Silly Picture Friday: Bakery Bear
Sorry for the belatedness of this post. Maybe I'll rename this feature Silly Picture Sometime Over the Weekend. Here is a picture of one of my favorite coworkers. His Halloween costume (a scary mask) is sitting on the counter next to him. When I stopped by to take a picture, Bakery Bear was mixing some flour.




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UCSA Publishes Voting Guide For Students

The University of California Students Association has published a specialized Berkeley voting guide for students that explains the basics about some of the state propositions, state position races, and some voters' rights information. For any readers here who are first year students, it may be worth a quick read.Email This Post!

Golden Bears’ Defense Eclipses Sun Devils
27 – 0 score brings first back-to-back shutout since 1968


Picture courtesy of AP Photo/D. Ross Cameron)

ESPN Recap

The Golden Bears played a great defensive game, stopping the Sun Devils in the Red Zone twice, and causing five turnovers throughout the game. Meanwhile, Cal's special teams stepped it up this week, hitting two of four attempted field goals and containing the ASU kick return squad, even causing a fumble on the opening kickoff. Cal's offense, crippled by injuries to wideouts Chase Lyman and Burl Toler, was once again supported by JJ Arrington, who ran for 188 yards and scored a touchdown. First-year wideout Robert Jordan also stepped up to the task in the second game of his college career, gaining 116 yards and scoring a touchdown.

Following the losses of #3 Miami and #5 Florida State on Saturday, Cal jumps to #6 in the USA Today Poll and #4 in the AP Poll. BCS ratings will come out on Monday, but as long as Cal ends up in the top 6, the Golden Bears are guaranteed a spot in a BCS bowl (read: Rose Bowl).

While Cal’s defense and special teams might have improved over recent weeks, the new Mic Men are just not cutting it at all. I know everyone starts out rough, but damn... The student section has been jumping ahead and starting cheers on its own, though never to the same strength as previously performed. A #4 team deserves a much better mic man (or woman).
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Lawrence W. Stark, professor of optometry and engineering, dies at 78

Dr. Lawrence W. Stark died in his home in Berkeley on Friday, October 22 of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Stark worked in the EECS, Mechanical Engineering, and Optometry departments here at Berkeley where he was developing theories on vision and virtual reality, including the scan path theory of perception. UC Newswire has more backgound information on his life here. The family has set up a web page with more information on memorial services at http://scan.berkeley.edu/larry/.Email This Post!

Second Berkeley Student Dies

Apparently, Patrick McCann wasn’t this year’s first Berkeley fatality.

The Daily Cal is reporting on the Oct. 7 death of second-year student Katherine Lew. Lew died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. While details are still not completely known as to exactly what happened, Lew was found outside of Hollister (25 miles southeast of Gilroy, off the 101).

This death really strikes an emotional chord. Katherine was a couple of doors down from me in the dorms last year, and while I didn’t know her extremely well (she kind of kept to her self), she was always really nice when we talked. Just another Berkeley student in the dorms… she watched Friends with everyone, walked down to the DC with you, looked for classes with you.

Another item caught my attention: How did it take so long for this to get out? It’s been three weeks since the accident, and the funeral was last week. I wish I would’ve known about this beforehand.
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Who Needs CalStuff to Ridicule the Daily Cal When They Do it to Themselves...
Beetle has an amazing catch of one of the Daily Cal's more hilarious corrections:

Tuesday’s article “Group Therapy Now Offered at Tang Center” incorrectly attributed the quote: “I don’t know how comfortable students are going to group therapy. It’s difficult to say that I went to group therapy and not say who is there,” to UC Berkeley senior Fabiola Lao. The quote should have been attributed to a student who suffered from depression, who wished to remain anonymous.

Alternative headline: With friends like the Daily Cal, who needs enemies?
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International Grad Students Face post-9/11 Immigration Problems

The New York Times had an article on the problems that international grad students here at Berkeley are facing after 9/11. Among them are visa problems, delays, and a fear of not being allowed back into the US if they left. This has not only affected students from Islamic countries, but also China, India, South Korea, and Israel. It could also spell trouble for the science and engineering programs, as 34 percent of doctorates in those fields were awarded to international students in the last 5 years.Email This Post!

A talk with Rocky Gade video

I had a chance to talk Academic Affairs Vice President Rocky Gade about the proposed deadline change at the Speak Up or Drop Dead! Event. I recorded what he had to say with my digital camera, so have a look at the video (2MB).


Students signing a comment board with concerns over the drop deadlineEmail This Post!

Technical Issues

If you had trouble getting onto Calstuff last night, Status.blogger.com says that there were some of server problems starting around midnight, according to their report.

I also wanted to ask that if you have news submissions, we can post them quicker if they were submitted via email and not through the comments. We can give you proper credit for the submission if it was done via email. Remember though, only news that is relevant to Berkeley. Thanks!Email This Post!

Groundbreaking for CITRIS Headquarters on Friday

The campus will be getting a new building called Davis Hall North, located in between Davis Hall South (the current Davis Hall) and the Naval Architecture Building (over on this part of campus). Scheduled to be completed in 2007, the new hall will contain classrooms, labs, as well as house the headquarters of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, or CITRIS. CITRIS is a partnership by UC Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz for researching information technology for use in solving problems like traffic, pollution, health care, and more. Groundbreaking begins at 2 PM. The College of Engineering has more information on the events. Email This Post!

ASUC Ratcheting up Opposition to Drop Deadline
Here is the text of an e-mail being sent around about the ASUC's efforts to oppose the change in the drop deadline:

DROP DEADLINE DAY OF ACTION!
Who: EVERYBODY!
When: October 26th, 12:30pm to 2:30pm
Where: Campbell Hall (Near Evans and LeConte)
Why: Because the University needs to know students oppose the 2nd and 4th week drop deadline!

As you've probably heard, Robert Holub, the Dean of Letters and Sciences is planning to change the 8th week Drop Deadline to the 2nd week for impacted courses and the 4th week for all other courses.

Students can act now by attending the demonstration against the change in the Drop Deadline this Tuesday, October 26th, from 12:30pm to 2:30pm.

