Wellingtonia 92

A virtual capture on the People's Park in Berkeley, CA. The story of which started in with a block of distressed housing which the University of California wanted to knock down and use the space to build some much needed student accommodation. A story which started in the 1950's but only really got going in the late 1960's, by which time students in the US and elsewhere were having lots of protests, fuelled by the US intervention in Vietnam, an  intervention which blighted the lives of tens of thousands of young conscripts from the US - and which killed a great many more Vietnamese.

But it started for me with another email from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. An email which I find a little distasteful. Partly because of the whiff of pyramid sales about it, partly because I prefer my philanthropy not to be so entwined with marketing and consultant speak. It may work but I don't like it.

An outfit which appears to share its address with the Chronicle of Higher Education, that is to say 1255 Twenty-Third St. NW Washington, DC 20037. A little to the south west of the Du Pont circle which I came across one evening in the course of what was perhaps my last excursion to the land of the free. Named, I believe, for an eminent admiral of that name.

Poking around turned up this snippet about pets, drawing attention to the need for philanthropic action in the pet department. I believe there is a whole small hours television channel devoted to such action, possibly called 'Animal Rescue Cops' or something like that.

While poking around the sister publication turned up the People's Park. A place which turns out to have a long and illustrious place in the annals of protest.

Protest which appears to have got fairly serious at times to judge by the pictures turned up by Bing, one of which is included above. Not the way we do things on this side of the pond at all.

From where I get to the Wikipedia article at reference 4. From which I learn something of the tangled history of the place. I also get the latitude and longitude, which is processed by gmaps into the snap at the top of this post. What looks very like a giant redwood, otherwise a Wellingtonia, in its native land, albeit not very healthy looking. The twin trunk in the middle, to the left of the palm tree.

Bing did not oblige with a close enough shot to be absolutely sure, but it does look very much like one. Scored.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/wellingtonia-91.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/07/fundraiser.html. The first outing for the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Reference 3: https://www.chronicle.com/. Some of which is pay to view.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Park_(Berkeley).

Group search key: wgc.