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Monday, 9 November 2009
1. Op-Ed: Fund gap cripples state's universities
Sacramento Bee
November 7, 2009
The recently issued rankings of the world's universities by the Times of London Higher Education supplement ranks five University of California campuses as among the 100 best universities in the world. No other state has more than one university in this highly influential international ranking, while 42 states – and many countries – have none.
Of private universities in the western United States, only Stanford and Cal Tech make this list. UCLA and BERKELEY rank as the second and third best public universities in the nation. In separate ratings of subject areas, UCLA and BERKELEY make the top 20 in the world in life sciences and biomedicine, social sciences, arts and humanities, and technology. Yet due to state funding cuts, almost all of their faculties are on part-time layoffs.
There was a time not long ago when such a scenario would have been hard to imagine. It is UC's stellar reputation, after all, achieved over generations, and in times both good and bad, that has allowed it to capture the external funding that supports most of its activities.
It is this reputation that draws some of the best talent and sharpest minds on the globe to our campuses, offering students a world-class education and our industries a rich source of talent and leadership. The UC system, created by and for the people of our state, may well be California's greatest asset in a globalized economy. ...
In this emergency, we need to transcend short-term political thinking and face the fact that we're burning the furniture. We must tax something somewhere to sustain higher education and other vital functions of state government, or we will be paying for it with a deeply diminished future. Full Story
2. Cal Tailback Jahvid Best Released From Hospital
New York Times Online (*requires registration)
November 8, 2009
Berkeley, Calif. (AP) -- CALIFORNIA STAR TAILBACK JAHVID BEST was released from the hospital Sunday and will miss at least one game after sustaining a concussion on a terrifying fall in the end zone.
Best spent the night at Highland General Hospital in Oakland for observation and tests after landing on the back of his head in the end zone and being briefly knocked unconscious in the Golden Bears' 31-14 loss to Oregon State on Saturday night.
''We are relieved and thankful that Jahvid has been released from the hospital and that his CT scans and X-rays have come back normal,'' COACH JEFF TEDFORD said Sunday.... Full Story
3. UC Berkeley students make world-record California sushi roll
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
November 9, 2009
It began with ninjas and it ended with tofu, and somewhere in the middle, hundreds of amateur sushi rollers set a new world record.
The world's longest California roll was made on the UC BERKELEY campus Sunday, according to Consul-General of Japan Yasumasa Nagamine. Organizers lined up dozens of 6-foot tables that were manned by volunteer students and campus employees and created 330 feet of California roll, complete with avocado, cucumber and imitation-crab meat....
The previous record of 300 feet was set in Hawaii in 2001, UC BERKELEY SPOKESWOMAN KATHLEEN MACLAY said....
"Ninja mask: a dollar fifty. Plastic ninja sword: a dollar fifty. Making the world's longest California roll: priceless," said Ph.D. GRADUATE ERI TAKAHASHI.
...The event was the latest in a series of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of UC BERKELEY'S CENTER FOR JAPANESE STUDIES, PROFESSOR DUNCAN WILLIAMS said....
"Food is always dynamic. There is no such thing as a pure cuisine — it's always changing for the people who make it and eat it." The yearlong celebration ends in December and will include a summit meeting of the heads of Japanese studies departments from across the United States to discuss the future of their field, Williams said....
[This story also appeared in the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune. An Associated Press story on this topic appeared in more than 100 sources nationwide, including the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Sacramento Bee, and Washington Post. Another story appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle] Full Story
4. Green Technology: UCLA conference spotlights firms' eco-friendly concepts
Start-ups and Fortune 500 companies attend the event hosted by Opportunity Green.
Los Angeles Times
November 9, 2009
Every week, ALEX VELEZ and NIKHIL ARORA collect 2,000 pounds of used coffee grounds from Peet's Coffee & Tea outlets near their UC Berkeley haunts and take them to a warehouse in Oakland.
There, in a damp indoor farm, the college friends grow gourmet mushrooms that are sold at local Whole Foods Markets. JUST A FEW MONTHS OUT OF [UC BERKELEY] BUSINESS SCHOOL, they're on track to make more than $200,000 in their first year.
