Tough love from Berkeley professor

Just read “A letter to my students,” a blog post from UC Berkeley professor of public policy Michael O’Hare. In it, prof. O’Hare apologizes to incoming freshmen for the “swindle” that has wrecked California over the last 30 years and exhorts them to start working to change it.

It’s a blog, so he gets away with a generation-sized straw man — at one point literally putting words in the mouth of millions of voters — because it’s such an impassioned piece. He places blame for our current predicament solely on tax-hating voters (even, mind-frakkingly, safe districts!?), ignoring the generation-long dearth of sanity in the Capitol building. I wouldn’t give Abel Maldonado or Darrell Steinberg an extra $1000 even if it was to get them to fight each other to the death. But everything he says about the current situation, especially as it pertains to education, is undoubtedly true and his piece is definitely worth a read.

A letter to my students, by Michael O’Hare, from The Berkeley Blog

Five Guys Burgers & Fries

Five Guys Burger and Fries in Natomas
Creative Commons License photo credit: Big C Harvey

I figured after eating at Five Guys Burgers & Fries several times in one week, I would give them a review on this here web log. Finding a good burger joint is not incredibly difficult in the Sacramento area. Not to mention the fact that defining a good burger joint is like trying to describe the taste of a banana. That is, it’s subjective. For example, many of the folks on Yelp are lukewarm about this place.

The Good

  • The toppings: Mayo, Relish, Onions, Lettuce, Pickles, Tomatoes, Grilled Onions, Grilled Mushrooms, Ketchup, Mustard, Jalapeno Peppers, Green Peppers, A-1 Sauce, Bar-B-Q Sauce, and Hot Sauce are all included at no additional charge. Mmm, mushrooms.
  • The fries: Regular or Cajun Style, these fries are hearty and crispy, great for ketchup dipping
  • The peanuts: Help yourself peanuts while you wait for your food. Think that’s lame? Don’t have them, but stop judging me already!
  • The soda: It’s a Coke shop and they have Coke Zero. Done and done.

Continue reading “Five Guys Burgers & Fries”

Secrecy on aisle five

Banana Display at Trader Joe's

I know this is only tangentially local, in the sense that it is local news to a bunch of different locations, but I just enjoyed reading this piece in CNN/Fortune Magazine about Trader Joe’s. Full of interesting tidbits (they sell chips made by Frito Lay! It is owned by “the Germans”! This one guy’s name is Burt P. Flickinger III!), it won’t change your mind about the famously tightlipped corporation or anything, but it is good reading and of interest to anyone who is a fan of the Joe. By the way, if they did sell secrecy on aisle five, it would it be Thai-chili-infused.

What do you think? Does the corporate secrecy enhance your love for TJs or does it put you off?

CoolDMZ family witnessed Zoo lockdown!

You heard about the high speed chase that ended inside the Sacramento Zoo, as a trio of car thieves drove through the back gate of the zoo. Mrs Cool and the young’uns were on the scene! They were headed toward the giraffes, when suddenly it became clear something was wrong. Then they were herded into the gift shop by very helpful and quick-acting zoo employees, and spent several tense minutes inside on lockdown, waiting for it all to play out.

No photos — even if she had been able to snap them she says she probably would have refrained, as the kids were not exactly loving this. They didn’t see the perps, but they did see police storming the place. Plenty of folks in the gift shop were crowding near the windows (the dudes were not armed, but what if they had been?) snapping photos. That would have made a great photo — folks grabbing shots for the Facebook page while their kids cried in strollers.

My kids pointed out that “it had a happy ending,” and the oldest declared it “the coolest thing that has ever happened.”

Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Free!

Negative Creeps
Twenty years ago, Jerry Perry hosted a young, mostly unknown band named Nirvana at the Cattle Club. This was on the Bleach tour, before Nevermind and Smells Like Teen Spirit drove a nail or two into the coffin of 80’s hair metal, brought punk rock guitar to the forefront of popular music and made most people forget that Use Your Illusions was supposed to be the album that changed rock & roll that year. Luckily, he filmed it.
Continue reading “Nirvana: Live! Tonight! Free!”

$1 coffee and tea smoothies

$1 Jamba Juice Coffee & Tea SmoothiesThis Thursday, August 19th, Jamba Juice will be offering up $1 coffee and tea smoothies.

These free or low cost offers tend to be a mess, but you never know.

*Offer valid only on 8/19/10 at participating Jamba Juice locations towards the purchase of one sixteen size Coffee Craze™, Matcha Green Tea Blast®, Mocha Mojo™ & Chill-icious Chai™ smoothies.

STAR test results show slow growth

The 2010 California Standardized Testing and Reporting results were released Monday, and overall the picture continues to be grim, though there are mild improvements over last year:

Fifty-two percent of the students are proficient in English, while 48 percent are proficient in math – an increase of two percentage points in each over last year.

Results in Sac City Unified are basically flat, with 1-3% improvements over last year’s summary scores. The “Science End-of-Course” scores went up by 5%, which is a welcome sight for people concerned with the state of science education these days.