In 2011 Police Chief Sanchez, along with Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office, filed a civil legal action against 30 Santa Barbara residents who are allegedly members of the Santa Barbara Eastside and Westside gangs. The injunction proposed that these individuals not be allowed in certain parts of Santa Barbara, which they refer to as “safety zones.” The rationale behind the gang injunction is to decrease criminal activity by preventing these individuals from associating with each other in the safety zones, wearing certain types of clothing, possessing weapons, using drugs or alcohol and recruiting for their gang in the safety zones. In addition, these 30 individuals would have to sign a legal document with the city attorney in which they formally surrender their affiliation with their gang.

In theory this injunction would decrease the gang activity in Santa Barbara, however, there are many problems with the gang injunction. One of the biggest concerns about the gang injunction is that there has been little to no transparency; there have not been any public hearings by the Santa Barbara City Council. The public is deliberately being excluded despite the fact that the injunction would have a great impact on the Santa Barbara residents and family.

Another problem with the gang injunction is the people who are on the list, which are added solely based on subjective police discretion. A few of the individuals on the list have been able to turn their lives around, including some who are currently attending Santa Barbara City College. If the proposed gang injunction goes into effect these individuals would no longer be able to attend SBCC because it is part of the safety zones, which they would not be allowed in. This is problematic and counterproductive because the point of the gang injunction is to reduce criminal activity, however, banning them from SBCC would do nothing to keep these alleged gang members off of the streets. Instead of preventing these individuals from getting an education they should be encouraged to get educated. In addition, some of the people on the list are currently in prison, so there is something to be said about why these people were even placed on the list if they currently cannot go to the safety zones. Perhaps the answer to this question could reveal a hidden agenda. Proponents of the gang injunction are taking advantage of this vulnerable population and attacking them to make it seem like they have control over the crime in Santa Barbara.

Lastly, the gang injunction would infringe upon the basic civil rights of the 30 individuals on the list and their families. People should not be told where they can and cannot go especially when some of the people were unjustly placed on the list. In addition, the gang injunction promotes ethnic profiling. Law enforcement is basing their decision to place people on the list based on the individual’s race or ethnicity.

It has been estimated that the gang injunction has already cost over $500,000 in court filings and proceedings, and it has not even been implemented yet. Instead of spending all of this money on court filings and proceedings, Santa Barbara should be investing in gang prevention and intervention programs. By doing so, Santa Barbara could unite and work in cooperation with various agencies, schools, communities and recreational programs to provide alternatives to gang involvement.

On Tuesday, May 14 the Santa Barbara City Council will be addressing the gang injunction, and it is important for people to get involved and voice their opinions because of the impact the injunction will have on the Santa Barbara community. Someone needs to be a stop on this injunction, which promotes ethnic profiling and criminalization of people of color living in the Santa Barbara community.

Brenda Maldonado is a UCSB alumna and is currently a graduate student at USC’s School of Social Work.

This article appeared online only at dailynexus.com on Friday, May0, 2013.

The regents support the exploration of possible benefits of online education, including enhancement of student learning and, yes, alternative revenues; they would be remiss not to do so.

At the same time, the regents and administrators recognize that online education remains unproven as a moneymaker. And the first priority of university leaders remains unchanged: doing what’s best for UC students, expanding access and helping them advance toward timely graduation.

UC and many other institutions see technology as an exciting tool for student success, and the University is pursuing this thoughtfully and carefully, consulting all stakeholders along the way. UC President Mark Yudof has always referred to these efforts as a “coalition of the willing,” and there is no desire or push to dictate curriculum to students or faculty, top-down, as Sheehan suggests.

Those faculty or students who have participated — whether in a for-credit online course or a MOOC partnership at UC — have had a generally positive experience. The University of California will continue to explore how such offerings might enrich teaching and learning at the university and, perhaps someday, lead to financial benefits.

Shelly Meron is a University of California spokesperson.

This article appeared online only at dailynexus.com on Friday, May 10, 2013.

A symbol typically associated with Cinco de Mayo is the sombrero, which comes from the Spanish word sombra, or shade. Originators of the sombrero were Mestizo workers — people of mixed Latin, European and Native American descent who worked in Mexico and the Southern United States. Sombreros are a symbol of hard work for people who had to work in the fields. It is a symbol of perseverance, struggle and survival. It has no relation to Cinco de Mayo. Along with the sombrero, the phrase “Cinco de Drinko” is another form of appropriation that perpetuates the stereotype of a drunk Mexican that not only appropriates a language, but also reduces a large population of self-respecting people into alcoholics.

