58 Comments

1. chuck:

I think we should just fence ‘em off and release the Gitmo detainees inside, solving two problems at once. Of course, AI might complain about the torture of exposing the prisoners to guys in pink bunny suits, but hey, freedom ain’t free…

Jun 7, 2005 - 1:56 pm 2. Rick Ballard:

“Every night parades with fireworks will be held led by over-sized dolls of Abbie Hoffman, Alan Ginsburg and Jerry Garcia. All streets will be scented with patchouli, meat banned from the restaurants and only tie-dye clothes (or in some instances hemp) be permitted.”

So what’s gonna, ya know, change?

Jun 7, 2005 - 1:56 pm 3. ed:

Hmmmm.

“I think we should just fence ‘em off and release the Gitmo detainees inside, solving two problems at once. Of course, AI might complain about the torture of exposing the prisoners to guys in pink bunny suits, but hey, freedom ain’t free…”

You know. That would make one helluva episode of either “Fear Factor” or “Scare Tactics”.

I’m sure CAIR would object but I’d pay money to see that.

Jun 7, 2005 - 2:04 pm 4. Occam's Beard:

When I lived in Berkeley there was bumper sticker making the rounds “I Live in Berkeley…the Open Ward.”

Now it sounds as though they’re finally going to do something about that oversight.

Jun 7, 2005 - 2:04 pm 5. erp:

Re: The mirage editorial.

I have suggestion for those purists uncomfortable about living in a town named after a slave holder. Why not change your name to Berzerkley. We in the Earthling community have been using that name with good results for decades, and I’m reasonably sure no one by that name has ever owned slaves, so you’d be safe on that score.

I’d think this was a lot funnier if my four darling grandchildren didn’t live there. It makes me sick to think they are going to schools where this insanity is considered normal.

Jun 7, 2005 - 2:41 pm 6. Terrye:

Nonsense like this is the reason that a lot of people in the other 49 states don’t get all that upset at the idea of a major earthquake sending California into the Pacific.

Can I still call it Cailfornia?

For a bunch of people that believe in live and let die they sure are judgmental.

Jun 7, 2005 - 2:42 pm 7. Jamie Irons:

Roger, your analysis is both hilarious and probably prescient.

Another sad thing about Berkeley (where I have many friends) is that the city is becoming more and more run down and depressing. Like the ideas of many of its luminaries, it is becoming increasingly threadbare.

Jamie Irons

Jun 7, 2005 - 2:42 pm 8. Jamie Irons:

From the article:

Jefferson parents, students and teachers opted to rename the school after the three Sequoia trees on the school’s campus.

I am inclined to wonder whether these are “Sequoia” trees in the ordinary sense of the word. Most likely they are California coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) which ordinary, non-Berkeley people call, in their vernacular, “redwoods.”

What most people call the “Sequoia” is the Giant Sequoia of the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, confined (in its non-cultivated form) to a very few groves there.

Here’s a comparison of the features of the two species.

Jamie Irons

Jun 7, 2005 - 2:56 pm 9. Jamie Irons:

Terrye:

Nonsense like this is the reason that a lot of people in the other 49 states don’t get all that upset at the idea of a major earthquake sending California into the Pacific.

When the separation happens, won’t you toss a life ring in my direction, darling?

Jamie Irons

Jun 7, 2005 - 2:59 pm 10. Morgan:

I’m pretty sure the PC police won’t allow fireworks. They pollute, and they’re dangerous, and those explosions desensitize children to the horrors of war.

Otherwise I’ll lay a fiver that you’re on the mark.

Funny thing is, I think it would make a mint!

I have considered running for mayor of my fair midwestern city on a platform of turning the place into a socialist outpost. We’ll tax everything heavily, and transfer it to anyone who can’t work due to disability, laziness, or having other priorities. And we’ll pump tons of money into the schools, into mass transit, and provide free healthcare and child care for everyone. Plus a recreation allowance.

