CalStuff No Longer Resides Here:

CalStuff.blogsome.com Site Goes Live

Please access CalStuff at calstuff.blogsome.com. Withing a day or so, www.calstuff.com will also point to that new site. Information about how things will be different and some of the new features can be found here: http://calstuff.blogsome.com/2005/06/15/welcome-to-the-new-calstuff/Email This Post!

Article About Berkeley Researcher Who Explores Clandestine Areas
This SF BayGuardian article is from a while ago. It has the story of Trevor Paglen, "A UC Berkeley geographer [who] maps the secret military bases of the American West – where billions of dollars disappear into creepy clandestine projects."

The article is lengthy, but has all sorts of interesting information about what Paglen thinks is going on. For instance, he thinks that the UFO rumors about Area 51 were spread by the CIA to divert attention away from the military experiments and technology that was being developed there. Here is a brief bio of Paglen and explanation of his work from the article:

I met Paglen about 10 years ago when we were both hanging out at East Bay punk gigs. He's still got a punkish edge, favoring dark jeans and cowboy boots and punctuating many of his comments with slang and obscenities. All this camouflages, to some degree, his eclectic braininess: Before pursuing geography, Paglen earned degrees in religious studies (with a minor in musical composition) and art. As you read this, the Lab, a San Francisco gallery, is displaying Paglen's solo show "Recording Carceral Landscapes," a chilling commentary on California's leviathan prison system.

In addition to his academic explorations, Paglen also gives informal tours of classified America, journeying to places like the Tejon Ranch Radar Cross Section range (where Northrop tests bleeding-edge aircraft), the headquarters of Science Applications International Corp. (the no-profile defense contractor tapped to set up a TV propaganda network in Iraq), the San Diego docks that are home to the Sea Shadow (a classified Naval watercraft), and the Classic Bullseye listening station (a heavily guarded collection of National Security Agency eavesdropping equipment). He's posted graphics, reports, and pics from all these expeditions on his Web site, paglen.com.

Go read the whole thing.Email This Post!

Have Too Much Time On Your Hands Next Semester?

The ASUC executives have put application forms up for their offices. Mid-level positions (with stipends) should still be available if anyone is interested.Email This Post!

Old Buried Part of Berkeley to Be Unburied, Viewed by Public
Daily Planet:

At the foot of an oak-studded hillside facing Doe Library on the UC Berkeley campus, a team of UC students is hard at work this month unearthing the remains of what was once one of the most prominent and distinctive buildings in the Berkeley landscape.

In the 1890s, the university built a large glass conservatory on the site, just northeast of today’s Moffitt Library. In 1924 the conservatory was torn down but considerable remnants survived, buried under a parking lot.

On Thursday evening there will be an opportunity for the public to visit the excavation site. You can see the remains of the university conservatory first-hand, with the student researchers as guides, and attend a lecture describing the history of the building and what the buried remains reveal about campus and Berkeley life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

On Thursday, June 16th, 7-8 p.m., students will display the site and the uncovered conservatory remains to the public. At 8 p.m. Professor Laurie Wilkie will talk about the history of the conservatory and what the excavations have uncovered. Tickets, $15. Call 848-0181 or e-mail berkhist@sbcglobal.net or visit the Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center Street, 1-4 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays to reserve a space.

The article is quite lengthy, and has a bunch more information on the building and archaelogical effort. I'll be out of Berkeley for the next week, which means I'll be missing both the strike and this, but hopefully some Berkeley bloggers can show up and take some pictures at those two events.

Update: From Allen-Beast Blog posted up some pictures of the dig.Email This Post!

More Striking! (CUE This Time)
Berkeley NewsCenter: (links to previous articles about the issues that led to this strike at the previous link)

The Coalition of University Employees (CUE) union, representing clerical workers at the University of California, has announced a three-day strike at UC Berkeley and other University of California campuses beginning Monday, June 13.

The Berkeley campus will remain open, and every effort is being made to ensure campus operations continue with as little disruption as possible. Campus employees are required to be at work as scheduled and to perform work as assigned. Offices will be open, and summer school courses will be taught. If individuals encounter a picket line, the law protects their right to cross it.

CUE represents 16,500 people throughout the UC system, including 1,549 clerical workers on the UC Berkeley campus. The contract for the affected workers expired on Sept. 30, 2004.

CUE last conducted a strike in 2002. It lasted three days and was held before reaching agreement with UC. Among CUE's key issues are wages, benefits and parking costs.

