Overheard today on the Twitterstream:
TheKatzer: Last day at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, with the best transmission electron microscope in the world, but the most terrible office coffee ever.
ccmarshall: http://twitpic.com/j5n5w – Great drawing I found on the ground when I was on campus (UC Berkeley) today.
The announcement by philanthropist Warren Hellman (left) that he is pledging $5 million to kick-start a new online Bay Area news service in conjunction with KQED, UC’s journalism school and possibly the New York Times has prompted a variety of responses.
Robert Gammon in The East Bay Express probably came out most strongly against the initiative, saying it represented a threat to Bay Area journalism as well as to the long-term fortunes of journalism students in the area.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given his position as an adjunct professor at the J-School, Silicon Valley new-media consultant Alan Mutter passed no comment on the development and merely reported it on his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur.
Susan Mernit, who is about to launch hyperlocal blog called Oakland Local, was ambivalent on her own blog, but concluded that, “As much as I worry that Hellman’s project will suck $$ from my own little project and other wonderful smaller sites I see emerging, the Hellman project feels more like a replacement for something we’ve lost — the big (bloated?) newsrooms of the corporate papers — not the local sites that are close to their community.”
All the major news media have reported the initiative whose website can be found here and its Facebook page, launched just today, has already attracted about 240, mostly encouraging, followers.
Just before 6pm fire crews were responding to a car on fire on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge.
[Source and pic: ABCNewsBay Area]
A coffee insurgency may be in the making as startup coffee impresario Phil Jaber readies his first foray into the East Bay with a new Philz Coffee store to be located at 1600 Shattuck Ave. at the corner of Cedar, site of a former Starbucks Coffee Cafe de la Paz, and just a stone’s throw from the original Peet’s outlet.
I have never tasted Philz coffee, but their web site emphasizes the “special customized blends” used to make every “hand-crafted to your liking” coffee drink, and describes their drinks this way: “The amount of beans we put into each cup is equivalent to 3 cups of your normal coffee so you will be as high as a plane!” The web site sells T-shirts and other swag, and even features a cartooned Quentin Tarantino quote about their mocha drink.
Since opening his first store in 2003, Jaber has expanded to six outlets in San Francisco and down the peninsula in Palo Alto and San Jose, and Philz has generally gotten good reviews, so they must be doing something right. And all their shops feature free Wi-Fi.
Watch out Peet’s. Here comes Philz.
If you want to catch up on the protests yesterday at the university, zunguzungu does the best job I’ve seen. There’s a great juxtaposition, as well, of a photo from yesterday and a photo of Mario Savio speaking from the same spot in 1964.
My teenage son and I like this piece of street art which is on the old photo-processing shop on the corner of Ashby and Telegraph. It puts us in mind of the notoriously successful British street artist Banksy.
We’d like to know more about it — the artist, the message? Anyone?
Update: Thanks to reader Cleita we have the answer we were looking for. The artist is Jesse Hazelip and you can find out more about him and his work on his website here.
As the parent of a Berkeley High student, I remember going through a thorough registration process. The school district needed to see utility bills and a host of other documentation to prove that our family really lived in Berkeley. I also heard stories about investigators roaming around, checking to see whether families were really living where they claimed to be.
It’s understandable, I guess. Berkeley High School has a good academic reputation, and some of Berkeley’s neighbors — notably Oakland and Richmond — have high schools with less academic clout (although I consistently hear good things about Oakland Tech’s Paideia Program and Engineering Academy).
At least, the theory is understandable. In practice it’s widely known that Berkeley High is filled with kids from other cities. I’ve heard reports of kids streaming out of the BART station every morning. No one living in Berkeley would commute to BHS by BART. A friend who helped at freshman registration this year recognized scores of kids who she knew were Oakland residents — spend years on soccer and baseball fields, and you get to know lots of your child’s peers all over the East Bay. I’ve heard estimates of 10 to 20 per cent of BHS students being non-resident.
As a Berkeley taxpayer and BHS parent, it feels like a rip off. Or have the rumors run out of control? I’d like to know.