The demonstration is occurring at Campbell Hall, where L&S Advising is located. This is to make the point that students need better and more accessible L&S Advising before a change in the Drop Deadline can even be considered.

Also, go to www.asuc.org/dropdeadline to sign the petition against this change.

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Senator Narodick's Senate Antics Mentioned in Latest Patriot
CalStuff's own Ben Narodick is also a Senator in the ASUC with the SQUELCH! party. The latest issue of the Patriot has an article about the ASUC, and one of his stunts receives a mention:

On one occasion, Senator Ben Narodick of the Squelch! Party brought chips, salsa, and apple juice (symbolizing tequila) to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. This was seen as racially offensive by several other Senators and thus started a heated argument. A large portion of time was spent discussing how Senator Narodick’s remarks and attitude were unintentionally racist. It seemed ridiculous that this bantering was preventing our student government from handling more pressing matters on campus.

Keep up the good work, Ben!
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More Tech Improvements to CalStuff
We recently added an RSS feed (the link is over on the sidebar), and now we have an RSS feed for our comments. The address for that is: http://www.haloscan.com/members/rss.php?user=coper10.

CalStuff has also been syndicated to LiveJournal as well. You can see the feed here, and view the syndication information here. In the spirit of CalJunket's call for suggestions about improvements to the ASUC site, if anyone has any further suggestions or requests on how we should improve the tech side of CalStuff, you can leave them here.
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Golden Bears Tame Wildcats, 38 - 0


(Photo Courtesy of AP Photo / Wily Low)

After watching this game on national TV, I felt so riveted and emotional that I needed to post immediately. Oh wait, that's right... the game wasn't on TV. It led to a really lazy Saturday, just because what else are you going to do on a Saturday in October other than worship the Cal football team? The truth is, the game was so exciting via the radio broadcast (insert sarcasm comment here) that I have run out of wonderful words to describe it. Instead, I will rely on the handy ESPN Recap.

On another football related note, the Daily Cal ran a "really insightful" editorial on Friday that was, well, kinda sorta similar to this piece that CalStuff ran last week. However, by the time that the somewhat condascending, partly wrong, and slightly blasphemous Daily Cal piece ran, anyone who cares enough about Cal Football to be interested in the BCS scenario a) already knows or b) doesn't read the Daily Cal opinion section on Fridays.

But, then again, hardly anyone reads the Daily Cal on Fridays anyway, so maybe they thought this could just "slide by" as space filler. At least there wasn't any material to upstage that wonderful Friday columnist.
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Bookswap Please
*Update* Cooper informs me that there will be a bookswap on one.berkeley.edu next semester, and that there was one this semester. I never heard about the one that occured at the beginning of the semester, and I'm really enthusiastic about this whole book swap thing, so I can't imagine there was a lot of publicity. My fear is that come spring there will be another book swap and it will go poorly and students will continue to get ripped off. I'm going to have to find out who the project director is of the one.berkeley.edu bookswap and see if they have any information on what their plans are. I still welcome your comments on this Rebecca. */Update*

Rebecca C. Brown over at Caljunket is apparently involved in a redesign of the ASUC webpage. She has a request for her readers:

Yep, my webmaster and I are starting asuc.org from scratch. 'Cause right now it's really ugly and unsalvagable.

So, what do you want to see on the new asuc.org? What features or links or services could make it better? Thanks for your input.

Since I have my own blog, I'll answer here rather than in her comments. I want one thing from the ASUC: an effective reliable way to buy and sell books for classes. Misha's set-up on Sproul is largely ineffective, and sign up sheets placed out for a couple of days are clearly not the way to facilitate the large scale exchange of books between students. There is comegetused.com, but I can rarely find any of the books I need there, and most students I've spoken to haven't ever bought books there.

That leaves us with the option that most students use. We buy our ridiculously expensive books from either Ned's or the ASUC Bookstore. Then, at the end of the year, we go sell the books back, getting at most 50% of the original cost, and usually less than that. Then the bookstore resells the books for 75% of their original cost. Students lose out twice. We get less money from the bookstore than we could from other students, and we end up paying more to the bookstore than we would pay to other students.

That money goes to profits for the store and for paying workers to stand around and handle our transactions, when that process could occur just as easily online. I would like to see the ASUC put some substantial effort into making it easier for students to buy and sell school books, either through developing their own online exchange forum or putting an effort into publicizing comegetused.com.

This would serve as a substantial benefit to students, realized every year as extra money in our pockets.
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Berkeley Daily Planet Adds More Details (and Humor) to Drug Bust Story
The BDP has their contribution up on their website about the unfolding drug bust saga, "Drug Bust Follows Student’s Death". Check back with CalStuff and we will continue to provide you with any additional details on this story from all the sources offering reporting. First, some information on the houses owner:

The two gray stucco houses are owned by Dr. Cynthia LeBlanc, Chief Academic Officer of the West Contra Costa Unified School District...

Neighbors, who asked not to be identified, said that the two houses on the property have had “problem tenants” for several years predating the tenancy of the arrested students, and the situation has prompted neighbors to make what they call “several complaints” to owner LeBlanc... The neighbors said that LeBlanc has been unresponsive to their concerns, and said they are now working with “city authorities” to try to get her to release the property.

LeBlanc did not return telephone calls in regards to this article.

I hope Cynthia is a better Chief Academic Officer than she is a landlord. The article also has some Beetleworthy quotations:

But although residents say they were unaware of any illegal activities on the property, several of them said that in hindsight, they should have been.

“Now I kick myself, because I didn’t pay attention that I never saw them walking down the street with a backpack or anything,” one woman said. “How could they be college students?”

She said she also should have been suspicious that “they spent a lot of time at home during the day, watching television. Actually, it was pretty quiet over there. Maybe it was too quiet.”

