CENTENNIAL CRACK-UP… Squid always knew that Salinas’ right-wing crackpot Joe Vierra was several greens short of a salad. Vierra gives pejorative rants at City Council meetings, displays anti-abortion bumper stickers and Squid even spied him looking lost in a Seaside neighborhood handing out pamphlets. But on Sunday’s Centennial Celebration at Cesar Chavez Library Vierra was completely unhinged, launching f-bombs among book-loving children. Vierra was rambling about some sort of anti-American/communist conspiracy, while holding a Salinas Action League flyer. A nearby “graveyard” for U.S. troop casualties with a truck saying “Endless War” may have set him off. Who knows? Vierra dissed Cal State Monterey Bay and insulted anyone within earshot, going as far as to call everyone in attendance “lepers.” An event organizer tried to reason with the mad man to be a loving Christian. Vierra wandered off like a loose mental patient. Squid saw no reason to hate – thousands of families going in and out of the library, poets and musicians performing on the lawn, celebrity authors showing love for Salinas’ little book haven. Squid hopes Vierra sticks with this tea-bagging friends and remembers to take his medication.

STUDENT DAZE… Speaking of mental health, Squid extends best wishes to its Otterly wonderful friends at CSUMB. But school officials may have their work cut out for them. They recently announced that they will be joining more than 1,000 campuses across the country to promote National Collegiate Alcoholic Awareness Week. The local version of the event, which takes place during the week of Oct. 11, includes: “The Dope Show,’’ with licensed clinical social worker Alan Sherer; fireside chats with reps from the CSUMB Personal Growth and Counseling Center, the University Police Department, Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon; a “Crash Festival,” with a “DUI-aftermath vehicle’’ and, Squid’s personal favorite, Jell-O Wrestling; billed as an “alcohol-free event.” Props to all for their good intentions, but Squid fears this will prove just about as successful as the new “sex policy’’ for dorms announced by Tufts University this week. The East Coast institution said it had complaints from students who couldn’t do their homework because roommates were hooking up while they were in the room, so now they have a rule against consensual sex with nonconsensual onlookers. There are apparently no penalties, so Squid wonders how this interesting new approach will play out, as it were. Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned method of leaving a sock on the dorm doorknob to indicate special play time?