Within two months of learning that Netflix would be splitting its DVD mailing – now known as Qwikster – and streaming capabilities into two services, priced at $7.99 each or $15.98 for both, nearly one million Netflix customers cancelled their subscriptions.

These customers are rightfully disappointed by the formerly beloved company’s woefully misguided attempt to increase revenue and steer customers away from DVDs and toward instant streaming.

In light of the economic recession and rising unemployment of the last five years, it is insulting for Netflix to ask their customers, many of whom have used the service since its inception in 1997, to eliminate half of their service or pay twice as much just to preserve the original options.

By charging 60 percent more for the combined mail and streaming service, customers who cannot afford the new price must choose a single platform with which to view their films in order to continue paying the original price, and the options aren’t equal. Now that Netflix’s contract with Starz – formerly a major provider of instant streaming movies – has ended, Qwikster’s selection of DVDs is larger than Netflix’s instant selection, leaving those who prefer to stream their films with such gems as Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter and Troll 2.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has said that he intended the changes to help shift the focus of the company from DVDs to streaming – a move that wisely acknowledges the likely demise of DVDs and Blu-Ray in favor of web-based rentals.

But Hastings is clearly out of touch with his customers if he thinks the average movie-watcher is prepared for that shift anytime soon.

Most people are currently unable or don’t know how to stream movies from their laptops to their TVs, don’t own an iPad or other tablet device and don’t want to watch all their movies on their computers or smartphones. In pushing streaming too soon, Netflix has alienated a substantial portion of its customers it may have kept, if only it had waited for people to catch up to the improved streaming technology.

By emphasizing streaming over DVDs, Netflix is also leaving itself vulnerable to competition from other streaming sites that may have a greater selection and better prices, such as Amazon, Blockbuster and Apple. In addition, customers frustrated with movie rental prices now have more incentive to seek out free but illegal downloading sites and pirated DVDs.

Hastings may comfort himself with the thought that Netflix is simply ahead of its time. Let’s hope he’s not out of business before that time comes.

I read the editorial on Sept. 22 titled “It’s going to be a bumpy ride” with great emotion. The California Aggie asked readers whom we should blame for the rising cost of our education. Fortunately, I know who is to blame for the rising tuition rates, at least this year.

But with most good stories, it comes with a little backtracking. This time it is November 2010 on Election Day. Democrats defeated Republicans in every state office election held from governor down to Attorney General, symbolizing California as a blue state. It held the executive office, as well as both houses of the legislature, with majorities of 25-15 in the Senate and 52-28 in the Assembly.

Jerry Brown emerged with a balanced plan to tackle the looming budget deficit of approximately $26 billion that would face California. In January, he released “…a draconian budget plan that would slash $12.5 billion in spending and extend $12 billion in tax hikes.” (CNN Money) That will be some fund shifts for the remainder. One of Jerry Brown’s campaign promises was to not raise taxes unless approved by the majority of the voters and he kept his word by planning a June special election.

Jerry Brown cut half of the budget deficit by spending cuts in March. Some new revenue streamed in and by late spring, the budget deficit stood at $9.6 billion. Unfortunately, the proposed special election to extend the income, sales and car registration taxes for five years did not come because the tax extensions were interpreted as tax increases by the Republicans.

Did I say Republicans? I apologize, those are people we elect and can hold accountable. I am talking about the national anti-tax group, Americans for Tax Reform. The founder of this organization is Grover Norquist.

“All of California’s Republican legislators in both houses have signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, except Senator Anthony Cannella of Ceres and Senator Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo … no Democratic legislators have signed the pledge.” (Sacramento Bee Blogs)

The group’s State Affairs Director Patrick Gleason said that voting to put a tax vote to the people is breaking that pledge. “We count that as an assist. It’s not a direct score, but it’s an assist,” Gleason said.

This is utterly absurd. Do they not believe that citizens can adequately judge the pros and cons of an alternative and turn away tax extensions? If your precious group is so adamant that you have the greater public interest in mind, why do you need a no-tax pledge in the first place?

But James, you said that the Democrats have majority in both houses and the executive office. Why couldn’t they get what they wanted? The answer is Proposition 13. Prop 13 imposed that in order to raise taxes, you must receive two-thirds vote in each legislative house for it to pass and, apparently, for it to go to the people for a vote. Jerry Brown needed to muster two Republican seats from each house to earn the two-thirds majority. He tried for over five months, but no budge. A non-Californian who holds no political office has more political power than our elected governor and the result is another $150 million dollars taken from UC and CSU in June.

I have seen my UC tuition rate rise over 50 percent over a three-year span. Do you know that last year student loan debt exceeded credit card debt in this country? Also, more funding was acquired by private means (tuition) than by public means (state funding), making us a more private than public university. How many sports teams and majors must be cut before we realize that we are getting the short end of this? Please voice your opinions, discuss this in your classes and let us take back our university system so that future generations can look upon it as a great educational system, not one on the decline since the 20th century.

I read the articles last spring on police spying on student demonstrations with alarm. Rather than risk having current students end up like me, here’s a tip and a tale:

Tip: The police and administration are lying don’t trust them.

Tale: My problems with UC started when I was involved in riots at UC Santa Barbara during 1971-72 (check islavista.org). The police had informants in the crowd. I was under “double jeopardy”: giving directions to students and throwing back teargas grenades, while also photographing incidents of police brutality. One guy, wearing hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses, grabbed my shoulder, spun me, then seized my shirt, pulled me close and practically whispered, “I’m going to remember your face. You’re f-ing dead.” I head-butted the punk; he let go, and then ran off.

After that, efforts were made to involve me in drug deals. The set-ups failed, so next thing I know I’m arrested on trumped-up (false and malicious) charges. At my second arrest – I wasn’t home – cops came with a search warrant and all my film disappeared; my cameras either disappeared or were beaten into scrap with nightsticks – maybe they resisted?