The budding entrepreneurs' efforts were among 25 start-ups spotlighted during the third annual sustainable business conference hosted by L.A.-based Opportunity Green in partnership with UCLA's Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. The event held at UCLA drew nearly 600 participants, including 45 companies displaying the latest green products and technologies.
"We want to broadcast to the world that there are viable and highly profitable business opportunities that are environmentally responsible," said Mike Flynn, co-founder of Opportunity Green, whose company holds green industry forums around the country.... Full Story
5. World of Good crafts opportunities for artisans
San Francisco Chronicle
November 9, 2009
For Indian beadworkers who craft intricate necklaces and earrings, Haitian metalworkers who recycle oil drums into sculptures, and Guatemalan weavers who make rainbow-hued tapestries, the economic downturn that has choked off consumer spending could mean a devastating plunge back into poverty.
PRIYA HAJI is determined to stop that from happening.
As CEO and co-founder of World of Good, a small Emeryville company that creates market opportunities for craftspeople from the developing world, Haji has acted nimbly to respond to the recession without slashing the orders her far-flung workers depend on....
Thousands of artisans in 70 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe fabricate the handmade jewelry, clothing, housewares and art that World of Good sells online and in stores.
The craftspeople, mainly women working in existing cooperatives, earn at least 20 percent above the local minimum wage and are guaranteed a safe working environment. Those conditions are verified by outside authorities such as fair-trade groups.
HAJI AND SIDDHARTH SANGHVI - WHO BOTH HAVE MASTER'S DEGREES IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION FROM UC BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS - started the company in 2004 determined to use capitalism as a force for good. By year end, it will have sold about 5 million individual items since its founding.
Socially aware buyers... Full Story
6. Are Too Many Students Going to College?
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
November 8, 2009
With student debt rising and more of those enrolled failing to graduate in four years, there is a growing sentiment that college may not be the best option for all students. At the same time, President Obama has called on every American to receive at least one year of higher education or vocational training. Behind the rhetoric lies disagreement over a series of issues: which students are most likely to succeed in college; what kind of college they should attend; whether the individual or society benefits more from postsecondary education; and whether college is worth the high cost and likely long-term debt. The Chronicle Review asked higher-education experts to weigh in.
Who should and shouldn't go to college?...
W. NORTON GRUBB: Students should go to college if they understand (and want) the economic or occupational benefits of college, as long as they understand the length of time and difficulty of attaining a degree. They should also be college-ready, and they should be enthusiastic about the intellectual roles of college—the chance to take general-education courses, the intellectual and cultural life of most colleges, the opportunities to develop broad and curious intellects. Otherwise college is likely to be narrow and utilitarian....
Grubb: There's a conventional demonstration in economics that students (or parents) should pay to the extent that private benefits (like increased earnings) are the result, and that government should support higher education when public benefits are involved. Given the dominance of private benefits, that suggests higher tuition; higher levels of student aid to make college-going more equitable; and public assistance to support obvious social benefits like civic education, crucial underfinanced sectors like education and social welfare, research, and service in the public interest. The high-tuition/high-aid policy preferred by most economists has never been popular, in part because aid levels never keep up with tuition. But it's a simple matter to devise an aid policy that does keep up with tuition, and higher education should concentrate on developing one....
Forum Participants
...W. NORTON GRUBB, PROFESSOR OF POLICY, ORGANIZATION, MEASUREMENT, AND EVALUATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY'S GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION...
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
7. Fans and Fears of 'Lecture Capture'
Inside Higher Ed
November 9, 2009
Denver — If professors record their lectures and put them online, will students still come to class?
That question came up in two different sessions at the 2009 Educause Conference here on Friday. And in both cases, the panelists cited research indicating that students’ likelihood of skipping class has no correlation with whether a professor decides to capture her lecture and post it the Web....
“Our students at Berkeley tell us that this is supplemental material, and it doesn’t affect their decision to attend class,” said MARA HANCOCK, DIRECTOR FOR EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, of her own research into the matter.... Full Story
8. Unemployment rate rises to 10.2%
It's the first time it has hit double digits since 1983. Employers cut 190,000 jobs last month, a bigger drop than expected.
Los Angeles Times
November 7, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 10.2% in October, raising questions about the staying power of the budding economic recovery and confronting President Obama with a politically explosive new challenge....
