Have you ever yearned to see a California sea lion groove to "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys? Well, want no more. Ronan, a 4-year-old sea lion rescued from Highway 1 in San Luis Obispo in 2009, lives at the Pinniped Cognition & Sensory Systems Laboratory at UCSC's Long Marine Laboratory. And she doesn't just live, you see. She jams.

Wired has more:

... [UC Santa Cruz] graduate student Peter Cook trained her, beginning with a simple, repeating sound, like a metronome. When Ronan bobbed her head in time with the sound she earned a fish. Eventually she graduated to more complex tunes, and she’s now able to spontaneously bop to tracks she hasn’t heard before.

Behold:

We can only hope that this aural discovery leads tribal sea lion raves at San Francisco's Pier 39. Fingers crossed.

[YouTube]
[Wired]

You recall the fake rape report that went down in February at UC Santa Cruz, right? Well, the suspect in question, oddly described by NY Daily News as a "visiting brunette" from UC Santa Barbara, allegedly posted several Craigslist ads seeking physical abuse in exchange for sex prior to the rape report.

Morgan Triplett, 20, allegedly published two ads, one asking to be "shot in the shoulder with a small caliber gun" and then another requesting for a man to "punch, kick and bruise her." According to the Register Pajaronian, "Triplett’s story raised eyebrows at the hospital when she requested that DNA samples of the sex assault not be taken."

She pled not guilty in court on Friday.

Morgan Triplett's father, Richard, defended his daughter after her court appearance, saying, "She is sorry for any problems or chaos that she has caused ... What we're dealing with is a very scared, very upset, very confused 20-year-old girl who has made some poor choices. This is the culmination of those choices."

The co-ed told police she was beaten and raped while walking along a wooded area on the UCSC campus during a Sunday afternoon. Morgan was visiting the UC campus for a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender conference. If found guilty of making a false report, she could face up to six months in jail. She pled not guilty

The 21-year-old woman who told police she was beaten and raped while walking along a wooded area on the UCSC campus has reportedly confessed to investigators that, in fact, the attack was a hoax. The unidentified woman could face criminal charges for making the false report.

"The report of this incident has very understandably created a deep sense of unease among UCSC students, staff, and faculty, as well as residents of the Santa Cruz area," UCSC Police Chief Nader Oweis said in a press release, according to Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Before any rape apologists get on their high, sanity-estranged horses in the comments, we direct you to the graph from The Enliven Project (via Jez). It uses data from Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey and FBI reports to show both how little rapes are reported and how rarely rapists go to jail. And way down at the bottom you can see how few false accusations are.

[Santa Cruz Sentinel]

Santa Cruz police released a sketch of a man who beat and raped a visiting 21-year-old woman visiting the UCSC campus on Sunday afternoon. According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the suspect is "believed to be about 5 feet 10 inches tall with a stocky build, dark hair and green eyes. He had a mustache and goatee, and was wearing blue jeans and a dark blue T-shirt at the time." He fled toward Steinhart Way shortly after the attack.

While walking a wooded path between the Upper Quarry amphitheater and the Classroom Unit buildings along a path at 12:30 p.m., the suspect struck her in the head and torso several times before assaulting her. The woman called 911 and was treated at a nearby hospital.

Police have posted these flyers around campus.

Campus authorities have alerted students to be on alert. Any information about the case should be directed to UC Santa Cruz authorities at 831-459-2231. Anonymous reports can made by calling 831-459-3TIP or via online at http://police.ucsc.edu.

A 21-year-old woman survived being raped and beaten while visiting the UCSC campus Sunday afternoon. The suspect, described as "a white man in his 30s with pale skin and a round-shaped face," attacked her around 12:30 p.m. as she walked between the Upper Quarry Amphitheater and the Classroom Unit buildings.

