Five teams will no longer represent U. California-Berkeley as intercollegiate sports starting at the end of the academic year as part of the effort to help sustain the financially-troubled campus Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Men’s rugby, men’s baseball, men’s and women’s gymnastics and women’s lacrosse will be eliminated from the department’s intercollegiate roster, according to the letter written by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and released to students, faculty, staff and Cal supporters today.

Though rugby will no longer be an identified as an intercollegiate sport by the department, its status as a club team will allow it to compete both nationally and internationally and maintain the same caliber of success as it has in the past, though a definite plan has yet to be created as to how to implement this transition, according to the letter.

“Across the country at everywhere but Cal, men’s rugby competes at an elite level as a club sport,” he said in the letter. “For Cal men’s rugby, which was a club sport for many years up until the early 1990s, we anticipate a new tier of ‘varsity club.'”

The campus will honor existing scholarship commitments for those student athletes whose teams have been eliminated, and the campus will support students wishing to transfer to other schools to compete.

According to an FAQ released with Birgeneau’s letter, “a total of 163 out of 814 student-athletes are directly impacted – baseball (38), men’s gymnastics (19), women’s gymnastics (15), women’s lacrosse (30) and men’s rugby (61).” The total number of intercollegiate teams at UC Berkeley is now reduced from 29 to 24.

The removal of these teams will allow the campus to save $4 million in the first year and put the department in a better position to control its costs moving forward, according to Birgeneau.

“The senior administration working closely with Intercollegiate Athletics have concluded that… we cannot sustain the level of excellence we expect of everything that we do at Cal and still maintain all of the Intercollegiate Athletic sports that we currently do,” Birgeneau said in the letter.

A report released earlier this month by the Academic Senate Task Force on Intercollegiate Athletics stated that the department needed to take action to try and curtail its reliance on institutional support, which in the 2008-09 fiscal year totaled $13.7 million.

The task force agreed that campus support for the department must be reduced to a total of $5

million by 2014. However, the report advised that cuts be made primarily in spending and in managerial positions within the department, rather than in cutting teams.

An advisory council appointed by Birgeneau in March mirrored the task force’s recommendations on the level of campus support in a report released in July.

In the letter, Birgeneau said in addition to the reductions in the number of intercollegiate teams, the department will work to reduce expenses beyond the $2.4 million reduction Athletic Director Sandy Barbour enacted last spring. He added that the department will attempt to raise income through fundraising and other areas of “targeted investment” like television revenues.

“We believe we have a well-defined and compelling plan that in three to four years will reduce campus support for Intercollegiate Athletics to approximately $5 million annually,” he said in the letter. “We deeply regret the disappointment that these decisions will cause to many members of our Cal community.”

I highly recommend that you visit Israel. It really doesn’t get enough credit.

One of Israel’s top selling points is its location at the junction between East and West. In Tel Aviv along the beautiful beaches, you could be in any major European city, judging by the nightlife and cosmopolitan feel, but you’ll be eating authentic Middle Eastern food, listening to raucous conversation in Hebrew or enjoying a hookah with friends at the same time.

If you’re looking for a bit more culture and history, Jerusalem is the place to go. Less then an hour away from Tel Aviv, the attire is more modest, the nights a bit quieter, and you feel that certain holy, spiritual quality you would expect in the Holy Land.

Unfortunately, that feeling may be slightly unsettled by the unavoidable military presence throughout Israel. If you are not able to find an Israeli cab, going through Israeli Defense Force checkpoints in a Palestinian taxi will definitely add to your travel time. Since military service is mandatory, all adults know how to use guns and often carry them around, which may startle an unprepared American tourist. And yes, Israel is pretty concerned with safety, so security checks abound and the beautiful tourists sights are intertwined with mazes of fences, walls and barriers.

