Posts Tagged ‘berkeley’

The Berkeley City Council will not rest until all the world’s karma is balanced out. Only then will its work be done.

The Berkeley City Council served an immediate cease and desist order to Bechtel Corporation in an effort to preserve the Spotted Hobo’s habitat. The council claimed the construction site, located at the Ashby Avenue underpass, is a natural spawning ground for the Spotted Hobo (Polka-dot vagranti) and its alteration could bring about the extinction of the group. The United Nations Commission on Compromised Wildlife has placed the Spotted Hobo on the endangered species list; one notch below the Goiter-Necked Parakeet (Magnum-thoraxed dinkus), but several notches above Syrian Refugees (Syrian refugees).

The Council believes that disturbing the Spotted Hobo’s biosphere would force the species to abandon their natural habitat and move to less accommodating grounds in the urban center where they’d encroach on stairwells already strained by populations of unemployed raccoons (Loafus mascara). The Spotted Hobo is a rare sub-species of vagranti who’ve developed their trademark “spots” by eating from doggy bags “gifted” to them by predatory capitalists exiting the many fine bistros of Berkeley. And while the well-heeled foodie set embraces the Spotted Hobo, other groups are quite fearful of the breed and are what we term “hobophobic.”

Lawyers for Bechtel Construction pleaded with the Berkeley City Council to reconsider their order and reminded them that the project was designed as a 400-bed homeless shelter and as such could absorb 8 times the number of displaced Spotted Hobos. The council refused the request and had the site re-zoned as an Indigenous Spotted Persons’ Habitat. Antioch (whose city has an open borders policy) offered to take in the Spotted Hobos, but Berkeley refused the offer stating, “The forced eviction of any species from their natural hunting and gathering grounds only serves to strengthen the oppressors and weaken the oppressed.”

When Bechtel Construction reiterated that the project was designed to house the very people they were so concerned about displacing, Berkeley Gender-neutral Council Entity, Trax Hillman remarked, “Logic has nothing to do with our decision. This is a reparation for Andrew Jackson’s forced removal of the Cherokee people along the ‘Trail of Tears’ in the late 1830’s. And if you don’t understand that you’re just one of the oppressors. We at the Council know why the caged Goiter-necked Parakeet sings. And as long as we have something to say about it, the Spotted Hobo will continue to live unmolested ‘neath, the bridges of Ashby Avenue where they’ll be protected by rapacious capitalists like Bechtel Corporation. Yes they’ll continue to thrive in their natural biota provided they’re fed by the doggy-bag toting restaurant patrons they’ve become dependent on as a primary food source.”  

Next week the Council takes up an application by Whole Foods for a store on Telegraph Avenue. Already the application is meeting strong headwinds as some members are calling for the Whole Foods to first open a Half Foods for one week and then the open other half the next week, so that by the end of 2 weeks they’d have a Whole Foods. Council member Hemp Wurther (who puts the “Q” in LGBTQ) explained, “Whole Foods is an admirable grocer and we’d be pleased to have them as a part of our nation. It is our intention however to have them showcase some of the less popular or disadvantaged food one week and then display the more adaptive mainstream foods the next week. Additionally, no matter which week a patron shops, all shall receive a participation trophy. And in case it isn’t abundantly clear already, we are doing this as a reparation for Andrew Jackson’s forced removal of the Cherokee people along the ‘Trail of Tears’ in the late 1830’s.”