Many seniors expressed disdain that the 2008 Commencement Convocation speaker was Craig Newmark, the creator of Craigslist, and not someone like Steve Jobs or Nostradamus telling us what to do with life after college. But, hey, at least we had a speaker.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is at the height of demanding change for many underpaid UC service workers (this includes health care technicians, custodians, dining workers and more), and if they don’t reach a compromise with the university before this weekend, UCLA and UC Davis may not have the high-profile commencement addresses they were expecting: former President Bill Clinton and California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, respectively.

Both individuals refuse to cross picket lines or speak while university workers are without a contract. By the way, Nunez was supposed to speak at Cal two years ago, but didn’t because of AFSCME.

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 The future of the Nuclear-Free-Vegan-Save-the-Trees Zone is grim, pending the results of tomorrow morning’s court hearing. Tomorrow the university seeks court-ordered removal of the tree-sitters.Last week, UC failed to reach a settlement with the city of Berkeley, so now it appears the university will resort to more draconian measures: kicking people off their property.Frankly, the shallow-rooted trees are coming down in The Big One anyway. Whether we build something half a mile from or something directly on the Hayward Fault probably won’t make too much of a difference.But in the grand principle of things, we suppose the protesters have every Free Speech Rah-Rah right to join the ranks of Those Who Hate the University for basically telling the protesters “Hey, you’re shitting all over our lawn.”Though, to be fair, they basically are.Our pick among Zachary RunningWolf’s many words were these, as summarized by the Daily Cal:bq. RunningWolf thinks the university’s goal is to quickly remove the tree-sitters.How accurate, since it’s only been oh, ten months since they set up camp, cut the tops off some trees, refused compromise and got arrested.We wondered when the university would shut this thing down, but then we remembered that it’s the University of California, where everything takes ten years (or months) longer than it has to.Image Source: Ted Kwong, Daily CalUniversity to Seek Court Order to Remove Tree-Sitters [Daily Cal]

Apparently, student groups on campus “aren’t allowed and weren’t supposed to use the name of the university (University of California, Berkeley) or official derivations of the university’s name (Cal, California, Berkeley) in their student groups names.

This has come up when a student, Yaman Salahi, tried to register for a new club on campus. His club was rejected because it had one of the officially derivations trademarked by the university.

Under current regulations, a registered group’s name cannot include The University of California, Berkeley, UC Berkeley, Cal or any other variation of the university’s name that is trademarked and owned by the UC Regents, said Maria Rubinshteyn, director of UC Berkeley’s Office of Marketing and Business Outreach.

Of course this is all ridiculous. And you ask, why is the university doing this? It’s trying to protect itself.

“If a student group’s name includes the campus’ name, the public will often make the mistaken assumption that the group, its interests, activities and opinions, represents the interests of or is somehow endorsed by the University when this is not the case,” Rubinshteyn said in an e-mail.

Yes, just because a group is called the “Cal Something-or-Rathers” or the “Berkeley Whatevers” any action taken by those groups is officially sponsored by the campus.

Actually, no. We think people are smart enough that they can tell when the university sponsors someone (OK, maybe not, but it’s nice to think that).

We understand that if some entity outside the university is trying to use any of its names or registered trademarks—like the Cal script—then yeah, it should answer to the university. And the university should wave its magic wand and hold the perpetrators responsible.

But shouldn’t student groups be able to tell the public where they come from?

This only makes Cal fit the stereotype that it’s created for itself—a huge bureaucracy that has a lot of red tape, that doesn’t give a shit about its students.

UC Blocks Use of Its Names [Daily Cal]
What’s the Difference? [Daily Cal]
“Berkeley” for sale [ yamansalahi.com ]