The A's loss again and they're sitting at a 0.205 winning percentage. The worst modern-era percentage is the putrid 1962 Mets who finished 0.250. The all-time worst including 19th century teams was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (0.130). If the season ended today, this Oakland team would be the third worst season behind the aforementioned Spiders, the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenys (0.169), and the 1889 Louisville Colonels (0.196).
How bizarre is this system wherein the fate of the republic lies in the hands of half dead 90 year olds that we wheel around like corpses to important votes. It seems like a dystopian sci-fi movie
Isn’t that basically the majority of human history? Old kings, Popes, authoritarians all clinging to power in old age, with physical and mental health issues but still making decisions that change the course of history.
The compliments that mean the most are the ones that give specifics. I enjoyed your novel or really liked your class are nice but when the person gives details as to what they liked in particular it means a lot more. At the same time I feel uncomfortable when a person praises me to my face.
(1) About the recent stuff this week re how the person who the city of Berkeley is named after (someone I have never heard of before this) was a slave owner so some say the City and University should change their names. (My view: this is maybe the dumbest thing I have ever heard - I think these people need to go to Cal and take a language class where they learn about what the signifier and signified are).
(2) just for fun, assuming arguendo the puritan inquisition types get the name to be changed, what would you change it to?
This would basically eliminate the academic cachet associated with the school for a long, long time. Like it or not, that belongs to Berkeley, exclusively.
I’m not sure about this though. I actually think academically, the brand “Berkeley” has more cachet. I care about the academic side more, so I would prefer to change “Cal” to “Berkeley” rather than the other way around if I really had to choose
The "Berkeley" brand has cachet for political crackpots of all stripes that I wish it didn't have. I am fully on board with the idea of stripping "at Berkeley" from the campus name to simply The University of California.
I think it would also help with city politics as well, although it would probably take decades to see the change I want.
I think the people who care about academics and are smart enough to apply and be accepted to Cal will still be smart enough to know that the academics are still the same and that The University of California is Berkeley. This will be a minor issue for perhaps 4 years.
Oh man, disagree. The branding issue is a big one. I think it would be difficult to shift the academic branding away from “Berkeley”, given that it is a globally known brand used for over a century.
And also re branding, the education sector really puts a primacy on tradition/history (hence all the universities that are built in faux medieval style), so you are kind of swimming uphill branding wise if you change the brand name
Seriously though, I wonder when the last time someone associated this dude with the name of the city or university? Thanks to the reputation of the city and the University, the name "Berkeley" has transmuted itself entirely.
veering slightly off topic: This discussion is helping me understand an analogous situation at NASA Ames Research Center, where I used to work until recent retirement.
I agree. I went to Cal, lived in Berkeley for 6 years, and never heard of this random Irish dude a single time until this week. And the University and City have been around 150+ plus years!
A vast majority of people had no idea who this guy was, and certainly not his checkered history, until this latest uproar. Now that it’s out though, and with the actions that Trinity University took, something is probably going to have to be done.
I am torn, and agree with both you and GoldenSD…as a history guy, I think you can acknowledge the past without necessary celebrating it, especially such that there’s no need to erase it. However, if a large swath is offended by references to this figure, then yeah, you should probably change it.
I think the word “Berkeley” is understood to refer to the City and University, given its long use in this capacity. The idea that the tie to the random Irish guy, and particularly his recently-discovered slave owning, means use of the term “Berkeley” is a celebration of racism is so incredibly attenuated as to be just completely bananas. The connotations people in the world have with the word “Berkeley” could not possibly be more in opposition to “celebration of racism.” It’s just so silly.
But would be interesting I suppose to see what the City changed names to if they do change names. Maybe like an Ohlone word or something?
If the City were to change name (which I would support), I would be fine if it went back to how it was known before incorporation in 1871 - Ocean View. Berkeley is opposite the Golden Gate, so Ocean View actually fits.
Eh, just seems like a random nondescript CA town created by an AI chatbot. I think you gotta do something unique if you do change it -like a Ohlone word or something along those lines. Changing to a bland name like that would be the worst of all worlds.
As someone who has lived in Berkeley for most of my life since I was born, I value nondescript when it involves attracting attention.
The university will always be there. The civic life it supports (arts, lively discussions, entertainment, etc.) will always be there because this is a city with a renowned university that attracts highly intelligent people. Period.
