What was once a debate between two parties has turned into a prime example of how politics can overtake the democratic process and morph it into a place for childish politicians to throw sand in each others’ faces and call everyone “stupid heads” (metaphorically speaking… I hope).

In an article on CNN by Charles Riley and Jeff Simon it was reported, “Five more House Democrats said Tuesday that they will vote against Senate health care legislation, which puts opponents of reform just 11 votes shy of the 216 needed to prevent President Obama from scoring a major victory on his top domestic priority.”

Photo courtesy MCT. U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks on health care reform in the East Room of the White House March 3 in Washington D.C.

Since the bill passed the Senate Dec. 24, Americans have been inundated with articles about politicians decrying Republican tactics to destroy the bill, and denouncing Democrats for using tactics that would allow them to pass the bill no matter what (“Deem and Pass”).

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said that she has three plans in mind to make sure the bill passes no matter what.

Day by day, an angry public gets involved in this political debate. Groups such as the Tea Party Movement appear on the front pages in stories of massive gatherings to oppose the health care bill with frequency, and online political forums have become flooded with heated debates between citizens opposed to and supporting the bill.

However, what this bill has revealed more than anything is the public’s confusion, frustration and mistrust in a government that has its economy swaying on a thin string over a bed of syringes, and a nation with its global reputation rapidly decaying with every mistake it makes.

Whether or not the bill passes is just the front of the issue now.

The underlying issue of our mistrust and uncertainty with the government and our president is now being brought to light.

Whether the bill either passes or fails, be prepared for that issue to rise rapidly. Parties will be split and, sadly, politics will continue to get in the way of the democratic process.

As a part of the future ruling generation, we should be angry that it has come to this, and that we will be the ones to pick up the pieces of our fractured and aching country. The blame is not on any specific political party alone, or even the president, but should be carried by the entire political process.

It is embarrassing that other governments have to see us like this; and for the stable, reasonable people of America, it is saddening to read every headline and article about the health care reform debacle.

This bill will be the defining moment of President Obama’s career as president so far, and can easily make or break his chance for re-election. However, what the bill has revealed and created cannot be taken back or glossed over – public initiative and government process are being crushed under the weight of politics.

Once again the students of Cal State Fullerton have stood up and made their voices heard. At 2:30 a.m. March 3, a couple dozen or so students from CSUF, University of California, Irvine and Claremont College barricaded themselves in the Humanities building. This was a bold move made in opposition to another potential bold move from CSUF.

The students took action after seeing a document released by the University Planning department that insinuated that courses and concentrations under the College of Humanities were expendable in the growing global market.

This may have been a bit of an overreaction on the part of the students. The likelihood that the university would cut an entire department and college out of its curriculum is rather slim, but certainly possible. The students did the only logical thing they could, they descended upon the Humanities building and locked themselves inside.

It is difficult to gauge whether their occupation of roughly five hours was more effective than starting a petition or holding another rally, but a message was sent to the administration of CSUF.

The actions of these students should not be considered representative of the entire student body. While we should all be upset at the prospect of losing an entire major because of budget cuts, we cannot all be compared to a handful of students who decided they were going to play a quick game of Civil Rights Movement: For Kids!

Don’t get us wrong, we applaud them for taking a stand and letting the administration know that their actions are being watched, but if you are going to take a stand, you might want to stay on your feet longer. This is nothing more than a romanticizing of the protest era from the, ’60s. It is every angry, disenfranchised student’s dream to relive their parent’s glory days by standing up to “The Man” for what they believe in. Great idea, poor follow through.

We live in a modern age, where more people are going to school and working full-time. Where students have responsibilities beyond waking up from their hangovers before class starts. College life has changed, and so should campus protests.

Instead of handcuffing yourself to the library’s information desk (with the key hidden in your pocket), take advantage of your college education and do something worthwhile: do your research, organize to plan out your intentions and prove “The Man” wrong. Don’t just organize physically, organize mentally. If these students truly wanted to prove how essential humanities is as a major for the global market, they should have prepared a report that displayed how a degree in humanities can be used to get a job.

The very wording of the University Planning document could have been used against it. The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is home to majors that were directly addressed in the University Planning document: philosophy, literature and fine arts. A degree in any of these, although potentially useless by themselves, when applied to other majors such as political science, criminal justice, psychology and many others, can prove to be incredibly useful. Many of the classes in these departments would not be considered general education or collateral courses if this were not true.

For anyone in the Strategic Planning department to insinuate that the College of Humanities does not provide students with access to the global market is foolish. For students to assume that the University would so hastily do away with such a large program, with 25 undergraduate and 17 graduate degree programs, is nothing more than a paranoid delusion that the school is out to screw us all.