Photo from Flickr by Jeremy Franklin
Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion created a storm of controversy over the question of God’s existence. Now, in The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins presents a stunning counterattack against advocates of “Intelligent Design” that explains the evidence for evolution while keeping an eye trained on the absurdities of the creationist argument.
Berkeley Arts & Letters presents Richard Dawkins on Wednesday, October 7, 7:30 p.m., at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana St. Tickets are $12 in advance ($6 for students with ID) at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006, or $15 at the door.
Update Melissa Mytinger from Berkeley Arts & Letters reports that the Dawkins talk will sell out in the next few days. If you want to attend, order tickets online. There will be nothing left at the door.
We’ve written about dumpster diving in Berkeley before, but that was for someone’s pigs. In I Love Trash, an independent documentary which came out last year, David Brown and Greg Mann try a three-month experiment. Can they live in Berkeley purely on trash?
It’s more than a stunt. The film is a powerful polemic against waste in our society. Worth a look. (Thanks for the tip, Catherine.)
InBerkeley correspondent Mark Haas beamed in these photos of the walkouts happening today on campus.
He says a UCBPD cop estimated there were about 2,000-2,500 protesters. The demonstrations were concentrated at Sproul Plaza. “The rest of the campus looked completely normal. Students told me most classes were in session today,” Haas reports.
Cynthia Gorney captures the dilemma of being a journalist embedded on campus in the midst of the UC walkout today in a post for Oakland North:
As journalists who are also UC students and teachers, we wrestled with the appropriate reaction to today’s events. Some wanted to join the walkout. Some did not. As our publication is supported by UC Berkeley, along with a grant from the Ford Foundation, we all agreed that it would be odd for our site to pretend nothing unusual is underway today at the campus that plays such a major role in East Bay life–but that we have a direct conflict of interest in trying to report on the walkout in any conventional way.
It looks like there will be updates throughout the day on the hyperlocal site, which is run by students and teachers at Berkeley’s Journalism School. So worth checking back in.
There is a young man in my neighborhood (East Cedar Street) who is severely disabled by Lyme disease. He can barely walk, has virtually no control over his hands, his symptoms are similar to Parkinsons: very stiff body and frozen muscles, staring eyes and frozen facial muscles, significant shaking, lack of control of his hands and fingers, constant pins-and-needles, and difficult or non-existent speech.
Over the months, I have seen him shuffle up and down our street, and have tried to engage him in conversation with varying levels of success. Right now, he is unable to speak at all.
He is living on state and federal benefits, I think has visiting caregivers and is receiving no medical treatment for the disease. He badly needs a device to enable him to communicate using either his head or eye movements.
It seems that whatever social services he is in touch with have been either unable or have not tried to get such a device.
So, I have decided to see if I could help him get such a machine, and gather the community to support him with visits errands etc. I have no experience in working with the disabled, but he is someone in my North Berkeley community and I care.
The first thing I did was to go to my two local banks (Bank of the West and Bank of America on Shattuck) to ask about setting up an account where local people can contribute money of any amount by just mailing a check. I have seen and contributed to such accounts myself in the past, and I figured that either of these two banks would be eager to help a good local cause. Wrong. Minimum deposits, account charges, and other complications have meant that I am now looking for a bank that will step up to the plate, waive charges, and make it possible for anonymous people to mail in or bring deposits to any branch, to contribute to the fund.
I am prepared to handle whatever tax implications this might entail, but do not want to set up a 501 (c) 3 for the purpose. I want simply to collect money for a severely handicapped person in our community. Does anyone know of a bank that would do this?
Also, I have not yet reached out to social services and local charities for help, but if you know of resources for such situations, I would be glad to hear. Please email me at johnfeld@thegraphicsreport.com
At this time of year, when the veil between the living and dead is thought to be at its most diaphanous, the North Shattuck Association is holding a Dia de los Muertos mask contest to see who can make the most beautiful giant papier mâché skull. The skulls will be worn by their creators in a candlelight procession on Friday October 1. The first prize winner will take home $300. Runners-up will receive gift certificates from local merchants.
