DBD 2.26.10 Students vs. Regents...Who Ya Got?

Jimmy Tran ponders.

Clearly, the Bears are capable of playing defense. Why haven’t they done this all season long then?

The thing is, players don’t always execute game plans. Calls don’t always go the way a team wants them to. Opponents simply get hot sometimes.

Montgomery knows this and refrained from saying that anything was significantly different in this game.

“What we asked them to do in terms of preparation, they just did it,” Montgomery said. “I think everybody’s on the same page, and probably should be at this point of the game.”

That being said, will Cal be able to execute its game plan against the Sun Devils come Saturday afternoon?

No one knows the answer, but the players know what’s at stake.

“It’s a big game,” senior Theo Robertson said. “We’re playing for something, so everything we work for all season will be on the line.”

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You would have never known by the way the Cal women’s basketball team started off Thursday night that this is a squad in desperate need of a win.

With NCAA tournament hopes on the line, the Bears came out slow-really slow.

But when shots weren’t falling, Cal stayed with it. And although the game wasn’t this season’s most artistic moment, the Bears got the win they needed, defeating Arizona on the road, 58-52.

“It wasn’t pretty,” coach Joanne Boyle said. “Arizona does a great job and they play that zone. It puts a lot of pressure on us to hit outside shots, which we weren’t doing.”

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For Allison Stokke, this weekend serves as her last chance to improve upon her season-best mark of 13-3.75 feet, which she says places her 26th nationally.

“If I just clear 13-7.0, I should make it,” she said. “Even though it seems like a big difference (from my current mark), I cleared it by a lot.”

Her confidence eases the pressure of performing this weekend.

“I’m used to this. I only need one chance,” Stokke said. “It serves more as a motivation.”

Running around, doing crazy things.

Of the 13 true freshmen on the Cal baseball team, 10 have seen action and five are regular starters. And that means growing pains.

The Bears blew out Southern Utah in three straight contests, then had a big letdown against their first real competition of the year. Pitching, defense and hitting all fell apart in an 8-0 loss on Wednesday, with UC Davis as the lucky beneficiary.

“It doesn’t feel good (to lose), especially to a team we probably should have beaten,” freshman third baseman Tony Renda said after the loss. “All these teams are coming here to beat us. And they’re going to love beating us as much as Davis is loving it right now.”

Cal (3-1) can put an end to happy feelings at its expense with a sweep-Renda’s goal for the weekend-at the Cal State Bakersfield Tournament. Action begins today against Central Michigan at 11 a.m., at Hardt Field in Bakersfield, Calif.

It continues with an 11 a.m., contest against St. Mary’s on Saturday, and a 2 p.m., game against host Cal State Bakersfield.

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On March 1, UC and student government officials will head to Sacramento to directly lobby state legislators for increased funding to the university.

Three days later, mass rallies will be held across the state, including in Berkeley, Sacramento and San Francisco. The day’s events aim to advocate not only for higher education but for all tiers of public education.

Both days are important to secure funding from the state, said Victor Sanchez, President of the University of California Students Association (UCSA), which is planning the March 1 event.

“Any kind of social movement has to have all ends of the spectrum,” Sanchez said. “(We are) utilizing everything else that has taken place, using this momentum to (advocate) in a more forceful manner.”

A March 4 rally in Sacramento-planned by UC Berkeley professors from the organization SAVE the University-is one of many that focus on unity between all areas of education.

“One of the things that we have been told when we met with individual legislators is that … this can’t be a UC-only push,” said Shannon Steen, an associate professor of theater, dance and performance studies at UC Berkeley and a member of SAVE. “Unless we join forces with the CSUs and the (community colleges), a lot of the legislators just won’t listen to us.”

Student leaders in UCSA will be joined by UC President Mark Yudof and several UC Regents to lobby top leaders in Sacramento on March 1. UCSA’s lobby day is focused on advocating for the interests of the UC system only, and not the rest of public education, in contrast with the March 4 rallies.

“I am perfectly willing to have coalitions with other groups but on the other hand I think there is something special about the University of California,” Yudof said. “We have a special case to make … in terms of creating jobs, in terms of educating students.”

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UC Berkeley officials are considering the implementation of a new campus fee to fund technology services, including bSpace, classroom support and maintenance. While it’s not yet clear whether the new charge for students would fund overall upgrades, which are sorely needed in some areas, now’s just not the time to raise campus fees for this purpose.

