If you’re like me, the only bus you ever use is the 51. And if you’re also like me, then you’ve noticed that during the past week every 51 bus has been mysteriously packed to the brim, to the point that those of us getting on near campus can’t even fit on the buses anymore, making our expensive class passes useless.

Well, like any good reporter, I’ve got a scoop, and I’ve got two sources to back it up: the woman on the bus who told me and me when I repeated it to my girlfriend. Anyway, word on the street, or rather, on the incredibly cramped dangerously overloaded bus, is that AC Transit has slashed the number of 51 buses by 25%.

Why they chose the most popular and useful line in Berkeley I don’t know. I guess because it was the biggest thing to cut. Some people think it’s just a test and they’re gonna add more buses back to rebalance the load, but my theory is they’re gonna keep it like this for a while until people get so sick of the cramped buses that they stop using them and the load magically fixes itself through fewer people using it.

I have no idea why they’d do that, but it seemed to be the most sinister and least charitable interpretation, so that’s what I went with.

Another alternative sinister theory would be that this is an AC Transit ploy to get people complaining and to drum up support for more taxes on local businesses to pay for more buses. I’d promise you more on this as it develops, but I just remembered I’m not an actual reporter and will probably just go back to posting things about Cal football. 

You know, if http://itunes.berkeley.edu/ were better organized and had some more interesting content, it could make an interesting replacement for KALX, which no one really listens to at all.

Podcasting is kind of a dumb technology, if it can even be called that, but it is decent for long drives and things like that. A ways back the Squelch was supposed to have a comedy radio show on KALX, but there were creative differences:

They wanted us to produce an hour of comedy a week.

We wanted to produce a half hour a month and graduate on time.

Fear not, I have no intention of creating a Squelch podcast. Don’t have the talent or the time, but if the Berkeley itunes portal took off, producing 5 or 10 minute comedy bits sporadically would be a lot easier there than on legitimate local radio. 

Well, it appears the long ridiculous ASUC elections may finally be over. According to Beetle, SA won their appeal. I refuse to wait for a 20 page decision to comment!

You could definitely look at this result and say "Well, we all just wated our time," but I’ve now given this five minutes thought and I think this was the right outcome.

What was all the fighting about? Student Action refused to participate in the appeal process and tried to win by subverting the system. Through a lot of effort, they were basically forced to go back to the judicial council and participate in the real, constitutional mechanism of the ASUC.

Again, I haven’t read the decision. So long as it’s not rambling and incoherent, I assume it was fine. I must admit I thought the double jeopardy angle was weak, but there were plenty of other valid reasons they could’ve chosen. SA had several reasonable grounds of appeal (which is again what made their rash actions over the last month so strange). I personally think the bylaws are seriously flawed if there was no reasonable punishment for blatant perjury, but that’s a matter for reform and not something the Judicial Council can really fix on the fly.

I must admit that I would’ve been happiest if the entire ASUC were somehow destroyed by all this and we got to rebuild it from scratch, but at least now the system, however flawed, is going to keep operating under its basic constitution instead of through a crazy free-for-all whatever the Exec says system. I’d rather have the current flawed constitution in place than have it just be completely ignored which would encourage every year to become an insane lawsuit filled struggle. 

Hah!

You know, the Daily Cal reporter took 9 million photos, but I knew after he only took one of us holding up the signs that that would be the one.

Just so no one criticizes the Daily Cal on this front, yes, I actually look like that. I understand that you might think they photoshopped my arm, but no, that’s just the way my arms work. My father’s side of the family is built out of toothpicks and glue, and I retain those special characteristics.

What doesn’t make much sense is why it’s a shot of only three people holding up signs (me holding up a pamphlet I was using to fan myself with) when there were a lot of better looking group shots before Van and everyone went to the other side of the room to go give speeches. What makes even less sense is taking only one picture, thus ensuring that one of the three people will be wiping their nose, or whatever the hell that guy’s doing.

I’m not gonna claim this was protest of the century. Most certainly not. But the crowd was a hell of a lot better than me, Aaron, and a guy wiping his nose.

PS: Aaron is a coward, as soon as we saw that the Daily Cal reporter was about to snap the photo, he tucked the sign down in front of his face. 

Well, stupid poopy head Beetle managed to post first and completely distill everything I would’ve said into one paragraph, but I have something he doesn’t have! I was actually THERE! And I drew pictures!

