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Monday, 9 June 2008
1. Berkeley Home to New East Asian Library
Voice of America
June 9, 2008
Over the past century, the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY has assembled a vast collection of East Asian treasures. Now in their new home on campus, the museum-quality materials are available for students to see, touch and study.
In the middle of the Berkeley campus stands the four-story C.V. STARR LIBRARY. "This is the first freestanding building ever constructed to house an East Asian collection in the United States," says LIBRARY DIRECTOR PETER ZHOU.
The new $46.4 million facility brings together under one roof collections of wood-block prints, rare maps, scrolls, manuscripts and much more....
"We have over 900,000 volumes in our collections, covering all fields of humanities and social sciences," Zhou says. "We collect materials from primarily 3 countries: China, Japan and Korea. In terms of languages, all collections are in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, some Mongolian and some Manchu."
"We have items that simply couldn't be purchased today no matter at what price tag," says DEBORAH RUDOLPH, EXECUTIVE MANAGER OF THE LIBRARY....
Since it opened two months ago, the library has attracted scholars from universities across Asia, visitors from the Asian American community, and many of Berkeley's professors and their students....
LIBRARY DIRECTOR PETER ZHOU is delighted by students' feedback. He says he hopes the facility will continue to support research and the exchange of ideas, and be the place where the West meets and understands the East.
[Link to audio] Full Story
2. Website guides intelligent charity giving
KGO TV
June 09, 2008
Berkeley, CA (KGO) -- RESEARCHERS AT UC BERKELEY are developing a way for you to give away money more intelligently, but they need your help. They've come up with a website that guides kind-hearted people to the charity best suited to their interests and their budgets. Donation Dashboard doesn't want your money, just a little time.
...You rate fifteen charities, from not interested to very interested, enter your contribution amount, and voila - a non-profit portfolio, including your chosen charities and some similar ones you may never have thought of, all based on statistical analysis.
It's the work of the UC BERKELEY CENTER FOR NEW MEDIA AND DIRECTOR KEN GOLDBERG.
"Essentially it uses the wisdom of crowds, when you put in your information, you are helping this greater service by collectively letting this statistical engine be more intelligent," said Goldberg....
"Charities that people were familiar with, but also nonprofits that were doing creative work that people might not have heard of, but people would be interested in donating to," said EPHRAT BITTON, UC BERKELEY CENTER FOR NEW MEDIA.
"The highest rated ones are Doctors without Borders, KIVA, NPR," said TAVI NATHANSON, UC BERKELEY CENTER FOR NEW MEDIA....
[Link to video] Full Story
3. Drilling, Not Earthquake, Caused Java Mud Volcano
Environmental News Service
June 9, 2008
Berkeley, California (ENS) - A mud volcano which has caused millions of dollars worth of damage in East Java, Indonesia was caused by the drilling of a gas exploration well, an international team of scientists has concluded.
The two-year old mud volcano, known as Lusi, is still spewing huge volumes of mud and has displaced more than 30,000 people from their homes and businesses in Sidoarjo, East Java.
The most detailed scientific analysis to date disproves the theory that an earthquake that happened two days before the mud volcano erupted on May 28, 2006 was potentially to blame.
The report by American, British, Indonesian and Australian scientists is published this week in the academic journal "Earth and Planetary Science Letters." It outlines and analyzes a detailed record of operational incidents on the drilling of a gas exploration well, Banjar-Panji-1....
PROFESSOR MICHAEL MANGA OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY and GRADUATE STUDENT MARIA BRUMM undertook a systematic study to test the claims that the eruption was caused by this earthquake. They found that none of the ways earthquakes trigger eruptions could have played a role at Lusi.
Professor Manga said, "We have known for hundreds of years that earthquakes can trigger eruptions. In this case, the earthquake was simply too small and too far away."...
Professor Manga said, "While this is a most unfortunate disaster, it will leave us with a better understanding of the birth, life and death of a volcano." Full Story
4. The Noble Savage: Looking into the rainforest and seeing salvation
As last week's dramatic pictures of uncontacted Amazonians attest, `primitives' remain a Rorschach
Toronto Star [Canada]
June 7, 2008
Except, perhaps, for the purpose of bow-and-arrow target practice, the members of the "uncontacted" Amazon native tribe captured in dramatic photos released last week have no use for us. We, however, need them.
Specifically: We need them to continue to exist as members of an uncontacted Amazon native tribe. Our consciences – in particular, our baby boomers' consciences – demand it.
