A few weeks ago, as I sat with my friend watching the Food Network at 4 a.m., it seemed that every commercial break included an eHarmony or Match.com commercial. Of course Match.com would assume that if I was watching the Food Network at 4 a.m., I was single.

Sadly, it was right. And the commercials repeatedly reminded me that one in five relationships start online and couples in 17 percent of marriages in the past three years met online. Between the delirium of 4 a.m., Guy Fieri and the biracial couple who were “matched in Oct. 2004,” my friend and I jokingly decided to make online dating profiles.

But after learning that one month of eHarmony costs more than my phone bill, we turned to its free alternative, OKCupid.

The first step was to decide how best to showcase myself to the world of potential mates (aka what I should put on my profile). Here, I found myself in a dark place that felt disgustingly similar to the world of college apps. I never thought I’d have to fill out another “Self-Summary,” “What I’m really Good At” or “What I’m Doing With My Life” ever again.  I thought wrong.

After dutifully putting in what I thought to be creative responses, the site bombarded me with even more questions to increase “match percentages.” Some were relevant, asking if I was okay with my significant other spending a lot of time with exes (not really) but others were less so: “Do you believe in dinosaurs?” (um, yes).

Then it was time to decide which photo to upload, and here I realized that everything I’d just done was useless. Who cares who I wrote? We all know it all depends on the photo. Sun God photos? Nah, I don’t want to come off like a crazed partier. Family photos? Yeah, right. Too boring. I finally decided on a picture of me and a friend, and (after cropping her out) hit “Upload.”

I started off by filtering through (read: blocking) the creepy 40-year-olds, the creepy cat guy that pokes his dead gecko every couple of weeks and the overall creeps. I found that it’s a lot easier to reject people online. And hey, that Chris* guy is cute and doesn’t off any weirdo alarms.

After the sifting through the initial weirdos, I was surprised to find that most of the guys weren’t social outcasts, or awkward pariahs, but regular dudes that were either new to the area or tired of the party scene — and who could blame them? Meeting new people is hard.

But online dating isn’t all that different from meeting someone at a party. You go on there to get away from the requisite awkward mingling, but it turns out online dating is just as shallow — in fact, online, appearances count more. You don’t have the opportunity to dazzle people with your in-person wit, so that profile pic better be well-lit and from a good angle. And with that said, you can assume that everyone’s about 33-percent hotter in their profile picture than in real life.

To test just how much looks matter online, I created two identical profiles with two very different pictures of me. Unsurprisingly, the frumpier profile’s inbox was left bare, while the “cuter” profile was bombarded with messages.

And for some bizarre reason, guys think that posting multiple shirtless pictures of their abs — without their faces — is the key to reeling in a girl. Think again, boys.

So anyway, there was Chris. With Halloween right around the corner, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to invite him to a costume party.

And if he turned out to be a creep, it wouldn’t be too difficult to disappear into the masses.

After awkward introductions, it turns out that we had a lot in common.

Aside from a certain A.S. senator stealing his attention for an hour-long engineering chat, I’d say the night was a success.

Every month, 20 million people date online, but though everyone seems to know someone who found their “someone” online, online daters are stigmatized as chumps who can’t get a date on their own.

If anything, for some, online dating is more a booty call roulette wheel than a retreat of social rejects. And no matter how obvious it seems, always meet “friends” you’ve met online in a public place, and — no matter how embarrassing — give a friend their number, just in case.

Online dating isn’t for everyone, but in the end, most members are normal people trying to find someone.

And because finding a date at UCSD that doesn’t only speak science or reek of bro is next to impossible, online dating is a viable option to weed out the less than desirable suitors.

I don’t think I’ll snag my dream man on OKCupid anytime soon, but the site did reaffirm the cliche: There are literally thousands of other fish in the sea. If one doesn’t work out, there are hundreds of others a click away.

After being at the beck and call of A.S. Council for the past two years, it’s time for media orgs to fly the coop and stand on their own two feet. Last year, the orgs fell victim to a council that froze their funding despite them having done (mostly) nothing wrong. They were then welcomed back with open arms and rewarded with an exorbitant allowance for their trouble. Now broke, councilmembers have passed new media funding guidelines that turn the student publications out again. These media orgs need to stop putting the existence of their publications in the hands of people who don’t know what InDesign is, and eliminate the uncertainty of relying on the whims of a fickle VP Finance and Resources.

Last Spring Quarter, council a passed a $60,000 media budget for the year. As the dust of the Compton Cookout and the media funding freeze was still settling, VP of Finance and Resources Andrew Ang — who was burned earlier after trying to impose new “guidelines” that smacked of censorship — allocated funds based on that number, liberally gifting some of the higher-end publications as much as $3,400 to last them through Fall Quarter.

At the first sign of budget cuts, the $60,000 was slashed down to $38,000 — a serious problem, considering Ang had already dished out $26,000 for Fall Quarter. Now, new guidelines cap funding for each org at $450 per org per quarter, striking a hard blow for our publications who are used to, as Ang put it, “being babied by A.S.”

This cripples the orgs. Whereas even the cheapest of productions — the Public Policy Journal at UCSD — received $800 this quarter, all media orgs will have to make due with $450 a quarter through Spring Quarter 2011. The guidelines also stipulate that in order to qualify for this funding, the media orgs must start looking to outside sources for money. And elsewhere — meaning fiscal independence via a pool of money just for media orgs — is the answer.

We get it. Council is between a rock and a hard place, and a cap on spending isn’t a bad plan in itself. Last year, councilmembers made it rain for No. 15 magazine by allocating $9,000 to the production of a single issue — and though we love artistic displays of food on naked bodies  as much as the next person, $9,000 really is overkill.

Still, council shouldn’t have cut the budget so drastically to begin with. The council has nearly free reign when it comes to allocating their $2 million a year. But while Sun God Festival’s $500,000 budget remains mostly untouched, the student publications are forced to limp along a budget that wouldn’t sustain even the cheapest of them. Associate Vice President of Student Orgs Carli Thomas even said that the council prioritizes programming over media orgs.

The council knew what it was doing when it took $22,000 from the media funding allocations last week. By the time the budget hit the table, the money for Fall Quarter had already been handed off to the media orgs. Expecting the publications to fall on the sword for A.S. Council’s past and present mistakes is unfair.

But what’s done is done and, as Ang touts his favorite buzz words of “fiscally responsible,” money can’t come from nowhere. This turn of events might be just the catalyst the media orgs need to break free from A.S. Council and control their own money. A recurring complaint among the media orgs is that the council decides how to allocate, but supposedly doesn’t how to run a media org, or know the difference between the cheapest newsprint and glossiest magazine paper.

A referendum would put power in the hands of the media orgs. Instead of giving our fickle governmental mastheads the discretion to fund media orgs whatever portion of that $2 million they see fit, students would pay fees into an account designated just for the media orgs — an account council couldn’t touch. A media org board — filled with members that know just what goes into that 12-page black-and-white labor of love — would be in charge of allocating among themselves. The media org editors who deal with these questions firsthand are far more qualified to pronounce judgement on a magazine’s requested budget than a council with a limited knowledge of printing costs and Photoshop.

Passing the referendum won’t be an easy feat — the sponsors will be just another in the long string  of departments and orgs coming to council with outstretched hands (yes, Loft, we’re looking at you). But provided the referendum passes, this means no more fear of media freeze, or unsympathetic financial controllers. No more council protests over the importance of free speech and how publications compare to tradition or cultural events. The referendum would provide media orgs with a set funds that wouldn’t vanish due to disorganized or confused budgeting.

