You know you’re at UCLA when loony liberal ideas abound
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 14, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Ben Shapiro Shapiro is a first-year
philosophy student bringing reason to the masses. E-mail him at
[email protected].
Click Here for more articles by Ben Shapiro
As I traversed campus last week, pondering the deepest lessons
of life, some funny questions popped into my head. What is it that
makes UCLA different from other places? What is it that makes this
institution of higher learning so special?
And it came to me that a good indication of the uniqueness of
this university is the atmosphere which pervades it. It is the
scent of marijuana floating around near Dickson Hall. It is the
unparalleled quality of the articles in the Daily Bruin which
“objectively” report the news, yet strangely seem to
have originated at the Democratic National Committee
headquarters.
The question was so intriguing that I sat down and compiled the
following list while on the bus from Ackerman Union to Lot 32.
Since the ride is about six hours long, the list I wrote was rather
long, so I had to choose which items to keep and which to toss.
After several minutes of pretty easy work, here it is in all its
majesty ““ “You Know You’re at UCLA When
…”
 Illustration by RODERICK ROXAS/Daily Bruin 1. You know
you’re at UCLA when you see an SUV drive by with three bumper
stickers: one advocating “Nader 2000,” another
demanding “Save L.A.’s Air,” and the third
declaring “Down With Capitalism!” The driver of the
brand-new SUV was a freshman girl majoring in theater arts. She
proudly dons an “Environmental Coalition” sticker on
her expensive, made-in-China Nike nylon jacket.
2. You know you’re at UCLA when your geography professor
pulls out his guitar on the last day of class and plays a song in
tribute to Mick Jagger. The general message of the song is
“rebel against authority.” All that is missing is some
tie-dyed shirts and a communal singing of “Kumbaya,”
and if anyone had asked, both of these surely could have been
provided at a moment’s notice. The professor is about 40, did
his grad work in communist China, and has a fanatical follower
whose sole duty consists of making announcements and wearing CCCP
shirts in honor of the now-defunct Soviet Union.
3. You know you’re at UCLA when a poll of your political
science class reveals that out of about 400 students, 375 think
that the 2000 presidential election was not conducted properly. The
same 375 respond that if the election had been conducted the exact
same way and Al Gore had won, they would have thought it was
fair.
4. You know you’re at UCLA when you see a “Tent of
Peace” on Bruin Walk, a meeting place for Palestinians and
Jews to talk about their feelings, just as Palestinian suicide
bombers blow themselves up in crowded areas of Tel Aviv and
Palestinian mortars are being fired on elementary schools in Jewish
settlements. As the two sides sit there and make nice under their
tent, Arabs call for Jihad, scream “Death to America,”
“Death to Israel,” and “Let’s teach them
how to kill Jews!” as they destroy effigies of Israeli
political figures. Yup, talking about feelings truly quells
violence and promotes tolerance.
5. You know you’re at UCLA when you see a front-page
article in the Daily Bruin lamenting the death of a squirrel from
rat pellets placed in bushes on campus. This is obviously big news
““ it’s not as though you see roadkill on Le Conte every
day of the week. People seemed pretty upset about Rocky’s
death. Those same people don’t seem upset about the growing
push for a worldwide ban on DDT, a pesticide that prevents over 2.7
million cases of malaria per year, cheaply and effectively. But oh,
that poor squirrel!
6. You know you’re at UCLA when a protest on March 14
pulls high school students out of school to yell about their lack
of educational opportunity. Then again, LAUSD students do lack
elementary educational opportunity, mostly because the liberal
teachers’ union refuses the possibility of an LAUSD breakup
or school vouchers.
7. You know you’re at UCLA when five members of the
Environmental Coalition stage a “die-in” in the middle
of Westwood Plaza to protest rape and murder by the Burmese
government. They draw chalk outlines of themselves, and then just
lie there. A “die-in?” Send those pictures to the
Burmese military! That’ll stop ’em from committing
human rights atrocities!
8. You know you’re at UCLA when every single protest, from
SP-1 to Tenure for Josh, involves carrying the exact same coffin
around. It’s rather obvious that the same people are always
protesting when they take the same props every time! Maybe
they’ll bury the squirrel in it and then we’ll never
have to see that thing again.
9. You know you’re at UCLA when a slide in your geography
class describing several political philosophies reads:
“Hard-liners [conservatives]: What did posterity ever do for
me?” Seems like an accurate description. I know that whenever
I have a decision to make, I ask myself that exact question. Dump
anthrax in the L.A. reservoir? Sure, what did posterity ever do for
me?
10. You know you’re at UCLA when the campus police will
stop you for failing to stop completely at a stop sign, yet they
won’t even show up to disperse a crowd of 100 people sitting
around and smoking dope in public. Even when there was a news story
in The Bruin notifying them in advance. Even when the party was
taking place just off of Bruin Walk. Perhaps the police are more
conservative than previously thought ““ it seems they
don’t care about weed-smokers polluting the air.
11. You know you’re at UCLA when you see an article in the
Daily Bruin debating the proper methods of performing oral sex, an
article of an extremely graphic nature. This should obviously be a
highly public topic and something which deserves space in a
legitimate publication. The first thing everyone wants to read in
the morning is some girl talking about how to avoid tasting sweat
or urine. Lovely. Romantic. And above all, classy. Way to go, Daily
Bruin!
This is what makes UCLA so special. All the people around the
U.S. filter into UCLA to partake in this sumptuous spectacle. They
drive across the country to find the largest assembly of
anti-capitalist, anti-growth, anti-American students anywhere in
the United States. This is, evidently, a terrific learning
atmosphere. Thousands making the trek, mile after mile after
mile.
How do they know when they’ve become true Bruins? When
they finally understand that UCLA does not stand for University of
California at Los Angeles ““ it stands for Uninformed Callow
Liberals of America.