Presenting the Poorly Illustrated Gazette’s Visual Coverage of the City of Berkeley Council Meeting:

First there was the press conference. There were a lot of people there, though most of them were from Oakland and supporting worker retention efforts. Here’s Ben in a snappy jean shorts Tshirt combo that really got things rolling:

Here’s a wider shot of the majestic Old City Hall with igor standing in front. Those things at his feet are the kickass portable speakers they brought, not boxes with little hats drown on them:

 

After a great deal of waiting, the city Council meeting finally began. I know most people don’t understand how the city council works, so I’ve helpfully labeled each of the members:

 

Then a whole bunch of people talked, but the first one was this guy who verbally threatened the Council Members and said that if they didn’t stop the Bart Ashby development plan they’d be real sorry!

 

As for the actual arguments, they went mostly as beetle described, though here’s a bit more texture. The city council was kind of bitchy and repeatedly asked if the people speaking were "from berkeley" or were in second place in the election. Implying that if the first were true, they shouldn’t be there, and if the second was, anything they said was meaningless because they were biased.

Here are my awards: 

Best Dressed goes to Lauren Karasek, whose black dress with white trim did much to show off her figure.

Best comment of the evening goes to the crazy lady who at the end of the night said something like "Our friends the trees, who absorb the carbon, need our help" … "will you give me a computer? Our untested technologies are something something … a hallmark of the earth’s impending MAGNETIC POLAR SHIFT"

Topic of the Night: This is a tie between ASUC Autonomy and Global Warming. A lot of talk about global warming. At one point a woman thanked Mayor Tom Bates "on behalf of the earth" for a recent bill he passed. After she sat down, he thanked the earth for its kind words. It was also mentioned that "perforated asphault" leads to global warming, which I guess is true since asphault is really hot. 

Best word created by city government goes to "Visioning," as in, "This bill will create a committee to help the Ashby area visioning of the Ashby Bart improvement project"

Coolest thing of the night goes to the closed captioning system. This thing was fucking psychic. I worried for the ASUC speakers because how could they win an argument when the other side already knew what they were saying? The closed captioning sometimes fell behind but occasionally got ahead of the speakers too to make up for it.

Best overall argument goes to Lauren Karasek who had the best prepared speech and who got very huffy when the council tried to pretend she was only interested in getting into office, saying if she lost she’d "go get a real job."

And that’s the end of my coverage. I’d like to thank the daily cal political cartoon illustrator from last year for inspiring my artistic growth. Goodnight. 

PS: For those wondering how I gave out awards after only spending an hour at a 3 hour council meeting, screw you. You try sitting in a hot stuffy room through 3 hours of screaming local residents bitching about traffic. "OH god, not development of new businesses! There’ll be traffic!" 

Frankly, the Daily Cal staff seems overworked. To help them out, I’ve created this handy editor’s guide. Using this impressive formula, you can create at least one Daily Cal story a week (note, I’m more making fun of the city of Berkeley than the Daily Cal in this instance, so don’t be too disappointed):

 

Critics Weigh in on UC Proposal
By [name]

A campus plan to [do anything] is drawing sharp criticism from city officials as the 60-day review period for the project’s [type of environmental report] comes to a close tomorrow.

Berkeley City Council members [attacked, condemned, or criticized] the UC Berkeley [anything] at their  meeting, saying the plan would create [traffic] and [noise problems].

"[overly dramatic and incoherently paraphrased quote about fighting this to the bitter end]," said [Mayor Tom Bates or Local Store Owner] at the council’s meeting.

The plan includes [something incredibly sensible] to [help everyone] and [improve the campus].

The plan would result in a net gain of [number] parking slots, which [Mayor Tom Bates or Local Store Owner] said would lead to [noise] and [traffic noise].

"It just seems to me to be really [unfair reduction of issue]," he said.

Several city commissions with interest in the project’s impact have offered input on the plan, and some area residents are circulating a neighborhood petition in opposition, particularly with regards to [best part of the proposal].

Campus officials, however, said [bland statement vaguely contradicting the city].

Some council members said [completely unrelated argument, perhaps about Berkeley in the 60’s].

"I want to look seriously at [unrealistic solution]," said Councilmember [insert name of Daily Cal reporter’s friend, who’ll notice?], whose constituents live in proximity to the proposed project.

The project would cost the UC system more than [meaningless number] million. [sentence saying it’s completely up to the UC System and everything we’ve just read was pointless and meant nothing].

The project’s draft environmental impact report, which considers the implications of new construction on [traffic or noise], [a rare species of fish found only in Asia] and [Cody’s Books] will be released [who cares when].