But at most, a referendum will only go into effect next year and doesn’t provide any short-term answers for how an org used to $3,000 in funding will limp by with (up to) $450. But it’ll be a start.

When media orgs aren’t a priority, continuing to depend on mommy-and-daddy council for an allowance every quarter will constrict funds and create headaches. If media orgs have the courage to stand on their own two feet, and the luck to get a referendum passed by the students come April, the A.S. Council’s training wheels will fall away in favor of a much more stable ride.

"It’s a Bay Area thing.” That’s the extent of what most out-of-towners at this year’s San Francisco Treasure Island Festival have heard about Wallpaper — the Oakland-based, over-the-top party-funk duo. Maybe that’s because their performance is so difficult to describe: a Justin Timberlake doppelganger for a singer, some serious grooves with influences ranging from the ‘70s to today, a goddamn six-piece African percussion ensemble and — most elusive in the age of indie rock — a whole lot of white people dancing.

The first noticeable characteristic of Wallpaper mastermind Eric Frederic is his sense of humor. And with his track record, why not? It even comes out in his song titles, like “I Got Soul, I’m So Wasted” and “Doodoo Face” (the title track of his latest LP). His remix of Jay-Z’s “Death Of Autotune” douses the rapper’s all-too-serious attack on superficiality in schmaltzy synthesizer and — you guessed it — autotune. But the comedy never subtracts from the music; Wallpaper’s half-winking parody only makes the throwback grooves that much more irresistible.

Frederic took time off from his current tour to talk to The Guardian about his past, his future and the funky good times to be had at Wallpaper’s upcoming performance in San Diego.

The Guardian: Could you give us an idea of what Wallpaper is?

Eric Frederic: Wallpaper began as a sort of pop satire that eventually evolved into the thing it was mocking. It’s influenced by everything from ‘70s funk to ‘80s pop to ‘90s gangster rap, and the band is fronted by Ricky Reed — a living, breathing, sexing party machine.

G: Ricky Reed, your alter ego?

EF: That’s correct.

G: Is there a collaboration between the split personalities, or is it more of a Jekyll-Hyde situation?

EF: Ricky, he’s a dude — not me. I graduated with a degree in music composition from UC Berkeley. I am a super music nerd, really into the composition and theory of music. That’s definitely not Ricky Reed. He’s more of a lazy, womanizing weirdo — with a good sense of humor — who comes in and does all the vocals.

G: Wallpaper seems to have a pretty religious local following. Would you say Wallpaper is a Bay Area band?

EF: I thought we were for a long time, because that’s where I grew up and that’s the scene I know and love. But the first time we played in Philly, we were surprised to get that same vibe. People were just really engaged and dancing in this let-it-all-hang-loose atmosphere. Then the same thing starting popping up in San Diego and then in, like, Springfield, Missouri — anywhere that people were able to be open and honest with themselves and get down.

G: New York too. I know you gained some notoriety for your remix of “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” from Brooklyn’s Das Racist — a runaway hit last summer. How’d you get involved with that?

EF: Well I know [Himanshu Suri and Victor Vazquez] from Das Racist. They’re awesome. I heard that song about two years ago and I knew it was an amazing song and that I had to remix it. It took a few months for the remix to catch on after that. The funny thing about them is their other stuff is so incredible — they’re so much better than that one stray song.

G: Where’d the title for your latest album, Doodoo Face, come from?

EF: If you Google image search someone like James Brown or Bootsy Collins playing live, you’ll find them making this face that’s all scrunched up like they just smelled a little doodoo. It’s the face you make when something is just super duper funky. Unbelievably funky, even.

G: To the point where you lose control of muscle function?

EF: Right. Funk players, gospel players, blues — when it’s something real nasty you’ll see them yank that face. That very special face. Doodoo face.

G: But in addition to the retro funk vibes, there’s a lot of autotune on the album, which a lot of artists like Jay-Z are starting to question the validity of. What draws you to it?

EF: When I started Wallpaper it was all satire. Back then, autotune was known mostly in the music industry as the ‘Cher Effect’ because she used it in “Believe.” I wanted my voice to sound as mechanical and removed from the song as possible, so we cranked it up on the songs and I thought, “Wow, this sounds so cool and it gets my point across.” I totally thought I was going to be the guy who breaks this thing, you know? Of course, that is not what happened. I remember the first time I heard that E-40 song on the radio, I called my mom saying, ‘Oh shit. This guy’s doing exactly what I’m doing. He’s using autotune, and this is going to be huge.’ And of course, it is fucking huge. But to tell the truth, I don’t use it at all anymore.

G: So you’re going in a new direction with the next album?

EF: Well [with] everything I do, I try to push what I’ve done even further. While a lot of Doodoo Face was over the top, musically it was very minimal, very arranged. Now I feel like my patience for subtlety has worn thin. Everything I’m doing now is just meaner, louder, nastier — if you thought it was over the top before, now it’s so over the top that it’s fucking under the bottom.

G: I’m really looking forward to it. Anything else you’d like to share with UCSD?

EF: San Diego is one of the best places for our shows. The crowd is always excited and young and just really getting down. If you want to mingle and meet members of the opposite sex, or really get into some loud, live music, you need to roll out. I know we need to come to UCSD. I don’t know if we’re in your guys’ radar, but we’d love to get in it.

G: Our Sun God Festival in spring, maybe?

EF: Shit, we’ll even do some house shows, we don’t care. Put in a good word for us — we want to get all up in UCSD’s butt.

Wallpaper will be at the Casbah on November 7. $12 in advance, $15 at the door.

Jerry Brown:

This former California Governor, former Oakland Mayor and current Attorney General is a far cry from the Republican party’s front-running candidate and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Brown’s track record — which includes creating 1.5 million jobs by creating the first energy efficiency policies, tackling crimes by expanding a DNA lab, creating a gang-free zone and shutting down illegal drug operations — demonstrates his commitment to ridding the state of its $19-billion deficit. Plus, he went duck hunting with chief justice Earl Warren, the namesake of one of our six colleges.

Brown’s tendencies of favoring the working class — by suing companies for violating labor laws — gives him a gold star of approval.

Although Whitman has 30 years of experience in creating jobs and managing large organizations under the corporate setting, it’s unsettling to see her motives when it comes to opposing the D.R.E.A.M. Act, being convinced that weed is a dangerous gateway drug, not voting for 28 years and the controversy over how she treated her undocumented housekeeper.

It’s heartwarming to see a detailed proposal on education reform and a good knowledge of higher education’s needs on Brown’s website. In contrast, it’s hard to find where Whitman’s priorities are when her answer to stopping tuition increases is magically investing $1 billion into the UC and CSU systems.

Of the six remaining candidates, Brown is already leading the polls and has a pretty good chance in the Tuesday elections with the support of Democrats, women, Latinos, liberals and the swinging votes of moderates.

Barbara Boxer:

Running for her fourth term in office, we know the ins and outs of Boxer’s voting record from the controversial to the most obscure.

We want to know where a senator stands on every issue, not just the obvious ones like national security and clean energy. And over the past 18 years, we’ve seen where Boxer stands on everything from health care (authored legislation to give families an insurance premium tax break) to agriculture (led effort to increase funding for conservation).

Fiorina commented on issues guaranteed to hold people’s attention, like border control and clean energy. Yet we have no idea what her stance is on higher education, or rights for seniors and disabled Americans.