"It's not necessarily totally logical," says CANDACE SLATER, A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY PROFESSOR who has studied the Amazon since 1988. "But it doesn't have to be."...
"There's so much worry about global warming, about oil, about all these kids of things that seem to be cataclysmic, and here are these people, somehow, embodying the things people would like to believe the world either is or could be," says SLATER, A PROFESSOR OF SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE who wrote the book Entangled Edens: Visions of the Amazon.
"It's the untouched," she says, "the timeless, and in there the hope that somehow, things can still be saved. I think the Amazon continues to be something that is thought of as timeless, authentic, original...and even if you have one Indian tribe that's untouched, there's a sense that these are things that remain."... Full Story
5. Sense of Fairness Affects Outlook, Decisions
Washington Post
June 9, 2008
American workers are hurting. The country is in an economic slump, thousands of people are being laid off, and hundreds of companies are retrenching....
The unfolding shakeout might ultimately be good for the economy, but it can be extremely painful for individuals. For companies, managing change is very important, not only for the well-being of their employees but also because to succeed, they need employees who are engaged, enthusiastic and energized -- and not burned out.
A pair of psychologists recently evaluated hundreds of employees at a large North American university that was in the grip of painful change. The researchers wanted to find out whether there were factors that explained why some employees successfully weathered the transition and reengaged with their jobs, while others spiraled into cynicism and exhaustion -- the classic signs of burnout.
Burnout has been long associated with being overworked and underpaid, but psychologists CHRISTINA MASLACH and Michael Leiter found that these were not the crucial factors. The single biggest difference between employees who suffered burnout and those who did not was the whether they thought that they were being treated unfairly or fairly.
"These fairness issues can be huge," said MASLACH, A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY. "Issues around fairness are highly linked to the anger and cynicism that are linked to burnout."...
Maslach and Leiter published their study, "Early Predictors of Job Burnout and Engagement," in the most recent issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology.... Full Story
6. Landmark California tax measure popular 30 years on
Washington Post
June 6, 2008
San Francisco (Reuters) - Thirty years after it sparked a popular tax revolt that helped sweep former governor Ronald Reagan into the White House, Californians still support the landmark Proposition 13, but critics say it has roiled the state's budgets ever since, a report released on Friday said.
The measure, which came in response to fast-rising property taxes, held property taxes to 2 percent yearly increases until a property is resold.
The Field Poll and the INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY said in the report they found that 57 percent of California voters would support Proposition 13 if it were on the ballot today and 23 percent would opposed it.... Full Story
7. Dan Walters: Prop. 13 has a timely anniversary
Sacramento Bee
June 8, 2008
By happenstance, the 30th anniversary of California's tax revolt – one that reverberated across the country – occurred Friday just as its politicians were confronting the latest in a series of fiscal crises that have plagued the state ever since voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978....
The argument has raged ceaselessly for 30 years and is still going hot and heavy, as demonstrated Friday in Berkeley at a daylong conference sponsored by the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA'S INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES....
The only consensus that emerged among the disparate attendees was that whether they like it or not, Proposition 13, enacted by a 2-1 vote ratio on June 6, 1978, is as popular as ever. A new poll by Field Research found that 57 percent of registered voters would re-enact it today and just 23 percent would vote against it, with Democrats strongly in favor as well.... Full Story
8. Op-Ed: California lawmakers must help economy with tort reform
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
June 9, 2008
The United States saw 324,000 jobs disappear in the first five months of the year - more evidence of a shaky economy. The news will surely prompt legislation intended to bolster jobs with "temporary" government programs. But the best jobs program for California is not more spending we can't afford. Meaningful legal reform, on the other hand, will deliver results.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY ECONOMIST LISA KIMMEL examined six common tort reforms adopted by states from 1970 to 1997 and found that instituting an additional tort reform increased manufacturing employment by 1.5 percent and construction employment by 1.4 percent. An additional tort reform increased total state employment by 1 percent. To put this in perspective, an additional tort reform in California would create more than 152,000 jobs. But, as the evidence shows, Sacramento politicians don't care that the state's tort system is costing jobs.
In the "U.S. Tort Liability Index: 2008 Report," California ranks 34th out of 50 states in the quality of its tort-liability system....
If Sacramento politicians are serious about jump-starting the economy, they cannot afford to ignore California's massive tort burden. Commonsense asbestos and class-action reform would bring needed jobs to California. Full Story
9. Why gas costs more, more, more
San Jose Mercury News (*requires registration)
June 8, 2008
This much is certain: Gas will never be cheap again....
