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Wednesday, 21 May 2008
1. UC grad is special - and very able
San Francisco Chronicle
May 21, 2008
JOEL SIDNEY IS GRADUATING FROM UC BERKELEY today with an almost perfect grade-point average, a bachelor's degree in AMERICAN STUDIES, an honors thesis on Bay Area bluegrass music and the certainty that having autism is not going to limit his expectations.
"It's been tough," he said. "But I've gotten a lot of help."
Sidney is among 700 or so undergraduates served by CAL'S DISABLED STUDENTS' PROGRAM. Of the six who have autism spectrum disorders, he is the only one who will be receiving a degree this spring....
Sidney, 26, lives in Piedmont with his parents, who are physicians. When their son was in middle school, the district's director of special education told them that it might not be important for their son to graduate from high school....
CHRISTINE PALMER, SIDNEY'S FACULTY ADVISER and chair of his thesis committee, described his academic finale as "an impressive piece of Bay Area bluegrass historiography and music criticism." ...
How did he do it?...
He ... relied heavily on Cal's Disabled Students' Program, which he said has been invaluable - offering everything from weekly counseling to a place like the ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY CENTER, where he could get extra time to take tests and use a computer because handwriting was difficult.
"I attribute Joel's success to having the characteristics of any scholar - being passionate about his major, willing to work hard, knowing the resources that he needs to use to succeed, and to being bright and motivated," said CONNIE CHIBA, THE PROGRAM'S DISABILITY SERVICES COORDINATOR.... Full Story
2. UC community shaken during 'tragic times'
Three deaths near Berkeley campus have marred gradudation season.
Oakland Tribune
May 21, 2008
Berkeley — Graduation season is supposed to be the happiest of times around the UC BERKELEY CAMPUS.
But CHANCELLOR ROBERT BIRGENEAU said recent weeks have been the most tragic in his long career in university education.
Three times in the past three weeks the Cal community has been shaken by a tragic death, the most recent was Saturday when ALAN KANAME HAMAI, 22, who had graduated with a degree in anthropology the previous day, was found dead on the sidewalk below his Durant Avenue three-story building.
On May 3, CHRISTOPHER WOOTTON, 21, a nuclear engineering student who was to graduate this month, was stabbed to death in front of a sorority a few blocks from campus. Police arrested a man in the case. On May 13, Maceo Smith, 33, a Berkeley man who was not a student, was shot in the 2500 block of Durant Avenue as graduates walked past the area to commencement in caps and mortarboards. A man has been arrested in the case.
"In all my years in higher education, this has been among the saddest and most tragic times for a university community that I have known," Birgeneau said in a statement released Sunday.
"Alan Hamai's death and the terrible loss of others in the Cal family this year has been deeply felt by a great many of us. As we mourn for our latest loss, I urge each of you to look after yourself and to reach out to support and care for your friends, classmates and coworkers."...
ROSEMARY JOYCE, HEAD OF THE ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT, also sent out a statement this week. "There are no words that can adequately express the sorrow all of us feel about the death of Alan Hamai, one of our own. This loss, which would be tragic no matter what the timing, is doubly difficult when he was facing the beginning of the next phase of his life," she said. Full Story
3. State sees costly increase in teen birthrate
San Francisco Chronicle
May 21, 2008
The teenage birthrate in California increased in 2006 for the first time in 15 years and costs taxpayers $1.7 billion a year - or $2,493 per baby, according to a report released Wednesday by the Oakland-based Public Health Institute.
San Francisco was one of a handful of counties in the state where the teen birthrate continued to decline, but even there, births to teenage parents are placing a significant burden on taxpayers to the tune of $9.3 million a year.
The financial losses cover a range of things, said the study's authors, from public assistance to foster care to diminished future taxable wages and spending power among the parents.
"The costs are really starting to climb now. That's not money we can afford to lose," said DR. NORMAN CONSTANTINE, A CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH AT UC BERKELEY and lead author of the Public Health Institute study....