Despite the military presence, “Israelis say they have moved on” from their fears of attacks, according to a recent Time Magazine article (“Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace,” Sept. 2, 2010), and feel confident living their lives normally. Indeed, despite Israel’s security issues, Israelis have “moved on” — they have overcome the obstacles to their nation’s flourishing and live relatively normal lives.

Isn’t this what Palestinians ought to do as well? Bury the hatchet, accept reality and continue going about their normal lives, as Israelis have done? Yes. But it is more difficult in their case.

This is exactly what some Palestinians have done, such as those who were displaced in 1948 when the state of Israel was consolidated in a catastrophic war. Those Palestinians accepted reality, the reality that their homes were now underneath the foundations of the Jewish state. They became Palestinian refugees, which is the largest refugee population in the world and the only nation of refugees to have its own U.N. body, UNRWA. So yes, the refugees of 1948 who left the region that became Israel “moved on,” literally.

The refugees who settled in the rest of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza) after 1948 clung on a bit longer to the hope of returning to their homes and to normality, despite the fact that Israel razed their villages and turned the land into airports, national parks or new cities. But after the 1967 war, when Israel advanced into the West Bank and Gaza and began its occupation of those lands in violation of numerous international laws and U.N. resolutions, more Palestinians “moved on” and began “normal” lives in other countries.

When Israelis chose to “move on,” they remained in their homes. Their nation is intact, secure and free. Palestinians are kept out. The Israelis drive on separate roads to their settlements in the West Bank, which is referred to as Judea and Samaria. Many settlers don’t realize their presence there is illegal, because no distinction is made between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Israelis in Israel itself see little evidence of the occupation. If they want to “move on,” they simply skip over the critical articles in the paper about the West Bank.

Palestinians would be very happy to “move on” as well. “Moving on,” however, is a bit more difficult when Israel controls every aspect of your life. Israel directs on a day-to-day basis whether or not you can travel to your school or to your job and whether you can leave your city. They decide when you receive water and how much of it you receive. Israel controls whether or not aid organizations can deliver you their supplies. Israel even manages what the Palestinian Authority can and cannot control.

The West Bank is a part of Israel that most tourists and most Israelis don’t see. Israel can’t pretend Palestinians have any options to move forward when the occupation restricts necessary Palestinian autonomy. Palestinians would be happy to move on, as Israelis have. All Israel needs to do is let them.

I can’t think of another show with the extraordinary credentials of “Boardwalk Empire,” much less one that lives up to them. Helmed by director Martin Scorsese and “Sopranos” writer Terence Winter, the show has been rightly hailed as manna from heaven. But it’s not heaven, it’s HBO.

“Boardwalk Empire” stars Steve Buscemi—who himself guest-starred in the fifth season of “The Sopranos”—as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, Atlantic City treasurer-cum-bootlegger and racketeer. I think he might be perfect in this role.

The show as a whole is less so; after all, a pilot is necessarily television with training wheels. And, in the case of “Boardwalk Empire,” it’s hard not to be a little heavy-handed when there’s a lot to carry. “Boardwalk” ambitiously takes on not only Nucky’s crew, but also out-of-town mobsters, prohibition agents, and uptight temperance matrons.

While “Boardwalk” never feels derivative, its influences are reassuringly apparent. In the first act alone, there is a freeze-frame that is textbook Scorsese, and an extended tracking shot of New Year’s Eve boardwalk revelry echoes the director’s famous three-minute descent into the Copacabana from “Goodfellas.” The scene in which Nucky watches a premature baby in a boardwalk incubator exhibit strikes me as a “Sopranos” dream sequence—specifically, those of “Funhouse,” the second season finale, which traveled with Tony’s subconscious to the wintry, post-apocalyptic Asbury Park boardwalk.

But Nucky is no Soprano. The pilot’s most Tony-esque figure is a young hood from Chicago—whose identity I won’t give up here, because the reveal is one of the great small delights of the pilot. In fact, the mob protagonist Thompson reminds me of most is Robert DeNiro’s Ace Rothstein, manager of Scorsese’s titular “Casino.”

