Outside Opinions

April 20, 2012

A.S. Election: High School Flashback

By James Ash

While volunteering at Spring Insight, I couldn’t help but notice the nomadic camp hovering over the Storke Tower bike roundabout. Assuming that the Pirate was finally commandeering the campus, I thought little of it. H...

April 20, 2012

Men’s Lacrosse Plans to ‘Light That Barn on Fire’

By Jonny Kintzele

In 2006, the UC Santa Barbara Men’s Lacrosse team defeated the Chapman Panthers in a hard-fought overtime victory. The win added to their undefeated record versus the Orange County private university. “We had never l...

April 17, 2012

Congresswoman Capps Pledges Her Allegiance to Student Funding

By Lois Capps

Spring is in the air, and it’s a beautiful time to be on campus. As you’re settling into your final quarter of the school year, many of you are applying for summer internships and finalizing your plans to study abroa...

April 17, 2012

Is She the Farr Better Candidate?

By Margarita Baliyan

In 2008 Steve Pappas lost the 3rd District Supervisor seat to Doreen Farr by a slim margin. Disgruntled by the two-to-one majority that the student population of UCSB and Isla Vista gave to Farr, Pappas began a lengthy a...

April 16, 2012

Leverage Your Degree, Learn to Network

By Sarah Puckette, A.J. Rawls

As a UCSB student, you are going to graduate with a degree from an esteemed research university and will be able to get any job you want … or so you think. Many of us have all the qualifications needed for a job, but a...

April 12, 2012

Putting Our Inner Hipster Aside, Coming to Terms With Bieber Fever

By Dash Nye

Have you ever woken up one morning and realized you’re the hipster? My friends talk about how they hate the self-involved hypocrisy of these types of folks. But every day I feel like more and more of us are formulating...

April 10, 2012

Banishing the No- Prefix Once and For All: Alternatives to Next Year’s Floatopia

By George Publius

Another year has gone by, and once again Floatopia was successfully banned. That’s three years now, which in my opinion is pretty damn depressing. As a third-year student, I got here just in time for it to be banned, w...

April 9, 2012

There’s No Denying Invisible Children’s Success in Spreading the Word on Kony

By Corie Anderson

As everyone has heard by now, the viral marketing campaign KONY 2012, made by the nonprofit company Invisible Children, has recently come under intense scrutiny in the media. Most coverage of the massively successful 30-...

April 6, 2012

“I’m just a normal guy. So don’t be scared.”

By David Washington

Hey man, why you looking so nervous?   I know you’re not used to seeing guys with skin like mine anywhere other than on ESPN or in the news for some crime. But don’t be scared, homie; I’m not here to hurt you....

April 5, 2012

Combating UCSB’s Voter Suppression

By Presley Mellor

It’s a pretty familiar refrain among college students: “It doesn’t matter if I vote or not. Our votes don’t make a difference; nobody cares if I vote.” The thing is, guys, you’re wrong about all of it. Yes, y...

April 5, 2012

Addressing Homelessness

By Deborah Barnes

My team and I are in outreach on the streets and are deeply concerned about the number of homeless people, including families, entering into our parks, city dwellings, hospitals and beaches. More new faces, who were form...

March 8, 2012

Confessions of an American Homebody Abroad in Australia

By Corie Anderson

I would classify myself as a homebody. When given the option, I will choose to watch a good movie and enjoy a glass (or bottle) of red wine over walking the dirty streets of Isla Vista to search for a party. In fact, I s...

March 6, 2012

Christian Voice Needs No More Representation

By David Sanos

I have a problem with the inclusion of a Consult a Christian column, but not because I want to suppress the Christian position in favor of championing atheist, Jewish, empiricist, Rastafarian, secular, Muslim or Shinto o...

March 4, 2012

“A True Friend Will Help You Bury the Body and Then Drive You to Mexico”

By Kelly Nassour

It isn’t difficult to make friends in Isla Vista, but this place is so much like a dream that it makes it hard to tell who your real friends are, as opposed to fake friends that only want to know you because you live o...

March 1, 2012

“Brain Dead Drug War Policy Saves People by Killing Them”

By Redford Givens

Only people ignorant of the true history of addictive drug use blame the drugs for the tragedies connected to drug addiction. Checking newspaper archives from 1880 to 1909 reveals the fact that no one was robbing, whorin...

February 22, 2012

Steve Pappas v. Doreen Farr, Isla Vista, and the New Jim Crow

By Patrick Donahoe

I’m writing this because in 2008 I lived in I.V. and most current students weren’t here. In 2008 Steve Pappas lost to Doreen Farr in the race for 3rd District supervisor by 2.27 percent. He lost the student vote by m...