University of California-Berkeley

Backwards to the Present: More New New California Writing (Part II)

Forgot to mention a couple of the other must-have-read already writers in the newest anthology of best California writing of the year from Heyday. You might recall from last week my weird reading triage, first noting what I remembered from journals originally printing short stories, poems and essays ... More >>

Are The Feds Unfairly Targeting Muslim Students Who Oppose Israel?

In Washington D.C. today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened a probe of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), following reports that the IRS was unfairly targeting conservative non-profit groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement. Closer to home, the California chapter of the Counc ... More >>

[MOVED UP in Case You Missed It:] Arman Sadeghi Spreads Earth Day All Green Message: Recycle Electronics the Right Way

This post that published Friday morning has been moved up for Earth Day and in case you missed it while our site was down.ORIGINAL POST, APRIL 19, 8:16 A.M.: Earth Day is Monday for you and I, but every day is Earth Day for Arman Sadeghi.He founded and runs Tustin's All Green Electronic Recycling, w ... More >>

NBFF: Smaller, Shorter & Uncut

The fabled film festival has learned that less is more

UCI's First Law School Class Has a Better Cali Bar Exam Passage Rate Than All But Stanford

The end of our October blog post on University of California at Irvine School of Law students helping Nigerian activists present a case to the U.S. Supreme Court mentioned that the local school has its critics.The blasts to the law school and its founding dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, began in 2009, but ... More >>

Mexi, African-American Med Students at UCI Organize Conference for Their High School Peers

The words "cardiothoracic surgeon" are most likely not found in the vocabulary of any two-year-old, except for Barbara Williams, a second-year medical student at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. Williams recently completed clinical cardiovascular research at the nationally r ... More >>

Kent Wycliffe Easter and Jillianne Bjorkholm Easter, Couple Accused of Planting Drugs in School Volunteer's Car, Have Hearing Delayed

The arraignment of Kent Wycliffe Easter and Jillianne Bjorkholm Easter, who are accused of planting drugs in a school volunteer's car, was delayed today because of a "healthcare emergency" that left the husband "unable to speak," according to his lawyer.Orange County Superior Court Judge Walter Schw ... More >>

UC President Says Ban On Affirmative Action Has Had A 'Dramatic Adverse Effect' On Campuses, Argues For Race-Based Admissions

Before the U.S. Supreme Court hears another case on college affirmative action, this time centering on the University of Texas at Austin, leaders from the University of California want to make it known that banning race-based admissions has not been good for diversity on UC campuses.UC President Mar ... More >>

Why Do Mexicans Have So Many Names?

[¡Ask a Mexican!] And your last reminder to buy 'Taco USA' before Gustavo gets deported!

Each UC Campus To Set Own Tuition Under New Proposal

The premise is hardly debatable: No University of California school is the same. For that reason, officials at UC Berkeley want all 10 campuses to break free from Daddy Board of Regents--or at least have more independence. They've written a proposal to allow each UC to set its own tuition and f ... More >>

Stop Stealing Our Cars, New Documentary, Shows Santa Ana's Fight Against Unjust Impound Policies

​Working-class immigrant residents of SanTana have been beneficiaries of new, fairer vehicle impound policies since October 1, 2011, when activists scored a solid grassroots victory. Stop Stealing Our Cars, set to premiere this Saturday at El Centro Cultural de Mexico in the city's downtown, is an ... More >>

Berkeley Dogs Hot-Dogs It

[Hole In the Wall] The East Bay transplant brings its luscious wieners as part of our wave of outside regional chains

Drunken Driving Deaths Way Down in California

​It will either bolster the argument that sobriety checkpoints are working or prop up the side that claims such enforcement operations are unnecessary, but in either event drunken-driving fatalities are down dramatically in California, according to state data. A record low 791 people were killed i ... More >>

[UPDATED with UCI Chief "Appalled":] UC Protesters Get Help From Above to Stop Campus Cops' Baton Jabs and Pepper Spraying

