Daily Archives: August 27, 2012
The Berkeley Wire: 08.27.12
Reflect Refract, by Jef Poskanzer
UC Berkeley courses ponder food’s culture, future (San Francisco Chronicle)
LastSundaysFest seeks to draw business to Telegraph Avenue (Daily Cal)
Berkeley Unified teachers getting 1% bonus (CBS)
Five places to eat cheaply (and well) near campus (East Bay Express)
Cal enrolls fewer out-of-state students, more minorities (Daily Cal)
Magnes Collection announces Fall programming (UC Berkeley)
A La Carte: Golden Bear cocktails in Berkeley (East Bay Express)
Review: Skates on the Bay boasts stellar food and ambiance (Mercury News)
Cal Memorial Stadium unveiled after 21-month renovation
On Friday, the great and the good of UC Berkeley unveiled the newly renovated Memorial Stadium, the result of more than 30 years of planning, $321 million in pledged funding, many feats of seismic engineering, and 21 months of construction.
The project encountered some unexpected obstacles along the way, not least the presence of a group of protesters who spent 19 months perched in trees on the university property in a bid to prevent their removal. “Very colorful, as only Berkeley can produce,” said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau recalling the episode. He stressed, however, that he was confident everyone will be nothing less than awed with the revamped shrine to Cal football. … Continue reading »
Progressive teacher challenges Bates for Berkeley mayor
Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, a middle school teacher in Oakland, is running for mayor of Berkeley. This is the second time he’s challenged incumbent Mayor Tom Bates.
It took a double homicide in his Derby Street neighborhood four years ago to push Jacobs-Fantauzzi, then a teacher at Berkeley’s continuation high school, to his first run for mayor. The murder victims were the father of one of his students and another man in his 20s.
“It shook me in a way to question my role,” Jacobs-Fantauzzi told Berkeleyside. “What could I do?”
Teaching, he said, offered only limited ways of making change, especially for the disenfranchised youth who were his primary concern. “I could change the ethos of that school… be an amazing advocate for young people,” he said. “But if the city did not provide programs for young people, did not address issues of crime and safety, issues of young people that were marginalized, that were taking out their anger and frustrations on each other, then my role and my job is not really being fulfilled as a citizen of this city.” … Continue reading »
Potential crisis at Berkeley High student paper is averted
A potential crisis has been averted at the Berkeley High student newspaper, the Jacket, after its staff succeeded in persuading school administrators to categorize it as a two-period class. This means the 100-year-old publication can continue to be published on the same schedule and with the same number of staff.
“We can run the Jacket as usual this year. I am so relieved,” said Dharini Rasiah, the faculty adviser to the Jacket, whose allocated time to the paper had been cut back, putting the paper’s future in jeopardy, according to some of its editors.
The Jacket has around 130 staff, 35 of whom are editors, and is published every other week and online. Because it is run as a class, it requires a faculty adviser with the requisite number of hours to handle the number of students. After Rasiah’s course load was changed before the beginning of this academic year, Jacket staff feared they would need to slash staff numbers to around 40 which would prevent them from publishing as frequently, if at all. … Continue reading »
