Liberating the Third World, One Protest at a Time

Another Thursday gave way to another protest yesterday, as a hundred black-and-yellow-clad members of the Third World Liberation Front marched on the steps of upper Sproul Plaza. I began to read their signs, skeptical at first, but quickly came to the realization that this was a group with something to say:

‘UC Berkeley is racist’: ……maybe…

‘Fuck shit up’: Absolutely.

Where exactly, I wondered to myself, was the war-torn Front line in the bloody and relentless war for the Liberation of the Third World from centuries of poverty, corruption, and disease? Just as I’d guessed, it turned out to be right in the doorway of UC Berkeley’s temporary Multicultural Center. The protesters waved noisemakers in the air and chanted, demanding the construction of a new facility intended to replace the current one built in 2005- which was, apparently, generally felt to have done an insufficient job of Liberating the Third World.

Quick to join the war against suffering, I set out to learn as much as I could about the battleground. I began my research, donning an old t-shirt to take the brunt of the blood splatter before cautiously consulting intelligence at BerkeleyNews:

“The center is located in Heller Lounge on the ground floor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union. The large, open, space is filled with new couches and chairs, and when it opened Tuesday, the first day of spring semester classes, a few students already were there mid-morning to catch a quick nap or read quietly.

‘I'm excited; it's been five years in the making.’”

By Noel Gallagher, Media Relations | 18 January 2005

Naturally, advice along the lines of “Fuck shit up” would pull the Third World out of its impoverished mess in an instant, but one interviewed student was nonetheless defensive of the group’s choice of words: “It’s a reaction to feeling extremely oppressed”, which was “common sentiment among the protesters.” I may fancy myself a writer, but if somebody asked me to describe, using more carefully chosen and precise words than “extremely oppressed”, what it must feel like for a hundred or so Californian university students to be without a sufficiently renovated multicultural center, I’d be at such a loss for words that I’d have to pack my things, run to the Third World, and ask somebody down there to help me find them.

It is important to remember that the violent and impoverished web of corruption plaguing the Third World is not a complicated issue, nor is it one beyond the scope of, say, the UC board of Regents. As the Third World Liberation Front effectively demonstrated yesterday, it is in fact one directly solvable by an alternating schedule of waving noisemakers, installing new sofas in Heller Lounge, and fucking shit up.

Buying a Clicker- HANDS DOWN the Best Purchase of 2008

Initially I was quite frustrated to learn that my economics professor required that I purchase a clicker. In this age of ever-increasing textbook costs, it seems a bit much to have to run out and drop an extra $40 on a ‘classroom response system’, which, of course, is nothing more than a thinly-veiled euphemism for ‘screw you, I can take roll during lecture now’.

These silly little devices are yet another episode in the continuing story of college professors around the country pulling out all the stops to make YOU wake up and sit through their lectures. First it was the elimination of webcasts, then the deletion of online notes… the more the semesters go by, the more we see the erosion of the academic benefits bestowed on us by technology, and the more elaborate professors’ schemes to hold our attention become. The harder they try, of course, the more we know their class isn’t worth the bother.

But I was just in the middle of unpacking my clicker- a dreary-grey bulky relic of late 1970s design- when I noticed something.

This was no ordinary clicker. This was an iClicker. It said so right on the label.

Within moments any doubts I may have entertained as to its purpose in my life were washed away in a stream of modernity, relevance, and affirmation of my identity as a citizen of a new, technologically adept world without shift keys.

The iClicker spoke to me. It said, “sometimes i don’t capitalize, just like you. and we understand each other just fine, don’t we- what’s a bit of incorrect grammar between friends? See, i get you.”

I knew immediately that it was right. It, too, was a member of my generation.

The iClicker is more than just a product. It is a means of self-expression in a world where ‘i’ am becoming an ever-decreasing proportion of the world’s population. It affords me a uniqueness which until now could only be provided by my digital music hard drive and portable telephone.

When I use the iClicker, I’m sending the world a clear message: “i woke up and dragged myself to class today.”

And that’s a message worth sending.