Nucky is fascinating precisely because, like Ace, he isn’t a caricature of a mafioso. He is corrupt, yes, but far from evil. Ever the politician, Thompson alternates disarming frankness and glad-handing white lies. Passing through a wake, he informs the grieving widow that he spoke to her late husband “just last month”—puzzled, she comments to a friend that her husband had undergone a laryngectomy. But “Boardwalk Empire” is too coy to tether itself entirely to any one individual. The pilot’s other notable performances include Michael Pitt as Jimmy, Thompson’s conflicted henchman, and Kelly McDonald as a possible romantic interest for Nucky.

The boardwalk itself is effectively a character—part Brooklyn set, part beautifully rendered CGI. You can practically smell the creosote and salt water. The boardwalk, which visibly entrances Thompson, serves as liminal space between land and sea—just as the country is between World Wars and (quite literally) on the eve of Prohibition; just as Nucky falls somewhere between an old definition of “gangster” and a new one. Many of the boundaries in Thompson’s life are porous and uncertain—last night’s flapper staggers hungover into his office the next morning.

So, the premiere of “Boardwalk Empire” is exciting and encouraging, but a word of caution is necessary. Winter, Scorsese et al. will have to find a way to negotiate the expansiveness of their subject matter without ever verging into History Channel territory. But there is a risk that concerns me more. A troubling byproduct of the pilot’s instant critical success is that a television series based on “Goodfellas” may now be in development, with the alleged involvement of original screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi. “Goodfellas,” along with “The Sopranos,” is one of the cultural objects that fills for me the void that religious faith occupies for others. I do not wish to see it become a victim of our cultural obsession with adaptations, remakes, and reboots—which, truth be told, is interchangeable with an obsession with box office returns.

But “Boardwalk Empire” has no such pacing problem. At the episode’s close, Nucky approaches a fortune teller’s booth on the boardwalk. “What does the future hold for you?” the sign asks. As “Boardwalk” has already been picked up for a second season, we’ll be sure to find out.

“Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out.”

The above quote from Kevin Phillips in “Wealth and Democracy” should serve as a dire warning to those that love this country of America and all that it stands for. As our government begins its preparation to conclude the war in Afghanistan, the question shifts from whether or not we executed a successful war strategy but whether or not we closed ranks and got out in time. I say that the time to get out of Afghanistan was yesterday, and in many ways, it may be a moot point, because the war is already lost. Let me explain: A key principle to Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” is that the battle should be won before the first shot is fired, requiring a thorough knowledge of oneself, and one’s enemy. The horrific attacks of 9/11 have already achieved the effect that Osama bin Laden intended for them to have. Bin Laden knew there was no possibility that he could defeat the mighty American army in head-to-head combat, but that was never his intent. In fact, he made his objective very clear. Since he could not wreck America militarily, he would wreck it economically, by agency of a never-ending war that we could ill afford to conduct. And so bin Laden went about his work, using a few thousand dollars to launch incredibly devastating attacks on three institutions of American power: financial, military, and political. The result was two trillion-dollar wars and domestic Keynesian spending deficits that have left America staring over the cliff of bankruptcy, turning his enemy’s apparent strength against itself.

Our tactics and strategies in Afghanistan and Iraq were akin to us playing checkers, while our enemies were playing chess. For example, although the 9/11 attacks could have been launched from any location in the world, bin Laden chose to establish his headquarters in the rough and rugged terrain of Afghanistan. This decision was no coincidence and was made with America in mind. As the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel cynically stated, “What experience and history teach us is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” In essence, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Bin Laden knew that the attacks would lure America into the Afghan backlands, after him and his leadership command, and this was a key tenet that his plot hinged on. He knew that the Median and Persian Empires, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, the Indo-Greeks, Turks, Genghis Khan and the Mongols, British, and Soviets, had all of met their demise in Afghanistan.