Boxer is pushing for more funding for K-12 and higher education by increasing Pell Grants and reducing student loan interest. An early opponent of Prop. 8, she supports marriage equality and authored the Clean Energy Bill that will create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs in California and reduce dependence on foreign oil.

What little of Fiorina’s stances we do know, we don’t like. Strongly supported by Sarah Palin, Fiorina’s been quoted saying “I would absolutely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if the opportunity presented itself.” Yikes.

And while Boxer advocates for Wall Street reform, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Fiorina is looking out for the big corporations. Last year Fiorina opposed the financial regulatory reform bill, which would protect consumers from corporate abuses in mortgage, credit and other types of lending, and create a council to watch out for financial threats. If that’s not enough proof, just look at the top donors to Fiorina’s campaign. While Boxer’s top donors includes children’s protection group Emily’s List and our very own University of California, Fiorina’s top campaign contributors are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Occidental Petroleum.

We need someone who knows their way around D.C., not someone trying to find their footing in the complexities of our government. And it doesn’t hurt that Obama has her back.

Yes On Prop 19

What it would do:  Legalize marijuana purchase and consumption for those over 21 years old.

Why you should vote yes: With California’s budget deficit at a record $20 billion, we desperately need the $1.4 billion Prop. 19 will generate for our state.

Our main concern in deciding whether to vote for Prop. 19 was centered around public safety. We still don’t have any definitive test to determine what constitutes driving “under the influence,” or any correlative tests to distinguish how stoned is too stoned to drive. But the Legislative Analysts Office stated that “the measure would not change existing laws that prohibit driving under the influence of drugs, or that prohibit possessing marijuana on the grounds of elementary, middle and high schools.” It’s already illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana in California — last year alone there were 1,100 prosecutions — and Prop. 19 won’t change that, so there’s unlikely to be a huge influx of stoned drivers.

Concerns about employees — especially those in the transportation industry — being allowed to go to work high are also unwarranted. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, employers can still fire employees that show up to work high, just as they could fire employees who show up drunk. Just like with alcohol, employers won’t be able to monitor what employees do off the clock, but on the clock, they’re still expected to uphold their duties.

Additionally, Prop. 19 prohibits smoking and consumption in public places, effectively banning employees from smoking on breaks.

Prop. 19 puts the Californian police force back to fighting serious bad guys, generates over $1 billion in much-needed revenue for our state, and allows us to light one up without constantly looking over our shoulders for those less-than-friendly red and blue flashing lights.

YES on PROP. 20, NO on Prop 27

What it would do: Prop. 20 gives the job of drawing congressional district maps to citizens rather than members of Congress. The citizens will be part of an existing Citizens Redistricting Commission, which uses the same U.S. congressional and state rules. Prop. 27 has conflicting goals and would eliminate this commission in favor of returning this responsibility to elected officials. If both measures pass, the one with more “yes” votes will go into effect.

Currently, the state of California is divided into 53 congressional districts, where voters each elect a member of Congress to vote for them in the House of Representatives. Prop. 20 would create fairly drawn districts to make elected officials more accountable. The practice of gerrymandering — or drawing up congressional districts to ensure a political party’s dominance within an area — means that politicians have their own agendas when drawing these boundaries. It’s worth it to use taxpayer dollars (like for any proposition) to ensure accountability when Congress members are worried about entities beyond the constituents they represent. Those against Prop. 20 think the commission does not guarantee fairness and — since the commission members are not elected — is not accountable to voters. But Prop. 20 requires an applicant review panel made up of auditors that screens applicants for the commission and ensure minimal conflicts of interests.

YES on PROP. 21

What it would do: Prop. 21 creates an $18 dedicated tax on vehicle registration that would go toward the upkeep of California’s state parks.

Why you should vote yes: Forking out the equivalent of a nice dinner once a year is worth saving our beautiful state parks.

Under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure, the funding for California’s state parks has been in severe jeopardy. The Governator threatened a 10-percent budget cut in 2008 that would have closed 48 of the 279 state parks. When that was rejected, he proposed a $70 million budget cut in 2009 that would have left us with only 59 protected places to shed that urban baggage and breathe air that hasn’t been inundated with exhaust fumes. As it is, the parks are running on empty, with over $1 billion in deferred maintenance caused by chronic underfunding.

So yes, Prop. 21 costs $18 every time you re-register your vehicle, and that number is nothing to sneeze at.

But the parks can no longer afford to rely on the $130 they get from the legislature — which, if the bill passes, will revert back to the General Fund to be used for other programs.

Plus, those obligated to cough up (which doesn’t include drivers of motor homes, trailers or commercial vehicles) get free admission into the parks they’re helping to keep afloat. This measure could mean that an otherwise couch-bound family takes a trip to Anza-Borrego Desert or Big Sur — just to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth.

NO on PROP. 24

What it would do: Proposition 24 would increase state revenues by $1.3 billion from increased taxes on new businesses.

Why you should vote no: We can’t take back a promised tax break that 120,000 new businesses and 322,000 jobs depend on.

California recently updated its tax laws to attract new jobs and businesses, but Prop. 24 will smother that initiative.  Prop. 24 tries to eliminate Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed tax break, putting a $1.3 billion burden back on more than 120,000 struggling businesses. Rather than saving money, this proposition will result in small businesses closing down, causing California to lose approximately 322,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in lost tax revenues.

To make matters worse, businesses will flee to other states to take advantage of the rewarding tax laws California once had.

In this struggling economy, California should rebuild its economic infrastructure by rewarding creators of new jobs and businesses, not punishing them.

Teacher’s unions may back this initiative, but not giving California’s businesses a moment to catch their breath will damage our ability to fund vital aspects in our society, in the long run, including schools, transportation and medicine.

NO on PROP. 26

What it would do: Prop. 26 would redefine any hidden fee that pays for public benefit as a tax, subjecting it to a two-thirds supermajority vote of the legislature as a “tax increase.”

Why you should vote no: Requiring a two-thirds

supermajority to pass fees on industries like oil, alcohol and tobacco is not a good prioritization of government time.

Prop. 26 will raise transaction costs for the California legislature by requiring a two-thirds supermajority vote to pass regulatory (or hidden) fees — something that will take unnecessary time and energy to pass, and ultimately impacts social services the hardest.

The main supporters of Prop. 26 are the oil, alcohol and tobacco industries, which don’t want to pay fees to clean up after their messes.
Most of these “fees” go toward California’s environmental programs, which offset the negative externalities that these big industries produce.

These measures will lose funding through Prop. 26 because if a supermajority is required, gathering the support to pass them will be nearly impossible.

Supporters of Prop. 26 portray it as a campaign to “stop hidden fees” posing as taxes, but the truth of the matter is, these fees are ones that benefit the citizens by ensuring better overall living conditions.

NO on PROP. 22

What it would do: Prop. 22 would prevent the state from borrowing from local funds to pay for social services.

Why you should vote no: Crippling the state’s ability to pay for programs will only hurt education and state debts.

Prop. 22 would cripple our state government further, making programs like higher education even more vulnerable than they already are. The state borrowing from local governments to keep itself afloat is a stopgap, it’s true — one that hampers counties’ and cities’ abilities to fund things like K-12 education and local infrastructure. But the states gives a lot of its funding back to these local governments in the form of contracts or categorical grants for things like education or clean energy. In addition, the money that supporters charge gets taken from relief workers (like local firemen or police) go toward rescue services that local governments can’t handle, like stopping the spread of wildfires or providing relief after an earthquake.