"Let's not kid ourselves," said SEVERIN BORENSTEIN, A BUSINESS AND PUBLIC POLICY PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY WHO ALSO DIRECTS THE UC ENERGY INSTITUTE. "There is one big gorilla in this market on the demand side, and it's the United States. We use three times as much oil as China with one-quarter of the population."
At the same time, global demand is skyrocketing.
"This is a world oil market," Borenstein said. India and China are primary drivers because they have so many citizens - a combined 2.4 billion - and because their economies are becoming more dependent on fuel consumption.
But "a lot of smaller countries also want more oil, so it's hard to point to (China and India) as the boogeyman."...
By summer 2010, Borenstein forecasts, gas will cost $6 to $7 a gallon....
[This story also appeared in the Contra Costa Times] Full Story
10. Op-Ed: Charles P. Henry: Obama could improve race
Sacramento Bee
June 8, 2008
While lighting the national Christmas tree in December 1964, President Lyndon Johnson said, "These are the most hopeful times since Christ was born in Bethlehem." Four years later, in 1968, we witnessed the worst year anyone born after World War II could remember. The North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive; the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, sparking urban violence in 125 cities; Robert Kennedy was murdered on the campaign trail; the once-hopeful Johnson announced he would not seek another term; students here and abroad were in the throes of protest; and riots broke out at the Democratic National Convention.
The point is that the window of opportunity for positive change, especially in regard to race relations, has always been short and fleeting. Critical race theorists and others have argued that historically racism is the norm and periods of racial advancement are the exception. The civil rights movement was the third period of racial progress, and many would argue that it ended in 1968. The Civil War generated "radical" Reconstruction, the second period of racial progress lasting about a decade. And the Revolutionary War brought about a record number of voluntary manumissions of slaves during the first period of progress....
Grabbing the prize of the presidential nomination of a major political party is indeed a moment for all Americans to stop and take stock of. However, should Obama lose the election, the window of change will close and racial lines are likely to become more rigid rather than less rigid. To paraphrase King, "hope crushed to earth will rise again" – but when? Full Story
11. Buzzwatch: Obama Campaign Taps NYU Scholar as New Economic Policy Director
Chronicle of Higher Education Online (*requires registration)
June 9, 2008
Barack Obama’s campaign today announced the appointment of a new economic policy director: Jason L. Furman, a 37-year-old economist who played a similar role in John Kerry’s 2004 effort.
Furman directs The Hamilton Project, a domestic policy center at the Brookings Institution. (He will take a leave of absence from Brookings for the duration of the campaign.) He is also a visiting scholar at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service....
“Senator Obama personally asked me to help him get advice from a broad range of economic thinkers,” Furman continued, citing the fiscal hawk Paul Volcker, the labor-left economist Jared Bernstein, and ROBERT REICH and CHRISTINA ROMER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY....
[Link by subscription only] Full Story
12. Economy squeezes the American Dream
USA Today
June 9, 2008
Work hard, play by the rules and tomorrow will be better than today. That implicit promise has been at the core of the American Experience through good times and bad.
But now, whipsawed by plummeting home values, $4-a-gallon gas, rising food prices and gyrating financial markets, Americans increasingly fear that the national bargain has unraveled, that their once-steady march toward affluence has derailed....
The richest one-tenth of American families — those with incomes above $104,700 in 2006 — accounted for almost half (49.7%) of all income that year, according to ECONOMIST EMMANUEL SAEZ OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY.
That represented the highest share since 1917, higher even than at the stock market peak before the crash of 1929, says Saez, who studied income tax and Census data since 1913.
His analysis shows that the richest of the rich — the top 1% of American families making at least $382,600 — have garnered especially large gains. From 1993 to 2006, those families captured about half of the nation's overall growth. From 2002 to 2006, they received about three-quarters of total growth.
Saez's research helps explain the seeming contradiction between the well-documented middle-class frustration with working harder just to stay in place and the American economy's continued growth.... Full Story
13. Op-Ed: Truth Telling on Iraq--From Inside the San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board Room
California Progress Report
June 9, 2008
When I first heard about Scott McClellan’s charges that the Bush administration had lied and deceived Americans during the months and years leading up to the war, I burst into tears of happiness. No, nothing he wrote was new. And even if he still seems like a sleazy public relations expert in obfuscation, an insider was finally telling the truth, in one book.
