Private practice attorney Ismail Ramsey has been nominated to be the next U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, President Joe Biden announced Tuesday. -more-

As 48,000 academic workers across the University of California enter a third week of striking, hundreds of full-time faculty in the system pledged Monday to join the work stoppage and not teach or submit grades until the strike ends.

More than 200 faculty members across UC's campuses had signed the pledge as of Monday afternoon.

"As long as this strike lasts, faculty across the system will be exercising their right to honor the picket line by refusing to conduct university labor up to and including submission of grades -- labor that would not be possible without the labor of all other academic workers as well as university staff," the faculty pledge states.

The striking academic workers -- including teaching assistants, graduate student researchers, academic researchers and postdoctoral scholars -- are asking for better pay, benefits and job security. The strike involves four separate bargaining units, all of which are represented by United Auto Workers.

UC and UAW bargained for ten consecutive days between Nov. 14 and Nov. 23 before taking a break for the Thanksgiving holiday, a UC spokesman told EdSource on Monday. Negotiations resume this week. -more-

Due to some editorial confusion too difficult to explain, the following links will take you to articles posted over last weekend which rightfully belong in this week's issue:

Superb Singing Highlights LA TRAVIATA at San Francisco Opera Reviewed by James Roy MacBean 11-27-2022

ON MENTAL WELLNESS: It's Chaos, Don't Personalize It Jack Bragen 11-27-2022

ECLECTIC RANT: Gun Control, the Third Rail of American Politics Ralph E. Stone 11-27-2022

THE BERKELEY ACTIVIST'S CALENDAR: November 27-December 4, 2022 Kelly Hammargren, Sustainable Berkeley Coalition 11-27-2022 -more-

Elections are over for the moment, and what, you may ask, have we learned?

Well, first, don’t trust either polls or the pundits who dote on them.

As Michael Moore presciently pointed out before the election: “…not only were the Republicans not going to clobber us in the House with 30 to 50 new seats, they might be in for an upset because it’s gonna be so dang close. And Trump’s mob of election-denying candidates were going to go down in flames. There would be record numbers of young voters, and women were on a rampage over the abolishment of Roe. The sword of vengeance would be theirs.”

Yes. And lo, the waves parted and we walked on water. Or something like that. The naysayers were wrong. But how about Berkeley?

Here in Berkeley, the only polls we have are those paid for by promoters, either for potential candidates or for proposed ballot measures. Apparently locals have lost interest in the city. There’s something very wrong with the way Berkeley is governed these days, which turns out to be a self-fullfilling prophecy. The only real race was in District 1, where the people most likely to be impacted by the Big Bart Boxes mounted a creditable attempt to unseat an incumbent, but failed, as is almost always the case.

In District 8, the race was to the swift, with attorney Humbert rounding up the usual suspects to pre-endorse him before the incumbent had even announced in public that she wasn’t running. -more-