So far the student protesters have done a good job in making their voices heard, and at times their actions and statements are very well thought out. However, if the student protesters wish to make a greater impact, they need to take less from the pages of their father’s past, and more from the pages of the textbooks and powerpoint lectures that all students are paying far too much for.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down’s Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care,” Palin wrote on her Facebook last year.

Palin had no backing for her claims but brought them up at every opportunity; and now she is admitting that she enjoyed the benefits of a similar plan out of the country.

It’s official: Palin is a walking contradiction.

Politicians are infamous for their shameless ability to say one thing and do another, but Sarah Palin takes it to a whole new level. An active advocate for abstinence-only sex education, Palin seems to find no irony in the pregnancy of her then 17-year-old daughter, Bristol Palin. She’s still smiling, cracking bad sports-analogy-themed jokes and praying that no one brings up her personal life.

Does Palin wish now that Bristol’s health science teacher had taught her to roll a condom over a banana?

Some might argue that what happened in Palin’s past – or her family’s present – doesn’t have an effect on her ability to lead and make informed political decisions. How, then, can a politician honestly endorse a course of action – be it regarding abortion; lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) rights; sex education or health care – if she refuses to take her own advice?

Palin showed no remorse for her abuse of the Canadian health care system. In fact, she used her experience as a cute little anecdote to warm up the friendly Calgarian crowd.

“Believe it or not – this was in the ‘60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing, and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada,” Palin said to her audience.

Where does she get off admitting to the world that she took advantage of health care abroad when she has dedicated a significant portion of her political career to smearing the reform effort in the U.S.?

And considering Palin was born in 1964, her “memory” might have only served her in kissing up to her Canadian audience. Palin has never been one for carefully weighing the consequences of her words. She prefers to shoot first and ask questions later (especially if the shooting is at a wolf from a helicopter).

It’s obvious now – if it wasn’t before – that Palin is nothing more than an opportunist with no regard for reality. She makes bold claims, plugs her ears during the subsequent explosion, brushes the debris from her fashionable black slacks and flashes a 100-watt smile.

That line, from the U.S. government’s most important document, better than any other, argues against the Christian Legal Society’s (CLS) stance in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (UC Hastings) a case the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on this term.

The high court will decide if the University of California’s Hastings College of Law is legally permitted to deny official recognition, and therefore funding, to its chapter of the CLS based on the organization’s requirement that voting members and officers share the organization’s religious beliefs, which include “prohibition of sexual conduct between persons of the same sex.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed last year with the university’s argument that the CLS chapter should not be a recognized student organization because its requirements violate the UC’s mandate that all student-fee funded organizations not discriminate based on sexual orientation.

In an eight-page letter sent to school officials in 2004, the CLS chapter argued that the refusal of funds is itself discrimination.

One of the many court cases the letter cites is a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that denied the University of Virginia the ability to withhold funds from a religious student publication because the act is viewpoint discrimination (see Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia).

Just like the 1995 case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez pits viewpoint discrimination against the establishment clause, that first line of the First Amendment.

Whereas it’s true that the UC is discriminating against the CLS chapter because of the chapter’s viewpoints and despite the fact that viewpoint discrimination is generally illegal.

The higher principle at stake, and the one that the high court must uphold, is the separation of church and state, or the establishment clause, also known as the first line of the First Amendment.

Christianity is already ingrained in American government from the Pledge of Allegiance’s “under God” to the California Constitution’s “grateful to Almighty God for our freedom.” Some even argue that the government’s involvement in the same-sex marriage debate is an indicator to the weakening of the separation doctrine.

So in order to protect every other religion practiced on American soil and those who stand in violation of the Christian faith, the separation of church and state cannot be forgotten, bent or lessened to any further extent whatsoever.

The separation doctrine is discrimination, yes, but discrimination is not inherently bad. It is, in fact, necessary to an effective government.

The U.S. government does discriminate when it outlaws any act, choosing to restrict one group and not another. But that discrimination maintains order and equality. That discrimination often protects the minority from the majority, which is a founding purpose of government.

So to deny public funds to a religious organization that openly admits to discriminating against those who disagree with their faith is not unconstitutional discrimination. It is a government exercising fair discrimination, it is government protecting individuals from oppression by religion; it is government protecting itself from being compromised by religion; it is government keeping from endorsing religion, it is the act of upholding a founding principle established by the first line of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

That pilgrims came to America to escape a non-secular government is among the first American history lessons taught to grade-schoolers. But if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of the Christian Legal Society, perhaps the justices in their age have forgotten the importance of that lesson.

It should not be an option to sit idle while faculty and staff lose their careers, while students lose their places in classrooms and the school year becomes shorter.

The younger generation has been characterized too many times as apathetic to everything outside of their social sphere.

We are granted the fundamental right to voice our opinions, to fight against injustices committed against us and to hold our government accountable for their actions. We must take advantage of those right.