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of icons, rituals, etc. from one culture or subculture by another. Appropriation occurs without any real understanding of why the original culture took part in these activities or the meanings behind these activities. This often results in the conversion of culturally significant artifacts, practices and beliefs, into “meaningless” (and irrelevant) pop culture, or giving them significance that is completely different than what they originally had.

Within its historical context, Cinco de Mayo marks the victory of a battle won in the city of Puebla against the French army. It is commemorated and celebrated locally, but it is not recognized as a national Mexican holiday. Contrary to what many people have heard, Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexico’s Independence Day — Sept. 16 is.

UCSB, be critical of what Cinco de Mayo really is: One day a year when people wear sombreros, mustaches, throw back tequila and have fun being “Mexican.” Some live the reality 365 days a year for their entire lives without the sombreros or mustaches. Don’t appropriate a culture that struggles to even be here in the States. It’s interesting that during this time people choose to be “Mexican,” but I highly doubt anyone would trade the life of a real Campesino, one working the field, wearing that infamous sombrero.

  This letter was co-written by Ariana Rodriguez (La Familia de Colores), Megan Foronda (A.S. Office of the President), Mario Vasquez (Human Rights Board), Norma Orozco (I.D.E.A.S.) and Navkiran Kaur (S.C.O.R.E.).

A version of this letter appeared on page 8 of the May 7, 2013 print edition of the Nexus.

Views expressed on the Opinion page do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Nexus or UCSB. Opinions are submitted primarily by students.

Over the last four years, the top managers of the UC system — the governor and the UC Regents — have launched an accelerating effort to make online courses a bigger part of the UC curriculum. It started in 2009, in response to crippling budget cuts, with the idea of an 11th, completely online campus. However, more recent efforts have focused on building partnerships with private online education companies like Coursera, edX and Udacity, which have gained recognition recently for innovations in online learning platforms. The aim has been the same: to make online classes a central part of a UC degree to the tune of 20 percent of total credits by some projections.

I take issue with both the process behind the initiative and the prospect of such an education. But first and foremost, I am appalled by the absurdity of the fact that the same people who constructed the fiscal crisis in the UC system — the governor and the regents — are now determining how we will deal with it. The same group of administrators that has condemned us to institutional poverty is now telling us that we must fundamentally restructure and digitize our curriculum just to stay afloat.

Their online strategy is fundamentally flawed because it does not address the root of the UC’s budgetary woes, that is, the ongoing financial neglect of higher education in California. Gov. Jerry Brown and the UC Regents are instead trying to paper over this political dilemma with a technological fix. They are counting on rallying our collective fetish for “innovation” and our enthusiasm for new educational technologies as a way of obfuscating the political-budgetary choice they have made to continually subordinate higher education funding to debt servicing and prison production. They want to bury their continued disregard for the UC system in flashy Silicon Valley-branded technologies, which they offer as our only hope of survival.

Much like the budget cuts of the last five years, the online push is an entirely undemocratic endeavor, a top-down initiative envisaged from the heights of Sacramento and the UC Office of the President and foisted upon a broad base of students and faculty.

It reminds us again of the peculiar constellation of political power in the UC system. Of the 26 voting members of the UC Board of Regents, only one is a student Outside of two nonvoting members who directly represent faculty, the rest are administrators appointed — not elected — to 12-year terms by the governor.

This arrangement in which decisions about the UC system are made not by the students and faculty who make up its heart, but by distant, unelected managers, is wholly undemocratic. It is through this machinery that we are being told to move our learning online.

Furthermore, the terms in which online education is being discussed are misguided. Since Gov. Brown and the regents have posited online learning primarily as a way of saving money, the focus of the debate has been trapped in market terms: how it can reduce costs and increase efficiency. There has been relatively little discussion of how online education will (or already does) enhance or degrade the quality of instruction and education.

The problem is that learning — truly transformative learning that helps you to grow as a person and as a citizen, not just information transfer — simply does not obey the rules of the market. It cannot always be done cheaper and more efficiently with new technology and automation.