Right now, the state is struggling. It’s frustrating to have California knocking on your door and borrowing a couple billion dollars, but forcing the state to draw from its general fund to keep programs like higher education running is going to stretch those already thin resources to the breaking point. The loss of flexibility in legislators’ ability to manage the budget — forcing them to draw almost exclusively from the General Fund — would be extremely harmful to state services This is a showdown between Congress and the city councils that, for the moment, can wait.

Proposition 22 assumes that whatever the state government is putting this money towards is less important than the local government’s expenditures. Things like firefighters, policemen, libraries and parks all fall under the category of city expenditures, as do the upkeep of roads and most of the burden of funding K-12 public education.

According to the Institute for Local Government, counties receive 56 percent of their revenue from state-implemented sources, such as redirected revenue from the state gas tax or categorical grants. The states did borrow

California has over 278 state parks that take up 1.4 million acres – not including the national treasures like Yosemite or Joshua Tree – and for years, their funding has been in danger.

NO on PROP. 23

What it would do: Prop. 23 would repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act until unemployment hit 5.5 percent.

Why you should vote no: Prop. 23 is a harmful short-term “fix” that helps Texas oil companies and not much else.

It’s telling that two main sponsors of Prop. 23 — the “Dirty Energy Bill” that increases air pollution while eliminating clean energy jobs — are Texas-based oil companies whose CEOs would make a killing without having to breathe the newly emitted pollution.

Prop. 23 aims to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act — which requires greenhouse gas levels to return to 1990 levels by 2020 — until our 12.4-percent unemployment rate hits 5.5 percent. The logic follows that lowering environmental standards means fewer costs for companies, creating more jobs and lowering prices.

Supporters say that the Global Warming Solutions Act is a secondary concern during economic crisis, and it would be temporary, only until we’re back at 5.5-percent unemployment rate we hit just four years ago. But four years ago was before the 2008 crash and recession, and we’re not going back anytime soon. In the meantime, hurting both the environment and one of our biggest job sectors in our panic over the recession is wrong, opening the doors to a couple of Texas CEOs spewing to the skies.

YES on PROP. 25

What it would do: Prop. 25 lowers the voting requirement to pass a budget from a two-thirds supermajority to a simple majority of 50 percent plus 1.

Why you should vote yes: By only requiring a simple majority, the budget will be passed sooner and the public sector will receive its funds on time.

It took 100 days for legislators to pass this year’s state budget — 100 days that made it difficult for the state to issue bonds and nearly made the government resort to embarrassing IOUs. After all that delay and debate, congressperson after congressperson spoke about how flawed our budget still is. So it’s high time for Prop. 25 to be passed, so the minority can stop grid locking our fiscal decisions.

Prop. 25 would lower the voting requirement to pass a budget from a supermajority of two-thirds to a simple majority of 50 percent plus one, though it doesn’t change the supermajority requirement for raising taxes. In addition, legislators would no longer get paid after the budget deadline.

California is currently one of only three states to require this supermajority and though Prop. 25 is no guarantee for perfect budgets that pass on time, this is an incentive for an otherwise conflicted state Congress to work things out earlier.

Jerry Brown:

This former California Governor, former Oakland Mayor and current Attorney General is a far cry from the Republican party’s front-running candidate and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Brown’s track record — which includes creating 1.5 million jobs by creating the first energy efficiency policies, tackling crimes by expanding a DNA lab, creating a gang-free zone and shutting down illegal drug operations — demonstrates his commitment to ridding the state of its $19-billion deficit. Plus, he went duck hunting with chief justice Earl Warren, the namesake of one of our six colleges.

Brown’s tendencies of favoring the working class — by suing companies for violating labor laws — gives him a gold star of approval.

Although Whitman has 30 years of experience in creating jobs and managing large organizations under the corporate setting, it’s unsettling to see her motives when it comes to opposing the D.R.E.A.M. Act, being convinced that weed is a dangerous gateway drug, not voting for 28 years and the controversy over how she treated her undocumented housekeeper.

It’s heartwarming to see a detailed proposal on education reform and a good knowledge of higher education’s needs on Brown’s website. In contrast, it’s hard to find where Whitman’s priorities are when her answer to stopping tuition increases is magically investing $1 billion into the UC and CSU systems.

Of the six remaining candidates, Brown is already leading the polls and has a pretty good chance in the Tuesday elections with the support of Democrats, women, Latinos, liberals and the swinging votes of moderates.

Barbara Boxer:

Running for her fourth term in office, we know the ins and outs of Boxer’s voting record from the controversial to the most obscure.

We want to know where a senator stands on every issue, not just the obvious ones like national security and clean energy. And over the past 18 years, we’ve seen where Boxer stands on everything from health care (authored legislation to give families an insurance premium tax break) to agriculture (led effort to increase funding for conservation).

Fiorina commented on issues guaranteed to hold people’s attention, like border control and clean energy. Yet we have no idea what her stance is on higher education, or rights for seniors and disabled Americans.

Boxer is pushing for more funding for K-12 and higher education by increasing Pell Grants and reducing student loan interest. An early opponent of Prop. 8, she supports marriage equality and authored the Clean Energy Bill that will create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs in California and reduce dependence on foreign oil.

What little of Fiorina’s stances we do know, we don’t like. Strongly supported by Sarah Palin, Fiorina’s been quoted saying “I would absolutely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade if the opportunity presented itself.” Yikes.

And while Boxer advocates for Wall Street reform, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Fiorina is looking out for the big corporations. Last year Fiorina opposed the financial regulatory reform bill, which would protect consumers from corporate abuses in mortgage, credit and other types of lending, and create a council to watch out for financial threats. If that’s not enough proof, just look at the top donors to Fiorina’s campaign. While Boxer’s top donors includes children’s protection group Emily’s List and our very own University of California, Fiorina’s top campaign contributors are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Occidental Petroleum.

We need someone who knows their way around D.C., not someone trying to find their footing in the complexities of our government. And it doesn’t hurt that Obama has her back.

Yes On Prop 19

What it would do:  Legalize marijuana purchase and consumption for those over 21 years old.

Why you should vote yes: With California’s budget deficit at a record $20 billion, we desperately need the $1.4 billion Prop. 19 will generate for our state.

Our main concern in deciding whether to vote for Prop. 19 was centered around public safety. We still don’t have any definitive test to determine what constitutes driving “under the influence,” or any correlative tests to distinguish how stoned is too stoned to drive. But the Legislative Analysts Office stated that “the measure would not change existing laws that prohibit driving under the influence of drugs, or that prohibit possessing marijuana on the grounds of elementary, middle and high schools.” It’s already illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana in California — last year alone there were 1,100 prosecutions — and Prop. 19 won’t change that, so there’s unlikely to be a huge influx of stoned drivers.

Concerns about employees — especially those in the transportation industry — being allowed to go to work high are also unwarranted. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, employers can still fire employees that show up to work high, just as they could fire employees who show up drunk. Just like with alcohol, employers won’t be able to monitor what employees do off the clock, but on the clock, they’re still expected to uphold their duties.

Additionally, Prop. 19 prohibits smoking and consumption in public places, effectively banning employees from smoking on breaks.

Prop. 19 puts the Californian police force back to fighting serious bad guys, generates over $1 billion in much-needed revenue for our state, and allows us to light one up without constantly looking over our shoulders for those less-than-friendly red and blue flashing lights.

