Results tagged “protest”

Oh dear.

The Daily Cal reports that somewhere around 60 protesters have locked themselves inside Wheeler Hall. And...they're still there! (What happened to the crowbar, cops?)

Early this morning, "dozens of student protesters" occupied UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall. . "UCPD officers have surrounded the building, and some are inside," reports the Daily Cal. As of 9 a.m., "[p]olice are using a crowbar to open the door, according to protesters inside."

Your Kaja Silvermans and Teresa De Laurentises aren't going to save you now, UC ilk. The economy knows no bounds, it knows no AP scores, it known no misguided acceptance of one's own body odors. Today, UC students and faculty went on strike. UC Berkeley folks "took up their signs on Sproul Plaza beginning at 5 a.m. to protest an expected 32 percent student fee hike at today's UC Board of Regents meeting."

       

Last year at this time, the gay community (and then some) lost their collective shit over the passing of Prop 8, a pro-discrimination measure that effectively pruned the rights of gay married couples. The passing of the anti-marriage confused and disturbing "Fuck Mormons" banner from his home, while blaming "middle class people" for Prop 8's passing(!); and this handy map of those who donated to Prop 8.

After today's profoundly disappointing news that gay marriage was repealed in the state of Maine -- alas, unadulterated hate wins again -- rallies will be held across the country starting tonight.

     

Obama, who is currently in town for a Democratic National Convention fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, was met with protesters from both the left and right sides this evening, the majority of which vocalized their stance on Obama's health care reform plan.

Protest-fetish protest group CodePink -- a social circle whose members wear pink feather boas and zany hats while shouting -- will be in Union Square tonight, protesting President Barack Obama's visit. According to Appeal.BCN. CodePink"will ask the president to commit to an exit strategy from Afghanistan." Also, they will display a banner in Union Square, "while a Code Pink member will try to deliver petitions to the president inside the fundraiser." Outrageous.

While an estimated 5,000 students and faculty packed Sproul Plaza at U.C. Berkeley yesterday to protest a whopping 32-percent fee hike in the next year, thousands of different students were distracted by other things. The protest on the plaza was thought to be one of the largest since the Free Speech movement of the 60s, but it's possible the numbers were skewed by those gathered at Sather Gate where the Ellen show producers were giving away free Samsung cell phones live on the air (see video above) via a Twitter alert. Also, the show was offering $1,000 and free trips to L.A. to any students who stripped off their clothes in the campus bookstore and sent in a picture. Ah, college. Ah, Millennials.

Whenever we had walkouts at our protest-happy alma mater, more often than not we would press our lips to a bong and head to the beach and/or a bar for the day. But today's student is a concerned one. That said, the fine folks over at the Daily Clog have an events guide of smartypants things you can do today if you're part of the walkout.

       

Flickr photog Tristan C was on the scene at yesterday's "Big Insurance: Sick of It" rally at Embarcadero Two sponsored by MoveOn.org, which was aimed at bringing attention to the Anthem Blue Cross' opposition to health care reform bill H.R. 3200. All captions were provided by Tristan C.

In response to the UC President Mark Yudof's bizarre yet timely budget cut/fee increase plan, the UC-wide walkout date has been set for for this Thursday, 9/24. According to the terse press release on tis week's mass protest, "hundreds of UC Berkeley graduate students from disciplines as varied as Physics, Comparative Literature, Geography, and French will join UC faculty from all campuses in a planned rally and walkout.l ... The rally will take place in UC Berkeley’s famed Sproul Plaza from noon until two o'clock." Visit gradstudentstoppage.com for more details.

Wow. OK. At an appearance onstage at South San Francisco Day in Orange Memorial Park on Saturday, a PETA member got up on stage and smacked a guy dressed as Ronald McDonald in the face with a vegan custard pie.

It has begun. Today, a day after a mass walkout was planned for the UC system, 14 protesters were arrested "after they briefly shut down a regents meeting this morning in San Francisco where a proposed tuition hike was being discussed," reports SFGate. "Whose university? Our university! "Lay off Yudof!" was the chant students, faculty and other assorted staff members yelled at the UCSF's Mission Bay campus. (Yudof was none too please. One of his Twitter messages reflects that: "Lots of shouting. Be nice if everyone shouting respected the free speech rights of the rest of us. We'll take a break until we can resume.") According to CBS 5/BCN, "The interruption came during a public comment period that opened the daylong board meeting. During the public comment period, dozens of people had voiced their opposition to the plan, as well as their disapproval of UC President Mark Yudof." Also, San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos was one of the speakers voicing his frustration at the UC regents plan to increase fees and tuition. Even one of its own board members, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, is furious at the fee hikes, who said in a written statement, "[Yudof's] jaw-dropping proposal...will single-handedly take a University of California education off the table for thousands of hardworking students," The regents, by all accounts, should be ashamed of themselves. Seriously. Anyway, the arrested protesters were "cited for trespassing and unlawful assembly and released." The board will vote on the fee hike come November.

Aside from a freshly-packed bong and high-sodium meals, college students love nothing more than to protest something bad. The most recent something bad to move the UC system to protest is, of course, the severe budget cuts affecting the quality of education. But this protest will be done walkout-style. According to SF Chronicle, "What began in recent weeks as a proposed faculty walkout coinciding with the first day of school next Thursday at some campuses - including UCSF, UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz - has grown to include graduate and undergraduate student groups, and labor unions representing thousands of employees." Combine the recent budget cuts and forced furlough days with the fee increase and we will (hopefully) see an explosive mass walkout of indignation and righteousness. In related news, everybody else is poor and/or losing their jobs too.

