Bored in Berkeley

Liberating the Third World, One Protest at a Time

2008-03-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-28T21:56:00.000-08:00

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.

Weight Loss Alternatives for the Less Affluent

2007-11-26T20:15:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Fails to Heed Important Adage with Word Count Feature, Student Finds As Deadline of 1,000-Word Essay Rapidly Approaches

2007-10-25T15:30:00.001-07:00

"It was all I had"

---------------------------------------------
Tragedy stuck George Baker this morning when he realized, thirty minutes prior to the deadline, that his well- illustrated essay on ‘The Sociological Impact of Communication Technology on Modern Man’ was far, far shorter than Baker had realized.

“I’d finished my essay and was all ready to turn it in, and just thought I’d double check that it was long enough- and the next thing I know, Word Count pulls a fast one and leaves me about… 1,000 words short of what I’d expected,” Baker sobbed into his hands.

The document, abandoned shortly thereafter, remained maximized on Baker’s screen. A single image- an emoticon, smiling gaily- was boldly positioned just below the title, and slightly to the left of a familiar flickering vertical black line.

“It was all I had,” Baker recalled wistfully.

Microsoft representatives have declined comment.

Cheer Up: It's Tele-BEARS Time

2007-10-25T01:02:00.000-07:00

It’s Tele-BEARS season again! Students everywhere are vowing to wake up later than ever, waitlists are growing by the second, and third-year students are still getting a hang of the system. You, in particular, will find- at the last minute- that the class you need has been moved to 8:00 am, that its well-populated waitlist didn’t manage to get left behind, and that its unit value will be miscalculated to be just enough to block you from enrollment.

Theoretically though, one day, our future won’t actually be scheduled on Tele-BEARS anymore. But will “real life” really be so different? Probably not. What life lessons can we draw from our Tele-BEARS experience?

Now: You realize you chose the wrong major as you find, yet again, that all of your classes are scheduled for 8:00 am

In the Future: Every morning at 5:00, as you wake up, you realize the same thing about the rest of your life

Now: INTROSPECTIVE NORMATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY 10AC sounds like something you’d rather not do

In the Future: so does PAYING THE RENT

Now: There is a $10 drop fee to correct bad course decisions

In the Future: For $10, your young children can still be persuaded to go away

Now: No matter how carefully you plan it, one of your classes will later be rescheduled to create a perfect conflict with another

In the Future: Your wedding and funeral will occur simultaneously

Now: Choosing a class involves cross-referencing between multiple websites, many of which contain no information, finally culminating in an unsettlingly permanent random decision

In the Future: Choosing a wife will involve cross-referencing between multiple websites, many of which contain no information, finally culminating in an unsettlingly permanent random decision

ISLAM ABUSES WOMEN,

2007-10-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

or so proclaimed a new character outside Dwinelle on Monday, holding above him a sign twice his size. As he pondered his heavenly reward (Jesus, after all, taught always to offend and to love others only as a last resort), an angry crowd gathered to read and absorb its wisdom:

ISLAM:

Pedophilia: check!

Polygamy: check!

Wife Beating: check!

“Islam advocates the abuse of women,” the man quietly repeated, savoring the far-more humanitarian thought of the opposing crowd burning in hell. Not to be outdone, they began to chant: “Racist go home! Racist go home!”- affirming their correctness through repetition, and most importantly, use of the term “racist.” The obvious misapplication of the word, in the considered opinion of many present, lent the argument a certain extra poignancy. Someone in the crowd produced a Bible. Someone else produced a lighter.

Ten minutes and twenty-seven “CRUSADES!!!” references later, I began to realize- and I suspect not uniquely- that I was, without question, the most intelligent, reasonable, and virtuous human being in the crowd.

“Take your hate somewhere else, you F*#KING MAN PIG!” the girl next to me (incidentally, a hate-free individual) screamed above the din of the rapidly-expanding crowd.

I may have received a “Just Drop Out Now” on my last midterm, but at least I didn’t say that.

Protests, it strikes me, are not the essence of Berkeley- they are its therapy. Only after months of immersion in this environment of pure and crushing personal failure can we fully appreciate how deeply and perfectly good it feels to catch our peers in the act of being so wrong. Sproul Plaza affords every one of us a unique daily opportunity to be reminded of how brilliant we truly are- if only by nature of not spending more time there. Of course, for those of us with extra-large martyr complexes (and size zero mathematics skills), participation can only serve as a greater distraction from our GPAs. Our protests don’t have a prayer of changing anyone’s mind, let alone the world. But we need them. Tree-sitting might sound stupid- but only if you’ve never sat through Econ 100A.

At some point in this particular protest, some loser pulled out a Qu’ran and began to translate. The rapid influx of information, naturally, terminated our exercise in Free Speech, and the crowd dispersed.

It would be difficult to find an example of a recent protest half as concerned with informational accuracy as it has been with endowing its participants with freedom-fighter status.

But being wrong, as it happens, is our constitutional right.

On Humility and Intellect (…and Pretentious Titles)

2007-06-04T17:38:00.000-07:00

Intellect, like many other features that radically define how a person is seen and sees himself (such as, most prominently, physical beauty) is entirely non-chosen, with relatively limited room for effort-driven change. In this sense it is no better a measure of a man (in terms of value judgment) than his height, weight, or shoe size.

To purposely downplay one’s intelligence, then, is not an act of humility so much as it is an acknowledgement of perceived self-superiority. The concept of humility, after all, applies only to situations in which an individual is genuinely deserving of praise or commendation. To be humble about a naturally-endowed physical characteristic (such as intellectual capacity) is, in effect, to reflect a belief that it is not only earned and deserved, but a vitally important measure of a man’s value.

