4 Replies to “California and the Coronavirus: A Timeline”

1. When are Berkeley academics going to unite to inform, educate and motivate We The People to fight for survival of the human race against coronavirus, global warming, Washington Presidential/Congressional/SCOTUS overthrow of our American Democracy by reactionary conservatives, etc. and other social, political and economic disasters we are experiencing on a daily basis?

   Why don’t you unite per Berkeley Blog: “Climate crisis needs Berkeley’s leadership in social and environmental justice” by
   Daniel Kammen, Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy | September 20, 2019
   https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2019/09/20/berkeley-leadership-needed-for-a-social-movement-on-climate-and-justice/

   “Berkeley has, in the past, taken on such social transformations, and the world urgently needs us to take an expanded role yet again.

   We need the Berkeley community to step up again and further educate itself and to partner locally and globally on a diverse range of climate-smart actions.”

2. P.S. Prof. Farber, I recommend uniting academics to save the human race knowing full well that you are a paramount example of what Richard Hofstadter documented in his 1963 book, as referred to by former Chancellor Nicholas Dirks in a 2013 CALIFORNIA Magazine cover story: “he talked about how academics characterized themselves as pure. And he noted that one of the reasons, perhaps, why there were so few public intellectuals of note in America is not just because America is anti-intellectual—which of course it is—but also because so many intellectuals don’t want to take on the sort of complications and impurities that come with being public.”

   Preeminent historians like the Durants also concluded “When a civilization declines, it is through no mystic limitation of a corporate life, but through the failure of its political or intellectual leaders to meet the challenges of change.”

   So this lesson of history means our civilization is also doomed because of the failures by both political and intellectual leaders to meet the challenges of change today.

   So much for the lessons of history that academics fail to heed and act upon just like Trump does.

3. I guess I’m a little puzzled about your expectations. Legal Planet has had two million views. Members of the Legal Planet team publish white papers, write op. eds., talk to the press, work with state government and sometimes testify in the legislature. That’s not “academic purity”, it’s being engaged.

4. Thanks for your feedback at last.

   Interesting point on number of views, but academics really don’t inform, educate and motivate the public very well when Trump has a 45% Job Approval rating today (per Real Clear Politics Polling Data) in spite of the fact that he is overthrowing American Democracy, along with enabling a pandemic holocaust
   https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html

   You really don’t communicate effectively at all as long as we continue to experience out of control global warming disasters around the world.

   Again, your academic purity is preventing you from educating the public because there “are few public intellectuals of note” and “so many intellectuals don’t want to take on the sort of complications and impurities that come with being public.”

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