Chris Beale doesn’t call himself a photographer. Or a journalist. Or an activist. When asked his profession, the 42-year-old is quiet for a moment before replying, “Gardener. I’m a landscape gardener.”
Posted on December 24, 2018 - 7:02am
It started with a conversation. About two years ago, Claudia von Vacano, executive director of UC Berkeley’s social science D-Lab, had a chat with Brittan Heller, the then-director of technology and society for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The topic: the harassment of Jewish journalists on Twitter. Heller wanted to kick the offending trolls off the platform, and Vacano, an expert in digital research, learning, and language acquisition, wanted to develop the tools to do it. Both understood that neither humans nor computers alone were sufficient to root out the offending language.
Posted on December 18, 2018 - 6:04pm
Beneath Irwin Reyes’s desk are ten smartphones hooked up to a computer, running a dizzying number of apps to find out what user information those apps send back to their creators.
Every morning on the playa, Ally Deraps wakes up in her trailer and stumbles outside into the dust to make breakfast, joining friends climbing out of tents and teepees for a bowl of oatmeal in the shade. She chooses an outfit for the day, usually something bright or themed. Then, around 10:30, she grabs a can of coffee and her Motorola radio and hops on her playa bike (furry purple seat, powder blue frame, strung with colored lights and sparkly pipe cleaners) for the 20-minute commute across Burning Man to work.
Posted on October 23, 2018 - 10:15am
It’s Nobel Prize announcement week, and today was supposed to be Literature’s turn. That got poleaxed, however, by yet another scandal in the #MeToo chronicles. This one involved a member of the Swedish Academy who, just last Monday, was sentenced to two years in prison for rape. So, sorry booklovers, no Lit prize this time around.
Posted on October 4, 2018 - 2:49pm
Last week, as the Senate Democrats prepared to grill Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo spoke to the Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli about what to expect from the proceedings.
Posted on September 24, 2018 - 4:33pm
On a cloudy Sunday in mid-May, Raymond Weschler chose Jim McGuire (Cal professor of biology) as his opposing captain, and teams were drawn up. Ray’s booming voice announced the lineup as chatting players finished stretching and headed out to the field. On the diamond at Berkeley’s magnificent Codornices Park, players are surrounded by towering oak trees, redwoods, walnuts and, lining the left-field foul line, Ponderosa pines, which are home to rowdy crows and, when struck by a foul ball, release a cloud of pollen.
Posted on June 28, 2018 - 4:54pm
Break out the vuvuzelas
The World Cup is underway in Russia, and the Americans aren’t there. Team USA failed to qualify after losing to Trinidad and Tobago. As some wag observed, it clearly wasn’t fair: We shouldn’t have to play two countries at once.
Posted on June 15, 2018 - 5:23pm
When most people think of Watergate, they likely think of the hotel break-in, the Saturday Night Massacre, or the Nixon tapes. But few know that, at its heart, Watergate was a campaign finance scandal. The Watergate Hotel burglars were paid with campaign funds, and the subsequent investigation uncovered millions in illegal payments to the Nixon White House by corporations—some of which arrived in bags of cash.
Posted on June 4, 2018 - 4:15pm
We may never know the true number of Facebook users who suffered data breaches as a result of Cambridge Analytica’s antics, or what it all means in terms of personal security. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg certainly didn’t provide a great deal of insight when he testified before Congress today.
Underlying the brouhaha are a couple of overriding questions: Who’s to blame, and how to fix it? Also, perhaps, is Facebook’s time done? Is the breach one of trust as much as data, and is it so damaging that the social media giant will founder?
Posted on April 10, 2018 - 3:06pm
It may not be a true meteorological “March Miracle,” but it’s close enough for government work, as government workers are wont to say. The series of storms that have battered California in recent weeks have pumped up the snowpack in the Sierra and swelled streams at lower elevations. And it looks like we could be in for a last wet gasp from the Pacific, with a fairly robust front poised to dump rain and snow mid-week. For a state that still teeters on drought despite last year’s extraordinarily wet rainy season, that’s good news.
Posted on April 2, 2018 - 12:52pm
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent lawsuit against the State of California over immigration isn’t just about immigration, of course. More fundamentally, it’s about the limits of states’ rights. The move could be a harbinger of other attempts by the Trump administration to muscle obstreperous states that don’t conform to its agenda. And that begs the question: in what other areas could the feds trump, so to speak, California policies?
Posted on March 13, 2018 - 5:12pm
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in April 2006. Last week, John Perry Barlow—poet, Internet phlilosopher and activist, known for an eclectic resume and zest for life— died in his sleep after a period of ill health. California is reposting this story in light of that news .
Posted on January 27, 2018 - 1:12pm
Depending on how you spin it, the recent government shutdown was either an example of the Republicans cynically rolling the Democrats, or the Democrats electing to strategically fold their tents and fight for the Dreamers another day. Either way, nobody was playing chess; it was more like 52 pickup. So even though President Donald Trump contributed little to the process, other than reneging on an early compromise agreement, he somehow came out looking a trifle less inept than everyone else.
Posted on January 23, 2018 - 2:24pm
