Rhetoric of the Porcelain Throne

Another semester has come and gone in Berkeley, rife with the standard talk of divestment and revolution. As ever, accompanying both is the anti-Semitism that has infested campus since long before my tenure began, and which will, thanks at least in part to the half-hearted efforts of the administration, continue to pervade Berkeley as long as there are people living there. This time around, the graffiti in question was found in the fourth floor men's room of Moffitt Library, adorning the walls of the first stall (in an unprecedented violation of the traditional, high-minded values of toilet wall poetry erudition and manners). The images have been posted below, so as to provide a permanent record of the issue - one stretching so far back that it's less an ongoing problem than simply the continual state of affairs.

 

The usual Nazi insignia...

 

 

...followed by an incorporation of Jews specifically into the artwork. Presumably Jews are either responsible for sticking the Government's proverbial penis into the mouth of "me & you," or else just standing by enjoying it.

 

 

A less subtle presentation of the author's thesis is presented here...

 

 

...followed by a case of poor pensmanship detracting from what would otherwise presumably have been a trenchant piece of political insight involving the Zionist power mill.



I hope that the students of UC Berkeley continue to be as hardened to this aggressive brand of hatred as I was when I attended the school, and that the administration will pause to reconsider before powering ahead anyway with the next wave of ads promoting my alma mater as a elysium of open-minded inclusion.

Revisitation Rights

Video surfaced this afternoon from the latest wave of inane student-led protests in Berkeley of members of the University of California Police Department jabbing protesters with batons. It's first worth noting that objectively, accounts of the November Massacre have been exaggerated in two ways. First, the purportedly angelic protestors were plenty hostile themselves, and if they were warned to back off, showed no intention of doing so. Second, referring to the underhand thrusts of the points of the batons as "police brutality" is an insult of the victims of real excessive force: a navel bruised - no matter how thoroughly - doesn't remotely compare to the broken bones the LAPD has become notorious for handing out. That said, this was clearly egregiously inappropriate behavior, and you'll be hard pressed to ever find me standing up for the UCPD, who time and again have proven an insult to real police nationwide.

My main purpose in this brief return from the dead was to offer the following choice image as a follow-up on old posts about the last two and a half years of extended "civil disobedience":

As the price of education inevitably continues to rise and students spend more and more days skipping their own classes and disrupting others at campuses across the country (my own included), I've been left wondering what exactly it is that they're looking for. A good number of them, of course, are socialists, whose arguments that the eradication of capitalism would result in an efficient, even distribution of wealth and an end to unemployment indicate that they've never looked into the histories of China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union, or Vietnam. Others are satisfied with the idea of capitalism but repulsed by the lack of taxation thrown at the cream of the crop. (Side note: the IRS reports that in 2009 the top ~0.7% of the country paid ~30.32% of the nation's total income taxes, and that they paid an average of 28.8% of their income in taxes compared to 11.6% for the rest of the country - a number which drops down to 10.4% not including the $200-500K households that make up another 2.3% of income tax filers.) Others that I've talked to don't know what the solution is to the financial crisis they find themselves in, they just know it needs to be fixed and that their voices have the right to be heard.

Ultimately, the only common theme I've been able to draw from the demonstrations is that people are tired of life being unfair. I sympathize with them. College degrees aren't automatically worth jobs anymore, as a consequence of the unprecedentedly high modern rate of college attendance. Healthcare is a more pressing concern now than ever before, because our population is larger and an unprecedented majority of Americans fully intend to live past 65 (requiring ever-spiraling costs for unprecedentedly complex healthcare procedures). The challenges of contemporary living could fill an entire post, to no purpose.

In the end, I see two possible solutions for individual students. One is to accept that life is as difficult as it always has been, and to pursue an expensive and potentially unpleasant load of continued schooling to ensure future employment, taking solace in the knowledge that the enormous majority of the lauded 99% is literate, has access to food, water, shelter, and vaccinations, and is protected from the marauding bands of murderers, rapists, and even kidnappers that so much of the world has to live in daily fear of. The second is to "speak your voice" along with the rest of the herd - the majority of which is as empty-headed and self-interested as the occasional policeman that jabs first and asks questions later. I lived in Berkeley long enough to know it will always choose the latter, using the grainy, black-and-white icon of Saint Savio to cover or accentuate whatever motives really do lie beneath. I like to think that a slim minority can see through the sound and fury and are doing their best to plan as best they can for what perpetuity has shown will be a challenging future.

Throwback Hatred

On Friday, the Daily Cal published a rather shocking op-ed by one Matthew Soldad concerning the possibility of future war with Iran. The publishing in and of itself, of course, was little surprise: the managerial staff of the newspaper notoriously is as efficacious in weeding out offensive material before printing as a basketball hoop would be in straining linguini. Neither was it the article's anti-Semitic sentiments that caused this particular piece to stand out. Instead, it was the well-read, almost traditionalist tenor of Mr. Soldad's anti-Semitic argumentation that has led even the most cynical of Berkeley Jews (yours truly) perplexedly to furrow his brow. Ordinarily in such instances, the most appropriate course of action is to take the high road, and rather than lending credence to the inflammatory discharge by analyzing its logical flaws, instead demanding to know how such nonsense could have been given the floor in a public forum to begin with. In this case, though, the piece itself demands specific attention, not to issue rebuttal, but to explore context.

The purpose of Mr. Soldad's article is to unmask and berate an influential cadre of Neoconservatives who successfully demanded and orchestrated the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and who plan to launch war against Iran to reinvigorate the flaccid American economy and protect Israel. He grants said cadre an unusually all-encompassing sphere of influence for a Berkeley political theorist, going so far as to relieve George W. Bush and Dick Cheney of some of their ordinary moral culpability by arguing that their road to warpath was Google mapped by Neoconservative "slight of hand." He also takes the unusual (though by no means original) approach of relating Neocons to Trotskyites, whom, he argues, are their Soviet analogues. Soldad's piece takes the leap from contentious – and bizarrely placed – to objectionable when it defines Neocons as a "group of largely Jewish members who follow the teachings of the Jewish academic and neo-Machiavellian Leo Strauss." He accuses them of employing a "fog with which [they] disguise themselves," and cites Joe Klein (political writer for that bastion of governmental theory, Time magazine) in placing them among "people out there in the Jewish community who saw [Iraq] as a way to create a benign domino theory and eliminate all of Israel's enemies."