Every taunt of President George W. Bush and every message released to the American public was meant to keep us in the fight, ever longer, ever more expensive. It did not help that the Bush administration coined and cloaked the conflict and their subsequent global actions as, “the war on terror,” a maneuver that served bin Laden’s agenda well. The cultural cue that most Americans missed was that there is no such thing as a “war on terror.” The phrase “war on terror” is a convenient catch-all term that can cover everything and nothing at the same time. It is a metaphorical statement, but metaphorical statements can only result in metaphorical, not real, victories. This was how the Bush administration was able to keep us in a perpetual war, in the land where “empires go to die,” to the tune of billions a day. There was never a way that the country could ever sustain that kind of debt burden, especially with President Bush bearing the dubious distinction of being the only president in American history to enact a tax cut during a time of war. We have been seeing the effects of bin Laden’s schemes for some time now, as the deficit continues to soar, unemployment rises, people are uneasy, and we remain mired in the worst economic rut since the great depression. Every day that our troops are engaged in the war, we lose, because we are playing on bin Laden’s terms, on his turf.

President Barack H. Obama is a thinking man, and although he did not get us into the war, he has pledged to get us out. His administration does not look at the war through rose-colored glasses, and has acknowledged that a traditional victory in Afghanistan will not happen. My only plea to him is to accelerate the schedule, because the war has always been about money and goading America into spending itself into oblivion. As stated by Milton Bearden, former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Pakistan, “The United States must proceed with caution—or end up on the ash heap of Afghan history.”

Every savvy Internet-user knows this story. Boy “meets” girl. Boy stalks girl on Facebook. Girl looks cute, so boy calls girl. Girl sends boy music. Boy sends girl dirty texts. Ah, love in the digital age.

But “Catfish” will make one think twice about the now-commonplace ‘Facebook romance.’ Unlike “The Social Network,” the other Facebook-themed film coming out this season, “Catfish” is not a dramatized account. Instead it’s a (purported) documentary that superficially resembles a suspense film; even the filmmakers, Ariel Shulman and Henry Joost, participate in the story as it unfolds. “Catfish” is saturated with familiar digital imagery—the Facebook homepage, lists of wall posts, Gmail inboxes—lulling the viewers into a false sense of Internet security. But as the film progresses, that sense of safety is revealed to be dangerously illusory.

The story follows Nev Shulman, a twenty-something photographer living in New York City, through his fraught online relationship with an unnamed Michigan family. Nev shares an office with his brother Ariel, a filmmaker who happens to be in the right place at the right time, and starts filming the correspondence as it progresses.

It all starts when Nev gets a package from an 8-year old girl who has made a painting based on one of his photographs that was published in a magazine. Abby becomes his pen pal, and ultimately Nev begins to communicate with the whole family through email and Facebook, including Abby’s mother Angela and her older sister Megan. Megan turns out to be a model, photographer, and musician, and she and Nev start a steamy online long-distance relationship. They text, call, Gchat, and even send each other postcards in a fit of snail-mail nostalgia. Unfortunately, Nev decides to drive out to Michigan to meet his dream girl in person.

Obviously, nothing turns out quite as Nev thinks it will. But without spoiling the plot’s surprising conclusion, it’s safe to say that “Catfish” exposes some of the most basic lies many tell themselves when escaping from reality on the Internet. And while there is no ax-murdering involved, this is as horrifying a psychological thriller as any Hitchcock movie.

Nev Shulman carries almost the entire film, since most of the other “characters” are either out of frame or online until the last third of the movie. Affable and good-looking, Shulman has the perfect combination of confidence and self-consciousness about his online entanglements. In one particularly embarrassing scene, he reads his and Megan’s illicit text conversation aloud to his brother, which ultimately causes him to hide under his comforter and the audience to squirm in their seats. This scene, along with many others, highlights the uncomfortable divide between textual communication and the actual spoken word, and reminds the viewer how awkward solely technological relationships can become.