Santa Cruz Sentinel has more details on the suspect:

He was described as a white man in his 30s with pale skin and a round-shaped face. He was about 5 feet 10 inches tall and 200 pounds with a muscular or stocky build with dark-black, medium-length hair and green eyes. The suspect also had a dark, full mustache and goatee.

He wore a dark blue T-shirt with lettering on the front, dark blue Levi-type jeans and a black belt with a silver buckle, as well as Oakley-style sunglasses on top of his head. He had a tattoo on his upper-right bicep area and spoke with a voice that sounded like a "deep growl" and smelled of cigarettes...

Campus authorities have alerted students to be on alert. Any information about the case should be directed to UC Santa Cruz authorities at 831-459-2231. Anonymous reports can made by calling 831-459-3TIP or via online at http://police.ucsc.edu.

UC Santa Cruz students and professors are taking part today in a massive protest to state education cuts. It's all part of peaceful Occupy Education rallies occurring at numerous UC and CSU schools, which will culminate in a statewide event at the Capitol on Monday. However, while blocking the front entrance of the Santa Cruz campus this morning, a car plowed through the group of protesters.

Santa Cruz Sentinel reports:

Just after 8:30 a.m. a man driving an orange Ford Mustang drove up High Street and attempted to make a right turn onto campus. He revved his engine, but the crowd stopped him from entering. The driver then revved his engine again and sped through the crowd of demonstrators at the High Street entrance, striking several people and a bike.

No one appears to be seriously injured. UCSC Police Chief Nader Oweis, who was the only officer on scene when the incident happened, ordered the driver to back up the car, out of the crowded intersection.

The crowd chanted "arrest him, arrest him."

The driver of the car and his female passenger were detained by authorities. Rightfully so. While no one, it seems, was seriously injured, several protesters were thrown to the ground or flung on top of the moving vehicle. For example, 20-year-old Abby Edwards claims she was knocked to the ground by the car, "hitting her head and her knee because of the impact." She goes on to explain, "Suddenly I'm on the hood and then on the ground." She was almost under the car "before someone pulled her to safety."

ABC 7 goes on the say that the driver also tried to hit a cyclist. The UC Santa Cruz campus has been closed since 4:30 a.m., with all the major entrances being blocked.

On a lighter note, protesters at UCSC created a giant banana slug, the school's mascot, out of yellow tarp.

A threat of violence, via graffiti sprayed on a bathroom wall, prompted some classes cancelations at UC Santa Cruz today. According to Santa Cruz Sentinel, here's what happened: "On Jan. 11, UCSC administration announced in a campuswide e-mail that graffiti found in a men's bathroom in the Social Sciences 2 building contained a threat of violence to be carried out today."

The graffiti, discovered by a student in December, has since been removed.

Many students refused to come to campus as well. Student Union Assembly Chair Tiffany Dena Loftin said, "students are actually really scared." The campus is reportedly very "quiet" today.

Of the six people killed during Saturday's rampage in Arizona, UC Santa Cruz graduate Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, was among them. Zimmerman was Gabrielle Giffords' community outreach director. He had organized the "Congress on Your Corner" event Saturday in Tucson.

Zimmerman, a Tucson native and social work advocate, earned a sociology degree and graduated with honors in 2002. He was affiliated with Stevenson College during his time at UCSC.

"On behalf of the entire UC Santa Cruz community, my wife Kelly and I extend our heartfelt condolences to Gabriel Zimmerman's family, friends and colleagues," UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal said in a written statement. "Gabe's work on behalf of the people of Arizona's 8th congressional district reflected his passionate commitment to the value of public service."

Mentally ill gunman Jared Lee Loughner was charged Sunday in the shooting of 20 people, which claimed the lives of six people.

Hollister resident John Patrick Bedell, 36, was shot and killed last night after pulling a handgun at the Pentagon entrance and firing at guards. Bedell held a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz (we're going to guess he was at Kresge), and also attended San Jose State University to study biochemistry.