Of course, the notion of Jewish conspiracy stretches back centuries, at least as far as the Jewish Emancipation of the Enlightenment. The famous manifestations of these theories are widely recognized, and even, to some minds, excessively taken advantage of: the dissemination of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the echoes of its vitriolic fear in the Beilis Trial and Doctors' Plot; the danger of the "Jewish peril" as described in Mein Kampf and the enacting of the Holocaust; American assertion that Jews were responsible both for the abandonment of the gold standard and for communism; and the recurring ideas of Zionist Occupation Governments, political lobbies, and control of the media. Though one would be irresponsible in comparing Soldad's powerless missive to these historical atrocities, one would be hard-pressed to miss the parallel arguments. What's described is nothing more or less than a concealed group of Jews, united behind a perverse code (some Straussian take on The Prince), manipulating world affairs to suit their own greed- and ideology-driven agenda.

Briefly, in anticipation of claims that these arguments are based not on racism, but on modern political exigencies: why mention Judaism here at all? Why describe Leo Strauss – with his city-first (i.e., tradition-unfriendly) philosophy and his profoundly uncertain stance on the truth of religion – as a "Jewish academic," unless you believe his ethnicity to be central to his appeal to the apparently Jewish Neoconservative alliance? For that matter, why label the Neocons "largely Jewish" to begin with? Is it to suggest that the vocal, rich, Fundamentalist Christian sector of the Israel Lobby has, like Bush and Cheney, been manipulated by Jewish slight of hand? Or to return to the lead-in of the article – and the oldest anti-Semitic chestnut in the canon – and imply Jewish conspiracy aimed at pecuniary gain?

One can only wonder what purpose the editors of the Daily Cal believed Mr. Soldad's op-ed would serve in the context of their (very) local newspaper. Presumably, they intended to give much-needed voice to the community, and possibly, to spread awareness of an alarming growing trend in the modern world. Yet what they've demonstrated most palpably is that as long as the fire of bigotry rages on within the hearts of small, hateful men, racist tropes need not necessarily adapt themselves to the times. It is, in fact, these oldest and most grizzled trees whose foundations bind the soil of this toxic forest, and we must be vigilant never to let our callous familiarity with their thorny branches distract us from our duty to uproot them.

Look Out Below

The internet has negated the severance formerly granted (or forced, depending on your point of view) by graduation. True, it's made it easier to follow the humiliating exploits of your alma mater's rudderless football program, and easily possible to keep contact with a bevy of friends who would otherwise have been lost to the ages. But along with those blessings, the internet has also made it easier than ever to keep in visceral touch with the worst parts of your undergraduate experience – a particularly damning situation when you attended as spectacularly moronic an institution of higher learning as Cal.

Former readers of this blog will remember my disgust at the mass protests against university budget cuts that happened last year. My basic criticism boiled down to the following points:

--that students protested higher tuition by cutting one of the few remaining days offered at the old tuition rate;
--that protests against tuition hikes were used as overarching forums to complain about all the world’s ills, restricted to the University of California or otherwise; and finally,
--that protesters used the rallies as an excuse, at best to satisfy their own needs for indignation and attention, and at worst, to break storefront windows and roll burning dumpsters at cop cars.

Suffice it to say, like the producers who brought you Scary Movie 12, the powers that be are stirring up another unwarranted sequel – in this case, another day of communal rhetorical masturbation aimed to change the system from within. And suffice it to say, the plan is exactly the same as it was last time. In fact, this time they're even more open about it: the Facebook event for the “October 7th Strike & Day of Action for Public Education” calls for a united front composed of “a mosaic of communities that recoil from the unbearable.” Accordingly, the Facebook community has organized other factions whose lives are being ruined by the man. These include teenagers who can no longer abide the fact that getting high is, strictly speaking, illegal, as well as outraged citizens intent on taking a stand on Arizona's “fascist” SB 1070 by demonstrating against the University of California.

I understand the ethical dilemma of the Berkeley radical. For one thing, it’s easy to lose self-confidence under the withering guiding light provided by such patron saints of public condemnation as Mario Savio and that homeless guy with the John Lennon glasses on the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft who yells at you when you don’t give him what he considers enough of your spare change. For another, where students of Savio’s day ostensibly had some legitimate complaints – widely prevalent national racism (only 7 years removed from Little Rock, for chrissake) and an administration actually denying students the right to say whatever they wanted on Sproul Plaza – the modern-day indignant Golden Bear has little more to complain about than a nationwide financial crisis and the persistent encroachment of such vanguards of capitalism as Panda Express. After four years of feeble high school rebellion against one’s parents spent dabbling in coke and figuring out which hole you can let him put it in before people start calling you a ho in public, the lack of an immediate opening to change the world with your original stance on troubling issues must be hugely sobering. In that light, it's hardly a surprise that such a large collection of angsty youth would happily gather their multifarious grievances into one slimy package and spew it forth at the first convenient opportunity. And of course, it must be said that the purported central focus of the get-together - education, something many of the people to be involved no doubt care deeply about - is obviously something worth holding on to (my hard-earned diploma affirms my sincerity on that count).

On the other hand, the setup of the modern world dictates that the road to practical educational reform doesn't run through soapbox pedagogy or mass demonstrations: it's a battle that can only be fought - much less won - armed with a ballot and valiant enough to trudge through a dark, bureaucratic swamp. More importantly, the sort of juvenile, potentially dangerous bullshit this bastardization of free speech will inevitably engender simply shouldn’t be allowed. So this ultimately powerless call for overdue change goes not to the perennially hopeless student body or the polio-stricken administration, but to Berkeley and UC police: if and when the impending rally is about to get out of hand, please see to it that all soon-to-be-rioters are arrested before they set poor, powerless Chancellor Bob’s house on fire, rip the copper wiring out of the walls in Durant Hall, or break more of the windows of innocent Southside business proprietors. Because the longer you wait to restore order, the more blatantly you’re going to be proving the need for vigilante justice to counteract vigilante idiocy. And I live too far away to be your goddamn Superman.

A Quick One

In response to the swastikas posted at Clark Kerr, the Daily Cal editorial staff urges the student body of UC Berkeley to "Ignore the Ignorance." I urge you all to do just that by not clicking on that link.

Writing on the Wall

To the surprise of no one with their cognition fully intact, three swastikas were recently discovered drawn on the walls at the Clark Kerr dorm compound. According to the UCPD, the first one was drawn last Wednesday night (4/21), followed shortly by two more early Saturday morning (4/24). They stand as the latest in what has been an unbroken series of incidents over my four years here – many of which I’ve been party to firsthand – of open, casual anti-Semitism. And lest you preempt me, in case you’re one of those indignantly callous Berkeley jerkoffs who considers any Jew crying anti-Semitism an act of inbred cowardice or overpreened sensitivity, allow me to define my terms: by an “act of anti-Semitism,” I mean some hateful resident of this monstrous wasteland employing racial epithets or traditionally anti-Semitic imagery to harass local Jewry.