I could do without some of the more fringe attention that gets lavished on Berkeley. The "Berkeley" name attracts that fringe attention. I also think the reputation gained in my lifetime has attracted folks who are inclined to be obstreperous because they value being obstreperous. Obstreperous people do not add value to a city; they demand too much for themselves.
Agree re the obstreperous point but aren’t you kind of giving into those folks if you change the name?
Re the name, Berkeley as a city is offbeat and also multicultural and I think we should lean into those things were we to change the name. Ocean View seems like a random seaside town in Cape Cod frequented by upper middle class white vacationers. Just doesn’t seem to capture the spirit of Berkeley to me.
I agree with all of this and would add that when we start unearthing affiliations that are so buried in the past and have no link to modern usage, we absolutely undermine the much more legitimate and pressing instances where the hurt and pain is present and palpable.
Providing context: The naming took place 150 years ago, but the dude himself died 270 years ago and apparently, his history as a slave owner was just recently unearthed. That sounds pretty buried to me.
Thanks for the context. As I stated, I strongly dislike naming things after people but I really think it is silly to name something after a person that has no historical connection to the land or thing they are named after.
I think you have a point going forward - it’s risky to name something after a person! I mean this dude has been dead over 200 years and revelations are dripping in the press about him like he’s Clarence Thomas. I think namers of things going forward are certainly well advised to pick a flower, a tree, a bird. Anything but a person
I agree. I think the only reason the renaming idea has any purchase at all is that people are extremely afraid of being accused of being racist (no matter how ridiculous the accusation may be) and thus excommunicated from polite society, so out of a sense of self preservation they will go along with whatever thing helps them avoid the topic entirely (here, a renaming of the city and school), instead of pointing out, as seems obvious here, that the causal connection between using the term “Berkeley” and promoting oppressive/racist ideologies is so incredibly attenuated (and in fact quite the opposite of reality, wherein the word Berkeley generally connotes progressivism and inclusiveness) that it seems like an absurdist parody rather than an actual serious argument that someone is making.
Also, my thoughts on this are not yet fully formed, but there is just something odd about the whole enterprise of reconciling with history by erasing it. Aren’t you supposed to learn from history?
My opinion is, we should learn from it and make positive changes from what we learned. We shouldn’t keep something just for the sake of keeping. If a name, tradition, or policy is offensive to a segment of our multicultural society, we should change it. History and the decisions we made in the past shouldn’t be set in stone, especially when people use history as a weapon to suppress and erase others.
I would say it should ultimately be up to residents of Berkeley. They are the ones who live there and most impacted one way or the other by it’s current name and potential name change.
I get that. I believe that, but I know how Berkeley politics is: unless you're loud and unwilling to compromise, you get *nothing*, or at least far less than you set out to get.
This is the problem of politics, and especially acute in the era of social media. The voices in the middle are drowned out, misinterpreted, and villainized, usually by both sides.
You know, SD81 has a point though. Just sequencing it out, the name change I believe requires an amendment to the city charter which in turn requires a vote. Assume they do all that and the state approves the change as I assume they would, then I think since the school is named after the city it would indeed have to change its name either to the new city name or to just University of California. Probably the latter, I would guess
In the abstract those words make some sense, but I think they have zero applicability to this situation. No one is using the name “Berkeley” to oppress or suppress anyone; the notion that they are is frankly absurd. This is just a pointless manufacturing of outrage. I think running in the opposite direction of the concepts you cite are just basic common sense ones of prioritization - in particular we don’t need to waste a bunch of time and effort on renaming things to please a small hodgepodge of mostly online eternally offended folks, when there are actual, tangible problems in the world and in the city of Berkeley to grapple with. Can you imagine the number of public hearings and time a renaming would soak up??? For an issue no one heard of until this week?
But now it is known, so do we just ignore it because it is inconvenient to rename a city? Should Fort Bragg, California keep its name? How many people even realize Fort Bragg, California is named after a confederate general? When is it okay to change a name?
My opinion, which is obviously worth nothing, no cities or towns or really much of anything should be named after a person. Maybe some waste water treatment plants or dumps should be named after people but that is about it.
I don’t think it’s a matter of ignoring it. But equating continued use of the name Berkeley with celebration of racism/oppression because of this is just absolutely ridiculous. “Berkeley” in a narrow sense is understood to mean the City and University, and in a broader sense a kind of progressive culture of inclusiveness, self-expression. We’ve made the word our own, and ironically its meaning is basically the opposite of “yay racism” which is what folks seem to be concerned about.