But [city official] said the city would not cooperate with university officials.

"It’s going to be difficult to negotiate with them until they come to their senses," he said.

Daily cal website is back. Hence a link to their version of my article.

They didn’t change much, but they did wussify a little bit of my original language to make it more "factual." I think it’s astonishing how little interest the official student newspaper of UC Berkeley has in the current ASUC controversy. I know ASUC stuff is generally boring, but why the one time a story isn’t boring do they give it absolutely no real coverage and act so blase about the whole thing? 

Click Here
Unfortunately there’s a few reasons why you may have trouble reading it. One being that the Daily Cal’s website is down. Two being that they printed it in a giant wall of text in the smallest font they could find.

They’re nice folk, the Daily Cal staff, but I’m always a little unsure if they understand that newspapers are supposed to be read. Why tell me the article had to be 800 words if they were gonna cram those 800 in so much?

Their own editorial was also a little lacking in any fire and oomph. Their opinion boiled down to: Manny acted bad, but now they should agree to power-share for the summer. I gotta say I’m not buying that though I know many people are. It all just seems like an excuse for Student Action to drag things out until the senate can pass an unconstitutional order declaring them the victors.

Anyway, until the Daily Cal puts it online, here’s a copy that’s mostly the same but with a few of their minor edits missing:

Subterfuge May Destroy ASUC
By Simon Ganz

On July 15th, if the Judicial Council rules as expected, Student Action will hold the Associated Students of the University of California hostage with a federal lawsuit. The University will face thousands of dollars in legal costs, and by the time this whole mess is over, there may no longer be a student government. How did this happen?

Student Action easily dominated the recent ASUC elections. Almost every candidate they ran won, and in all but a few key races, their margins were decisive. Then, for reasons known only to them, they threw it all away.

Faced with minor (though blatant) campaign violations, they committed obvious and needless perjury in front of the ASUC Judicial Council. They lied and lied and lied and lied about the most basic facts you can imagine. They claimed they didn’t know how chalk worked. That’s right, CHALK. That stuff in every room in every building on campus. Then at a later hearing, they lied about lying. Maybe they were emboldened because they had no other serious opponents, or maybe they just thought lying would be easier, but for whatever reason, they did everything possible to circumvent the system. Faced with such a bizarre conspiracy of perjury and feigned-idiocy, the Judicial Council, which is charged with upholding the rules, was forced to disqualify them from the election.

Then on June 27th, former ASUC President Manny Buenrostro issued Executive Order #7, attempting to arbitrarily declare victory for all of his fellow Student Action candidates. There were several problems with this. For one, he wasn’t president anymore. Sidestepping that however, it was a blatant and obvious coup d’état. The order rambled through tissue-thin logic that would make even the most cynical of third-world dictators blush. At one point it claimed that 4 out of 7 justices was a “small minority,” and the order did everything but dissolve the entire government and declare Manny god. It was amazingly, stupendously, fantastically illegal. Somewhere a defense attorney wept with joy while reading it.

Unfortunately Manny probably went deaf after the explosive barrage of laughter his order prompted from both the ASUC Auxiliary (read: the people who actually write the checks) and his own lawyers. He’s now declared that, “oh wait, forget that last order, but now all the Student Action candidates are just temporarily in office for the summer, to, you know, keep the offices in Eshleman warm.”

Student Action says that if they don’t get their way, they’ll not only sue the University in federal court, but also the individual members of the Judicial Council. Should that occur, the University will be more than justified should they choose to end the ruse of ASUC autonomy and dissolve the entire organization. Student Action has proven that the ASUC is nothing more than over-grown children playing with daddy’s money. Time and time again the University has bailed out the organization when its own petty squabbling has led to budget shortfalls and other minor disasters. This executive order is a new low and the University will have to step in, and at the very least, choose sides. But once they’ve done that, they’ll have to ask themselves, “Is a system this corrupt, this despised, this pathetic, this big of a legal liability, really worth it?”

In covering this event last week, the Daily Cal portrayed all this drama as nothing more than routine bickering and disagreement, passively suggesting there was no real conflict at all. But as disappointing an organization as the ASUC has been, this is not just business as usual. Frankly, both the Daily Cal and Student Action missed the point.

Student Action has shown an absolute contempt for the democratic process and has gone too far, even by the reduced standards of inept student government. They claim that the party with the most votes should win—and they’re right—but what about the party that threatens fellow students with lawsuits? What about the party that tries to cheat and lie their way through even a simple disciplinary hearing? If they act this way when faced with a meaningless trial about improper chalking, how are they going to act if they get into office? There’s an old phrase: It’s the cover up, not the crime that gets you in trouble.