I don't use a backpack, maybe I'm a drug dealer... Finally, CalStuff is proud to bring you a picture of the drug den (via the BDP) that has been terrorizing local families ("One woman described the students as 'really rough people' who generated complaints from other residents"):

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Hacker Hits Berkeley Computer; Accesses 1.4 million social security numbers

Reuters has just reported that a hacker has broken into a university computer and was capable of viewing the names and social security numbers of 1.4 million people. Many of them are either elderly or peope who take care of the elderly. The FBI is now investigating how he got into the system. It is unknown what was done with the information or if anything else was compromised. The hacker remains at large.

Two things are interesting in this article. First, it mentions that the researcher who stored the information on the computer was able to get their information from the state without the consent of those people. Second, the incident happened in late August and was reported to the state on September 27, after Berkeley had done its own investagation. So, the report comes out nearly 2 months after the incident and 1 month after the state had found out (Berkeley was given time to complete the investagation without having to report it). What happened in between that month with the state report and this one?

Followup: The visiting scholar issued a statement in attempts to clear her name. The Oakland Tribune has the story.Email This Post!

Silly Picture Friday: Astroturf Car
Every Friday I'm going to post a picture of something silly/intriguing/irreverent/humorous from the preceding week. Readers are also welcome to submit their own photos. The first entry is the Astroturf car that was parked in front of my house on Wednesday.



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SJP Rally On Campus Yesterday
Students for Justice in Palestine were out on campus on Thursday. They had big banners with the names of dead Palestinians. I'm guessing they didn't include the names of any suicide bombers, but you never know with them... Apparently, they were on the bullhorn yelling about their divestment petition, which I thought they had given up on. Multiple people who wandered by told me that not that many people were stopping. Even though there were not very many people taking part in the rally, the way they spread out across Sproul made them look like they had a large prescence.


[photo courtesy of R.K.]Email This Post!

Point/Counterpoint: A Discussion of the Blog

In today's Daily Cal, Squelch Editor Matt Loker makes some poignant statements about the history of blogs and challenges their role in society while making allusions to a local blog specializing in Berkeley news and happenings, etc.

In his counterargument, Calstuff Editor Emeritus Kevin Deenihan attempts to defend blogs while discrediting Mr. Loker and questioning his credibility.

This is an interesting read for any of you who, like me, are having a really lazy Friday.Email This Post!

Critiquing Berkeley Media

I introduce a new column to One called " Critique of the week." This one is called "Critiquing Berkeley Media".

What does Allen Lew think of Berkeley media after a week of reading it all? Plus, the good of expanding the American Cultures requirement.Email This Post!

Further Update on Drug Bust
The Daily Cal has updated their earlier article with more information on the drug bust:

-Berkeley drug using students can rest easy, as "The dozens of names listed on the “Pay-O” sheets are under investigation, Rego said. But because only first names or code names appear on the sheets, there is “not much we can do with it,” he said. "

-Also, apparently some of the marijuana may have been of a medicinal variety.

Lanzon’s attorney, Dennis Roberts of Oakland, said Lanzon has a “medical recommendation” that allows him to legally grow and use marijuana.
According to Berkeley city protocol for medical cannabis, 10 marijuana plants can legally be grown inside a residence, with a maximum of 50 plants in one property. Police found six plants at the residence. "

Perhaps it was an old water polo injury that was bothering him.

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Daily Cal Comes Through With Drug Ring Photos
The Daily Cal has appended some photos from the Berkeley Police Department to their earlier article on the drug bust.

See for yourself:





Some hardcore shit.Email This Post!

Daily Cal Files Their Report on Drug Bust
The Daily Cal has an article online about the drug raid that occured last Friday. More useful interesting information from them, as well as questions that remain unanswered:

1) The deceased student and one of his arrested roommates (Babatunde John Oyelowo) were both in Pi Kappa Alpha. This can't be good for Pike's reputation as being a drug house.

2) The Daily Cal is reporting that police found 14 pounds of marijuana, not 6 like the Oakland Tribune said.

3) Thatcher Hillegas, "a former illustrator for The Daily Californian" was taken into custody earlier today, after the Tribune article came out.

4) Someone finally says what we have all been thinking: "When a dead body just shows up and someone just drops it off, it's kind of suspicious"
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Information on Busted Dealers

The names of Patrick McCann's roommates, the late Cal Student, Pike brother, and former water polo player, were obtained by the Oakland Tribune.

Three of them, Matthew Mark Morrison, a 22-year-old legal studies major (whoops!); Babatunde John Oyelowo, a 21-year-old conservation and resource studies major; and Casey D. Lanzon, a 23-year-old American studies major who was last enrolled Fall '03, were arrested Tuesday. A fourth, 22-year-old Thatcher Hillegas has had a warrant issued for his arrest on felony marijuana charges.

Rundown:

~ Matthew Mark Morrisson doesn't appear to be recently accomplished, at least not in a way that would make available any of his information online.

~ Casey Lanzon, however, appears to have been on theBoys' Swim Team at the Central Valley Aquatic Center, and has the 5th best time in the 50 meter breastsroke in CVA's history, in 1990 on the 8-and-under. He also, much more recently, was on the Third Team in the 1999 National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association Water Polo All-Americans, from Turlock High School. Patrick McCann--perhaps-not-so-coincidentally--was, as mentioned, a water polo player.

~ 6-foot-6 John Oyelowo played Volleyball for the Santa Barbara High School Dons, and was on the Principal's Honor Roll Fall 2000 as a Junior.

~ Thatch Hillegas is a recent Daily Cal cartoonist (published work from February 23, February 3, and January 27). He's won at least two honorable mentions for line illustration, in the 2002 and 2003 Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC) awards, as a student from Santa Barbara City College. It's unclear at the moment whether he was a Cal student this semester, or last year when he contributed to the Daily Cal.

One thing of mild import might be the impact the Pay-O sheet is going to have on the Cal community. Lots of college students smoke pot (and certainly a few do meth), and it's nearly certain that at least some of this drug den's clients were Berkeley students whose information is now in the hands of a very crackdown-happy Alameda County DA's office.

Also, $14,000 in cash just lying around? Assault weapons? A shotgun? 6 pounds of pot? Does this remind anyone else of "Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels"?

