Apparently, the campus shuttle service is out of money. Bus lines will be eliminated. Ridership will plummet. Everyone will start driving to campus. Parking will be a nightmare. Carbon emissions will skyrocket. The environment is doomed. Everything is ruined.

Time to panic? Kind of. Though our shuttles — like every public commodity in this near-failed state — may soon bow to the budget crisis, the department of transportation services has a novel idea: Raise student fees.

The department hopes to pass a $20 quarterly fee referendum by the end of this year — one sponsored by our own student government.

If passed, the new fee would contribute $1.5 million to the bus and shuttle services in its first year. From there, the fee would increase by $5 every year for the next four years, eventually rising to $40.

But don’t bust out your picket sign of the month just yet: The referendum would also give the A.S. Council the option to create a board to control the shuttle routes — a board comprised mostly of students.

A student-run, student-funded shuttle service tailored to student needs.

Let’s not get lost in the shiny appeal of our very own bus line just yet, though. When the university creates boards like the one proposed, it also ensures that students could never sway a major decision. More than anything, this is a great opportunity for the administration to tax the student body, save its broken assets and package it all under the guise of student empowerment.

Take the Athletic, Recreation and Sports Facility Board, for example. Created in 2004 to oversee campus recreational spending, the board does virtually nothing. To this day, student organizations are charged an additional fee to host events at RIMAC. The A.S. Council even set up its own committee to investigate this questionable double-charging scheme. You can see how well that went.

Even if shuttle control is indeed ceded to students, this transfer of power could have negative results. The A.S. Council has never demonstrated itself to be a particularly effective decisionmaking body — why leave them in charge of something as important as getting to and from campus?

For students to wield this type of responsibility, certain conditions must be met. Any alterations to the service should be made only after consulting transportation experts — and all major decisions should be made only after surveying the student body.

Additionally, those students serving on the board should have to be elected through a campuswide vote. Student appointees — like the ones currently serving on every major (and mostly ineffective) campus committee — tend to be apathetic. Prospective members should have to work for a place on this new board, and their selection shouldn’t be marred by internal council politics.

And, as long as we’re making a wish list, let’s be sure to eliminate the automatic $5-per-year fee increase. It’s not fair to levy a tax on future students — let them vote on another fee increase four years from now.

“It’s your referendum,” Director of Parking and Transportation Brian d’Autremont said to the Guardian editorial board. “Not ours.”

But it is theirs, and students need to keep that in mind. This referendum is designed to save a failing campus service, one already heavily bankrolled by students through parking-permit revenue. It’s OK to be outraged.

Ultimately, however, the shuttles need to stay. They provide transportation for thousands of students every day, and, when you factor in the environmental benefits, paying a $20 fee is kind of like doing your civic duty.

Let’s just make sure we take our time with this one.

Spring Quarter was host to a rowdy campaign season for 2009-10 A.S. Council hopefuls, the majority of whom were especially enthusiastic about council visibility. Putting preach to practice this Monday, elected councilmembers — or, about 10 of the 50-odd students currently serving on the council — held the year’s first official “press conference” on their trusty ol’ black platform in Price Center Plaza.

A.S. President Utsav Gupta gave a short rundown of student-government goings-on to an unenthusiastic scattering of food-court patrons. He was followed by the always-charming VP Finance and Resources Peter Benesch, who delivered an uplifting speech about supporting the Grove Cafe, a longtime A.S. enterprise in the Student Center that the council plans to revamp this year.

That’s when things got kind of awkward.

“We also have two other vice presidents who couldn’t make it here today,” Gupta said.

He later attributed the absence of VP External Affairs Gracelynn West and VP Student Life Ricsie Hernandez to conflicts in their class schedules, though it seemed elemental that the press conference be adjusted according to the availability of two of four top cabinet members. It’s equally amusing that conference planners had the time to print out nifty little event-specific “Press Access” laminates to adorn their A.S. lanyards, but couldn’t drag along all the councilmembers needed to answer department-specific questions from students.

Not that there was much crowd participation, beyond a faceless “I want my money back!” and a councilmember’s threat that Gupta would be held accountable for his “bullshit” plans for a football referendum.

Campuswide Senator Adam Kenworthy and the two Warren College senators did make a noble attempt at catching side-glances from disinterested students via the shouting approach — though a sense of desperation couldn’t help but ring through all councilmembers’ voices by the end of the one-sided “conference.”

In the end, we agree it’s ridiculous that A.S. councilmembers would have to bend so far backward to get students to care about the almost $150 they pay to the council’s annual budget. Especially considering that the fee almost doubled last year. Ideally, we would all get off our asses and trek to the fourth floor of Price Center East every Wednesday evening to have our say. But we have to remember that most UCSD students didn’t even vote — neither for their representatives nor their puffed-up concerts-and-events contribution. But it’s still their money, and it’s one of the councilmembers’ most elemental jobs to force an alienated student body to care.

