In celebration of Earth Week, we’ve rounded up the best of Cal in environmental news this week.
The remote locations of tech company campuses have provided certain benefits for employees and a creepy setting for every techpocalypse novel and film EVER, but they also have their drawbacks, as a recent UC Berkeley study concludes.
Posted on April 20, 2017 - 4:31pm
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. He often stationed himself outside Sather Gate, and his customers—the students of UC Berkeley—came, it seems, as much for the friendly service and engaging conversation as they did for the ice cream.
Posted on April 13, 2017 - 1:22pm
Join the conversation on immigration on Tuesday, April 11 at the Cal Alumni Association’s panel discussion “A Dream Denied? The Immigrant Experience in the Campus Community.” Click here for information on how to attend and watch the live online broadcast of the event.
If you missed the event or would like to watch it again, you can view the recording here.
Posted on April 10, 2017 - 11:23am
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 subcultures of America and especially the West Coast.
Living that gig life isn’t always easy. The repeal of Obamacare would likely mean more challenges for the state’s many independent workers who aren’t entitled to health coverage through their work, according to a UC Berkeley Labor Center study.
Posted on March 16, 2017 - 11:49am
In the Winter of 1979, the residents of Barrington Hall built a stage on the ground floor of their home, opposite the entrance to the dining room. With only about eight feet between the linoleum floor and the concrete ceiling, the stage couldn’t be taller than seven or eight inches. But it was tall enough—upon it, the legendary Berkeley cooperative hosted legions of punk rock and funk metal bands, both famous and forgotten. Everybody played there over the years, from Black Flag to Primus.
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 gave on the Michigan campus in October 1960, when he challenged students to consider spending at least part of their lives helping the poor overseas.
“You can always eat more, but you can’t eat less.”
My boyfriend Mark (whose name has been changed to protect the embarrassed) was reading the back wrapper of a marijuana-infused peanut butter cookie we’d just purchased from a Berkeley dispensary. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“I think it’s a caution to start with a small bite because once you eat it all, you can’t go back.”
Posted on March 10, 2017 - 12:49pm
Last week Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket, author of the children’s novels A Series of Unfortunate Events , now a Netflix series that was largely written in Handler’s San Francisco dining room, lead an eclectic assortment of guests—singer/songwriter Thao Nguyen, record producer John Vanderslice, perfumer Yosh Han, poet Matthew Zapruder, and, in a powerful closing discussion, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood—through an evening of music and conversation.
Posted on March 1, 2017 - 12:11pm
How’s this for a modern take on the venerable office vending machine? You swipe your credit or debit card, open a fridge-like glass door, and choose from an array of fresh entrees and snacks. If you want a receipt, the machine will email it to you, and it keeps track of your preferences: next time there’s a sale on your favorite yogurt, Byte Food’s cloud-based servers will give you a heads up.
Posted on February 16, 2017 - 1:44pm
For Tom Dalzell, a small scratch on the elbow in 2011 prompted a whirlwind of events, one that would take him on a sinuous journey through nearly every street of Berkeley.
The author and labor law activist found his life teetering in the balance after a minor wound became mortally septic. Days later, Dalzell exited the hospital with a reinvigoration for life itself. “I came out very determined to live life very differently,” he says. “One of things I chose to do, as a manifestation of my appreciation of Berkeley, was to walk every block of every street.”
Posted on February 9, 2017 - 3:29pm
Posted on February 2, 2017 - 1:39pm
Those gathered at UC Berkeley on a recent Thursday night for a panel on fake news were primarily concerned with debating the scope and responsibility of Silicon Valley’s tech giants for disseminating false information leading up to the presidential election. No one on the panel could have predicted the unprecedented shift the conversation would take around the issue of fake news just a few days later.
Posted on February 1, 2017 - 11:16am
Partners in dance (and life), UC Berkeley Haas Business School associate professor Zsolt Katona, and Timea Potys, former Cal Ballroom team coach and owner of Sizzling Latin Ballroom Company, travel the world to compete in ballroom dance competitions—nearly 30 each year. “I try to maintain my professorship as a hobby,” jokes Prof. Katona. Hear their story and watch them in action:
Posted on January 11, 2017 - 1:15pm