As I said, though, that swastikas were drawn on University-owned walls came as a surprise to no one. After all, Berkeley is a hotbed of generalized sociopathy with a more-than-casual history of dalliance with anti-Semitism. What’s most irritating about the affair to date is the Daily Cal article covering the action, published on Monday. As ace journalists Jordan Bach-Lombardo and Javier Panzar reported, “though campus officials have condemned the drawings, classifying them as “hate incidents,” the drawings have elicited little student response.” They go on to note that “no students attended a community meeting hosted Thursday to discuss the incident, according to [dorm magistrate Marty] Takimoto.”

Since Bach-Lombardo and Panzar seem so confused by the apparent lack of student response, here’s mine: try asking anyone in the Jewish community, for whom this is nothing more than another bump in the proverbial untended San Francisco back alley of a road to their degree. You’ll find that used to such incidents though we may be, we were, as usual, unhappy to learn of the presence of yet another sociopath who took it upon himself to remind Berkeley Jews they’re not welcome here. As far as the unadvertised “community meeting” hosted less than 24 hours after the first swastika was drawn – and days before either of the other two were – take it from me when I assert that the lack of student turnout there was as representative of reaction to the swastikas as a freckle is to skin cancer.

In past posts, I’ve made perfectly clear my feelings about Nazi imagery in modern life. I recently assembled a Holocaust memorial issue of the Berkeley Jewish Journal, and encourage interested readers to check it out here. I’d offer some final, hopeful comment here that someday we wouldn’t be exposed to this sort of racist misanthropy, but I'm not inclined towards that kind of hope. So it goes.

What More Can I Say?

On my way to Friday night services at Chabad this evening, as I was watching my feet while walking down Prospect St. with my kippah exposed, some asshole in a Nissan Sentra shouted “Jew Bastard!” at me as his friend drove by. What more indignities and ethnic slurs do I need to endure in this gangrenous hemorrhoid of a city before I leave?

It’s telling that this bastion of liberal thought is so engrained with the racism it vehemently denounces that I – an enormous kid with light brown hair who looks as little Jewish as any Jew I’ve ever met – have suffered the indignity of “drove-by” ethnic slurs at least 3 times since I arrived in Berkeley, when I’ve chosen to go outdoors with a kippah on. These actions can no longer be denounced as solitary assholes ruining some socialist utopia for the rest of us, nor can I ever again even entertain the notion of the hatred endemic to this modern-day Sodom being a ghoulish figment of my tormented imagination.

This city is a disgrace to its country; may all of its hateful bigots burn in the hell they so richly deserve in perpetuity.

Veto, vidi, vici

Even amidst all the animosity on display at Wednesday’s ASUC meeting, the most hostile demonstration of all came from the sun. By 7am, the first rays of an unwelcome daylight had already broken over the fearsome silhouette of Barrows Hall and confirmed for all those who remained in Pauley Ballroom that they had just spent an entire night arguing to no purpose.

Our cause célèbre centered around ASUC President Will Smelko’s veto of Bill 118; the Senate spent what my addled brain would guess was 8½ hours listening to debates and arguing over whether or not they should overturn the veto following the GE Bill’s 16-4 passage nearly a month ago. Unsurprisingly, each Senator had their mind made up before they arrived. The final outcome was that the veto was upheld by one vote – an abstention – then reconsidered and tabled for future discussion.

Proceedings molded to the expected form. The requisite analogies were drawn: Israel as apartheid South Africa; the United States as a leading human rights violator; UC student activists as Mario Savio; ASUC senators as Martin Luther King, Jr. Speakers discussed our now-assured collective place in history. An antagonistically bipartisan effort ensured a filibuster worthy of a Frank Capra film. In sum, like a session at the United Nations, the events of the evening had no practical ramifications, but egos were defended, feathers were ruffled, and the bill was gleefully sent to Uncle Sam.

The drafting, acceptance, and defense of the GE Bill have proven at least four things beyond a doubt. First, that while like the Golden Gate, Berkeley is a rocky, suicide-ridden gateway to an endless expanse, unlike the Golden Gate, Berkeley is marked by enormous gaps that will never be bridged. Second, that smarmy, holier-than-thou graduate students settle in Berkeley as much for the pulpits provided by its ubiquitous open fora as for its academics. Third, that the ASUC Senate will continue to consider itself impressive in its ability to get a few hundred students out of 36,000 to stay at a meeting overnight, even as it openly refuses to take a stand. Finally, that neither wastes of time nor wastes of money and energy will ever convince the powers that be that the system is broken.

Having already called to disassemble the ASUC infrastructure brick by brick, I will here simply offer a sentimental toast to the memories of our collective dignity and pride. May they rest in peace.

The G.E. Bill

Leave it to the ASUC to defy your expectations even as it's fulfilling them.

Early Friday morning (or late Thursday evening, depending on how normal your circadian rhythms are), the Senate approved bills demanding divestment from General Electric and United Technologies "because of their military support of the occupation of the Palestinian territories." That they passed was hardly unexpected: they're the latest in a string stretching back at least the 4 years I've been here of bills with no practical value except to divide further the student body, and to satisfy the ASUC's self-righteous lust for grandiose displays of intelligence and largess. What is surprising is the count by which they passed: 16 for, 4 against. This means that for the first time in memory, the voting did not progress strictly along party lines (though unsurprisingly, all the opposition came from Student Action). I suppose it's only appropriate to the stupefying incompetence of our money-sponge student government that the vote that crossed partisan lines would be one of the worst calls in recent ASUC history.

A brief examination of the bills themselves. They insist that "[these] ASUC resolution[s] not be interpreted as the taking of sides in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict" – yet realistically, despite their assurance that they also condemn Hamas for the rockets it launches, they don't leave any other recourse. A pro-bill speaker at the argument session last night suggested that his opposition would try to downplay the bills' merits by suggesting that companies that (directly or otherwise) fund nations like Saudi Arabia are more deserving of divestment. Of course, he was right – but then, so is that argument. Israel ranks 47th in the world on The Economist's Index of Democracy, and received the top score of 1 (out of 7) in political rights and 2 in civil liberties from Freedom House. By contrast, as examples, China is ranked 138th and Saudi Arabia 159th in the Index of Democracy; and both received scores of 7 and 6 from Freedom House. Israel is clearly held against a higher standard in Berkeley than any nation in the world, with the possible exception of the US ("John Woo should be arrested and tortured," etc.), and to suggest otherwise is either dishonest or – even more frightening – misguided.

But this isn’t really about politics, skewed though they may be. The bills are a moronic exercise principally because they demand divestment from General Electric and United Technologies. It's a clever ploy to sugar coat the bill's intent, and I applaud Tom Pessah and Co.'s ingenuity in framing their destructive political desires. Still, I can't imagine anything dumber than disassociating with two such faceless conglomerates, in the hopes that such an action would send any message (except, perhaps, that we’re willing to lose money we desperately need if it’ll make the student government appear sympathetic to the local AARP crowd in the IRA t-shirts). GE doesn’t give any more of a crap about the ASUC's opinions than Israel itself does.