And when the question of the quality of online courses does come up, the administrators who claim to speak for students like to float the idea that our generation of “digital natives” simply learns better on computers than we do in classrooms, that we prefer learning through interactive YouTube videos than we do through intimate face-to-face discussions. I think that is bullshit. They construct that narrative because it is convenient for their agenda.

I, personally, am tired of the ever-enclosing boundaries that debt-servicing budget cuts artificially construct around our educational experience. Our so-called leaders have locked us in an austerity prison-house and now claim to offer us the only way out.

More online coursework may have some place at the UC (if the decision makers were grounded, they would see that it already has a place), but it is not a solution for budgetary neglect and it cannot be commanded from above. A successful public university system, one that prepares us to be creative and engaged citizens, requires significant public investment. There is simply no way around it.

Patrick Sheehan is a fourth-year sociology major.

This article appeared online only at dailynexus.com on Friday, May 3, 2013.

My husband is a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA. I am not a TA or RA and don’t have any income. Thus, my family monthly income is only around $2,700 after taxes. We need to pay apartment rent ($856 monthly), my tuition ($4,319.56 quarterly) and my son’s daycare fee ($385 monthly). In fact, my husband’s salary is not enough to support our daily living. If my son’s daycare fee increases, we will not be able to afford it. Therefore, we need to consider sending my son back to China to live with his grandparents. The truth is, we really want to keep my son with us in the U.S. to watch every step of his growth. I think this is a simple wish common to all parents.

Please pass my situation and urge the school to support families like us. I would really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Zhike Liu

This letter appeared online only at dailynexus.com on Friday, April 26, 2013.

One position central to the resolution’s opponents holds as a central contention is that conscientious opposition to Israel’s actions necessarily isolates and stigmatizes Jewish students, perhaps implicating them in Israel’s human rights abuses. This position reinforces, albeit indirectly, the tired and troubled conflation of anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism. It bears reiterating that the Jewish faith as such is completely separable from Zionism, which is known to us today as the dominant ideology of the state of Israel and is used to legitimate an apartheid status quo where the allotment of greater rights to Jewish citizens, as opposed to non-Jewish citizens, is the law of the land. Proponents of divestment are critical of Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights. To conflate their position with anti-Semitism is lazy and unethical.

Expanding upon the argument that Jewish students would feel stigmatized under the resolution, it is helpful to remember the Islamophobia that characterizes American society today.

To draw on a topical example, consider the Boston Marathon bombings. The New York Times published an article Friday morning that was meant to break the news of the firefight that preceded the elder Tsarnaev’s death and the subsequent manhunt for the younger Tsarnaev, but, before telling of the event itself (the who, what, when, where and why that constitute the mainstay of objective reporting), the editors chose to sketch the political and religious history of Chechnya. The intent of this, if not the effect, is to associate the Tsarnaevs with “fundamentalist Islam” independent of any hard evidence, other than national origin.

To make the connection, it appears as if anyone who commits an act of violence in the United States and also happens to be a Muslim is assumed to be a fundamentalist, an extremist, a terrorist, etc. The objection of the Jewish students is, as I understand it, similar insofar as it is based in the fear that Jewish students will be associated with the human rights abuses of Israel by virtue of their identity as Jews, and thus ostracized, much the same way America is largely associating the Tsarnaev brothers with “fundamentalist Islam” by virtue of their identity as Muslims.

Moving to another argument, the suggestion that Israel is unfairly singled out for its human rights abuses, while other states are not, fails to take into account the cozy relationship between the U.S. and Israel today (with over $3 billion in “aid” given to Israel by the U.S. annually) and Israel’s unique position as perhaps the settler colonial society/agent of Western hegemony (and here being familiar with the political and economic nature of early 20th century Zionism and Zionism as it has evolved after World War II in light of the Cold War and Arab Nationalism is key).

The level of support that Israel receives, and has received historically from the western powers, is embodied, at least in part, in today’s world by the use of technology developed by American companies, and this is indicative of the extent to which the playing field is not presently level and the university in particular assumes a distinctly nonneutral posture. In the 1940s, Israel received military support from the West, support that contributed to Israel’s dominance in the initial war and ethnic cleansing that resulted in the creation of Israel as a state. Today, Israel receives all the latest American military technology, which is used, as we were reminded in November, to destroy Palestinian property and kill Palestinian civilians. The current imbalance in the situation is clear. Thus, when opponents of the resolution suggest that the truly “neutral” thing to do would be to reject divestment so as to appear to favor both sides equally, they neglect the extent to which our community already stands behind Israel.