Big but vague protest sign, lots of small text.

                               

Everyone from Hilary Newsom to Bevan Duffy to San Francisco treasure/icon Joy Bianchi, above, participated in the NOH8 photo campaign, a campaign to help repeal Prop 8. The campaign involves people with varying amounts of fame (some more than others) wearing white shirts and electric tape over their mouths. But the photos, shot by Adam Bouska, are actually quite impressive, very much so. Check them out.

Looks exciting.

Mother Jones compiled this great video coverage from Saturday's United for Iran protest at City Hall, which reportedly drew thousands of participants. It was part of a Global Day of Action taking place in more than 100 cities worldwide, organized to call attention to civil rights violations following last months questionable election results in Iran. Event speakers at the local rally included 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, CA senator Mark Leno, and former captain of Iran's national soccer team Parviz Ghelichkhani. Code Pink was also present, naturally.

       

So many protests causing a ruckus at Civic Center / City Hall these days, it's an embarrassment of riches, photo-wise. Today, we present to you Steve Rhodes' choice set of images shot at yesterday's protest against state budget cuts to health care. A total of 17 disability activists were later arrested in Civic Center for blocking traffic.

              

Rumor has it there's more you can do to voice your support for Iranians protesting a fraudulent election than turning your Twitter avatar green. Take, for example, participating in a protest or a rally, like yesterday's event at the UN Plaza. (An aside: we love the color palate popping up at these protests. Green, white and red -- so bold and vibrant without overpowering the eye. Just lovely, really.)

              

On Saturday, droves of pro-civil rights citizens and "hundreds" of anti-gay, bigoted types rallied in Fresno for an event called Meet in the Middle for Equality. Newsom wast there so was Charlize Theron. The Bible and God were exploited by religious zealots in favor of the voter-approved ban on gay marriage; and emotional speeches were given by real-life loving homosexuals, having to explain, yet again, that they are, in fact, regular people, not peripheral characters or wacky sidekicks.

Dozens of students and staff at the University of California at Santa Cruz have gone on a hunger strike "in order to bring attention to $13 million in state funding being cut at the campus." This anti-digesting protest, it seems, was sparked by school wide cuts, which have affected the Latino Studies Department and the very-UCSC Community Studies program. Protest organizer Yvette Tran told KCBS, "“The hunger strikers will continue to not eat possibly for the week or until our demands are met." Said demands? Money. Anyway, those starving students are in for an even bigger shock. UCSC spokesman Jim Burns tells Mercury News, "We appreciate and share the frustration of students and others over continued reductions in state funding to UC. And in the wake of last week's election, we're bracing for even further cuts. In that environment, protecting every program is neither realistic nor possible." UC Santa Cruz, we should point out, is known for having a lily white vibe on campus, which only heightens the tension.

The intersection at "Grove and Van Ness [is] corked by 200 protesters, more coming from civic center," says Jim Herd who is live on the scene. Traffic is blocked as far as he can see. Cops are on the scene now. As we already mentioned, there is "lots of screaming at Civic Center plaza...[t]he goal, it seems, is to block all lanes of traffic." The protesters, according to a hurried KRON 4 reporter, plan top stay until they are arrested. (For more updates on what's going on at Civic Center, go here.)

While heading to best computer store in San Francisco, Central Computers, we came across these special people blocking the entrance. Anti-psychiatry ilk, it seems, were out in force on Saturday across the street from the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting at Moscone Center, protesting the drugging of children. Because that's bad.And whenever a passing vehicle honked in what they thought was support, the special protesters would high-five each other and give the thump-up sign.

Oh fun. Today there will be a slew of protests to mark the sixth year we've been blowing shit up in Iraq. Demonstrations will take place all over the Bay Area. At noon you can hear poets reading at the Montgomery BART station. At 4 p.m., Iraq Veterans Against War will "demonstrate their concerns" at Civic Center. And last but not least, the Raging Grannies will lead a sing-along in Palo Alto at Lytton Plaza at 5:30 p.m.

Scene from yesterday's anti-Israeli protest / Tristan Anderson rally in downtown San Francisco, which trumped an Oscar Grant rally.

by Lisa Hix

Don't you just love the call-and-response aspect of op-ed YouTubery? After posting about the persnickety trekkie upset by the scale of buildings in the 24th Century version of San Francisco depicted in the new Star Trek trailer, we got all sorts of calls, and mail, and comments. But we can't resist posting this special response by DocWha using a little piece of vintage SNL.

With over 26,000 teachers getting pink slips in the mail, the California Teachers Association has organized Pink Friday, "a day of action to protest mass layoffs and drastic cuts to public education." But I don't teach algebra to ungrateful brats all day long, so how can I help, you ask? Like this: 1) Wear pink on Friday, March 13 to show your support for public schools, students and educators; 2) organize or attend an event at a school near you; and 3) call or e-mail your Legislator and tell them that investing in public education is an investment California's future. In related news, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom released 25 percent (about $24 million) from the city's rainy day fund this week. If approved by the the Board of Supervisor, the cash flow would help save the jobs of over 300 teachers.