Hitting double digits will have an immediate psychological effect across the country, said ROBERT REICH, who was secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration.
It's "an important political threshold" and will probably force the administration's hand on additional steps to stimulate jobs, said REICH, WHO NOW TEACHES AT UC BERKELEY.... Full Story
9. Reich lightens up
Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, favors laughs over talk of doom and gloom
Chicago Tribune
November 9, 2009
"As you can see," said ROBERT REICH, taking the stage with no lectern in the Thorne Auditorium at Northwestern University School of Law, "the economy has worn me down. A year and a half ago, I was 6-foot-2."
And so, with his first words, the diminutive former U.S. secretary of labor answered the question of how an economics lecture would fit within an event themed to amusement: quite nicely, thank you.
With the Chicago Humanities Festival's 2009 theme, "Laughter," projected on the back wall over his head, Reich repeatedly had the standing-room-only crowd in stitches, delivering the festival's annual Franke Lecture in Economics and leading people through a breezy but, at base, serious discussion of current fiscal problems.
"An economist," the Clinton-era Cabinet member and CURRENT PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, continued, "is somebody who did not have the personality to become an accountant. How many people did I just insult?"... Full Story
10. Labor: Unite Here, Workers United in heated dispute over members
Claims of member-raiding attempts between the unions include leafleting, home visits and, court documents say, 'coercive interrogation techniques.'
Los Angeles Times
November 9, 2009
Carmen Padron, a commercial laundry worker in Pomona, said a rival union tried to persuade her to abandon her longtime local. "They should be organizing workers who don't have a union, not harassing us," Padron said.
George Ibarra, a hotel worker in Texas, said an organizing drive in San Antonio collapsed when a competing union swooped in and made a deal with management. "That was completely underhanded," Ibarra said.
The two incidents are among numerous episodes in a vicious civil war that is roiling the U.S. labor movement and diverting attention from its core goals -- better contracts for workers, new organizing drives and a far-reaching political agenda in Washington....
"We keep hearing from the Obama administration that it's easier to listen to one voice," said HARLEY SHAIKEN, A LABOR SPECIALIST AT UC BERKELEY.... Full Story
11. Snoop Dogg, Entrepreneurship and Rajasthan
Washington Post Online
November 7, 2009
I'm in India this weekend with fellow TechCrunch/BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy. After we're done with the elephant rides in Jaipur, we're going to be meeting local tech startups. Then we head back to New Delhi to meet more aspiring entrepreneurs. Sarah is writing a book on how startup culture has gone global and I'm researching how R&D has globalized. It never ceases to amaze me how you can find brilliant entrepreneurs everywhere--whether in the middle of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan or Santiago Chile (where local entrepreneurs showed me life-sized holographic images projected through some hardware connected to their laptops, and software which can help monitor the operational efficiencies of department stores in California). The promise of these early ventures is always amazing and their enthusiasm infectious....
...Enterpreneurship, I strongly believe, is not just about making money. In much of the world, entrepreneurship is about giving people control over their own fate, lifting them out of poverty, and improving the world. Even here, in the U.S., entrepreneurship is an incredible social resource. All meaningful job growth over the past few decades has come from start-ups and entrepreneurial businesses that are small in size but powerful in impact. The latest economic crisis and wave after wave of resulting layoffs has clearly illustrated there is no safety in working for a big company, or having the right kind of degree, or even being a productive employee.
This is the core of entrepreneurship, the ability to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps, no matter the circumstances, and create a business and a way to support yourself, your family and your community. Most of you reading this either are entrepreneurs or have entrepreneurial aspirations. I'm saying, that's great. You are what has made this country an amazing place, and these types of motivations are what has lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty around the world. So pay attention to Global Entrepreneurship week, mark it on your calendar, and attend an event if you can. Next time around, organize an event in your area. And never forget why you are doing what you do. Full Story
12. Schools emerge as new tactic in gay marriage votes
Associated Press
November 9, 2009
San Francisco — In one ad after another, voters in California and Maine were besieged with images of what would supposedly happen if same-sex marriage were legal: Students on a field trip to a lesbian wedding, elementary kids gobbling up books featuring gay couples, kindergartners learning about homosexuality from their teachers....
