The Ethical Hedonist: Cooperative Eating

Written by Hillary Knouse
Published on November 20, 2012
Filed under Aggie Eats, Blogs

When my friend Alyssa went vegan last fall, her parents had a hard time understanding just what that entailed. While she was at school they were just bewildered from afar, unsure as to why or even how someone would limit their food options like that. How little they understood the concept became abundantly clear, however, when at Thanksgiving her mother asked, “You’re not even going to try the turkey?” Indeed, for many, the concept of veganism doesn’t mix with the concept of Thanksgiving — as though vegans must simply abstain from the holiday altogether. Though it is true that most of the vegans I know won’t be eating turkey this Thanksgiving, there are plenty of seasonal dishes that do not require animal products. In fact, co-opers set out to prove as much every year with our all vegetarian/mostly vegan tri-cooperative Thanksgiving. “What’s a tri-cooperative thanksgiving?” you may wonder. I don’t know that I could answer that question as well as the photos above can, but in short, it’s a magical... ...

EPPC Column: Doin’ it green for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is about more than football and food comas. It’s also about giving thanks — and what better way to thank the planet than to do it green for Thanksgiving? If you’re travelling by car to get home, you can carpool with friends or sign up with zimride.com to ride share. If you live nearby, or if you don’t mind a long ride, you can take the train (with free Wi-Fi!). A train ride down the coast is cheaper than a flight, and the train has a smaller carbon footprint. However, if you go with the plane option, be sure to take Yolobus route 42A or the Unitrans shuttle, which can take you from the MU to the Sacramento Airport on Wednesday hourly from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Once you’re home and shopping for food, aim for local, seasonal and organic when possible. You don’t have to give up your turkey for tofurkey, but the bird makes up 60 percent of a typical holiday meal’s 44-pound carbon footprint. Whatever you... ...

Protesters disrupt Thursday’s UC Regents Meeting

The University of California Board of Regents meeting at UCSF Mission Bay was briefly disrupted Thursday morning by protesters. The protest followed an all-night encampment on the UCSF campus to call for increased accessibility and reduced tuition. Protesters were also protesting the possibility of a tuition increase for students in 61 graduate programs systemwide. The vote on this action item was postponed at the request of California Gov. Jerry Brown, allowing him more time to learn about procedures and policies that surround fee and tuition decisions. According to the Daily Californian, during the meeting, about 10 protesters stood up from the audience in the conference building and began chanting, bringing the discussion to a temporary halt. After a few minutes, the demonstrators moved outside to join the larger group of protesters after campus police threatened to arrest them. The group then marched through the streets surrounding campus, shutting them down, before disbanding and migrating to the UC Berkeley campus by evening. — Stephanie B. Nguyen ...

Column: Utang na Loob

With Thanksgiving upon us and fall graduation approaching, I‘ve been reflecting upon my time at Davis and what it took to get here. My graduation day, the day I’ve long anticipated, is less than a month away. As I’m sure many of you can agree, it has not always been an easy journey. I invite you to take a moment and remember what it took for you to get here. My great-grandma dropped out in the seventh grade to help raise her siblings. When I was little, my dad worked three jobs to provide for us, and my mom worked as a full-time secretary and parent. To this day I ask myself — how do I repay something like that? In the Philippines, we have a term called “Utang na Loob” — don’t worry if you can’t pronounce it. “Utang na Loob” is the inner determination to pay someone back for the good that they’ve done for you. It literally means “debt of gratitude.” It’s more than just wanting to... ...

Editorial: Bigg win

Coach Bob Biggs had control over the battle we call ‘The Causeway Classic’ and, as he has for the past 20 years, he did his part. This past weekend, UC Davis engaged Sacramento State in the annual rivalry battle that consists of both a football game and the blood drive. The Aggies entered the game with a 3-7 overall record that included a 2-5 Big Sky Conference record, compared to the Hornets’ 4-3 conference record and 6-4 overall. Despite the fact that UC Davis had won the past two Causeway matchups, odds were definitely stacked against them in the game against Sac State. Still, the Aggies pulled out a 34-27 victory and provided thrilling entertainment along the way. Since beating Sac State has become a ritual, it is easy to write off the victory as a game that we should have won anyway. On the contrary, UC Davis played possibly its best game this season and pulled out an upset over our crosstown rival. As the rain began to pour... ...

