Amusing conversation with "A Berkeley Student" regarding The Bill. Conversation is entirely tongue in cheek, take things grossly out of context at your own risk.

A Berkeley Student: i see ur bill
A Berkeley Student: can more than one person buy into a tree?
EpikDave: at this point it's mostly Kevin's, but we're tweaking it....
EpikDave: I don't see why not.
A Berkeley Student: as long as it fits the plaque i guess
EpikDave: ah, no plaques....
EpikDave: just certificates and polaroids.
A Berkeley Student: oh
A Berkeley Student: that's fine
EpikDave: yeah, plaques bring PP&CS into the mess.
A Berkeley Student: ya, that's no godd
A Berkeley Student: good
A Berkeley Student: what happens if ur tree dies
A Berkeley Student: do u have to replace it?
EpikDave: no.
A Berkeley Student: can u get a refund?
EpikDave: but you can't get another tree until the stump is ripped from the ground.
EpikDave: I don't know if we're charging.
EpikDave: I think it's just going to be 1st come, 1st serve.
A Berkeley Student: and u thought clinton tix were a mess?
EpikDave: well, we have a system.
EpikDave: women with nice breasts, followed by Jews, then the Falun Gong practitioners.
A Berkeley Student: oh?
A Berkeley Student: if there are any left, they'll be divided evenly between the Papists and Mohammedans.
A Berkeley Student: so i'm 4th, yet splitting with hte infidels
EpikDave: more or less.
EpikDave: but the bill is still in its nascent stages, so you never know.
A Berkeley Student: if u do women
A Berkeley Student: they'll have to take the poloroid topless, of course
EpikDave: yeah, that was part of our collective-bargaining agreement.
A Berkeley Student: ur what?
EpikDave: our agreement with the powerful and influential Women With Great Breasts Lobby.
EpikDave: in exchange for being first, they pose topless.
A Berkeley Student: they have a lobby
EpikDave: yeah.
EpikDave: very powerful.
A Berkeley Student: u mean the 3 of them at berkeley actually know each ot her?
EpikDave: hey-o.
EpikDave: ::rimshot::
EpikDave: that was good.
A Berkeley Student: thanx

I really do like Rush.

It's very telling, I think, that in less time the anti divestment-petition petition already has almost as many UC faculty signatures (174) as the divestment petition (180). Some heavy hitters on that former list too, perhaps most notably the very respected linguistic theorist George Lakoff.

I was dismayed to find a full four professors from the Rhetoric Department represented on the divestment petition: Department Chair Judith Butler, Rhetoric/Film Studies Professor Linda Williams, Professor Daniel Boyarin, and Professir Pheng Cheah. Now, I had already vowed never to take a class from Butler and Williams, and I experienced the tedium of one of Cheah's classes last semester, and Boyarin I know little about, so I'm not really surprised by their names being on this list. It's just that I had always touted the department as teaching objectivity and teaching the ability to sift through the layers and layers of half-truth and emotion-tugging rhetoric that shrouds every side of every argument, only to see some prominent members of the department signing a petition that really does represent the epitome of a myopic and naive argument.

I was pleased to see many very good and talented professors' names absent from both lists. This makes me happy, knowing that there are many professors who realize that this is not what they are put on this earth to do.

Anyway, to all of you reading, sign a petition, whichever one you agree with, and lets see which really does end up with the most names in the end. You'll find my name firmly emblazoned on the anti divestment-petition petition.