After signing up to lead the campaign, political consultants Frank Schubert and Jeff Flint knew they had a problem: Polls were showing that residents tended to not have much of a problem with gay relationships....
MELISSA MURRAY, AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT THE UC BERKELEY BOALT HALL SCHOOL OF LAW who researched the messages used in the Proposition 8 campaign, said gay marriage advocates underestimated how deeply Schubert and Flint's carefully crafted schools message resonated with the public.
One reason it resonated so deeply is it changed the debate from one of equal rights to the equally cherished notion of individual rights, something gay activists should keep in mind as the marriage moves to other states, Murray said.
"Parents are always thinking about how do I keep unwanted influences out of my children's lives, and it's a lot harder to do that as a parent if that influence is the state," Murray said. "That's the fear they are tapping into. ... and they are just going to keep repackaging it, because it works."
[This story appeared in dozens of sources nationwide] Full Story
13. Grand jury reportedly to weigh indictments for Ghilarducci
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
November 7, 2009
A criminal grand jury has convened in San Francisco to consider indicting former Humboldt Creamery CEO Rich Ghilarducci for fraud, according to Humboldt Creamery General Manager Len Mayer.
”I believe what's happened now is the FBI and the (U.S. Department of Justice) have enough information now that they're prepared to present their information to a grand jury,” Mayer said, adding that the FBI told him prosecutors were taking the case to a grand jury. “If there are indictments to be made, that's the next step.”...
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY [BOALT] LAW SCHOOL CRIMINAL PROSECUTION EXPERT MALCOLM FEELEY said grand juries are charged with sorting through gossip, innuendo, hunches and a wide variety of other materials to determine whether charges should be brought against certain individuals. Much of that material may be discarded, Feeley said.
The secrecy of grand jury proceedings is designed to give jurors the ability to reflect on the information while protecting the names of people who may have done nothing wrong, Feeley said.
”They do it to allow themselves the freedom to have a full and frank discussion of things,” Feeley said.... Full Story
14. Eyebar just one of Bay Bridge's many problems
San Francisco Chronicle
November 9, 2009
For much of the past two weeks, the Bay Area's attention was focused on a previously obscure piece of structural steel on the east span of the Bay Bridge known as an eyebar....
Despite all the attention it has received, and all the complaining it has caused, the eyebar isn't the biggest danger on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge. And it's not the reason the span is being replaced - at a cost of $6.3 billion - instead of retrofitted.
Like any old structure, the eastern span has many flaws, and because of its design, is considered more prone than other bridges to collapse during an earthquake. ...
However, at least one Bay Area engineer believes the span could still withstand a major earthquake and should be retrofitted. ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH-ASL, A UC BERKELEY CIVIL ENGINEERING PROFESSOR and a frequent critic of Caltrans, says the eastern span would be more resistant to earthquakes and terrorist attacks than the single-tower suspension span under construction.
Astaneh-Asl also criticized Caltrans for failing to properly maintain the existing span since it began construction of the new bridge in 2002, and said negligence may have contributed to the crack in the eyebar.... Full Story
15. Noted paleontologist details how creatures changed over lifespan
Dinosaurs in many iterations
Billings Gazette
November 6, 2009
In the dinosaur world, paleontologists are pretty protective of the species they've named.
So Jack Horner said he's not making any friends with his newest theory that many species of dinosaurs may actually be juvenile or subadults of the same species. In his conservative estimate, the theory could mean the loss of up to a third of classified dinosaur species.
"There are skeptics out there, as usual, which is good," said Horner, paleontology curator at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. "But we're in the business where skeptics have to have evidence. We have a lot of evidence for our hypothesis."...
Horner recently published the research he co-authored with MARK GOODWIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY in the online journal PloS One. The paper focused on dome-headed dinosaurs that Horner and Goodwin theorize went through some wildly different head hardware at different stages of their lives.
"I have to admit it seems pretty weird that they go through such a drastic change," Horner said. "But we're seeing it across a wide range. Basically, all the fancy dinosaurs are doing this."... Full Story
16. How your cell phone can diagnose disease
CNET
November 9, 2009
To picture the next-gen microscope, don't picture a microscope at all. Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, is adapting cell phones to sample biological images.