Police Briefs

WEDNESDAY Auto-embarrassment Someone filed a report that her car had been stolen on G Street, but the report was unfounded because she had forgotten where she had parked it. Then they bolted Two males were carrying bolt-cutters and when asked what they were doing, stated that they had just found them; they then returned to their truck and promptly left the area on Bonnard Street. THURSDAY Come on A blocked number called a woman telling her he wanted to ejaculate on Lake Boulevard. FRIDAY The Devil Wears Prada A known suspect was seen walking around with someone’s stolen $1,400 Prada purse on Barcelona Avenue. SATURDAY Cult classic There was a loud party where the individuals played the same song over and over again, while yelling and screaming the lyrics on Fifth Street. Mother knows best Someone kicked her mother out of her own room, so the mother called the police on Guaymas Place. Police briefs are compiled from the City of Davis daily crime bulletins. Contact EINAT GILBOA at city@theaggie.org. ...

Guest opinion

By MEAGAN HUME Program Assistant Center for Poverty Research While I appreciate Mr. Collins’ attempt to lightly interpret masculinity in the opinion piece, “Scruff, Rough and Ready,” I believe that he is sadly misguided in the true meaning of No-Shave November, or as it has come to be called, Movember. No-Shave November is not, as he suggests, emblematic of a rite-of-passage for the testosterone-challenged — it is a month in which those who wish to grow facial hair do so for awareness and charity. Movember began in 2003 with a group of 30 Australian men who agreed to grow facial hair in the month of November in order to raise awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate health. Since then, it has grown worldwide and now covers a broad range of men’s health issues. There are even Mo Sistas, women who work to promote the issue of men’s health throughout the month of November. What saddens me about Mr. Collins’ opinion is that he somehow makes a cursory correlation between facial... ...

Aggie Digest

The UC Davis men’s water polo team placed fourth at the Western Water Polo Association Championships this past weekend to end their 2012 campaign. The Aggies brought a fourth-place standing into the conference tournament and played to their seed, winning a quarterfinal matchup against the fifth-seeded Santa Clara team before falling to top WWPA team UC San Diego. UC Davis finished the season with a 14-18 record and an impressive 12-7 in the conference. The Aggies were 5-17 against top-20 opponents this year. In the first round of the WWPA tournament, the Aggies stopped the Broncos in a battle of top-20 teams. Ranked 16th and 19th, respectively, both teams were prepared for a battle. The Aggies emerged victorious in both of the previous contests with Santa Clara this year, but, like those past two games, this one came down to the fourth quarter. The teams were tied entering the fourth period of play and exchanged blows until senior Anders MacCarthy scored with 5:12 remaining to put the Aggies ahead. UC... ...

Local baker wins prize for raisin bread

From Oct. 12 to 13, Maurice Kalisky of Davis’ Upper Crust Bakery participated in the fifth-annual Raisin Bread Contest, winning the California Prize for his multigrain walnut-raisin bread, Birdseed. The contest was hosted by the California Raisin Marketing Board (CRMB). This year there were 104 entries, and 36 were chosen to come to the competition. Thirteen finalists were chosen in the end. There were three categories of bread baking: artisan, commercial and breakfast. Each category had four prizes: a grand prize, judges’ prize, idea prize and student prize. “Our whole goal is to pay honor to the American baker,” said Larry Blagg, vice president of the CRMB. “The typical baker works in the back room and a lot of them have a tremendous [amount] of creativity.” Kalisky made his bread with Sacramento County wheat milled in Woodland, raisins from Fresno and Yolo County honey. The bread is sold at the Farmers Market. Fresno is the raisin capital of the nation and where the CRMB was conceived. The California Raisin Advisory... ...

Letters to the Editor

Health Education & Promotion (HEP) would like to thank Katelyn Ringrose for her continued focus on the topic of sexual health, especially the Nov. 14 column focusing on sexually transmitted infections (STIs). While it is true that there are a variety of STIs, it is important for students to be aware that the most common bacterial STI among UC Davis students is chlamydia. Studies show that approximately 50 percent of men and 75 percent of women will not show symptoms for chlamydia and, if left untreated, this infection can cause long-term consequences for both men and women. The good news is that chlamydia is easily curable with antibiotics and can be detected with a simple urine test. In fact, Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) offers a low-cost combined chlamydia and gonorrhea test that can be easily requested online through Health-e-Messaging (shcs.ucdavis.edu/hem). This online option allows students, in most circumstances, to drop by the SHCS Laboratory and complete the process without making an appointment with a provider. For students with... ...

