The Smart Ass

bY rEN fITZGERALD

As operators bring trains into the yard, cleaners make their final rounds, station agents turn off lights, and administrators shut their laptops for the day, there is another group of public transportation workers still going: Twitter-obsessed teenagers. The majority of these teens and young adults have never even held a job in public transportation – some of them don’t even have a high school diploma. However, they are some of the most important members of a vast team of transit workers.

By Caitlynn Breanne Kelley

California voters, by a slim margin, showed their support for Proposition 1 (Prop 1). Prop 1, also known as the Behavioral Health Services Act (BHSA), is supposed to tackle California’s houselessness crisis. The BHSA amends the 2004 Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), and the money it collects for housing programs is the major priority for Prop 1. Many cite the lack of affordable housing as to why houselessness is a major issue in California, as there are at least 185,000 houseless Californians.

By Jackie Sauer

Since it’s conception, the city of Berkeley has been built around its flagship UC Campus and the students who reside in it. In the midst of the Civil War, under the Morrill Act, Abraham Lincoln signed into law a bill which provided funding for the first California public collegiate institution that would go on to be founded in the hills of what was then Oakland. Just like that, the University of California Berkeley as we know it today began to take form. 

By Gabby Valdez

There were two choices of what kind of  “Asian” you want to be in a suburban, white, town. You either embrace your Asian heritage, play into the Asian stereotypes, or allow yourself to be white-washed, forget your heritage, and eventually, mock it. In my heart, I wasn’t either. My parents grew up in America- we didn’t speak Tagalog. Regardless, I felt a deep, prideful connection to my heritage, and didn’t quite have the heart to disregard it.

BY Ella Johnson

American elections are drama. Even The Bachelorette cannot compare to the pure chaos every time presidential candidates are unleashed on the debate stage on live television.

Checking my Twitter notifications to see Donald Trump calling Thailand “thighland” was pure gold. Needless to say, I was drawn into politics before I knew the three branches of government. 

By Ben GIldea

It’s 1990 in Louisiana. Incumbent Democratic Senator J. Bennet Johnston is running for reelection after winning his last race 86% to 9%, a whopping 77-point margin. The primary Republican candidate is David Duke, a former leader of the KKK. The idea of him as a senator is so repulsive that Republican Senators begin to endorse Johnston in large numbers. The outcome of the election seems a foregone conclusion. If you guessed the Democratic incumbent won, you’d be right, but not by much. Duke only lost by 10 points, an astronomical 67 percentage point swing towards Republicans.