The biggest problem the affair suggests is that the ASUC will continue to disregard the consequences their actions hold for the student body in whose interest they were purportedly democratically elected to serve. Last night, more than any other time in my all-too-long tenure here, the senators showed no hesitation in parting yet further the gap between the Israel crowd and the Palestine crowd. In other words, the ASUC is intent on appearing to care about peace in the Middle East, 7500 miles away, but not remotely interested in ending conflict here in Berkeley.

It was somewhere between the first and second rounds of finger snaps synced to quotations of Mario Savio last night that I came to a realization: there is no way to reason with Berkeley's student government. It will always act in its own best interests, and to promote its own image in its own eyes; it will always waste money and time; it will always act as though more important than it actually is. It’s time to either redirect our efforts towards dismantling the hateful machine once and for all, or to leave our senators – all, that is, except for Parth Bhatt, Sandra Cohen, Anish Gala, and Noah Stern – to their beloved circle jerk in peace.

No Surprises

Husam Zakharia. What a stupid asshole.

Oh, I beg your pardon – what was that? That was uncalled for? I see. You mean to tell me that Berkeley is an institution that fosters dialogue; that my hostility does nothing to advance meaningful exchange.

Well, having been raised as a human being (someone inclined to treat people well, because that’s what human beings should do), I’m of the opinion that some actions rob of you of your normal right to be treated with any shred of respect. And being a good man, I consider hitting a girl – a short girl – from behind – with a shopping cart to be one of those actions. To be fair, though, you’re right: I should have chosen my words more carefully.

Husam Zakharia. What a stupid, cowardly asshole.

(Additional props to Daily Cal political reporter Zach E. J. Williams – who, incidentally, between the perpetually sweaty brow and the buzz cut looks like a future repeat sex offender – for somehow erroneously suggesting, after a year of coverage of the very case, that John Moghtader was involved in the Zakharia-inititated throwdown of November 2008. Good thing you don’t need a good memory or scruples to go into journalism.)

For What It's Worth

The conditions conspired on behalf of my ignorance. Last night, as another small riot paraded through Telegraph, I was a mere four blocks away, yet nestled in a small, crowded room in a friend’s apartment, playing boisterous poker. This morning, though Telegraph looked like a mess, it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary – especially given the winds foretelling the storm that would shortly rage, which by noon were already strong enough that they were hurling trash cans across the Bancroft sidewalks. All things considered, then, there was no reason for me to expect that another parade of self-righteous Berkeleyites had trashed Southside yesterday, even though I’d effectively been there during and after; it was left to Facebook to raise my ire.

To summarize, courtesy (shudder) of the Daily Cal: “A crowd of more than 200 people swarmed the streets of Southside early Friday morning in a riot involving six law enforcement agencies, runaway dumpsters, flaming trash cans, shattered windows and violent clashes between rioters and police.” The aftermath added up to only two arrests: Marika Goodrich, a 28-year-old senior, charged with assault on a police officer, inciting a riot and resisting arrest ($32,500 bail), and 26-year-old Berkeley alumnus Zachary Miller, charged with inciting a riot, resisting arrest and obstructing a police officer ($22,500).

The disorder began with an occupation of Durant Hall, once the home of the East Asian Library and soon to become office space for L&S. To get in, the “occupiers” broke a few locks; once inside, they broke some windows, applied some graffiti, and scattered some construction equipment. They chose Durant Hall with the idea that they would “reclaim it for students”. A brief pause here. It’s presumably safe to say that none of these people had ever set foot in the East Asian Library – even in its expansive new location, much less its cramped old ones in Durant Hall – because if any of them had ever done so, they wouldn’t have been laboring under the false impression that it had been anything to “reclaim for students.” In fact, it was a squat, poorly ventilated, ugly edifice with inadequate access to bathrooms; further, as a library, it had never exactly been the hangout spot they’re making it out to be. Another sad consideration in that the best these political heroes could do was a fenced-off, hollowed-out building whose year-long construction was bemoaned by anyone at Berkeley only because it meant you could no longer cut through the low road past Dwinelle on your way to the west side of campus. But I digress.

From there, our fearless leaders moved to the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph, where one of their number – presumably in a desperate act of compensation for a laughably small set of genitals – broke windows at Subway around 1:40 AM. The mob settled at Durant and Telegraph.

Police on the scene included “[o]fficers from UCPD, Oakland, BART and the California Highway Patrol, in addition to all but four Berkeley Police Department officers on duty that night.” They made a line in front of the Bank of America, and watched as the crowd, gathering momentum, pushed a dumpster into the intersection and set it on fire. The Berkeley Fire Department and Blakes employees cooperated to put the fire out.

The mob then threw glass bottles, plastic buckets, pizza and other objects at the police line, in between call-and-response exchanges of “Whose street? Our street!” Its leader, if anyone, was a shopping cart with a stereo in it, whose movements dictated the movements of the mob. In a similar display of missing touch with reality, the crowd ghost rode the whip alongside a white Dodge Charger, apparently blissfully unaware it was February, 2010. It was finally dispersed shortly after 3 AM by cop cars, after sending two dumpsters riding down Durant Ave. toward police.

Throughout, as our Mario Savio wannabes wandered, destroying private property in their wake, they offered choice epithets for the cops on the scene: “assholes,” “fucking pigs,” and other clichés of middle-class suburban unrest. To offer an idiom that would sail tellingly far over the heads of these troglodytes, sounds to me like the pot calling the kettle black.

All signs indicate that this petulant display of destruction will serve primarily as a warm-up for next week, when more large-scale rallies are expected in protest of the fee hikes. For now, the justifications will, of course, be the same as before. The responsible parties will offer either that desperate times call for desperate measures, or simply that there was nothing wrong with what they did, at all. This is all one can really expect from this crowd, the fists and testicles of the proverbial body responsible for Berkeley’s response to these fee hikes. The time has come to take the blame to the source: the brain.

In class this week, one of my wishy-washier professors (not herself a bad person, it should be emphasized) likened the wave of Berkeley protests to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. It’s people like this that claim that these repeated instances of violence in response to the fee hikes are examples of a legitimate form of protest taken to an extreme by radicals. Yet really, it is they – and their ridiculously lofty rhetoric – that enable this sort of behavior.