Ostensibly, officials had the right idea in mind when they started floating this proposal. It’s the 21st century, and augmenting traditional classroom teaching with developing technologies could plausibly generate improved learning outcomes.

They also got it right by explicitly soliciting student input through a survey on bSpace, the results of which we suspect are largely opposed to the measure.

But the timing must be considered. Sure, the cost seems small enough: as proposed, only $16 per semester for undergraduates and $13 for graduate students. When that’s coupled with the hundreds extra we’ll each be paying per year, however, it’s clear that even a relatively minimal cost does matter.

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Berkeley residents and officials have been meticulously hammering out the details of the city’s Downtown Area Plan for roughly the last four years. In that time, dozens of public meetings and hearings have been held, ensuring the final plan accounts for residents’ concerns and wishes for downtown development.

Sound like they’ve done nearly everything right? Too bad that in Berkeley, that’s just not enough. After the expression of disapproval by 9,200 residents last summer, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to scrap the current plan.

The council’s short-sighted decision renders the last four years of excruciatingly slow, detailed work a waste. It’s an embarrassment that the city can spend years developing a broad and important plan, only to replace it months before it goes to the voters. The downtown debacle highlights just how dysfunctional the political process can be in Berkeley. And it’s the businesses and residents who lose in the end: While everybody’s been busy planning, empty storefronts have spread and revenues, visitors and vibrancy have stagnated.

Damn, he sounds just like Rishi!

President Clinton speaking was a particular treat because he has, without a doubt, a keen intellect and a gift for communicating complex ideas through accessible language. It was disappointing, then, that he relied so much on oversimplification and easy answers.

The president’s central thesis was that the world is increasingly interconnected, “divorce is not an option” (I wonder how many times he used that phrase in a different context), and instead non-governmental organizations (NGOs) need to fill the supposed vacuum between the state and the market. In many ways, this was the synthesis of his term as president, during which he oversaw proliferation of free trade and free markets, and his humanitarian work since.

Thus it is surprising that he would point to “the rise of communitarianism” as a positive phenomenon. Clinton either forgets or ignores that the 20th century has seen not only the rise of communitarianism-the limitation of personal autonomy in the service of a better society-but its fall. It is no coincidence that the prosperity of the Clinton years followed free enterprise supplanting communism in Eastern Europe and China.

The interconnected world Clinton speaks of is based on market capitalism, on individualism; shouldn’t the solutions to the problems of this world come from these values and not from failed collectivist ideas of the past?

To be fair, Clinton seemed to imply that his ideology is one that focuses on non-governmental action as much as state authority. Unfortunately, while NGOs certainly have a role to play, this role is inherently limited. They lack both the ability of the market to motivate and the ability of the state to coerce. Instead, they must rely on the good will of individuals to achieve their goals.

On the same note, it is unclear why the president believes that there is some recent rise of NGOs. Charitable groups promoting social change have existed since the dawn of civilization. Upon sober reflection, we cannot help but ask ourselves whether the trend toward non-governmental action described by Mr. Clinton is but an illusion.

For the record, I enjoyed his talk and agreed on some of his points (and was apathetic about the others). I also was amused at how more people were interested in taking photos of him with their cell phones and/or shaking his hand.

You all should be familiar with it by now. Click here and read about it.

There are more coveted offensive tackles in this NFL draft class, but none with a more compelling story than California’s Mike Tepper.

By Tepper’s count, he told the story 40 times Thursday, the first day of the scouting combine. Most intrigued were NFL team doctors, who snapped to attention when he explained the surgery scars on his lower right leg.

“When you do these medical exams downstairs with five or six doctors, they hear you broke your leg and say, ’How’d it happen?’ You go, ‘I got ran over by a car twice,’ " said Tepper, who grew up in Cypress and attended Pacifica High. “Everybody’s ears are perked up and they want the story.”

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Genyk’s years of experience provided him valuable opportunities to be able to help shape and mold the Bears’ future efforts in recruiting and in special teams and he hopes to be able to draw from his wealth of knowledge in bringing value to his new position at Cal.

“Most of my stint at Northwestern, I had the opportunity to be involved in at least a couple units of special teams much of my time there. When Gary Barnett left, I was one of two coaches retained, the other being my mentor, defensive coordinator Jerry Brown. So then I had an opportunity to work on the offensive side of the ball and get more involved in special teams, focusing a lot on the spread and the no-huddle offense.