YES on PROP. 20, NO on Prop 27

What it would do: Prop. 20 gives the job of drawing congressional district maps to citizens rather than members of Congress. The citizens will be part of an existing Citizens Redistricting Commission, which uses the same U.S. congressional and state rules. Prop. 27 has conflicting goals and would eliminate this commission in favor of returning this responsibility to elected officials. If both measures pass, the one with more “yes” votes will go into effect.

Currently, the state of California is divided into 53 congressional districts, where voters each elect a member of Congress to vote for them in the House of Representatives. Prop. 20 would create fairly drawn districts to make elected officials more accountable. The practice of gerrymandering — or drawing up congressional districts to ensure a political party’s dominance within an area — means that politicians have their own agendas when drawing these boundaries. It’s worth it to use taxpayer dollars (like for any proposition) to ensure accountability when Congress members are worried about entities beyond the constituents they represent. Those against Prop. 20 think the commission does not guarantee fairness and — since the commission members are not elected — is not accountable to voters. But Prop. 20 requires an applicant review panel made up of auditors that screens applicants for the commission and ensure minimal conflicts of interests.

YES on PROP. 21

What it would do: Prop. 21 creates an $18 dedicated tax on vehicle registration that would go toward the upkeep of California’s state parks.

Why you should vote yes: Forking out the equivalent of a nice dinner once a year is worth saving our beautiful state parks.

Under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure, the funding for California’s state parks has been in severe jeopardy. The Governator threatened a 10-percent budget cut in 2008 that would have closed 48 of the 279 state parks. When that was rejected, he proposed a $70 million budget cut in 2009 that would have left us with only 59 protected places to shed that urban baggage and breathe air that hasn’t been inundated with exhaust fumes. As it is, the parks are running on empty, with over $1 billion in deferred maintenance caused by chronic underfunding.

So yes, Prop. 21 costs $18 every time you re-register your vehicle, and that number is nothing to sneeze at.

But the parks can no longer afford to rely on the $130 they get from the legislature — which, if the bill passes, will revert back to the General Fund to be used for other programs.

Plus, those obligated to cough up (which doesn’t include drivers of motor homes, trailers or commercial vehicles) get free admission into the parks they’re helping to keep afloat. This measure could mean that an otherwise couch-bound family takes a trip to Anza-Borrego Desert or Big Sur — just to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth.

NO on PROP. 24

What it would do: Proposition 24 would increase state revenues by $1.3 billion from increased taxes on new businesses.

Why you should vote no: We can’t take back a promised tax break that 120,000 new businesses and 322,000 jobs depend on.

California recently updated its tax laws to attract new jobs and businesses, but Prop. 24 will smother that initiative.  Prop. 24 tries to eliminate Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed tax break, putting a $1.3 billion burden back on more than 120,000 struggling businesses. Rather than saving money, this proposition will result in small businesses closing down, causing California to lose approximately 322,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in lost tax revenues.

To make matters worse, businesses will flee to other states to take advantage of the rewarding tax laws California once had.

In this struggling economy, California should rebuild its economic infrastructure by rewarding creators of new jobs and businesses, not punishing them.

Teacher’s unions may back this initiative, but not giving California’s businesses a moment to catch their breath will damage our ability to fund vital aspects in our society, in the long run, including schools, transportation and medicine.

NO on PROP. 26

What it would do: Prop. 26 would redefine any hidden fee that pays for public benefit as a tax, subjecting it to a two-thirds supermajority vote of the legislature as a “tax increase.”

Why you should vote no: Requiring a two-thirds

supermajority to pass fees on industries like oil, alcohol and tobacco is not a good prioritization of government time.

Prop. 26 will raise transaction costs for the California legislature by requiring a two-thirds supermajority vote to pass regulatory (or hidden) fees — something that will take unnecessary time and energy to pass, and ultimately impacts social services the hardest.

The main supporters of Prop. 26 are the oil, alcohol and tobacco industries, which don’t want to pay fees to clean up after their messes.
Most of these “fees” go toward California’s environmental programs, which offset the negative externalities that these big industries produce.

These measures will lose funding through Prop. 26 because if a supermajority is required, gathering the support to pass them will be nearly impossible.

Supporters of Prop. 26 portray it as a campaign to “stop hidden fees” posing as taxes, but the truth of the matter is, these fees are ones that benefit the citizens by ensuring better overall living conditions.

NO on PROP. 22

What it would do: Prop. 22 would prevent the state from borrowing from local funds to pay for social services.

Why you should vote no: Crippling the state’s ability to pay for programs will only hurt education and state debts.

Prop. 22 would cripple our state government further, making programs like higher education even more vulnerable than they already are. The state borrowing from local governments to keep itself afloat is a stopgap, it’s true — one that hampers counties’ and cities’ abilities to fund things like K-12 education and local infrastructure. But the states gives a lot of its funding back to these local governments in the form of contracts or categorical grants for things like education or clean energy. In addition, the money that supporters charge gets taken from relief workers (like local firemen or police) go toward rescue services that local governments can’t handle, like stopping the spread of wildfires or providing relief after an earthquake.

Right now, the state is struggling. It’s frustrating to have California knocking on your door and borrowing a couple billion dollars, but forcing the state to draw from its general fund to keep programs like higher education running is going to stretch those already thin resources to the breaking point. The loss of flexibility in legislators’ ability to manage the budget — forcing them to draw almost exclusively from the General Fund — would be extremely harmful to state services This is a showdown between Congress and the city councils that, for the moment, can wait.

Proposition 22 assumes that whatever the state government is putting this money towards is less important than the local government’s expenditures. Things like firefighters, policemen, libraries and parks all fall under the category of city expenditures, as do the upkeep of roads and most of the burden of funding K-12 public education.

According to the Institute for Local Government, counties receive 56 percent of their revenue from state-implemented sources, such as redirected revenue from the state gas tax or categorical grants. The states did borrow

California has over 278 state parks that take up 1.4 million acres – not including the national treasures like Yosemite or Joshua Tree – and for years, their funding has been in danger.

NO on PROP. 23

What it would do: Prop. 23 would repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act until unemployment hit 5.5 percent.

Why you should vote no: Prop. 23 is a harmful short-term “fix” that helps Texas oil companies and not much else.

It’s telling that two main sponsors of Prop. 23 — the “Dirty Energy Bill” that increases air pollution while eliminating clean energy jobs — are Texas-based oil companies whose CEOs would make a killing without having to breathe the newly emitted pollution.

Prop. 23 aims to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act — which requires greenhouse gas levels to return to 1990 levels by 2020 — until our 12.4-percent unemployment rate hits 5.5 percent. The logic follows that lowering environmental standards means fewer costs for companies, creating more jobs and lowering prices.

Supporters say that the Global Warming Solutions Act is a secondary concern during economic crisis, and it would be temporary, only until we’re back at 5.5-percent unemployment rate we hit just four years ago. But four years ago was before the 2008 crash and recession, and we’re not going back anytime soon. In the meantime, hurting both the environment and one of our biggest job sectors in our panic over the recession is wrong, opening the doors to a couple of Texas CEOs spewing to the skies.

YES on PROP. 25

What it would do: Prop. 25 lowers the voting requirement to pass a budget from a two-thirds supermajority to a simple majority of 50 percent plus 1.

Why you should vote yes: By only requiring a simple majority, the budget will be passed sooner and the public sector will receive its funds on time.

