Melody Jones

every year the city of berkeley celebrates it’s uniqueness with a parade and festival called “how berkeley can you be?” it’s a great day to witness all of the pecularities of the city and celebrate it’s originality and tolerance.
but recently, berkeley has not lived up to it’s own berkeleyness at all! for almost two years, the university had been battling a group of tree sitters who were trying to salvage a beautiful grouping of old growth trees from being cut down to build another sports related facility. my motto throughout the year has been “if you can’t save a tree in berkeley, where in hell can you?” seriously… this town is known for it’s political activism, forward thinking, green lifestyles, and intellegence! if you can’t save a tree from being cut down here, than the rest of the country is fucked!
well it finally happened last week. the last tree was cut down as helicopters circled above. private news company circled their helicopters above for days before the last tree hit the ground. it was tragic!
once again, money talked and the tree sitters, with their buckets of shit, walked.
the almighty dollar won over the mother earth. the university chose football (aka money) over nature.
the irony, of course is that the university spent well over the amount of money it would have taken to transplant the trees somewhere else, on litigation fees and lawyers. money down the drain. trees, dead on the ground. what a waste…
so i ask you… how berkeley CAN’T you be?