Next to never flushing, anus shaving in the mirror, coded toe-taping on the floor, and other hygiene-free experiences -- daily occurrences at your SFist editor's alma mater -- another shocking incident happened inside one of the bathrooms at UC Santa Cruz. Officials at the school "say they found the image of a noose scribbled on the inside of a bathroom door" on Monday in the school's Earth and Marine Sciences building. (Funny, we would've assumed it was Stevenson College.)
"Deeply Disturbing" Noose Scribbled On Bathroom Door at UCSC
Check Out One Market's Penthouse at Grow-a-Farmer Benefit
One Market has undergone some renovations. Swankier renovations, we hear. Tomorrow, they open The Penthouse, located on the 42 floor. It will feature stellar 360º-degree views like the one at right. Want to check it out? If so, UC Santa Cruz is throwing a worthy benefit, one that will help fill your stomach and help students in need of housing. It's a bash for "Grow a Farmer," and in exchange for a mere $25 you will get to sample foods from UCSC Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems alumnus.
UCSC Students Protest Budget Cuts Via Hunger Strike
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.
SHAC7 Claims No Responsibility for UCSC Researcher Attack
An update on today's story about a UC Santa Cruz faculty member whose home was invaded by, according to local media outlets, members of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty animal rights group: the animal rights group claims zero responsibility for last night's attack.
Extreme Animal Rights Activists Attack UCSC Faculty Member?
Pro-life animal rights group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is being accused of taking part in a break in of a UC Santa Cruz faculty member, whose research using animals "sheds light on the causes of breast cancer and neurological diseases," and attacking a man at the residence. According to Santa Cruz Sentinel:
Won't Somebody Think about the Falcons?
Several days ago, two falcons, George & Gracie moved from their tony climes in lower Market and set up shop on the Bay Bridge where they just recently laid some eggs. This, said bird officials, is not good. The reason is pretty simple enough: it's not a great place to raise kids. We mean, the views maybe great but it's not the safest neighborhood and hasn't been a trendy place to live since the early 90's. Actually, it's not a safe place to live because it's really hard for the baby falcons to learn how to fly because the winds are too strong. So today, crack members of the UC Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group went up a tower in the Bay Bridge and rescued the eggs.
Day Around the Bay
-Students at UC Santa Cruz clash with police during a visit by the UC Regents. At UC Santa Cruz? We thought that the only thing students did there is run around naked in the woods on mushrooms and do drum circles?
-Hey, here's good news: the rental market is heating up. It's back to the days of rising rental prices and too many people looking. Yay!
Malkin-vich, Malkin-vich, Malkin-vich
When it comes to getting a graduation speaker for UC Santa Cruz, we don't think it'll be Michelle "Interment Forevah" Malkin. Not that she would, anyways, but her chances went from "not ever" to "no way in frickin' hell" after she published the names and phone numbers of student protestors on her Web site. Hilarity, of course, ensued and by "hilarity" we mean death threats, harassing e-mails, and all sorts of nastiness. See, that's what you get when you hate Freedom.
Spies On Us
Yesterday, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of local students groups at Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz to see just why the Penagon was spying on them. Joining them in the law suit was our very own San Francisco Bay Guardian, going after more dragons to slay besides PG&E and Craig, as well as Quaker organizations. Yeah, Quakers. Why do Quakers hate America? Is it all that pacifism, tolerance, and yummy cereal?
Protestors at UC Santa Cruz Kiss-In Hate Our Freedom
As if people aren't deja vu'ing enough with all these illegal eavesdropping things going on, it was also reported that the the Pentagon (the Pentagon?) has been spying on groups and organizations that they have deemed as possibly dangerous. Like PETA. Or Greenpeace. And gay student groups that are opposed to the military's "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy. These included a February protest at NYU and a protest at UC Santa Cruz that featured a kiss-in. According to the FBI, those protests were deemed a "credible threat" of terrorism. And how: we can't tell you how many times we were at parties where one moment everyone's making out, the next minute everyone's calling for for violently overthrowing the government. It must have happened at every High School Dance. And there's nothing that says Islamo-facism like a bunch of men kissing each other.
Animal Roundup
'Cause everyone loves news about animals!
Unsafe sex kills, people -- 12 penguins at the SF Zoo have died of chlamydia. We don't even want to know what's going on in that penguin sanctuary late at night!! Kidding, kidding -- zoo officials think the penguins were infected by seagull droppings. This just begs the question, though -- how'd the seagulls get chlamydia? (It's also possible, but not probable, that the penguins picked it up from infected people breathing on them.) Zoo officials claim the outbreak's under control, but still -- if a penguin comes up to you in a bar, take precautions!
Various South Bay humane societies are offering a $500 reward for information about the person who left two boxes of five severely neglected poodles outside Redwood City's Pets In Need adoption center. One male poodle had to be put to sleep because of his atrophied legs and rotting teeth, and four other females are also ill. One female's eye will probably have to be taken out. Pets in Need is processing the poodles and if everything works out, will offer them for adoption starting next week.
And everyone is super-zowie excited about the baby falcons born on top of the PG&E building! They've just been banded by the UC Santa Cruz predatory bird research group and are growing up so fast! See, in SF, we love our predatory birds, not like those cruel co-op dwellers in New York. Check out the babies here and here.
SFist Holiday Gift Guide: It's a Noun, It's a Verb, It's a Present
So maybe you need a present for your ardent younger sister with the stars in her eyes who just finished her final in her first women's studies class at UC Santa Cruz. Or maybe you're a kitschy-tee collector who thinks Emily The Strange is so played out. Or heck, maybe you're just looking for the perfect bachelor/ette party gag gift -- locally published Bitch Magazine's selling t-shirts of all shapes, sizes, and colors emblazoned with their gimlet-eyed reading girl. Fun lovers of all feminist inclinations may also find the underwear with BITCH emblazoned on the fanny the perfect office Secret Santa item!