It took 100 days for legislators to pass this year’s state budget — 100 days that made it difficult for the state to issue bonds and nearly made the government resort to embarrassing IOUs. After all that delay and debate, congressperson after congressperson spoke about how flawed our budget still is. So it’s high time for Prop. 25 to be passed, so the minority can stop grid locking our fiscal decisions.

Prop. 25 would lower the voting requirement to pass a budget from a supermajority of two-thirds to a simple majority of 50 percent plus one, though it doesn’t change the supermajority requirement for raising taxes. In addition, legislators would no longer get paid after the budget deadline.

California is currently one of only three states to require this supermajority and though Prop. 25 is no guarantee for perfect budgets that pass on time, this is an incentive for an otherwise conflicted state Congress to work things out earlier.

After last year’s media debacle — which included a funding freeze on the part of then-A.S. President Utsav Gupta and outrage on the part of student publications — ended in nothing but a self-funded issue on the part of the  Koala, you’d think the message is loud and clear: If council could have legally defunded the Koala, they probably would have.
But, in a haphazard scheme to try, try again, Sixth College junior Cody Marshall  has proposed a foolproof scheme. Through an e-mail sent to the Students Affirmative Action Committee, Marshall outlined a simple plan for ridding our campus of anal pleasure guides once and for all. Too bad it was more likely to rid our campus of alternative voices.

It goes like this: Having exhausted all other options — discarded last year mostly for their blatant violations of the First Amendment — Marshall now advocates an overload of A.S. media funding reserves until the flustered VP Finance and Resources (that’s you, Andrew Ang) has no choice but to pick and choose which student publications get the money, and which get left out in the cold.

Currently, the council — which allocated a total of $25,784.93 between 11 media organizations for Fall Quarter — chooses how much to give depending on the publications’ operating costs. As Ang himself said, they have a plethora of ways to say yes, and no way to say no.

Playing upon this protocol with the disturbing battle cry of “we are going to break their backs!”, the e-mail asked fellow Koala objectors to join together and create more than 100 media organizations. These organizations only require four members for approval, leading to a plea for members to sign up for these dummy orgs. Rest assured, the e-mail read, people do not have to produce actual media for which they would supposedly be funded — they need only a PID to do their part in destroying UCSD’s most controversial publication.

So far, at least 89 media organizations — including ones named The Independent, The Examiner, The Free Press, The Gazette, The Guide and The Islander — have been formed, and all are comprised of the same sad members: Marshall, Gupta and former Warren College Senator and Vice President of Finance candidate Josh Grossman.

Ironically enough, many of these publications declare in their mission statements that they are “a media organization that seeks to publish regularly each quarter and enjoy our freedom of expression.” The fact that they were created purely to limit others’ freedom of expression seems to be lost on their founders.

Let’s set aside the obvious problems of fraud and misuse of funds that this plan entails and address the idea itself.

This is a plan of Pinky-and-the-Brain proportions, and one that is guaranteed to fail simply because that A.S. Council is not that dumb. They, too, were here last year when the words “viewpoint neutrality” were thrown around and the ACLU was getting ready to knock on the doors of that fourth floor meeting room.

Thankfully, this proposal won’t actally leech money away from the Mania Magazine’s next installment of poetry. Associate Vice President of Student Orgs Carli Thomas has already been reworking the once-vague media guidelines, putting in caps to avoid overallocation and making sure that the A.S. piggy bank won’t be blindly throwing money at 89 outstretched hands.

But had Marshall’s brainchild gone according to plan, it wouldn’t have forced council to “pick and choose” who gets funding in a game of A.S. favorites that somehow skirts the First Amendment. At worst, the 89 orgs might have ended receiving the money, dealing a huge blow to future student publications who actually have something to say. The Koala isn’t worth that.

Instead of having the luxury of publishing three times a quarter, those who want to publish a creative magazine or a libertarian newsletter may have been forced to make do with what meager funds were left. Under this plan, it would be harder for diverse viewpoints to make their voices heard in the future.

This is using free speech to stifle others’ free speech; even at their most dastardly, the Koala never did anything that depraved.

No matter how big of a controversial attention whore the Koala is, and despite the way its members use it to justify their presumptuous debauchery, they still have freedom of expression. It’s understood that until the day the Koala no longer attracts that small, twisted part of the student body to its staff, it will remain a part of UCSD. So will the the First Amendment.

Having just taken a 8 percent budget cut (more or less) across the board — some of which was distributed across media funding — A.S. Council is in no mood to be throwing money around.

The issue isn’t going to come up again until Week Seven. When it does, you can bet that the Koala will emerge unscathed. Had Marshall’s plan worked, however, future generations of opinionated students might not have fared so well.

It’s that time of year again. It’s election season — otherwise known as comedy hour for poli-sci majors. For those of you who get your TV fix via Hulu, and don’t have to suffer through the pain of Snuggie and Slap-Chop infomercials during your late night study breaks: You’re missing out.

I discovered this entertainment medium two years ago during the 2008 presidential primaries. I was sitting on the couch, cradling a monstrous SAT book and secretly wishing I owned a Snuggie. Then Mike Huckabee’s voice broke through the late-night lull and, in my sleep-deprived grogginess I heard: “My solution for securing the border: Chuck Norris.” Unsure if the long train of SAT words had permanently fried my brain, I sat up and listened carefully, only to hear Huckabee continue, “There’s no chin behind Chuck Norris’s beard — only another fist.”

This year, it’s a new guard and instead of nights with Chuck, this election season has been more of a late night horror show. Campaigns ad seem less humorous and more vicious. Carly Fiorina’s devil sheep ad made me drop my box of Cheez-Its as green pastures transformed into red-eyed sheep and flashes of Steve Poizner. Imagine sitting on the couch, alone, watching a dimly glowing television set in the dark and seeing a man dressed in a devil sheep outfit turn his glowing red eyes on you from behind a bush. Don’t lie — you’d be scared too.

As the year progressed, the ads have only gotten worse. Floridian Congressional candidate Dan Fanelli stereotyped Arabs as terrorists and deemed them flight risks. But that’s expected. In Colorado, anti-abortion proposition labeled Obama the angel of death, merging Obama’s face with the Grim Reaper’s and claiming that bank bailouts are used to internationally fund abortions.

These ads have abandoned any pretense of informing voters and instead are maliciously smearing opponents and minorities with unsubstantiated lies. Although most of us can see through the fallacy of devil sheep, the candidates are counting on the voters that can’t. It’s not a far stretch to assume that political ads do subconsciously affect voters.

Researchers from psychology departments across the country found that these campaigns created an implicit bias among voters without them realizing it. Catchphrases commonly associated with certain candidates — especially the negative ones — stick, and despite us knowing better, the words are already embedded in our brains and could affect our decision in the voting booth. These ads are the ones that encourage extremism, civil unrest and violence, legitimizing and encouraging radicals. David Corn, columnist for Politics Daily, claims the Tea Party makes radical moves and holds fervent marches because “extreme rhetoric can lead to extreme action.”

So this election season, I propose that all political campaigns should be funny. Bring back Chuck Norris, bring back Tina Fey and bring back Will Farrell. I do not wish to develop ovinophobia — the permanent fear of sheep.