The money will come from all the rich lefties who will flock here to fulfill their dream of having their wealth confiscated for the good of all while living in what I like to think of as “our little paradise”.

Think there are enought true believers out there to make it work?

Jun 7, 2005 - 3:04 pm 11. chuck:

Jamie,

At some point crime will reach a tipping point. It is already driving families out, soon it may drive out the singles. I don’t see any Giulianis out there, but at least his example is available as a reference.

Jun 7, 2005 - 3:07 pm 12. Kevin P:

Roger:

It’s their school, if they want to change the name of it to something that has as much meaning as the various names attached to suburban housing developments so be it. Berkley, with all the sordid memories of slavery that must leave a mental wound on every African American every time it is mentioned, can be changed to Rainbow City. Everyone likes rainbows, right? In fact all those historical references that hinder the right of every berklian, er, Rainbowian can be changed to names that are a cross between Sesame Street and Pravda Speak. And I apologize to all non christians for using the word cross in the last sentence. It is a residue of my upbringing in hegemonic crusader thought. Whatever pain or insult I have caused by using such anglosaxon hate speech is being drummed out of my system with medication.

Jun 7, 2005 - 3:11 pm 13. Jamie Irons:

Kevin P

As a hegemon myself (though too lazy to crusade), I like what you’re saying.

I don’t think we should stop, however, with expunging the name “Jefferson” from our schools. Virtually every president (well, the Republicans anyway) has or had some bad aspect.

Nixon: like shooting fish in a barrell, that one. Can’t imagine a “Nixon Elementary.”

Ford: Hell, his name’s already associated with a polluting automobile. And he pardoned Nixon!

Reagan: Give me a break! Evil empires, Iran-Contra, ketchup as a vegetable. Would you want your daughter to go to “Ronald Reagan High”?

Lincoln: (A Republican, though an early one). Look at how long it took him to get around to the Emancipation Proclamation!

You see how it works.

Jamie Irons

Jun 7, 2005 - 3:30 pm 14. lindenen:

And that bastard Lincoln even allowed Maryland to be exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation!

Jun 7, 2005 - 3:41 pm 15. Jamie Irons:

From “The Daily Californian”:

Jefferson parent Mark Piccillo, who voted to keep the name “Jefferson,” said the close parent vote indicates significant support for standing behind Jefferson, who Piccillo said was an important figure in American culture and philosophy.

“It’s a very liberal community, but there’s still a lot of people–which was heartening to me–that aren’t going to tow a certain line,” Piccillo said. “Even though it’s not real Berkeley-like to be pro-American, I think people do see that there’s an American culture and there’s an ethos there.”

You know, it’s somehow reassuring that, with our young men and women dying to defend the freedom of the fine citizens of Berkeley, Mr. Piccillo can still stand there, like Odysseus lashed to the mast amid the Berkeley-generated gales of self-congratulatory non-pro-Americanness, and so eloquently aver that “there’s an American culture and there’s an ethos there.”

Jamie Irons

Jun 7, 2005 - 3:56 pm 16. Terrye:

Jamie:

Honey, you are on your own.

Move, that is all I can say.

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:12 pm 17. Silicon valley Jim:

over-sized dolls of Abbie Hoffman, Alan Ginsburg and Jerry Garcia.

Isn’t that “Allen Ginsberg”?

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:22 pm 18. Jamie Irons:

Silicon Valley Jim:

It is indeed Allen Ginsberg, whose most memorable line may have been:

America, I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Jamie Irons

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:41 pm 19. Pat Patterson:

I think it is kinda cute, a nice, safe tree-hugger name. I teach in Orange County where the parents of Cal bound students are very proud but they also tell their sons and daughters not to talk to the riff raff.

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:44 pm 20. Kyda Sylvester:

Ya know, there places in Berserkeley I’d like to go, like the botanical gardens for instance, but I refuse to set a foot inside city limits. Silly, I know, but there you are.

