I didn’t get a chance to hear Bob Dylan play at the Greek Theater on Saturday night, but you can have some vicarious pleasure by parsing through the live set list.
Did any InBerkeley readers hear the concert and wish to comment?
Update One attendee posted a recording of Gonna Change My Way of Thinking:
Photo: UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley’s Oliver Williamson has shared this year’s Nobel prize for economics* with Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University. Williamson was awarded the prize “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm”.
Williamson is the fifth Berkeley economist to win the prize, and the university’s 21st Nobelist. The eight Nobelists currently on the faculty are unique in the university in that they get the greatest award of all: a reserved parking place on the campus.
The best quick analysis of Williamson’s contribution to economics is at Marginal Revolution. Read the whole thing, but the intro gives some of the flavor:
In Adam Smith there is the pin factory and the market and from that beginning we trace the long literature in economics focused on the twin questions, What price to set? How much to produce? Following Coase, Williamson asks different questions, Why a pin factory? Why are the 18 steps to make a pin performed by a single firm rather than two or more? Why are there many firms instead of one large firm? Why does the pin factory not vertically integrate upwards to buy the steel factory and downwards to buy the retail hardware shop?
For those who believe in the wisdom of crowds, both Williamson and Ostrom were 50:1 in the betting at Ladbrokes on this year’s prize.
Update You can also read a good analysis by Paul Krugman. And one by Steve (Freakonomics) Levitt. Also Ed Glaeser.
Update 2 The headline I should have written.
* For any pedantic readers, the economics prize is not one of the traditional Nobel prizes. It’s awarded by the Swedish central bank in memory of Alfred Nobel, rather than by the Nobel Foundation. The official name is The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
I’m worried about my kids crossing Ashby at Pine Avenue in the Elmwood. But a wild turkey just ambled placidly down my street and crossed without so much as a by your leave.
Last time InBerkeley looked, Google Maps had a bizarre error in the center of Berkeley. Berkeley High School was called Armstrong University.
Yesterday Google announced that it was using a new dataset for its maps, and whatever other benefits it may have, it looks as though it corrected this one major error for downtown Berkeley (hat tip: @jmccyoung). There still, however, is the oddity of placing Armstrong University just east of BHS, on Harold Way. That was the last location of Armstrong University, but it has been a vacant building for a number of years.
The White House yesterday released a list of 45 art works that the president and first lady have borrowed to decorate the Obamas’ private residence and the East and West Wings. Among the works is Richard Diebenkorn’s “Berkeley, No. 52″, painted in 1955, and part of the collection of the National Gallery of Art. Diebenkorn lived in Berkeley between 1955 and 1966. According to Flavorwire, the painting will hang in the Obama’s private living quarters.
Photo: Courtesy of the Estate of Richard Diebenkorn/National Gallery of Art
I’d like to see InBerkeley expand the breadth and depth of its coverage. To do that, we need more people who want to write about some aspect of our city.
There’s no end of subjects we’d like to cover: schools, local politics, culture, the university, nature, sports and more. Writers get the same benefits as those involved on InBerkeley now — no pay, but the enjoyment of people in our community finding information and getting involved in debates on issues large and small.
If you think you can write for InBerkeley, email me with an idea or two for things you could post, and either a sample post or a pointer to your writing.
Photo from Flickr by Valeriana Solaris
How have I missed The Bone Room? I was looking at the latest post on one of the more delightful blogs I follow, Curious Expeditions, and lo and behold, it was enthusing about a store on Solano Avenue. Curious Expeditions describes it as “electrifying”. Here’s The Bone Room’s own description:
The Bone Room is a store in Berkeley specializing in natural history items. We’re the place to come to for real bones, genuine fossils, quality bone and fossil replicas, exotic insects, and all manner of weird and wonderful things. Visiting us is like a trip to a mini-museum. We are a source for teachers, artists, illustrators, collectors and imaginative gift buyers; it’s “the best store on earth,” according to an ardent twelve-year-old customer.