My story is different from those who felt seriously constrained about raising questions about the administration’s obvious lies. I worked as an editorial writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, where a liberal editorial board raised serious objections to the war. And yet, in the years following 9/11, I felt editorial restraints that never allowed us to tell the whole truth about the lies and deception that led to America’s most catastrophic foreign policy disaster.... Full Story
14. Op-Ed: Gambler’s Ruin: to keep betting everything on neo-liberalism
Taipei Times [Taiwan]
June 8, 2008
From Adam Smith (1776) until 1950 or so, capital was considered by economists to be absolutely essential for economic growth. You also needed a few good basic institutions. “Security of property and tolerable administration of justice,” as Smith put it.
If these fundamental institutions were right, then landlords, merchants and manufacturers would invest and improve. In investing and improving, they would add to the capital stock: “In all countries where there is a tolerable security [of property], every man of common understanding will endeavor to employ whatever [capital] stock he can command, in procuring either present enjoyment or future profit ... A man must be perfectly crazy, who, where there is a tolerable security, does not employ all the stock which he commands, whether it be his own, or borrowed of other people...” Full Story
15. Military Supercomputer Sets Record
New York Times (*requires registration)
June 9, 2008
San Francisco — An American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, has reached a long-sought-after computing milestone by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second.
The new machine is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L, which is based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The new $133 million supercomputer, called Roadrunner in a reference to the state bird of New Mexico, was devised and built by engineers and scientists at I.B.M. and Los Alamos National Laboratory, based in Los Alamos, N.M. It will be used principally to solve classified military problems to ensure that the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age. The Roadrunner will simulate the behavior of the weapons in the first fraction of a second during an explosion....
“Roadrunner tells us about what will happen in the next decade,” said HORST SIMON, [ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT UC BERKELEY and] associate laboratory director for computer science at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “Technology is coming from the consumer electronics market and the innovation is happening first in terms of cellphones and embedded electronics.”... Full Story
16. Op-Ed: Investigation is everyone's business
Times-Picayune [New Orleans]
June 07, 2008
By July's end, we will know if the federal government's investigation of the metro New Orleans levee failures was compromised....
The credibility of the official levee investigation known as the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force had been challenged since its inception.
Weeks after Hurricane Katrina's storm surge precipitated breaches in more than 50 spots in the city's levees, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' commander, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commissioned IPET to evaluate the failures and the damage to the hurricane protection system....
But in October 2007, RAY SEED, A PROFESSOR OF GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, came forward questioning the corps' role in the investigation....
In response to Dr. Seed's complaint, David Mongan, President of ASCE, convened an ethics panel, and two weeks later he announced a second task force to review the way the American Society of Civil Engineers conducts its peer reviews...
Should the ethics committee find that the allegations by Dr. Seed are true, it would void any assurance of engineering quality and independence by IPET.... Full Story
17. Music & Culture: Blaming rap for social ills defies history, logic
Popular music doesn't create reality, it reflects it
Chicago Tribune
June 8, 2008
Hip-hop has taken its lumps, but like any great fighter, it takes its punishment and keeps stepping forward. The latest round brings Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint into the ring, brandishing their book, "Come On People: On the Path From Victims to Victors." The book argues that blacks should reclaim their communities by placing family, education and economic upward mobility first. That is a noble position. It's unsettling, however, that Cosby and Poussaint suggest rap music "promotes the moral breakdown of the family."...
In 2007 the murder rates in New York (the birthplace of hip-hop) and Chicago (hometown of Kanye West) decreased to levels unseen since the 1960s. This is even more noteworthy given that firearms are far more prevalent and powerful today than years ago. A study released in 2006 by FRANKLIN ZIMRING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, found that crime rates across all major cities declined in the "gangsta rap" 1990s to levels more closely resembling those of the big-band era.... Full Story
18. Students want better online security
Contra Costa Times (*requires registration)
June 7, 2008
Berkeley — Concerned that weak passwords could threaten security for millions of student borrowers, a group of UC BERKELEY LAW STUDENTS has asked lending giant Sallie Mae to tighten its practices....
The university's SAMUELSON LAW, TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY CLINIC began investigating the company last year after a UC Berkeley student complained that his Sallie Mae account could be hacked relatively easily by identity thieves. Bloggers had written about the same concerns since 2004, the clinic said.
