InBerkeley

I hesitate to suggest you go to hear Michael Pollan speak tonight in Berkeley, not because he isn’t smart and entertaining, but because last time I went up to the campus to hear him hold forth, the place was so packed many of us were relegated to an ante-room and had to settle for watching him on small screens.

Still, that was a free shindig and tonight’s event requires one to buy a ticket, so Pollan’s enormous fan-base may not come out in such full force — even if he is on home turf.

“The Omnivore’s Dilemma” author and J-School prof will be talking about his philosophy—“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” — in Cal Performances’ Strickly Speaking Series, tonight at 8pm at Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. Tickets cost $16–$30, (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org.

[Photo: Ken Light.]

Celebrity, Events, Food, Journalism, People, UC Berkeley Michael Pollan

This report is coming to you from your New York correspondent, here on family business…

The Breakfast-Cabal mail list is abuzz with news about helicopters flying over Berkeley today.

Art Medlar wrote: “…there’s no place to go to get an immediate answer to the general question, ‘what’s up with the helicopters?’ For the most part, the online edition of the Oakland Tribune tends to post breaking news long before either the Chronicle or the Daily Planet, both of which are equally hopeless on that front. Attempting to get the info from the websites of the actual news companies involved is beyond laughable.”

“It would seem like there’s an opening for someone like inberkeley.com to add a ‘helicopter’ tag and become the default source of info.”

Art, let’s see what the InBerkeley.com readers know about the helicopters…

David Rowland adds: “I live near Willard Park, and about once a year something happens that draws the news copters to our area. Although it’s very expensive to keep them up there, if nothing else is happening they will linger for hours, making square miles of noise. I have called the FAA noise complaint line and the individual stations when I can determine which are involved. I think the word gets through, and it may have some effect.”

General

The anti-torture policy will mean firing Igor

The Berkeley city council voted unanimously last night to agree to UN treaties on human rights, racial discrimination and torture. So that cell with shackles in the city hall dungeon will have to go.

Showing a small amount of sense, the work will be done by unpaid interns.

When I was called out for being too polite yesterday, I described the proposed policy was “ridiculous, a waste of time, a diversion from real issues, gestural politics at the worst”. It truly is laughable.

The other unanimous decision last night was to increase the parking fee to $1.50 an hour, and add 420 parking meters. That decision will have vastly more impact on the world.

Government