Trashiness: Americans can’t seem to get enough of it. Whether it’s Courtney Love, the Playboy Mansion, Jerry Springer or reality television, our society is obsessed with its own “lowest grade” culture. Read more...

Swastika ban pragmatic, not censorship Ilana Fried’s column “Keep historical honesty for future’s sake” (Feb. 3) appears to suggest that Germany’s long-standing ban on the swastika is part of an attempt to erase its ugly past. Read more...

Read more...

The misinformed opinion of Daniel Oakes (“Consider it: Racism is truly declining,” Feb. 7) is troubling. Not as much because it is the opinion of Oakes personally, and not even because it was insensitively published during Black History Month, but because Oakes’ self-serving interpretation of a single poll is probably not very different from a belief shared by a majority of people in this country. Read more...

Is it tough to think up a new topic every week? The question is often genuine and the questioner sincere. But for the columnist, it is perhaps the most unpleasant insult of them all. Read more...

Many students have asked me why I wrote a 15-page constitution that incorporates a senate into the Undergraduate Students Association Council governance structure. Why would my colleagues and I waste hours of our lives poring over eight other constitutions, researching 13 different types of voting systems and deliberating with professors and students? Read more...

As a student government senator down at UC San Diego, I’ve always looked at my position with a sort of resigned distaste, trying to make the best I can out of a silly title. Read more...