Bake Sale Generates Debate, Peaceful Protests
A bake sale by Berkeley College Republicans yesterday that was aimed at satirizing race-based admissions generated heated debates and counter-protests but no major problems. -more-
A bake sale by Berkeley College Republicans yesterday that was aimed at satirizing race-based admissions generated heated debates and counter-protests but no major problems. -more-
Demonstrations come and go on the UC Berkeley campus. They’re sometimes amusing, periodically profound, occasionally irritating. For half a century they’ve been a fixture of Sproul Plaza and have become so commonplace that most don’t attract extensive attention. -more-
The eternal paradox about what is commonly called journalism is why so many people who commit it manage not to see what’s going on before their eyes, even as a reasonable number of others, in and out of journalism, do.
Ever wonder about what’s happening in the global economy? Well, here it is, a summary which could fit on the back of an envelope, and it’s even perversely funny:
“Quarterly GDP data don’t, on the whole, tend to make the person studying them laugh out loud. The most recent set, however, are an exception, despite the fact that the general picture is of unrelieved and spreading economic gloom. Instead of the surge of rebounding growth which historically accompanies successful exit from a recession, we have the UK’s disappointing 0.2 per cent growth, the US’s anaemic 0.3 per cent and the glum eurozone average figure of 0.2 per cent. That number includes the surprising and alarming German 0.1 per cent, the desperately poor French 0 per cent and then, wait for it, the agreeably frisky Belgian 0.7 per cent. Why is that, if you’ve been following the story, laugh-aloud funny? Because Belgium doesn’t have a government. Thanks to political stalemate in Brussels, it hasn’t had one for 15 months. No government means none of the stuff all the other governments are doing: no cuts and no ‘austerity’ packages. In the absence of anyone with a mandate to slash and burn, Belgian public sector spending is puttering along much as it always was; hence the continuing growth of their economy. It turns out that from the economic point of view, in the current crisis, no government is better than any government – any existing government.”
(From an opinion article by John Lanchester in a recent London Review of Books.)
That paragraph alone is worth column inch after column inch of sententious pieces in the American press attempting to convey what the hell the U.S. Congress is up to—yes, even in the New York Times, most of whose staffers appear not to read what Professor Paul Krugman writes on their own op-ed page. We’d be better off without this current Congress, wouldn’t we, so why not just say so? This is not an endorsement, by the way, of the Tea Party anti-government ideology, just a glum statement of observable fact.
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A fine artistic production expresses the vision, the conviction, and the insistent presence of one person. It is best when it is undiluted by artistic cooperation, when it is not characterized by any of the seven (or more) deadly virtues: fair-minded, well-balanced, accommodating, unassertive, cooperative, and so forth. —from A Life, by Elia Kazan (1909-2003), Distinguished actor/director -more-
Charles Gounod--best-known for his Faust--had a different sense of adapting Shakespeare to opera than Verdi. It's closer to Delacroix's renderings of Hamlet. In Romeo et Juliette, now at Livermore Valley Opera, the sprawling action and passion is concentrated into a few scenes of melodic, lyrical grace. -more-
Raul Ruiz's extraordinary and original films have been shown at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, notably a retrospective during the San Francisco Film Festival in 1984, and a program of short films, with Ruiz's appearance, in the 90s. Time Regained, his 1999 adaptation of Proust's final novel, with Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle beart and John Malkovitch, among others, is maybe his best-known work, one hailed on release as high among postwar masterpieces. -more-
This September marked the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, the worst attack in American history! Who can forget the horrific images of the burning Towers, people jumping out of windows, and dazed workers who managed to escape the building, soot-covered but uninjured, running through the rubble covering the ground? -more-