This is no iPhone app. Ozcan, who formed the company Microskia (on the heels of the UC BERKELEY TEAM that developed CellScope), has built a prototype whose cell phone camera sensor can detect a slide's contents at a cellular level--reading, for example, an increase in white blood cell count that might indicate a new infection or injury. That information can then be forwarded wirelessly to a lab or hospital....
The applications for this kind of affordable and mobile device abound. Screening for malaria is a big one, or monitoring someone's white blood cell count throughout chemotherapy.... Full Story
17. Novelties: Far From a Lab? Turn a Cellphone Into a Microscope
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 8, 2009
Microscopes are invaluable tools to identify blood and other cells when screening for diseases like anemia, tuberculosis and malaria. But they are also bulky and expensive.
Now an engineer, using software that he developed and about $10 worth of off-the-shelf hardware, has adapted cellphones to substitute for microscopes.
“We convert cellphones into devices that diagnose diseases,” said Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and member of the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, who created the devices. He has formed a company, Microskia, to commercialize the technology....
Dr. Ozcan’s devices provide a simple solution to a complex problem, said AHMET YILDIZ, AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AND MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.
“This is an inexpensive way to eliminate a microscope and sample biological images with a basic cellphone camera instead,” he said. “If you are in a place where getting to a microscope or medical facility is not straightforward, this is a really smart solution.”... Full Story
18. Psychic computer shows your thoughts on screen
The telepathic abilities that feature in the film X2 are a step closer to reality
Times [London]
November 1, 2009
Scientists have discovered how to “read” minds by scanning brain activity and reproducing images of what people are seeing — or even remembering.
Researchers have been able to convert into crude video footage the brain activity stimulated by what a person is watching or recalling.
The breakthrough raises the prospect of significant benefits, such as allowing people who are unable to move or speak to communicate via visualisation of their thoughts; recording people’s dreams; or allowing police to identify criminals by recalling the memories of a witness.
However, it could also herald a new Big Brother era, similar to that envisaged in the Hollywood film Minority Report, in which an individual’s private thoughts can be readily accessed by the authorities.
JACK GALLANT AND SHINJI NISHIMOTO, TWO NEUROLOGISTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, last year managed to correlate activity in the brain’s visual cortex with static images seen by the person. Last week they went one step further by revealing that it is possible to “decode” signals generated in the brain by moving scenes.... Full Story
19. Gizmos allow artists to 'feel' their creations
New Scientist
November 9, 2009
When The New Yorker magazine put out its first June issue this year, the cover art made headlines. It was a dreamy, late-night scene of a hotdog stand in New York by artist Jorge Colombo created using, of all things, an iPhone app. Traditionally, computers and artists have made uneasy bedfellows, so why did this image succeed?
The iPhone's touch screen is the key, says Cathy Treadaway of the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, in the UK, as it taps into artists' desire to use their hands to express themselves. "One of the things artists try and do when they make an artwork is communicate a bit of themselves, their emotional content, if you like," says Treadaway. And hands are a formidable outlet for this. "Our hands are a channel into the body and out into the world. That's the way we are built, the way we are wired."
Treadaway's own work has shown that traditional computer software and interfaces, such as the mouse and keyboard, hinder artists, as they demand attention to details such as menu items, and involve making micro-movements with the mouse. "Your thought processes are working in a very different way than if you were crafting by hand," says Treadaway, who presented her analysis last week at the Creativity and Cognition 2009 conference at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.... Full Story
20. Library success story in Lafayette
San Francisco Chronicle
November 8, 2009
Other communities have pulled together to replace aging libraries, so in a sense, the opening of the Lafayette Library and Learning Center on Saturday isn't unique. However, what deserves a second look is a new concept about what a library can be.
Lafayette citizens reimagined the library as a place for lifelong learning and collaborated with 12 of the region's leading arts, science and educational institutions to showcase their traveling programs. Called the GLENN SEABORG Learning Consortium, this collection of nonprofit organizations honors the UC BERKELEY SCIENTIST AND CHANCELLOR who called Lafayette his home for more than 40 years.
Drawing on regional resources to create partnerships made Lafayette's idea unique - and helped secure a state grant....