Bear Basics and its Obvious Respobsibility to Educate You

2007-05-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

As is perfectly logical, reasonable, and noble for a group of privileged suburbanite attendees of the nation’s top public university to do, 70 students marched out of their desperately under-funded classes, tripped over half as many starving homeless, dodged twice as many bullets, and finally arrived at the Bear Basics, fully aware of the broad spectrum of problems facing the world today, and took offense to a t-shirt.

Correctly realizing that they themselves would one day be forced to buy and wear every T-shirt sold on the premises, the students continued to valiantly take offense to no less than two additional garments, demanding that they be removed.

It has always been a personal fear of mine that I might one day see a consumer item in a store and be faced with a choice of whether or not to purchase it. I am infinitely relieved to know that there are warriors out there willing to really take a stand and make sure to eliminate choices for the rest of us in this great, free society.

In a show of genuine concern for the overwhelming prevalence of possible negative choices available to consumers, the store’s vice president met with students to discuss alternative designs that portray people of color positively.

These students probably have a divine right, as the sole guardians and ambassadors of knowledge (as endowed by nature of their being enrolled in a humanities major at Berkeley), to determine between themselves how everything should be portrayed on clothing that other people wear.

"We're at Berkeley, which is supposed to be one of the most open and diverse campuses," one brave student said, solidly defending her position that rigid bans should exist to prevent the private sale of merchandise featuring vague messages that possibly reflect viewpoints not in perfect alignment with her own. "This is ignorance projected on a T-shirt," she went on to objectively argue, effectively explaining why it should be illegal for anyone else to choose to wear it.

Well said. In the name of freedom of speech, expression, and diversity of perspective, take down those T-shirts!

2007-05-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

Heroic? Valiant? Above and beyond the call of duty? Sufficient adjectives do not exist to describe the recent fearless and selfless actions of Berkeley police, who on Friday, April 27th probably saved the world or something when they stuck a microphone to some 19 year-old college kid and paid him to ask people for beer, all the while waiting in vans across the street ready to pounce upon any and all threats to the free world who would dare to furninsh a legal adult with a mildly alcholic beverage. One such hardened and rotten criminal dared to do so, a certain 24-year old female San Pablo resident and former student; a time-bomb, waiting to explode, probably taking a break from systematically raping and drowning her neighbor's children. The police bravely fined her ass $350, while she cried (see picture, inset).

Let's face it: the rapist we read about in last week's paper probably turned himself in already, and that guy who got shot by the other guy who they haven't found yet is long dead. And really, some the Missing Person posters we've been collecting have been there for quite a while. It's high time that both we and the Berkeley police move on to solving our city's more pressing issues, including, and thoroughly limited to, fully independent adults with mechanical engineering degrees paid by the police to pretend to want to consume trace amounts of alcohol on Friday nights.

It is always a relief to know, especially in the midst of our state's financial crisis, that our government is ever willing to put first things first and spend our tax dollars fighting artificial crime, rather than wasting its resources on useful things like education. Of course, it is very difficult to identify and locate real criminals, but our illustrious police force has nonetheless increased its law-enforcement efficiency by capturing as many as 100% of its paid law-breakers, effectively increasing the total rate of crime punished! High-five!

Of course, nothing about these new methods of heroism widens my smile more than the comforting knowledge that any person I might run into might be "shoulder-tapped" and paid to ask me leading questions! Surely nothing could be more effective in building a strong sense of community, goodwill, and intimacy of conversation than an ever-creeping suspicion that the police are listening in, ready and waiting to save the world from the ravages of friendly generosity between students.

I can only a dream of a future in which we can ALL earn our taxes back by spying on each other. This new, reinvigorated and focused incarnation of the police department seems to be bounded by no limits- perhaps someday, many of us will be paid to be the first to jaywalk across empty streets... to drive at 70 mph right behind a car doing 65... to do our part, as loyal citizens of this great and free nation, to expose the disgusting criminal underbellies of all those around us for CA$H

College at Last

2007-03-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

Here I am in College!

I know that this is a time of my life which I will come to recall fondly as an exciting period of peace and quiet, awesome grades, and complete racial homogeneity. Furthermore, after nearly two decades of having no relationship with my distant parents, I will finally be afforded the opportunity to have no relationship with people just like me. As much as I may enjoy college now, however, it won't hold a candle to the life of mediocrity, numbers, and consistency for which I am preparing myself.

My culture is very important to me. It includes: not speaking English, being baffled by all things Western, not understanding English, math (I think), and not being American. Clearly, the best way to stay true to my cultural heritage is to prevent unnecessary external cultural or linguistic exposure, and there are over 500 student groups here at Cal designed in some way or other to achieve just that. At first, I was worried that I might have to sell myself out and deny my cultural past and give up my identity and be raped of my history by befriending the white kid who lives across the hall, but I was comforted to learn that there was a campus-based organization designed to prevent exactly the sort of cross-cultural understanding I was worried about. Now, as a member of the Association of People Whose Skin Color Closely Matches My Own, I can go out and participate in normal social activities that people of any racial background can enjoy, but as a totally racially homogeneous group, in order to celebrate diversity.

I'm glad that I now have such a solid group of friends with whom to share my staggering lack of competence, and that we have managed to successfully remove any and all extracultural inputs. I have made it a goal to become more like my people in the motherland by knowing even less about the world when I leave Berkeley than when I got here, just as my ancestors have traditionally lived in a government-enforced bubble of misinformation and propagandized lies for centuries.

Time to study!!!!

2007-03-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

Pathetic? Lonely? Girly? Should have outgrown this? Yes