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Wednesday, 15 September 2010
1. Editorial: Time for Iran to release remaining hikers
San Francisco Chronicle
September 15, 2010
After 410 long days in an Iranian prison, SARAH SHOURD is heading home. Shourd, a 32-year-old UC BERKELEY GRADUATE, is one of three Americans who were taken into Iranian custody while hiking in a border area of Iraq's Kurdistan region. Their case - the Iranian government claims that the three were spying, though the charge seems highly implausible - has become yet another source of tension between Tehran and Washington.
Tehran must enjoy the attention, because it's still holding onto Shourd's fellow hikers, JOSH FATTAL AND SHANE BAUER, both 28. Both Fattal and Bauer need to be released immediately.
And they should be released without having to pay exorbitant fines. ...
Sadly, Iran's leaders don't have shame - instead they have arrogance and erratic behavior. That's why, while we celebrate Shourd's release, we continue to demand that Washington keep up the pressure for her fellow hikers.
[Stories on this topic also appeared in the Los Angeles Times Online, San Jose Mercury News, and KPIX TV—link to video] Full Story
2. Cal committee: Consider cutting 5-7 sports
San Francisco Chronicle
September 15, 2010
In an effort to reduce the ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT's annual deficit of $10 million to $13 million, a chancellor's committee has recommended, among a list of options, that the school consider eliminating five to seven teams from the current menu of 27 offered by Cal.
An announcement of moves designed to bring a "financially sustainable path" to Cal's athletic department, with its $70 million budget, is expected from the OFFICE OF CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU by the end of the month....
The 15-page report, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle, was produced by the CHANCELLOR'S COMMITTEE ON INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS AT BERKELEY, composed of four members of the Berkeley faculty and four prominent alumni. It is in fundamental agreement with a recent Academic Senate review of the athletic department, which found that expenses are greater than revenues....
While commending ATHLETIC DIRECTOR SANDY BARBOUR for "producing an environment of athletic success" and improving the academic standing of athletes, the chancellor's committee noted that her department has built up "unsustainable debt" and said she "needs to make immediate and meaningful changes in managing the costs and budget."...
Even the bell-cow sport of football has not been immune from budget constraints.
"Yes, absolutely it affects everyone," COACH JEFF TEDFORD said. "We're no different than any other program on campus. We really tried to trim our budget back and adhere to our responsibilities."...
"Every single recommendation will be taken into account," said DAN MOGULOF, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UC BERKELEY'S PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT. "The options rest with campus senior leadership. It's really a joint effort based on a shared recommendation by everyone that things can't continue along the same financial path they've been on.
"At the same time, we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot."...
Those involved in sports that could be in jeopardy await the chancellor's decision. TRACK COACH TONY SANDOVAL tries to take a pragmatic approach.
"Speculation is wasted time," Sandoval said. "I have to deal with the athletes I have. Every (team) has tried to become more efficient with the amount of money we have. You can lose a lot of sleep worrying about it." Full Story
3. Dot Earth Blog: Signs of New Energy at the World Bank
New York Times Online
September 14, 2010
I encourage you to read interviews conducted by The Times‘ Green blog and David Roberts at Grist with DANIEL KAMMEN, A PROFESSOR OF ENERGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, who has been named chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency at the World Bank.
In academia, Kammen has probed energy issues ranging from the health impacts of smoke-spewing cooking stoves in Africa to the role of research and development in advancing energy technologies. He also advised the Obama presidential campaign....
The bank is a ponderous supertanker of an institution, and many determined individuals are working hard from within to shift norms. Ian Noble, who has worked on making bank-financed projects resilient in the face of climate-related hazards, comes to mind. Hopefully Kammen can help nudge the rudder a bit. Full Story
4. Walter Hood: This Land is Your Land
Fast Company
September 15, 2010
The daffodils sprouting from raised beds, the bikers speeding down smoothly paved pathways, the metal bollards lining the promenade along Oakland's shimmering Lake Merritt -- all of it just pisses [UC BERKELEY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING PROFESSOR] WALTER HOOD off. "Everything seems like it's dropped out of nowhere," the landscape designer says, pointing out the offenses. The newly renovated lakefront looks pleasant, much in the way most American public spaces -- downtown plazas, suburban libraries, neighborhood playgrounds -- look pleasant. "It's like, okay, we'll put in the grasses and the rocks and let's do the stupid green roof over a garbage-compactor thing," he continues. "That's the playbook of landscape architecture. But this is the centerpiece of our community. It should add up and become something larger."