The store at 1569 Solano was founded by Ron Cauble, who also founded the East Bay Vivarium. The Bone Room is open 11 to 6, Tuesdays through Saturday.
Photo from Flickr by Curious Expeditions
David Gelles explains in the Financial Times the intertwined stories of PowerBar, Clif Bar and Gu. It’s a fascinating story of innovation, entrepreneurship and (seemingly friendly) corporate rivalry.
All were founded in Berkeley. Nestle bought PowerBar in 1999 and moved its base to Glendale in southern California. Clif Bar recently moved to Emeryville. Gu is apparently looking for larger premises, but plans to stay in Berkeley.
One of InBerkeley’s most loyal readers, Deirdre, passed us a tip today about “cutting-edge space science presented at the Roda Theatre free to the public”. She saw a poster in a BART station, but couldn’t find any other information.
That’s what InBerkeley is for. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has a (to my mind) poorly promoted series of Science at the Theater. The next event, at 7pm on October 26, is on “Dark Secrets: What Science Tells Us About the Hidden Universe”.
Incidentally, I follow Berkeley Lab on Twitter. When they had the last Science at the Theater event, I had some intriguing tweets about the discussion on biofuels.
Photo: X-ray – NASA / CXC / MIT / D.Dewey et al., NASA / CXC / SAO / J.DePasquale; Optical – NASA / STScI
If you’re the type to be easily outraged, Berkeley certainly provides plenty of fodder. If you’re on one side of Berkeley’s distinct political spectrum, the new downtown plan is cause for clamor. On the other side, shake your head in despair at the city council’s decision to adhere to UN treaties.
Today’s news brings something at which I suspect everyone in Berkeley can be outraged. The University of California Berkeley has agreed to pay consultants Bain & Co $3 million over two years to advise on new ways to save money.
The Bain engagement is part of a project to “reduce costs and streamline operations” the university is dubbing Operational Excellence. Here’s what chancellor Robert Birgeneau had to say:
We chose to engage an outside consulting firm after assessing several other options and realizing that we need this support to complete the evaluation. This particular firm, Bain & Company, brings significant experience in examining complex organizations and has recently completed a similar process at the University of North Carolina and will soon do so at Cornell.
Their fresh, objective view, combined with their knowledge of best practices in operations across higher education and other sectors, will serve us well. A working group of campus leaders and key staff will work with the Bain team to carry out the data-gathering and assessment of options…
Undertaking a project of this scope and scale is a full-time endeavor for a full team of professionals and experts. We simply do not have the internal capacity to divert our faculty from their core academic mission to manage a program of this size. More importantly, we recognize that “self-diagnosis” is not always impartial, that fresh ideas from outside our campus may have a role in helping us improve, and that the limited availability of internal resources to spend several months full time on this project would delay both the assessment and any subsequent implementation of opportunities.
I’ve known a lot of Bainies over the years, and they are uniformly bright, diligent and professional. Organizations that face truly complex strategic problems — say, integrating a big acquisition, or developing a new approach to supply chains — would understandably look at Bain, as well as rivals like McKinsey and BCG.
But even with that knowledge, my first reaction was that $3 million for consultants at such a crucial moment for the university is an outrage. How can the university spend money on overpaid consultants when its most precious resource — faculty and staff — are on furlough and seeing cuts all around them? What political consultants call “the optics” are all wrong. I can guarantee that it will have few supporters in the university community.
But $3 million is barely enough to pay Cal’s head football coach for one year (not that I think that’s a good idea). In the context of an organization that spends about $1.8 billion a year, setting aside $3 million for two years is not particularly significant.
If Birgeneau and his administrative colleagues are going to preserve Berkeley as a world center of academic excellence, they are going to need to be equally world-class at finding efficiencies and true savings. There isn’t at present a fantasy world where the state boosts the University of California budget, even though that would be an eminently sensible thing to do. The shortfall can’t be made up by foundation grants, individual donations or commercial wheezes. The increases in tuition are already stretching many families to the breaking point. So savings will have to be found.
