Author Archives: Noor Hashem

Tarzan may be running the national government, but Peter Rabbit is running UCLA’s student government. At least, “Peter Rabbit” is what one student guessed on an informal survey that I, with the help of my former editor Colleen Honigsberg, conducted Friday. The answer was in response to a question that asked, “Do you know who […]

That old cell phone of yours is not going to decompose in your desk drawer, closet or (enter where you’ve hidden it here). Neither is that TV that’s magically no longer your problem once you set it outside your apartment. Technology gives us a lot of new toys, and it quickly upgrades to better models. […]

Discussion sections should be abolished. OK, perhaps that’s too extreme a statement, but I wouldn’t mind some reform. In the ideal case, discussion sections are meant to make huge lower-division classes more personal. They should stimulate discussion (hence the name), build upon ideas presented in class, and even (when really successful) foster bonds between the […]

There is a series of classes secretly offered at UCLA. Many of you have probably taken one or all of the series already ““ it’s called “Alternatives to Textbook Purchase,” and you take it simultaneously with your other classes. I passed the first class of the series last quarter. My initiation, which I found was […]

Death, especially at the beginning of the quarter, might seem a morbid topic to comment on. But with the recent death of Terri Schiavo ““ and all the controversy over whether to remove the feeding tubes keeping her alive since her collapse in her mid-20s ““ the subject of untimely death seems intent on creeping […]

Choose the best answer in the following analogy ““ an old shoe is to a brand new shoe as the old SAT is to: (a) your mom, (b) the ACT, (c) sucky finals or (d) the new SAT. As a UCLA student, I’m expecting you to have known the correct answer is choice (d). When […]

Democracy is dying at the hands of democratic countries. But it is essential that I clarify what I mean by democracy. My favorite pirate put it most eloquently when he said, in Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails ““ that’s what a ship […]