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:46 pm 21. richard mcenroe:

Ah, Ginsberg…

I saw the best minds of my generation–

not around Berkeley, though…

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:49 pm 22. Kyda Sylvester:

Not the whole state please, Terrye. Just enough so that my foothills property becomes ocean front.

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:50 pm 23. Kyda Sylvester:

Morgan–That was hilarious. You, too, Roger (my 3rd laugh-out-loud of the day). Glad you’re back.

Jun 7, 2005 - 4:58 pm 24. Mark Poling:

Meaning no moral offense to any of the ex-members, but doesn’t it seem like 60’s Leftism has become the 21st Century’s Confederacy?

Berkely Fried Hummus, anyone?

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:01 pm 25. chuck:

but doesn’t it seem like 60’s Leftism has become the 21st Century’s Confederacy?

Don’t know, but I have wondered a bit if the economic consequences of Massachusetts leaving the Union wouldn’t be more tolerable than the political consequences of them staying.

As to California, I am still waiting for the Barbarians to descend from the hills and overrun the coastal civilization, leaving a trail of rape and pillage behind them. Where the heck are they, anyway, still waiting on the mortgage rates?

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:09 pm 26. Knucklehead:

Mark Poling,

If’n y’all aks me, 60’s Leftism has become something like the 21st century’s Calvaninism, but what do I know.

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:09 pm 27. Mark Poling:

The Left Shall Rise Again!

(So spake Brother Dean).

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:13 pm 28. Buddy Larsen:

Hey, thanks, never thought about it befo’, but the 60s sucked in all three of our centuries. Lucky for us, next set of 60s, we’ll all be ridin’ herd on the stray cumulouses.

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:23 pm 29. Buddy Larsen:

“Big Sit-In at Fort Sumter, Lincoln Sends in Young Wavy Gravy to Counsel Bad Sarsparilla Cases!”

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:28 pm 30. Elaine_T:

/unlurk

“Nixon: like shooting fish in a barrell, that one. Can’t imagine a “Nixon Elementary.”

Actually there’s a Nixon Elementary School in Palo Alto, CA.

Ok, It’s “Lucille M. Nixon School”, not Richard M.

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:30 pm 31. Morgan:

Chapel Hill-Carrboro (NC) school district accepted public input for names for the new elementary school. Among the names suggested:

Jesse Helms Elementary

The New Carl Marx Elementary

Che Guevara Elementary School of the Socialist Republic of Chapel Hill

Rampant Unsustainable Development Elementary or RUDE

School for Rich Children

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:41 pm 32. Terrye:

This is really off topic, but did anyone hear anyting about the 9/11 Memorial?

I hear they are going to go all root causes and PC and just kinda ignore the people who [you know] died that day.

I saw something at LGF about it.

I am going to write Pataki. Hell I might write Bush.

I know I do not want the ACLU anywhere near this.

I would not put it past them to apologize for AbuGhraib.

I remember when the troops went in Iraq and found prisons for children. They even found people who had been left underground and were staying alive by eating scabs off their wounds.

But hey, at least they did not find anyone with panties on their heads. or having sex and acting stupid.. or in human pyramids.

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:44 pm 33. mrp:

Hey, thanks, never thought about it befo’, but the 60s sucked in all three of our centuries.

The 1760’s didn’t suck all that much, except for parts of the French and Indian War – that probably sucked for the people that got scalped and killed and stuff, but all in all, the only time it really sucked was when Parliament passed the Stamp Tax, and then, boy howdy, the low-rent crowd in Boston went nuts and it truly sucked to be a tax collector, or somebody holding Sam Adam’s IOU.

Jun 7, 2005 - 5:47 pm 34. mrp:

Terrye -

Amen. The MSM has already forgotten about the men who had their hands amputated by Saddam’s goons. Even the NYT, once upon a time, published a story about school girls that disappeared because of who their parents were, or who asked the wrong question in class.

But all that is now forgotten or buried. The Republicans must be destroyed, no matter how much damage is inflicted on American societies.