First, that means showing up like they care themselves. Where are those game faces we saw plastered all over campus during election season? Gupta can’t run a one-man show here. We recognize that there have been other individual A.S. efforts this year: West rallied student support for the walkout, and Hernandez has been hard at work on the First Fall program.

But no A.S. initiative will ever gain the student momentum it needs without some illusion of unity at the top. Visibility isn’t preferable if you’re visibly falling apart. It’s great to see Gupta and Benesch are getting along so well, but the absence of their other half, along with a giant chunk of the council’s voting body, paints an initial image for students of their council as a piecey, disunified clique. And really, guys — we’d love to be proven wrong.

The press conference was a start. But visibility events must far exceed the originally projected one per quarter and target alternative locations like the Student Center. Three quarters go by a lot faster than you think.

Only nine months into his term, President Barack Obama was handed the most prestigious award for peace in the world — and he hasn’t done a damn thing to deserve it.

Since its inception over 100 years ago, the Nobel Peace Prize has been the highest form of international peace props you can score. Greats like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela are among a few of the prize’s past recipients — people who lived for their respective causes and took radical action for a better future.

Not to get nitpicky, but Alfred Nobel’s will says the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”

Simply put, the awardee usually can’t be, say, leading two wars and serving as overseer of Torture Island.

Apparently, the Norwegian Nobel Committee was able to overlook such details and focus on the president’s efforts to improve relations between the U.S. and the Middle East and decrease the world’s nuclear missile stockpile.

True, Obama has advocated that world leaders agree to collectively eliminate over 200 of the 1,700 nukes currently in existence. Of course, it’s a step in the right direction, but might not be the most concrete accomplishment. I’m pretty sure Jong and Medvedev didn’t trash their nukes the moment he said that.

A much more important factor of peace is the whole not-fighting-and-killing thing. In this category, Obama sacked a Nobel Peace Prize as reasonably as Rush Limbaugh might earn a lifetime achievement award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

First, let’s consider our war in Afghanistan. Since Obama took office, 21,000 more soldiers have been deployed to posts around the war-battered country. His top military advisors have recommended sending an additional 40,000 troops in the near future, and the president has consistently referred to Afghanistan as the “just” war, signaling no end to the bloodshed.

Taliban or not, the war in Afghanistan is still a war, and more than enough citizens have paid the price on both sides.

Old Nobel would be stirring in his grave if he knew that the most recent recipient of his esteemed award had actually increased the standing armies abroad.

Nobel also probably wouldn’t have appreciated a little place called Guantanamo Bay. One of Obama’s first initiatives as president was to close the island prison on the island of Cuba that currently houses some 250 suspected terrorists. During a Bush administration that saw the bastardization of American values under the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay became its paragon. Shutting down the prison would have been a fantastic start for Obama’s projected plan of change. But after encountering a strong opposition in Congress, where it faced a 90-6 vote, Obama shelved his plan to close Guantanamo.

I understand the bureaucratic nightmare that would have awaited Obama had he tried to overcome a 90-6 vote, but the fact that he immediately gave up and hasn’t mentioned it since makes me question how sincere he was about ever actually closing the prison in the first place. Perhaps it was simply a way to market himself.

While previous Nobel Prize winners were awarded for persistence in the face of serious adversity, Obama was given the same award after losing a staring contest with House Republicans.

Granted, I do believe that Obama has done a great deal to improve the U.S.’s global image after eight horrendous years of President George W. Bush’s administration. I was lucky enough to be in Egypt after he spoke there last spring, where locals were thrilled to talk to me about our new president.

Obama’s successful public relations shouldn’t go unnoticed, but they hardly warrant a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s commissioner, Thorbjoern Jagland, said last week that Obama’s actions to date “have contributed to — I wouldn’t say a safer world — but a world with less tension.” If the qualifications for a Nobel Peace Prize now include simply decreasing tension, we could have saved a lot of trouble by just treating all the world’s leaders to a day at a shiatsu massage parlor.

For eight years under Bush we were frustrated, depressed and bitter. Obama came along and offered a large body of people some hope. They latched on to Obama’s “change” wagon and rediscovered feelings of national pride that had disappeared long ago.

There were a few of us out there who were critical of Obama’s actual program from the start, but the majority saw him as the savior of American politics, both here and abroad.

The simple truth is that Obama isn’t a savior. He won’t fix all our problems, and of course no single person ever can — but chances are, he won’t even come close.

I hope Obama will do great things one day, but for now, he’s drifting on a worldwide public-relations campaign and a never-ending bouquet of flowery speeches.

After winning the award, Obama said he was “surprised and deeply humbled” — and I believe him. Even Obama himself doesn’t think he deserves the award. Yet here he is, one Nobel Peace Prize richer.

Not every prizewinner has succeeded on the MLK/Mother Teresa level, so I’m not saying that Obama has that requisite.

