The Minuteman

CROSSING THE CONSERVATIVE WIRES

By Robert Nathan Eberhart
From the October 2006 Print Edition

Berkeley’s higher education

One UC Berkeley student and one recent graduate have been arrested on drug charges in connection with some marijuana-laced baked goods distributed at a party that sent 12 students to the hospital. Graduate Christopher Portka, 23, and second-year student Carmen Andersen, 21, have pled not guilty to the misdemeanor drug charges in Alameda County Superior Court. The cookies, baked and consumed at the university co-op Cloyne Court during a party, raises eyebrows not because some college students got high from some magic muffins, but because of the campus media storm surrounding the arrests. Hippies eating marijuana cookies? Co-op residents getting high at a party in Berkeley? Andersen’s lawyer, Stephen Naratil, released a statement after the formal arraignment, saying that the party-goers who ate the cookies were fully aware that there was marijuana in them, and that the cookies did not contain any other controlled substances. In explaining the co-op residents’ strange behavior he noted, "It was typical symptomology of marijuana use. They were high."

Lefty pretzels

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s left-wing politics and public pronouncements are coming back to bite him. After announcing the creation of a new vice chancellorship of equity and inclusion, members of the local custodial union couldn’t help but feel cheated. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 has begun a vigorous campaign designed to point out the chancellor’s willingness to spend tens of millions of dollars per year to stroke his vanity and need for acceptance at this bastion of left-wing politics, while custodians are having difficulty feeding their families. In an interview with the Berkeley Daily Planet, UC employee Cermen Aguilar said, "After 20 years of service my wages have only increased $6 per hour." Paul Schwartz, a UC spokesman, said that comparing the salary of the new vice chancellorship to wages was like "comparing apples to oranges." Aguilar disagreed: "It’s about making sure there is equality for all workers, not just those at the top." You can always be sure that while elitist liberals squirm at their confused priorities, the Patriot will be there to report their discomfort.

Big Mother is watching you

As Democrats gear up for yet another election-night disappointment, some on the left strive to politicize those not yet able to think for themselves. Democrat and political activist Jeremy Zilber has just released a book designed to illustrate the "core values of the Democratic Party." The book, Why Mommy is a Democrat, depicts a mother rodent protecting her children from various forms of danger, which often take the form of a large elephant, a bloated tycoon, or other GOP caricatures. One scene portrays the mother rodent carefully supervising her children while they share a collection of blocks on the ground. In the background, a homeless man begs for money while a well-dressed man smoking a cigar looks at him as he passes by. The caption on the page says, "Democrats make sure we all share our toys, just like mommy does." This book truly does succeed in revealing the core values of the left: a nanny government that supervises the way we live and forces us to think and behave as children. Forget Big Brother, here we have Big Mother. Surely we thought that Communism died with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but as this book illustratively demonstrates, Democrats still yearn for its return.

Religion, Berkeley-style

The exceptional strangeness of some segments of the Berkeley population can sometimes be attributed to marijuana-laced baked goods, but occasionally we at the Patriot come across things that even the most potent magic muffins would have a difficult time inducing. These posters were recently found distributed on poster boards and car window shields apparently extolling the virtues of a new mystical-mathematical religious cult of some kind. If you can decipher the meaning of this sign, perhaps you’re reading the wrong magazine.

"If you don’t take ‘em, they won’t make ‘em"

While most Cal students waste their time protesting either for absurd impossibilities like the repudiation of national boundaries or in support of terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, one group of irreverant dissidents is actually making a difference here at Cal. These students can be seen almost daily on Sproul Plaza shouting slogans and waving cardboard signs opposing the groups that, like so many mosquitoes buzzing in your ear, pass out fliers to every student who braves the gauntlet of overbearing solicitors as he passes from Sather Gate onto Telegraph for a Fat Slice or a pack of smokes at Whelan’s. An unofficial survey of flier distribution over the past month has documented a precipitous drop in unwanted flier distribution as embarassed members of the various student groups shirk at their own, now publicly acknowledged, irrelevance. The Patriot salutes you, anti-flier malcontents.

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