Jun 7, 2005 - 6:13 pm 35. chuck:

Speaking of the SF area, it brings out the best in Howard Dean:

‘They [Republicans] all behave the same. They all look the same. It’s pretty much a white Christian party’…

Go to Drudge. Does the Democratic party really want to start a race/religious war? I get that feeling these days.

Jun 7, 2005 - 6:26 pm 36. mrp:

Chuck-

And all Dean does is anger the honorable people who are NOT Republican, or white, or Christian — people who can no longer in good conscience vote for Democratic candidates in the party’s mainstream. We need a strong two-party system, with two parties that can at least agree on national security objectives. We don’t have that now.

Today Jimmy Carter gave a speech where he demanded that the administration close down the Guantanamo detainee complex as a token of US obeisance to the international human rights community. Democratic senator Joe Biden said much the same thing last Sunday. If they had their way, how many Americans would be at risk – or die – because they lacked the intelligence witheld by the detainees?

Jun 7, 2005 - 6:44 pm 37. Katherine:

Chuck,

ìDoes the Democratic party really want to start a race/religious war?î

From the San Francisco Outpost of the Jesusland: Bring it on.

Jun 7, 2005 - 6:45 pm 38. chuck:

A cartoon to enjoy with the news. Truly, I believe Dean *does* believe the Democrats are the majority party, and that the left constituency is the heart of the Democrats. Being born on Park Avenue and summering in the Hamptons doesn’t give a guy much understanding of the country he, sorta, lives in.

Meanwhile, a Spanish judge wants to question the soldiers who fired the tank round at the hotel (remember that). Seems to me that all this stuff, together with AI and the MSM is going to convince a large portion of the populace that we *are* at war — with the moonbats. Then they will draw together to fight back. I will be really interested to see how the polls go over the next year and what happens in 2006. I could be wrong, but I don’t think the rest of the country is all that different from myself.

Jun 7, 2005 - 6:54 pm 39. Buddy Larsen:

Tarnation! Wayt’ll Ah tell Cletus n’ Festus…we ‘goan git to hang us some comm-yew-nisses!

Jun 7, 2005 - 6:55 pm 40. Buddy Larsen:

Cathy Seipp zeros in on the same sort of thinking nearby.

Jun 7, 2005 - 7:30 pm 41. c:

Chuck,

Dean is white and Christian… Come on down, Howie! Buchanan will have you.

Jun 7, 2005 - 7:35 pm 42. triticale:

There’s a new theory out there that Jefferson was on the autism spectrum; probably an Aspergers case. If so, taking his name off the school is an insult to all the diferrently-learning.

Jun 7, 2005 - 7:43 pm 43. Kyda Sylvester:

As to California, I am still waiting for the Barbarians to descend from the hills and overrun the coastal civilization, leaving a trail of rape and pillage behind them. Where the heck are they, anyway, still waiting on the mortgage rates?

We’re biding our time, Chuck, biding our time. We sense you flatlanders are getting jittery and that’s when you start making mistakes.

Jun 7, 2005 - 8:26 pm 44. Kyda Sylvester:

This is really off topic, but did anyone hear anyting about the 9/11 Memorial?

I urge everyone to read the Debra Burlingame commentary that LGF linked to (link only good for 7 days).

This is an outrage (and wouldn’t you know Geo Soros would be in the thick of things–what do we do to rid ourselves of this scourge on our humanity). How. Dare. They.

Debra Burlingame, sister of one of the AA Flt 77 pilots, is one of the 3 women who spoke at the Republican convention (Jeremy Glick’s widow and the widow of a firefighter and mother of a Marine were the other 2). If you weren’t watching C-Span you missed these ladies and their stiring impassioned tribute to 9-11. (People who weren’t watching C-Span sadly missed a lot of things–like Ron Silver’s speech for instance.)

