Roma's Pizzeria - Big Taste, Short on Service

Pizza is probably the number one choice for students on a strict budget. Close to the CSUS campus, on Folsom Blvd., Roma's Pizzeria gives your money's worth of food. Upon entering the facility, a diner can be a little lost, the open-view kitchen is directly to the left. Waitresses are hanging about, making it unclear on who exactly is the host. I soon discover my co-diners waiting for me at a table and I head over there to meet them. Roma's is a seat-yourself type of a restaurant. Great for students who want to get in and get out quickly. The layout of the medium-sized restaurant seems to be designed for large parties, with large tables everywhere, although some booths line the far windows. Menus arrive promptly and water is dispersed to the diners, with the invitation to order any other drinks on the menu. The menu is a traditional five-page laminated booklet that is common in pizza restaurants. The choices include various pasta dishes, sandwiches, salads and the brick-oven cooked pizza. Our waitress was a Mexican-American woman who was difficult to understand sometimes. Our order had to be repeated a couple times before it was received properly. All of us decided to get a large pizza which was split - half being the pesto and cheese, and the other half being pepperoni and black olives. We all ordered side salads as well. The salad was delightfully fresh, the tomatoes sweet and ripe as if just picked from a hidden garden in the backyard. They were too mushy for my liking but my co-diners enjoyed them. The ranch dressing was thick, but not too thick and quite flavorful. Being a vegetarian, I did not have the four, half-salami pieces on my salad that others had on theirs. However, I did ask for them to be put on the side so one of my co-diners can have them - a request that was forgotten once the salads were brought out. While we chatted about our lives and shared our personal experiences, the pizza was cooking up in the brick ovens they had in the back. When our pizza arrived, the waitress set it down with a bang - the pizza almost sliding off the tray it was held in. This has happened before at other restaurants and is extremely unnerving. You would think that practice makes perfect in the food-service business. She stammered out an apology and disappeared after asking us if we needed anything else. One look at the pizza saw that some of the pepperoni from the meat side of the pizza had made it over to the vegetarian side of the pizza. My co-diners were nice enough to take those slices off the tray before I can protest, not that I would say anything publicly anyways. A bite of the pesto and cheese pizza sent my senses spinning. The pesto was fresh and delicious, the cheese was just right - stringy yet good. Little puddles of oils from the cheese were floating on the slices making it look more appetizing. The crust was perfect, not undercooked so it's soggy, nor overcooked so it's too crunchy. As the check arrived - we noticed that we had a good meal for the price. Averaging out to a little more than $10 per person. It was time to get our remaining pizza packed up and ready to go. The waitress made us all nervous by taking the pizza tray and holding the box in the other hand - standing and maneuvering the pizza slices into the box without touching the slices. I was sure they would end up on the floor. If the little things about food-service do not bother you, Roma's Pizzeria is a wonderful place to hang out with your friends and have a bite to eat. It's reasonable in it's prices and fun for those who like a loud atmosphere.

Unloved Old People

America does not treat old people nice. It’s true, believe it. The society we have helped shape sends a clear message to people young and old – as long as you can work, you are a value to our world, and otherwise you are just something that needs to be tolerated. They say, to assess how your own situation is, you should look in other places at similar situations. Let’s compare how older adults are treated here in America compared to other countries.

Recently, the Social Security Administration increased the age at which you can claim your measly $742 monthly check to 65 years. For most people this is the time when the kids are off to college and the peace-seeking young parents’ lives. Leaving them to travel the world or do anything else that they always wanted to do when they were working.

Then comes around the years when you turn 80 years old. Now you can’t even make it to the bathroom without leaving a wet trail behind you. Hey, at least your spouse (if you’re lucky to still have one) can find you from following that trail. These are the years that you need help. You feel alone, everything hurts, and the Department of Motor Vehicles has killed your driving privilege.

Here in America we have “retirement homes.” Those words are in quotes because they’re really just nice terms for the home for the neglected. There is no genuine care in those facilities. It’s merely people doing their job of taking care of your parents.

This is looked down upon by many cultures around the world. This could very well be the number one cause for the demise of the family structure in America. In cultures such as the Chinese, Indian, Greek and Arabian the parents are held in the highest regard. All major household decisions are first discussed with the elders before any action is taken.

It is not acceptable to send off elderly parents who may have lost control of structured thought processes. Even as these cultures migrate to America, they bring along their traditions and respect for their elders.

Being a first generation Pakistani, even the thought of my parents living alone brings negative feelings. I, for one, am not interested in being shunned by the entire Pakistani community of Sacramento for sending my parents off to an elderly retirement home.

As the generations pass, however, Chinese Americans and Arab Americans are finding themselves falling into the norm of neglecting their parents when they get too hard to handle. Second and third generation Americans from immigrant families are forfeiting their traditions of keeping the elderly at home. They too, have turned to skilled nursing facilities.

