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The link between Russian hackers and last week’s WikiLeaks release of 20,000 Democratic National Committee’s internal emails may never be proven conclusively. However, a federal investigation has reported that the leak was probably conducted by Russian hackers and orchestrated by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)—two of Russia’s major intelligence […]
If it takes a village to win a presidential nomination, evidently it helps if the locals include a veteran policy advisor, a civil libertarian and social justice warrior who ran a law school at 29, and an advocate who is braced for battle over issues such as abortion. In other words, as they have been […]
Over a long, somewhat tumultuous, and at times fractious four-day stretch, the delegates at the Republican National Convention managed to release a platform for 2016, and crown Donald Trump its presidential nominee, all while party officials struggled to contain blowback from Melania Trump’s plagiarism scandal, Ted Cruz’s very public un-endorsement of Trump, and the general […]
Last week Hillary Clinton was tied with Donald Trump for broad discontent among voters in a New York Times tracking poll. This week in the race for the presidency, Hillary beats Trump by five points according to a CNN poll. And a couple of weeks ago, a Rasmussen poll had Trump ahead by a couple of ticks. […]
Whether or not Melania Trump’s Republican National Convention speech was flagrant plagiarism is a legal question that won’t be answered here. But many in the public sphere have declared her as good as guilty. Take, for example, New York Public Radio’s Mike Hearn who tweeted footage of Melania’s speech right next to Michelle’s, saying “That’s […]
Moore’s Law—as first put forth in 1965 by Berkeley alum and Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor co-founder Gordon E. Moore—postulates that the number of circuits on an integrated circuit will double every two years. Amazingly, the prediction (initially just an observation) has held up in the decades since, leading to computers that are ever smaller and […]
About 22 seconds into the video, Mohammed, a Syrian refugee in Berlin, says, “You can’t imagine what’s the meaning of, ‘Wait. Just wait.’ And for what?” But you are already starting to imagine it. The camera has recorded Mohammed’s surroundings in 360 degrees. Dragging your cursor along the screen from left to right, you see […]
It’s mid-July in Bad Doberan, a small town in Germany about two and a half hours north of Berlin. More than 2,000 music fans are present, and many, many of them are sporting Frank Zappa–style moustaches (including one young woman whose facial adornment is from a magic marker). This is Zappanale, pronounced “zap-pa-nal-lah,” a weekend […]
Yeah, Hillary’s email missteps were deeply inept. Still, in the end, the FBI cleared her of any criminal malfeasance, though it did deem her “extremely careless.” And let’s face it: Hillary wasn’t the only government bigwig to flub Email 101. Former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice also sent emails on less-than-secure accounts. […]
I voted for Bernie in the California primaries just to tell my friends I did, hung my head in what I hoped was convincing dismay when he lost, and quietly buzzed with excitement over the idea of giving my vote to Hillary in November, what I hoped from the start. I’m playing the long game […]
Ester Hernández’s Sun Mad is her best-known piece, the one she’s most associated with. It now forms part of the San Francisco Legion of Honor exhibit, “Wild West: Plains to the Pacific,” through September 11. Jim Ganz, who curated the show with Colleen Terry, says when they were looking for some political art to include […]
“When was I introduced to fat phobia?” Virgie Tovar hardly has to pause to answer this. “I had a fantastic body image until I was in kindergarten,” she says. “That was my introduction to fat shame.” Her response to all the shaming, years in coming, is steeped in research, activism and performance. Tovar, who graduated […]
Around 200 people—some clinging to each other and wiping away tears— gathered near the front steps of UC Berkeley’s Sproul Hall today in a vigil for student Tarishi Jain. One of the 20 victims of the July 2nd Bangladesh terrorist attack, she was remembered as talented and compassionate, and her death was mourned as “not […]
Ever since I was a little kid watching my first conventions in 1952—the veep nominees were Richard Nixon and John Sparkman—I’ve been fascinated by the characters who occupy the number two spot. I would try to regale anyone who would listen to my tales of such worthies as Levi Morton, Benjamin Harrison’s V.P., who placed […]
In a rare victory for the commons, “Happy Birthday to You” enters the public domain today, finally freed from a copyright long claimed by Warner/Chappell Music. Though Judge George H. King of the federal district court in Los Angeles initially ruled last September that the copyright was not valid, the company battled on, perhaps because […]
The California Legislature’ recent decision to establish a firearms research center in the University of California system has stimulated the expected response: Public health and gun control advocates are heartened and Second Amendment stalwarts are up in arms. But both sides profess to be in accord on one point: The need for reliable data on […]
Evidence of Islamophobia has spiked in the United States—with 78 anti-Islam mosque incidents recorded last year alone—according to a new report that suggests the tone of the 2016 election has triggered anti-Muslim hostility. In the final two months of last year, 17 mosque incidents were reported—that’s almost as many as were reported in all of […]
While the new Bay Bridge is finally functional, it stands more as a symbol of dysfunction than anything else. From the start it seemed born under a bad sign, down since it began to crawl—like, if it wasn’t for bad luck, it wouldn’t have no luck at all. Blues lyrics aside, the new eastern span […]
The grim reports of mass shootings just keep coming—the Orlando massacre followed all-too-similar tragedies we’ve come to know as shorthand for senseless violence: San Bernardino. Umpqua. Sandy Hook. Aurora. Columbine. Ad nauseam. So, too, does the inevitable debate about ways to prevent the next incident, from restricting easy gun access to overhauling our mental health system. But […]
