Cal to Hippies: Get Down From That Tree. Now.

A judge lifted the order blocking the University of California at Berkeley from beginning construction on a planned athletic facility next to Cal’s football stadium yesterday, thus clearing the way for treeborne hippies protesting the removal of the trees to immediately begin their search for new housing. Dumpster Muffin, thy name is sadness.↵↵It would be easy to get all Eric Cartman on the dedicated freaks who, beginning on December 1, 2006, have sat, slept, lounged naked, and screamed at police from the trees. You must admire some things about their effort, though: it was consistent (constant occupancy), stylish (one of the sitters calls herself “Dumpster Muffin,”) and quasi-successful in that it put off the construction of the facility for nearly two years. Consistent, stylish, and quasi-successful would not be the words I normally associate with the word “hippie,” so at the least the whole exercise has been a loopy but effective exercise in rebranding for Team Hippie. (Those three original words, by the way, are “lice,” “marijuana,” and “naked.”)↵

↵↵They should now stylishly, consistently, and quasi-successfully run like hell, however, because they risk being tranq-darted by police, who undoubtedly will clear the place shortly and make way for the most luxurious weight room and treatment facility in the world built directly on a fault line. I’ve seen this scenario before, and you’re gonna need some crash pads around the trampoline.↵

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