Daraka Kenric, leftist from Santa Barbara, rants against College Republicans, with a special focus on us Cal types:

This new right-wing rebelliousness comes in two distinct flavors. While Southern and Midwestern cultural conservatives pose as defenders of the underdog against liberal intellectual elites, the coastal conservative plays to the crowd by rejecting the religious restrictions of their allies. They have made conservatism safe for the hedonistic college bro. Being a right winger at Berkeley or UCSB means that you can drink and fuck all you want, you can smoke pot and watch pornography and listen to rap, AND you can throw garbage at anyone who dares to suggest that you have any responsibility for the suffering or disadvantage of women, people of color, Iraqis or immigrants. You get to be supremely comfortable and arrogant at the same time. You can parrot all the comforting stories your parents told you about why you deserve everything you have, and you get to do so while being rebellious, cool and pleasure-seeking. Frickin’ sweet.

Its enough to make me miss the hippies. Well, almost.

Cool!

Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web notes this article on the Huffington Post by UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff:

For a while last week, the Democrats were doing better at framing the issues. The poll numbers showed that Bush’s approval rating was down, that around 60% of the voters had turned against the Iraq War, that support for Bush on his handling of 911 and terrorism was lower, but still pretty high.

James Taranto of the WSJ comments:

Lakoff has just said that a political goal of the Democratic Party is to turn the American people against the war the country is now fighting. Perhaps the Dems will now demand that Lakoff desist from questioning their patriotism.

Don’t Think of an Elephant!

Is it just me or does the design for the new World Trade Center look kind of like a middle finger?

Looks somewhat similar …

Is this our President’s way of saying something to the Middle East?

From the East Bay Express’s Bottom Feeder:

Dellums’ successor, Rep. Barbara Lee, has done an admirable job carrying on the Great Man’s progressive and pacifist legacy. She is best known for her lone vote against a bill giving the president a blank check to fight terrorism after 9/11. That led to death threats from some circles, praise from others, and the slogan “Barbara Lee Speaks for Me.” Among those Lee apparently speaks for these days is Live 105’s syndicated morning man Howard Stern — at least judging from the praise Stern heaped on our local rep last week. Naturally, he lauded Lee’s stance against the war in Iraq in his own politically incorrect idiom.

She is technically my congresswoman. *shudder* Barbara Lee Sure as Hell Doesn’t Speak for Me.

For Feeder readers not acquainted with Stern’s political turnaround, he was a big cheerleader for the military after 9/11. However, when the Federal Communications Commission ramped up its campaign against indecency, Stern became a vocal critic of the Bush administration.

This is what bugs me. When you’re fixated on a single pet issue, then you lose perspective on everything else. To suddenly turn your back on our military campaigns just because of some stupid indecency BS? I mean, when you look at the bigger picture, the FCC is pretty insignificant compared to what we’re dealing with around the world. I mean, I totally agree, F!@# the FCC [censored by the FCC]. You can bash the administration all you want, I do it all the time, but when it comes to critical things such as the Global War on Terrorism, don’t let such petty things get in the way.

Anyway, last week Stern saw Lee on C-Span speaking out on the need to withdraw US troops from Iraq. To paraphrase, he gushed, “This woman, Barbara Lee, some black chick, she’s good.” Or something like that. Hey, Feeder had to scribble this down while keeping his eye on the road as he drove past Berkeley High checking out the jailbait. Stern’s sidekick, Artie Lange, asked the question on most listeners’ minds after the host praised Lee: “Is she hot?” Stern never said.

I’ll let you readers decide:

It’s always sad when random violence claims another victim:

Joe Wagner, who wanted nothing more than to be a civil rights leader, once told his father he was willing to give his life for the cause.

“Joe was a son of Ann Arbor who was an activist working for freedom, equality and peace,” said John Wagner of Ann Arbor this morning. “It’s a tragedy he’s been lost.”

Joe Wagner, 21, a 2002 graduate of Pioneer High School, was stabbed to death Saturday night at a church festival and dance in Detroit.

You try and understand how another human can be so evil, that he or she would take an innocent life.

Wagner worked for the group BAMN, or “By Any Means Necessary,” which is fighting a ballot initiative that would ban affirmative action in Michigan…

“It’s horrible,” Driver said. “He was a really great guy, and he was a great organizer and a great person. He’s going to be a real loss to the fight to win equality in this country, and build a new civil rights movement.”