I tried to follow the AFSCME negotations pretty closely, reading over their demands and the university offers. This is like the third strike in the last couple of months, and I haven't been following what has been happening with CUE, so I have no idea who is being more unreasonable here.Email This Post!

*UPDATE* Whistlerblower Beat Down Not Related to Whisteblowing
When I originally posted about this rather odd story, I expressed extreme doubt that an employee of the Los Alamos lab had been jumped in order to persuade him not to testify against the government, and now an investigation has determined that the fight that occurred was not related to the lab. Here is the AP update:

An attack on a Los Alamos nuclear lab auditor outside a bar was unrelated to his status as a whistleblower, authorities said Thursday, calling into question the man's allegation that he was beaten to ensure his silence.

Tommy Hook, 52, suffered a broken jaw, a herniated disc and missing teeth in the attack outside the Cheeks nightclub in Santa Fe early Sunday. He has said the beating was carried out by thugs intent on keeping him from talking about alleged financial irregularities at the nuclear lab.

But investigators disputed that account Thursday, saying the attack occurred after Hook's car struck a pedestrian while leaving the club.

"Facts, evidence and information obtained during the course of this investigation has led investigators to believe that the altercation involving Mr. Hook is an isolated incident and is in no way related to Mr. Hook's whistleblower status at the Los Alamos National Laboratories," Santa Fe Deputy Police Chief Eric Johnson said in a statement.

The investigation is "leaning toward a fight in the parking lot as a result of Mr. Hook backing into a pedestrian," Johnson said. He said after Hook hit the pedestrian, he exited his vehicle, "at which time the confrontation escalated into a physical attack."

If this new account is accurate, and my belief is that it is substantially true, then I have nothing but contempt for Mr. Hook. Lying about the reason he visited a strip club was bad enough, but that he did it in a way that tarnishes the credibility of whistleblowers is quite shameful.Email This Post!

Anything We Can Do, Stanfurd Does Better?

Berkeley has seemingly been the butt of media attention lately, especially following the poor news with the Greeks, Los Alamos, etc. But now, Berkeley is being put to shame over, of all things, its stalling stadium renovation plans. New plans are in the works to put a $85 million new stadium in Palo Alto by the 2006 season - and they're just starting now. I guess there's something to be said about having a strong donor program and a fraction of Cal's bureaucracy. Compare the facts:

Cal has only raised $25 million - Stanford needs almost $25 million to finish
Cal has spent five years in preliminary stages - Stanford will finish in three
Cal has won the last three Big Games - Stanford won around 3 games in 2004

Two out of three ain't bad I guess.

The San Jose Mercury News elaborates on this in a decent article while pointing out that the new Cardinal Stadium will have 30,000 less seats than the current venue. This means one of two things: either the Big Game will have to be moved during away years, or Cal students will be screwed out of a large percentage of its seating bloc it usually receives for the rivalry game. Neither scenario is very promising.Email This Post!

Warren Beatty Speech at Berkeley Spawns Draft Beatty for Governor Effort
Famed actor Warren Beatty gave a very well received speech before the Goldman School of Public Policy for their graduation. The speech attracted much media attention because of the sharp criticisms of Governor Schwarzenegger and the hints it provided that Beatty might be eyeing a run for the Governor's mansion. [Most memorable line of the speech: "It's become time to define a Schwarzenegger Republican. A Schwarzenegger Republican is a Bush Republican who says he's a Schwarzenegger Republican."]

Following that speech, a blog post by Ezra Klein inspired an effort by some people (largely living and working in SF) to encourage Beatty to run for Governor, which I became involved with. There is now a website for the Draft Beatty campaign, and I've addded that button which links to the site over on the right sidebar. [It's for free, I'm not being paid for it.]

I've been helping out with the effort, and when the semester rolls around I will be starting a "Draft Beatty" group on campus. You can read my comments on Beatty's time freeing up after a lawsuit interfered with his latest movie plans, why we shouldn't dismiss Beatty just because he's a celebrity, and general comments on the ability of citizens to draft our leaders. So if we end up with Beatty as our replacement for Schwarzenegger, it will be his speech here at Berkeley that made that possible. If anyone wants to get involved in the Draft Warren effort, shoot me an e-mail and I'll send you some more information.

[For the record, my support for Beatty or the ad doesn't mean that Ben or Allen or CalStuff supports him also.]Email This Post!