Some things to think about:

How many fellow Pikers was McCann selling to, if any?
How many Co-Opers are on the list?
How many Greeks in general are on the list?
Is OSL going to go crazy if there are dozens or even hundreds of Greeks on the list?

I guess time will tell...Email This Post!

**Death of Berkeley Student Leads to Major Drug Bust**

The Oakland Tribune has major news in the story about the death of Berkeley student Patrick McCann. In the article, "Roommates of dead student in drug bust", they report:

The mysterious death of a University of California, Berkeley student took a bizarre turn Tuesday when police announced that the dead man's roommates were keeping pounds of marijuana, narcotics, guns and stacks of suspected drug money at their South Berkeley residence.

Inside what appeared to be a bachelor pad for a group of twentysomethings, including four UC Berkeley students, was a sprawling marijuana-growing operation, a pharmacy of methadone and an organized drug-running operation that police called a sizable bust.

The article raises a number of questions, and answers some other things that had been unclear:

1) Police found their list of clients, which means that the cops now have information on potentially hundreds (or more) people who have bought drugs from the student dealers. And since they were all students, I think it's more than likely they had a large student client base.

2) This explains why his roommates drove him to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance. Inviting paramedics into your drug den is an unwise thing to do.

3) Police are still saying that McCann's death does not look like there was foul play involved, but early rumors of a drug-related death certainly seem more credible now.

More from the article:

[Police] also discovered "Pay-O" sheets for logging drug transactions, drug scales and lights, a 12-gauge shotgun, an assault rifle, two semiautomatic pistols and nearly $14,000 in cash, police said.

"[The bust] is pretty significant," [Berkeley Police spokesman Steve] Rego said. "I wouldn't say it happens very often. There was a lot of money, a lot of dope and a lot of guns in the house," he said.

We'll have more information on the arrested shortly.Email This Post!

Ignacio Chapela continues to fight for tenure


The East Bay Express reports on the status of Professor Ignacio Chapela's tenure case. Chapela is a vocal critic of genetically engineered foods and biotech companies. He published a paper in Nature about genetic contamination of maize by genetically engineered corn (it was later retracted) and opposed the $25 million dollar deal between the Department of Plant Biology and Novartis (the Swiss pharmaceutical company and owners of Gerber foods) that expired last year. Chapela claims his criticism of the deal conflicted with the head of the budget committee (who had investments with Novartis) that voted against giving him tenure. The review of his case has gone on for an unusually long time and could go on longer if brought before a formal hearing of the Academic Senate.

If you wish to know more about the Novartis deal, you can read the criticism along with support for the deal in this article from California Monthly.Email This Post!

First Storm of Year Brings Down Berkeley's Power

Update: Power is back on. PG & E did a decent job of getting everything fixed as soon as the weather started to clear up.

PG & E representatives are reporting that upwards of 1700 residents have lost power in the SW region of Berkeley. Traffic lights are down at College/Durant and Piedmont/Dwight. Apparently, the electric service has been inconsistant in the dorms at Clark Kerr as well.

There is no timetable yet as to when service will be returned to this area.Email This Post!

Art Students Decorate the Campus
The Berkeley NewsCenter has an article describing the art projects done by the Landscape Architecture 101 class on campus. The three projects pictured in the article are red balloons over Strawberry Creek, circles near Sather Gate(photo below), and banners over Sproul Plaza.

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William Hung's Christmas album released today

The Internet rumors about William Hung's death from a heroin overdose are not true. In fact, he is so alive that he released a new album. Entitled "Hung for the Holidays", Hung performs such holiday classics as Winter Wonderland and Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. If you want to know more about the album, check out the album's entry on the All Music Guide.

So far reviews have been bad; if I could find a good review, I'll post it (because that would be astonding).Email This Post!

Atom Feed Works Now
If you didn't know what the headline to this post means, don't worry about it. For those people using some type of RSS Feed, we should be compatible now. If your reader doesn't work automatically, the address for the feed is calstuff.blogspot.com/atom.xml. Thanks to Allen for showing me how to fix this. If it doesn't work for you, leave a comment and we'll try to fix things.
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Introducing Allen Lew

I began working with Calstuff in October, 2004 thanks to an offer by founder Kevin Deenihan. This was an effort to bring in another perspective into the ranks. There are a number of differences between the others and myself. I don't write for Squelch, I'm not in ASUC, and we're not in the same fraternity. With that said, though, we all believe in bringing you the reader the best news available in Berkeley, with analysis, commentary, and stories you may have missed.

Just so you know me, I'm a junior and an MCB major here at Berkeley. I'm also a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and the news admin for one.berkeley.edu, where I write a column periodically. I also maintain a personal blog, where you'll find my thoughts and musings on Berkeley and non-Berkeley topics. If that's not enough info for you, just let me know.Email This Post!

BCS Rankings Out - Cal ranked #8

The first BCS rankings have us at #8. For those of you just as confused about the BCS as me, you can get information here.

The way it seems to work out is that if the current rankings hold up, Cal will be left out of a BCS bowl. Here's how. The BCS guarantees 6 Bowl Berths to the winners of six conferences: Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, SEC, ACC, Big East. The BCS also gives two at-large bids to the teams with the next two highest ratings. So, right now, here's how it breaks down.

ACC: Miami (#2)
Big 10: Wisconsin (#6)
Big 12: Oklahoma (#3)
Big East: West Virginia (#20)
Pac-10: USC (#1)
SEC: Auburn (#4)

According to the rankings, the next two at-large berths would go to Florida State (#5) and Utah (#7). So, this leaves Cal one spot out of the BCS scheme, leaving us out of the Rose Bowl.

I guess we can join USC now in screaming "BCS Conspiracy". How can a #20 school justifiably be left in a major bowl game?Email This Post!

Bowles Halloween Party Cancelled

"Please consider this memorandum official notification to you that the Bowles Hall Halloween Party is cancelled. Please notify your constituencies that this annual event will not be held. We also encourage you to strongly advise that students and guests refrain from planning to participate in any activities at Bowles Hall through Halloween weekend, October 29th through 31st."

