Davis Farmers Market — Attraction in Davis

You can tell a lot about a place by how it handles silence.

At the Davis Farmers Market, silence is filled with thought — people thinking about what to cook, listening to live music, exchanging a nod instead of a slogan. There’s no marketing department, no PR team, and yet it works. It’s honest. Human. Rooted.

Now head over to UC Davis, and silence takes on another meaning — fear. Caution. Rehearsed smiles. This is a place that markets itself as a “world-class” university while pouring millions into PR campaigns designed to bury dissent. Negative experiences don’t get addressed — they get managed, deleted, or silenced.

Students aren’t nurtured here; they’re processed. Challenging the system means risking your future. One student — persistent, curious, and just too honest — was nearly suspended not for wrongdoing, but for asking too many questions and refusing to fit the mold. At UC Davis, persistence is a threat, and faculty are treated like untouchable deities. Criticism isn't tolerated — it’s punished.

Academic freedom? Only if it flatters the right people. Intellectual diversity? Only if it's branded properly. Step outside the narrative, and the institution closes ranks fast.

And what do you get for your silence and your tuition? A low return on investment — both financially (just look up the post-grad earnings data) and personally. It's all stagecraft and bureaucracy. A shiny new hall, a social media campaign, and an underpaid grad student teaching your class.

You walk out with debt, disillusionment, and maybe a diploma. But not much else.

Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, people are selling vegetables and telling the truth.

God bless Davis for remembering how to be real. And may UC Davis someday repent for what it's...

UC Davis is a masterclass in how to destroy potential. Here, mediocrity is protected at all costs while talent is treated like a threat. If you’re the type to think critically, work hard, or challenge the norm — prepare to be alienated. It’s a place where small-minded people can derail the careers of gifted individuals simply because they don’t understand them. Worse yet, if you set boundaries or tell people to stay out of your way, you’ll likely end up reported for so-called “harassment.” The system here rewards conformity, punishes independence, and buries ambition under layers of petty bureaucracy.

Cover-ups are the norm. From the infamous 2011 scandal to countless unreported incidents, UC Davis prefers protecting its image over addressing systemic failure. Raise a serious issue? You’ll be labeled “unstable” before anyone actually investigates the problem. It’s reputation over responsibility, every time.

And yet, just a short walk away, the Davis Farmers Market offers a completely different world: a place where people create, connect, and contribute. No layers of admin, no corporate PR spin — just honest exchange and mutual respect. It’s everything UC Davis pretends to be but fails miserably at delivering.

The contrast is embarrassing. The market represents what a community should be: grounded, authentic, and human. UC Davis, meanwhile, feels like a corporate theme park — full of empty slogans, broken systems, and an academic environment where low standards flourish and real excellence is suffocated.

If you care about growth, honesty, and integrity, look to the people at the market. If you want to experience institutional decay disguised as higher education, UC Davis is right there, dragging itself — and its...

The Central park authorities use the park to the fullest so that not an inch of land would be wasted. I would not call it a park anymore because it is more commercialized than any other parks i had seen before. Anyone can see that Farmer's Markets are now just about everywhere. They are on the parking lots of schools, colleges, parks, hospitals and many shopping centers. It seems we have a war against the chain supermarkets. As a result, Supermarkets' prices are now getting higher because they do not sell as much as they used to. Not everyone is buying from Farmer's Market. Majority are going to the supermarkets and have to pay now MORE. Farmer's market orginizers found a nice loophole to make nice profits renting these parking lots that are actually subsidized by local residents in forms of taxes. Don't park officials have to ask every local resident if they want the land they pay for to be used by someone to make money? We have enough stores with plenty of foods including organic foods. Why do we need even more, unless one side is determined to bankrupt another. Also, I believe it hurts financially all restaurants as well who need customers to survive and who pay a very high rent for the location near the park. Therefore, it is not fair. Why not to use the Central park land to build at least one affordable student dormitory. Wouldn't...