Sallie Mae sent borrowers' passwords by e-mail, a practice few lenders use, said JENNIFER LYNCH, an attorney who oversaw the student-led project. Passwords included borrowers' Social Security numbers, she said.
"Sallie Mae's practices just seemed antiquated, to say the least, and very risky," she said. "They should have known this was a risky practice."... Full Story
19. Stanford employees' data on stolen laptop
San Francisco Chronicle
June 8, 2008
Stanford University has notified tens of thousands of past and current Stanford University employees that their personal information - including their dates of birth, Social Security numbers and home addresses - was on the hard drive of a stolen university laptop....
A 2007 study by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy think tank in Traverse City, Mich., estimated that 73 percent of corporations experienced the loss or theft of a data-bearing portable device such as a laptop in the preceding two years....
UC BERKELEY faced a similar problem in 2005 when someone stole a laptop containing confidential data on more than 98,000 graduate students and applicants....
In the Berkeley case, investigators recovered the laptop about six months later when it was being offered for sale on eBay - with no apparent misuse of the student data.... Full Story
20. I now pronounce you . . . friend and friend
Some argue it's time to legally recognize the bond of friendship
Boston Globe
June 8, 2008
In the American hierarchy of relationships, friendship often seems distinctly second-class. We obsess about the "work-family balance," but the leisurely conversation with an old friend is a quick casualty when it conflicts with either one. Just in the last generation, the number of real confidants we have outside the family has dropped substantially, according to one 2006 study.
Now, a number of scholars are seeking to shore up friendship in a surprising way: by granting it legal recognition. Some of the rights and privileges restricted to family, they argue, should be given to friends. These could be invoked on a case-by-case basis - eligibility to take time off to care for a sick friend under an equivalent of the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example. Or they could take the form of an official legal arrangement between two friends, designating a bundle of mutual rights and privileges - literally "friends with benefits," as Laura Rosenbury, a law professor at Washington University, puts it. One scholar even suggests giving friends standing in the tax code, allowing taxpayers to write off certain "friend expenditures."...
Changes of this kind would "allow you to say, these are people who matter deeply to me," said RACHEL MORAN, A LAW PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY who is one of the thinkers in favor of friendship law. "I want that to count, not only in my own intimate life, but in the eyes of the law."... Full Story
21. Blog: Buzzwatch
26 College Degrees’ Worth of Wisdom in 1,000 Words
Wall Street Journal Online (*requires registration)
June 9, 2008
When author J.K. Rowling told Harvard’s Class of 2008 last week about the benefits of failure and the power of imagination, she capped off an all-star commencement-speech season....
To save you the trouble of attending dozens of college commencements, Buzzwatch sifted through the speeches to find the themes and highlights. We’ve also included links if you want to read about some of the speeches in detail.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark at UC-BERKELEY, May 13: Enjoy your life. Also, the world needs saving. “The bad news is I’m going to ask you to do it. The good news is you’re already doing it.”... Full Story
22. Basu: Listen up, grads to what?
Des Moines Register
June 8, 2008
I love graduations. I love their grandeur, sentimentality and inspiration. I get a lump in my throat listening to "Pomp and Circumstance." Commencement ceremonies give you permission to be a voyeur at a critical turning point in people's lives, and to vicariously absorb some of the wisdom imparted to them....
This year, I attended four commencement ceremonies, and did online searches of who was saying what at other campuses....
In one speech, "Be Naked as Often as Possible," Genevieve Bell, director of Intel's user-experience group, offered UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA/BERKELEY'S SCHOOL OF INFORMATION GRADUATES four concepts for life after graduate school: "Be present, vulnerable, surprised and brave."... Full Story
23. The Amazing Adventures of Supergrad
The most sophisticated, accomplished, entitled graduates ever produced by American colleges are heading into the workplace. And employers are falling all over themselves to vie for their talents.
Washington Post
June 8, 2008
...Earlier this year, campus career services officers were predicting that 2008 would be the best hiring year ever. With the economic downturn, it has slowed, but not by much....
Recession or no recession, companies are hiring to train a new group of managers to replace those who are going to be gone in two, three or five years. This is the reason, Koc says, why college students are "the only employment sector that's doing well."
Just as, for this generation, a birthday party could never be just a birthday party -- there always had to be a moon bounce, a magician, a reptile handler -- a recruiting event can no longer be just a recruiting event. Instead, it must be a competition or some other adrenaline-laced smackdown -- an extravaganza where students showcase their smarts and competitive instincts, and companies try to sell themselves, presenting their missions as unique, their workdays as exciting. Their techniques combine the pleasures of reality television, game shows, spa treatments and cocktail parties.
