Human Behavior
Ann Coulter at Berkeley: Untangling the Truth
It’s been about a week since Ann Coulter tried but failed to speak on the Berkeley campus, and the outrage continues unabated. Outrage that once again a conservative was silenced on a liberal campus. Outrage that the university cancelled her appearance and refused to provide appropriate protection for her. Once again, the birthplace of the […]
All the Presidents’ Historians: How Legacies of Leaders Change
Donald Trump’s critics say he’s the worst president ever; his fans say he’s one of the best. That’s par for the course: Barack Obama and George W. Bush got mixed reviews, too, depending on who was doing the reviewing. So what do historians say? Nothing yet about Trump. Before his inauguration, C-SPAN conducted a survey […]
Berkeley Flashback: The Crunchy Munchy Man
During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a perpetually cheerful older gentleman who wore a white smock and cap while peddling ice cream on the Berkeley campus. He was known as the Crunchy Munchy Man and was a fixture on campus from 1952 to 1968.
Finding His Tribe: The Art of Charles Gatewood
I couldn’t decide what made me feel dirtier—looking at hundreds of pictures of naked girls, or rifling through the personal belongings of a man I’d never met. But I was doing both one evening in the Bancroft Library reading room, traversing the late photographer Charles Gatewood’s massive archive chronicling the kink, tattoo, and body modification […]
Your Brain on Drugs: Five Questions for David Presti
More than 550 Berkeley students take your course Drugs and the Brain every year. What do you hope your students take away from the class? Respect for the power of drugs, and specifically that all drugs are poisons as well as medicines. This is embedded in the ancient Greek word pharmakon. The origin of our […]
Horns, Haloes, and Heroism: The Science of Doing the Right Thing
Yesenia Guitron knew something was wrong at the bank branch where she worked. She was getting complaints from customers—many from Mexico and undocumented—that they were being charged for accounts they had never opened and were receiving debit cards they had never requested. Guitron, a personal banker at a local Wells Fargo in the Napa Valley […]
The Peace Corps: What Could Be More Berkeley?
In 1961, the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States was heating up, relations between Cuba and the U.S. were cold, and soon after John F. Kennedy’s inauguration as America’s youngest president, he asked Congress to fund a new Peace Corps. The Peace Corps had its inception in a campaign speech Kennedy […]
Sinful or Saintly? Christians Navigate Sex Online
One might not think the subject of kink figures much into Christian intercourse (verbal or otherwise). But apparently, evangelical marriage is actually “spicy,” and that’s “the way God intended it to be.” Or at least, that’s what some are preaching as gospel on Christian sex websites, information hubs and support groups for “Jesus-is-love”-makers who want […]
This Is What Will Change Your Political Opponent’s Mind
The latest trendy theory among progressives is that emotions, not facts, are most effective in convincing conservative Americans to change their minds for the good of the country. In a Slate piece called “It’s Time to Give Up on Facts,” journalist Jess Zimmerman says emotional appeal is the only real way to persuade members of […]
Marriage Is Driving Some to Drugs And It May Not Be a Bad Thing
Writer Ayelet Waldman was teaching a class on drug policy reform at UC Berkeley when she and her husband, the popular novelist Michael Chabon, decided that MDMA, the illegal party drug fueling those all-night raves, might also be a medicine that could save their marriage. They got the idea after Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, the psychedelic chemist […]
Through the Lens of Hope: Obama’s Videographer Debriefs
Most of the people who follow the President of the United States wherever he goes are there to protect his life. But Hope Hall has a different job: to document it. For the last six years, she’s been Barack Obama’s presidential videographer (think of her as the national fly on the wall). She doesn’t shoot […]
Unruly Tenants: Moving Day at 1600 Pennsylvania Can Be Rough
The on-again-off-again détente between the outgoing and incoming administrations was off before apparently being on again—at least, as of this writing—with The Donald tweeting last week, “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks. Thought it was going to be a smooth transition – NOT!” only to reverse himself a […]