Although everyone has the right to be independent, they do not have the right to be lazy and irresponsible. People should have enough respect for their parents who raised them to at least return the favor when they need them the most.

Going Overboard

The staff and faculty of all CSUs are rightly pissed off about having to take unpaid furlough days and a pay cut this semester. But they're still taking it and coming to work everyday. They, like the rest of the American public, know that we have some major economic problems right now. Homeowners, students, state employees, elderly folks who are waiting for some sort of decision on the health care woes - all are hopeful things will get better in the near future.

University of Southern California Professor Tierney apparently isn't so optimistic. In fact, he thinks that things are going to get so bad - a for-profit university such as University of Phoenix will one day own all the CSU campuses in the state. Although the idea isn't far-fetched, it seems to be an over-corrective measure for the budget problems the state is having.

His theory is that selling the CSU system to the University of Phoenix will generate billions of dollars that would permanently stabilize the state's financial future. Unfortunately, Prof. Tierney only sees the green. He casually mentions in the article that student debt will increase greatly, diversity in programs will not be available and professors will have the most difficult time of all. He emphasizes how Phoenix's programs will specifically cater to the needs of the majority of students - not all students.

This means that if a student wants to major in World Religions, specifically Buddhism, that course may not be offered unless tons of other students are also interested. This narrows the scope for students who would be interested in non-mainstream majors such as Business, Engineering or Medicine.

The proposal is bogus. There will always be other financial problems the state has. Taking such a large step to save the state some money is not a well thought out solution - its the easy way out. The upsetting thing about his article is that because of his status and knowledge - he may be taken seriously by some lazy legislators that are just tired of the back and forth of the financial crisis issues.

If Prof. Tierney thinks that he's only giving the public and government a hint of where the money can be saved - he should stop right there. They are thinking about it - that's why student fees are up 33% this semester.

Instead of making such an outlandish proposal, he should have introduced a hybrid of some sort. There's nothing wrong with for-profit universities taking over the CSU system. For that to happen, however, clear negotiations need to happen that would not sacrifice the positives of the current CSU system. Some of the positives that need to be kept are the diversity of programs, the affordable tuition costs, and the four-to-five day a week in-class sessions.

Even then, I think it is way too early to discuss any drastic changes to the CSU system. Funding can be found other places, like the two new casinos that are going up in California, cutting some of the extra non-profit organizations that seem to be redundant, and maybe even taxing the "green movement" their share to help with the State's economic issues. If this country can survive The Great Depression, so can it the most recent wave of economic woes.

Lingering Wars

We are now in the ninth year of the war in Afghanistan; the sixth year in Iraq. The United States of America has a basic defense budget of $533.7 billion. As of today, we have spent a combined total of $917,193,132,514 for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Is Congress daft or something?

Apparently they do not see the economic problems as we see them (from eye-level). Instead of ending the wars which should have ended a long time ago - the Obama administration has announced today that they will not be setting a date for the Afghanistan withdrawal of troops. Along with that prettily packaged announcement, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has also announced that Obama will need to decide on whether he wants to send another 40,000 troops into Afghanistan.

This is just ridiculous. Who made these people in charge? In case they haven't checked recently, the national debt today is $11,821,323,707,051. With the public option for health care gone to the dogs, I'm surprised that they even had the audacity to make such an announcement as they did today.

It is predicted that by 2010, the cost of the Afghanistan war will surpass that of the Iraq war. I wish they would start making predictions about how many people will be homeless here in the United States in the next year - that's American citizens we're talking about.

As I read the MSNBC article regarding Obama's wishy washy decision-making habits that are beginning to look a lot like ex-Bush's, the slide shows on the side of the page were reminding me to support our troops. I do support our troops. I do not support the privatization of a military that is in countries that we no longer need to be and is draining financial resources that we can use here at home.

During Obama's presidential campaigning, I distinctly remember him stating that we should be withdrawing from Iraq as soon as possible. Once he took office however it, the date changed from 2010 to 2011, now it sits 2012 - still not sure about that one.

There is no end in sight for the war in Afghanistan. The case that is being made to remain there is the fear that Taliban still has a stronghold in parts of the country. However, there are still similar problems happening in Iraq. The strategy that the military needs to start focusing on is to train the Iraqi and Afghani military to handle domestic issues themselves.

Obama doesn't want the military to leave the countries and a civil war to break out amongst the local groups. Who's to say that there isn't civil war among the groups going on right now? The Shiite and Sunni groups target each other constantly in Iraq.

It seems that every time the President talks about the wars, a new deadline is set and more money is allocated towards keeping the wars going. It baffles me that a war was started that many Americans were against right from the beginning - and still with the new administration cannot seem to end.

Congress and President Obama need to focus more on our own economy before they go and fix other country's problems. Those countries at least have some hope that their own governments will step in and protect them. We don’t have any other resource except our own government to help us through hard economic times where health care is the issue at hand – not a war.