Bedell, it seems, had a strong "distrust of the federal government.," and suspected that "a criminal enterprise run out of the government could have staged the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks" -- a bizarre, though possibly true, line of thought typically held among straight white men.

The DimeWars Research staff obtained some of John Patrick Bedell's rants on Wikipedia.

I have an intense personal desire for freedom, and I need your help so that we can, together, continue to enjoy the benefits of freedom and work toward the more perfect realization of liberty and justice in our society. My effort to realize greater freedom in our world is a long-term effort and this message is a first step to begin a dialogue with you that I expect will enable us to take action in the future to have more secure more prosperous and happier lives.

In honor of a Day of Statewide Action for Public Education, protesters at UC Santa Cruz are trying to make sure students don't receive one. As of this morning, UCSC students and employees have blocked the school's entrance. According to the Santa Cruz Sentienel, "[a] couple hundred students have blocked both entrances to the UC Santa Cruz campus and began marching near the base of campus as the March 4 Day of Action began."

The school's site asks both students and employees to "avoid both campus entrances due to safety concerns." But, all things considered, the protest is a tepid one.

Some students, it seems, jumped on a passing car at near Hagar and Coolidge Drive, smashing its windshield. (Many protesters are also wearing those silly, fetishizing bandanas over their faces, which are clearly visible. Strange.)

Students at UC Berkeley are also peacefully protesting today, blocking off Sather Gate while chanting, "ain't no power but the power of the people cause the power of the people don't stop."

For more information on today's massive San Francisco rally at Civic Center, visit calfac.org.

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.)

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal chided the artwork as "deeply disturbing," especially since this mirrors UC San Diego's most recent incident of racial insensitivity, where a noose was hanged inside the school's library during Black History Month.

In all fairness, though, most banana slugs are noted for their aggressive sensitivity and having a low threshold for intolerance. Just the other day, UCSC students responded to UCSD's "Compton Cookout."

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.

Everett Family Farm (Leon Vehaba, farmer)
Abounding Harvest Farm (Danield Paduano, farmer)
UC Santa Cruz Farm (lots of farmers!)
Pie Ranch (Nancy Vail and Jered Lawson, farmers)
Blue House Farm (Ryan Casey and Ned Conwell, farmers)
Oso Velloso Farm (Kurt Christiansen, farmer)
Freewheelin’ Farm (Kirstin Yogg, Daryl Wong, and Amy Courtney, farmers)
Petaluma Bounty Farm (Amy Rice-Jones, farmer)
Dirty Girl Farm (Joe Schirmer, farmer)

The event will also include tastes from One Market chef and Michelen star recipient Mark Dommen. All you have to do is show up with sparkling conversation and a rumbling belly ready to go. (Psst, leave the ugly teevas, uglier shorts, and patchouli oil at home, banana slugs. And remember to bathe!)

But best of all, all proceeds go to help secure permanent housing for UC Santa Cruz Farm & Garden apprenticeship students. (An aside: your editor worked in said farm for two weeks, back during his halcyon college years, until he was fired for being "intimidated" by the swarms of bees buzzing all over the place. But don't judge. If you aren't saddled with red hair, you'll never understand what it's like to be chased by bees on a semi-regular basis. Ugh. Nature.)

Event info:
Thursday, July 16th 5:30 p.m.-8 p.m.
One Market Penthouse, 1 Market Street, SF
$25/person
reservations@onemarket.com

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.

While the banana slugs are on break for the holidays, hooligans went on a vandalism spree on Wednesday night at the UCSC campus. According to reports, the unidentified misfits damaged "up to 20 university cars, breaking windows of buildings and vehicles, spraying graffiti in residence halls, and laying down road spike strips." While officials have no suspects, we can only assume it was the work of Stevenson students. Oh wait, police said the trustifarianesque graffiti scrawled on dormitory walls, sigh, "expressed opposition to the prison system, law enforcement, and campus growth." So scratch that, this was clearly the work of Porter students.