​UPDATE, NOV. 23, 10:24 A.M.: UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake has issued a statement where he says that he is "appalled" by the police response to peaceful demonstrators on other campuses as witnessed in recent YouTube videos. The brutal actions violate UC policies, procedures and the sense of ... More >>

California Elementary Schools Are Not Teaching Science, Study Finds

Bill Nye, where are you? ​​When it comes to science, you're probably smarter than a fifth grader.  Under intense pressure to increase English and math scores, California elementary schools are shoving out the subject almost entirely, a new study reports. Research from San Francisco-bas ... More >>

Fruit Flies Back in OC to Bedevil Jerry Brown

​The bane of Jerry Brown's first go-round as governor is back.It's a teeny-weeny, eensy-weensy fruit fly. Actually, it's two of them, found in Westminster earlier this month. They join two more trapped in the Anaheim-Yorba Linda area near the end of June and start of July.How can four fruit flies ... More >>

Jerry Brown Criticized For Not Going Latino With California Supreme Court Pick

Goodwin Liu​​​Today, Gov. Jerry Brown nominated UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court. Shortly after, Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, whose district includes Buena Park, issued a statement about the pick. In it, he congratulates Liu, yada yada, and then tak ... More >>

Irvine Gamer Gal Sets Guinness World Record in 'Guitar Hero'

Guinness World Records​Gamers, meet your dream woman. The fast-fingered Annie Leung of Irvine set the female world record for a single track on Guitar Hero III, racking up 789,349 points on the expert level of "Through the Fire and Flames" by the band DragonForce. The September 2010 achievement i ... More >>

Chapman University Dorms in Pricey Company

​James Doti has worked his Lilliputian arse off over the years trying to get Chapman University included in conversations about the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the land.The private Orange university finds itself ranked today with many of those prestigious institutions, but ... More >>

Pot Clinics Turn to Sacramento Lobbyist to Smooth Relations With Costa Mesa Officials

​Medical marijuana clinic operators, who have not exactly received a welcome reception in Costa Mesa, have retained a Sacramento lobbyist in hopes of smoothing over their tense relationship.Medical Marijuana Providers Fight Back After Costa Mesa BustsBased on an introductory letter to Mayor Alan M ... More >>

Camp Out at the Beach Pit BBQ

​Camp OutJune 25, 2010Beach Pit BBQThis will teach me to make assumptions. Though they're alumni of the ultra-selective UC Berkeley, the NorCal indie-pop duo Camp Out play music that is unexpectedly modest. Formed in 2007, the band is comprised of singer/guitarist Maddy Hanks, and keyboardist/sing ... More >>

Animal Research Protesters Face Terrorism Charges

A Long Beach couple could do five years in federal prison for aggressively protesting animal research at UC schools up north

Governor Candidates, Humboldt County Pot Growers Agree: No on Legalization!

Jerry Brown: "I've already indicated that that's not a provision I am likely to support."​The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 was certified for November's ballot this week after backers turned in signatures from hundreds of thousands of California voters, but the three top candid ... More >>

UC Irvine's Day One Dance Trumps Walkouts

Ho-hum, another first day of classes for the UC system, another student/faculty/staff walkout over budget cuts, tuition hikes and work furloughs. The photo roll above from UC Irvine is not only less inspiring than the ones from bastions of rabble-rousing UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, but even bass ... More >>

Irvine Spared in Professor's Plan to Close UC Campuses

UCI.orgAll's quiet in the center of campus at "second-tier" UC Irvine.​Capitol Weekly reports about a radical proposal to spare the UC system major financial pain amid massive budget cuts: close three campuses.Don't worry: UC Irvine makes the cut. Barely.

Padilla vs. Yoo: First of Many Such Cases to Come?