These days, it seems like we can do anything online — we can shop, socialize and even date via the Internet. Not to be outdone, higher education has also hopped aboard the information superhighway. Blackboard, an educational software company, and K12, a company that allows students to attend kindergarten through high school online, have announced that, starting next year they’ll design remedial online courses taught by K12 instructors and will be sold to community colleges. And while many accredited online universities like Kaplan and the University of Phoenix have found massive success in offering online education and fulfill a certain niche, it’s dangerous to blur the line between them and public community colleges. Outsourcing tech-support might cut corporations’ costs, but the only thing that will be cut when outsourcing college courses to corporations will be the quality of education. This is the first time a private educational company will attempt to package and sell an entire course, instead of just the facilitating software.

Blackboard and K12 decided to create these classes to help students “catch up,” basing their curriculum off the assumption that community college professors “are not there to teach high school English and math.” But these reasons are exactly why community colleges shouldn’t reach out to the private sector. If students are struggling with remedial English and math, according to King’s College School of Education, a sole reliance on online education is “seriously flawed in principle because [it does] not encompass a consideration of learning issues.”

It’s true that Blackboard and K12’s new class system could eliminate some of the stress community colleges face with remedial students. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 42 percent of students at community colleges must take at least one remedial class; with such a large percentage of community college students taking remedial courses, it’s not hard to see why a community college would want to take the stress of designing curriculum and providing such classes off the table. It’d save the colleges both time and money to outsource their remedial students to the Blackboard’s open arms, but it’s not as straightforward as outsourcing tech-support to India. We’re dealing with higher education. When creating systems for something as valuable as education, our community colleges shouldn’t pass the buck to private companies for the sake of convenience.

The students signing up for remedial courses are the students that need more personalized attention than the run-of-the-mill college co-ed. They’re not taking remedial classes because they want to impress with “relevant coursework” — they’re taking it because they need extra help. By eliminating personalized instruction and ignoring different learning styles, Blackboard and K12 are creating a one-size-fits-all solution for a problem that comes in infinite shapes and sizes. By outsourcing their remedial classes to Blackboard and K12, community colleges are eliminating the individual attention, office hours and varied explanations that only a human can provide.

Another glaring problem our community colleges must take into consideration is that Blackboard and K12 are private companies, and as such, their primary motivation is their own pocketbooks. It’s a conflict of interest for Blackboard and K12 to be selling both an education and the course texts. When a college puts an entire course in the hands of a private company, the private company has a complete monopoly on the materials the students need to buy. Instead of perusing various used bookstores and www.Half.com for the cheapest textbooks, students could be forced to buy books that are only distributed by the company, at any price the company chooses.

When assessing whether community colleges should join forces with Blackboard and K12, they need to remember their end goal: to give the highest possible quality education to every student that passes through their doors. While it might be more convenient in the short run to ship students off to money-hungry private corporations, in the long run, the priorities must lie in ensuring the best education they can provide — by any means necessary.

When I changed my relationship status from “single” to “in a relationship” last week, it didn’t occur to me that everyone and their mother would see it — including my own. During my next phone call with my mom, she asked how Brett was doing.

“Brett? He’s great. I’m surprised you remembered his name, I’ve only mentioned him a few times.”

“Well, apparently you’re in a relationship with him.”

This was unreal. Facebook told my mother that I’m in a relationship. Facebook also told her my plans for Saturday night. She warned me that when I’m ready to get married, she expected to find out in person, not by reading “Madeline Mann is engaged” on her newsfeed.

[caption id="attachment_19491" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Michael Tsai / Guardian"][/caption]

This past Wednesday, UCSD celebrated an accomplishment almost 6 years in the making when it became the first school in California (and the second in the nation after University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh) to become fair trade certified.

The honor came as a result of a newly signed fair trade policy, meant to increase human rights by ensuring that farmers who produce products like coffee receive a fair living wage. The policy — drafted and signed by administrators, campus vendors and members of the student organization One Earth One Justice — came into effect June 14.

According to the policy, vendors are required to sell only fair trade coffee, tea and sugar. Vendors who sell chocolate, ice cream, grains and quinoa are required to make one of the above available in a fair trade option. The policy also allows for future university expansion into other fair trade products, if and when they become available.

At the ceremony in Mandeville, members and alumni of OEOJ, founded in the fall of 2004, were recognized as major driving forces behind the on-campus fair trade movement. Since its inception, OEOJ has been fighting to broaden the presence of fair trade products on campus. The organization is almost singlehandedly responsible for raising the amount of fair trade tea, coffee and sugar on campus from zero to 64 percent in 5 years. With the new policy in place, members expect this number to rise to 100 percent.

The battle began 6 years ago, when the group was decided to focus on expanding fair trade options to all the vendors on campus. Having, with the exception of Fairbanks Coffee, accomplished this goal, members began work on a university policy that would make it mandatory for all on-campus vendors to carry fair trade coffee, tea and sugar.

“We sat down and hashed out what would be a reasonable policy based on the availability of fair trade products and their price,” OEOJ core member and UCSD alumnus Rishi Ghosh said.

Not that it’s been easy goings for OEOJ . Members met with the administration once a month for 5 years, coordinated events like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream give-aways on Library Walk to raise campus awareness and circulated a petition that amassed 1,000 signatures. Still, the students found it difficult to make any headway.

“There was a tremendous amount of bureaucracy,” OEOJ core member and UCSD alumnus Chris Westling said. “We spent a long time talking to the wrong people that weren’t making the decisions.”

The difference between their cause and similar ones, Ghosh said, was the students’ persistence.

“We found ourselves dealing with a lot of skepticism from the administration,” he said. “The administration perceived that we were concerned students, but I imagine they thought that we would eventually go away. We were very pragmatic in our tactic — we didn’t villanize the administration. We realized that they have a lot of obstacles to deal with themselves.”

According to Ghosh, the turning point came during Fall Quarter 2008 when OEOJ sat down with Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and convinced her of the environmental benefits of Fair Trade products. Having talked her around, discussion of the fair trade policy picked up speed, though there were some moments of doubt.

“Our original goal was not compromised at all [in the policy], but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have a lot of long conversations about compromising it,” Ghosh said. “There were a lot of really tough times where we weren’t making any progress.”

Still, OEOJ’s efforts haven’t gone wasted. UCSD has joined the ranks of Fair Trade Certified universities, most of which are in the United Kingdom. To become fair trade certified by FairTrade USA, universities are required to have one fair trade product at each vendor. In addition to making fair trade coffee, sugar and tea available at all campus vendors and dining halls, the university is hoping to expand into other products, like chocolate and ice cream within the next few years.

Fair trade items can be identified by a small, monochrome sticker, which features a figure laid atop a globe, carrying two jugs. Items on campus that are currently fair trade include, among others,  Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (select flavors) and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

For the money-conscious college student, the price difference between fair trade products and other items on the market are pennies on the dollar — though the price gap increases based on the product in question.  According to Ghosh, while fair trade tea and coffee cost the same as the regular stuff, sugar tends to be two to four times more. As for products newer to the fair trade line, like produce, the cost difference is more substantial.

“Initially, the product has to be certified and there is a cost for that, which is built in,” Westling said. “But what fair trade does as well is that it builds a more direct connection with the farmer, the roaster, producer and consumer. And in doing so, it takes out a lot of the middlemen, so that saves a lot of money. So more or less, fair trade coffee costs the same as not fair trade coffee.”

Jessica Wall, a UCSD alumnus and a former OEOJ member, said fair trade products are higher quality than the average.

“There has to be some recognition of the quality improvement,” Wall said. “Fair trade producers are held to higher standards, resulting in a superior product with a more ethical footprint.”

