Quotes, bon mots, and noteworthy utterances from the campus and beyond
02 April 2009
"I don't remember what he said, but it turned out to be right."
Professor of Journalism Cynthia Gorney, recalling her freelance-writing days and a consultation with helpful magazine editor Jon Carroll, now a San Francisco Chronicle columnist.
East Bay Express, March 18
"I was too close and too sympathetic to do anything more than make fun of the jargon-choked prose and humorless screeds."
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll, on the editorial challenges facing someone (like himself) who was both involved in the Free Speech Movement and obliged to make fun of it for the The California Pelican, Berkeley's legendary humor magazine. Carroll was a Pelican staffer in the early 1960s.
California, March/April 2009
"It's not just Nevada, it's Amazon.com."
Professor of Economics and Law Alan Auerbach, noting that many California consumers, trying to avoid paying the newly increased state sales tax, may decide to make major purchases out-of-state or online.
Contra Costa Times, March 31
"That's an understatement."
Berkeley Law Dean Christoper Edley Jr., asked whether he "is in a tough spot" because of ongoing controversy over work done for the Bush administration by Professor of Law John Yoo.
Contra Costa Times, March 23
"He's one of the brightest people ever to run for public office — and not just because he's been a Stanford law professor."
Barbara O'Connor, professor of political science at Cal State Sacramento, on the electoral bona fides of potential GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell, dean of Berkeley's Haas School of Business from 2002-08.
San Francisco Chronicle, March 30
"It's more like dance than it is like digestion."
Professor of Philosophy Alva Noë, objecting to the reductive view of consciousness as a purely biological process.
Salon, March 23
"The fact that they're cutting out now should be a lesson for us."
Professor of Integrative Biology David Wake, on the relation of large-scale amphibian die-offs to an ongoing "mass-extinction spasm" of species worldwide. "Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years," Wake said. "They made it through when the dinosaurs didn't."
The Daily Galaxy, March 30
"Let 'em study me....I'll have those lefty Obamacons shopping for M-16s and survival rations within two weeks."
A post by 'gman' in response to news that a center for the study of right-wing social and political movements will be established at Berkeley.
Weasel Zippers blog, March 26