Hood, obviously, did not design the park around Lake Merritt. To see what "something larger" means to him, you have to go to Lafayette Square Park, about a mile away in a poorer, less verdant part of town, where local kids play catch on a grassy, artificial hill that Hood created to echo the domed observatory it displaced. Or to the towering De Young Museum, in San Francisco, where eucalyptus appear to blossom inside the building, thanks to a series of slits in the walls. ("It feels like we're outside," one visitor remarked while peering at the flora.) Or to any of the half-dozen cities across America -- including Pittsburgh; Buffalo; Jackson, Wyoming -- where Hood is now transforming street corners and highway underpasses into public spaces that are relevant, even meaningful, to the communities they serve: black and white and brown, rich and middle class and poor. "We invest very little in the public realm, and that's sad," he says. "Because when you give people good things, good things will come."
A designer who tackles the mundane things of this world may not seem revolutionary at a time when Michael Graves is making teapots for Target, but in landscape architecture, Hood is very much breaking new ground. For decades, modernists such as George Hargreaves, Michael Van Valkenburgh, and Peter Walker -- all white, all Harvard educated -- reigned over the profession with their clean-cut office parks and pristine college campuses, much in the vein of Lake Merritt. "Then Walter came of age, and nobody knew what to do with him," says Charles Waldheim, chair of Harvard's department of landscape architecture. "He was finding value and producing meaning in places that seemingly had none."... Full Story
5. Greenspace Blog: Business students find $350 million in energy savings at major companies
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
September 15, 2010
To come to grips with their massive use of energy, major companies have brought on professional consultants, joined green organizations, even hired on-staff sustainability executives.
But this summer, firms such as eBay Inc., McDonald's Corp., PepsiCo, Target Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. turned to a group of graduate students in hopes of becoming more eco-friendly.
Through the Climate Corps program, run by the Environmental Defense Fund, 51 business students were placed at 47 companies to find ways to save energy. When the program launched in 2008, just seven students participated.
The students uncovered potential energy reductions that, if implemented, could mean a $350-million reduction in utility bills each year and 400,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions averted annually. ...
Of more than 200 applicants, participants were chosen from schools such as the University of Chicago, New York University, UC BERKELEY and Yale University.
[Posting includes photograph of MEGAN RAST FROM UC BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS working with eBay] Full Story
6. Fremont, Livermore have Bay Area's highest risk gas pipelines
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
September 14, 2010
PG&E's highest-risk gas pipelines in the Bay Area are in the East Bay, according to a regulatory filing last year.
In making its case for customer rate increases, PG&E told regulators some of the money was needed to replace its riskiest pipelines, including one in Fremont and another between Livermore and Sunol....
Typically, engineers consider the population density of communities, the age of the pipelines and other factors, such as nearby earthquake faults, when assessing pipeline risk, said BOB BEA, A PROFESSOR OF ENGINEERING AT UC BERKELEY.
Bea, who has worked extensively on natural gas and oil pipelines, including recent studies of the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, said he was not surprised that the two East Bay lines are considered top risks because the one in Fremont is near the Hayward Fault and the one south of Livermore crosses the Calaveras Fault, two of California's most dangerous earthquake zones.
"Many of the existing pipelines we have in this part of the world were engineered before the days of recognizing how you cross a fault with a pipeline," Bea said. "That makes one hell of a big difference. Crossing a fault at right angles is asking to have the pipeline sheared -- much like cutting a straw with scissors."...
[This story also appeared in the San Jose Mercury News and Oakland Tribune] Full Story
7. Is Lt. Governor Exploiting San Bruno Disaster?
KTVU
September 14, 2010
San Bruno, Calif. -- Republican Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado has been one of the most visible state officials in San Bruno ever since the gas line explosion and fire last week, leading some members of the California Democratic Party Tuesday to accuse Maldonado of "capitalizing on tragedy for his own political gain."
The gain? His campaign for Lt. Governor against the Democratic Party candidate, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom....
"It looks like probably the governor said 'I think I can help you and advance you a bit and give you some air time,'" said UC BERKELEY POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR HENRY BRADY....