"We know that California has led the nation in reducing its birthrate, and we've all been very proud of it," Constantine said. "When the number (of births) started creeping up, even while the rate was going down, we weren't paying enough attention.... Full Story
4. Regulators in California to vote on global warming fees charged to businesses for emissions
International Herald Tribune
May 21, 2008
San Francisco, CA (AP) -- Air pollution regulators in the San Francisco Bay Area aren't waiting for state or federal authorities to do something about global warming.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's board of directors was set to vote on new rules Wednesday that would impose fees on factories, power plants, oil refineries and other businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases....
"It doesn't solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms," said DANIEL KAMMEN, A RENEWABLE ENERGY EXPERT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. "It's not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms."...
[This story also appeared in dozens of sources around the world, including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Contra Costa Times] Full Story
5. Blast of luck: Astronomers spy start of supernova for first time
USA Today
May 21, 2008
Washington—In a stroke of cosmic luck, astronomers for the first time witnessed the start of one of the universe's most fiery events: the end of a star's life as it exploded into a supernova.
On Jan. 9, astronomers used a NASA X-ray satellite to spy on a star already well into its death throes, when another star in the same galaxy started to explode. The outburst was 100 billion times brighter than Earth's sun. The scientists were able to get several ground-based telescopes to join in the early viewing and the first results were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
"It's like winning the astronomy lottery," said lead author Alicia Soderberg, an astrophysics researcher at Princeton University. "We caught the whole thing from start-to-finish on tape."
Another scientist, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY ASTRONOMY PROFESSOR ALEX FILIPPENKO, called it a "very special moment because this is the birth, in a sense, of the death of a star."...
Less than 1 percent of the stars in the universe will die this way, in a supernova, said Filippenko, who has written a separate paper awaiting publication. Most stars, including our sun, will get stronger and then slowly fade into white dwarfs, what Filippenko likes to call "retired stars," which produce little energy....
[This story appeared in dozens of sources in the U.S. and Canada, including the San Jose Mercury News] Full Story
6. NASA Study of LAX Runways Ready to Go
Red Orbit
May 20, 2008
A series of options on how to reconfigure the north airfield at Los Angeles International Airport will be studied by NASA Ames Research Center, under the terms of a $1.4 million contract approved Monday by the Board of Airport Commissioners.
NASA will spend the next year studying five options for the north airfield at LAX, then conduct a series of simulations aimed at projecting airline traffic through 2020, according to an airport report.
Data from the report will be interpreted by six university professors who specialize in aviation studies. The scholars, who come from MIT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, George Mason University, Maryland University and Virginia Tech, will be paid $75,000 each.... Full Story
7. Green Tech Blog: Clean tech promising but tricky in the developing world
CNET
May 16, 2008
Santa Clara, Calif.--Bringing clean technologies to the developing world may not be the top priority for Silicon Valley deal makers, but interest is expanding, according to entrepreneurs, scientists, and venture capitalists meeting Tuesday at Santa Clara University.
An event backed by the California Clean Tech Open "start-up in a box" competition and the university chapter of Engineers Without Borders encouraged students to address problems shared by the world's poorest people....
However, good intentions won't get far if entrepreneurial hopefuls fail to maintain humility and respect local ingenuity, warned [UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR] ASHOK GADGIL, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Labs. He invented the portable UV Waterworks purifier, which the lab licensed to Water Health International.
And figuring out the right business model is tricky because people at the bottom of the economic pyramid don't necessarily want handouts, but they can't pay high upfront fees either. Gadgil praised Solar Electric Lighting Company, or SELCO, in India, because its novel financing model requests small monthly payments for its solar-powered lights.... Full Story
8. Green Tech Blog: Baby cribs, computers share toxic traces
CNET
May 20, 2008
San Francisco--Nearly one-third of children's car seats, cribs, and strollers in California contain toxic chemicals tied to cancer, learning disorders, and infertility that are also common in consumer electronics, according to a report Tuesday by Friends of the Earth.
