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Of all the casualties of the coronavirus pandemic, the delay of the Major League Baseball season ranks pretty low on the list, closer to the cancellation of Coachella than the shuttering of all public schools. And yet for many people sports would have been the ideal distraction from the stress and uncertainty of the present […]
In August 2019, it was reported that Ring, the doorbell-camera company owned by Amazon, was partnering with hundreds of local police departments around the country. As part of this new collaboration and an increasingly extended surveillance system, Ring provides law enforcement with the video and audio that the device records outside of residents’ homes. Some […]
Cooking has taken on new significance as we shelter in place. As always, we turn to the kitchen for comfort, creativity and sustenance but now also with renewed gratitude for the people who grow, harvest, prepare and sell us our food. For this installment of Quarantine Culture, we asked esteemed chefs and cookbook authors from […]
Even Before the novel coronavirus struck, an urgent race was on to get migrants out of America’s overcrowded detention centers, where they were already at risk of abuse, malnutrition, a lack of medical resources, and insufficient access to legal services. Now, with the highly contagious COVID-19 pandemic seeping into every fold of American society: “They’re […]
Restaurateur and food activist Alice Waters is holed up in her Berkeley home amidst shelter-in-place orders, but she is hopeful about the future. Waters discovered her passion for the culinary arts in the late 60s when she left UC Berkeley to study abroad in France. She brought the French philosophy of food as a way […]
Michael Tubbs, the 29-year-old mayor of Stockton, has the kind of life that, if you squint, could convince you the American dream is alive and well. He grew up in Stockton, the son of a single mother and an incarcerated father. He spent his lunch money buying SAT prep books, studying hungry. He eventually attended […]
If “classical” just means “Beethoven,” to you why not use this time to bring your knowledge up to date? Jeremy Geffen, Executive and Artistic Director of Cal Performances, has presented us with a selection of old and new classical music to listen to and genre-bending dance to watch. Continue your at-home education with our ongoing […]
Matthew Zapruder, M.A. ’94, is a poet, editor, and professor at St. Mary’s College of California. He’s the author of several books and poetry collections, including Sun Bear (2014), Why Poetry (2017), and Father’s Day (2019). In 2016, Zapruder served as the New York Times Magazine poetry editor for a year, selecting and introducing a […]
Samantha Grant, a lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism and documentary filmmaker, knows how difficult it can be to fill the many hours of day during lockdown. So, she recommended some of her favorite documentaries, new and old, to help pass the time (most of which are kid friendly). Continue your at-home education […]
Music uplifts the spirit, so we asked soul singer Kim Nalley what to listen to (and watch) while sheltering in place. A die-hard multi-tasker, the Berkeley Ph.D. candidate took a break from cooking, writing, and keeping up with her two kids’ education (she says “Disney+ streaming has been a life saver”) to tell us what […]
When Camryn Rogers was high school senior, she downloaded an app that counted the days until the 2020 Olympics. It was 2017, and the Vancouver native was already a record-breaking competitor in the hammer throw. She was heading home from a track and field camp in Arizona, talking excitedly with a teammate about the future. […]
There aren’t enough tests. That’s the problem now on many of our minds. But as the federal government fails to meet demand, local institutions are stepping up. The latest lab, opening at UC Berkeley next week, will churn out diagnoses in 24 hours. Its workers are robots: industrial drones like the ones that build cars […]
Trapped at home doing laundry without anything to stimulate your quarantine brain? Anna Sussman is here to help. Sussman, a lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism and a senior producer and managing editor of WNYC’s podcast Snap Judgment, shares her top podcasts to get you through the week. Continue your at-home education with […]
Over the phone, Olantis Livingston’s gravelly voice is tinged with fear. In addition to a viral pandemic, the 46-year-old must confront a sudden loss of income. Livingston has sold Street Spirit, a Berkeley newspaper covering local homelessness issues, for 16 years. But on March 19, Spirit staff, led by UC Berkeley alumna Alastair Boone, decided […]
On Friday, March 13, UC Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ announced that instruction for the remainder of the semester would be moved to an online platform, clearing parts of the campus at one of its busiest times of the semester. Many students were surprised, others weren’t. But the majority saw the decision as a signal that […]
On Wednesday, March 25, Michael Lu, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, hosted a virtual Q&A, “Coronavirus: Facts and Fears,” open to the public. For 90 minutes, experts from the school and other campus health services responded to listeners’ day-to-day fears and practical concerns about navigating life during the pandemic. Participants include: […]
Ladan Sanjani can barely focus on today let alone tomorrow. She and her husband, Farhad Jalali, own Pasta Bene, an Italian restaurant on Telegraph Avenue, just blocks from the campus their son attended. Now they are struggling to keep the lights on in the face of a crisis that seems to have darkened every corner […]
On Thursday evening, March 19, California State Senator and UC Berkeley alumna Nancy Skinner held a phone-in town hall for constituents, focused on the shelter in place orders. As she was about to introduce her guest experts from Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, she interrupted herself with the news that Governor Gavin Newsom had just […]
Julie Pham has authored 7 Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work (2022), which shows how respect is relative, contradictory, and subjective. “This book will help people specify what they want in terms of respect and help identify what others want,” she wrote. “People can then say, ‘These are […]
