We're gonna live in the trees

The Cal Bears football season kicks off tonight against Tennessee, in a battle of top 20 teams, if meaningless pre-season polls are to be believed. This is the biggest game at Memorial Stadium in awhile, so there's been a lot of media hype for this game.

A big part of the hype has centered on a group of protesters who have been living in a grove of trees near Memorial Stadium for the last six months to prevent the University from cutting down a few dozen trees to build a new athletic training facility. With the added publicity of the Tennessee game, the protesters were preparing to kick their protest into high gear.

And then the university built a temporary fence around the groves for the "security" of protesters and football fans. The protesters said that the fence violated their right to free speech, but yesterday a judge ruled that the fence could stay. Another disaster thwarted.

It seems to me like there are so much more worthy causes than a few dozen trees on a campus full of them. There are oak trees all over the UC campus, which are constantly being cut down and replanted, with no protests from anyone, but now that these trees going to be displaced to build a sports training facility, everyone is up in arms. It seems like they're mostly in it for the publicity. And the trees are on university property, the protesters are trespassing, essentially sitting in a tree in someone's backyard and telling them how to do their landscaping.

I wanted to see how the Tennessee media was handling the tree controversy, and came across this article in the Tennesseean, that talks about the "culture clash" that Vols fans who make the trip will find in Berkeley.

Wander a few blocks from the stadium and you'll get a refresher course in the '60s. Telegraph Avenue is there in all its tie-dyed splendor, complete with its used record stores, health food and ethnic restaurants, and shops that cater to many and varied tastes.

Used record stores? Ethnic restaurants? Shops catering to varied tastes? Won't anyone think of the children??

Maybe some Tennessee fans will pick up copies of Slayer's Reign in Blood CD at Amoeba before the game to help drive those protesters out of the trees. Everyone who's seen South Park knows that tree-hugging hippies can't handle thrash-metal.