In order to do so, the California Faculty Association has organized tomorrow’s event, where students have the opportunity to take action.

Although it is a single day, and although we are unable to sit directly across from state legislators – who are supposedly our representatives – we are still sending a tidal wave of people to their doorstep, and we will not be ignored.

But whereas the message won’t be ignored, it has the opportunity to be acknowledged and then forgotten because it is missing something: a solution.

It’s grand that the governor has proposed an education friendly budget, but this budget does not solve California’s problems; it might only quiet the unrest for a little while.

The best protests pose solutions. A protest without a solution is like a bull with no horns. The bull might be able to trample someone, but it’s the sharp horns that frighten a person to move.

Students must inform themselves, and it appears we finally have. Rather than targeting our Cal State Fullerton administration, who have little if any say in how finances from the state are distributed, we are finally holding the legislature responsible. Our anger has a direction now, and this protest, rather than being assembled with no solution, has validity.

“Yes, I think students feel it, college students especially. I have a daughter in eighth grade, she gets it. She knows that when a favorite teacher isn’t coming back it’s because of budget cuts, and you college students get it with finances going up. Yes (public universities) were cheap, but that was part of the design,” said Shelly Arsenal, associate professor at CSUF and delegate for CFA. “We were supposed to be the best educated work force in the country and the world. California had that for awhile, and we use to be top in the nation, and now we are at the bottom. Our university systems use to be the envy of the world, and now they are in a precarious position.”

Clichés can be thrown at this generation, but if one of them does not incite some reaction within the CSUF community, what will?

How do we expect to be taken seriously, how do we expect to receive the quality of education we deserve without demanding it when our government fails to uphold proper standards? Refuse to continue being apathetic.

If this generation doesn’t care, no one else will. The young are the ones who will inherit this future.
Take part in this historic event.

“It is a historic event because all segments of education are coming together, because all parts of public education have been hurt,” said David Bradfield, associate vice president of CFA.

No matter how high the seats of California’s legislature are, the voices of March 4’s protesters will be heard.

Hopefully, many of this generation’s voices will be included in that cry.

“Next year I want to do a world tour,” Hatch told the Associated Press, saying he wanted to propose such anti-swearing legislation in other states and around the globe. “Cussing is a hard habit to break, but anyone can do it.”

California State Assemblyman Anthony Portantino wrote the resolution establishing the first week of March as the designated period of swear word awareness, quickly pressing forward to get the piece of legislation enacted immediately.

“The California Legislature invites the people of this state to take the No Cussing Challenge each year during the first week of March to improve our relationships, to set a tone of harmony and connectedness in our communities, and to inspire ourselves to higher endeavors,” stated Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 112.

Swear jars are being placed in 120 legislative offices in Sacramento, including the office of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I’m going to put in a few bucks to start the jar in my office as a down payment on any potential mishaps I may have during the week,” Portantino said in a press release posted on his Web site.

While a drop in preteen profanity and bullying is obviously positive, this is ultimately a waste of California’s time and tax money. Resolution No. 112 addresses cursing as though it were a drug ravaging an otherwise Utopian community.

It’s optional to observe Cuss Free Week, merely placing guidelines that one should watch what they say. No tickets are going to be written up if you drop an f-bomb when stubbing your toe this week.

“This curseless California idea is the brainchild of a junior high school student, so it deserves the attention of our adolescent-brained legislators,” wrote Alan Markow on California Independent Voter Network’s Web site. “At the core of the legislation is the key to its success: no teeth whatsoever. Californians could curse at the top of their lungs all week and not be cited for breaking the state’s laws.”

Cuss Free Week would be a much better observance week for high schools, along with their Red Ribbon Week. Adults, like those drawing up our laws and voting on measures in Sacramento, should be spending more time on the greater concerns of the state. No one washed out former Vice President Dick Cheney’s mouth with soap when he said, “Fuck yourself,” to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, after all. The state assembly should concentrate on the burning topics of health care and education.

It’s of greater concern that on March 4, university students and faculty all around the state are going to protest against the impending tuition increases and budget cuts. Cal State Fullerton students and professors will be among those marching in Los Angeles. A riot broke out near UC Berkeley over frustration regarding the fee hikes last week. A quick Google search comparing the number of stories about Cuss Free Week with those for the planned “Day of Action” yielded that more media attention was paid toward the crusade against potty mouths.

To conclude, free-thinking adults should be minding what they say on their own and not need a useless piece of legislation with a government-issued swear jar to remind them of it.

CDs are becoming obsolete now that music can be downloaded instantly, for cheap, and uploaded to any MP3 player.

The DVD and cinema industry is scared because Netflix’s instant watch program, along with Red Box DVD vending machines, is making movies available to the public for a dollar or less.