The UC police and administration don’t give a damn about your safety and security; there is ample evidence of that in how they handled Robert Lugo (check Davis Wiki or End-The-Regents-Reign on Facebook). Their job is to protect the reputation and property of the regents – you and the faculty are irrelevant; unless and until you threaten the regents. So they video and photo and spy on demonstrators, pick out leaders and photographers, and single them out for the first round of arrests.

The regents run UC like dictators run gangster states – spy on the people and, if they revolt, round up the usual suspects first – leaders and journalists. The current crop of dictators blaming Al-Qae’da (Kaddafi-duck), criminals (Assad), or the English (pick your dictator) for their people’s revolts are acting the same way the regents did in the ’70s. The regents were always blaming what they called “outside agitators” for UC riots. Of course, they created outside agitators by expelling student radicals and organizers.

I’ve been haunted by those arrests ever since – they led to my problems here.

And remember: you are on your own. The American Civil Liberties Union show up so their attorney can get media face time. Where is she now? Get who you can on your side and organize as best you can.

I’ve got more to say, but not the space; I’ll save it for later. I’ll conclude by saying, don’t fight the regents; just eliminate them. Not with bombs or bullets, but with ballots. Get an initiative on the ballot to end the regents and place control of the university in the hands of the faculty. And, when you do demonstrate (you must – the costs of UC have gone up over 80 percent in the last 5 years and are scheduled to double in the next 5); make sure everyone has a camera – vid or still. They can’t get us all.

Howard Zochlinski

Plaintiff in lawsuit against UC

It’s too bad that I have to wait until Tuesday to file my comment on the Berkeley College Republican bake sale. Since my column last week, the story in its various permutations have sprinted their course through the media. A variety of news outlets ran the initial story, talking heads passed their judgment and by virtue of the story’s proximity to Davis, most folks here have probably decided where they land on the controversy.

However, the delay gave me time to think about the context of the coverage. What strikes me about the build up to the event, as well as the aftermath of the bake sale, is the strong Tea Party vibe to it all.

I realize comparing Berkeley College Republicans to the Tea Party is not unlike comparing College Democrats to the Democratic Socialist Party. Or the Green Party. I don’t mean to slur the College Republicans by invoking the Tea Party, but I do want to note how the bake sale highlights some similarities between them.

First, the popular media coverage of both is a product of marginalized minority views emerging in unlikely contexts. The Tea Party had been around since 2009, but they emerged onto the political scene with the victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. This victory was not so much about Scott Brown as it was what he represented: an outsider, right-wing candidate winning the seat of the late Ted Kennedy, one of the bluest and inside-the-beltway officials around. And he won this seat in Massachusetts, a state that makes San Francisco look like Wasilla, Alaska.

The bake sale was not significant for being an innovative form of protest. The Berkeley College Republican protest was, in fact, the 10th such “Diversity Bake Sale” held on a college campus since 2002. Berkeley College Republicans now join the ranks of University of New Mexico College Republicans, University of Michigan College Republicans, University of Colorado, Boulder College Republicans, Columbia College Republicans, and, well, you get the point. What was significant about the stunt is that it took place in Berkeley.

It’s true that our bear-ish UC brethren have since moved away from the student anti-war atmosphere of the ’60s, but a recent college survey shows that self-identified liberals still outnumber conservatives five-to-one. We almost take it for granted that Berkeley is the quintessential liberal campus; the Massachusetts of college campuses, if you will.

Last week in San Francisco, former mayor Gavin Newsom reflected on the emergence of the Tea Party as a function of isolated activism belittled into extremism by the mainstream. The Berkeley College Republicans emerged into notoriety in a similar context — assumed into irrelevance by the political climate of their campus, they staged a bake sale called “inherently racist” by many in the media.

Second, the bake sale recalls the mind-numbingly simple tactics and ideology of the Tea Party as. Of the many issues one can have with the Tea Party, the one that bothers me the most is their ability to boil down really complicated issues into prohibitively simple sound bites. This way, eliminating Medicare becomes a necessary extension of getting the government out of our personal lives in the same way that denying Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, barring undocumented immigrants rights and raising revenue by taxation are all unnecessary government complications in our personal affairs.

The Berkeley College Republicans sought to take a tremendously complicated issue — affirmative action — and boil it away into racism. I hate to break it to them, but holding a Diversity Bake Sale doesn’t illustrate the ironic racism of affirmative action policies the same way the “Diversity Day” episode of “The Office” illustrates the ironic stereotyping of workplace multiculturalism. The use of racial and ethnic signifiers in admissions policy is about a lot more than meeting the right quota. Packed within this debate are pervasive instances of policies, regulations and economic history that institutionalize discrimination. But that debate doesn’t happen when you frame the issue as setting different costs to cookies.

Finally, to be fair, I should end by noting the last similarity between BCR and Tea Partiers is their relative level of success. It goes without saying that the Tea Party has elected a number of officials to nearly every level of public office. Their caucus in the federal legislature successfully shifted the debt talks to their ground and a number of their ideological stars are holding their own in the Republican primaries.

In an interview with National Public Radio late last week, President Shawn Lewis of the Berkeley College Republicans mentioned that the bake sale managed to raise more than $800 dollars. If you’ve ever been involved in a club, that’s no small sum for a three-day bake sale. Not to mention, he was being interviewed on National Public Radio while people all around the country were talking about an event his group staged. While the Tea Party and Berkeley College Republicans may be small fish, they make a big splash.

With all this talk of bake sales and tea, RAJIV NARAYAN is now hungry. Send him some food for thought at rrnarayan@ucdavis.edu.