No one should hate Student Action. They’re filled with people who are, somehow, miraculously, actually passionate about student government. Many people disagree with the way they do things, but there’s no denying that they work very hard to achieve their campaign promises and that they’re committed to doing things for the student body. But for whatever reason, they made some very stupid and very strange decisions, and they’ll have to live with them. Now they’ll have to decide if they want to win so badly that they’d rather destroy the ASUC than accept the consequences of their own actions.

I’m going to resist the urge to write endlessly about the recent ASUC election. So indulge me this one more post.

For those not paying attention, the gist is that the party that won the election (by a strong majority) got disqualified for blatantly breaking the rules. After various threats of lawsuit, the party then decided not to try to win their case on appeal in the ASUC’s Judicial system and instead simply declared themselves the winners. They’ve tried to make it all seem very official, using the tortured logic of a third world dictator ala Woody Allen’s Bananas. Basically, rather than risk losing the election, they’ve decided to play a game of chicken where the entire student government could be destroyed if people refuse to get out of their way.

Here’s what bugs me so much about all this: It was so unecessary. Student Action pulled a Nixon. They easily won the election, didn’t even need to campaign, and yet they still decided that when push came to shove, they were gonna lie and cheat as much as they could. I understand their anger over being disqualified, especially since they won most of the races so handily, but this wasn’t some outside oppression. They did it to themselves by deciding to, rather than cooperating and probably getting a lightweight sentence, lie as much as they could to the judicial council. Not only that, but for those who remember, they also tried to get Igor disqualified with fake testimony and dirty tricks.

It was just all so pointless. Hell, even now when they’re trying to destroy the ASUC and steal the government at all costs, they still could’ve waited to see whether they won their case on appeal. SA is acting like they’ve been persecuted by some minority of justices or individuals, but the truth is that this has all been caused by their refusal to follow simple rules. Rules they didn’t even need to break. I can’t emphasize this enough; if they just behaved sensibly, just acted like any reasonable person would, I’m more than certain they’d all be legitimately in office right now planning their agenda for the next year. Instead they decided to lie and cheat at every possible moment. I don’t want to blame their entire executive slate for this because who knows what actually went on in their strategy discussions, but someone somewhere has serious Nixon-like dementia and decided that winning while completely destroying the system would be a better outcome than just winning. 

Inspired by: this and this.

Dear Judicial Council:

As you are aware, in June 2006, former ASUC President Manuel Buenrostro issued an executive order declaring decisive victories for all Student Action candidates in their respective bids for the office of President, Executive Vice-President, Academic Affairs Vice-President, and External Affairs Vice-President of the ASUC.

Following in this legal trendsetter’s path, I realize that I hold just as much claim to the office of ASUC President as former President Buenrostro does. Furthermore, I take my position as fake President of the ASUC very seriously and will not stand for a small minority of 4 out of 7 Justices standing in my way.

I hereby issue the following executive order to be complied with immediately. Any further action on this matter shall not be undertaken until after the ASUC Senate returns to campus in the Fall of 2006:

Whereas: The authority of the ASUC rests upon the democratic will of the students of the University of California; and

Whereas: Oren Gabriel, Vishal Gupta, Joyce Liou, and Jason Chu all have pretty cool names and their names could probably be rearranged to form a really great title for a band; and

Whereas: A small minority of the Judicial Council is made up of minorities; and

Whereas: During this time, the ASUC Executives have been unable to discharge critical functions, and should probably see a urologist:

So ordered:

1. I hereby transfer $20,000 from the Legal Defense Fund to the Heuristic Squelch

2. I hereby countermand Executive Order #7. Nothing personal.

3. I hereby rename the ASUC Senate the Galactic Senate.

4. I hereby dissolve the Galactic Senate. The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.

5. From this day on, the official language of UC Berkeley will be Swedish. Silence!

6. Jag beställer härmed utvecklingen av en Star kriger MissileDefense skyddar genom att använda alla resterande ASUC-fonder för efter året. Ska ej längre de stolt swedish steppesna av berkeley återstår i skräck av de Mongol horderna!

Beställde så detta den twenty-seventh dagen av Juni 2006.

Simon Ganz
Inte President, 1985 - 2054
Enjoyer av tillhörande deltagare av universityen av Kalifornien