Someone Finally Admits Berkeley's A Dump

Sep 15 2006

I came across a great article in the Berkeley Daily Californian (in case you didn't read it already) that I just had to share. The article was written by columnist John Waste, and I generally tend to think his articles are a WASTE of time, but I couldn't help but love how one student will finally admit what a God-Forsaken crime ridden dump Berkeley is - ain't it the truth!

JOHN WASTE
Protect and DisserviceFriday, September 15th, 2006

Thank God that every rape, murder and assault case in the greater Berkeley/Oakland area has been solved, freeing up the necessary law enforcement resources to pursue the real menace facing our quiet, God-fearing community: hippies who bake pot food. Lo, these four years that I've dwelt in Berkeley I've woken up nightly in a cold sweat, emerging from my recurring nightmare of a Birkenstock-clad deviant jamming space cake into my innocent, flag-waving, troop-supporting maw. Patriotic and decent Berkeleyans evidently need no longer fear another day of these dreadlocked menaces' reign of terror. As just and righteous as the crusade to stop every last member of this culinary narcotic jihad no doubt is, one must stop to make a cursory evaluation of the priorities of our local boys in blue. It seems, based on empirical evidence gathered in the news these last couple of weeks, that arresting co-op-dwelling ganja barons is a greater priority than, oh, you know, everything else that goes wrong in this God-forsaken crime-infested hellhole.

Now, I'm not the forensic pathologist from "CSI: Miami" or anything, but last I checked nobody has ever been fatally stabbed with a pot brownie. This dearth of fatal stabbings stands in sharp contrast to the dozens of people that have been stabbed by meth-addled vagrants in Berkeley since you started reading this article.

This crackdown on pot-cookie barons is only the latest example of the UC Police Department's egregiously misplaced priorities. In 5,000 years of recorded use by humans, there has never been a single fatal overdose of marijuana. Feelings of doom, while they might not be altogether pleasant, do not kill. On the other hand, someone recently got shot on Durant and we still don't know who did it.

The UCPD have the uncanny ability to shut down frat parties before they even start, yet armed thugs prowl campus night and day hassling students for change. Currently our police devote all their energy to cruising with their ears alert for the slightest hint of amplified rap music or the sounds of Natural Ice beer cans popping open. Meanwhile a bunch of drifters in People's Park are busy eating babies and falling asleep on beds of hypodermic needles.

The real criminals in Berkeley aren't (by and large) UC Berkeley students, and it's time our police took note of this. While I was walking past People's Park once, a drifter threatened to cut my dick off and then chased me down the block (believe it or not, I am not making this up). Now, I wasn't in a position to check if he had a student ID card, but something tells me that he wasn't a Cal student.

I love Berkeley, but even I have to admit that this town is chock-full of vagrants and creepy people. These spare-change enthusiasts sit in front of the Asian Ghetto getting loaded on Colt 45 malt liquor and the police don't seem to care-an attitude that stands in stark contrast to their Gestapo-like attitude towards drinking in fraternities. Perhaps this isn't the fault of misplaced law-enforcement priorities. I suppose it's possible that the cops just never noticed that all these homeless people are drinking too. Here's a hint: It's not Gatorade inside those brown paper bags.

The fact is that fraternity parties are a timeless institution and the keystone of traditional collegiate revelry. Instead of protecting this valuable facet of our campus community, the police crack down on frats as though keg stands are the new bio-terrorism. The argument is that underage drinking can be fatal-an argument that helped to get the police a large Alcoholic Beverage Control grant. Sure, occasionally some freshman drinks himself to death, but that's not a matter for the police! It's just a little thinning of the herd: Darwin's theories verified in real life. These kids choose to drink themselves retarded, but nobody chooses to have their dick cut off by an insane bum. Well ... except for my friend Stumpy, I guess ... but he's a weird guy.

Our police devote their energy to hassling students instead of protecting them. Cal students are more than a source of noise complaints from cranky neighbors on frat row-we are the economic engine of this town. The police need to leave the fraternities and co-ops alone and go after the real criminals. It's past time that the cops started serving and protecting us, too.