The nonprofit group's study, "Killer Cribs," found higher levels of halogenated flame retardants in the 150 baby products and 350 furniture items it tested from California stores than in reported rates from other states....
"They go from the TV or crib or stroller into the dust, and the dust goes into the bodies of children and pets and stays there," said ARLENE BLUM, A CHEMIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY. "The chemicals should not be used without testing," she said. "No data? No market." ... Full Story
9. Home sales see first monthly gain in 6 months
San Francisco Chronicle
May 21, 2008
San Francisco -- The Bay Area housing market displayed its first positive sign in months as the volume of April sales rose by its highest percentage in at least 20 years. Real estate experts, however, warned that the trough of the real estate downturn still could lie ahead....
"The month-to-month numbers are not very meaningful," said KEN ROSEN, CHAIRMAN OF THE FISHER CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE AND URBAN ECONOMICS AT UC BERKELEY, who believes home values will continue declining for at least another year. "I do not believe that the worst is behind us at all."...
Some ZIP codes in San Francisco and Santa Clara ... saw slight year-over-year increases in sales and only small price declines. That relative strength reflects the still robust job markets in those counties and is more representative of the true state of the region's housing market because those areas have had fewer foreclosures, which depress prices, Rosen said.
"Basically, sales are flat and prices are down slightly," Rosen said. "Foreclosures in certain submarkets are biasing the data."... Full Story
10. My space
If we really want to explore space, maybe we should sell it off to the highest bidders
Boston Globe
May 18, 2008
If the past few years have taught us anything, it is to not underestimate the intoxicating allure of property. Real estate, it turns out, brings out the adventurer in all of us.
It's unsurprising, then, that a few enterprising thinkers are hoping to harness that power in a more exotic neighborhood: space....
One of the more straightforward models for celestial private property has been put forward by Wasser. He made his case most recently in an article in the winter issue of the Journal of Air Law and Commerce: The United States and other national governments, he argues, should pass what he calls "land claim recognition" legislation...
A third model tries to ensure that the most advanced national and private programs wouldn't scoop up all the available celestial property as soon as it became accessible. The extraterrestrial property regime envisioned by Glenn Reynolds, a professor and space law specialist at the University of Tennessee Law School, and ROBERT MERGES, A PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY'S BOALT HALL SCHOOL OF LAW, would be, in most ways, a basic first-come, first-served system. But it would have one key condition: A portion of the total available property would be set aside for a period of time to give developing nations a chance to catch up and to bid once they'd reached the point at which they were technologically and financially able.... Full Story
11. Sex: The Revolution
Oakland Tribune
May 21, 2008
“Sex: The Revolution” is a four-hour miniseries that premiered last week on VH1. Its actual running time is closer to three hours, if you zap through all the commercials. VH1 is not a television network known for its historical documentaries. But clearly it is one that knows what its viewers, and its advertisers, really want.
Pure exploitation, though, it isn’t. “Sex: The Revolution” is educational television, of a sort, since the span of time it covers – roughly 1950 to 1990, one decade per episode – qualifies as ancient history for many of the people who are likely to watch it. I have some misgivings about the program. It suffers from the tendency to address every single topic it raises (abortion, pornography, Stonewall, the Pill) in two minutes or less. But to be fair, its producers have done a creditable job of going through the video archives in search of footage from yesteryear – even occasionally finding revelatory images that, as the saying goes, bring the past alive....
Strikingly absent from the program is the perspective available from those doing scholarly work on the history of sex. The one exception is LINDA WILLIAMS, A PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND FILM STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY who has published interesting work on pornography. (Her latest book, Screening Sex, is forthcoming from Duke University Press this fall.) But Williams appears only for a few soundbites of two or three sentences each. Talk-show host emeritus Phil Donahue gets more camera time.... Full Story
12. UC seeks to rein in retirement
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
May 21, 2008
After tough questions from state senators about the rehiring of the retired UC Berkeley police chief, the University of California said Tuesday it would strengthen its retirement policies.