Professor Bruce Cain Receives New DC Post

Professor Bruce Cain has been chosen to be the new director of the UC Washington Center, which hosts the UCDC program as well as special debates and symposiums promoted by the UC system.

For those of you not familiar with Cain, he is one of those professors who always gives choice quotes to newspapers on anything "political" in the news. I guess all the publicity finally paid off for him. Additionally, Cain has been the director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at Berkeley since 1999, and according to the article, will remain at that post for at least one more year. He is also supposed to be a decent lecturer - most of the feedback I hear about him is pretty positive. Hopefully, this isn't one more administrator/faculty member leaving the Berkeley campus.Email This Post!

Los Alamos Employee Gets a Beat Down (Literally)
CNN:

A Los Alamos lab whistle-blower scheduled to testify before Congress was badly beaten in an attack outside a Santa Fe bar.

Tommy Hook was in a hospital recovering from a fractured jaw and other injuries, his wife, Susan Hook, said Monday.

Hook's wife and his lawyer believe the attack was designed to keep him quiet.

Susan Hook said the assailants told her husband during the attack early Sunday that "if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."

Tommy Hook has a pending lawsuit against the University of California alleging whistle-blower retaliation. He had been scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this month about alleged financial irregularities at the nuclear weapons lab...

More information in the article about the details of the incident, and a picture of the victim looking substantially worse for the wear. For more information on possible intimidation against whisteblowers at the lab, see this post on Tommy Hook and Chuck Montano from Politech. For a round up of recent details about this case and links to other information, see this blog post at Defense Tech.

Something like this seems too crazy to be true. I can't imagine that some lab or UC employee actually ordered that someone suing them should be jumped. With the Feds investigating, I assume we'll hear more about the details of what happened.
[Thanks to CalStuff bro E.W. for the tip.]Email This Post!

The Oakland Tribune reports Maria C. Ledesma, a grad student at UCLA who recieved her Bachelor's degree at Berkeley, has been named a UC regent. She has researched race and admissions, and has been involved with the minority recuritment, particuarly hispanics. Ledesma was an author of a study on education of Latinas. While at Berkeley, she worked with the Early Academic Outreach Program. Previous regents have had similar positions, as is the case with outgoing regent Adam Rosenthal.Email This Post!

Charity Money Going to AIDS Walk SF
This was certainly a good suggestion though:

I propose that I form a loosely-defined charity group which will promptly funnel all of this money into something completely useless and very fun. Currently I am thinking a bunch of 10 cent feeder fish for Sproul Fountain.

[If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's something from the Facebook group, which you should join so that you can be in the know too.]Email This Post!

(Wrongly Convicted?) Sex Offender in Berkeley Facing Harasment
I came across a very interesting story in the Contra Costa Times about UC Berkeley student Arvind Balu. You should really read the whole thing, but here is a brief description of what is happening:

*"Arvind Balu's friend was said to have raped a 14-year-old girl while Balu cut her arm and licked the blood from it. They were convicted in a Lake County courtroom in 1998." Information about him was then placed on the Megan's Law website, where his neighbors found out about his conviction.

*A substantial amount of evidence came to light after the trial, and "Two years later, an appeals court dropped the most serious of Balu's charges. His friend walked away completely exonerated." Balu's lawyer is now trying to get the rest of the conviction against him overturned.

*Balu was a Berkeley student, and he's returning to school now, and trying to get his life back in order, which is being made substantially more difficult by the reaction from his neighbors.

* Balu's neighbor's don't want him around: "He has no idea about the type of people he's up against," John Ryan said. "I will stand in front of his door to keep him out."

Like I said, go read the whole thing. There is information in the article about how the mentally ill are treated by our justice system. (Balu was diagnosed after the trial). Also, for those unaware, Megan's Law has created an online database where you can search for sex offenders by location. It's kind of creepy to use the website to search for those convicted of sex offenses who live nearby you.

During my time on the debate team, we always delighted in coming up with cases that seemed intuitively like a bad idea, but which we could show actually created a bunch of good. One example of this was attacking the Megan's Law database, which most people assume allows parents to keep track of molesters in their neighborhood, but which ends up having some negative effects. If we were to assume that Balu might have actually been guilty (and the article heavily suggests he isn't) then read the last paragraph, and try to figure out whether the Megan's Law database is making it more or less likely that he will get his life back in order and reintegrate into society without molesting again.Email This Post!

