DBD 6.30.08 Great News from the Hippies

More info on Alysia Johnson’s unfortunate end to her olympic dreams:

The sore right foot that forced Alysia Johnson to withdraw from her 800-meter semifinal at the NCAA Championships earlier this month flared up at the worst possible time Friday night, ending the Cal senior’s dream of making the U.S. Olympic team for Beijing.

Johnson faded dramatically in the last 150 meters of her quarterfinal race at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials at Hayward Field and finished ninth in 2 minutes, 6.43 seconds. Her 2008 season is over, according to her coach, Cal’s Tony Sandoval, but her future is promising after she signed a four-year contract with Nike to run professionally.

I cant imagine how it feels to go through what Ms. Johnson went through. Good luck to her recovering from this and moving forward!

Sorry no link, but I lifted this from an AN story on A’s minor leaguers

RHP Tyson Ross – Kane County Cougars: As was reported in my Mid-Week Minors Update, Tyson Ross has become the first A’s 2008 draftee to debut with a full season affiliate. After throwing a couple scoreless innings out of the Kane County bullpen on June 24th, Tyson made his debut as a starter on Thursday, going 3 innings, allowing 2 hits and 1 run while striking out 3 without walking a batter. Tyson now has a 5-0 K-BB ratio in 5 innings on the year. It remains to be seen if the A’s minor league coaches will begin tweaking Tyson’s mechanics in the near future. However, even without tinkering, Tyson looks like he could become an above-average, mid-back rotation starter at the major league level, with three average-plus pitches and good control.

More from the Daily Planet.

A moderately reasonable article on the new UC filings. The only thing that seems particularly one-sided is the headline, which reads:

UC Drops Stadium Brace To Avoid Alquist-Priolo Valuation for Gym Project

Another article about how the hippies are upset that the Berkeley City Council is going to be meeting in a closed session without them. Oh noes! How will the Council get anything done without the ground support speaking?? This is what they will be discussing:

On the agenda of the closed session, scheduled at 5 p.m. Monday in the council chambers, the council is scheduled to discuss a number of legal issues, including the lawsuit against the university over building a sports training facility adjacent to the crumbling Memorial Stadium located on an earthquake fault. Also on the agenda is the question of whether to file a new lawsuit against the university to force it to remove the barriers it placed on city streets.

And:

"We certainly can demand to have our sidewalks back," Spring told the Planet on Friday. "They’ve had them long enough."

More interesting information on last week’s abrupt ending to the Council meeting:

Linda Maio’s vote was key in the council’s vote not to extend the meeting to permit a discussion of Spring’s motion.

On Friday, Maio told the Planet why she did not vote to extend the meeting. She said she was satisfied with a report from city staff whom the city manager had sent up to the grove during the council meeting. They reported, via the city manager, that the tree-sitters said they were not in an emergency situation and would not accept food and water from university officials.

The manager’s report, however, did not convince Councilmembers Max Anderson, Darryl Moore, Spring and Worthington. Worthington had spoken directly to the tree-sitters by phone during the council’s discussion on whether to add the emergency item. Worthington reported that the tree sitters said they were in need of food and water and felt they faced a health crisis.

And Letters To The Editors. A few relevant ones:

UC STADIUM

Editors, Daily Planet:

Now that the judge has slowed down the sports center, a win-win alternate would be to build a multi-use sport facility at the Albany G.G. racetrack. There is plenty of parking. UC Berkeley’s housing, Richmond Field Station, and campus are all close by. Horse racing tracks are being abandoned.

As a long time Berkeley resident, UC Berkeley’s continual expansion has made life unbearable. There’s no quality of life, living in a high-density, limited-area city.

Ray Quan

PUERILE ASPERSIONS

Editors, Daily Planet:

We read with interest Becky O’Malley’s recent "Editor’s Back Fence" column no the Daily Planet website regarding the whole Memorial Stadium brouhaha, and several of her colorful phrases caught our eye:

• UC Berkeley continues to embarrass its graduates.

• Huge and hideous Mussolini Modern athletic building.

• Kafkaesque labyrinth of dark underground corridors.

• Quintessential Old White Guy.

• No-neck conformation that identified them as The-Jocks-in-Charge.

• "Oozing charm from every pore, he oiled his way across the floor."

We have wondered if all your advertisers would be pleased with your oddly puerile, stereotyped aspersions, and if they really want to spend their advertising dollars on your personal opinion paper. Are any of your advertisers pale white guys, or ex-athletes? We’ll ask them.

Leo J. Gaspardone, Sr. (UC ‘57)

Sandy Bails (UC ‘68)

I’m not sure if I’d call this latest legal tactic ‘grasping at straws’, but it certainly isn’t as strong an argument as the author would have you believe. Yes, UC does have to consider alternative sites when they plan projects such as this, but ultimately UC gets to use its discretion in determining which site best fits its needs. Judge Miller seemed pretty thorough in her ruling that UC did adequately consider alternative sites, and though I’m sure the City of Berkeley and others would have grounds for an appeal, I find it extremely unlikely that an appeals court would find grounds to overturn Judge Miller’s ruling.

More to the point, I don’t think such an appeal would present grounds for continuing the injunction. Remember, the judge also ruled that the trees are neither old for sacred nor protected, and thus pretty much all of the reasons for the initial granting of the injunction no longer apply. The judge’s ruling confirms that UC absolutely has the right to cut down these trees and build a training center there, and I’m pretty sure her ruling would stand up to appeal, if an appellate court even saw fit to review the case.