Opinion

January 29, 2013

[Right Said] Obama is Back and More Liberal Than Ever

By Jeffrey M. Robin

Just in case you missed it or decided not to tune in, the president made another bluntly polemical campaign speech last Monday. No, the 2014 midterm elections haven’t already started (yet). I am, of course, referring t...

January 28, 2013

Sergeant Signa Is A Jerk. …And Other Information Any Card-Carrying Isla Vistan Should Know

By Mark Signa

Yes, I know it is hard to believe, but I am a jerk. Actually, it should be another more descriptive word, but this is a family-friendly newspaper. Well, except for on Wednesdays. By the way, the Opinion Editors at the Ne...

January 27, 2013

Hats Are Changeable; It’s The Head Beneath Them That Stays With You For Life

By Ben Moss

I learned the difference between dissociative identity disorder and role-play in my first year at UCSB. My freshman roommate, who declared in psychology during Zero Week, went a long way to help me understand. One day, e...

January 25, 2013

Drugs and the Divine: Could Spiritual Transcendence Be Only A Pop, Drop or Toke Away?

By Michael Roe

“Turn on, tune in, drop out”: this six word catchphrase coined by the psychologist Timothy Leary is most closely associated with the drug counterculture and progressive social transformation of the ‘60s. Leary, who...

January 24, 2013

Call it Agnosticism, If You Like — All I Know Is That It’s Wonderful

By Mark Strong

Disclaimer: I think it’s important to note that I use the proper noun “God” in reference to the preexisting, visualized God of various world religions, and the improper noun “god” in reference to the conceptual...

January 23, 2013

Bite Me: Sink Your Teeth into the Wonders of Kink

By Hayley E.

Gather round, gather round, one and all. Today our topic is one of much excitement: kinky sex. But before we get there we must take a peek into my past, so you can understand how I have suffered for this cause. Now, plea...

January 22, 2013

[Left Said] US Immigration Policy: Drawing the Line Between Who Gets In and Who Doesn’t

By Michael Dean

  Irony comes cheap in the United States. Amid the reactionary uproar defending the Second Amendment, many voices of the right avidly pointed out that no small number of what we have come to know as totalitarian sta...

January 22, 2013

[Right Said] US Immigration Policy: Drawing the Line Between Who Gets In and Who Doesn’t

By Jeffrey Robin

  Though I haven’t held such a position, I imagine that being a professional advocate for immigration reform must be one of the most frustrating jobs in the world. When he was first elected in 2008, President Obam...

January 18, 2013

Does Atheism Constitute A Worldview?

By Travis Vail

A worldview is effectively a set of beliefs and assumptions through which someone interprets the world around them. Whether or not a philosophy qualifies as a worldview is really a matter of how pervasive that ideology i...

January 18, 2013

Concerned Student Warns, No Nuclear Weapons for Iran

By Avrohom Kahn

There are many reasons why Iran must not obtain nuclear weapons. The strongest one is the fact that Iran continues to support terrorist organizations around the globe, which could one day obtain such destructive technolo...

January 17, 2013

As the Smoke From Newtown Clears, Policy Talks Strain the National Attention Span

By Mark Strong

Tragedy in America is a three-act play. We start with horror: A deranged and socially-exiled youth storms onto an elementary school campus with a Bushmaster .223 rifle and murders 20 children and six adults. The damage i...

January 17, 2013

Alumn Pleads: “Mark Massari, tear down that sign!”

By Larry Yells

On behalf of the tens of thousands of UCSB students who transformed our Campus Events Center into one of the loudest, most raucous places to watch a college basketball game in the mid ’80s through the late ’90s, we a...

January 16, 2013

Sit Back, Open Your Mind and Spread Your Legs for the Sex Talk Your Parents Didn’t Give You

By Luc Gendrot

Hello my lovely new readers, I’m going to skip all of the intro nonsense and get right to it: This is the Wednesday Hump, so let’s talk about sex. But let’s divest our talk of sex from the very emotional bits and t...

January 16, 2013

Expensive Upkeep: Why Keeping UCSB Postcard Perfect Comes at a Price for Gauchos

By Michael Dean

Hard to miss after three weeks away from campus is the great expanse of sky newly unobstructed after the removal of a number of trees from the perimeter of the library. Soon to replace them and presently queued along the...

January 15, 2013

(Left Said) Abortion: When Does Life Begin And Who Decides That? Why This Debate Matters

By Michael Dean

I’ll start by saying that I personally feel that abortion, when resorted to for the wrong reasons, is an immoral and selfish practice. In my own case, as is true for many people, the popular rational for abortion is in...

January 15, 2013

(Right Said) Abortion: When Does Life Begin And Who Decides That? Why This Debate Matters

By Jeffrey Robin

Year after year, heart disease and cancer consistently rank as the top two causes of death in our country, accounting for around 1.2 million deaths or around 50 percent of all deaths per year alone. Officially speaking, ...