Meanwhile...On The Left Coast

Naked treehuggers prevent necessary construction at Ber-zerk-lee.

THE dreaded Hayward fault slices right through the football stadium of the University of California, Berkeley, leaving visible cracks in its walls. So the university needs to retrofit the entire thing and build a new fitness centre for the 400 athletes who practise there every day. The oak grove next door seemed the obvious place.

But. (Pun intended.)

The grove must be saved, says Doug Buckwald, who founded the group Save the Oaks at the Stadium, because it is a “magical place” and soaks up carbon. In it is one redwood tree and lots of coast live oaks, a species protected under local law, although the university has an exemption.

And if that wasn't loony enough.

Mr Running Wolf offers another rationale. There are “thousands of bodies underneath us” of the Ohlone tribe, he says, and construction on this sacred burial ground amounts to “a hate crime; we call it Guantánamo Berkeley”. The secret truth, he explains, is that the Illuminati and Masons are behind the idea to build on the site, because the grove is at the intersection of compass lines connecting the Haas School of Business (money) with Alcatraz (state violence) and the Lawrence Berkeley lab that gave America nukes.

But...(Pun again)...according the the adults:

Dan Mogulof, a university spokesman, says that the allegedly ancient oaks were planted in a 1923 “landscaping project” and that “for every tree we cut down we will plant three new ones.” The redwood will be transplanted. Archaeologists have found “no evidence” that the grove is a burial ground but will carefully monitor all excavations, he says.

A couple of guys with scoped rifles could resolve this problem in about a minute, but that would be suggesting violence.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality.
_