Saturday, April 16, 2016

Your tax dollars at work!

You may remember the viral video of 2011 depicting UC Davis students sitting passively on the ground while being pepper-sprayed by officer John Pike.  Well, it turns out that UC Davis spent $175000 trying to make the video disappear from the internet.

That didn't work.  You can read about the misery here.

As soon as the incident became well known, Officer Pike was let go.  He was later awarded $38000 for the "trauma" he faced in the incident.  He was sorry for getting caught.  Read more about Officer Pike's "misery" here.

For extra credit:
    Perhaps you can find out why half of the campus is in Yolo County and the other half is in Solano County.  I tried to obtain info but was unsuccessful.  I had heard that it was the result redistricting, for keeping the students from voting on things by having the dorms in another county.  However, that may just be a rumor.

- unknown sender

8 comments:

  1. Maybe the admin thought that a "YOLO" address would appeal to millennials?

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    1. I feel cheated that I only just found out there is a school in a place called "Yolo".

      What is the British equivalent of "yolo", friend?

      Delete
    2. It's OOLO*

      But of course, actions speak louder than words. It’s considered good form to bequeath, to the British Museum, a selection of culturally sensitive knick-knacks purloined overseas during one’s salad days.

      *one only lives once

      Delete
  2. What a douche the campus cop was. BUT! "The university had previously paid out $1m to settle a lawsuit filed by demonstrators who were pepper-sprayed during the protest. The sum represented $30,000 per demonstrator...." I would SO take a pepper spraying for $30K!

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  3. The border between Yolo and Solano counties is Putah creek which runs through the Davis campus. Looks like they did move it over a skootch to run along the interstate for a bit (which also crosses the campus), but that's only a matter of 50 yards or so.

    My guess is it's probably nothing more sinister than the fact that interstates are now more permanent and defining features of the landscape than waterways - which is pretty disturbing in itself if you stop and think about it.

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  4. Hovering above all of this, like a vulture after carrion, is the utter lack of accountability of the Chancellor. At the pepper-spray incident, she defended herself by exclaiming, "The university needs ME!" Then there came multiple conflict-of-interest problems. Now this, to the tune of $175k, and for something that would both have saddened and gladdened George Orwell. (He'd have been saddened in that a university official tried to rewrite history; he'd have been gladdened in that despite the attempts, it was not rewritten.) Why Governor Jerry Brown doesn't put down his copy of the Sacramento Bee and do something I have no idea.

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    Replies
    1. I did my undergrad work at a certain UC with a nice cliffside campus overlooking the ocean and a reputation for the raucous Halloween party in the slum next to campus.

      While I was there there were a couple of incidents that explained the status of UC Chancellors to me.

      In the first the Chancellor made the campus officially dry during the same year that zhe ran up $125,000+ bar tab at official entertaining event in the Chancellor's official residence on campus, and this didn't cause any fuss at the Board of Regents level. So the campus paper and then the local paper started digging and found the university funds that had been used to pay for said Chancellor's kitchen re-model in the off-campus house which the U had help hir to buy because the official residence on campus wasn't plush enough for hir. This, too, didn't unseat the Chancellor.

      Later, when the campus paper uncovered what looked like evidence of real malfeasance at the upper administration level they were ordered—by that same administration—to drop it, and when they refused the administration simply canceled the funding for the program that ran organ and handed control of the masthead to a off-campus group that would do as they were told.

      Chancellors are like royalty: the rules are different for them. I suppose it's nice work if you can get it.

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