Yet Another Schedule Update 09-25-2011
Speak Out on Issues for Tuesday's Berkeley City Council Meeting 09-24-2011
New Feature: "The Week" Button 09-23-2011
About the New Schedule 09-22-2011
Cartoon Page: BOUNCE: Internet Gnomes By Joseph Young 09-28-2011
Cartoon Page: Bake-sale vs. Buffet By Gar Smith 09-28-2011
Cartoon Page: Odd Bodkins: The Miracle Dan O'Neill 09-28-2011
Press Release: UC Students Stand for Diversity, Reject Affirmative Action Bake Sale, Push for SB185 From Darius L. Kemp, Director of Organizing and Communications 09-26-2011
Why the Berkeley College Republicans are Wrong By Thomas Lord 09-26-2011
Perry's Claim to Fame By Ron Lowe 09-26-2011
Join "Tax the Rich" Demonstration in Berkeley on Monday Evening By Julia Ross 09-25-2011
Response to "Laura's Law in A Nutshell" By Jack Bragen 09-25-2011
New: Letters 09-22-2011
Bake Sale Generates Debate, Peaceful Protests By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN) 09-28-2011
Baked Goods and Arguments Retailed on Sproul Plaza By Steven Finacom 09-28-2011
Flash: Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz
to Retire on November 30
By Becky O'Malley
09-26-2011
UC Berkeley Groups Debate Affirmative Action at Campus Bake Sale By Hannah Albarazi1 (BCN) 09-27-2011
Alta Bates Summit, Nurses' Union Dispute Responsibility for Patient's Death after Replacement Administers Wrong Medication By Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN) 09-27-2011
"Parking Day" Comes to Berkeley By Steven Finacom 09-27-2011
Green Schoolyards: Creating A Greener Generation© By Stevanne Auerbach, PhD 09-26-2011
Patient at Alta Bates Summit Dies from Lethal Dose Allegedly Given by Temporary Nurse By Bay City News 09-26-2011
Unofficial Mayor of Telegraph Released from Jail Saturday by Ted Friedman 09-26-2011
Early Rain on Telegraph Stroll By Ted Friedman 09-26-2011
UC Berkeley Graduates Detained in Iran Expected to Return to U.S. Today By Bay City News 09-25-2011
Nurses at Alta Bates in Berkeley and Other Hospitals Told to Stay Away Until Thursday By Sara Gaiser (BCN) 09-23-2011
Two Arrested During Protests on UC Berkeley Campus By Patricia Decker (BCN) 09-23-2011
Fall Budget and Fee Protests Begin at UC Berkeley By Steven Finacom 09-23-2011
9/11 in the Comics By Gar Smith 09-23-2011
New: Protesters in Berkeley March against Tuition Hikes, Occupy Classrooms By Scott Morris (BCN) 09-22-2011
Press Release: Bayer Biotech Workers in Berkeley Send Company a Stinging Rebuke From Craig Merrilees, ILWU 09-22-2011
New: "Unofficial Mayor" of Telegraph Busted for "Interfering" with a Cop As Medheads Get Front-Row Seats By Ted Friedman 09-22-2011
Updated: California Nurses Strike at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley and Elsewhere By Laura Dixon, Bay City News Service 09-22-2011
Nurses Strike Throughout California By Bay City News Service 09-22-2011
Just Another Berkeley South Side Crime Story: Who Killed People's Park Activist Gina Sasso? by Ted Friedman 09-22-2011
Mark Coyote By John Curl 09-22-2011
My Commonplace Book (a diary of excerpts copied from printed books, with comments added by the reader.) By Dorothy Bryant 09-28-2011
On Mental Illness: Cigarettes, Coffee and Metabolic Syndrome By Jack Bragen 09-27-2011
Setting Limits With Obama By Bob Burnett 09-24-2011
New: Dispatches From The Edge: Arms, China & the Obama Administration By Conn Hallinan 09-22-2011
New: Laura's Law in a Nutshell By Ralph E. Stone 09-22-2011
Senior Power… The Only Disease By Helen Rippier Wheeler 09-22-2011
My Commonplace Book (a diary of excerpts copied from printed books, with comments added by the reader.) By Dorothy Bryant 09-22-2011
New: On Mental Illness: Something for Nothing By Jack Bragen 09-22-2011
Opera Review: Gounod's Romeo et Juliette at Livermore Valley Opera By Ken Bullock 09-28-2011
Film Review: Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon at Shattuck Cinemas By Ken Bullock 09-28-2011
Book Review: Heart of a Soldier Reviewed by Dorothy Snodgrass 09-28-2011
Free Speech Day Is October 1! Two Unique Ways to Celebrate By Gar Smith 09-27-2011
"Jobs Not Cuts" Rally in Oakland October 15 By Zipporah Collins 09-27-2011
Despite Rain, the Show Goes On at Free Cal Performances Day By Steven Finacom 09-26-2011
Berkeley Arts Festival Concerts this week 09-26-2011
Farmageddon: America's War Against Small Farmers Reviewed by Gar Smith 09-25-2011
Architecture, Dance, Music in Berkeley This Weekend By Steven Finacom 09-23-2011