Despite the implicit critique of the Internet identity complex, “Catfish” also acknowledges the importance of the Internet as a canvas for re-invention, and the mixed joy and sadness one can find in escaping from everyday drudgery. The film’s twist is a poignant reminder that Facebook can be the setting for a second life, if real life ever becomes too disappointing to handle.

While some viewers doubt that “Catfish” is actually as ‘real’ as it claims to be, the narrative that emerges is so vivid that even if the scenario were scripted it would still resonate. And since the whole film is about the blurry boundaries between reality and fiction, the potentially dubious degree of authenticity ultimately doesn’t harm the film. Scripted or not, “Catfish” succeeds in pointing out the often-gaping divides between who we actually are and who we wish we were, and how the Internet can bridge those divides in dangerously seductive ways.

One of the main criticisms my pop culture views have received thus far is how incompatible they are with those of my peers. I must admit: The claims of being old fashioned and out of touch with current trends may be somewhat accurate.

Perhaps a childhood spent in the certified retirement community called Picayune has affected my cultural appreciation. I did grow up in my grandparents’ house, watching Lawrence Welk and reading classics instead of playing with the neighborhood kids. I’ve always felt like I was born in the wrong era.

I recently decided to embrace my so-called antiquated notions by watching a new historical fiction TV show called “Boardwalk Empire.” HBO’s new Sunday night series chronicles the culture of Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1920 – the birth of the Jazz Age and Prohibition.

Presumably, we’ve all heard of the Roaring Twenties, if only through the required reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” or “This Side of Paradise” in high school. But aside from those mostly dreaded masterpieces, the 13 years America wasted banning alcohol hasn’t really been explored in pop culture – until now, thanks to director Terence Winter and actor-producer Mark Wahlberg, the brains behind “Empire.”

Before the show premiered Sept. 19, this Prohibition business seemed familiar enough to someone raised in a dry county.

But a dry country? Nationwide hypocrisy? Say it ain’t so.

It’s evident from the Martin Scorsese-directed pilot episode that this is not your mama’s period drama. Viewers get an immediate sense that our great-grandparents’ generation was eerily similar to our own in terms of scandal and debauchery.

Don’t let your elders’ lectures about the “good old days” fool you: They were just as reckless and insubordinate as we are.

Though the irreverent speakeasy jargon closely mirrors the art of expletives we’ve now mastered, the inhabitants of 1920s Atlantic City ­- yes, on the Jersey shore – are genuine gangsters, unlike those Italian-American wannabes manufactured by MTV.

The difference between HBO’s foul-mouthed flappers and Snooki? Most 1920s women were literate. Believe it or not, the bootlegger’s favorite accessory – aside from a full flask – was a book, and the prop department of “Boardwalk Empire” won’t let you forget it.

But the cultural connection between the 1920s and 2010 extends far deeper into the ideologies underlying such behaviors.

We live in an age of unprecedented individual freedom – anything goes, and if our personal interests aren’t represented, we have the right to raise hell about it. This social liberation is largely attributable to Sigmund Freud’s ideas about human psychology, which didn’t really catch on until the 1920s.

For instance, the post-Victorian generation was the first to adopt Freud’s theory of sexual desire and the subconscious: Apparently sex is all humans think about, and if we suppress those urges, we’ll destroy ourselves.

Fast forward nearly a century, and we’ve got Tiger Woods, Jesse James and a slew of prominent public figures succumbing to “sexaholism.” Psychobabble aside, the truth is they’re just pigs. But I guess the medical industry profits more when they have diseases to cure.

It’s also no coincidence that the rise of modern culture can be traced to the 1920s and the launch of mass media. When movie-going became an essential American pastime, young people began looking to Hollywood for life lessons – and we’ve been doing it ever since.