If we were openly celebrating a well known racist symbol - like if we were called Jefferson Davis University - then yeah the name should changed. You are probably right re Fort Bragg for that reason - it’s a much clearer reference to a confederate general. I’m not saying you can never rename something, just that in this instance it seems quite absurd.
Also last point on this - we turned something that was not divisive into something that is now divisive, for what purpose exactly? It’s hard not see this as like a left wing version of all the right wing manufactured outrage about what bathrooms folks use. I’m not sure what the point of it is, ultimately
I would say that the Berkeley brand as in the name of the University is more prominent than the name of the individual. But still there might be a movement to change the name of the City and it's largest employer due to political correctness on the part of the City council.
I love the lead photo.
PRO
LAKERS!
The A's loss again and they're sitting at a 0.205 winning percentage. The worst modern-era percentage is the putrid 1962 Mets who finished 0.250. The all-time worst including 19th century teams was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (0.130). If the season ended today, this Oakland team would be the third worst season behind the aforementioned Spiders, the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenys (0.169), and the 1889 Louisville Colonels (0.196).
This will not deter me from going to the game on Sunday to enjoy the sunshine and day drink
*Will be there with FS. Come through
seeing the A's lose will bring back a lot of memories from back in the day
Celtics force game 7 with a 95-86 victory over the Sixers. Only 7 Celtics played.
https://www.espn.com/nba/recap/_/gameId/401545116
Nuggets smash the Suns 125-100 on the road, advance to the next round.
https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401544339
There are farmer tans and then there's...
https://twitter.com/WonderW97800751/status/1656395943825031170
DBD AV CLUB
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
George Santos (fka Anthony Devolder) - born a poor black child - is on audio grifting and spewing antisemitic stuff
https://twitter.com/TheBeatWithAri/status/1656424125890457603
Has he figured out what his special purpose is for?
DiFi returns to the job. She doesn't look a day over 300 years old.
https://apnews.com/article/feinstein-return-absence-senate-48a17d5f7de9af2f4e705f89faefc67a
It’s a really bad look.
How bizarre is this system wherein the fate of the republic lies in the hands of half dead 90 year olds that we wheel around like corpses to important votes. It seems like a dystopian sci-fi movie
Isn’t that basically the majority of human history? Old kings, Popes, authoritarians all clinging to power in old age, with physical and mental health issues but still making decisions that change the course of history.
Usually those people were killed in brutal transfers of power though!
Mike Pence almost got to experience that on J6.
ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE
a compliment that you were given - recent or a long time ago - that you still fondly remember
"you are hung like a donkey!" Haven't heard that one yet but it would be good for the ego
Skills are better...
My 3rd grade teacher called me a "walking encyclopedia".
The compliments that mean the most are the ones that give specifics. I enjoyed your novel or really liked your class are nice but when the person gives details as to what they liked in particular it means a lot more. At the same time I feel uncomfortable when a person praises me to my face.
Cal
Homeless & supportive housing developer pulls out of that part of the People's Park development due to CEQA lawsuit-related delays. Boo to the litigants! https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/developer-supportive-housing-people-s-park-18095055.php
Guys, what do you think:
(1) About the recent stuff this week re how the person who the city of Berkeley is named after (someone I have never heard of before this) was a slave owner so some say the City and University should change their names. (My view: this is maybe the dumbest thing I have ever heard - I think these people need to go to Cal and take a language class where they learn about what the signifier and signified are).
(2) just for fun, assuming arguendo the puritan inquisition types get the name to be changed, what would you change it to?
This is just so bizarre - no idea until this week- wasn't this guy chosen because he was a philosopher? It's really weird this part wasn't known.
I am in favor of whatever it takes for us to drop Berkeley and just be branded as The University of California.
This would basically eliminate the academic cachet associated with the school for a long, long time. Like it or not, that belongs to Berkeley, exclusively.
My 6th grade teacher always called it "Berzerkly". Close enough, but conveys the different vibe?
I’m not sure about this though. I actually think academically, the brand “Berkeley” has more cachet. I care about the academic side more, so I would prefer to change “Cal” to “Berkeley” rather than the other way around if I really had to choose
The "Berkeley" brand has cachet for political crackpots of all stripes that I wish it didn't have. I am fully on board with the idea of stripping "at Berkeley" from the campus name to simply The University of California.
I think it would also help with city politics as well, although it would probably take decades to see the change I want.
I think the people who care about academics and are smart enough to apply and be accepted to Cal will still be smart enough to know that the academics are still the same and that The University of California is Berkeley. This will be a minor issue for perhaps 4 years.