Besides food, the policy states that fair trade signage will be displayed prominently at all locations, and employees will receive special training about the benefits of fair trade to continue to promote fair trade products. Additionally, there are guidelines for a new Fair Trade Advisory Committee, tasked with ensuring the new policy is upheld and that the university submits an annual report to FairTrade USA.

UCSD tailored its policy for rapid growth from the FairTrade UK model. However, with the UK chapter leading with over 120 certified universities and counting (the first in the world was Oxford Brookes, certified in 2003), there’s a lot of work to be done.

“We have the optional products available right now, and hopefully those can eventually become policy,” Westling said. “Fair trade wine just came out last year. There’s wine at Zanzibar at the Loft. That’s something we could do.”

Wall agreed with Westling, mentioning that fair trade still had kinks to work out.

“We can always do better with sustainability; everyone can,” Wall said, “It is a path, rather than an endpoint to be reached. While fair trade certification is far from perfect, it is a huge step up from the status quo.”

For Ghosh, it’s a question of both cost effectiveness and morality.

“This campus is of the students and for the students,” Ghosh said. “Then the businesses on campus should also be of the students and for the students.”

Additional reporting by Hayley Bisceglia-Martin and Rebecca Horwitz.

Come on, A.S. Council, it’s too early for this. It’s midterms season, we know, and everyone’s stressed, but if yesterday’s political showdown is any indication you’re going to be shrieking battle cries come finals.

After last week’s budget S.N.A.F.U. was shelved the second it hit council floor, A.S. President Wafa Ben Hassine has been working overtime to make something that stands up against your basic number crunching. But while she’s been tinkering with decimals and chatting to administrators, other councilmembers had different ideas.

It’s not these ideas — which included cutting senatorial stipends in place of Sun God Festival funding — that cast an ominous shadow on the future of this council, but rather the way they were dealt with. Instead of taking these concerns straight to the president herself, these delegates cited “irreconcilable differences” and made their own budget.

Though the alternative budget is only there as a showcase of how different things could be, its mere existence spells disaster for a divided council further down the road — a council with clashing priorities and back-room deals.

Instead of Ben Hassine’s current brainchild — which spreads an 8-percent budget cut evenly across the Offices of the President, Student Life and External Affairs, giving the heads of those departments discretion to distribute as they see fit — this budget claims the superiority of being based on student surveys. These surveys, taken when students passed an activity fee increase in Spring 2009, indicated that students wanted to see more events like Sun God Festival or Bear Gardens.

Based on these results, the alternative budget preserves funding for the Office of Student Life (and therefore A.S. Concerts and Events), leaving our beloved Sun God Festival intact at the expense of staff development, travel expenses and senator stipends.

Don’t get us wrong, there’s parts of this that we love. Senators willing to take the money out of their own pockets in the name of preserving student life should not be taken lightly. For all A.S. Council’s talk of “gauging student opinion,” it’s rare that councilmembers look at student surveys that can even pretend to be a halfway accurate gauge of what the student body wants. Doing that, and then trying to reflect those results in the council’s budget, is itself a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

But the fact remains that A.S. Council isn’t here, as Ben Hassine herself said, to make UCSD “one big party.” If all of our students were here for a year-long rager, it would already be one big party with or without A.S. Council’s help.

There are kids who come to every Bear Garden and see Sun God Festival as the highlight of their year — the Final’s Week undie run is an almost religious occurrence for them. On the flip side, there are kids who still aren’t sure what a Bear Garden is, and who take the evening of Sun God as their cue to switch from Geisel Library to  CLICS (less chance of your study session being invaded by giddily intoxicated festivalgoers).

A.S. Council may be elected by only the vocal, party-loving students who want to see more money funneled into snagging the best artists, but it needs to represent everyone — even those who put poli-sci papers first. Downplaying the importance of concerts and events does nothing for our student life, of course, but sending the message that the other stuff doesn’t matter is just as inaccurate.

Priorities aside, there’s the matter of a divided council to consider. Not being able to pull together on something like an A.S. budget indicates trouble ahead — just as soon as another divestment resolution comes around, or when media guidelines revisit the spotlight. Last time an issue that controversial raised its ugly head, it gridlocked the council for days, where bitter arguments and “irreconcilable differences” played their parts in making sure nothing got done. The fear isn’t so much that issues like those will now get worse (because it’s hard to get worse than three weeks of dragged-out bickering) but that the smallest issues will devolve into Palestine-worthy brawl.

It’s the fourth week and there are already “irreconcilable differences.” Problems this early in the quarter do not bode well for the future; if people get embroiled in inter-council politics, sooner or later the reason they wanted to be there in the first place is going to fall by the wayside.

Regardless of whether Ben Hassine is everyone’s favorite person, she’s the democratically elected leader. She is going to be sitting at the head of the table for the rest of the year. If councilembers can’t figure out how to at least look her in the eyes when they’ve got a problem with how she’s doing things, this is going to get real uncomfortable real quickly. For all of us.

For me, Sunday mornings are made for lounging. If I’m lucky, I’m able to scrounge up enough ingredients to make pancakes. If not, it’ll be another sad bowl of milk-less Honey Nut Cheerios.

If I’m feeling particularly productive, I’ll catch up with “Castle.” If not, it’s back to bed for a few more hours. I like my Sunday mornings. Unfortunately, my mother doesn’t share the same sentiment.

In an effort to make me find more meaning in my life (apparently Family Feud on Facebook doesn’t count), she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. In exchange for spending precious Sunday morning hours on something other than myself, she offered to pay for my gas. As a college student, I’ll take any handout I can get.

Turns out, those couple of hours wouldn’t be spent cleaning the beach, or any other humanitarian options that would fit on my resume. Instead, I would be driving an hour to Chula Vista for a church service. That’s right, you heard me: Church.

Back in the day — when AOL was the Internet provider of choice — my family went to church. But then soccer practices and public speaking tournaments happened.

Since then, in one of my mother’s vain attempts to drag me back to church, I was lucky enough to witness a mother telling her 6-year-old son that he couldn’t be a Power Ranger for Halloween. Apparently, it was the devil’s holiday and if he celebrated it he would go to Hell. Absurd.

After pulling into the New Hope Church parking lot, once they discovered I was new, they greeted me with pamphlets and brochures. The next person that stopped me thought I looked familiar, and I politely told him that was impossible.

“Oh my gosh, you’re Laureen’s daughter!”

Guilty.

Now I knew why my mother wanted me to drive to the border for church: She was BFFs with the pastor.

Inside, I did a quick once-over in search of a strategic seat. Feeling like the delinquent student who sits in the back row and creeps on Facebook, telling everyone who’ll listen that “Damn, this class is dull,” I chose a seat close to the door for a quick exit. Just in case.

As I looked around, I was astonished at how diverse the attendees were. Young and old, dressed in their Sunday best and destroyed jeans, every possible demographic was represented.

Call me cliché, or even a sellout, but as I sat there listening to Christian rock and how it’s okay to make mistakes, I felt good. I felt refreshed. I felt spiritual. I felt like there was some greater being looking out for me. Dare I say, I even enjoyed it.

Instead of preaching why swearing meant St. Peter wasn’t about to let me in anytime soon, Pastor Russ talked about money. In 45 minutes, he summed up why I’m always strapped for cash, and offered a God-infused lesson on how to fix my bank account.

Driving back to La Jolla, I thought, “Well, that wasn’t so bad.” The life lessons made sacrificing sleep more than worth it. And unlike my attempts at veganism, I think I’ll actually look forward to driving back to New Hope next Sunday. Just don’t tell my mom that she was right (this time).