Protesters occupy Dutton Hall

A rally on the Quad yesterday segued into an occupation of Dutton Hall, which resulted in protesters ejecting four students who held alternative views. Protesters were in solidarity with the people of Gaza, bringing awareness to the escalating violence in the region. A banner outside Dutton read “Davis + Gaza Are One Fist” while a banner inside read “End the Genocide.” The group of 40 discussed oppression and zionism in the U.S., saying people who support zionism support genocide. Chants included “Davis to Gaza, Long Live the Intifada!” At around 2:30 p.m., a protester noticed a student filming with her camera phone. Members of the crowd then confronted her and two neighboring Israeli students, yelling “Death to Israel” and “Fuck Israel” until they left. About 15 minutes later, a student who asked to remain anonymous vocalized disagreement with one of the signs in the room. A protester grabbed him by the shirt collar and raised a fist. “Not only was I an enemy, I was a racist, a bigot, ignorant,... ...

Evolution of Pokémon

Congratulations! Your Seaking evolved into … Pidgeot? The phylogeny of the animal kingdom is an evolutionary tree, something many students are well aware of. A Pokémon phylogeny, however, is not something one comes across everyday. Three UC Davis affiliates have recently published this phylogeny in the July/August issue of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) magazine. “It’s similar to entomology and how we approach things, so I wanted to apply the science to the fiction,” said Matan Shelomi, a graduate student working under professor Lynn Kimsey in the Bohart Museum of Entomology. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the website hosting this magazine (improbable.com) is one dedicated to making people “laugh and then think,” as dictated by their homepage. “[AIR has] had similar papers in the past in this vein, like the phylogeny of Chia pets and the scientific description of Barney the Dinosaur, so I figured they might be interested in something like this,” Shelomi said. “Plus, I’ve seen online some people trying to do phylogenies, and it was always either... ...

Column: Mentorship for students

There’s a thing with schools about suspension and expulsion. Oftentimes, these penalties are their go-to punishments. Schools don’t realize, however, that these punishments are ineffective. The problem is that many of the chronic trouble-making students place no value on school access. They don’t want to be there. Telling them that they’ll be suspended or expelled for breaking rules is meaningless. Schools need to find a new way of doing things that adjusts or corrects a student’s behavior instead of just throwing them out. Suspensions and expulsions are very shortsighted methods. The students that get expelled end up without a high school diploma, or are let back into school after a year. In the former case, they will have greater difficulty finding jobs and may end up impoverished, taking away from society and the economy when they could instead be productive, contributing citizens. In the latter case, they return to school, most likely unchanged, and continue to hamper the education of their fellow students. Instead of suspension and expulsion, which I... ...

Donate swipes to feed thousands

When most UC Davis students are hungry, picking up a sandwich at the ASUCD Coffee House or swiping into one of the three on-campus dining commons is a natural response. But for over 34,000 Yolo County residents, satisfying an appetite is not as accessible. To help prevent local hunger, UC Davis Dining Services, in conjunction with the Food Bank of Yolo County (FBYC), are hosting the annual Swipe Out Hunger program that runs from Nov. 12 to 21. “The program is set up as a way for students who have meal plans in the residence halls to give up some of their meals in order to support the hunger-relief efforts of the FBYC,” said resident dining operations director Kyle Peiper. Last year, the campaign raised over $6,000 to feed poor families in Yolo County. In 2010, about 700 cases of food were purchased through the program, directly helping 10,000 families in need. “We act as a clearinghouse for large-scale food donations,” said FBYC community relations manager Shawn Kramer. “Programs tend... ...

Graduate Student Association holds Nov. 18 open mic forum on the Quad

On Monday, an open mic forum was held on the Quad in commemoration of the pepper spraying incident that occurred last Nov. 18. Organized by the Graduate Student Association (GSA), the event was held in hopes of reflecting on last November’s protest and discussing changes that need to be made in order to prevent such problems from arising again. Jordan Carroll, GSA vice chair and a Ph.D. student in the English department, said that while discussion regarding the Nov. 18 pepper spray incident was on the agenda, the open mic event was also meant as an opportunity for students to discuss other issues that they felt pertinent. “We hope to provoke dialogue and critical discussion about the Nov. 18 pepper spray incident, the decisions and actions that led to it and the response in its aftermath. Additionally, we seek to invite ideas and comments on broader issues of free speech, student fees and policing on campus,” Carroll said. Speeches were given by both students and faculty regarding the pepper spray... ...