calstuff.blogspot.com
Humor Mag 18 California Patriot Non-Lefty 19 Hardboiled Hard Lefty/Asian mag. Good layouts 20 In Passing Bloggish Cal Student/Alumni/Squelch Blogs 21 I Fought the Law: Optimus Primed 22 Zembla: With Cuteness 23 Ne Quid Nimis: With Photography 24 Angry Clam: Righteous Gentile. Cal Newsites 26 Daily Californian: Good crossword, opinions 27 Daily Planet: Covers the whole city, dead 28 Berkeleyan: Faculty/Staff news 29 Campus News: Improved Administration announcements 30 Indybay: Hard-Lefty News. Saturday, May 01, 2004 39 # posted by Kevin @ 4:19 PM So no one has to ask, I was waitlisted at USC Law. And in the biggest upset in the resurrected three-year history of the awards, Best Undergraduate Publication overall went to the Heuristic Squelch after two years of Blue & Gold winnage! Congratulations to Dave Duman, the Squelch, and everybody else I don't know. Is it just me or have publications taken a step backwards this year? Satellite finally breathed its last, leaving Cal with no general literary magazine. Maybe I'm just teed because some of the publications have decided that the best way to get ASUC money is to take it out of the Squelch. Lets leave aside issues of 'fairness' and 'size of audience' and go straight to tactics. Publications will be far better off by increasing the pathetic percentage of the budget that goes towards them. Rather then pick on the biggest fish in the small pond, we'd be much better off banding together and making it into a lake. Squelch is a big juicy budget target partly because of those color covers we have. But we have color covers because we work our ass off selling ads. The ASUC money just covers the fact that we have a far larger print run then the other pubs, owing to our reach. If other publications want to be trained how to sell ads effectively in Berkeley, we'd certainly be more then happy to help. Of course it's kind of silly in newspaper terms to have three reporters at one fairly minor event. I wonder when they announce what project won the Senior Gift Campaign. And there's an article today in the DC about the ongoing 55 Chateau stuff. The University has always shown little interest in how the Co-ops are run, to my surprise. They regulate Fraternities and Sororities intensely, requiring risk management and big restrictions on partying. Yet Co-ops, which are really well known as a focal point for drug dealing + drug creation, face almost no regulation. One Co-op had a drug lab in their basement one year, and Chateau had two deaths in one year a few years back. AG Lafata has sued DAAP for badgering witnesses and interefering with the J-Council, which could lead to an election disqualification. The J-Council has issued a gag order on both sides of the case. The one I was referring to in my previous post was filed before the statue of limitations ran out on filing elections suit. Presumably that means it was about elections but that is only a guess. I have another possible speculative answer to add for this one. It could be a suit filed by a "lone-ranger" who doesn't want the publicity associated with filing an elections suit. No clue what it could be about, but probably not elections violations since the statue of limitations ran out. It could be about the DAAP incident but that remains to be seen. Apart from the public suits we have all heard and read about, thanks to the coverage of my fellow CalStuff correspondents, there still remains one elections related suit that is under seal. Going on just a hunch, I suspect it to be about CalSERVEs alleged campaigning within a hundred feet of the Boalt Hall polling station. From what I hear, there is plenty of evidence against CalSERVE to convict them on this charge. The Attorney General tried to file this suit last week, but as we all know he was late in filing his charges. The J-Council Rules of Procedure have very little to say about Sealed suits: Charge sheets are not accessible to anyone other than the Justices if the plaintiff files the sheet under seal. I also think that Student Action is the likeliest party to have filed a sealed suit against CalSERVE. If they had something this juicy on CalSERVE, which would result in a DQ if proven, then why would they want to put themselves at risk of having CalSERVE throw the book at them? This seems like an easy way to avoid a nuclear suit exchange. Of course this is just all speculation but I think this particular charge is the likeliest bet. Cliffs Notes for those of you who dont want to read the essay: The trial became highly politicalized, and unnecessarily so. The advantage, however, is not going to be strong enough for the JC to expel Cal-SERVE from the election. To begin, lets once again break down the charges that LaFata leveled against Cal-SERVE in this suit. Using ASUC authority, facilities, funds, or resources, including Eshleman Hall, for campaign purposes, including for long term or bulk storage of campaign materials. The case is that Cal-SERVEs participation in the SJP rally violated this rule. Persistently blocking any entrance or tight space, or otherwise significantly restricting the flow of vehicular or pedestrian traffic on campus. This charge refers to the wall that was incorporated into the SJP in protest against the barrier Israel is constructing along its border with Palestine. To begin with, the charges should have been handled in separate hearings. All that happened is that the arguments bled into each other, making the wall charge a mere afterthought, and one that, interjected randomly, could easily confuse spectators and JC members. Not to mention that several of the arguments for both charges intersect, and the second and more minor violation inevitably is made obsolete by the other case. In order for LaFata to make part one of this charge work, two key facts had to be established without a doubt: 1) That the rally was conducted under the authority of the ASUC 2) That Cal-SERVE actively used the rally as a campaign tool The authority issue was made more complicated than it seems in the hearing. In SB 68, the text of the bill clearly states that Students for Justice in Palestine be granted ASUC sponsorship for the 2003-2004 academic year as a first-year Student Activity Group. So, there is specific record of ASUC granting sponsorship to the SJP. The passage of this act granted SJP the ability to act with the authority of a group acknowledged and protected by the ASUC. This links the ASUC to SJP until a mutual agreement is made to end the sponsorship. Anything SJP does or doesnt do is done partially in the name of the ASUC, whether it chooses to associate with it or not. According to this definition, SJP acted with the sponsorship and authority of the ASUC to put on its rally. If those with authority plan and actively participate in the rally, than the rally itself uses such authority. Therefore, the April 9th SJP rally was conducted under the authority of the ASUC. This interpretation was challenged by Cal-SERVE counsel, who argued that the action was not specifically endorsed by the ASUC, and therefore was not an ASUC-sponsored event. No ASUC money went to the event, and no SJP endorsement flyers had ASUC Sponsored on them. This argument has some legitimacy, but it limits authority and sponsorship solely to the context of funding, an incorrect and dangerous precedent to set. However, during the trial, Paul LaFata did not exactly drive this point home for his case, leaving some gray area and room for personal interpretation on the part of the JC. Cal-SERVE candidates had choreographed flag and sign activity with speakers on stage. Cal-SERVE workers handed out flyers in the crowd while speakers from the party spoke. There were several supporters with t-shirts and pins as well. It seemed to be a coordinated effort to campaign, using the rally as a springboard to do so. LaFatas case had evidence of Cal-SERVE campaigning at the rally; The video evidence LaFata had showed only the three speakers from Cal-SERVE, and only Renita Cheney mentioned her party, or wore a party t-shirt. Some pictures were submitted as evidence that showed campaigning, but once again, not in conjunction with t...
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