This crusade is nothing like the Civil Rights movement. That was a group of minorities seeking the legal rights to which they were justly entitled by the Constitution: not a “just” cause, but a right cause, one to which there was no justifiable alternative, legally or morally, to taking direct action. This is a group of entitled post-adolescents (and others who should be way too old to qualify for this category, but aren’t) protesting fee hikes at a school whose tuition – even after the hikes – is still an unqualified bargain relative to other schools of its caliber. Now, this isn’t to say that the University doesn’t need to take drastic steps to remodel its finances. (And let the record show that I regularly feel guilty forcing my parents to endure a semester of yet higher tuition fees this Spring.) However, the simple truth of the matter is that the Chancellor’s reluctance to dig into his slush fund to keep fees low is not the reason fees are being raised. It’s because UC Berkeley is morbidly obese.

The mazes of paperwork and bureaucracy that Berkeley runs on puts Office Space’s Initech to shame. It has positions like a “Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion.” It has a student senate that absorbs funding like a sponge, one which has an External Affairs VP and feels compelled to offer statements of solidarity with the victims of the Darfur Genocide. Most of those who make arguments like that detailed two paragraphs back retort that a progressive university needs institutions like these to keep it running. They could be right (they aren’t, but that’s a different story), but Berkeley isn’t a “progressive” university – it’s a public university. In a state like California, this necessarily means limited funds to run an enormous school. Period.

By raising the conflict over the fee hikes to something more noble than it actually is, the “brain” of the movement has made no progress, and actually, moved backwards. Certainly, there’s been no movement towards lowering fees; the only thing that it’s clearly accomplished has been enabling the imbeciles of the movement to indulge their destructive impulses. If Berkeley’s populist intelligentsia truly wants to lead the rest of the state forwards towards an ideal California, they need to begin by holding themselves accountable for the angry sheep their follow them blindly, instead of merely apologizing for them. Until then, I think the ASUC should divert some of its slush fund to helping the proprietors of Subway fix their windows, and I hope we see many more than two people rightfully arrested next week if any more property is destroyed. Otherwise, I’ll have to start calling for a lobotomy.

There's a Riot Goin' On

It takes something thoroughly messed up to get me to side with UC Administration. I see the it as the embodiment of everything wrong with modern infrastructure: horrific incompetence, systemic laziness, self-serving cold-heartedness, and miles – literally, miles – of red tape. Yet on Friday afternoon, another cavalcade of self-righteous, empty-headed Berkeley shitheads managed to not only leave me siding wholeheartedly with the beast itself, but disgusted enough to disrupt my work during finals season, something that no one deserves, but especially students at a school as soul-crushing as Cal.

On Friday night, at around 11:15pm, a group of protesters as big as 75 strong – some of them bearing torches – gathered around Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s home. The slogan of the evening was “No justice, no peace,” and they fully intended to stick to their word. Things quickly descended to breaking planters, lights, and windows. It got worse: the torch-bearers actually threw their lit torches at the house and the cops.

Eight people were arrested, six of them non-students. It was about 67 people too few.

The most pressing concern, obviously, is that these assholes could actually have hurt someone, particularly with the torches. To put in writing what shouldn’t need to be said to anyone, ATTACKING SOMEONE BECAUSE THE UNIVERSITY IS RAISING FEES AND SLASHING BUDGETS IS BOTH UNCONSCIONABLE AND ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. But consider everything else wrong with this picture:

(I) These attacks were perpetrated against Bob Birgeneau. He could very well serve as a dictionary picture alongside the definition of “figurehead,” but even were he to occupy a more meaningful position, he still would by no means control the actions of UC Berkeley, much less the University of California as a whole.

(II) Creating a need for repairs at University House – which is, as the name suggests, university property – is counterproductive when one of the things you’re protesting is an unjust allocation of reduced funding.

(III) Even with their heads so neatly tucked up their asses, these idiots should have realized that the civil protests of the 1960s that they were so desperately hoping to emulate took place at least half a century after such affairs no longer had to be torch-lit.

(IV) And why exactly was this issue stirring enough to six non-students that they not only attended, but caused sufficiently disturbance to be picked out of the mob and arrested?

On that last note, here are the most noteworthy charges against Zachary Bowin and Angela Miller, the two Cal students arrested: rioting, attempted burglary, attempted arson of an occupied building, vandalism, and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer. Even accepting the idea that local wackos are liable to engage in this sort of behavior, shouldn’t two kids paying to go to school know better? What the hell is this school teaching kids, anyway?

10:1 odds they were Peace and Conflict Studies majors – just guessing.

Tedford's Last Stand

I make no secret about the fact that the football team was a major factor in my decision to enroll at Cal; given my love of the sport and the school’s reputation as one of the better football schools on the West Coast, and overlooking dismissals along the lines of “It’s only a game,” it was a logical move. Yet as so often happens, the disconnect between the ideal and reality has proven vast. Despite being denied student section tickets each of my first two years at Berkeley, I’ve attended every football game (except those that conflicted with family or religious commitments), and mustered far more school spirit than would be suggested by my extreme enmity towards Berkeley as a university and a city. Suffice it to say by the inclusion of a football entry in this blog, my efforts have not been rewarded.

Since 2006, I’ve seen meltdowns and collapses by teams good and bad; heard 70,000 screaming people fall silent in an instant; sat through a downpour that left me returning home in clothes that weighed 15 pounds and shivering through a hot shower; and heard no fewer than 15 sorority girls discussing at full volume who they’d had sex with since the semester began. I’ve watched the uninspiring efforts of players less athletic than me, coaching decisions that showed less foresight than Custer’s declaration of victory at Little Bighorn, and execution far more brutal than that of Louis XVI. Yet the last 2 games have been the worst of my tenure here – indeed, of the Tedford Era – and have thrown the team’s inadequacies into the spotlight beyond the point of return. In Cal’s two losses to Oregon and USC, the team was outscored 72-6; they went 108 minutes and 12 seconds between their two made field goals. The coaching, incredibly, managed consistently to overshadow the team’s atrocious play, as evidenced by the almost comical number of times the team resorted to running its offense in the gimmicky “wildcat” formation – which, as former NFL coach Brian Billick was heard to say in an NFL game two weeks ago, “never works.”

Like the school’s problems in other departments (discussed in the backlog of posts here), the football woes would seem to be inescapable. There are two contributing factors. First, the self-perpetuating “black hole of talent” seen in today’s college football means that underperforming schools recruit inferior talent – and are thus, usually, forever robbed of the chance to escape mediocrity. More damningly, though, just as UC administration is unwilling to “trim the fat” in response to the current financial abyss, so too is the management of the football team unwilling to recognize that the coaching of this team does not work. History has already shown that head coach Jeff Tedford did a miraculous job of turning an abysmal program into a distinctly above-average one, but also that his self-destructively conservative play-calling and inability to instill a disciplined, winning attitude in his squads make him unable to transform Cal football into a good program, much less an elite one. Yet he will stay in place as long as the University’s systemic complacency remains intact, as, for the most part, will his squad of assistant coaches and coordinators.

