This gem appeared in a Berkeley Daily Planet article by our favorite Becky O'Malley yesterday:
"In a previous piece we used the German word lebensraum, literally “living space,” to characterize the university’s desires. A younger copy editor wasn’t familiar with the word. It has unpleasant associations with Hitler’s expansion of Germany into Poland, but it’s a concept that clearly describes the institutional tendency toward infinite territorial expansion in the name of progress."
Most of the BDP "articles" are a little out there, but this one was more crazed than usual. I took issue with the description of UC building on its own land as "territorial expansion" (not to mention the best use of Nazi's since Runnie Dub called a female UCPD officer "Adolf Hillary"), so I wrote the following email:
"Comparing UC Berkeley developing land which it owns to the Nazi occupation of Poland...classy."
to which I received the following response:
"didn't they claim to own poland too?"
Wow. I guess when you dig a hole, the best thing to do is just to keep on digging. Ragnarok felt it was a little predictable:
"Ah, you should have seen the 'property rights are an invention of the capitalist oppressors' argument coming a mile away from BDP. rookie mistake."
Obviously, there are many, many directions in which I could take a response, so I'm reaching out to our entire community for help. Hopefully we'll incite another response from the BDP to keep ourselves entertained on this joyous Friday. Snark away.