The ingredients for our success are simple: the vision, hard work and generosity of our residents and staff. Our residents, living close to the University of California, value education. Local schools are among the top in the state, so the expectation to have an outstanding library is widely shared....
In Lafayette, partners in the Glenn Seaborg Consortium at the Lafayette Library and Learning Center:
UC LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE...
UC INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES Full Story
21. West Coast cities vie for savoir-faire
San Francisco Chronicle
November 8, 2009
What do four West Coast cities want to be when they grow up?
"We want to be the most European city, the Copenhagen or Amsterdam of America," said Susan Anderson, Portland, Ore.'s planning and sustainability director, extolling her city's drive to be the most walkable, getting-around-without-a-car place to live.
Anderson and three other planning directors, including San Francisco's John Rahaim, were sharing their "vision, strategies and priorities" at an Urban Land Institute panel last week titled "What Makes a World-Class City: Investment Opportunities for the Future." There was much talk of neighborhood planning, mass transit, open space, sustainable development, infrastructure investment and so forth. And that financing might be a bit of problem....
Decidedly odd: Mumbai, India, ranks higher than San Francisco in the livability category. Yes, we have quality of life problems, but come on.
RICHARD BENDER, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF ARCHITECTURE AT UC BERKELEY, says he has problems with some of the index's methodology, including the Mumbai ranking. "It's a work in progress," said Bender, who works with the Mori Foundation and advised on the index compilation. But, he said, there are lessons for San Francisco if it aspires to be an urban world power.
"The city needs to get it together regionally. It needs to think of itself as being the center of a metropolitan landscape," he said. Meaning: More attention should be paid to regional coordination of planning and development. "San Francisco is one piece of a larger cloud. The challenge is pulling the pieces together."... Full Story
22. 25 at UCSC earn more than $200K
Santa Cruz Sentinel
November 8, 2009
Santa Cruz -- Although 25 administrators and professors at UC Santa Cruz earned $200,000 or more in 2008, the campus has the lowest faculty salaries of all nine of the University of California's undergraduate campuses, according to salary information released recently by the university.
A task force formed by UCSC administrators and faculty government found that median salaries for assistant, associate and full professors at the 44-year-old campus trailed those of colleagues at other UC sites by about 7 percent in 2008....
Although Chancellor George Blumenthal, an astronomy and astrophysics professor, is UCSC's highest wage earner, with a total salary of $318,915 in 2008, he is the second lowest-paid chancellor in the UC system. Blumenthal earns 40 percent less than the system's highest-paid undergraduate chancellor, UC BERKELEY'S ROBERT BIRGENEAU, who earned $445,000 in 2008.... Full Story
23. Iran Accuses 3 American Hikers of Espionage
New York Times & International Herald Tribune (*requires registration)
November 9, 2009
Three American hikers who were arrested in Iran this summer after straying across its border with Iraq have been accused of spying, an Iranian state news agency reported on Monday.
The Tehran prosecutor told Iran’s official IRNA news agency that Iranian officials were pursuing espionage charges against the Americans, who were detained in late July after trekking through the Kurdistan region of Iraq and toward the Iranian border. News of the spying accusations drew a quick rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who reiterated calls for the Iranians to release the hikers, SHANE M. BAUER of Emeryville, Calif.; JOSHUA F. FATTAL of Cottage Grove, Ore.; and SARAH E. SHOURD of Oakland, Calif.
“We believe strongly that there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever,” she told reporters in Berlin, according to The Associated Press. “And we would renew our request on behalf of these three young people and their families that the Iranian government exercise compassion and release them so they can return home.”...
Statements from family members and Kurdish authorities have said that the three travelers, ALL GRADUATES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, had crossed from Turkey into Kurdistan, where they stayed at a hostel and camped as they headed toward Ahmed Awa, a resort area of caves and waterfalls on the border.
[Another story on this topic appeared in the Washington Post, and an Associated Press version appeared in more than 100 sources nationwide] Full Story
24. Obituary: Barbara J. Miller
Barbara J. Miller, judge who sided with UC Berkeley in building plans that prompted a tree-sitting protest, dies at 58.