But after nine months of unfulfilled promises, endless warring and an open torture center, can we really hail the president as any sort of peacekeeper?

Dear Editor,

This morning, KUSI-TV ran a story on the unveiling of a “Latino” mural on campus.

But what was really unveiled was the far, far left agenda of the university, by pandering to the anti-American Hispanics and permitting them to display clearly religious and political statements.

Including “health care for all” is a divisive statement and is strictly political in nature.

In an environment where self-reliance and upward mobility should be taught, this only serves to further the parasitical entitlement mentality of low expectations resulting from low self-esteem and “victimization.”

Imagine the outcry if openly Christian symbols with “enforce border security” or “no amnesty” were brazenly depicted by faith-based American patriots. But no such outrage when enemies such as anti-American, murdering terrorists like “Che” Guevara are exalted.

UCSD’s clear endorsement of anti-white, anti-straight, anti-faith, anti-American sentiments in the name of “diversity” is just another example of the socialist liberals undermining our great, traditional American culture.

— Don Lindsay
San Diego resident

It’s obvious that the recent peace treaty upon which Turkey and Armenia have agreed isn’t the strongest signifier of peace between the nations’ citizens. Regardless, overarching statements from world leaders do make a difference over time.

As powerful players in history, Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan recognized that — given the 1915 Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks — one that the nation still refuses to acknowledge — bad blood still runs pretty deep here.

While clearly, a single well-publicized treaty can’t instantly reverse 96 years of ill will, hostility does fade with time.

A sincere and convicted declaration by a national leader can also seep into his people’s consciousness over an extended period of time. The Truman Doctrine of 1947, for instance — which stressed the need to spread democracy by preventing communism from taking root in Turkey and Greece — set the tone for decades of interventionist foreign policy in America.

In this case a tone of peacefulness is still far from being fully established, but signing a peace treaty is a positive first step on the road to reconciliation. For genuine good will to be established between two long-hostile nations, a pre-emptive gesture may need to be the starting point.

Despite their governments’ best intentions, nearly a century of animosity between Turkey and Armenia cannot be instantly brushed aside by two signatures on a treaty.

When the two countries’ leaders met last Saturday, they both chose to ignore the giant elephant in the room: Turkey still vehemently refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to 1923. When the U.S. Senate proposed to recognize the genocide in 1989, Turkey responded by blocking American ships in the Mediterranean and suspending U.S. military training facilities in Turkish territory.

Tensions between the two countries have continued for years in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a conflict area between Armenia and its Turkish ally Azerbaijan, which has kept Turkey and Armenia at each others’ throats. Even though an official ceasefire has been in place for years, fighting in the region unsurprisingly continues to this day.

In the end, no official document or room of cordial officals can hope to eliminate longstanding disagreements at ground level.

Ironically, both parties delayed the treaty’s signing in an attempt to censor the other’s statements. The Oct. 10 ceremony was delayed three hours as both leaders pouted in their respective corners of rhetoric — until Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cajoled the two to make nice and sign the document. Meaning, in case we didn’t know, it was nothing more than a public relations stunt at the end of the day.

Former Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vardan Oskanyan said it himself: “Signing these documents will not solve our problems. On the contrary, they will bring on entirely new setbacks and problems that can only be tackled by a unified, free, hopeful society.”

Without the backing of their respective populations, this treaty will only increase internal and external tension. Armenians fear the conditions of the protocols will be entirely on Turkey’s terms. Reuters reports that, immediately following the ceremony, Turkey called on Armenia to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh — a move that Armenian leaders are still contemplating.

Tensions between Armenia and Turkey have clearly not dissipated with the wave of a magic pen — both nations have a deep-seated history of conflict, and their friction will not disappear with empty words of acceptance. It’s about time world leaders dropped their flashy press-conference acts and start talking the issue out from the bottom up.

Turkey and Armenia’s superficial peace pact, in the end, amounts to little more than a strategic Turkish move for admission into the European Union.

Turkey has been clamoring to join the EU since 1987, though its patchy human rights record — including heavy censorship, sketchy relations with Cyprus and poor treatment of Armenia — have significantly delayed its acceptance.

Although the treaty is a nominal declaration that does not guarantee progress between Armenia and Turkey, signing it could easily bring the latter that much closer to overcoming EU objections. No matter how much support may be lacking within the Armenian and Turkish populations, on an international level, this is a definitive step toward Turkey’s ability to redress its image as an aggressor, and may indeed bring it one step closer to that golden EU membership it so desperately craves.

Armenia’s potential gains aren’t so concrete. A treaty may have its economic benefits in time, but for the most part, it’s Turkey — who has been arguing its status as a developed country and EU asset for over 20 years — that stands to gain more from the pact. If this accord proves fruitful and leads to Turkish-Armenian alliance (which will almost certainly first require a recognition of the Armenian genocide), the subsequent stabilization of the region will only strengthen Turkey’s long-denied bid for admission.