Today’s contest was the Joe Roth Memorial Game – the annual home game against USC or UCLA designated to honor the only man whose jersey has been retired by the University, and whose outstanding career and life were cut short by melanoma at the age of 21. Though the team’s disgraceful performance was more than enough to render this a woefully unbefitting tribute to one of the greatest players in school history, even worse was the fact that the sole reference to the night’s being dedicated to Roth was an advertisement for the sale of a memorial T-shirt during a media timeout. It’s abundantly clear that despite whatever our fish-out-of-water Canadian Chancellor Robert Birgeneau tries to suggest at games, the football team is nothing more than a cashcow for Berkeley, and one which will, on the strength of the unflinching loyalty of fans like me, remain profitable no matter how badly the program is allowed to stagnate. It’s an unpleasant discovery to make and one that provides a dreary outlook for the decade to come: records wavering between 7-5 and 8-4, and boring, inappropriately close victories in the Sun, Emerald, and Vegas Bowls.

I maintain that choosing a football team is a perfectly legitimate reason to select a university for those so inclined, and believe I always will. I’m also certain now that anyone doing so should save themselves the ordeal and forgo becoming a Golden Bear.

Take a Long Walkout Off a Short Pier

Moments of fiscal crisis have traditionally proven heart-wrenching, difficult landmarks of American history; images leap to mind of bankrupted investors jumping to their deaths off New York skyscrapers and of Dorthea Lange’s immortal photograph “Migrant Mother.” Evidently, under the present circumstances, UC Berkeley’s faculty and students have decided to take a decidedly less heroic stand for posterity.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the University is set to suffer widespread budget cuts, which will inevitably lead to fee hikes – potentially, massive ones. UCs are by no means alone in their plight: my father, a professor in the CSU system, is going to have to take furlough days, as will all other members of the faculty. And yet, predictably, constituent parts of the University of California are set to take it upon themselves to stand against the issue, the only way they know how: public protest.

On Thursday, September 24, UC faculty plans to walkout, in what the University calls an illegitimate strike - one not carried out according to the procedure stipulated in the existing institution-faculty agreement. The demonstrations will include any number of faculty members picketing, and many others engaging in teach-ins purportedly designed to inform students as to what the practical impact of the $813 million budget cuts will be for students. The day is, of course, supposed to be an instructional school day, but classes are likely to be almost universally cancelled, to further heighten awareness of the situation. The move has been met with widespread approval from the collective student body: websites have been set up to organize students in collaborative demonstrations with professors, and on September 13, the UC Student Association unanimously approved a resolution supporting the stoppage.

Perplexing and irritating is the following oversight: in an effort to protest what is perceived as an immoral blow to hard-working students and faculty alike, the powers that be have arranged the cancellation of one of the few remaining days of school under the “reduced” price – one whose tuition has been paid in advance and whose work will need to be made up across the board. Even worse is the disingenuousness of many of the professors, who – though understandably upset about the paycuts – are taking this opportunity to rob their students of lecture time (lest we forget: students pay to go to class, professors get paid) under the pretense of protecting the student body’s interests. Worst of all are the students themselves, who have evidently bought into the idea that by proving their willingness to pay tuition for a day of no instruction, they’ll convince the University to reconsider the fee hikes and furloughs.

This is the sort of logical travesty I’ve gotten accustomed to over my 3+ years at UC Berkeley; I guess now, at least, I can take solace in the knowledge that I was getting it on sale.

(Don't) Panic of 2009

I hail from San Francisco, and one of the main benefits I derive from summer is the chance to detach myself from the world of Berkeley – including both the psychos wandering its streets and the sadists responsible for apportioning grades. This detachment is so thorough (excepting the contact which I keep with my Berkeley friends) that, happily enough, I haven’t so much as visited this blog since I posted the last entry. Sometimes, though, Berkeley reaches me while I’m away, as it did today, with an email marked “URGENT” from Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau.

This particular communiqué addresses the continued dire financial straits in California, and the continued budget cuts to the UC system assumed to be pending. The good news it sends is that Berkeley’s $145 million deficit has, via several adjustments, been trimmed by $45 million. The bad news is that lingering $100 million deficit. Now, the Chancellor’s tone reads like one of wary optimism, based on faith that the ingenuity of the constituency of our institution will carry the day, despite any obstacles. He also assures that, regardless of what the as-yet still undetermined budget ends up saying, “We will not sacrifice Berkeley's commitment to breadth and depth of academic excellence.” Despite their comforting airs, though, his words of fortitude leave one wondering from whence the money is going to be drained; the rest of the email makes it clear that he’s not quite sure of that himself. In the public interest, I’d like to suggest some guidelines.

First: that on a probationary basis, strict limitations be placed on the ASUC Senate, as warranted by its extreme ineptitude and tendency towards financial waste last year. Any faith one has in the incoming personnel of the Senate should be overridden by these kind of lingering concerns, and besides, as I’ve spent pages arguing by this point, the Senate’s Constitution limits the institution’s power to the point that even if it was staffed by hardworking, earnest students, it wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything, anyway. In effect, it’s a waste of money no matter how much the Chancellor and his crew decide to allocate to it, and so should be the most obvious target to be trimmed.

Second: that the university should allow profitable businesses to rent out campus space and charge them accordingly. Berkeley’s antipathy towards chains is irrational. To use a pertinent example, the reason Panda Express hasn’t been allowed on campus is not because it, say, pillages the rainforest, or runs sweatshops in third-world countries, but because it’s a chain, and chains are inherently evil. A better approach is to understand that chains aren’t big principally because they’re unscrupulous, but rather, because they’re markedly better at providing their products and/or services than their competition. Allowing Panda Express (among others) on campus would provide a new, major source of revenue for the university, and give thousands of students cheap access to food they enjoy, to boot. As for the opposition, frankly, how the university parcels out its property should be for the administration, not the student body, to decide.

Third: that landscaping projects, no matter what size, should be drastically scaled back. Last year, there were an appalling number of construction sites to be found around Sproul Plaza, and presumably, many more in less visible places. None of these, so far as I or anyone I know could tell, were anything more than cosmetic modifications. Yet as anyone who’s ever had to deal with home repairs knows, even small projects inevitably prove costly – and I doubt I’m making too bold a leap in assuming that replacing Sather Gate was rather more expensive than installing new light fixtures. Granted, keeping up appearances is important in attracting new students, but if maintaining the “breadth and depth of academic excellence” really is the university’s top priority, the concrete botox needs to stop.