The implicit message of the argument that Israel does not deserve to be singled out and that the university must maintain a supposed position of neutrality is that Israel’s actions are justified (or at least that opposition to Israel’s actions is unjustified) given the injustice that takes place elsewhere in the world, and the failure to recognize Israel’s crimes in this way is disheartening. While it is pleasing to witness and contribute to what I take to be the rejuvenation of UCSB’s political realm, the decision of the Senate to reject the resolution represents a gross misreading of the nature of the dollar as a form of speech in American political life (a point that cannot be illustrated fully, for want of space) as well as the true nature of the situation in Palestine today, and the nature of the U.S. position and the University of California’s position, vis-à-vis Israel.

Michael Dean is a fourth-year political science major.

This article appeared online only on at dailynexus.com on Friday, April 25, 2013.

The Bottom Line currently survives on an ever-slim budget, which has consistently dwindled as our public school system has had to make budget cuts. In the face of this it seeks to remain a truly independent paper, funded by those who need its information the most: UCSB students and it does not want to be held by outside interests. A similar independent media source on campus, KCSB-FM 91.9, remains independent through a student lock-in and community member donations.

The Bottom Line seeks $1.69 from each student a quarter, which is less than most of us pay for a small cup of coffee. Moreover, The Bottom Line deserves consistent funding so that it can continue to grow into something bigger and better, to reach its full potential. Not only does The Bottom Line provide students a rare chance to get involved directly with the media and to delve into very important student issues but it is the type of entity public universities need to have; a medium that is constantly analyzing and questioning and seeking out answers for its community.

Independent media must be fought for and sustained on our campus. The Bottom Line provides us students with the critical analysis we cannot do alone. This week, you have the opportunity to make sure The Bottom Line survives to report another day. Join me along with others in the fight to protect independent media on this campus. Regardless of the side you may take on this issue, I ask that you vote on GOLD this April 22-25 and make your voice heard.

Michael Kenney is General Manager of KCSB and a fourth-year geological sciences major.

Views expressed on the Opinion page do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Nexus or UCSB. Opinions are submitted primarily by students.

What follows includes responses to assertions made regarding the capacities of A.S. process and personnel, our shared concerns that we have been obligated to address together this year and, for the first time in A.S. history, a collective endorsement across party lines of the presidential candidate we believe most qualified to continue addressing such concerns, all of which we feel compelled to vocalize amongst a sea of rhetoric.

In terms of student fees and all other money students put into the university, fees paid quarterly to Associated Students are not part of the academic tuition you pay each quarter. A.S. fees are directed to A.S. and include services across a wide spectrum, while tuition is directed to the University of California. Therefore, a reduction in “student fees” (fees that go to A.S.) does not constitute a reduction in tuition. In fact, a reduction in student fees limits the availability of services. The only time fees can be reclaimed is when an individual deems that a specific A.S.-sponsored activity has contradicted the individual’s ideological/political/religious beliefs, and the individual completes the paperwork necessary to reclaim the fees he or she contributed to that specific activity, per Smith v. Regents. The amount of return an individual may receive rarely exceeds six cents historically and is usually designated based on specific events. The notion of returning “unused” student fees to individual students at the close of the academic year is not a viable possibility. We want to make clear that referenda dollars voted on by the students is a rare moment when students actually have a say in where their fees are going, especially compared to the University’s past negligence in terms of making your tuition distribution transparent.

The accusation of “corruption” within the Executive Board was related to the tuition assistance that A.S. executives receive, which this Executive Board, for the first time ever, advocated to cut such honoraria — making it the only board to do so and puts action behind words. Such accusation, we believe, is damaging and based on misinformation that does more harm than good to students. Tuition assistance for A.S. execs is meant to retain the A.S. values of accessibility and inclusivity by preserving the opportunity to serve in exec positions to be available to all students regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds. As the result of economic realities and the time-intensive nature (40+ hours per week) of executive positions, some students would not have the ability or time to balance a part-time job and hold an exec position were it not for tuition assistance. In addition, many students are not able to serve as elected officers not because they are not qualified but because they do not have the economic privilege to do so, especially in light of increasingly burdensome tuition.

To ensure accountability, A.S. already has checks and control points in place for addressing and adjudicating internal matters of corruption or frivolous spending. These mechanisms take the form of Judicial Council, Senate ratification and advice available from A.S. staff, just to name a few.

