Thanks to filmmaker Emio Tomeoni, society at large has further grounds to believe all Berkeleyites worship the Mayan underworld and drive solar-powered cupcakes.

In his forthcoming documentary, Power Trip: Theatrically Berkeley, the Bay Area native managed to capture footage of Zachary RunningWolf’s 2008 mayoral campaign, the Global Citizen Awards at UC Berkeley’s very own International House, and all the major dramz surrounding the passage of Measure G in 2006.

The screening is happening this Monday, Oct. 26 at our very own Pacific Film Archive at 2575 Bancroft Way. Free for UC Berkeley students and faculty, $5 with other valid school ID, $8 for everyone else.

Image Source: A Gude under Creative Commons
Oaks, Oxen, and the Apocalypse [East Bay Express]
BAM/PFA [site]

Say it isn’t so! Nine people involved in the oak grove tree-sit were sentenced by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Marshall Whitley. Three of the tree-sitter crew received jail time: Kingman Lim, Zachary RunningWolf and Michael Schuck. That’s five days plus a portion of the university’s attorney fees.

The remaining six will serve 50 hours of community service each. Say what? What about those hundreds of days saving the trees, you ask. That wasn’t just community service–that was Earth service.

Well, not when it’s in violation of court orders. Oh, so that’s what those citations were for …

Image Source: Skyler Reid, Daily Cal
Sentences handed down in UC Berkeley protest [SF Chron]
Nine people sentenced for involvement in UC Berkeley tree-sit [Oakland Trib]
via SFist

Richard Muller, professor of the “Best Class on Campus,” Physics for Future Presidents (formerly Physics for Poets, Physics for Dummies and Physics for Jocks), tells the next President what he needs to know to lead our nation. We’re taking a wild guess that Bush never tuned in to Professor Muller’s lectures, which are podcasted weekly, but we hope Obama is listening.

As you may remember, two Berkeley professors Laura Tyson, a professor at the Haas School of Business, and Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, are going to serve as members of Obama’s 17-person Transition Economic Advisory Board, where they will basically make Obama’s road to inauguration on Jan. 21 a smooth one.

As members of the board, Tyson and Reich will also have the dismal task of helping Obama draft an agenda to help America crawl out of its financial hole. Both made an appearance for the first time in Chicago this past Friday at Obama’s first press conference as president-elect which included such bigwigs as Google chairman Eric Schmidt, the heads of Xerox, Hyatt and Time Warner and LA mayor Villaraigosa. More Obama support, this time with less cheering, chanting and telephone pole-climbing.

In other news, Zachary RunningWolf may not be Berkeley’s next mayor, but it’s not too late for you to see him looking awkwardly dressed up in a suit as he calls Shirley Dean the “Dick Cheney of Berkeley” in this footage from the Berkeley Daily Plannet’s mayoral debate footage.

Physics 101: What Our Next President Needs to Know [YouTube]
UC Berkeley Faculty Members Advise Obama [Daily Cal]
Granholm, Bonior join Obama’s economic transition team [freep.com]
Berkeley Mayoral Debate: Zachary RunningWolf [YouTube]

For more cringe-worthy, “WTF?”-inducing fun check out KatyDBates’s YouTube channel. Yes, channel. Highlights include “The Final Oak Grove Scuffle” and “Lesbo FTW.” And by highlights, we mean, well–you’ll see …

Update: Sorry that the video is no longer working.  Hm. Ain’t it strange that not a day after we post, the channel’s “account is closed?” Curiouser and curiouser. 

ZRW Breaks it Down UC Brekeley (sic) [YouTube]
KatyDBates Channel [YouTube]

Honestly, we commiserate with the activist-of-all-trades–paperwork is a bitch. Or maybe he’s just bad at math? Candidates had to collect 20 valid signatures. RunningWolf only had 18.

Perhaps names like “Dumpster Muffin” cost RunningWolf’s qualification? We may never know, but we think it’s likely there’s a conspiracy theory behind all of this.

Image Source: Ethan Strauss
Four Candidates Disqualified From the Local November Ballot [Daily Cal]
Earlier: RunningWolf Branches Out to Online

How does ubiquitous Berkeley legend Zachary RunningWolf have the uncanny ability to be everywhere at once? We saw him twice last Friday, and not ’cause we were looking for him. He appeared once near the oak grove, and then later on the coattails of Critical Mass as they blasted their hippie bike radio down Telegraph Avenue. He eventually dropped a burning flag onto the middle of the street, causing a temporary safety hazard for confused drivers.

Don’t mind the blurry photo. We spent too much time shuffling for our camera phone to actually get Runningwolf or Critical Mass in the shot. Though we can tell you that we did hear a choir of “What’s that guy’s problem?” as bystanders watched the flag burn. And then, life moved on.

As expected, Zachary RunningWolf will run for mayor of Berkeley. You could have sniffed this one a mile away when he tacked on the dump-Mayor-Tom-Bates campaign to the tree-sit, his favorite current pet cause. What’s more newsworthy, though, is that RunningWolf has a functional Website, including a blog and PayPal donations.