The blockbuster video game industry is having trouble keeping up with high production and publication costs, whereas smaller developers are banking on small, easy to make and produce downloadable casual games. Not to mention the ever-increasing amount of computer games made available for instant download from digital distributors such as Steam and Direct 2 Drive.

Even the newspaper and magazine industries are being crippled by the offering content for free on the Web, because there is currently no other feasible option.

For a while, the novel and textbook industries thought they were safe. They relied on a majority of the public not wanting to read lengthy books on computer screens or backlit devices. They assumed people wouldn’t want to give up the look, the feel and even the smell of the printed book. Well, too bad textbook publishers. Soon you won’t be able to get away with charging $50 to $200 for a book one student will use for three months. However, despite what publishers may think, this is a good thing for both them and the college student.

Walking into the Titan Bookstore or Little Professor is never a really joyful experience. You are about to make at least a $200 purchase, sometimes even $400, and walk out with a few books you will most likely read only what you are required to, and then sell back for far less than you spent. The textbook industry has been running this scam for years. The bigger the book, the glossier the pages and the more filler content per page, the more cash they can get from the student.

This can all change with the eBook. Several eReaders such as the Sony Reader, the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Nobles’ nook device all tout some form of wireless internet connectivity. Each with the ability to access eBook stores with thousands of book options. Not to mention that most major newspapers can be read on eBooks and will be uploaded early in the morning while you sleep.

If these stores introduced an eBook rental program where students could pay a much lower price for three to four months of access to their required textbooks, students could save hundreds of dollars a semester.

Sure the price is still pretty high on eReaders, with some of the top models with internet connectivity costing up to $250, not to mention the price of renting books throughout a college career. However, that is nothing compared to the amount of money it costs to buy every book either required or suggested for classes.

Digital book readers could seriously reduce the environmental impact of publishing and the throwing away of thousands of textbooks. What happens to older textbooks when the next edition comes out and all teachers require the new one? Sure, some get recycled or some teachers still allow them in class, but most of the books get thrown away or tossed in garages to rot.

Oh yeah, and most eReaders weigh less than a pound and are smaller than a piece of notebook paper.

Some people may wonder how this will be good for the publishing industry. To put it simply, a dramatic decrease in publishing costs. With less print versions of textbooks required, the less cash a company will need to publish, print and ship. Direct downloading of text files is practically instant. This also means students won’t have to wait for their textbooks to arrive in the mail. All students have to do is go home after receiving the class syllabus and download the textbook to their eReader, ready for the next class session.

Online access to eReaders also means that, soon, factual errors and typos can be fixed in the same way that a video game developer can release a patch to fix any in-game glitches. This way, textbook publishers and writers can ward off criticism in the matter of a day.

The eReader technology is advancing as fast as the public is accepting it. Models being produced by Fujitsu have color screens that are just as easy on the eyes as a regular eReader, which for students means highlighting text can be done digitally. Bigger hard drives and smoother internet connectivity will mean a more seamless experience.

Sure, the costs of textbooks won’t drop dramatically, but for math books and science books that can sometimes cost over $200, comparably, $50 is pretty cheap, making the total cost of being a college student sound a little less stressful. Let’s just hope it all catches on.

Will people still accept him for what he is? More importantly, can he muster up the courage to swing a golf club, take part in the PGA tour again and attempt to regain his status as a role model athlete?

Photo Courtesy MCT. Tiger Woods waits to putt at the 91st PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn. on Aug. 15, 2009.

The 14 minute apology/speech was aired on many news channels and Web sites and can even be viewed in full on YouTube. In it, he discussed a long list of topics and apologized to a long list of people, including his wife, whom he made sure would not get blamed for any false claims of violence. He talked about how he strayed away from his religion and wants to focus more on the Buddhist ideals of self control – such as control of sex addiction.

“Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside of ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security,” Woods said. “It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint.”

He apologized to his fans, his mother Kultida Woods, his family, his friends and even his sponsors, such as Nike. Nike has already decided to sponsor him despite his affairs.

He also called out the paparazzi, who follow his 2-year-old daughter to school and stalked his mother for photos.

Most importantly for his fans, he stated that he has not abandoned his sport in the slightest.

“I do plan to return to golf one day, I just don’t know when that day will be. I don’t rule out that it will be this year,” Woods said.

This is by far the best thing he can do for himself. Sure, what he did cannot be forgiven, and sure, many of his colleagues will still look at him in disdain, but that first step in the road to recovery (which he obviously wants, since he incessantly talks about his rehab) is to find a hobby that is familiar and will make him feel stable again. What else is there for Woods than to take part in the PGA tour again?

As for whether or not he can be a role model, well, I’ll let him explain with a quote from his apology about his wife’s trust: “My real apology will not come (to her) in the form of words, it will come from my behavior over time.”