“I think by-and-large, we were very solid on special teams and an asset to the program. Over that course of time, we were really able to have some outstanding specialists and that always makes a big difference in the unit’s performance. But, most importantly, we were able to take some starters and a lot of 2nd team and backup players and get them highly-invested in their contribution to the overall success of the team based on their 10-15 snaps on special teams each week.”

For those that followed the program at Cal with any level of consistency, it was apparent to one and all that special teams was a glaring factor in much of the team’s struggles in recent years. Genyk has had the opportunity to delve into some of the past issues and begin to assess what can be done to get things on track at Cal.

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Pendergast comes in with no preconceived notions and doesn’t intend to simply implement all of the previous schemes.

“I’ve just really been looking at not so much what’s been done in the past,” said Pendergast, "but just identifying and evaluating the personnel that’s on the team right now and what their strengths and weaknesses are from an ability standpoint and how we and our staff can best utilize their ablilities.

“From what I’ve seen so far, it’s a group that’s hungry. They work extremely hard in the weight room. The work hard at the conditioning aspect of football and they like to play the game. From that standpoint, going into spring, I have a pretty decent idea of things but I’ll have a lot better feel when spring’s over.”

“We’re going to look at our guys and see how they fit,” said Pendergast. "We’re going to be multiple with what we do so I don’t want to be pigeonholed into having a certain philosophy or a certain style, just based on scheme.

“With the multiple personnel groups you have, you’re going to want to have a little bit of both (3-4 and 4-3 defenses),” said Pendergast. “Against a 2-back offense, you’re geared towards a certain element of the 3-4 vs. the 3 wide receiver, one back sets, you’ll have to have a little bit more of a 4-3 flavor and you have to be able to handle the adjustments. It really just depends on what you see from the offense.”

EDSBS goes with the Screaming Eagles though.

The Washington State Cougars, a podium finisher in last year’s Cup due to the near-total lack of anything to do in Pullman besides get intoxicated and hit things, continue to excel at full-contact endeavors that do not involve football: Redshirt freshman Jamal Atofau was arrested Saturday for striking a 19-year-old coed in the course of a larger melee at an off-campus party. (Where does Washington State football hurt? Everywhere. Who does Washington State football hurt? Everyone.) Wazzu is kind of like the Boston College of the Fulmer Cup: You’re probably never going to see them hoist the championship trophy, but their steady, measured production will always ensure them a place in the top half of the standings.

It gets real good about halfway in. I keep on forgetting why Duck fans hate this guy.

EDSBS describes it.

Around here we try and take a laissez-faire, gotta-laugh, boys-will-be-boys approach to player crime, largely because player crime fuels the Fulmer Cup and without the Fulmer Cup we would all wither and die in the offseason. This philosophy hasn’t really caught on yet all the way up in Oregon, as evidenced by Chip Kelly’s interview with some very angry guy on KXTG radio. It starts condescending (“I think you think you’re doing the right thing”), descends to preachy (Chip Kelly is a bad example to his team, did you know?) and just spirals right on down from there with the host playing the part of an extremely petulant toddler denied a pudding pop and Kelly displaying sidestep skills of positively Mack Brownian smooveness. The full 20 minutes are available at the above link, but be forewarned: “THIS IS AMERICA” is invoked before this thing’s even halfway over.

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They will poke and prod and probe, because that’s how NFL officials roll at their almighty Scouting Combine. They will see Cal running back Jahvid Best and they will instantly scrunch their faces, whisper questions about his durability and wonder if he’s worth the risk.

One suggestion: Watch him run.

As the scouting combine swings into gear today in Indianapolis, Best baffles potential employers. He is a tantalizing talent shadowed by a string of injuries, from his elbow and hip to his foot and, most alarming, the concussion resulting from his horrifying fall Nov. 7 against Oregon State.

More than three months later, Best says he’s 100 percent again. He’s worked out for the past several weeks at a training facility in Florida, and he’s eager to return to the field and end the uncertainty about his physical condition in advance of the NFL draft in April.

Teams must cast a wary medical eye toward Best, obviously, but all football players are one violent play from serious injury. The notable difference with this pleasant kid from Vallejo: The payoff for selecting him could be astronomical.