"This is an extraordinary opportunity for Maldonado to get air time. To do all sorts of good deeds. To show that he is a caring person [and] to show he is on top of things," said Brady....
[Link to video] Full Story
8. U.S. may sue oil companies in gulf spill
BP and others may face federal criminal or civil charges if they are found to have violated U.S. environmental laws in the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster, officials say.
Los Angeles Times
September 14, 2010
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — The Justice Department signaled Tuesday that it may sue BP and other oil firms involved in the massive Gulf of Mexico spill for violating federal environmental laws, actions that could ultimately lead to heavy civil fines against the companies....
In its filing, the government has proposed a separate track for its lawsuit, apart from private litigants including fishermen, tourism operators and others harmed by the spill.
Charlie Tebbutt, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said he objected to a separate government track that did not include public-interest groups such as his own. ...
But RICHARD FRANK, AN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW PROFESSOR AT UC BERKELEY, said the government's separate-track proposal doesn't necessarily conflict with the public interest.
"As long as the federal litigation is overseen by the same judge and he can coordinate to the extent he deems appropriate, that should address the need for judicial economy and efficiency," said Frank, noting that responsibility for recovering the costs of responding to the spill and countering its effects on the environment lies with the federal government.... Full Story
9. Could Robots Get the Sensitive Skin They So Clearly Long For?
Fast Company
September 15, 2010
It’s been a busy week for those of us who eagerly follow news about electronic skin. On Monday we brought you word that UC BERKELEY RESEARCHERS backed by DARPA had developed a thin material with nanowires and rubber, leading to fantasies of sensitive prosthetic or robotic skin. Now we learn that Stanford researchers, not to be outdone, have also developed electronic skin, capable, as lead researcher Zhenan Bao told the Stanford Report, of detecting pressures well below that of “a 20-milligram bluebottle fly carcass we experimented with.”...
The announcement is an occasion, of course, for wild fantasizing and extrapolating. Aside from the usual suspects—restored sensitivity to lost limbs, designing robots that feel, Asimov 101 stuff—the Stanford researchers have come up with novel ideas for how such technology might be expanded. Tee envisions, for instance, a highly sophisticated trackpad for your laptop. “New types of pressure-informed gestures can be developed, such as bringing up frequently used programs when the user pushes harder in a certain manner.” ...
But of course, the usual caveat applies: we’re not there yet. ...
[Another story on this topic appeared in the Christian Science Monitor] Full Story
10. How a Street Watchdog Got Its Bite
Wall Street Journal (*requires registration)
September 15, 2010
Pennsylvania State University Prof. John Liechty last week gave an exam to his marketing class. Far from campus, another of his projects faces a much bigger test—and all of Wall Street is watching.
Mr. Liechty, 44 years old, has helped design an electronic safety net to assess systemic financial risk in a bid to prevent another banking calamity. The project—formalized as a new federal office in the financial-regulation act—is called the Office of Financial Research....
For now, the office remains largely on paper. It ultimately could have an annual budget of $500 million, and cost $500 million to get up and running, according to a person familiar with the office, and could take as long as a decade to fully establish.
A first step will come when the Obama administration names a director for a six-year term. LAURA TYSON is among those considered, a person familiar with the situation says. Ms. Tyson, now a Morgan Stanley director and PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, didn't respond to a request for comment.
"This is not a job for a second-rate analytical mind," says Allan Mendelowitz, a former chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Board who spent 20 years at the General Accounting Office and helped develop the legislative strategy turning the idea into law....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
11. New economic face is still familiar
Washington Post
September 11, 2010
President Obama named Austan Goolsbee to chair the White House Council of Economic Advisers on Friday, choosing one of his longest-serving confidants to help chart a course through a period of high unemployment and economic uncertainty....
Goolsbee succeeds CHRISTINA ROMER, AN ECONOMIST FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY who last week returned to academia. At 41, Goolsbee is the youngest person to hold the post since the Johnson administration. And in a position better known for academic reserve, he is probably its first amateur stand-up comic....
With the departure of Romer and White House budget director Peter Orszag in July, Obama had an opportunity to remake his inner economic-policy circle. Instead, he has twice turned to administration insiders, choosing Goolsbee and Jack Lew, a deputy secretary of state and a budget director for President Bill Clinton, to replace Orszag. Lew is awaiting confirmation....