Right now the incident is still fresh in the minds of many fans, young and old alike. But in time, if he shows the right amount of control and respect, you can bet people will be buying “Tiger Woods: PGA Tour 2014” on the Playstation 4 without remorse or making a joke about his affairs.

His acts cannot be forgiven or forgotten, and for family members and friends the wounds will take several years to heal.

For now Tiger needs to man up and step back on to the green to do what he does best: – not gracing the cover of US Weekly or The National Enquirer, not getting chased around by paparazzi and definitely not giving speeches – golf.

McDonald’s has been running ads featuring young athletes celebrating a hard fought game with a hearty meal of factory processed food and high fructose corn syrup-based beverages.

There is something wrong about telling children with dreams of competing in the Olympics that the athletes they look up to, and aspire to be, typically eat a dose of fried foods and sugar water after grueling physical activity.

There may be a few athletes that like to indulge themselves with the occasional fast food burger, but for the most part, these highly disciplined athletes maintain a strict diet; one that helps them reach the top, not get dragged down by their own mass to the bottom.

It is believable that someone like Michael Phelps would satisfy his munchies at Subway, an eatery that provides low fat and nutritious alternatives to the usual fast food offerings.

But there is no possible way that Apolo Anton Ono became one of the fastest skaters in the world by scarfing a double cheeseburger and downing a bucket o’ cola after every race. Canadian McDonald’s ads feature various athletes talking about their favorite items on the McDonald’s menu. In one of these commercials, Canadian snowboarder Brad Martin talks about how he gives into temptation and eats McDonald’s french fries every chance he gets. McDonald’s goes beyond simple implication to directly telling the viewers that athletes in peak physical condition can stay that way while eating McDonald’s.

The United States Olympic Curling team is possibly the only grouping of “athletes” that could feasibly eat at McDonald’s on a regular basis and still be competitive in sweeping ice and sliding rocks (it’s like bowling without all the cigarette smoke and claw machines).

Can anyone imagine the typical McDonald’s consumer sliding down the luge track without their gut obstructing their view or slowing them down?

It is understandable, however, given the state that the Winter games are in, that the Olympic committee would accept any sponsors willing to contribute money. But consideration needs to be given when it comes to the message being broadcasted to children all over the world. These messages of eating “like an Olympian” are not exclusive to the obese children of America, but to children across the globe.

Companies like GE, who had ad campaigns during the Olympics about energy conservation, and Nissan, with their popular ads for the new all electric car, the Leaf, need to advertise with and help sponsor the Olympics more.

There are several Organic, healthy-living, food corporations that could potentially advertise with the Olympics but don’t. Why? Because of the financial risk of such pricey ad space?

What better demographic than thousands of children looking to get fit and eat healthy so they too can be an Olympian?

This is a negative message being spread like special sauce, not only in the U.S. but all over the world, by American companies.

The Washington Post dug up everything they could about the missionaries, right down to their foreclosures and inability to pay debts and employees. How despicable these people are, that they didn’t have money in a “wintery” economic climate, but still went out of their way to try to help children.

Photo Courtesy MCT

The Wall Street Journal reported Feb. 3 that, pre-earthquake, Haiti had around 380,000 orphans.

“Many of Haiti’s hundreds of orphanages operate in virtually medieval conditions, with little money or regulation; only 67 are licensed for adoptions, and many aren’t registered with the government,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Children are jammed into rooms in unsuitable living conditions, reporters who visited the orphanages said.

Tack on the fact that paperwork – if there is any – is buried under rubble caused by the quake.

It’s not as though the missionaries were ripping children from their parents’ embrace. They spent some time looking for who could leave now. In a country where countless people were dying by the minute, 33 children were picked up to be taken to safety and given medical treatment. Saving human lives should be of a higher priority than worrying about the red tape.

Concern over forms filled out in triplicate are also hindering medical airlifts. Before the arrests, the New York Times reported that the largest Haitian pediatric hospital was airlifting 15 injured children a day to American hospitals on private flights. After the missionaries’ charitable attempt, the hospital is only able to airlift three children a day, due to the hefty downpour of paperwork.

“At least 10 other children have died or become worse while waiting to be airlifted out of the country … Dozens of children are in critical need of care, and there has been no shortage of American hospitals or pilots willing to take them,” the Times reported Feb. 8.

The Times further reported that paperwork used to be something to worry about after the patient has been stabilized, but now it’s top priority.

Haiti’s weighted concern in documentation over helping their own people survive this disaster is atrocious.

While it’s arguable that the Idahoan missionaries were misguided, the fact that medical airlifts are delayed, causing the further deaths of child earthquake victims, needs to be addressed.

The Washington Post described their attempt to aid Haitian children as a “misadventure (that) can only make the work of those truly interested in the welfare of neglected or abandoned children more difficult.”