Finally: that the inevitable cuts should not be made “across the board.” Though this was mentioned in the email, where the Chancellor meant that larger departments would be experiencing cuts proportionate to their size, I mean that the university should make its most significant cuts in its least significant departments. Though I won’t enumerate which departments I feel are relatively unimportant, this should be perfectly clear: they should be those without notable faculty members; those with smaller numbers of students; those with smaller numbers of applicants; those not ranked as highly in the polls as so many of Berkeley’s departments are. It’s time that Berkeley acknowledged that the Cuneiform and Forestry departments simply are not as important as MCB and English are. Yes, this will mean some unfortunate losses of some fascinating subjects, but in economic downturn, the university should focus on what it does best, and save its “hobbies” for days when it has more resources to throw around.

Sadly, it’s hard to believe that Chancellor Birgeneau and the other parties responsible will consider any of the above arguments. Unnecessary expenses will continue to drain finances; the few obvious chances at supplementing income at the expense of someone other than California’s taxpayers will be rejected; unimportant departments will receive funding they simply don’t merit. I have faith in this country, and in the perpetuity of its history of economic fluctuation, so I’m sure that at some point, the UCs – including Berkeley – will once more have access to the budget they deserve. I just hope management hasn’t run the damn things into the ground by then.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

A bizarre man came by Wednesday afternoon as I was tabling for Tikvah: Students for Israel. He wore BluBlockers manufactured during Kurt Cobain’s lifetime, a purple bucket hat, and black trousers with the fly proudly agape. He said he was born in Ethiopia, had immigrated to Berkeley in 1968, had joined the Black Panthers shortly upon his arrival, and had used and enjoyed great quantities of psychedelics in his lifetime; I believed him on all counts. He seated himself at the table and proceeded to talk continuously for around 25 minutes, telling me that “Israel” meant “god” in Ethiopia, and that members of the group should have faith that everything was going to be all right and work to make peace with the people in Students for Justice in Palestine. It was weird deriving nuggets of wisdom from the chain of blather, yet he noted that Israelis and Palestinians were brothers – a point which, I replied, people too often overlook. It made me reflect, though, on the last contact I had with SJP as a group.

Several Wednesdays ago, I was with a two or three other friends of Tikvah at the table, situated at the edge of Sproul Plaza, near the ramp that leads to Lower Sproul. While we were talking, the guys tabling for SJP began packing up and loaded everything onto their cart. As they reached the top of the ramp, all the stuff fell off the cart, and I (followed shortly by my friends) ran over to help them pick the table and chairs up. I certainly didn’t expect any thanks, but what I got instead was the coldest stare I’d received since I told my o-chem lab professor that I hoped I wouldn’t have to do lab on my broken foot.

In my eye, a rather half-assed stab at détente.

I’m certainly not tempted to jump to conclusions: I wouldn’t assume that that seething animosity is representative of the group as a whole, or necessarily, even of the individuals from whose eyes the thunderbolts of unrepentant frost emanated. Yet I’m inclined to point out from this particular incident that when I stood up to help them out, I didn’t do so in spite of their political stances: I did so without any concern for their politics, because that’s what I do for other people. I also wouldn’t feel compelled to draw attention to this in even so meaningless an arena as this blog, if it hadn’t been part of an unbroken chain of hostility I’ve encountered from members of SJP – on some occasions, even outside of moments of participation in the pro-Israel debate.

The Almighty and my parents have already teamed to provide me with the only two brothers I’ll ever really need. So if members of Students for Justice in Palestine decide to settle for treating my friends and I with the same basic decency I hope I treat them, I’ll be as satisfied as I will surprised.

Day 101

To begin, a concise statement of my stance on domestic politics. I wouldn’t align myself with either of the major American political parties (nor, for that matter, with any of their wacky little sidekicks); however, I believe the Democratic one to be by far the worse of the two. Its espousal of traditional liberal values is, in my eye, undermined by the amorality, incompetence, hypocrisy, and duplicity it employs in pursuing its goals – which is a shame, given that many of those goals (e.g., equality) are ones I agree with wholeheartedly. I didn’t support Barack Obama in this past election because I considered him an inexperienced politician who might potentially become a tool of the party I believe to be far more dangerous than its counterpart.

Perhaps surprisingly, despite the fact that the candidate I would have chosen was not elected, I support President Obama, feeling as I do that Americans are best served to place faith in the man selected their Commander in Chief. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t feel at all compelled to write about him here. However, the Berkeley deification I’ve described in the past has continued, and especially amidst all the hoopla surrounding H’s 100th day in office, locals have felt compelled to pontificate on conditions in the Obama Era.

This last phrase is what brings me here: I consider it faulty and irritating for a number of reasons. First is my belief (I refrain from using “the fact” because this is only exceedingly-likely conjecture) that the phrase would be used regardless of which Democrat had ascended to office back in January. This is to say, had the primaries and national election worked out that way, the Berkeley streets would be drowning in conversations about the “Clinton Era,” the “Edwards Era,” or even (try not to laugh) the “Kucinich Era” – anything, so long as it meant no Republicans past the White House lawns.

Second, tenure. H’s 100 days in office place him roughly halfway between the nation’s two shortest terms of office, which lasted 31 and 199 days, respectively. Though perhaps history will eventually vindicate them, as it stands today, one doesn’t frequently hear about the Garfield Era, much less the W.H. Harrison Era.

Finally, and most importantly, lack of change. Regardless of how much that term gets thrown around these days, any close examination of affairs will reveal that very little is different today than it was when Bush Light left office. Racism and partisanship still exist – the former, I fear, probably more so now that a black man holds our country’s most visible position. Public schools are still the punchline of thousands of jokes told in European lower learning institutions every day, and we’re still engaged militarily in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, as far as the raging fiscal storm for which H was supposed to be our proverbial high pressure front, the fact that every commercial on television begins with the phrase “In times like these” belies the lack of improvement.

When I posed this last point to an Obamanaut I was having a conversation with a few days ago, she responded with, “Well, you can’t expect miracles.” Oddly enough, she made my point for me: no, you can’t. So far, other than the Obamas getting an unbelievable dog (see right), the tenure of the 44th President has been about as eventful as those of the aforementioned 9th and 20th ones, and does not merit being deemed an “Era.” Not even in Berkeley.

Eleh Ezkarah, V'nafshi Alai Eshpecha

The title of this entry comes from the selection of the Yom Kippur service that commemorates the brutal murders of ten Sages at the hands of the Romans, destroyed for their devotion to their faith. It translates to "These things I remember, and my soul cries out on them." I chose it because it manages to convey that which I cannot put into words - any kind of statement about the Holocaust seems inadequate. However, given how disgustingly lightly the term is thrown around in Berkeley, I feel obliged to say something.