Oh man, disagree. The branding issue is a big one. I think it would be difficult to shift the academic branding away from “Berkeley”, given that it is a globally known brand used for over a century.
And also re branding, the education sector really puts a primacy on tradition/history (hence all the universities that are built in faux medieval style), so you are kind of swimming uphill branding wise if you change the brand name
Seriously though, I wonder when the last time someone associated this dude with the name of the city or university? Thanks to the reputation of the city and the University, the name "Berkeley" has transmuted itself entirely.
veering slightly off topic: This discussion is helping me understand an analogous situation at NASA Ames Research Center, where I used to work until recent retirement.
The thing there is, people barely remember who Ames was, although it is possible to look it up: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/about/history/who_is_ames.html
Was he a good guy? Possibly, but who knows?
The current management has been talking about renaming Ames to NASA at Silicon Valley.
I agree. I went to Cal, lived in Berkeley for 6 years, and never heard of this random Irish dude a single time until this week. And the University and City have been around 150+ plus years!
A vast majority of people had no idea who this guy was, and certainly not his checkered history, until this latest uproar. Now that it’s out though, and with the actions that Trinity University took, something is probably going to have to be done.
I am torn, and agree with both you and GoldenSD…as a history guy, I think you can acknowledge the past without necessary celebrating it, especially such that there’s no need to erase it. However, if a large swath is offended by references to this figure, then yeah, you should probably change it.
I think the word “Berkeley” is understood to refer to the City and University, given its long use in this capacity. The idea that the tie to the random Irish guy, and particularly his recently-discovered slave owning, means use of the term “Berkeley” is a celebration of racism is so incredibly attenuated as to be just completely bananas. The connotations people in the world have with the word “Berkeley” could not possibly be more in opposition to “celebration of racism.” It’s just so silly.
But would be interesting I suppose to see what the City changed names to if they do change names. Maybe like an Ohlone word or something?
If the City were to change name (which I would support), I would be fine if it went back to how it was known before incorporation in 1871 - Ocean View. Berkeley is opposite the Golden Gate, so Ocean View actually fits.
Eh, just seems like a random nondescript CA town created by an AI chatbot. I think you gotta do something unique if you do change it -like a Ohlone word or something along those lines. Changing to a bland name like that would be the worst of all worlds.
As someone who has lived in Berkeley for most of my life since I was born, I value nondescript when it involves attracting attention.
The university will always be there. The civic life it supports (arts, lively discussions, entertainment, etc.) will always be there because this is a city with a renowned university that attracts highly intelligent people. Period.
I could do without some of the more fringe attention that gets lavished on Berkeley. The "Berkeley" name attracts that fringe attention. I also think the reputation gained in my lifetime has attracted folks who are inclined to be obstreperous because they value being obstreperous. Obstreperous people do not add value to a city; they demand too much for themselves.
Agree re the obstreperous point but aren’t you kind of giving into those folks if you change the name?
Re the name, Berkeley as a city is offbeat and also multicultural and I think we should lean into those things were we to change the name. Ocean View seems like a random seaside town in Cape Cod frequented by upper middle class white vacationers. Just doesn’t seem to capture the spirit of Berkeley to me.
Not really. If the world decided to turn their attention from Ocean View would they be more or less inclined to stay?
That’s a great name and better fits its geographical location.
I agree with all of this and would add that when we start unearthing affiliations that are so buried in the past and have no link to modern usage, we absolutely undermine the much more legitimate and pressing instances where the hurt and pain is present and palpable.
I tend to agree but I don’t view 150 years as being buried in the past. That is only 2-3 generations removed from the present.
Providing context: The naming took place 150 years ago, but the dude himself died 270 years ago and apparently, his history as a slave owner was just recently unearthed. That sounds pretty buried to me.
Thanks for the context. As I stated, I strongly dislike naming things after people but I really think it is silly to name something after a person that has no historical connection to the land or thing they are named after.