The focus should not be on the 10 American missionaries – it should be on the 33 Haitian children. It should be on the thousands left homeless and orphaned by these unfortunate circumstances. A person is more than a name on paper, and it’s appalling that such a fact has been forgotten.

After much pressure from Congress, several automobile safety groups and the North American Toyota offices, the company decided to recall upwards of 5.3 million vehicles (so far) to replace the faulty pedals.

These pedals cause the affected cars to accelerate out of control, potentially harming the driver, passengers and people in other vehicles on the road. Several floor mats have also been recalled for getting stuck in the acceleration pedal, causing the same uncontrolled acceleration.

So aside from the obvious, why is everyone making a big fuss about this incident? Because Toyota has known about these faulty pedals since 2008, when reports first came in from several European countries.

Photo Courtesy MCT

When asked why they didn’t replace the pedals in America with the knowledge that they were faulty, they simply said they had not realized until October that the pedals in cars made in the U.S. used the same material as those in Europe. However, both regions receive pedals made by the same supplier.

So while new models in Europe are being fixed, cars in America and Japan are still being produced with the faulty pedal. This all due to a lack of communication and accountability.

For decades, Toyota has been a leader of the automobile industry. Since its introduction into North America (met with harsh criticism), Toyota has taken pride in its quality-over-quantity ideals that have made their Camry and Corolla models so popular.

However with the expansion of the company, and the addition of the “alternative” Scion brand, as well as “going green” with the Prius models, Toyota has been criticized for slowly abandoning the philosophy that made them so successful.

With this recent chain of events, many Toyota “die-hards” are starting to rethink their loyalties. So, what can Toyota do to fix this situation?

Blame drivers for not using their product correctly like they have done in the past? Well, they learned that lesson when oil sludge would build up in several model’s of cars in 2002 and Toyota blamed the drivers for not getting the recommended oil changes. This only caused a flurry of complaints and lawsuits.

However, in 1989, when defects began to arise in early model Lexuses, what did they do? They went to customers’ homes to retrieve the defective cars, gave the owner a rental, and then returned the Lexus back to the house, repaired and all for free.

It seems Toyota has lost its direction and reputation, especially in terms of customer service and producing a quality product.

To get back on track and to rebuild its image, Toyota must do some bold but simple things. Own up to their mistakes, and repay its customers for any damages done.

Coming out of the gate by saying they did not know there was a defective product, when they knew there was clear evidence against them, was a terrible mistake. Toyota should have immediately apologized and then quietly, but efficiently, recalled any cars produced with the defective pedals or mats, while changing the cars on the production line.

If the “we didn’t know they were faulty in North America” line is actually the truth, and not just a line, then Toyota needs to seriously rethink its companies structure and communication methods.

Last but not least, anyone injured because of the defective product should have more than just their car replaced, they should be fully compensated to avoid any lawsuit.

What was once an industry leading company that set standards for all automobiles must now get back in line and learn from its mistakes, and learn fast. Realistically, a lot of good people most likely lost their jobs over this recall, and those that made the real mistakes due to lack of communication most likely will not.

By Jeremiah Magan

Daily Titan Managing Editor

While discrimination comes in many forms, it is always wrong. Whether that discrimination is based upon ethnicity, religion or something else, it is wrong to have one set of rules for one group and have different rules for another.

While bikes and scooters are acceptable forms of transportation around Cal State Fullerton, as long as they remain within designated lanes/areas, skateboards are outright banned.

What makes people who ride skateboards worthy of discrimination over people who choose to ride a bike or scooter around campus? This is a clear case of transportation-ism. Skateboards are just as legitimate forms of transportation as any other form of human-powered vehicle.

President Milton Gordon issued Directive No. 16 as a clear set of rules regarding what vehicles may or may not be used on campus. The frequently asked questions page about Directive No. 16 states that, “Skateboards may not be ridden anywhere on campus, including parking structures and residence hall walk ways, except for instructional purposes and/or during University sanctioned events.”

This is an unfair proclamation. The university’s reason for banning skateboards is flimsy at best. “Skateboarding is restricted on campus because of the likelihood that if a skateboarder falls, he or she will inadvertently project his or her skateboard into another person. In addition, those performing ‘tricks’ using their skateboards are very likely to damage University property in the process.”

To say that the skateboarder WILL hit another person with their skateboard if they fall is a baseless judgment. To assume that skateboards cannot be ridden without the rider inevitably knocking out someone’s tooth is a nothing more than an assumption based on rare occurrences.

The school’s concern for student safety is admirable, but to assume that accidents cannot happen because of people on scooters and bicycles is ignorant.

While it is true that on occasion a skateboard will launch in the air if its rider falls, it is just as likely that a cyclist will lose focus while riding on campus and hit another student or that someone will hit a rock and lose control of their scooter.

