Columnists

In the seventies, I was working in Silicon Valley when email became ubiquitous on business' campuses. Although email simplified office communication, I noticed two negative aspects: email discouraged face-to-face interaction and it facilitated uncivility. On January 8th, Twitter—email's progeny—suspended Donald Trump's account. This was a welcome, although belated, defense of civility. -more-

Antipsychotic medications and their potential to help people with schizophrenia get well, and remain well, present an enormous hope that humanity once did not have. Before antipsychotics, mentally ill people may have been the "town crazy" or the "town drunk." Before these drugs came about, (Thorazine was the first, and it was discovered in 1950), there was no effective treatment for people with schizophrenia. Sometimes people were given frontal lobotomies, which may have allowed some to become minimally functional, or it may have done no good whatsoever. People died horribly in primitive mental hospitals or on the street. -more-

Happy Blue Year!

What a difference a day makes—as long as it's an Inauguration Day.

What a healing ceremony. A parade of presidential couples. A physically distanced and face-masked crowd of congregants. A powerful pint-sized poet. Garth Brooks hobnobbing and hugging, J-Lo blazing through the octaves and issuing a platform-shaking shout for justice in Spanish, and Gaga turning her back on the audience to lift her hand toward the banner waving high atop the Capitol building as she sang "our flag was still there!"

Instead of a sea of red caps and MAGA shirts, we had the President-elect and First Lady alongside the VP-elect and the Second Gentleman, solemnly observing 400,000 lanterns lining the Reflection Pool at the Lincoln Memorial and reflecting on lives lost and the challenges ahead. -more-

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) defines hate groups as organizations who "vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity – prejudices that strike at the heart of our democratic values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines.” The FBI uses a similar definition of a hate crime. -more-

There was a stack of Berkeley city meetings this last week, but it was hard to hold my attention on anything until after Wednesday. I think it was an absolute first that Tuesday evening City Council moved the entire regular meeting agenda to consent and ended at 9 pm. We did hear at the earlier 4 pm Council meeting, on the adoption of ballots passed by the voters, that the application process for the Police Accountability Board will be starting soon, at least by February, and an executive search firm will be used for the Director of Police Accountability. -more-