Daily Archives: March 22, 2011
The Berkeley Wire: 03.22.11
Demonstration at Pacific Steel briefly turns violent [KQED]
BHS girls basketball “wins one for the public schools” [Chronicle]
Berkeley versus Bentonville in Supreme Court next week [Chicago Tribune]
Perfect form from Cal’s diving coach to celebrate a championship [SFist]
Photo of vernal equinox gathering by dogenfrost/Berkeleyside Flickr pool
Update: Today’s two Berkeley High School gun incidents
Berkeley High School Principal Pasquale Scuderi held a press conference at 1:40 p.m. today about the two incidents of guns being found on the Berkeley High campus today. In the first case the gun was fired through the wall of a portable building housing men’s bathrooms; in the other a student was found to have a gun in his backpack.
Scuderi said it had been an unsettling day on campus. “Having a gun on campus is a very serious matter,” he said. He confirmed three BHS students had been arrested and that, following school procedure, they would all automatically be given a one-year expulsion.
At the time of the press conference, Scuderi had not sent out an email to parents notifying them of the incidents. He informed students and staff with an intercom message before lunch. … Continue reading »
TV character patterned on Berkeley Rep’s artistic director
Tony Taccone, the artistic director of Berkeley Rep, has just been outed as a sex symbol.
Sort of.
The NBC television show Parenthood, which is ostensibly set in Berkeley, is introducing a new character that closely resembles Taccone, and making him the new love interest for Sarah Braverman, played by Lauren Graham.
TheaterMania is reporting that the actor Steven Weber (“Wings”) has been hired to play Jack Kraft, the artistic director of the Berkeley Theater.
Kraft will apparently … Continue reading »
A second gun found on Berkeley High campus in a day
The Berkeley Police Department reports that a second gun has been found on the Berkeley High School campus today, following an earlier incident which involved a gun being fired through the wall of a portable classroom.
According to BPD spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, a student shared information with authorities regarding another student who they thought might have a gun. A BPD School Resource Officer and safety officers pulled the suspected student out of class and indeed he was in possession … Continue reading »
Power outage in downtown and north Berkeley
An electrical power outage knocked out much of downtown Berkeley from about 11:15 a.m. this morning. Berkeleyside has contacted PG&E for more information.
Readers and tweeters report that the outage affected an area from Center Street to Shattuck and from Kittredge to at least Center. Berkeleyside is also getting reports of widespread outages in north Berkeley. BART has notified riders that its trains are not stopping at either North Berkeley or Downtown Berkeley stations because of the outage.
No … Continue reading »
Gunshot fired at Berkeley High School, no injuries
A gun was fired on campus at Berkeley High School this morning at around 8:45 a.m. A bullet went through the wall of a portable classroom from where the round was fired.
Two suspects, at least one of whom was a BHS student, were detained by the Berkeley Police Deparment and the school’s security staff at around 10:18 a.m., following a pursuit. The weapon has not been found, according to BPD spokesperson Sgt Mary Kusmiss.
At 8:45 a.m., a BUSD-employed … Continue reading »
North Branch library construction delayed
The bids to renovate the North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library came in so high that library officials are asking the City Council to reject them all.
The architects hired by the library thought it would cost about $3.8 million to renovate the historic building on The Alameda and add a two-story, 3,850 square foot addition facing Josephine Street, but the lowest bid came back more than $1 million over that estimate.
Library officials think that with a little tweaking of the design, the city can redo the building within its projected budget.
“We are disappointed but we are optimistic that we can bring the cost down,” said Donna Corbeil, the library director. “It’s important we stay within our budget.” … Continue reading »
Berkeley: more excellent than expected
We love maps on Berkeleyside, particularly when they demonstrate something that we knew in our hearts even without the data. (We also like maps that show us our preconceptions were wildly wrong. We just like maps.) So it was exciting to come across the recent research of Lutz Bornmann of Munich and Loet Leydesdorff of Amsterdam.
Bornmann and Leydesdorff undertook a study in spatial bibliometrics to determine which cities around the world have more scientific excellence than expected (you can read the entire draft paper here). Using data from Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science, Bornmann and Leydesdorff compared how many research papers cities produce in three fields — physics, chemistry and psychology — and then looked at how many of those papers were in the top 10% of citations in the fields. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: Phil Ochs There But for Freedom
I’m a music lover. I’ve caterwauled in front of many a microphone, avoided countless nightclub two-drink minimums, and spent far too much money on records (and, grudgingly, CDs, but that’s another story). And I’m catholic in my taste: if it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it, chances are I’ll give it an eighty. Which, perhaps, explains why there are two types of music I generally don’t like: heavy metal and folk. The tuneless macho bluster of metal (hello Led Zeppelin) and the tasteful harmonizing and acoustic plucking of folk (hello Kingston Trio) are as nails on a chalkboard to me.
Which brings me, of course, to Phil Ochs, the subject of a superb new documentary, Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, currently playing at the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood. (The film opened last Friday, but due to my coverage of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, I’m reviewing it now.) Even folk-hating philistines such as myself will find it a deeply moving and illuminating experience — and if they’re not careful, they might even end up enjoying some of the music. … Continue reading »