Like Romer, Goolsbee has at times had tense relations with [National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers], including a widely reported battle over whether to bail out the auto industry.... Full Story
12. Are Batteries Bad for the Environment?
Discovery News
September 15, 2010
The wireless world we live in runs on batteries....
But are we paying a high environmental price for all of this battery-operated convenience?...
“We take into account environmental impact because there is, to a significant degree, a battery recycling industry out there, [and] there are now conferences that deal with nothing but environmental impact and recycling of used batteries,” said ELTON CAIRNS, A RECHARGEABLE BATTERY AND FUEL CELL EXPERT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY....
Cairns points to the success of recycling programs in the automotive battery industry. Lead-acid car batteries are one of the most commonly recycled rechargeables, which has not only kept lead out of the waste stream but also reduced the demand for lead mining since around 80 percent of the lead in the new car batteries is a recycling byproduct....
It just depends on consumers taking initiative and getting them to the appropriate battery recycling drop-off sites.... Full Story
13. In Hiring and Promoting Female Faculty Members, It May Help to Have a Union
Chronicle of Higher Education (*requires registration)
September 15, 2010
When it comes to increasing the numbers of female professors and promoting them up through the ranks, research institutions with faculty unions have an edge, a recent study shows.
"Representation of Women Faculty at Public Research Universities: Do Unions Matter?," a paper written from a study of 101 research institutions over a 12-year period, reveals various ways in which academic unions influence the presence of female professors of all ranks on campuses. In short, "unions improve faculty life for professors of either gender, but women benefit from them more," said the paper's lead author, Ann Mari May, an economics professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln....
About one-third of all faculty members at American colleges and universities are in unions. Unionized campuses among the research institutions in the study included Florida State University, Western Michigan University, the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, and the University of New Hampshire.... Full Story
14. Police identify Berkeley murder victim
Ignacio Celedon, 35, was shot as he walked home with his fiance
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
September 14, 2010
Berkeley police have identified the victim of a murder and robbery that capped a week of violence on city streets....
The murder capped a week of violence in Berkeley....
...Friday morning, an 18-year-old Berkeley man with a criminal history was arrested and booked into the Berkeley jail on one count of felony car jacking and one count of attempted car jacking.
Police say Tyrice Bender was arrested at about 11 a.m. in the U.C. BOTANICAL GARDEN. UC BERKELEY POLICE spotted the victim's car there, searched the area and found him sitting in the garden....
And on Sept. 8, a 63-year-old man standing on the corner of Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue near People's Park was surrounded by a group of young men in their 20s who started kicking and punching him. They took his backpack and fled. The man was hospitalized with injuries to his face, head and body.
The victim could not provide details about the attack "due to the severity of his injuries," according to a UC BERKELEY POLICE DEPARTMENT STATEMENT.
[This story also appeared in the Oakland Tribune] Full Story
15. Special English: What Americans Mean When They Make an Appeal to 'Sensitivity'
Voice of America
September 14, 2010
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: our guest is [UC BERKELEY] LINGUIST GEOFF NUNBERG. He's been listening to how Americans debate issues, and there's a particular word he often finds they invoke: "sensitivities."
Geoff Nunberg: "It's used by the left, it's used by the right. It's a word that really came into the language -- I mean sensitivity is an old word. But sensitivities, particularly in the plural, came into the language in the nineteen seventies as a response to all of the movements of the period -- civil rights movement, feminist movement, later what was called the gay liberation movement at the time -- in an effort to get people to be more sensitive in their language and attitudes and behavior towards members of minorities or towards women or towards people with other sexual orientations."
RS: "Now has that changed in the last thirty, forty years?"
Geoff Nunberg: "Well, it hasn't changed, at least to the extent that whenever a broadcast personality or a politician or someone makes a remark that's arguably offensive to some group, he or she is required to undergo sensitivity training. And people -- whether they're on the left criticizing a politician on the right, or on the right criticizing a politician on the left -- will argue that the remark demonstrated insensitivity on the part of the politician. So it's become a very general term in American English for any activity that might offend the members of another group."...
[Link to audio] Full Story
16. Documentary maker Frederick Wiseman is on campus
Berkeleyside
September 15, 2010
Renown documentary maker Frederick Wiseman is making his 39th film and it’s going to be all about the university in our midst. The Boston-based director began shooting on the UC BERKELEY campus last month, according to BARRY BERGMAN WRITING IN UC BERKELEY NEWS.