Lastly, we would like to take corrective action with respect to an incident that occurred this year involving the misuse of Associated Students resources for personal and academic purpose. Toward the end of November, a student that was not elected or appointed impermissibly used the A.S. name in an effort to collect data for a class project. This effort constitutes false pretenses, fabrication of an A.S. committee and the subsequent deception of the entire undergraduate and graduate student population at UCSB. In response to this incident, and in an attempt to ensure this type of abuse never occurs again, the A.S. Executive Officers chose to endorse the only candidate for A.S. President that, in our collective opinion, demonstrates the integrity and trustworthiness that is vital to fulfilling the mission of Associated Students: Megan Foronda. However, this decision ultimately rests with the student body.

Foronda has proved her thorough knowledge of the internal processes of A.S. and has extensive experience uniting, rather than dividing, students. She understands the power of student voices and listens to their concerns, breaking away from the exclusive nature that A.S. seems to take when individuals focus on themselves and pursue their own agenda. Megan has always supported a wide variety of students, whether that be through allocating resources toward a diverse array of events or being the only presidential candidate that has substantially planned and organized large-scale events and spaces in which students can critically discuss relevant issues at the university, especially those that critique Associated Students. She has also been involved in effectively teaching students about the California budget crisis in relation to the privatization of higher education which, in a climate of constant attack on affordability of tuition, is ever-important.

As the elected representatives, we think it is necessary to bring a healthy dose of constructive criticism, desperately needed for a governing body often marred by party politics and rhetoric that clutters the Association with negativity, hostility and discomfort. We, as individuals from all parties and nonpartisan backgrounds, felt it necessary to convey facts to the student body amidst quite a bit of misinformation out there.

Associated Students is more than elections, and elected representatives are only a portion of what A.S. has to offer. The President, as the Chief Executive Officer of Associated Students, is your official representative on campus, systemwide, local, state and federal matters, which only increases the need for a president with a solid plan and a demonstrated ability to effectively and responsibly use resources. In short, Megan Foronda is the only presidential candidate that resembles this type of leader and the goals, aspirations and integrity Associated Students needs.

It is our sincerest hope that you continue to remain critical of your elected student officials and engage in healthy, open and honest dialogue regarding issues that pertain to you. Whomever you vote for, we hope you vote and question information being presented to you. We thank you for your thoughtful consideration in reading this message and wish you a truly enjoyable Spring Quarter.

The Executive Officers have all decided to endorse individually, and our titles are used for identification purposes only.

A version of this letter appeared on page 16 of the April 25, 2013 print edition of the Nexus.

First let’s begin by addressing what exactly the WGSE department offers to this campus. Aside from a library and conference room available for student organizations, that you made sure to highlight on both articles printed on April 17 and April 22, the WGSE department does much more with its far from “adequate” funding. They are responsible for CARE (Campus Advocacy, Resources, and Education); Sexual Harassment Prevention Education Program; the Non-Traditional Student Resource Center; the Resource Center for Sexual & Gender Diversity; quarterly program offerings and support groups. In other words, a SAFE SPACE. Moreover, they work with many organizations on campus such as: PAVE, Men Against Rape, A.S. Womyn’s Commission, Take Back the Night, VOX- Voices for Planned Parenthood, Women’s Ensemble Theater Troupe, Women in Science and Engineering, Student Veterans Organization, Queer Student Union and A.S. Queer Commission. WGSE provides safe spaces and advocacy for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking. They also provide LGBTQIA resources as well as resources for non-traditional students (student parents, veterans). Additionally, WGSE is adding a new advocacy fund. In the past, survivors would have to pay for protective orders and other fees on their own, and this new advocacy fund would allow WGSE to help pay for those costs. The WGSE department is essential to these groups and individuals for funding, support and advocacy.

Your refusal to endorse a fee increase that is much needed and you labeled as “extraneous,” was particularly outrageous considering the community WGSE serves. Knowing the high prevalence of rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, hate crimes, homophobia, gender discrimination, among other issues that occur on this campus and in Isla Vista, common sense dictates anyone to think critically about this center and what it offers to this campus. Your decision against this fee is emblematic of how disregarded these, unfortunately very common, issues are at UCSB. We invite you to step into the WGSE center, where increased funds are a necessity, to educate your paper and properly research everything that the center has to offer. We recognize your influence on this campus and urge you to use it responsibly; do not belittle safe spaces as a luxury, strive for more than “adequacy.”