...This spring, Google invited UC BERKELEY and Stanford students to the "Google Games," a day of puzzle-solving, Lego-building, sports and a trivia competition. It's all designed, according to Google spokesman Calum Docherty, to "familiarize students with Google and our corporate culture of collaboration and relishing challenges."... Full Story
24. Cal gears up for Special Olympics this weekend
San Francisco Business Times
June 6, 2008
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, is gearing up for the Special Olympics Summer Games, which will be held on its campus this [past] weekend.
As many as 1,200 athletes and coaches, and another 1,200 volunteers will converge on the campus, said Jenny Choo, regional sports director for Special Olympics, which holds games for developmentally disabled people. This is the third year in a row the games -- which include track and field events, tennis, aquatics and volleyball -- have been held at Cal...
The games start with an opening ceremony in HAAS PAVILION, where Cal's basketball team plays, Friday night. DIANE MILANO, SENIOR PUBLIC EVENTS MANAGER AT HAAS, had staff working Wednesday to put down a protective cover on the court floor so a stage could be built. About a dozen technicians worked Thursday setting up lighting and sound in the gym, helped by 20 to 30 volunteers.
Milano, who's worked in various athletic department jobs at UC Berkeley since 1981, handles the logistics of the event, for which planning starts in January....
The university charges Special Olympics a flat fee for the games, Milano said, and hopes to keep holding the event on campus in future years. Working three years in a row has made planning the event much easier, she said, and she is always moved by the emotions surrounding the games. "I cry every day -- it's such an emotional event, you're touched by the warmth of the athletes and the volunteers," she said.... Full Story
25. Coughlin Cruises at the Janet Evans Invitational
Former Bear breaks the American record in the 200 IM
CSTV
June 9, 2008
Berkeley - FORMER CALIFORNIA GOLDEN BEAR SUPERSTAR and current Olympic great NATALIE COUGHLIN torched the competition at the Janet Evans Invitational held at the McDonalds Swim Stadium at the University of Southern California, June 6-8. The meet served as one of the final opportunities for swimmers to compete prior to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials, which will be held in Omaha, Neb., June 29 July 6. The trials will be broadcast on both the NBC and USA networks.
On Friday, the first night of competition, Coughlin broke the American record in the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:09.77 -- the third-fastest time ever clocked and the second-fastest in the world this year....
Coughlin, along with FORMER BEAR ERIN REILLY, finished 2-3 respectively in the 200-meter freestyle in the second night of competition on Saturday....
Lauren Rogers and FORMER BEAR SHERRY TSAI touched in next in the sprint backstroke race in times of 1:02.45 and 1:03.72, respectively. Full Story
26. NBA Finals: Celtics' Powe makes a name for himself
Los Angeles Times
June 9, 2008
Boston -- The time is now when scrubs become stars, nobodies become somebodies and no namers become A-listers.
Now, apparently, is also the time for the power of Powe.
LEON POWE, that is, and the Lakers will surely remember his name come Tuesday's Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
Powe etched his name into the long-standing rivalry between the two teams, coming off the bench and scoring 21 points in just under 15 minutes in a Game 2 that swings all the momentum that was to be had clearly and decidedly toward Celtics green.
And it wasn't just the fact that Powe scored.
He did so in a demoralizing, bruising and back-breaking fashion....
Always a man playing among boys, he led Oakland Tech High to consecutive CIF state championship appearances and then signed with UC BERKELEY.
There, after a solid freshman season, he injured his knee and redshirted his next year. He declared for the NBA draft after his sophomore season and was buried on the Celtics bench much of 2006-07.... Full Story
27. S.F.'s visual reminders of Kahlo, Rivera
San Francisco Chronicle
June 9, 2008
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera left their mark in the Bay Area in large ways and small, but few San Franciscans know that the well-worn lobby of their own public hospital is home to a pair of paintings by the Mexican artists.
On two San Francisco sojourns, Rivera painted several well-known murals. During a 1930-31 residency, he completed one for the San Francisco Art Institute, another for the San Francisco Stock Exchange (now the City Club of San Francisco) and a third for the Stern family that's housed in a women's dormitory at UC BERKELEY. Rivera returned in 1940 and produced an epic mural for the World's Fair on Treasure Island, which eventually wound up at San Francisco City College.... Full Story