Free Republic

Here is a hopefully short synopsis of something that happened this week that I still don’t understand (?) [Be sure to read all 25 or so tweets, you will not be disappointed and you will be amazed.]

UC Davis students angry about rising tuition have staged many protests in the last year and a half – including sit-ins at campus buildings, a naked rally on the quad and a march that almost walked onto Interstate 80. Now students are staging a new confrontation against campus management, accusing administrators of spying on their activist movement. Student activists and the American Civil Liberties Union will hold a press conference at UC Davis today to call attention to their allegation that university officials have violated students' rights to free speech by monitoring their demonstrations.

UC Berkeley police arrested one of nine people who walked out on a fourth-story ledge of UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall at around 1:45 this afternoon, protesting budget cuts to higher education and campus layoffs. Police said the protester left the ledge and entered a classroom, but protesters claim police pulled him down. Some of the remaining eight protesters continued to be chained to the building's stone pillars as hundreds of students gathered on the steps below shouting the now-familiar mantra, "No cuts, no fees, education must be free!"

UC Berkeley police arrested 17 people who refused to leave Wheeler Hall on campus Wednesday night following a day of protests against education budget cuts, a police spokesman said. All 17 were taken to the Berkeley city jail and cited for misdemeanor trespassing, said UC Berkeley police spokesman Alex Yao. Fourteen were released after being cited, but three, who had extra charges of obstructing police officers, were held overnight to appear in court this morning, Yao said. Protesters at UC Berkeley are commonly issued citations and released on site and not taken to the jail Yao said, but in this...

BERKELEY, Calif. — University of California officials have won the legal right to oust a band of tree-sitters who've taken up residence in an oak grove standing in the way of a planned sports center. But how do you uproot a tree-sitter in Berkeley, one of America's most politically correct cities? "Extremely difficult," acknowledges campus spokesman Dan Mogulof. As the protest nears its one-year anniversary, plenty of people have suggestions: Fire hoses, skunk spray and tranquilizer darts are among the thorny ideas Internet posters have planted. So far, the university has moved cautiously. The university wants to remove dozens of...

Jurate Cannara knew her daughter Laura was different when, as a toddler, she would stand out in the rain, her tiny hands outstretched toward the lightning. "Mama, I need energy," the little girl would tell her. As Laura Mikuseviciuje grew from toddler to child to teen to young woman, Cannara noticed that her daughter's eccentricities only increased with age. "I didn't understand my daughter," said Cannara, who lives in Verona, of her daughter's early expressions of intuition and odd, energetic behavior. According to some, Laura's tendencies are not odd at all; they even have a name. She and others like...

A New Brunswick father is suing the provincial amateur hockey association after his 16-year-old son failed to win the league's most-valuable-player award. Michael Croteau is seeking $300,000 in psychological and punitive damages from the association. He is also demanding that the MVP trophy be taken from the boy who won it and given to his son, Steven, as well as the league's playmaker award, which was awarded to a different boy. Croteau also wants Steven to be guaranteed a spot on the New Brunswick Canada Winter Games roster. In an interview yesterday from his home on Lameque Island, N.B., Croteau...