from the silver-haired Spanish professor strolling along in front of you, twiddling his Cuban between his thumb and forefinger. How do you react?

Chancellor Charles B. Reed of the California State University system announced, among other revisions, plans to raise academic standards for entering freshmen for all state universities on Nov. 17. This came just days after reports presented to the University of California Regents on Nov. 12 showed that the system's endowment has lost $1 billion in recent months, standing at an estimated $5.7 billion on Sept. 30, down from $6.7 billion as of Dec. 31, 2007.

When you think about what it means to study aboard, what comes to mind? Is it the historical sites? Is it the foreign people and their customs? Or is it something else entirely?

In "Rejecting AIDS Denialism" in the Nov. 10 issue of the New University, Mengfei Chen wrote a powerful article about the importance of South Africa facing the reality of HIV if they are to limit its spread and, eventually, if we, as a world people, are to master the disease. I would like to add, however, a very important point. In the United States, we also live in the midst of "denialism."

In "Natural Theology," Reverend William Paley put forth the most appealing and untrue argument for creationism: All living things, Paley said, are too intricately designed to have come about by blind chance.

Decency could return to politics once again. No, I don't mean decency in the sense of honesty or fewer bribes from slick lobbyists. Nor do I mean less party jockeying and sober apologies with the wife on one side and the mistress on the other. I mean decency in just one matter of the political process: finance.

Education is a right, not a privilege. Herein lies one of the major flaws of the American system and one of the reasons there is such a wide gap between the rich and the poor. Essentially, if all people were given the same opportunities to receive an education, everyone would have an equal chance of succeeding. Equality of opportunity—it is the principle that America was built on, and the principle that can make the American dream possible.

As I entered the Los Angeles Area on the drive down from my hometown of Berkeley, the first thing I noticed was a curious shade of gray spanning a foot above the horizon. I turned to the friend I was traveling with, who happened to be from Los Angeles, and pointed. "What is that?" I asked, having never been to Los Angeles or to Orange County. "Oh, what? Uh, yeah, that's the smog," she replied nonchalantly. "It's whatever."