My first thought: What a pity; life taken at its prime, and at least he stood for something which is rare nowadays. My second thought: Oh man, they’re going to blame Ward Connerly for this. Lo and behold, this post from a random blog [link removed, see comments]:

Read the article here about how Joe Wagner, a BAMN advocate, was killed for sticking up for what he believed in…

I remember signing a BAMN petition during one of the annual Art Fairs held in Ann Arbor downtown. I agree with some of BAMN’s POVs and their desire to see change in universities with the issue of affirmative action. If someone opposes another’s viewpoint, it should be taken in the form of debate, not guns and knives.

While I share his view that we should fight with words and not weapons, he’s really jumping to conclusions here. There is no indication that this murder was politically motivated. It just seems like yet another sad case of random violence in our inner cities. I can understand why the writer would want to place the blame on his political opponents. However, if a College Republican were murdered, I wouldn’t immediately try to place the blame on a College Democrat or Green. Such a thing would never cross my mind. As the BAMN director quoted in the article said:

“There’s no way to explain these things.”

After this month’s Supreme Court chainsaw massacre of our liberties, my only consolation is that I get to see the reaction from the Left. To see them deal with the fact that the Left was wrong and the Right was right. The reactions can be put into three categorizes:

First, there is the “partisan over principle”/”power over principle” reaction. As in, who cares about the decision as long as my side wins. In other words, they’re against it so I’m for it. Two examples from Daily Kos, one on Raich the other on Kelo. Here’s a lovely quote to demonstrate this (lack of) principle:

“It would have sacrificed needed community power at the hands of the sort of property-rights extremism frequently displayed by right-wing libertarian types.”

I’m sure that when a city tears down an elderly lady’s house in order to build a Walmart, she can at least be cheered up by the fact that “right-wing libertarian types” lost.

Next, we have those that are a little more fair. They acknowledge that the Right can rule the right way sometimes, but in those cases it’s entirely accidental and not because of any commitment to freedom. From Paul Bruno’s blog (in response to a post by jonp):

For a hard-line originalist like Thomas, freedom is of no legal importance whatever.

So, yes, Thomas may accidentally do liberty a few favors. But that’s no reason to give him a freedom-loving shout-out. At best, a guy like Thomas can be a useful idiot.

And finally, we have the honest ones. Those who can get past their partisanship and acknowledge, that, yeah, sometimes the Right can be right. A commentary in today’s Berkeley Daily Planet does just that:

So, if you keep score on what the courts are doing in our country, it is important to analyze what’s going on in a case by case basis. Just because a judge is considered a “liberal” doesn’t mean that judge will make a good decision, and just because that judge is conservative doesn’t mean the judge is not committed to preserving fundamental liberties.

Let’s expand this: just because a person is conservative/libertarian doesn’t mean that he or she is not committed to preserving fundamental liberties. And just because a person is liberal doesn’t mean that he or she is committed to preserving fundamental liberties. I think that this post from TheAgitator really captures this fact. Who was in favor of freedom in the medical marijuana and eminent domain cases in front of the Supreme Court? Here’s a hint: Not liberals.

Anyway, there’s no hope that the situation will get any better in the near future. Our best hope for liberty, Janice Rogers Brown, was confirmed to an appeals court a month ago. She is the type of libertarian-conservative that we need on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Republicans only confirmed her because she was a black woman. This piece from the National Journal pretty much confirms it. No Republican was willing to defend her views, because, let’s admit it, no Republican in power shares these views anymore:

What Republicans support is not so much Brown’s philosophy as her life story and the opportunity to put a conservative black woman on the federal bench. After all, Brown is a small-government ideologue in an age of Big Government conservatism. Republicans control the whole federal government and are not shy about using it.

And then you realize it: From our big government judiciary to our big government executive and legislative branches, we’re screwed.

Hong Kong philanthropist Li Ka-shing is donating $40 million to UC Berkeley for a high tech medical science facility in his name:

The University of California, Berkeley, has received a $40 million gift from the Li Ka Shing Foundation to establish a research center focused on new scientific fields - including stem cell biology and brain imaging - that could provide solutions to today’s major health problems.

In recognition of Li’s generosity, the university will name the new facility the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences.

The donation is the largest international gift in the history of UC Berkeley and will allow the campus to start planning for the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, which will replace Warren Hall, current home of the School of Public Health.

Yay!

In other news, Hong Kong medical students are protesting Li Ka-shing’s $128 million donation to the University of Hong Kong:

Medical students are planning to wear their white coats during Friday’s march to protest against the renaming of Hong Kong University’s faculty of medicine.

The outcry comes after the university council decided last month to name the faculty after billionaire tycoon Li Ka-shing, following his pledge to donate HK$1 billion…

“We don’t want to have a name change based on the amount of money donated. To us, it is just a sale,” said Tse Hung-hing, a HKU medical graduate.