This is the text from an email circulating out of the Office of Residential Living. It seems as if this might have been done without prior consultation with either the ASUC or the Residence Hall Assembly, but it is too soon to tell.

Despite the seemingly sudden nature of this change of course from the administration, the decision to crack down on the party is probably a result of last year's police-fueled fiasco, and not a snap reaction to the circumstances of last week.

More details as they emerge. Email This Post!

BusinessWeek: Haas School in Decline

A new set of business school rankings in the latest issue of BusinessWeek (sorry, no link yet) placed Cal #3... on the list of schools that have declined the most in the past year. The bits of the story that were available for free via the Berkeley NewsCenter did not explain why the drop occured.

On the upside, Cal did retain a #10 mark nation-wide on schools with the best hi-tech business training.Email This Post!

ASUC Begins Mobilizing Against Change in Drop Deadline
There has been talk of moving up the drop deadline, to as little as two weeks into the semester for impacted classes. The Daily Cal had an article on the subject, "Drop Date Could Move Up Six Weeks" from the beginning of the year. Now the ASUC is gearing up to mount a coordinated offensive. Here is the text of an e-mail I received on the subject:

Tomorrow is the 2nd President’s Council of the year and it is going to be a very important one! Academic, EVP and Senators have planned a meeting designed to educate, organize and unite all students (not just club presidents’ this time) in order to force a rollback of the proposed 4-2 week drop deadlines. It is vital to the careers of all Cal students that there is a strong force at this meeting which will be tomorrow [October 18th] at 8 PM, 2050 VLSB. PLEASE forward this e-mail to your friends and those who you represent/ are involved in student organizations. Please help us get the word out.

More on this after the meeting.
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Daily Cal has More Details on Student Death
The Daily Cal has a more comprehensive article on the death of Berkeley senior Patrick McCann. The article raises certain questions itself, and while it provides more details about the circumstances of his death, the situation is still unclear:

Police are investigating the death as suspicious, and the case has been referred to homicide detectives, Hester said.

Police would not say why the death is considered suspicious or reveal any details surrounding the incident.

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Someone Takes CalStuff Too Seriously
Assuming that "fine al", whoever that is, wasn't joking himself, then he didn't get my joke. He recently posted a comment on the one.berkeley.edu news section that said:

Calstuff reports that Matt Loker's column in Friday's Daily Cal entitled "FUNctional Alcoholism" was actually suppose to appear in Squelch, to which Loker is also editor-in-chief.

This, I assume, was a response to my original post about the article, when I wrote:

Matt Loker, Editor in Chief of the Squelch, apparently accidentally sent his latest article for the Squelch to the Daily Cal, which gladly published it.

If Al, was making a joke himself, then boy do I look stupid. And if he wasn't, which I am more inclined to believe, this just provides an opportunity for me to say that we occasionally joke around or use sarcasm here at CalStuff. I merely meant to imply that his column was much more in the style of Squelch material than a Daily Cal column.

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Apparently, Jewish People Don't Like Being Called Nazis...

... so says an email circulating on some email list servers. Josh Baron is sending an email to assorted Jewish leaders on campus, as well as the Chancellor's Special Task Force on Hate and Bias, regarding the upcoming speech of Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein. Ms. Epstein, on several occasions, has compared the current Israeli policies against Palestine as being "reminiscent of the situation in Nazi Germany in 1939." Baron, who you might remember was a major proponent of the Daniel Pipes speech last year, is claiming that such language, especially the analogy of Israelis to Nazis, is offensive to the Jewish community and should not be accepted on campus.

While the language can be construed as offensive, this smells very much like an attempt to use political correctness as a weapon against an enemy ideology. Baron, who has been published in more conservative publications (including the Cal Patriot) on very pro-Israel topics, probably wasn't the best choice of spokesman against a pro-Palestine speaker. Likewise, it seems as if Baron is acting very hypocritically here. He is attacking the same codes of conduct and freedoms of speech that allowed Pipes to speak on campus in the first place. And, much of Pipes' language was construed to be racist and offensive by students in attendance.

The event with Ms. Epstein is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, October 19, at 7 PM in 213 Wheeler Hall. Email This Post!

New Chairman for UC Regents

Following its contraversal vote on raising the GPA requirement and the retirement of one of its members over attendance issues, the UC Regents selected Regent Gerald Parsky to be the new chairman for the UC Board of Regents. Parsky is a prominent California Republican who chaired President Bush's 2000 campaign in California and worked on Governor Schwarzenegger's transition team. The new vice-chair is Regent Richard Blum, the husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein.

It's always nice to see that even California's education system has not been marred or tainted by the political parties and processes.Email This Post!

Cal Student Dies

Update: The Daily Cal has a more substantial story on McCann's death. CalStuff is currently running down some more details, and will post them when confirmed.

The Daily Cal is reporting on the death of Patrick McCann, a 22-year old Berkeley student and an out-of-house brother of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Not much is known of the death, since the Daily Cal is currently the only source reporting on McCann's death. The only detail currently available is the official time of death: 12:45 PM on Friday afternoon.

More details as they emerge.Email This Post!

Golden Bears Overtake Bruins, 45 - 28



(Photo Courtesy of AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

JJ Arrington ran for a career-high 205 yards on 29 carries and scored two touchdowns in Saturday's game to lead the California Golden Bears to a substantial victory over UCLA.

ESPN Game Recap

Even though two teams ahead of Cal in the rankings lost (Virginia and Purdue), Wisconsin (following its upset over Purdue) was moved up in front of Cal for both the AP and USA Today Polls, so Cal only moves up one spot, to 7th (AP) / 8th (Coaches' Poll). Monday also brings the revealing of the season's BCS rankings to date, and those will be posted when they are released. Email This Post!

Crossroads Modeling Our Local Traffic Infrastructure
While I was at work on Wednesday at Crossroads, we had a mini-disaster. For those of you familiar with our fine campus dining facility, when you finish eating at Crossroads, you stroll over towards the exit with your tray, and slip it onto a moving tray return conveyor belt apparatus. This contraption takes your tray back into the dishwashing area where underpaid and underappreciated employees proceed to clean all the dirty dishes so they can be used again.