The reality is that it is difficult to get around the campus on a standard-sized skateboard because of the type of cement used on campus.

No one is asking that CSUF repave the campus to make it skateboard-friendly, only that those who know how to properly ride a skateboard be afforded the luxury to use their preferred form of transportation.

By Skylar Smith

Daily Titan Opinion Editor

As long as I can remember, there have always been issues with skateboards on campus. From elementary school all the way up to college, I have heard countless skateboarders complain about not being able to skate either on or around campus. I have witnessed many of my friends receive detentions and even be stopped by cops on campus.

In college, the students are less rebellious and those on skateboards don’t have stickers that read “Sk8ting isn’t a crime” on their backpacks. Most of the riders I see at Cal State Fullerton ride long boards, some clumsily riding their friend’s skateboard. Still people get up in arms about a ban on skateboarding around campus.

Sure, the reasoning President Milton Gordon gives for banning skateboards on campus may be flimsy on paper, but I can see his point and fully agree.

What is the major difference between bikes and scooters, which are given limited riding space on campus, and skateboards, which have no access? Skateboards do not have brakes. Let’s say you are riding down the paved hill from the Kinesiology Building to the Pollack Library and you’re on a bike. You are building up speed, and so far, no one is in your way.

Suddenly you hear a friend shout your name, you turn to see who it is and wave. After acknowledging your friend, you turn around and a student running to get to class is right in your path! You slam on your breaks and avoid collision.

What would happen with a skateboard? With no brakes, you would have either swerved onto the grass (potentially harming yourself), collided with the student (possibly injuring you both), or jumped off the board (sending it flying in a random direction).

Sure this scenario seems exaggerated, and sure this doesn’t happen on a daily basis, but you can see why Gordon might be concerned.

CSUF is a campus filled with little cracks, dips and garden hoses for skateboards to catch their wheels on; cracks that one wouldn’t even notice on a bike. I have seen even the most experienced skateboarders fall to the wrath of unexpected cracks. I have seen students on boards with huge wheels loose their balance in an attempt to make a tight turn, or dodge another walking student and send their board flying into the shins of an unsuspecting person.

Before you get mad at the man for keepin’ you down, just take it into perspective and realize how potentially dangerous skateboarding is on an especially crowded campus. Even bikes, a fairly safe mode of transportation, have very limited riding access throughout campus. Keep your board at home and take a nice walk to class.

In that lecture, he said the following about a case in which a company violated the first amendment law and made a degrading ad against Senator Hillary Clinton: “Corporations exist to make money for the shareholders who own them … Corporations have the First Amendment right to give as much money to candidates as they want to. This will dramatically change elections in the U.S.”

Chemerinsky was right. That case was one in favor of the corporation’s right to invest in political campaigns however they wish. This ruling negated over a decade’s worth of important cases and rulings. No longer are corporations restricted by those pesky 1907, 1974 and 2002 rulings that made it so neither they nor unions could create their own political campaign ads. No longer are multinational corporations held back from blatantly supporting any running senator, governor, House representative or president who may advance their corporate agenda.

Guess what, Sony’s got a megaphone for politics now, and you can bet your ass it will be impressive, sleek and in HD.

So why is this so bad for us as private citizens and students? Because as President Obama put it, he couldn’t “think of anything more devastating to the public interest.”

As it stood before this case, no corporation could make their own political ad campaign in support or against a candidate, nor could they invest as much as they wanted into a candidate. Now the advertising flood gates are open and it’s bad news for all of us voters.

This gives corporations the ability to drown out the voices of the public, by buying the votes of elected officials who have more say in Washington than you or me. This also means the money invested by private citizens for campaigns is pointless, as the only people who have the millions of dollars it takes to support a campaign are probably already CEOs of a major corporation. Why would a politician ask his neighbors for campaign dollars when Viacom is more than willing to pay for it? Why should students even bother paying for a campaign t-shirt when the investment means nothing?

Secondly, this puts more power in the hands of multinational corporations. Companies that already have a stake in countries around the world can invest in American politics.

Finally, the 5-4 decision was made with a perfect ideological split. The four Republicans voted in favor of corporations, and the four Democrats voted against. With the swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who usually siding with conservatives. Why is this?

The Republican party is known to give tax cuts to corporations, where as the Democrats are known to tax the wealthy. Which party are corporations likely to invest in? Republicans or Democrats? Exactly.

As journalists, we enjoy our freedom under the First Amendment and do not like criticizing laws in favor of it. However, giving corporations control over campaign advertising is the first stepping stone down a bad road.

Abstinence-only sexual education was, for many years, the only education children received when it came to sex, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, due in part to former President George W. Bush’s abstinence-only sex education policy. Under his administration, teens were taught that the only way to avoid pregnancy and STDs was to not have sex at all. There was little mention of condoms and other preventative practices.