Bain & Co aren’t a charity, and it will make a very healthy margin on its work for Berkeley. It would be great if someone would do the necessary work at cost, but I don’t see that happening either. I’ll eagerly follow project Operational Excellence, with only a small knot in my stomach at the thought of what the consultants are being paid. The stakes for one of the world’s great universities are far higher than $3 million.
In case, like me, you missed the one night, pop-up izakaya on Shattuck yesterday, reader Bumble Bee provides a mouthwatering report through the comments:
Wow! That was the best authentic Japanese food I’ve had in a long time outside my house. The dashi for age-dashi eggplants were wonderful, pork belly and daikons cooked to perfection, croquettes had a very nice home-made “crust” with just enough sweetness, and myoga was a great addition to the sardines. I almost asked for a bowl of rice to soak up all the wonderful juices. Thank you, Sylvan!
Photo of Japanese izakaya by Aya Brackett
To mark Banned Books Week, the Berkeley Public Library is inviting people to come tomorrow between 3 and 5 to read passages from their favorite banned or challenged books. The mass public reading will be in front of the Central Library on Kittredge Street.
The American Library Association promotes Banned Books Week each year to focus on the importance of freedom of access to information and ideas. Mike Pope posted a good perspective on the radicalism of librarians today (hat tip Nancy).
Any suggestions for readings?
Photo by Ingorrr from Flickr
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.
Eagerly awaiting the Berkeley reports
When I read the agenda for tonight’s city council meeting, I didn’t notice anything particularly newsworthy. There’s establishing Berkeley as a Tree City USA — no problem there. Even the parking amendments — increasing the rate to $1.50 an hour and expanding pay and display areas — struck me as ordinary council business.
I clearly need to take lessons in agenda exegesis because the proposal from the Peace and Justice Commission to have the city adhere to UN treaties completely passed me by. The Chronicle’s Carolyn Jones is more eagle eyed. The nub of the recommendation is: “That the Berkeley City Council affirm the value of localities complying with relevant UN Treaty recommendations”.
I’m all in favor of UN treaties on human rights, racial discrimination and torture, but why does a municipality need its own compliance with treaties aimed at sovereign states? I have friends that work in the UN, and the last thing that over-stretched organization needs is a deluge of reports from every city in the world with 100,000 or more people. Of course, there’s only one city in the world that would ever contemplate such a thing. I can just imagine the joy of a junior civil servant at the UN at opening her annual package of compliance reports from Berkeley.
I know there’s a history of Berkeley asserting itself on the world stage. Some of that is admirable, but the city really has more pressing problems than wrestling with national treaty obligations.
The city council meeting is open to the public and also available through a webcast.
Photo from United Nations Photo
InBerkeley will always greet newcomers to the Berkeley blog world. So The Berkeley Blog is welcome (there’s also the much longer-running Berkeley Blog by Sylvia Paull — I guess the addition of “The” makes a difference).
The Berkeley Blog is subtitled “provocative thinking from UC Berkeley”. It’s early days, but the content on the site now is pretty thin. I hope as more content flows in, it will look livelier. It seems to have launched with one post per topic.
What’s slightly odd to me is that The Berkeley Blog hasn’t seized the opportunity to bring in the feeds of some of the excellent, well-established UC Berkeley bloggers, like Brad DeLong and Robert Reich. Perhaps that’s all to come.
The New York Times’ Economix blog has an interesting analysis of economic diversity at the nation’s top universities. Here’s the key table:
UCLA and UC Berkeley come out first and second, with a vastly higher proportion of Pell Grant recipients than any other leading university. Read the Times’ analysis for some thoughts as to why the two UC campuses are way ahead of others.
We try not to stray into neighboring cities, but the video of the protest at Whole Foods Oakland is just too wonderful to miss (hat tip Lisa). It’s a strong, performance-art-like response to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s opposition to healthcare reform.
It doesn’t reach the extraordinary brilliance of the Sound of Music performance in Antwerp (below), but I would have liked to have been in Whole Foods when it happened.
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