With his production company Zipporah Films, Wiseman, 80, has made a name for himself documenting institutions, be it a hospital, a theater or the army. He may be best known for Titicut Follies, a chilling look at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Massachusetts, made in 1967 and withheld from public view by the courts for more than 20 years.
Wiseman and his cameraman John Davey have been popping up everywhere on campus, Bergman reports, including in closed-door sessions of CHANCELLOR BIRGENEAU’s cabinet. The finished film will air nationwide on PBS sometime in 2012 or 2013.... Full Story
17. Forum with Michael Krasny: Mexico Independence Bicentennial
KQED Radio
September 15, 2010
As Mexico celebrates the bicentennial of its independence and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, the city of San Jose and nearby academic and cultural institutions are marking the day with art exhibits, concerts, lectures and a tequila expo. We find out about the art, artifacts and literature of Mexican independence and the revolution.
Guests:
Adan Griego, curator for Latin American, Mexican American and Iberian Collections at Stanford University and co-curator of the new exhibit "Celebrating Mexico: The Grito de Dolores and the Mexican Revolution 1810 / 1910 / 2010," a collaboration between Stanford and UC BERKELEY'S BANCROFT LIBRARY...
[Link to audio] Full Story
18. L.A. at Home Blog: Virtual garden tour
A frontyard vineyard in Pasadena
Los Angeles Times Online
September 15, 2010
Robin Stever had long dreamed about owning a vineyard, and lo and behold, one day she returned to her Pasadena home to discover son MARCO BARRANTES cutting down trees and digging up their frontyard.
Barrantes' surprise effort, made during the summer break from his LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING STUDIES AT UC BERKELEY, was the first step in transforming a nondescript 1-acre property into Rancho LaLoma, a romantic homestead that evokes early California, complete with a vineyard, orchard, vegetable garden and chickens.
Now the original brick staircase, circa 1937, leads up past grapevines closer to the house. See the results of seven years of revising the landscape which includes a small waterfall, a desert garden, and a rustic vegetable garden made of drainpipes. Full Story
19. Gary Peterson: Cal football team out to enjoy success of being ranked, for once
Oakland Tribune
September 14, 2010
Lock the doors. Hide the kids. CAL'S FOOTBALL TEAM is back in the Top 25.
After season-opening routs of UC Davis and Colorado, the Bears slipped into the USA Today poll this week at No. 24. If you've been paying attention the past three years, you know what this portends for Friday night's game at Nevada:
Cal is doomed.
How doomed? The Bears have carried a Top 25 ranking in the coaches poll into 13 of their past 36 games. They are 3-10 in those games. As an unranked team over the same period, the Bears are 18-5....
"It's been made a big deal of, of course, because we didn't finish the season very well last year," COACH JEFF TEDFORD said Tuesday morning after practice. "I'm not sure that's because of rankings. We didn't play well enough to win. We just happened to be ranked where we were ranked when we didn't play very well. It's not something that we talk about."...
[This column also appeared in the San Jose Mercury News] Full Story
20. Berkeley Historical Society Fall Events Start This Weekend
Berkeley Daily Planet
September 14, 2010
The Berkeley Historical Society greets the fall with a flourish this coming weekend with back-to-back town / gown events....
On Sunday, an opening for a new exhibit of athletic and spirit memorabilia associated with the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
...Local collectors BART WHITE AND KEITH TOWER have put together an outstanding new exhibit showcasing decades of Cal spirit and sports memorabilia.
BOTH THE CURATORS ARE CAL ALUMNI and both have been collecting for decades. Their finds range from material connected to the first Big Game (in 1892) to the birth of Oski, the loveable mascot.
“Golden Bear Pioneers: UC Sports & Athletic Traditions from Their Beginnings to 1945” opens with a free reception on Sunday at the Berkeley History Center in the Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center Street. The opening runs from 3 to 5 pm. There will be a brief introductory program, refreshments, and plenty of opportunity to look at the exhibit....
Saturday, October 9: “The Ghost Campus: UC Berkeley That Once Was” led by Bruce Goodell. Vanished buildings of the old campus, from old wooden Harmon Gymnasium to Cowell Hospital, still have a presence that will be articulated through the walk. ... Full Story