For his home state of Texas, many sex education programs taught students stereotypes regarding sex rather than teaching them facts. Instead of bringing educated awareness to the students, they were taught on the level of Saturday morning cartoons.

A study by two Texas State University-San Marcos professors and the Texas-based advocacy group, Texas Freedom Network, found that 94 percent of the 1,031 Texas school districts only taught abstinence-only sex education with 2 percent ignoring sex education completely, only the remaining 4 percent taught students about sexually transmitted diseases and contraceptives.

This has led to one teen pregnancy every 10 minutes in Texas, estimated the Texas Department of State Health Services’ Web site. In 2006, 101 out of every 1,000 females between ages 15 – 19 in Texas became pregnant.

Clearly, this was the wrong way to go about it. It is undeniable that sexual desire is a product of instinct; it cannot be prayed away, and it cannot be ignored. Hormones wage war on the bodies and minds of teenagers, and they deserve to know what is happening to them.

President Obama has cut funding for Bush’s sex education programs and replaced them with more detailed and thorough lessons about the realities of being sexually active.

This issue is not black and white. There is no one right way to teach children about sex – but there are many wrong ways. It is the responsibility of the schools and families to teach children what they need to know about life. It is a collaborative effort and neither group should be content to assume that the other can handle the difficult task of properly educating children about any issue.

Illustration by Jon Harguindeguy/For the Daily Titan

According to a study from UCLA’s RAND Center for Reproductive Health, more than 40 percent of teenagers engaged in sexual activity before they had the “birds and the bees” talk with their parents.

It is the right of parents to decide when they feel their children are ready to learn about sex, but the longer they wait, the more likely it is that they will receive the wrong information. Many teenagers learn about sex from their friends; even if their friends have received the right information about sex, it cannot be assumed that they will repeat that same information correctly or completely.

Even relying on a parent’s ability to teach their children about sex and the consequences that come with it can be less than comprehensive. Just because the parent had sex at least one time to create said child does not mean that the parent knows everything there is to know about life between the sheets.

Education and health professionals should be the ones to teach children about the realities of STDs and pregnancy and how to prevent them. Parents should be responsible for teaching their children about knowing when the right time is to have sex. Professionals should explain the cold hard facts, and parents should explain the morals of sex according to whatever belief they subscribe to.

Teenagers will always rebel no matter the consequences, but making the mistake of keeping them ignorant of what will happen when they do rebel will only lead to more mistakes and troubled lives.

Illustration by Jon Harguindeguy/For the Daily Titan

There are few topics that trigger as strong of a reaction as abortion. It remains one of those hot-button topics that continues to be passionately debated no matter what the political climate is like.

Recently, abortion has come into the public consciousness once again, this time paired with another issue that has been the subject of controversy: the proposed health care reforms.

Last month, Democrat Bart Stupak offered an amendment to health reform that is meant to work as a sort of compromise for members of the House who are still hesitant about the health care bill.

The amendment would forbid women who rely on government aid to obtain health care plans from choosing a plan that would cover abortions. This also applies to women who purchase public option plans (which will presumably be cheaper than other options) with their own money.

True, current government laws also restrict the use of federal money to finance the procedure, but some argue that the Stupak amendment contains harsher guidelines than the system that is now in place.

Under the current laws, abortion is a legal procedure, meaning that its restrictions pack the additional punch of being not only an ethical issue in terms of medicine, but a legal one as well.

The so-called Stupak amendment was passed through the House in November, causing an uproar among abortion rights activists.

Among the many voices of dissent, a company known as Credo, and known for donating to “progressive causes,” has started a petition on its Web site.

Credo promises to send one coat hanger for each digital signature on its petition to each of the 20 Democrat representatives the organization believes to have remorse over voting in favor of the Stupak amendment.

“We know what happens when women are denied access to reproductive health care including abortion, and we can’t go back to an era of coat hangers and back alley abortions,” states the petition’s Web site.

The government, no matter how morally opposed to the subject of abortion a majority of its members may be, ultimately should not have the right to control the decisions women make in regards to their own, individual health. Like other medical procedures, it should be up to an individual to decide what is the right course of action for herself and her own life.

Turning an issue such as abortion into something black and white (either it exists or it doesn’t) not only trivializes the issue by turning it into something simplistic (when it’s anything but), it also makes it potentially more dangerous.

As paranoid as it may sound, if we allow the government to interfere with the medical procedures that Americans are allowed to receive, at what point do we draw the line?

Stupak’s amendment is now undergoing the scrutiny of the Senate.

While even Stupak himself is doubtful that his clause will pass, that does not mean that there is nothing to worry about.

Whether pro-life or pro-choice, let the individual decide what is right for her – not the government.