University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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Tou shall above all things be glad and young. For if you ' re young, whatever life you wear it will become you; and if you are glad whatever ' s living will yourself become. — e.e. cummlngs

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HAIEL . Welcome to Berkeley. Now Say you hate me. Say it first and then we can get started. OO lO Tl© Okay. I said, I hate you. IIKJlll . After this perfunctory ritual, we were able to move on to introductions. I ' m Bamboo today, ' he told me, though I ' m sure he ' s well aware that he ' s more commonly known in Berkeley as The Hate Man. This afternoon he was wearing a silky black bra and a stylish pink sweater, and was having some trouble finding a dry place to lay out his blankets, as an unexpected cloudburst had just soaked his bedding. As Berkeley locals go, the Hate Man is probably one of the most visible, and the most well-liked. He can usually be found wherever right-wing religious rhetoric is being spewed, heckling preachers in defense of the rights of believers and non-believers alike. His wit is sharper and weirder than David Letterman ' s, and on a good day he can play to an audience of over 100 ensnared passers-by. So, the obvious question is, why does he want people to say they hate him? I feel it ' s a way of caring when we ' re opposite. It shows me that you ' re willing to say it. If you ' ve already said it once and you get angry with me you ' re more likely to say it again. In saying I hate you, you discover that it is caring, you are caring, and hopefully get into that space of hating. What kind of hate are we talking about here? I distinguish between hostility and hate. Violence is not caring, harsh is not caring. Not FUCK OFF, which invalidates the person, but FUCK YOU. That would be a caring response. Bamboo sees the expression of hate and anger as absolutely necessary in relationships. If I can only be nice to you, he explained, then some of the time it ' s going to be a hoax. My feeling is, the moment of realness is going to erode if I can only say nice things to you. Without this expression of hate, the relationship will become, increasingly hollow, increasingly fraudulent, a mask for tension, hostility, rage. Hate, then, is a way to deal with conflict in a caring way — a direct approach. I ' m not here to please you, I ' m here to run you into the ground. This observation led into a discussion of the inherent duality of relationships and inner balance. There ' s me, there ' s you. Yin and yang battle in the material plane. Between opposites that conflict is going to be tested and resolved with power or with caring. Yin can get yang to care. Here we dove into yet another crucial aspect of this outlook: To the extent that I care about you then I ' m in the Tao; that ' s the doorway to the Tao — caring. I include negative caring as a part of caring. Clearly this philosophy, if adopted by others, could have great social ramifications. So I wondered, does Bamboo hope to encourage others to follow this line of thinking ? From an ego point of view I want everyone to do it, but in a practical way I don ' t care. Since I ' m not you, I don ' t have to wait around for you to go into the Tao. The Christian model is to say we are one, we ' re all in the same boat. The problem with that is that means you are me. That means I can ' t go to Heaven until you feed your cat. Is this why he heckles, over a fundamental difference of opinion? Heckling to me ... A preacher is someone who ' s standing on a box yelling at me, saying that I ' m wrong, saying that I ' m a sinner. You ' re gonna go to Heaven, I ' m gonna go to Hell. That ' s a verbal assault on me. Your heart is clean, mine is a cesspool — to which I say, FUCK YOU. In fairness, Bamboo explained that once a preacher has said I hate you he no longer needs to heckle them Once you say ' I hate you, ' you ' re starting to change, to come down off that milk carton. So what if all the preachers figure this out and he doesn ' t have anyone left to heckle? Not a problem. This signifies a neutralization of that previously charged relationship. Once I ' ve learned that angle of attack (by neutralizing), then I ' m satisfied. by Lara Vinnard 28 PEOPLE • HoteMon

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It Is estimated that 400.000 children In the U.S. are born with blood lead levels at or above the neurotoxic levels of 10-15 ug dl (micrograms per deciliter). A 1986 study in East Oakland and in Los Angeles County found that around 19% of children between ages of one and six had blood lead levels above 15. At these levels, mental re- tardation and impaired development are virtual certainties in the child Removing lead from the environment of childr en could eradicate lead poisoning, but such re- moval is simply too ex- pensive. The little ones leaped, and shout- ed, and laugh ' d And all the hills echoed ... — William Blake The most dispensible. The most easily forgotten. The most exploited ma- nipulation tool used by the media and govern- ment. This is what it means to be a child, ribbonsdumptrucksdirt runnynosesdollsmakebe lieveiloveyouihateyoucoo- tiescootie scootiesthisis- whatitmeans to be a child. Who will speak for to be a child tort their needs into a cost-benefit analysis. At the very least, print a pictoral of them in Life. S o m e- one, please, speak for our chil- those whose cries echo dren. Have into silence? y° forgotten what it is to Call them an invest- be a child? ment in the future. Dis- 30 PEOPLE • Children