evangelinegarreau asks: I don't mean to be rude, but may I ask why you thought the "controversy" (if you can call it something that exciting) over UC's new logo was worth reporting? It just doesn't seem that noteworthy for those of us not in UC or in the graphic design world. Slow news day?
» SFB says: I had a long response written, but Tumblr ate it. So here’s a short response: It clearly elicited a lot of anger (understandable because college students spend tens of thousands of dollars on going to school each year, and it went to a redesign they didn’t like), enough that it led 33,000 people to sign a Change.org petition, and I care about graphic design on a personal level. I think it’s an interesting topic, as I once worked as a graphic designer for a newspaper. I have no regrets! — Ernie @ SFB
Brian Nguyen, photographer for UC Davis’s student newspaper The Aggie, captured the events of yesterday’s protests from beginning to end, and was kind enough to submit them for publication here at The Political Notebook. Above are a selection of photos capturing the police in riot gear, arresting and pepper spraying the student protesters. What an intense group of shots.
You can follow Nguyen’s Flickr stream or follow him on Tumblr.
The stuff at UC Davis yesterday is pretty unbelievable, and these photos really show just one angle of it. Watch the video. James Fallows of The Atlantic refers to it as such: “Watch that first minute and think how we’d react if we saw it coming from some riot-control unit in China, or in Syria. The calm of the officer who walks up and in a leisurely way pepper-sprays unarmed and passive people right in the face? We’d think: this is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population. That’s what I think here.” UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza, meanwhile, claims that the police acted as they did because they were surrounded. The university’s chancellor, Linda P.B. Katehi, calls the events “troubling.” What do you think?
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