Things went horribly wrong on Wednesday, when this tray return conveyor belt stopped moving. With hundreds of people dining at Crossroads at any one time, this conveyor quickly filled up with used dishware and trays and people began leaving their trays and other trash on the ground near the exit. Soon there were swarms of people milling about dumping their old food and dirty utensils in a larger and larger area. After about 45 minutes the repairmen were able to remove the fork that was jammed into the conveyor belt and get the contraption moving again. After a quick effort at clean up, everything was back to normal.

My work anecdote offers some cause for concern when contrasted with a report out recently about what would happen if BART became temporarily unusable:

A study by a UC Berkeley researcher revealed Thursday that if BART suffered major damage during an earthquake and had to be shut down it would trigger chaos on local roadways with 25-mile backups and common everyday commutes that would grow from less than an hour to more than three hours.
...
Other results from the study indicate that without the transbay service, westbound morning Bay Bridge traffic would create backups stretching 26 miles. In the afternoon, eastbound Bay Bridge traffic would stretch 31 miles.

The risk of a major earthquake in this area with the many faults running nearby is a major concern. As my Crossroads experience makes clear, something as innocuous as a misplaced fork caused a major mechanical malfunction, and the BART system also could be rendered inoperable from any number of things besides an earthquake. Beyond hoping that BART doesn't ever get closed for any extended period of time, the people who commissioned this study should be looking into ways to alleviate the traffic concerns they noted.Email This Post!

Crossing of the Wires
Matt Loker, Editor in Chief of the Squelch, apparently accidentally sent his latest article for the Squelch to the Daily Cal, which gladly published it.

Go read it:

MYTH: People who don’t drink in college are either robots or religious fanatics.

FACT: You forgot dorks. Dorks too. I know you dorks may be too busy reading “Harry Potter” to go to a party and have a drink, but sorry, I don’t really have any time to read Harry Potter because I’m too busy knowing what vagina feels like.

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If Only This Picture was Taken a Second Later

Picture from the SF Chronicle:


Caption that ran with picture:
Former presidential candidate Howard Dean is surrounded by well-wishers after his speech. Chronicle photo by Christina Koci Hernandez

Description of that picture from today's Daily Cal letters section:
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Saturday story about the Free Speech Movement’s 40th anniversary commemoration includes a significant mistake. In a picture captioned, “Former presidential candidate Howard Dean is surrounded by well-wishers after his speech,” I am shown hugging Dean and whispering in his ear. I was actually saying, “You sure are a selfish, egocentric, self-centered S.O.B.!” My remark was justified, because Dean completely violated advance agreements about his speech. [emphasis mine]

Dean was scheduled to speak for 10 minutes and was required by campus rules to be non-partisan in his appeal for students to vote. Instead, he spoke for 23 minutes and delivered a passionate pitch for Kerry against Bush. By doing so, Dean eclipsed the rest of our program, and turned a commemoration of the FSM into an episode of self-promotion and partisan politics.
Michael Rossman
Free Speech Movement event coordinator
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Daily Cal misses the Seymour Hersh Story
Seymour Hersh, the best investigative reporter currently working, spoke here on campus last Friday. His speech focused predominantly on the war on terror and reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The Daily Cal article on the event completely missed the biggest part of his speech; his description of a conversation he had with a member of the Army about some Iraqis being massacred by the Army.

The Berkeley NewsCenter article on the speech managed to pick up on the big news of the night:

There was more — rumors of atrocities around Iraq that to Hersh brought back memories of My Lai. In the evening's most emotional moment, Hersh talked about a call he had gotten from a first lieutenant in charge of a unit stationed halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. His group was bivouacking outside of town in an agricultural area, and had hired 30 or so Iraqis to guard a local granary. A few weeks passed. They got to know the men they hired, and to like them. Then orders came down from Baghdad that the village would be "cleared." Another platoon from the soldier's company came and executed the Iraqi granary guards. All of them.

"He said they just shot them one by one. And his people, and he, and the villagers of course, went nuts," Hersh said quietly. "He was hysterical, totally hysterical. He went to the company captain, who said, 'No, you don't understand, that's a kill. We got 36 insurgents. Don't you read those stories when the Americans say we had a combat maneuver and 15 insurgents were killed?'

I learned of this missing element from the Daily Cal article after coming across a mention of that portion of the speech via a blog, called A Tiny Revolution.

Before I found the NewsCenter article, I streamed the speech to confirm that the report from the blog was accurate, and Hersh's lecture was so good, I ended up listening to the whole thing. Check it out if you have the time. The link to hear him is in the NewsCenter article, and if you don't have time to listen to it, that article does an excellent job of summarizing the main points in his speech.
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New Squelch Released

Check it out here, if you aren't going near Sproul today.Email This Post!

Lyman Out For Season

The Oakland Tribune and the Daily Californian have confirmed reports that were circulating last night. Recent breakout wide receiver Chase Lyman will miss the rest of the season after severely straining the ACL in his left knee.

Lyman, who has seen a streak of bad luck and bad health, began mounting a comeback in the 2004 Insight Bowl when he stepped up to fill roles in a weak wide receiving corps. He hit his peak during the 2004 49-7 romp of Oregon State, when he caught three touchdown passes in one quarter alone.

While Lyman's skills will be missed, Cal Football can and will recover from his loss. Throughout the USC game, Rodgers spread the ball around to many different receivers. J.J. Arrington is running for over a hundred yards each game. Hopefully, we can spread around Lyman's duties to other players to make up for his loss. Or, at the very least, step up our special teams and put less pressure on the rest of the team.

The Cal Footbal Wrap-Up from last week will be linked here when completed.Email This Post!

Sproul Webcam Report from the Daily Cal
In case you missed it, here is the Daily Cal article from last week on the new camera streaming footage of Sproul Plaza to demonstrate.berkeley.edu. Best sentence, in terms of sheer incomprehensibility:

“Given a set of camera frames (pan, tilt, zoom) requested by users, we present an algorithm that computes an optimal camera frame that maximizes a quasi-linear ‘satisfaction’ metric based on the summed ratios of frame area overlap divided by the maximum frame size,” Goldberg said.