The university will create "formal policies" to replace "policylike parameters" that have guided UC administrators in bringing back retired employees, said UC spokesman Paul Schwartz. The new rules will better explain under what circumstances an employee may be rehired, he said....
The university's reforms will include a new policy requiring administrators to provide written documentation of the "exigent circumstances" that require rehiring a retiree rather than a new employee....
Full Story
13. UC holds back details on animal research
Sacramento Bee
May 21, 2008
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA has begun withholding public records that detail how animal research is done and what scientists hope to learn, saying when people know such things, it leads to crime.
The university contends that recent attacks on the homes and cars of researchers, including three attempts to set fires in the Los Angeles area and one doorstep scuffle in Santa Cruz, make greater secrecy crucial.
"It would be irresponsible for the university to wait around until someone goes to the hospital or worse before taking appropriate action," said UC attorney Christopher Patti....
While such documents can be used to inflame, they have other purposes. The Humane Society relies on public records to expose violations of cruelty laws. Opponents of tobacco research have used them to raise questions about whose money UC researchers should take....
UC contends the tactics used by animal activists are growing increasingly disturbing. In October, a window was broken and a garden hose shoved into a UCLA researcher's home, causing $20,000 in damage. UC BERKELEY has logged six broken windows and three scratched or graffitied cars among its researchers and staff members since August.
Along with the crimes have come legal actions that many on campus find offensive: strident e-mails, phone calls to personal numbers, and the leafleting of at least one child's soccer game because a player's father does animal research at UC Berkeley.... Full Story
14. Day to Day: Analysis
Legal Debate over Calif.'s Gay Marriage Ruling
NPR
May 16, 2008
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY LAW PROFESSOR JESSE CHOPER discusses the legal ramifications of the California Supreme Court's decision to allow same-sex marriage.
[Link to audio. Another interview with Professor Choper aired on KCRW (Los Angeles), and he was also quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle] Full Story
15. Blog: Real Time Economics -- A roundup of economic news from around the Web.
Secondary Sources: Oil, Globalization, Education, Harvard
Wall Street Jjournal Online (*requires registration)
May 21, 2008
...Harvard Dysfunction: Near the bottom of his article on Economic Principals, David Warsh looks at the bizarre process by which Harvard decided to approve a job offer to highly regarded [UC BERKELEY] ECONOMIST DAVID ROMER, but deny the offer to his wife and professional partner CHRISTINA [ALSO A UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR]. “A Harvard professor shed .. little more light: ‘the debacle — and it truly was a disaster — reflects the dysfunctionality of Harvard University, not on Christy Romer.’ Inevitably, details will begin to leak out. For instance, Mrs. Romer is known to have been a member of a 2002 visiting committee that criticized the Harvard economics department for its treatment of women faculty and graduate students. There will be many calls on Faust, Harvard’s first female president, to explain. The episode is likely to be seen as being profoundly embarrassing to Harvard — a red flag to those who consider it a haven for misogynists, and a warning to precisely those outsiders whom it says it is eager to attract. ‘It just makes every other recruitment that much harder,’ said a veteran of the appointment process.” BRAD DELONG OF BERKELEY weighed in on the situation on his blog. “Harvard’s administration has turned out to be more inept than anyone believed possible. Harvard public policy was trying to hire David and Harvard economics Christie Romer. Here at Berkeley they have adjoining offices, they raise children together, they write articles together, they teach together–yet Harvard president Drew Faust turned thumbs up for him and thumbs down for her. ‘Early onset Alzheimer’s’ is the kindest explanation I have heard from anyone currently in Cambridge. Other candidate explanations are crueler and less flattering.” Full Story
16. East Bay Business Times writers win East Bay Press Club awards
East Bay Business Times
May 19, 2008
East Bay Business Times staff writers John Sailors and Mavis Scanlon each won awards in the East Bay Press Club 2007 Excellence in Print Journalism Contest. The winners were announced at the annual awards banquet May 9 at the Silver Dragon Restaurant in Oakland's Chinatown. There were 297 total entries in 28 categories...
