Studying. Gossiping. "The Osbournes.' A gripping soccer match.

Political activism at local colleges seems to be taking a backseat to, well, just about everything.

If the students at Cal State San Bernardino and the University of Redlands on Tuesday afternoon were any measure, the tradition of speaking out on war is as dead as history.

"I think people just go with the flow here,' said Jeff Ramirez, a 22-year-old psychology student at Cal State. "They're not that politically involved.'

Ramirez tries to help that. Every morning, the game-room attendant at the campus union puts the big-screen TV on the news, but it doesn't stay there long.

"Majority rules here,' he said. "It usually ends up on MTV or BET.'

He recently transferred from UC Riverside, where he said anti-war protests took place a couple of times a week. At Cal State, he hasn't seen a thing. On Tuesday, there was not even a poster or club announcement mentioning the war.

Not one student during the lunch hour was even reading a newspaper.

"If I had access to a paper now, I'd be reading now,' said Martha Lopez, a 24-year-old liberal studies student from Hemet. She was reading a textbook in a quiet area of the union in between classes.

In the pub, a soccer game was playing on TV. In the game room, about a dozen students were camped out in front of the large screen watching MTV's "The Osbournes.'

Tiffani Bossieux, 21, a liberal studies student from Rancho Cucamonga, watched as she held a Toni Morrison book she was reading for a class. Though she wore a green faux-Army jacket, she said the war doesn't figure prominently in her life probably because it's geographically so far away.

"I come to school and then I go home,' she said. "I don't pay attention to what's going on.'

Inside Irvine Commons at the University of Redlands, Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop' played over the loudspeaker. The call to arms used during Bill Clinton's youth-driven presidential campaign seemed to go unnoticed. A few students were watching ESPN on TV.

Inside the dining hall sat a rack of free newspapers. Again, not a single student in the after-lunch crowd was reading.

Then Richard Makin walked in and started to read one newspaper. The 21-year-old student majoring in business administration said he only reads the sports section. He did read about the train bombings in Madrid, but that was because he was there last year.

A football player for the school, he is too busy with school work, Greek life, and everything else to think about the war and taking a stand.

Likewise, Kaylin Freeman, 21, doesn't read the newspaper and doesn't watch the news.

"I feel so bad because I feel like I'm in my own little world,' said the University of Redlands business student.

Someone at the school apparently cares though, because posters keep going up on the "clothesline' by the commons. Last week, it was "Free Palestine.'

More posters might go up around campus were it not for a strict policy requiring approval of posters and announcements, said Bonnie Lucas, campus events coordinator.

Not even the campus newspapers appear to care.

Cal State's student paper couldn't be located at the union. And the most recent issue of The Bulldog Weekly, Redlands' student newspaper, contained a review of a Baker's restaurant, a graphic opinion piece about sex, and a columnist's proud defense of not paying attention to the news.

Students said there were a few notable war protests at Redlands last year, but they were at a loss to explain why the issue died.

John Horigan, a 21-year-old government student, said it was a topic in some of his classes before the war, but it has considerably lessened since. His uncle, a colonel, just came back from Iraq. Horigan's father and grandfather fought in two U.S. wars. And he even has a friend at the university whose family is from Iraq. Still, the topic of war doesn't come up all that much.

Randy Valles, assistant to the associate dean of undergraduate studies at Cal State, said his generation was galvanized by the draft. If that happened again, young people today might be more interested politically.

Then again, he said, "Maybe they just don't care.'