I think you have a point going forward - it’s risky to name something after a person! I mean this dude has been dead over 200 years and revelations are dripping in the press about him like he’s Clarence Thomas. I think namers of things going forward are certainly well advised to pick a flower, a tree, a bird. Anything but a person
I agree with this sentiment, but you should have been around a few hundred years ago to vocalize this opinion. :)
I agree. I think the only reason the renaming idea has any purchase at all is that people are extremely afraid of being accused of being racist (no matter how ridiculous the accusation may be) and thus excommunicated from polite society, so out of a sense of self preservation they will go along with whatever thing helps them avoid the topic entirely (here, a renaming of the city and school), instead of pointing out, as seems obvious here, that the causal connection between using the term “Berkeley” and promoting oppressive/racist ideologies is so incredibly attenuated (and in fact quite the opposite of reality, wherein the word Berkeley generally connotes progressivism and inclusiveness) that it seems like an absurdist parody rather than an actual serious argument that someone is making.
Also, my thoughts on this are not yet fully formed, but there is just something odd about the whole enterprise of reconciling with history by erasing it. Aren’t you supposed to learn from history?
My opinion is, we should learn from it and make positive changes from what we learned. We shouldn’t keep something just for the sake of keeping. If a name, tradition, or policy is offensive to a segment of our multicultural society, we should change it. History and the decisions we made in the past shouldn’t be set in stone, especially when people use history as a weapon to suppress and erase others.
How big a segment gets to not only demand a change but force it?
I would say it should ultimately be up to residents of Berkeley. They are the ones who live there and most impacted one way or the other by it’s current name and potential name change.
I get that. I believe that, but I know how Berkeley politics is: unless you're loud and unwilling to compromise, you get *nothing*, or at least far less than you set out to get.
Put another way, the meek don't stand a chance.
This is the problem of politics, and especially acute in the era of social media. The voices in the middle are drowned out, misinterpreted, and villainized, usually by both sides.
You know, SD81 has a point though. Just sequencing it out, the name change I believe requires an amendment to the city charter which in turn requires a vote. Assume they do all that and the state approves the change as I assume they would, then I think since the school is named after the city it would indeed have to change its name either to the new city name or to just University of California. Probably the latter, I would guess
In the abstract those words make some sense, but I think they have zero applicability to this situation. No one is using the name “Berkeley” to oppress or suppress anyone; the notion that they are is frankly absurd. This is just a pointless manufacturing of outrage. I think running in the opposite direction of the concepts you cite are just basic common sense ones of prioritization - in particular we don’t need to waste a bunch of time and effort on renaming things to please a small hodgepodge of mostly online eternally offended folks, when there are actual, tangible problems in the world and in the city of Berkeley to grapple with. Can you imagine the number of public hearings and time a renaming would soak up??? For an issue no one heard of until this week?
But now it is known, so do we just ignore it because it is inconvenient to rename a city? Should Fort Bragg, California keep its name? How many people even realize Fort Bragg, California is named after a confederate general? When is it okay to change a name?
My opinion, which is obviously worth nothing, no cities or towns or really much of anything should be named after a person. Maybe some waste water treatment plants or dumps should be named after people but that is about it.
John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant
That was a great episode and achievement by John Oliver.
Donald Trump Municipal Dumpsite.
Mike Pence and Mother Waste Water Treatment Plant
The other one that I love is The John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward.
I don’t think it’s a matter of ignoring it. But equating continued use of the name Berkeley with celebration of racism/oppression because of this is just absolutely ridiculous. “Berkeley” in a narrow sense is understood to mean the City and University, and in a broader sense a kind of progressive culture of inclusiveness, self-expression. We’ve made the word our own, and ironically its meaning is basically the opposite of “yay racism” which is what folks seem to be concerned about.
If we were openly celebrating a well known racist symbol - like if we were called Jefferson Davis University - then yeah the name should changed. You are probably right re Fort Bragg for that reason - it’s a much clearer reference to a confederate general. I’m not saying you can never rename something, just that in this instance it seems quite absurd.
Also last point on this - we turned something that was not divisive into something that is now divisive, for what purpose exactly? It’s hard not see this as like a left wing version of all the right wing manufactured outrage about what bathrooms folks use. I’m not sure what the point of it is, ultimately
I would say that the Berkeley brand as in the name of the University is more prominent than the name of the individual. But still there might be a movement to change the name of the City and it's largest employer due to political correctness on the part of the City council.
I think you’d have to amend the charter and also needs state legislation bc it’s incorporated as Berkeley
That's sort of comforting.
The University of California. Branding problem solved.
The city is not going to like being called that.
[SB] Cal crashes out of the Pac-12 Tourney, losing to Utah 6-2 after giving up a 5 spot in the 1st inning.
https://calbears.com/news/2023/5/11/softball-big-first-inning-leads-utes-past-bears.aspx
fire everyone
Go Bears!!!