Golden Nuggets: Michelin Stars, Bear Updates, and San Francisco Pride

Knowlton Retires, Cal is #1

Hello and welcome to Golden Nuggets! In this weekly write up, we try our best to cover all things Cal, Berkeley, Bearkeley, UC Berkeley, University of Cal Berkeley, University of Berkeley at Cal, BerkeleyInspire, and California Berkeley University that happened more or less in the last week! Let’s dig in!

By god they did it, the perfect email subject line.

Earning Some Stars

The Michelin Man, a man made entirely out of white tires and presumably filled only with air, graced the culinary world this past week by awarding stars to the world’s top restaurants. How the Michelin Man eats and digests food confuses me to no end, but it’s a big award in the restaurant world, and it means something to earn a star! And it allows me to photoshop Oski into Alice Waters’ kitchen (Chez Panisse earned a Michelin Star from 2006-2009) preparing to dice up Stanford for a beautiful and delicious farm to table meal.

Anyways, the Michelin Stars were announced this week and while my local haunts didn’t receive any love, a couple of Bay Area restaurants received some honors including Sun Moon Studio in Oakland.

IMPORTANT URSINE UPDATES

In season 2 of his hit TV Show, The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder explores the relationship between Airplane Pilot mental health, Pilot and Co-pilot communication, and societal taboos about speaking up in the face of blatant danger, and comes to the conclusion that these things combine in the cockpit to limit communication between professionals that can result in airplane crashes, or at the very least, crashes that could have potentially been avoided had any of the aforementioned issues been discussed.

It’s a great (and a bit weird) TV show that I highly recommend, but I bring that up to say Nathan is wrong. Atleast in Japan this past week, where a bear blocked up a runway and forced a couple flight cancellations.

Elsewhere, two bears escaped an enclosure in a UK wildlife park and ate an entire week’s worth of honey before taking a little nap.

Still elsewhere, a woman’s house was broken into so many times that bears showed up and thought, “well, if the front door is unlocked…” Maybe they were just offering her some protection?

Hot Links

• Brenda Song (2009, Psychology, Business Minor) is set to host the Primetime Emmy Awards

• Groundbreaking occurred this past week at the Bancroft Parking Structure, a future 7-Story parking structure set to open in August 2026 on the corner of College Avenue and Bowditch Street

• Somehow, another Jurassic World was made and released this week. Or next. But I digress as UC Berkeley News featured an article on UC Berkeley Paleontologist Jack Tseng discussing what dinosaurs likely actually looked like.

• San Francisco Pride was this past week and UC Berkeley was on hand to celebrate with Oski, Cal Band, and more!

• Berkeley Talks, a Berkeley News podcast, discussed how the tobacco industry is one of the reasons behind the rise of ultra-processed foods [glances down at opened pack of Gushers on my desk]

• Speaking of Berkeley News, the news bureau is celebrating 100-years of preaching the good word of Oski. Read more about the history of the outfit here

• Marking our status as the Flagship, the UC System is considering adopting a semester system at all UC Schools

• Rachel Kushner (Class of 1990) wrote an opinion column this week in the New York Times reflecting on her recent commencement speech

• Lake Anza is open to swim, now with 90% less toxic algae

Golden Bear Honors

• This past week, Cal took over the ACC Network with a full day of games, highlights, and content from this past year. Yours truly re-watched Cal beat Auburn and atleast the first few plays of Big Game before my kid asked to watch Mira the Royal Detective

• EA released the upcoming player rankings for their CFB 26 Video Game

• Mykolas Alekna was named as a The Bowerman trophy Semifinalist for the third time in his career and is only the third man in the history of the award to earn that honor!

• Alex Birge (Baseball) was named an Academic All-American

Cal Athletics Round Up

• Cal Football recruiting is building a solid 2026 Class, currently ranked 19th in the Nation

Cal Pros Round Up

NBA

• Mady Sissoko is joining the Oklahoma City Thunder for NBA Summer League

PGA

• Collin Morikawa has a new caddie, KK Limbhasut who was Collin’s Teammate at Cal

MLB

• Mark Canha hit the 10 Years of Service Club in MLB

• The Oakland Ballers are on a 5 Game win streak with Luke Short and Connor Sullivan contributing some good pitching performances

Next Week In Bear Territory

• Consider watching the 1990 Cal Bears overcome the largest deficit in Pac-10 History to bear the Oregon Ducks

Have a safe and happy 4th of July! Your author will be out all next week and I may or may not have a sub lined up. We’ll see what next week brings! As always, if I forgot something, please feel free to add it in the comments. And see you all at the party!