Los Angeles Times
November 9, 2009
Barbara J. Miller, 58, an Alameda County Superior Court judge who ruled in favor of UC BERKELEY in a dispute over a proposed athletic facility that was the focus of a tree-sitting protest, was found dead Friday in her Oakland home, police said.
The cause of death has not been determined, Oakland police said.
Miller ruled in June 2008 that the university had satisfied environmental and seismic issues over the project, which was part of a plan to renovate Memorial Stadium, home of the school's football team and built on an earthquake fault.
Building the athletic facility next to the stadium required cutting down an old oak grove, prompting activists in late 2006 to take up perches in the treetops and refuse to budge. The standoff finally ended in September 2008....
[Another obituary of Judge Miller appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle] Full Story
25. Editorial: California parole officials should stop bureaucratic dance on Phillip Garrido case
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
November 9, 2009
At a certain point, the bureaucratic response of public officials is simply not enough. Unless and until our government leaders own up to their mistakes and accept responsibility, they are destined to repeat them. Sometimes that's just unacceptable.
Such is the case of state parole officers' failure to unmask that sex offender Phillip Garrido and his wife were hiding kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard in their backyard near Antioch for 18 years. For the last 11 of those years, state parole officers were responsible for monitoring Garrido.
They visited him at least 60 times, yet they never noticed that something was amiss....
It was just a combination of Garrido's own stupidity and an alert POLICE OFFICER AT UC BERKELEY that eventually led to his capture. In the end, Garrido's parole officer played a role in his arrest. But that doesn't excuse the complete breakdown up to that point in the supervision of Garrido....
[This editorial also appeared in the Oakland Tribune] Full Story
26. Book Review: 'Dorothea Lange,' by Linda Gordon
San Francisco Chronicle
November 8, 2009
Dorothea Lange
A Life Beyond Limits
By Linda Gordon
(W.W. Norton; 536 pages; $35)
Dorothea Lange is back in the public eye. Protesters in Chicago this fall denouncing giant banks carried signs showing "Migrant Mother," Lange's 1936 photograph of a gaunt, stoic woman with her three children in Nipomo, in San Luis Obispo County.
Lange's Depression Madonna put a face on the suffering that today's demonstrators felt. Her "What's next?" expression of dread suggests that the worst is yet to come. What could be more timely?...
Lange witnessed some of the Depression's worst ravages after she ... met PAUL SCHUSTER TAYLOR, AN ECONOMIST AT UC BERKELEY who studied immigrant Mexican laborers. Taylor would take her on the road in his work for the Farm Security Administration, where Lange was hired as a photographer in 1935, when the agency was called the federal Resettlement Administration.... Full Story
27. Events
San Francisco Chronicle Online
November 6, 2009
KDMC Bay Area Blogger Training
Saturday, Nov 14 10:00a to 2:30p
at North Gate Hall - UC BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM, Berkeley, CA
THE KNIGHT DIGITAL MEDIA CENTER AT UC BERKELEY will host a free training for budding bloggers - who’ve been at it for at least three months - and are interested in strengthening blog content and increasing site traffic.
The training sessions will cover: photo editing, audio editing, creating audio slideshows, WordPress Podcasting and SEO. Full Story
28. Berkeley - fabulous pho and eco home design
San Francisco Chronicle
November 8, 2009
LAWRENCE RINDER has had several lives on the Bay Area and national art scenes, culminating in his current position as DIRECTOR OF THE BERKELEY ART MUSEUM.
He distinguished himself as a curator there in the 1980s and founded the exhibition and public programs forum at California College of the Arts, now known as the Wattis Institute. All of that got him hired as senior curator by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. But after nearly seven years there, the Bay Area magnetism was powerful enough to break even the pull of New York. He returned to become dean of graduate studies at CCA, where the Berkeley Museum found him again.
About to relocate to Berkeley from San Francisco, Rinder focused on his new home turf....
UC BOTANICAL GARDEN AT BERKELEY, 200 Centennial Drive, Berkeley. "This place gets on the list for their enormous buckeye tree alone. Add to that tens of thousands of plants from every corner of the globe, including many rare and endangered species, a beautiful Japanese garden and a breathtaking view of the bay. You could easily spend a whole day here, so remember to bring a sandwich and plenty of water." Full Story