I’m not going to explain the reasons why the deaths of innocent standers-by in Gaza is not comparable to the Holocaust, much less why even the most negligent of beef slaughterhouses or the most wanton destruction of the Amazon rainforest aren’t either. Anyone demanding that sort of argument won’t derive anything from my writings in this blog, anyway. I will simply say that the sentiment behind “Never Forget” is violated when one uses the Holocaust for comparative purposes. Far more repugnant than the idea that those 6 million+ cold-blooded executions in Europe are comparable to anything else is the way such a comparison degrades the memory of the dead – who had in life already been more thoroughly stripped of their purportedly inalienable right to humanity and dignity than any human beings in our species’ long, torturous history.

As much as it is our eternal duty to “Never Forget,” it is our obligation to safeguard the memories we fight to keep alive from those who would willfully defile them.

In loving memory of the 6 million+ martyrs who lost their lives at the hands of the most evil empire I pray the world ever knows.

Electioneering

[An opening disclaimer: the following politically-oriented views are strictly those of their author, and their expression is, both technically and in spirit, completely unaffiliated with any organization, on campus or otherwise. Another disclaimer: the author’s offer of advice regarding this week’s election does not entail his condoning the existence of the ASUC Senate; to the contrary, the author would like here to express his hope that the institution will one day be dismantled, and to emphasize that the following piece is written merely in the hopes of making the best of an unfavorable situation.]

In perusing the voter’s guide for this week’s ASUC elections and reflecting upon my experiences with various candidates I met this week, I was surprised to find a good number who I wouldn’t be loathe to have responsible for doling out our university’s finances. I wish today to make concise arguments for the two candidates I most avidly support: Will Smelko and Matthew White.

I first met Senator Smelko when I attended a number of Senate meetings in the wake of the Eshleman Hall “fight” last Nov 13. He immediately struck me as a man far too good to be working in such a poorly-run, obscenely self-important environment – which is why I wasn’t surprised to discover he had a solid working relationship with Senator John Moghtader. I soon found him – along with Senators Moghtader, Meghana Dhar, and Tommy Owens – to be one of the few ASUC officials I liked, and one of the four I would admit to trusting. In him, I believe voters have not only an intelligent, good-hearted man for whatever reason willing to give yet more of his time in their service, but also an opportunity to elect the first capable ASUC President since my arrival in Berkeley in Fall 2006. Indeed, I believe he would be the only one in this span to have sought the presidency to affect positive change in the student government, rather than to expand his profile or pad his resume. He stands in particularly sharp contrast with CalSERVE candidate Oscar Mairena, who has with every speech and action I have witnessed presented himself to me as a grandstanding tool of Herculean proportions, and actually somehow managed, by dint of the personality he displays in the line of his Senatorial duties, to make me dislike him personally. Independently and by comparison, then, I believe Senator Smelko to be the only reasonable choice for ASUC President – this immediately dismissing Defend Affirmative Action Party candidate Ronald Cruz and with all due deference to SQUELCH! candidate Andy “Vote for Me and Get Laid” Morris.

Though I am personal friends with Matthew White, my endorsement of him is not drawn from my enjoyment of his company, or even from some of our shared political views, but strictly from my faith in his capacity as an elected official. Speaking from a deep bank of personal experience, Matt is an intelligent, ethical man with an unusually wide network of connections that keeps him adrift of developments in Berkeley circles far beyond his own. He has a strong sense of morals, derived both from the sharply-defined laws of kind and proper behavior he follows as an observant Jew, and from his own unrelenting conscience. He is a loving person who makes friends in a manner genuinely blind to race, religion, gender, or sexual preference. He has been intimately involved with a number of campus-tied organizations, and will thus serve in Berkeley’s best interest – as he himself has too much invested emotionally to see conditions decline any further. He will stand above the pettiness of ASUC party politics not because he’s running as an independent, but because he has seen firsthand, as an associate and friend of Senator Moghtader’s, the waste and divisiveness they always cause. He will vote with his mind and his conscience – both of which I guarantee make him more genuinely interested in “preserving diversity” than any of the narrow-minded, self-serving candidates running for CalSERVE or the Defend Affirmative Action Party. In sum, I would trust Matt with my life – so it should go without saying that I’d trust him with an active hand in the future of the ASUC.

I would encourage readers to read through the growing archive of MirvChron posts, which I hope illustrate the reasons I believe the CalSERVE party has shown itself to be a petty assemblage of incompetent, self-serving men and women who do not deserve access to the obscenely large ASUC slush fund. I would also mention briefly that I met, talked to, was impressed by, and throw my support behind the following candidates: Rick “Rollin’” Chen (#64), Serge Sarkissian (#111), J.P. Shami (#113), and Parth Bhatt (#117).

ASUC voting runs from April 7-9; polls can be accessed here. Thank you.

A Moment of Darkness for Our Collective Dignity

This evening I find myself annoyed by a Berkeley-like phenomenon that extended the world over. Purportedly, over a billion people took place in “Earth Hour” this evening, dimming their lights as part of “a global event designed to highlight the threat from climate change” (see here). World-famous landmarks and ordinary homes alike reduced their artificial luminescence in an apparently united “up yours” to global warming.

Now, I happen to believe that climate change is a serious issue: that even though I think Al Gore’s sheep-like followers – who really have transformed greenness into nothing less than a cult – have exaggerated humankind’s malicious, apocalyptic contribution to the situation, I believe that the world’s getting warmer (and yes, it has been) is a genuine problem. My problem lies with this self-satisfied “display of solidarity” against our inanimate foe, the greenhouse gases. The demonstrators as a whole have the right idea, but as usual, they think that by inconveniencing themselves ever-so-slightly for a brief period, that they’ve done their part to solve the issue.

In the end, one desk lamp isn’t melting the polar ice caps; neither, for that matter, are a billion. The problem is 4-person families that own 3 cars and drive them to work, 15 blocks from their homes, because they don’t want to walk, bike, or (heaven forfend) take the bus. The problem is idiots that own and use private jets because they don’t find flying first class sufficiently dignified. The problem is jackasses that buy pickup trucks when they work at Kinko’s/FedEx. So when people around the world turn off some of the lights in their homes for an hour and then look down on someone else for not doing the same, they’re not really as close to being a part of the solution as they probably assume.

I don’t mean to disparage the sentiment, and I’m sure there were millions upon millions of well-meaning people who took part in the gesture because it was just that – an excellent gesture. And yet, I bet “Earth Hour” was a big hit in Berkeley, where it would give so many smug morons yet another unearned chance to feel proud of themselves. I’m very glad I wasn’t there. The complacent attitude that would lead these people to go to the limited trouble of flipping a few switches is the same that has seen so many people complain about the Piedmont Penetrator’s existence, while not actually doing anything to help local women by seeing to his capture and extended imprisonment.

Maybe it’s just hot air causing global warming, after all.