The camera is so powerful that Berdahl and a Vice Chancellor decreed it be set to a lower magnification level than it is capable of to "avoid the possibility of privacy infringement on neighboring apartment buildings."
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Queer Straight Alliance Founded for Greek Community
Considering CalStuff's previous coverage of lgbt related issues in the Greek Community (for example, the accusations by Oscar Wilde that DU was harassing them or the SF Gate article about the heterosexual nature of fraternities and sororities), I thought it worth pointing out that Thursday will be the first meeting for the Greek Queer Straight Alliance (link to facebook group).

The broad support shown for a group such as this among chapter house presidents and IFC and Panhellenic executives speaks to the relative tolerance found at Berkeley, especially compared to Greeks on other campuses. Not that everything is perfect here, and the group was founded in part as a response to homophobia within the Greek community.
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A Note To The Readers

I am altering a couple of time/date stamps on a few posts that are coming up to make their timing seem a little more realistic. Only for the sake of posterity, of course. No new posts will be placed past last Friday (October 7), and we are trying to avoid doing this in the future.
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Monday News Roundup
Links to some stories you may have missed from the past couple of days:

A Voter’s Guide to Berkeley Ballot Measures
If you are planning on voting in the Berkeley election, this Berkeley Daily Planet article has a wealth of information to help you make an informed decision.

'60s Free Speech Leader Got Caught in FBI Web
A very interesting and largely unknown element of the free speech movement, reported on by the SF Chronicle based on recently obtained FBI documents:

"The FBI trailed Mario Savio for more than a decade after he led the 1964 Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, and bureau officials plotted to "neutralize" him politically -- even though there was no evidence he broke any federal law, according to FBI records obtained by The Chronicle."

Free speech returns to Sproul 3,000 pack UC plaza to celebrate 40th anniversary of historic student movement
A full description of the Friday rally, also from the SF Chronicle, including a backstory about Birgeneau, and his involvement in the Free Speech Movement.

Students Not Eager for FSM Events
According to the Daily Cal, a lot of the events failed to attract students:

Only one student showed up to Thursday’s panel of Free Speech Movement veterans talking about how they organized the movement.

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Crushing...
I really had my hopes up, and it's especially dispiriting to see us lose after being just yards away from a touchdown on our final possession.

Expect a much fuller report from Narodick of both the game and the Free Speech rally, which he was able to attend, and I was not. For now, leave any comments you wish about the game here.

Also, we will be posting our own pictures from the rally and the game, but if you have any especially nice photos from either of those events that you would like to share, e-mail them to andyratto@gmail.com, and we will credit you if we use them.
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The Sproul Plaza webcam made the CNN newscrawl yesterday.

Sorry, no screencap.Email This Post!

Recap of FSM 40th Anniversary Celebration Week

Note the emphasis on week.

Overall, the week of events could have gone much better. Turnout was poor at many events. And, when a substantial turnout was present (i.e. Friday’s rally), the crowd’s motives were suspect. Many students left Friday’s rally after Dean gave a bluntly political speech during what should have been a celebratory event.

The ASUC’s lack of ability to bring a turnout to these events is very reflective of some of its more substantial problems – chiefly, the lack of an effective centrally-controlled communication source. Flyering is not able to convey any message on this campus, not enough people read the Daily Cal close enough to read the ASUC info page, and no one goes to asuc.org anymore.

Complicating the situation were conflicts within the planning of the events. The ASUC Office of the President had an almost cavalier attitude towards the planning of the event, and this led to many conflicts. Many FSMers backstage at the event seemed flustered and frustrated that their work was being objectified in the way that it was. Administrators, including Chancellor Birgeneau, were overheard to have voiced their disapproval of the lack of communication and shared planning. Faculty members were also frustrated with their lack of involvement with the programs.

Pictures from the rally will be posted here when I get them.Email This Post!

I Hope the Freshman Have Learned to Handle Their Liquor...
Berkeley continues to grapple with a tight budget, and the latest victim is the loss of one of our city's fire trucks. An interesting tidbit from the Daily Cal article, "Berkeley has one fire station per every 1.4 square miles, whereas comparable cities have one fire station every 2 to 8.9 square miles, Orth said in his statement to the council. "

Where are all those fire stations hiding? There is one every 1.4 square miles, yet I can't recall where a single one of them is, off the top of my head.
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SUPERB Purportedly Spends $30k for Upcoming Comedy Show

According to assorted information coming out of ASUC SUPERB, upwards of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000!!!) has been spent to set up a comedy show with headliner Dane Cook. The show is to take place either later in the Fall 2004 Semester or in the first half of the Spring 2005 Semester at the Berkeley Community Theater.

Now there’s nothing wrong with Dane Cook’s humor. He has had many specials on Comedy Central, appeared on many late night shows, and is an overwhelmingly hilarious entertainer. However, how did it cost SUPERB $30k to put this show on? While it has yet to be concluded if SUPERB can find 3500 students to trek to the off campus venue (about 1/3 mile west of campus), or whether or not a profit can even be turned from this event, the project is handicapped by its excessive costs. Projects like these often lead to the popular opinion concluding that a) the ASUC is completely lacking in fiscal responsibility and b) SUPERB is an inefficient use of time, money and energy.

To those who wonder if it can be done better, the Heuristic Squelch has been putting on 4-6 comedy shows a year at the Bear’s Lair for 100-200 students with some success. And, I can almost guarantee to our readers that we have not spent $30,000 on the entirety of all of the last five years of comedy shows. In addition, the Squelch has seemingly been able to provide a greater diversity in comedians than SUPERB.

If any readers here have inside information on ASUC SUPERB’s upcoming comedy show on October 28 w/ Daniel Tosh, we would appreciate any numbers and statistics that you can give us.
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Article Addresses Apathy at Berkeley
KTLA5 recently carried a comprehensive, interesting article about the lack of political activism here at Berkeley, especially in relation to the Free Speech Movement, much in the news of late.