Jun 7, 2005 - 8:53 pm 45. Barry Dauphin:

mrp

I was thinking the same thing about the Carter “proclamation”. He’s worried about our reputation. He’s worried about appearances, not with whether the “reputation” is deserved or whether the detention serves a security function. The only complainers Carter won’t listen to are the losers of dictator-rigged elections. It is an echo of the Clinton administration par excellance. Appearances matter most as if appearances will actually do anything about al Qaeda.

When Rumsfeld spoke with Clinton administration people while Clinton was in office (including Sandy “socks” Burglar if memory serves me), he said to the other Republicans after the meeting something to the effect of: did you notice how they only spoke of appearances throughout the meeting not whether anything they were doing would actually keep America safe.

Jun 7, 2005 - 9:02 pm 46. Buddy Larsen:

Please, if the link is only temporary, save it now, read it when possible. It’s more than a blood-boiler, it’s a call to contact someone in DC. I’m not sure of the lines of authority, but this sort of sh*t must not pass unnoticed.

It mentions Soros’ Open Society Institute, which I wish I’d remembered yest when Thibaud, Morgan and others were into the stacks on AI. I’d heard a FoxNews report on OSI some weeks back, that it receives thirty some-odd million bucks a year from Uncle Sam, and when Fox asked into it’s democratic party activities, answered with, ‘the grant money defrays the scholarship program, none of those dollars go into political activity’.

When did money go unfungible, stupid me wonders?

Jun 7, 2005 - 9:11 pm 47. Buddy Larsen:

I’m sorry, I referred to Kyda’s link. And Ron Silver is aces.

Jun 7, 2005 - 9:13 pm 48. Kyda Sylvester:

Speaking of the SF area, it brings out the best in Howard Dean

No, no, no–it’s too soon for him to crack up and get tossed out on his ear. We’re not done with him yet.

Jun 7, 2005 - 9:20 pm 49. Patrick Tyson:

2018 …

It really was the old Telegraph Avenue, Nigel thought. They had actually encased and preserved it.

He ambled slowly down the broad walkway. This nexus point of legendary Berkeley was still a broad pedestrian mall, the way he’d known it in 1994. On impulse Nigel hooked his hands into his hip pockets, a gesture he somehow associated with those earliest days. There were few people on the mall this May afternoon, mostly tourists nosing about the memento shops near Sather Gate. A flock of them had got off the BART car with him and followed him up Bancroft. Chinese and Brazilians, mostly, chattering amiably amongst themselves, gawking, pointing out the sights. They’d all stopped to read the plaque set in concrete where Leary finally died in his desperate bid for hip redemption; some had even taken photographs of it.

A bird coasted in on the prevailing Bay breeze and fluttered to a perch in one of the eucalyptus trees dotting the mall. When Nigel had studied astrophysics here in 1994, Telegraph was still a gray pallor of concrete, greasy restaurants and the faint tang of marijuana and incense. Well, the rich flavor of incense remained, drifting into the street from open shop doors. That scruffy, noisy Telegraph he remembered was now charming and soothing as it basked in the yellow spring sunlight. Nice, yes, but in the worst sense of the word. The zest of the past was missing. The hub of student life had shifted north of the campus, amid the rambling houses of redwood; anyway, Berkeley was no longer the cauldron of the avant-garde.

He checked himself: was Telegraph frozen in the past, or merely Nigel Walmsley? At forty-six such a question was worth pondering. But no—as he passed an open shop door the sounds of antique music filtered out. “White Rabbit.” Gracie Slick. Surrealistic Pillow. A genuine collector’s item in the original pressing. The shop was almost certainly using a fax crystal, though, he noted with the purist’s disdain that gave him such an odd, eccentric pleasure. Fully half a music buff’s delight lay in the careful hoarding of such details. They weren’t playing it right, either; that particular number should have been so loud he could have heard it a block away. Nigel wondered what the original Airplane would have thought of using their music to promote tourism….

He tried to see remnants of the Telegraph he knew. All the world was coming to be like this, new and strange and adrift, somehow, from its past. Perhaps people were trying to forget the crisis years. They harked back to the ’50s and ’60s of the last century and skipped over the stinging memories of the ’80s and ’90s. And, for the other side of the coin, the New Sons, another kind of turning away from reality. Ah, well, the Sons bit had to be a passing phase; the pendulum had to swing. They’d been around for decades after all.