“It’s like saying you can’t call the territory Hong Kong anymore but have to call it Li Ka-shing,” said Tse’s colleague, Wong Kwok-tim…

They are expecting 800 other medical students dressed in white coats to take part.

Responding to the notion that in America, things are always named after people:

“Not everything in America is suitable for Hong Kong culture,” argued Wong. “The culture in Hong Kong is completely different.”

Either that or maybe the old saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” doesn’t translate well into Chinese.

Another fine decision from the Supreme Court:

Internet file-sharing services will be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting warnings that the lawsuits will stunt growth of cool tech gadgets such as the next iPod.

The unanimous decision sends the case back to lower court, which had ruled in favor of file-sharing services Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. on the grounds that the companies couldn’t be sued. The justices said there was enough evidence of unlawful intent for the case to go to trial.

Take our medication, take our homes, but please, please leave the MP3s…

Just because something could possibly be used for illegal activity, should said thing become illegal itself? There’s a bunch of illegal things you could do with guns, cars, medicine, power tools, and so on. But you can also do a bunch of good, legal things too. If you want the good, you have to take the bad. More coverage from SCOTUSblog and Slashdot.

Professor Pamela Samuelson, of UC Berkeley’s School of Information Management and Systems, taught INFOSYS 296A-2: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Technology: Legal and Policy Challenges this past spring. Graduate students took a look at the crossroads between law and technology, with a special focus on P2P. They created a group blog to analyze and discuss the topic. Some of the students’ research papers are available for viewing.

The Cal Libertarians have a position paper on their website, “Peer Pressure: How fortune will favor the bold in the era of sharing” [PDF]. Interesting take, and a good introduction for those unfamiliar with the issue.

And finally, if you haven’t already, check out Magnatune. It’s a music site based in Berkeley. They demonstrate the kind of innovation spurred by P2P. A bunch of independent musicians offer up their music for free download, and if you like their music enough, you can send them a couple of dollars. Maybe this will be the wave of the future…

Gray Brechin whines to the Berkeley Daily Planet because the SF Chronicle is apparently a right-wing mouthpiece:

I send the letter below to the Daily Planet because although the San Francisco Chronicle once published about half my letters, it has published none since last October and will not respond to my query about whether it maintains a blacklist, which increasingly appears to be the case.

Adding:

The lack of coverage of these extremely important documents [Downing Street Memo] and of that riveting hearing is one of the greatest indictments of U.S. journalism, even as the Republican assassination of Dan Rather, Newsweek, and many others shows that there is no safety for the press in cooperation with the present regime.

I’d publish the remainder of his letter here, but if it’s not good enough for the Chron then it’s not good enough for us either. Besides, with all this talk about “blacklists” and “assassinations,” Brechin would be better served by Christopher Hitchens recent piece on the Memo, “Conspiracy Theories.”

A second case of mad cow disease has hit the US:

Tests have confirmed mad cow disease in a U.S. cow previously cleared of having the brain wasting illness, the Agriculture Department said Friday. It is the second case of mad cow disease in the United States.

Human health was not at risk, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said. The animal was a “downer,” meaning it was unable to walk. Such animals are banned from the food supply.

An internationally recognized laboratory in Weybridge, England, confirmed the case of mad cow disease after U.S. tests produced conflicting results, Johanns said.

Although there is no immediate threat of the illness in the American food supply, I do think we do need to take preventive action on this. I am typically opposed to government spending unless itis absolutely necessary. This President, who shouldn’t have a problem doing this because he likes to spend like a libreal on pretty useless things, needs to fund important country-of-origin labeling provisions for meat. He also needs to have the FDA and USDA to inspect the agricultural products coming across our borders. We need to know where our meat is coming from and not to the huge special interests that are fighting to keep safety regulations out of our food supply. We need to improve our food safety and inspection process. To deal with this deadly disease, we need national system to make diseased livestock easier to track and contain. It also calls for common-sense reforms, such as placing a hold on suspect animals until test results are cleared. Congress should propose some sort of system to that could track the health of these cows from their birth to their slaughter. We also should do what Engliand did years ago - Ban the sale of nerve tissue such as brains or vertebrae that can contain the disease’s causal agent.

Mad cow disease is a dangerous illness that could start killing people in America. Whatever the costs or risks of action, the costs and risks of inaction are FAR greater in magnitude …

The New York Times, on something that all college students have experienced, at one time or another:

Valerie Serrin still remembers vividly her anger and the feeling of helplessness. After getting a C on a lab report in an introductory chemistry course, she went to her teaching assistant to ask what she should have done for a better grade.