But if you really want to learn something valuable, gather with your great-grandparents to watch an episode of “Boardwalk Empire.” You’ll share more common ground than you think, and they can recount how they dodged Prohibition – such expertise comes in handy at Tiger Stadium.

I wouldn’t really describe myself as a military man.

I just never understood the appeal of being woken up at 4 or 5 in the morning by a screaming sergeant then proceeding to run around for a few hours.

I like my pillow far too much for that.

Now, by no means do I have any lack of respect for the men and women who serve and defend our country and my freedom. I’ll support the troops until I die.

It’s just not for me.

However, if I were a military man, in my down time I would still be looking forward to some time with my Xbox – as I know many of our troops do, as well.

I also know I would still be excited for Electronic Arts’ reboot of “Medal of Honor.”

Due to the recent success of Infinity Ward’s record-breaking “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” last year, EA has taken the franchise from World War II into present-day Afghanistan.

“Medal of Honor” will have players following multiple Tier One Operators working in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. EA worked with several military consultants to help make the reboot as realistic for gamers as possible.

With online multiplayer options becoming a staple of current popular video games – see “Modern Warfare 2,” “Halo: Reach” and “Battlefield: Bad Company 2” as examples – EA has brought in DICE (developer of “Battlefield: Bad Company 2”) to develop the multiplayer portion for “Medal of Honor.”

Yet the multiplayer has brought EA’s reboot into the limelight – and in front of a firing squad.

If there’s been a pattern as of late with video-game sales, it’s that controversy is what sells.

Last year the media erupted on Infinity Ward’s uber-successful “Modern Warfare 2” over a level in which gamers played as an undercover agents infiltrating a Russian terrorist group. While undercover, the terrorist group opened fire on innocent civilians in an airport, in which the player could choose to participate or not.

As with most multiplayer components to shooting games, there are two sides – usually a good side and a bad side.

With “Medal of Honor” taking place in Afghanistan, players can assume the role of the Taliban in the multiplayer portion of the game.

Similar to last year’s “Modern Warfare 2” uproar, this has sent the media into a frenzy.

It’s even gone as far as the game not being stocked by the Army and Air Force Exchange Services “out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform.”

This is completely absurd.

Like I said, I completely respect our men and women overseas and feel sorry for the families who lost loved ones defending our freedom. But this is a video game we’re talking about.

It isn’t real.

In “Modern Warfare 2” multiplayer, it was Army Rangers versus Russian terrorists. In older “Call of Duty” games – as well almost every other game set in WWII – players either played as American or German soldiers.

None of those games were banned, and they included the “killing” of American soldiers by enemy forces. What makes “Medal of Honor” different?

Absolutely nothing.

Yet again, politicians and angry mothers are using video games as scapegoats and working up a fuss over things they don’t understand or have ever even played (“Medal of Honor” isn’t released until Oct. 12).

“Medal of Honor” is rated M for Mature, which means it’s designed for adults by adults. No one is forcing anyone else to play it.

If you disagree with the game’s message, the simple solution is just not to buy it. But don’t ruin it for everyone else.

I’m gracious for what the men and women in uniform are doing for us overseas. I just hope they don’t have too difficult a time getting their hands on what looks to be a fantastic video game.

For Charles Nichols, a typical day at work involves a hefty dose of hallucinogens, thousands of flies and frozen rat brains.

Nichols and his father are tag-team researchers exploring the effects of mind-bending drugs on schizophrenia.

Nichols, associate professor of pharmacology at the LSU Health Sciences Center, researches the relationship between drugs like LSD and the mental disorder.

His father, David Nichols, is a Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology at Purdue University. David Nichols doses rats with LSD every other day for three months to develop a model of psychosis of schizophrenia.

After he takes the rats on their three-month-long trips, he euthanizes them and extracts their brains. He then mails the frozen brains to his son for further research.

“The heart of it is LSD or schizophrenia has the ability to change how someone views reality,” Charles Nichols said.

