A Gilded Planet

Recently, the University of California Office of the President unveiled a new logo for the most prestigious public university system in the world. Since then, the logo has been met with near universal revulsion and outright disgust. It has been widely compared to a flushing toilet, or, more kindly, to one of those annoying loading icons that everyone loves to hate in this age of computers and attention deficits. In response, the fifteen-year-old girls at the UC Office of the President responded using Facebook , the average high schooler's public forum of choice: Here's the thing: It's [the new logo] not replacing anything. There wasn't a logo before, and the UC seal isn't going anywhere. The symbol also isn't new. It's been on websites, brochures, advertising and other places for nearly a year now. Did we consult people and test it? Of course. Does everyone like the new symbol? No. That's very clear. But strong differences of opinion and energetic d...

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau announced he was resigning yesterday and I know I speak for a fair number of students, faculty and staff in saying "Good riddance." But you would never know that faculty had debated a vote of no confidence in Birgeneau's during recent months or that student government was presently having a similar discussion if you read the Los Angeles Times : Birgeneau, whose annual salary is $436,800, presided over the highly political campus during an uptick in protests over tuition hikes. In November, the Occupy movement erected a tent city on campus and student demonstrators contended that UC police brutally used batons to evict them. There is no need to frame the UC police brutality as an unproven allegation. There are lots and lots of videos of what happened : police beat up students and professors before a tent city was ever even erected (and they beat students the same way two years before in 2009, it's a pattern). One ...

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The University of California employs thousands of people to keep the business of educating California's young people running smoothly. These people work every day to keep the ten campuses that make up the UC system clean and safe. They are also responsible for feeding students, faculty, administrators and campus visitors. These people work hard every day as employees of the best public university system in the world. And far too many of them live in poverty. 96% of UC service workers qualify for at least one form of public assistance , whether it's food stamps or public housing subsidies. Wages are so low for these workers that many cannot afford to meet their basic family needs. And so they work two or even three jobs. With wages for middle and low-income workers falling in the past decade (otherwise known as the Bush Years) even as the price of energy, housing, education and health care continued to rise, even with two (or three) jobs, it's very tough to make ends meet. M...