The above letter was written collaboratively by: A.S. Womyn’s Commission, A.S. Queer Commission, End Fake Clinics, Take Back the Night, Voices for Planned Parenthood and the Women, Gender, and Sexual Equity Department.

A version of this letter appeared on page 16 of the April 25, 2013 print edition of the Nexus. A response from the Nexus appeared below.

Views expressed on the Opinion page do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Nexus or UCSB. Opinions are submitted primarily by students.

It was pretty much the usual. Friends uploading new pictures, lame memes reposted from Reddit and chuckles about North Korea’s bullshit, but something caught my eye. A thread on /r/economics mentioned Bitcoin, a new all-digital currency championed by libertarians and Tea Partiers as being the digital alternative to the gold standard. This wasn’t the first time I had heard about it — back in February, my friend tried to get me to buy into it when it was still around $2 per digital coin. I didn’t. I thought it was a bubble then, and I know it’s a bubble now. But curiosity got the best of me, and I just had to check the exchange rate to see if I was right.

“Holy fucking shit!” I nearly jumped out of my seat. I was right, but inconveniently so. Back in February, my friend had tried to suggest that I invest around $500 to buy around 250 in shares, priced at $2. Had I done that, I would now be sitting on 250 shares of Bitcoin now valued at $236, or around $59,000 in estimated worth. “Holy fucking shit” is right.

Back to Facebook, my friend’s News Feed lit up like the Fourth of July, proclaiming the meteoric rise of Bitcoin, and heralding it as the future of digital currency. My cries of warning and temperance went unheeded as he gleefully listed off the soaring price. $175. $185. $231!

The reason why it was so high was because it was a speculative bubble. Bitcoin was marketed as an alternative to the U.S. dollar, the British pound, the Japanese yen and the euro, as being a hard currency that can be used to barter for goods. The advantage is that it is completely free from any central banking monetary policy, so it can increase and decrease at will. This makes it the world’s first universal investing currency to avoid the drags and pitfalls of inflationary and deflationary cycles brought upon by fluctuations in the money supply. Or at least that’s what Bitcoin would have you believe.

In the opinion of this writer, it’s just a hoax, and I’m not in bad company. Jim Cramer of “Mad Money,” financial analyst Felix Salmon and even Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman had less than stellar things to say about Bitcoin, with Cramer even rejecting it as a currency at all.

To even be considered a currency, Bitcoin would have had to have been accepted as a medium of exchange, but barring a few examples, virtually no one has done so. Instead, it was quite rapidly identified as a potential bubble by market speculators. They simply wanted to buy enough shares at a low enough price, hoping that some poor sap would buy a few several months down the road at a grossly inflated price. Think of it like buying tickets to the ball game playoffs before the season starts. If your team makes it to the playoffs, you can sell the tickets for a handsome profit. If they don’t, then you’re shit out of luck, unless you can offload it to some poor sap before that. And that’s exactly what’s happening to Bitcoin.

The value of Bitcoin peaked last night at around $260 before falling to $105. In a move that is echoing the housing bubble of 2007-2008, it is slowly climbing back up again, as the “true believers” are in complete denial of Bitcoin’s impending doom. On Reddit’s /r/Bitcoin subreddit, there’s a thread with 755 upvotes titled “Hold Spartans!” with a link to a Photoshopped image of Spartan phalangites sporting Bitcoin shields.

Back to Facebook, I replied about an hour ago to my friend’s thread. He responded, “Crashed??? Time to buy, buy, buy!” “No… dude,” I chimed back in, “We’re at the first bull trap, and you’re in denial. Sell now, recoup your principle, or get wiped out.” But before I could finish, he replied, “It’s just a bump, not a crash.”

I doubt that. But it hasn’t stopped people dumping tons of cash into the market, with some even selling their houses to get the requisite cash to invest. I just now have to meditate on the consequences of my action or inaction. On the one hand, I quite clearly didn’t make $59,000, but on the other hand, I didn’t participate in a predatory market strategy.

Kevin de Bree is a third-year history major… and was almost a $59,000-iare.

Views expressed on the Opinion page do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Nexus or UCSB. Opinions are submitted by primarily by students.

A version of this article appeared on page 15 of the April 11, 2013 print edition of the Nexus.