Nick Schou blogged last week about a San Francisco federal judge having ruled that John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law professor who just finished a stint as a visiting professor at Chapman Law School, can "be held personally responsible for the indefinite military detention and alleged torture of an Amer ... More >>

More Controversy Dogs Yoo Amid Gig at "Teensy Joke of a College"

Photo by Christopher VictorioYoo moves from "teensy joke" to Philly writing gig.Greg Sargent's The Plum Line blog on WhoRunsGov.com, a Washington Post site that runs online biographies of D.C. "players and personalities," has an interesting post on Bush White House torture memo writer John Yoo, the ... More >>

The Heat is Back on John Yoo

Photo by Christopher VictorioYoo before his Chapman debate.The April 21 morning "terror memo" lawyer John Yoo appeared at the Chapman University debate, President Barack Obama said it would be up to his attorney general whether to prosecute former Bush administration advisors like Yoo. Since that da ... More >>

Yoo in Clear or Not So Fast?

World events are moving so fast and furious, one wonders how participants in the Saturday and Tuesday Chapman University School of Law debates featuring visiting professor and Bush White House torture enabler John Yoo at the center of each are keeping up with their talking points.CBSNews.com Legal A ... More >>

More Join Chapman U's Debate on John Yoo Torture Memos

Clockwork informed you yesterday about controversial law professor John Yoo being at the center of two upcoming Chapman University School of Law debates, one he is participating in and another that he is not participating in. When it comes to Saturday's "Forum on National Security, Rule of Law & ... More >>

Spain, Chapman University Debaters Are Out to Get John Yoo

So the big question when John Yoo speaks at Chapman University next week about presidential power is: Will he be shackled? Probably not, seeing as how this is not Spain, but were Orange within the Iberian Peninsula nation and NATO ally, he'd be under criminal indictment for sanctioning torture at Gu ... More >>

Torture Memo Author Finds Friends and Foes at Chapman U

Perhaps some of you have a conservative uncle who says stupid things. You know, like the U.S. is not in debt to China, or that Barack Obama is a socialist or that George W. Bush won his presidential elections. Mine recently repeated the Bill O'Reilly/Rush Limbaugh/Attila the Hun yarn about all the s ... More >>

Sign From God? Rick Warren Shouted Down at MLK Service

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that protesters interrupted pastor Rick Warren's speech to a packed house for the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta today--one day before the leader of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest is to deliver a controversy ... More >>

Wildfires Just a Sneak Preview?

Ted Soqui shot this in Yorba Linda the weekend past. See his amazing slideshow here. Now that the fires have been contained, heroes have been identified, firefighting techniques have been blasted, causes have been zeroed in on, and our Last Action Hero Governor has likened the disaster to one of th ... More >>

Beating around the Bush, or not, in Irvine

Good news for those of us who have never seen the power of a monarchy in action, and the servility it demands of its subjects. President Bush is extending his weekend trip to California, and will be visiting scenic Irvine on Monday. According to the Register, "Bush will speak to the Orange County B ... More >>

Aural Reports

'I Only See Pluses'
Shohei Urata

Stay Off My Lawn!

UCI prof turns grouchy, predicts end of civilization, criticizes neighborhood kids

Film

Of Time and the River

Robb Moss wayback machine; plus Nir Bergmans Broken Wings

Letters

Poor, Drunk, Talented

Bayadera love the Vietnamese hooch

As the World Burns

Alexander Cockburn eviscerates Operation Iraqi Fiefdomand Christopher Hitchens, the barstool bombardier

We Must Be Butter Cause Were on a Roll

Nude! Nude! Nude!

The naked truth behind Sarah Bain Gallery

Hip! Hop! Shop!

Black Guys Imitating White Guys Imitating Black Guys: The strange end of the hip-hop revolution

HERE ALREADY

Re-creating Southern California in Southern California

Out at School

Good taste, wit, impeccable manners: Life at a gay high school

Those Picket Signs?

At UCI, they're likely to return

Smile, You're on Candid Camera