He said hallucinogenic drugs affect the same parts of the brain as schizophrenia, so understanding how drugs like LSD operate can give clues to how schizophrenia works.

Charles Nichols said the practical benefits of his research would be to develop a new drug to treat the disorder.

He said after the rats receive the prolonged LSD treatment, their behaviors change permanently. The rats become more aggressive and hyperreactive and show other symptoms similar to those of schizophrenia. He said he and his father aren’t sure whether the rats have trips.

“Normal rats like sugar water, but LSD rats don’t have a preference,” David Nichols said.

Charles Nichols said he learned from the rats which genes are affected and is now testing gene expression in fruit flies. He uses the flies because it is easier to turn on and off gene receptors.

His lab in the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans is filled with glass tubes spotted with thousands of fruit flies. The lab is equipped with makeshift testing areas and fly traps to catch escapees.

Charles tests the effects of hallucinogens on the flies’ visual perception by putting them in a spinning cylinder tube with a black stripe. A normal fly will follow the stripe, but a treated fly does not.

He studies aggression by placing two treated male flies together and watching the levels of aggression while they fight.

Affected fruit flies struggle with vision perception, aggression, memory problems, difficulty learning and are less likely to mate, he said

After the battery of tests, Charles sedates the fly before examining its brain.

“LSD doesn’t just affect the brain. It affects hormones and the immune system,” he said.

He said LSD and drugs related to it have potent anti-inflammatory effects – something he observed randomly in the lab. He is now looking at the anti-inflammatory effects of four other hallucinogens provided by pharmaceutical companies for research.

Charles received a $350,000 grant for two years from the National Institute of Health in July to begin his research on the anti-inflammatory effects.

He uses tissue cells and cultured animal cells in hopes of one day making a drug based on hallucinogens that will be an intense anti-inflammatory.

He said the Drug Enforcement Agency monitors his work closely. The DEA randomly checks his lab books to make sure everything matches up and is accounted for. All drugs are locked in a safe in his office.

The Montana GOP and the Ugandan Parliament aren’t usually known for seeing eye-to-eye on many policy ideas, but there is at least one instance where their priorities are shockingly in line: They would both make homosexuality a crime.

The situation in Uganda has been on the radar for almost a year. The Ugandan “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” was introduced last October by a member of its parliament, David Bahati. Due to wide-ranging international pressure, the bill’s more draconian measures have been blunted, but it would still call for the execution of gays and lesbians who had sex while HIV positive, or who practiced homosexual acts more than once. The bill has yet to go to vote.

The Montanan side of the story came to light a little more than a week ago. The Associated Press reported that, in June, the Montana GOP adopted a party platform that included this statement: “We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal.” The plank itself is a vestigial part of policy left over from 1997, when the state Supreme Court overturned a law that had made homosexual acts illegal. It’s both amazing and troubling that the policy has persisted for so long.

As with any embarrassing revelation, members of the Montana GOP are split. Some are reacting with incredulous surprise, like Republican state Sen. John Brueggeman, who said, “I looked at that and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ ” He continued, “Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn’t be in the Republican Party.”

On the other side, some Montana Republicans are tacitly backing the plan, yet with hedged answers all the same. “There had been at the time, and still is, a substantial portion of Republican legislators that believe it is more important for the Legislature to make the law instead of the Supreme Court,” said Montana GOP Executive Director Bowen Greenwood.

If only there were two Brueggemans out there for every Greenwood. While Brueggeman unflinchingly calls an unjust measure exactly what it is, he continues on to explain how intellectually dishonest it is, in light of other Republican values. On the other hand, Greenwood seems to want to cover his ears and yell, ‘Activist judges!’ all the while propping up the abhorrent idea.

It’s telling that the plank remained a part of the platform for 13 years. Greenwood states that no one has taken action to remove it, and in fact, it has never come up for discussion.