Giant papier mâché skulls are a traditional way to celebrate Dia de los Muertos in Mexico and they usually represent different types of people and professions. Often a dark sheet is worn below so as not to distract from the head itself. Papier mâché hands are also sometimes part of the costume.
Those who would like to enter a head are asked to wear it to Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar Street at Vine at 6pm on October 30. The judging will take place outside on the church steps. The judges are Suzanne Tan from Berkeley Art Center; Lisah Horner from ACCI Gallery; Heather Hensley from the North Shattuck Association.; and Lisa Bullwinkel from Another Bullwinkel Show.
As well as the procession, local restaurants will create special Dia de los Muertos dishes for the evening, so all are encouraged to stay in the district for dinner. For more information contact Another Bullwinkel Show at 510.548.5335 or msmoose1@anotherbullwinkelshow.com.
[Photo: www.statesman.com]
Kermit Lynch is a Berkeley institution and a national treasure, as anyone who has visited his wine store, or read his wine-related newsletters or book knows. He’s been around town for a long time, seen it all and amassed an impressive knowledge of the hallowed grape along the way. (One consequence is that he now spends half the year enjoying la belle vie in Provence.)
The thing is, just when you think you’ve got him pegged, along comes the revelation that he’s not a wine buff at all — or at least that isn’t his first love. Lynch started out as a musician, back in the drug-hazed Berkeley of the late 1960s, when he sang in a band and dreamed of one day getting a record contract.
Well that day has arrived, as some 40 years later Lynch is celebrating the release of his first album – a blend of soft rock, folk and blues — called Man’s Temptation. As he told Jancis Robinson recently in the Financial Times: “It was quite a thrill to get a record contract at 67. When I read it I thought, ‘Wow, I’m really something.”
Sylvan Mishima Brackett runs Peko-Peko, a Japanese catering company in Oakland that specializes in the robust, tapas-style food of the izakaya (Japanese tavern). On Thursday, October 1, for one night only, Peko-Peko will transform the Guerrilla Cafe on Shattuck Ave. into a “pop-up” izakaya, serving tasty food, sake and beer.
Brackett worked at Chez Panisse for six years as Alice Waters’ assistant, and then as the restaurant’s first creative director, in charge of special dinners and events. He then left for Japan to eat and cook, and worked at a locally famous soba restaurant in the countryside north of Tokyo. Brackett’s izakaya-style menus combine local seafood, meats and other seasonal, sustainable ingredients.
When I spoke to Sylvan this afternoon, he told me he hopes to someday open a real izakaya, and thinks that opening this pop-up izakaya will be a fun way to try out some things he’s been thinking about. Sylvan is still developing the menu for this event, but he said there will definitely be sardines simmered with some dashi, soy sauce, mirin and ginger. Other possibilities include karoke (potato croquettes), gyoza (pot stickers), tsukemono (Japanese pickles), kakuni (braised pork belly with hot mustard and daikon) and dashimaki tamago (classic rolled omelet).
The pop-up izakaya will be open from 5:00 p.m. until late on October 1. Izakaya crowds can sometimes be large and boisterous, but because seating at the Guerilla Cafe is limited, small parties are definitely encouraged. Onaka peko-peko is Japanese for “I’m starving,” so bring your appetite.
Ellen DeGeneres’ day-long Twittertease of Berkeley looks like it ended up in a scrum. I think finding the Cupkates Truck was a better way to spend time.
The Daily Clog has posted Your Guide to Walkout Festivities to help you navigate the various budget protest and walkout events taking place on campus over the next 24 hours or so. They warn you should expect to encounter a lot of picket lines and rallies if you’re planning on being anywhere in the vicinity of campus tomorrow.
Events kick off tonight at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium for a Save the University teach-in, where several big-name faculty members, including Robert Reich and Ananya Roy, will explain the situation and the reasons for all the fuss.
You’ll also find several links to other Daily Californian articles on the walkout.
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