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Dumpster Muffin
Monday, September 8, 2008 at 12:44PM 
Dumpster Muffin? Yes, folks, you heard that right. Dumpster Muffin.
Dumpster Muffin (she has another, real, name ... quite a nice one, actually) emerged from the tippy-top of a venerable oak, where she had been tree-sitting in protest of said tree's being cut down to make way for a $140 million sports center at the University of California at Berkeley, on July 3rd ... just in time for hamburgers and fireworks.
Millipede is long gone too, and Squirtle. Upon descending from the aerie which had been his home for months, Squirtle cited his pressing need for a hot meal and a cigarette.
How about a bath, dude?
... delicious irony ...
At one point the timber-glommed protesters asked for (and were denied) ... a pound of marijuana (what's up with that ... one would think, at Cal Berkeley, if you couldn't get anything else you could get your hands on some decent weed). Hmmm. Methinks wacky tobaccy is the one thing these yardbirds DON'T need. One of them bit a nice arborist who was working by the hour.
Tetanus, anyone?
But a few tree-sitters remain at this writing, and Cal Berkeley -- which by midsummer had spent roughly $370,000 on security and other issues related to the sit-in, which began in December of 2006 -- is tired of playing games. At last we've attained zero hour.
The University wants the precarious perchers out of the oak grove.
TODAY.
(This is going to be better than a high-speed car chase on cable news. Almost.)
So the authorities -- on order of the University -- are preparing to cut the final supply lines ... something they should have done nearly two years ago when this nonsense started.
How many trees are at issue, you might ask? Forty-four, originally ... but only three remain. Forty-four ... that's actually my favorite number. And even though I am no stripe of a tree-hugger, I for dead sure would rather look at trees than a sports arena. Mercy. Talk about a no-brainer.
But the University has offered to plant three trees for each one it cuts down. That sounds fair to me. One hundred thirty-two trees instead of forty-four trees.
I know it will take time for them to grow, but then, most worthwhile things take time.
While we wait, I find delicious irony in the fact that arguably the most radically liberal university in America must resort to decidedly establishment-like tactics (i.e. wholly justifiable force) in order to remove deranged hippies from its trees and destroy the landscape with a big arena that will use lots of electricity.
That's almost as good as the guy who had to cut down several mature trees in his yard because they blocked his neighbor's solar panels.
And the almighty dollar wins again. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Reader Comments (18)
We don't have very many hippies here in Georgia. Methinks it's because they know I would blog about them and write about how they need haircuts...
@ Kev ... and baths!
Welcome to the West Coast...in all our hippie glory.
...granola sounds good right now.
@ Angi ... why I live in the Southeast. Crazy but not quite that crazy. Yet. Granola does sound good ...
I just saw breaking news on Fox news that they are using a cherry picker to "roust the tree sitters at Berkeley."
@ Tracie ... amazing, isn't it? A few of them are still up there. I hope nobody gets hurt.
Oh, I hate to see mature trees cut down! I'd have been on the side of the protestors I'm afraid. But still, planting three for one is quite a good offer, providing they are properly spaced and allowed to grow.
@ Jay ... But how ridiculous is it to sit in a tree for 18 months? Think of all one could do for society (not to mention nature) by being productive in that time frame! The trees are going to get cut down anyway (and more will grow in their place, whether Cal Berkeley plants them or not), and now they have wasted all that time! Time they can never get back. After they take a shower, they need to prioritize!
Very charming the way you wrote this. You also make a very good point. Crazy tree hugger people.
@ Audrey ... thanks luv. Crazy as loons ... and spoiled too, I'll bet.
Oh, I don't know about wasted time. I spent as much time as I could very high in a tree when I was 10 and it was incredible. I could see for miles, and when the wind blew it would rock me like a cradle. If the wind blew hard, it was more like an exciting fair ride! I would take binoculars and a book, and I could also hear conversations far below because sound funnels upwards! I could have lived up there, easy, and it would have been time well spent. However, I would find a tree that I had a right to be in, and not one that belonged to someone else. In heaven when the time is limitless perhaps I'll live in a tree for a while. And then I want to spend some time floating on a cloud...
@ Tracie ... I love nature and trees, and birds and everything ... you should check out my post "Falling From The Family Tree" in the October 2007 archive of this blog. Like you I was an inveterate tree-climber as a kid and would gladly have lived in one, beyond the reach of my alcoholic stepfather.
But life comes with responsibility, and it is immature to shirk those responsibilities, thereby costing hard-working people hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I'm all for enjoying nature but that's not what this was about. The hippies were in abject rebellion and their actions dearly cost the taxpayers of the State of California who were getting up every day and going to work for those 18-plus months. I stand by my assertion that the tree-sitters could have found a more productive use of their time.
Well, you're right of course, which is probably why I've barely been in a tree since I was 10. Still, while it may not be right to live out your fantasy, it is tempting at times. (And I in no way support the rebelliousness and inconvenience to those whose trees the squatters are in).
@ Tracie ... I like the way you think, luv. I know you don't support the rebelliousness and I understand what you mean about the glorious times we spent (notice I didn't say wasted!) in trees as children.
God knows, adult responsibilities come soon enough, and afterwards you can't spend a summer afternoon reading a book -- or just doing nothing -- without a load of guilt threatening to ruin it.
Oddly enough, even though I am an arch-conservative, I identify more with the motives of the misguided hippies than those of the university! As I said, I think the joke is ON the university, itself a hotbed of liberalism. I just don't like the way they (the miscreants, that is) stuck it to the rest of the taxpayers instead of finding a more intelligent way to get their ideas across. But that's the crazy world we live in.
And I STILL have a few fantasies I sure would like to live out ... LOLOL ... ;-)
Oh, I hate to see mature trees cut down! I'd have been on the side of the protestors I'm afraid. But still, planting three for one is quite a good offer, providing they are properly spaced and allowed to grow.
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