The East Bay Press Club also honored two student journalists: STEPHANIE LIN FROM THE UC-BERKELEY and Justin Morrison of Contra Costa College, San Pablo. Both won $1,000 scholarships in a competition among the best student journalists at East Bay community colleges and four-year institutions. Full Story
17. Weekend Edition Commentary: Violence A Challenge in Meeting Students' Needs
NPR
May 18, 2008
REKIA JIBRIN, humanities [teacher] at a Bay Area high school for students at risk of dropping out, recalls what it was like on the Monday after the one of the students was shot. The essayist provides a glimpse into the emotional and educational effects of community violence for students and teachers, and how they stay focused on the business of the school.
[REKIA JIBRIN IS ALSO A DOCTORAL STUDENT AT UC BERKELEY. Link to audio] Full Story
18. Obituary: David Hooson dies - expert on Soviet Union
San Francisco Chronicle
May 21, 2008
DAVID HOOSON, an expert on the former Soviet Union and the Central Asian republics once under its control, died Friday at age 82 after spending more than a half-century teaching geography.
MR. HOOSON WAS A LONGTIME UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR who drowned while swimming off the shores of Shell Beach in Tomales Bay.
His lessons weren't steeped in having students memorize the names of capitals. He had a bigger goal in the classroom.
"To lead the world, one needs to know about it, and geography is fundamental to that kind of knowledge," he told graduating geography students at a UC Berkeley commencement ceremony in 2001. "Ignorance can be explosive if also combined with arrogance, as many foreigners see the United States now, from the president on down."
Mr. Hooson taught at UC Berkeley from 1964 until his retirement in 1997 and retained the title of professor emeritus of geography until his death. He was the FORMER CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, the former CHAIR OF THE CENTER FOR SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES and FORMER DEAN OF SOCIAL SCIENCES at the university. He wrote many books and articles and was still teaching, most recently at the Fromm Institute of Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco....
Services are planned in the coming months in West Marin, Berkeley, North Wales and London. Full Story
19. Foul Play Ruled Out In Berkeley Student's Death
KPIX Online
May 21, 2008
Berkeley (BCN) ¯ Berkeley police spokesman Andrew Frankel said Tuesday that foul play has been ruled out as the cause of the death of a University of California, Berkeley student who fell from a three-story apartment building Saturday morning.
Frankel said police believe the death of 22-year-old Alan Kaname Hamai of Redondo Beach outside 2605 Durant Ave. near Bowditch Street shortly after 6 a.m. Saturday was "either a tragic accident or a suicide."
Frankel said that at this point there's no indication that Hamai's death was a suicide because he didn't leave a suicide note.... Full Story
20. Leah Garchik: The answer was yes, yes, yes
San Francisco Chronicle
May 21, 2008
Iraq-born OMAR FEKEIKI, who endangered his life by working as a correspondent for the Washington Post in Baghdad (and was profiled in The Chronicle in October), was one of two student graduation speakers chosen by fellow students at the UC BERKELEY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM. Fekeiki, 29, described how his fellow classmates had become his family.
And then, from the podium, he called up the person closest to him right now, 30-year-old Ban Hameed, whom he'd met eight years ago when they were both college students in Baghdad. She made her way to the platform, looking embarrassed. "I was afraid she would pass out," said Fekeiki on Monday.
In the past year, what had been a close friendship had turned into a close romance. Fekeiki told the audience he had one more thing to say, and then told her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. They embraced, she sobbed and he gave her a ring. Although this came as a surprise to her, he had been reasonably sure she'd say yes. "I'm a good reporter," he said Monday. "I did research before I did it." ... Full Story