The article, "Free to Be Silent at UC Berkeley " blames the lack of interest in social and political causes on a number of factors, including, "increasingly selective admissions standards, higher costs, onerous academic workloads and a largely apolitical Asian student population are some of the reasons behind the change in campus politics."

This lack of protesting on campus is not a bad thing according to Philosophy Professor, John Searle:

Searle, now 72, embraced the Free Speech Movement as a young faculty member but was critical of its more radical offshoots.

He said the institutionalization of the movement was a good thing."The way healthy societies work," said Searle, interviewed later at his Moses Hall office, "is that they assimilate. What was once a threat is now part of the mainstream. In a sense it has been domesticated."

My own reflections on this subject, agree in part with the article.
1) There is less agitation on campus because there is less to be agitated about. The Free Speech Movement/Civil Rights Movement/Vietnam War Protests all represented polarizing issues of such extreme importance, they nearly compelled people to take to the streets to make their voices heard. In comparison, the major issue of today, the Iraq War, not only seems to evoke ambivalent feelings, but because it is being fought by a small sized, volunteer force, that struggle is effectively compartmentalized from the lives of Berkeley students. If a draft were reinstated, I can guarantee you that college campuses would have immediate outpourings of protest against such an action.

2) The author's point about the "largely apolitical Asian student population" also rings true in my own experience. I would guess that the two main political groups on campus, the Cal Dems and Berkeley College Republicans are both disproportionately lacking in Asian American students. (For completely unscientific proof of this, look up the Berkeley College Republicans and Cal Berkeley Democrats on facebook and scroll through the membership looking for Asians.)

This apolitical nature to Asian American students represents in some sense the different approach that the Asian Americanss at Berkeley have taken to building communities and working for change. Glance at the names of the groups tabling on Sproul, and it's clear that Asian American students aren't apathetic. Asian American student groups just work for change using different methods than high profile protests or large scale social movements. The apparent lack of invovlement of Asian American students in overtly political causes could explain why the BCR were so unconcerned with bringing in a speaker who was clearly going to elicit strong condemnation from the Asian communties at Berkeley, as eventually occured at the speech. More on Malkin and her speech soon. I also realize that I referenced a large protest attended by many campus Asian American groups while making a point that Asian American students are apathetic when it comes to explicitly political causes, but I think the special nature of the Malkin event is clear.

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Bill Jones Speaking at PS 179 Lecture on October 6

While the guest lecturer for the PS 179 weekly colloquium is generally kept fairly secretive, word on the street is that Republican senatorial candidate Bill Jones will be speaking in Wheeler Auditorium at 4:00 PM. Jones is challenging Barbara Boxer for her US Senate seat in November. While there have been some rumblings amongst California’s more conservative elements about Jones’ inevitable march to defeat, his speech should still be an interesting and unique perspective on California politics. The lecture is also open to students not taking the class.
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ASUC Alumni Reception

For any ASUC Alumni junkies that may still read this blog, an ASUC Alumni Reception has been planned for Friday, October 15, 2004, at 5:15 PM. If enough of you guys commit to making a presence, I may just stop by, too.
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ASUC Contingency Fund Dropping Fast

As of the end of Monday night’s Financial Committee meeting, the ASUC had approximately $1400 (of $11000) from the Senate Contingency Fund left in its allocation for the Fall 2004 semester.

This isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. This year’s Senate has been working with a smaller Contingency Fund than in years past. The Financial Committee has dealt with 60 or so bills for money allocations, and most bills have been slashed down to bare minimums. The problem is merely that way too many bills are going through the committee right now. Dozens of new student groups are beginning to get off the ground, and demand for ASUC money is very high right now.

That being said, this quick expenditure of money is still at least a minor worry, and student groups can probably look forward to being nickled-and-dimed for the next few months unless alternate sources of funding can be found.
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A UC Berkeley Press Release Shocks the Nation!
Berkeley Audience Declares Kerry the Winner of First Debate

I demand a recount.
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New Sproul Webcam

Late last week, the Berkeley NewsCenter did an interesting story about a new webcam that has a panoramic view over Sproul Plaza. For those of you not interested in the story but interested in spying over students on Sproul, you can check out the webcam here.
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Spotlight on the Berkeley Blogosphere
The Berkeley NewsCenter has an excellent article up on Berkeley related blogs. And I'm not just saying that because CalStuff is featured. There are descriptions of student blogs, professor blogs, and blogs about everything Berkeley related.

CalStuff gets a nice prominent mention, and Kevin Deenihan deserves a lot of credit for serving as a leader in the Berkeley blogosphere in its infantile days. There are also some quotations from myself, including completely genuine compliments of the Daily Cal.

I will have a more substantial response to the article later, but for now I just wanted to offer a link so you can read the article for youself.


Here is the picture that ran with the article.

[CalStuff bloggers (l to r) Cooper Nagengast, Andy Ratto and Ben Narodick. (Steve McConnell photo)]Email This Post!

Bears Dam Up OSU Beavers


(Photo courtesy of ESPN.com)

For those of you who have been living in a cave, the Golden Bears destroyed the Oregon State Beavers over the weekend by a score of 49 - 7. This is the first defeat over any school from Oregon in a few years.

Many students, however, are not aware that California has risen to #7 in both the USA Today Coaches’ Poll and the Associated Press Poll. This is Cal Football’s highest national rating in thirteen years. If only we could get a new stadium out of it...

Also, congrats to Chase Lyman for receiving the Pac-10 Player of the week award. Apparently, it's a good thing if you catch three touchdowns in one quarter. It also helps when your quarterback is #2 in the nation in passing efficiency (thanks to Daily Cal for that tidbit).

For those of you looking forward to the Cal/USC match-up this Saturday, the game time has been set for 12:30 PM. If you were not lucky enough to get tickets to the game, it will be televised on ABC, so feel free and watch the Bears destroy the Trojans.

The current odds have USC favored by 7 ½ points. Fools.Email This Post!

FYI - the CalStuff-ers are out of town this weekend. Updates on Sunday PM.Email This Post!