The first time I attended Cal practice last season, I remember watching another running back and thinking, “He’s pretty fast.” Then it was Shane Vereen’s turn, and I thought, “Wow, he’s really fast.” Then Best got the ball and gracefully zoomed downfield as if he were jet-propelled, in another realm entirely.

He’s ridiculously, astonishingly, unbelievably fast.

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In a study published Feb. 18 in the journal Nature, researchers reevaluated data used to measure gravity and came to the conclusion that the data in fact confirmed the theory, according to Holger Mueller, a campus assistant professor of physics and co-author of the study.

German Physicist Achim Peters, a co-author of the study, performed an experiment on cesium atoms to measure gravity with high precision 10 years ago, not even intending to prove the theory of relativity.

However, a question asked at a conference in 2008 in Monterey, Calif. prompted Mueller to reconsider the importance of the results in Peters’ study. In reanalyzing the data with U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a former director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Mueller and Chu came to the conclusion that the data in fact confirmed Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

“The research fits with relativity, which describes gravity not as a force but by strange properties of space and time,” Mueller said. “The precision is 10,000 times better in terms of the measurements.”

Such a high degree of accuracy is almost unheard of, said Beverly Berger, program director for gravitational physics at the National Science Foundation.

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Efforts are under way at UC Berkeley and the surrounding community to ensure that local buildings stay on top of the latest state energy standards.

The campus hosted a seminar on the topic of “cool roofs” Feb. 24 led by Ronnen Levinson, a scientist and the acting leader of the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He said cool roofs are designed to reflect rather than absorb sunlight, thus decreasing the need for air conditioning and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

In accordance with California law, the campus has implemented solar-reflective roofs onto several campus buildings, said Judy Chess, assistant director for the campus Green Building Programs, in an e-mail.

The state energy code, or Title 24, requires that any non-residential roof remodel that involves 50 percent of the present roof or more than 2,000 square feet must meet a minimum standard.

“The new roofs that have been installed on the campus meet the new Title 24 compliance Cool roof/Green roofs,” Chess said in the e-mail. “Cory Hall has a cool roof, as do the new buildings Warren Hall (2195 Hearst) and Sutardja Dai Hall. We are replacing the roof at Moses (Hall) and that will meet current codes for cool roofs.”

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A segment on a student television station at the University of California, San Diego defending a ghetto-themed party that mocked Black History Month is further stoking racial tensions.

Black students on Friday presented a list of demands for improved conditions to university officials at a rally decrying the telecast.

The Thursday segment on SRTV—or “student-run television”—took the side of partygoers and mocked opposition to the so-called “Compton Cookout.” The segment was produced by students from a controversial campus publication called The Koala.

Chancellor Marye Anne Fox told students through a megaphone at the rally that they have every right to be angry and pledged action on their demands.

Invitations to the Monday party encouraged women to dress as “ghetto chicks” and said cheap beer and watermelon would be served.

That was a week ago. Now…

In the wake of a racist frat party mocking Black History Month, racially derogatory and inciteful language by a member of the student-supported publication, the Koala, on UCSD’s television station, and a week of protests organized by the Black Student Union and allies, a noose was found hanging on the seventh floor of the Giesel Library.

What. The. Fuck.

VERY NSFW. VERY JAPAN-LIKE.

East Asians just don’t like dating blacks or hispanics. Yellow fever, you can change your sn now!

In 2007 the economist Ray Fisman, in a study he co-authored on dating preferences among Columbia University students, did not find evidence of a general preference among white men for Asian women. Furthermore, the study found that there is a significantly higher pairing of white men with East Asian women simply because East Asian women discriminate racially against black and hispanic men. As quoted on Slate.com, and also reported in the Washington Post 1 and The Review of Economic Studies 2 (a publication of the London School of Economics and Political Science 3 ):14

" We found no evidence of the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women. However, we also found that East Asian women did not discriminate against white men (only against black and Hispanic men). As a result, the white man-Asian woman pairing was the most common form of interracial dating—but because of the women’s neutrality, not the men’s pronounced preference. Men don’t seem to discriminate based on race when it comes to dating. A woman’s race had no effect on the men’s choices. "


The Columbia study was carried out over two years and was conducted by psychologists Ray Fisman, Sheena Iyengar and Itamar Simonson, and fellow economist Emir Kamenica — all of Columbia University. They took data from “thousands of decisions made by more than 400 daters from Columbia University’s various graduate and professional schools.” 15