More Blogs for The Roll
A while back I added a new category on the left sidebar (Personal as Public) to categorize blogs written by Berkeley students about their lives that should be of interest to people who might not know them personally. I recently ran across someone discussing the difference between blogs like CalStuff ("an unabashedly, overtly, conventionally political opinion site") and that other category of blogs that have "broader topic choice that zig-zags along that fuzzy line separating the personal from the political."

So far Soft Boiled Life is the only blog we have listed, but I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions of students writing about life here in Berkeley that people might be interested in. Feel free to e-mail with any suggestions, including LiveJournals and Xanga's, and we'll be sure to ask the person before we add a link to their site here at CalStuff.Email This Post!

If you were planning to watch ABC's "The Scholar," a summer reality show (read: network filler show) depicting 10 kids competing for a complete scholarship to school (*sarcasm*:now that sounds exciting), one of the judges works for Berkeley admissions. Newscenter features Marquesa Lawrence, who works in outreach and talks to kids in Southern California about Berkeley. The show will air tonight at 8 PM on ABC.

Berkeley admissions is no stranger to TV. Years ago, Frontline on PBS had an episode on the SAT that prominetly featured Berkeley. There were even sample applications from students who applied, telling who got in and who didn't.Email This Post!

New CalStuff Coming Soon!
Rather soon CalStuff will be switching to a new blogging platform with some new features that I'm really excited about. In order to make this move as painless as possible, I would recommend that all of you begin visiting CalStuff by directing your browsers to www.calstuff.com. That way, when we move off of blogger we can redirect www.calstuff.com to point to the new site. If anyone reading this has a link to CalStuff in a website or an AIM profile (and if you don't, then you should!), please point that at www.calstuff.com also.

We should be able to switch over sometime next week as soon as we are done with the new template. (And by "we", I mean Allen, as he is the genius behind all of this. I just kind of poke my head around and break things and then he fixes them and makes it awesome.)Email This Post!

Movin' On Up to Sequoia Elementary School
The elementary school formerly known as Jefferson Elementary has been mired in controversy over accusations that a school shouldn't be named after a slave holder. The Daily Cal article has more background on the dispute, and the details of the vote (parents, students, and staff all voted in favor of the change).

CalPatriot Blog is unhappy about the news, Beetle is mocking, and CalPatriotWatch says ignore these stupid trivialties and and concentrate on how our Governor is destroying our educational system.

I can't really muster up any enthusiasm about this, although I would have voted not to change the name of the school if given the chance. All I will say is if Jefferson is too offensive or discomforting a name, then Berkeley should consider renamed Malcom X Elementary also.Email This Post!

Reflections on the Close of Le Chateau from a Former Resident
The Berkeley Daily Planet has comments from someone who lived in Chateau from 1993 to 1995. Read the whole thing, or an excerpt:

We got lice. We got staph. We were temporarily brainwashed by an amateur cult leader. We paid our own way, took semesters off to travel and took in homeless veterans. We learned that, sadly, sometimes things do need to get worse before they get better...

In the early 1990s, when I lived in the three-house complex on Berkeley’s Hillegass Avenue, we weren’t shameless hippies and slackers—we were working it out. In a culture where middle-class, college-aged youth are expected to move far from home and achieve great things, self-sufficiency is top dollar. We were not ready to succumb to a decade of segregated apartment living, but neither could we get comfy in the ennui of towering dormitories.

We chose, instead, a living arrangement based on the principles of cooperation established by a group of weavers in Rochdale, England, in 1844. Those same principles have been adopted by thousands of residential, food and industry co-ops across the world...

Talking to current residents on a recent Saturday night, along with 25 or so alumni who joined together to watch the Last Chateau Sunset from the rooftop patio, I tried to find out what went wrong. “Was there really a meth lab in the basement?” I asked. Instead of confirming my worst fears—that the current generation was somehow louder, dirtier and less cooperative than us—these 20-somethings sounded a lot like me. They spoke passionately about the impact Le Chateau had on their worldview and their aspirations. They articulated clearly the Bay Area’s housing price crisis, conflicts between the co-op and its parent University Students Co-operative Association, and the ir own commitment to the house despite its problems.

The noise and detritus that emanate from Le Chateau’s grounds hide the important work going on among and between and inside its residents. As one fellow alum on the rooftop said, “It was at Chateau th at I learned to get along with people I can’t stand.” If only the neighbors had learned that lesson when they were in college...

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