A sign outside the tree-sit proudly advertised the new site, RunningWolf for Mayor (dot.org, puh-leaze!). RunningWolf bills himself a man of all peoples, of the environment, of bikes and anti-gown and all that good stuff. He makes sure that his public knows he’s a leader dedicated to his interests:

Also Shirley Dean has annouced she is running for mayor and claims to be a “Grandmother For The Oaks”! She has been to the oak grove less times then i can count on both hands and was never shoved or harassed by police trying to get food and water to treesitters. Dean is clearly using the treesit to her own political advantage, even though she has not been an intricle part.

Of course no one should ever use the tree-sit to their political advantage, right, de facto leader of the tree-sit who’s also running for mayor? Right.

Back in 2006, RunningWolf previously ran for mayor, garnering only 5 percent of the vote. Bates won out with 63 percent, crushing our hero’s dream. Perhaps RunningWolf is banking on the lesser known saying that the second time is, in fact, the charm.

Image Source: Ethan Strauss
RunningWolf for mayor of Berkeley ‘08 [Website]
Earlier: RunningWolf Announces His Bid for Mayor

We find it a tiny bit ironic that someone who fights the Man by not paying his traffic tickets would campaign on car windshields–but anyway, we feel bad about missing out on RunningWolf’s benefit concert at Ashkenaz Music Hall, so to make up for it we’ll give him a space right here on the Clog. Some of his plans for mayor, if elected, are:

• To “implement car-free areas on our busiest streets such as Telegraph and Shattuck,” and thus, leave us to navigate a maze of one-way streets.

• To stop “congest(ing) our streets and our city with soulless buildings” and “overpriced condominiums.”

For a full list, go to Zach’s campaign website. Another thing to note is that if elected Mayor of Berkeley, he will also give up the Mayor’s salary.

One of the reasons I’m giving up the mayor’s salary is to show that money will not influence me, in other words, I’m taking corruption out of leadership … people should see politicians for what they really are, paid prostitutes and thieves, and start to expect real leadership from their public officials. I am not a politician, I am a leader, and I make sacrifices for the people.

Image Source: Patrici Flores
RunningWolf for Mayor of Berkeley ‘08 [Website]
RunningWolf Announces His Bid For Mayor [Daily Cal]

UC Berkeley treated our resident Cal parakeet, “Fresh,” to quite a spectacle yesterday–and we’re not talking about the performers for Pilipino Cultural Night who were practicing a heartfelt rendition of Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” on Dwinelle Plaza, directly across from his perch.

No, Fresh had a gang of angry supporters by his police-lined fences on Sunday afternoon. Among the riled up company was our favorite all-purpose protester, Zachary RunningWolf–tricked out in his usual impeccably-selected anti-American t-shirt.

The Clog happened to be there when the grandmother-pushing and subsequent nonsensical yelling began. “White males kill their mothers!” declared one angry woman, repeatedly, after police forcefully prevented an elderly woman from giving Fresh a little nourishment.

One guy eventually snagged a heroically symbolic arrest after throwing a chain of water bottles to the Wheeler Hall treewok.

One of the bottles fell, however. A cop promptly picked it up and emptied it in silent revenge. Cue the cries of “YOU BASTARD!”

And then it got boring.

Apparently, RunningWolf was also there to protest against the university’s ownership of Native-American remains. Yes, at a tree sit. We don’t even know what tree-people are protesting anymore. Development? The lack of affirmative action? The last season of “The Wire”? Pick a cause, any cause– ’cause every protest has an element of anti-everything: anti-cops, anti-democratization, anti-shower.

Such is the multi-purpose nature of a tree-sit–in Berkeley, at least.

Image Source: Patrici Flores
Earlier: News from the Tree Front: ‘Fresh’ Makes Like a Cat and Scrambles

Either that or it’s a new PR campaign for anorexia tolerance: Taking a stand against genocide? It’s as easy as starving yourself one day at a time! (Results not typical.)

Fasting is certainly unique–it’s not like many religions or those with eating disorders have experience with intentional self-deprivation. As an added bonus, your voluntary starvation really connects you to the people actually starving overseas whom you’re trying to help. We’re sure they appreciate your solidarity as you chow down at a predetermined ending time.

It’s almost as original as giving up luxury items “by donating $10.” Because we all know $10 buys the real luxuries in our bourgeoisie lives–that second latte, a Blu-ray rental or that really nice mechanical pencil with included lead refills.

We know Darfur is a touchy subject and that ongoing genocide is more than a Save the Children infomercial on television. We know we’re not doing much besides clicking away on our keyboards.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask how fasting for a day is supposed to help anyone but your own moral fortitude. There’s no enlightenment at sundown, and the food you might otherwise have eaten probably isn’t airlifted to Africa or even donated to the homeless shelter down the street.

But, nutrient-deprived Darfur saviors, be ye not discouraged. You aren’t the only ones operating on few enough calories to think imitating the impoverished makes a difference. You were just the straw that broke the Clog’s back. There was that nuclear-free hunger strike last spring, and Zachary RunningWolf said he was considering a hunger strike following the first fence’s erection up at the NFVSTTZ in August.

And don’t forget those who simply forget to eat–they’re perfect billboards for your various buttons and stickers and fliers, even if they are living in the library working their butts off to get something else done.

Image Sources: Justin Gonzaga, Yaou Dou, Daily Cal; edited by Krista Lane
As Genocide Continues, Students’ Fast Comes to Close [Daily Cal]