Legally speaking, the measure is a moot point. Constitutional specialist Jack Tuholske states that due to the previously mentioned Supreme Court ruling, “[It’s against] the fundamental law of the land and the Legislature can’t override the Constitution. It might express their view, but as far as a legal reality, it’s a hollow view and can’t come to pass.”

As of right now, the plank is still a part of the official platform. While it does not advocate for the same cruelty that the Ugandan bill does, in essence, both statements mean the same thing: Homosexuals are second-class citizens.

The Ugandan bill has faltered, while the Montana GOP continues to support an unsupportable idea. Contact them at www.mtgop.org/contact.aspx and let them know what you think.

Sitting in an Atlanta subway car last December, my senses were overwhelmed with orange and blue.

There was still 10 minutes left in the SEC Championship Game, the final stop before the coronation of one of the best college football team’s ever. But the Gators were finished, and fans had evacuated the Georgia Dome.

All the preseason expectations, all the big-game experience, all the media infatuation. Squashed — all of it.

There was one Alabama fan in that car, and he told anyone who would listen that the football universe revolved around the Heart of Dixie. The Crimson Tide played harder because, well, people from Alabama love the sport more.

Most Gators fans laughed it off; they had left the game early to avoid this debate. But one middle-aged man took the disrespect to heart, reacting with red-in-the-face anger.

This man was either (a) the type of passionate fan who makes sports go around or (b) insane. Regardless, anyone invested in the Florida program received serious pain at the hands of Alabama last year.

But while the Crimson Tide may have hurt you, the Gators need them. In sports, like in life, you need a contemporary, someone who pushes you to greater heights.

Florida players said their team brought a rock-star mentality to last season’s conference championship. Their 22-game win streak gave the Gators a sense of invincibility. Blood-thirsty autograph-seekers made them late to practice. Road games became a sideshow — “let’s go watch the national champions and Jesus’ favorite quarterback!”

Alabama was Clubber Lang, doing pull-ups in a dungeon. Florida was Rocky Balboa, getting lazy against overmatched opponents.

And for Florida fans, the parade was fun; until it came to a screeching, embarrassing halt. But the loss should not have been shocking.

UF looked sloppy against less-talented teams in Mississippi State and Tennessee, but Florida was not pushed by an opponent last season like it had been by Ole Miss two years ago. And Florida entered the Alabama game averaging 10 less points than it did before the 2008 matchup.

Of course, the Gators coaches had seen the cracks in their team. Watching film, it was impossible not to. But Florida was undefeated, and it’s tough to be self-critical when you haven’t experienced legitimate failure.

That’s not arrogance. That’s human nature.

Urban Meyer has been praised for how he dominates UF’s rivals, Georgia, Tennessee and FSU. His 15-1 record against those teams stirs pride, but that success also creates concern for Florida fans.

Once considered national title contenders, each of Florida’s traditional rivals have fallen off as of late. Not counting games against the Gators, those three teams have a mediocre .639 winning percentage since 2008.

How much credit Meyer deserves for those schools’ collective downfall is debatable. But without the Dawgs, Vols and ’Noles keeping the Gators up at night, Florida could theoretically fall out of fighting shape.

Greatness only comes when you’re pushed. Usain Bolt would not have coasted through those last 10 meters at Beijing if a young Michael Johnson ran next to him, and the ’86 Celtics would not have been one of the greatest basketball teams ever if they had not lost the championship to the Lakers in ’85.

This season, the Gators are playing with a carrot dangling in front of them. Whatever they do this week, four digits will rest in the back of their minds: 32-13.

Campus would have been a much more fun place last winter if Florida had cruised past a bad Alabama team. But the Crimson Tide are great, giving you something to look forward to all year. In the minutes before kickoff, you will be trapped in a glass case of emotion.

And somewhere, a middle-aged Gators fan will be watching, his face red with anger or excitement or joy.