—Gregory Benford, In The Ocean Of Night, (1977)

Good book, but memorable for that…sort of like all those showings of The Graduate I attended. The audience invariably reacted audibly to Benjamin driving the wrong way over the Bay Bridge, but remained silent while USC and locations unknown stood in for the university and the college town.

So, here’s to you Mrs. Robinson and, if I may, to my great, non-elitist alma-mater (despite a transcript littered with grades to make a parent despair) situated in a town to make an adult despair. May it always be so.

Laugh about it, shout about it

When you’ve got to choose

Every way you look at it you lose.

Jun 7, 2005 - 9:30 pm 50. AJ Kaufman:

Sequoia! I guess there is a place more Left-wing environmentalist(ically) nutty than LA. Thank you, Berkeley.

Today my students had their final math test abruptly interrupted for a NINTH Envt’l Indoctrination Assembly (an “EIA”). This was put on by UCLA film students. It blamed humans for the deaths of all the animals and trees. Funny, I think that 95% of this nation in gorgeous, and most animals are healthy.

I guess living in LA can taint anyone’s perspective on what is “good” about the country.

Jun 7, 2005 - 9:39 pm 51. richard mcenroe:

Carter wants to close Gitmo. Hell, he orter know about people being held prisoner under inhumane conditions for indefinite periods.

Not like he did squat about it,

He wants to close Gitmo? Open two more.

Jun 7, 2005 - 10:18 pm 52. papertiger:

Sequoia was the chief of the Cherokee long before the tree was named after him.

Ironic that this school, in a nest of bigoted Democrats and socialists, is changing their name to the most luminous of the victims of their first and worst scoundrel Democrat President, Andrew Jackson.

Sequoia fought and won the court case before the Supreme Court which gave the Cherokee clear soveign right over their Georgia lands. The same Supreme Court decision that Andrew Jackson hautily chose to ignore as he stole the land, and sent the Cherokee on the famous trail of tears.

Sequoia also was the man who traveled ahead and picked out Oklahoma as the Cherokee’s new home.

Jun 8, 2005 - 4:43 am 53. Ray Zacek:

Well, Sequioa Elementary sounds better than Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Elementary. I’m still waiting for that one, or Dalton Trumbo Elementary.

Jun 8, 2005 - 7:27 am 54. Kevin P:

AJ:

Berkley is the clear leader in the loony left city contest but Santa Monica is a close second.

Jun 8, 2005 - 8:43 am 55. Buddy Larsen:

At least they didn’t name it “The Truth” Elementary. Or “Let Them Eat Cake” Elementary.

Jun 8, 2005 - 9:11 am 56. Paul Snively:

Completely OT, but would someone please notify the paper quoted earlier that the phrase is “toe the line,” and comes from prizefighting, referring to the rule that the boxer’s toe could be no farther forward than the chalk line on the floor?

Thank you.

Jun 8, 2005 - 9:23 am 57. Kyda Sylvester:

AJ & Kevin P–I’d like to put a word in for Santa Cruz. Any place that chooses Sheila James Kuehl to represent it has got to be a contender (Kuehl, btw, is a very intelligent, accomplished woman–it’s just her politics I can’t stand). And, goodness, let’s not forget our beautiful City by the Bay. If there’s a nutty idea out there, SF will try it first.

(papertiger–My name is Cherokee and, although I’m not, I’ve always had an affinity for them and their story–another sad chapter in the dark side of our history. Hey, do you think this entitles me to a tenured position at UC??)

Jun 8, 2005 - 10:23 am 58. calvinist:

All streets will be scented with patchouli, meat banned from the restaurants and only tie-dye clothes (or in some instances hemp) be permitted

I don’t think Alice Waters would be too pleased.

Jun 8, 2005 - 12:38 pm

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