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They wrong. They’re rigged. They’re partisan. They’re worthless. Polls took as vicious a drubbing as civility and real news in the latest election. And they’re still drawing withering abuse from Donald Trump and his supporters, who maintain that surveys showing that he is highly unpopular are lies, perfidious lies. Trump, in fact, continues to promote […]
Far-right provocateur and Breitbart News Technology Editor Milo Yiannopoulos has prospered mightily by posting screeds that his many detractors characterize as racist and misogynistic; so popular is his invective with a certain political subset that Simon & Schuster recently handed him a $250,000 book deal. The dapper, openly gay rabble-rouser is now on a college tour […]
No state did Obamacare quite like California. Here, we built our own state-insurance market. Here, we got a jumpstart on shifting low-income residents onto Medi-Cal (the state’s Medicaid program) as early as 2010. Here, insurance policies were standardized, consumer protections were tightened, and multi-lingual, statewide PR campaigns were kicked into overdrive. While other, redder states […]
This morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released its list of 2017 Oscar nominees via video live stream, with Cal alumni dominating the documentary short category. Berkeley J-School lecturer Dan Krauss’s Extremis, which explores the ethically murky territory of end-of-life decision making, and alumna Daphne Matziaraki’s 4.1 Miles, about a captain suddenly charged […]
In Daphne Matziaraki’s documentary short, 4.1 Miles, she several times breaks the fourth wall, as her arm stretches out in front of the camera’s view, to grasp an outstretched hand or a rope. These instances are not born simply out of artistic choice, but rather grave necessity, as life and death bob against the ocean […]
In the summer of 1964 the Democratic Party was a bastion of white supremacy in Mississippi, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee sent its foot soldiers to attempt to register black voters in the face of lethal racism. Among them was Jon Else who went on to spend almost two decades leading UC Berkeley’s Graduate […]
Over the course of the 2016 election, media companies wrestled with increasingly knotty ethical challenges—how to avoid false equivalencies in reporting, what to call a blatant lie, and how to respond professionally (impartially?) to a candidate who routinely called journalists “liars” and “scum”. As Inauguration Day draws near, and Donald Trump’s attacks on news media […]
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 […]
If Donald Trump has his Boswell, it could well be Milo Yiannopoulos. The proudly gay Brit-born scribe has disrupted expectations on what it means to be a far-right provocateur, styling fabulous fashions and a smashing haircut even as he excoriates feminism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, and globalism—pretty much any ism that isn’t nativism. He is a champion […]
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 […]
While the ride-sharing service Uber has smashed transportation paradigms left and right, its performance has been controversial. The company’s business model—a digital go-between for car owners and riders—offers reliable transportation, but largely ignores the pesky regulations that shackle cab companies. People who need lifts generally think that’s pretty damn cool, given the convenience and affordability […]
Moral complexity often rests at the heart of truly great films, and Dan Krauss has consistently gravitated toward documenting powerful stories on dubious ethical ground, where we see shades of grey, rather than sharp black and white. His newest film, Extremis, is no different. The Netflix documentary is set in the Intensive Care Unit at […]
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 […]
In a corner of the Digital Imaging Lab in the basement of UC Berkeley’s Moffitt Library, recent graduate Olivia Dill is checking on the latest shipment of fragile wax recordings from the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. These hard wax tubes, invented by Thomas Edison in the 1880s, are one of the earliest sound […]
"She's definitely more used to performing, preferably with a script. She wasn't super keen on granting us access. She likes a bit of distance, and to be in the driver's seat. But we respected that, and worked around it."
Like most businesses this time of year, the Kingfish Pub in North Oakland is decked out for the Holidays, strung with lights and garlanded with pine boughs.
Martin Snapp, Children's Fairyland's unofficial historian and, arguably, its biggest fan, leads us on a a brief tour of the Oakland institution.
The pain hasn’t subsided. For many people, it never will. Some traumas are simply too great to overcome, and there can be no true healing—only a bleak and comfortless accommodation. But even as the personal suffering of survivors, and the family and friends of the dead, remain, enough time has passed since the Ghost Ship […]
Many Americans are fired up in a bad way about Trump getting elected, and the Revolutionary Communist Party, aka RevCom, founded in 1975 by UC Berkeley grad and party chairman Bob Avakian, are particularly vocal about it. A stroll by Revolution Books, in the alleyway just west of Telegraph, between Durant Avenue and Channing Way, […]