The teaching assistant, a graduate student from China, possessed a finely honed mind. But he also had a heavy accent and a limited grasp of spoken English, so he could not explain to Ms. Serrin, a freshman at the time, what her report had lacked.

“He would just say, ‘It’s easy, it’s easy,’ ” said Ms. Serrin, who recently completed her junior year at the University of California, Berkeley. “But it wasn’t easy. He was brilliant, absolutely brilliant, but he couldn’t communicate in English.”

Who among us hasn’t experienced this? Actually, I cut my foreign GSIs a little slack; I still wouldn’t understand the material even if they did speak perfect English. Die Math 54, die!

Ms. Serrin’s experience is hardly unique. With a steep rise in the number of foreign graduate students in the last two decades, undergraduates at large research universities often find themselves in classes and laboratories run by graduate teaching assistants whose mastery of English is less than complete…

Many public and private universities have created programs in recent years to assess and train international graduate students. Most research universities require international applicants to pass a standardized test in written English for admission to graduate school. Many also set standards in spoken English for prospective teaching assistants…

At Stanford, for instance, about 200 foreign graduate students take a standardized test each year to assess their ability to speak English. About 30 of these students are required to take English classes, and others are encouraged to do so, said Philip Hubbard, director of the English for Foreign Students program there.

So how does it work at Berkeley? I’m sure a lot of grad students here could benefit from English skills courses. Not only would it allow them to better communicate with their students, but there’s also the intrinsic benefit of knowing English in our globalized world.

Anyone have any good foreign GSI stories? And if you have a browser that can display Chinese (Simplified) characters, use Google to translate the title of this post. Come on, you know that’s what goes through their heads when we undergrads ask our questions.

The Governator’s approval rating continues to fall. The people are not yet convinced about his initiatives in the upcoming special election. And to top it all off, his trademark “Don’t be a Girly-Man” is no longer the coolest catchphrase to ever be uttered by a governor. Rick Perry of Texas is now America’s most badass governor:

Texas Governor Rick Perry is apologizing for using an off color expression that was caught on tape by a Houston TV station…

“Try as I may, governor, I’m not going to wait that long,” Perry is heard saying in a mocking tone on the KTRK tape, followed by the comment, apparently aimed at Oberg, “adios, mofo!”

The article then goes on to point out:

“Mofo” is generally considered to be a ’street’ abbreviation of a common two word vulgarism which starts with the letters “m” and “f”.

Merchandise is now available.

Come on Arnold, are we going to let Texas show us up?

Walter Robinson, UC Berkeley’s undergraduate admissions director, speaks to the Contra Costa Times [BugMeNot]:

Robinson’s own ease was interrupted Nov. 9, 1999, when Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced an end to race-based admissions. Like Prop. 209 in California, the decision angered college administrators who believed racial considerations were integral to providing student bodies that represented a state’s diverse population.

“It was like, ‘Where were you on 9/11?’” Robinson said of the announcement. “It was the same kind of pain. It cut that deep.”

Say what!? Is he really comparing the end of race-based admissions to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, where thousands of innocents were brutally murdered?

This is the guy who decides who gets into one of the best universities in the world.

The public needs to know what kind of people are running our schools. Spread the word.

Apparently, the renaming of Berkeley’s Jefferson Elementary School to Sequoia Elementary is still not a done deal. I had previously declared the issue over, but what do I know. The New York Sun is on it, and according the Berkeley Daily Planet, a final decision will be made tonight. Hat tip to Hit & Run.

I really don’t care about the outcome anymore. I just love the mess these Berkeley citizens have gotten themselves into:

But even with that name [Sequoia], the school district cannot quite dodge the slavery connotations. Some community members have pointed out that under Chief Sequoia’s leadership in the early 19th century, the Cherokee nation owned more than 1,500 black slaves.

A spokesman for the Berkeley Unified School District, Mark Coplan, acknowledged that Chief Sequoia “presumably owned slaves and was rather barbaric,” but he emphasized that the proposed new name would honor the sequoia tree, not the Cherokee leader.

Words are funny things. I’m sure a “Negro High School” would be just fine in Mr. Coplan’s eyes, as long as we emphasized that it would be named after the Spanish word for the color black.

In an ironic twist, Mr. Larrick noted that the City of Berkeley is named after George Berkeley, an Irish-born philosopher and Anglican bishop who brought several slaves to his Rhode Island plantation in the late 1720s. “In a way, it’s worse than Jefferson, because the bishop was an apologist for slavery,” Mr. Larrick said.

Well, you can’t please everyone. How about renaming the city Hippieville?

Update: The school will continue to honor our third president, squeaking by in a 3-2 vote. The Daily Cal has the story. Now let’s please move on.