Posted inEvents

The It List: Five things to do in Berkeley this weekend

Head downtown Friday night to participate in the city’s holiday tree lighting ritual. Photo: DBA/YouTube HOLIDAY TREE LIGHTING Thanksgiving is behind us, and the winter holidays are just around the corner. Downtown Berkeley is kicking off the season with its third annual Holiday Tree Lighting Celebration. It’s exactly what it sounds like — plus baked goods, holiday crafts for […]

Posted inArts

Spying on Democracy: Author details rise in surveillance

Heidi Boghosian. Photo by Nina Subin In the last few months, Americans’ expectations about government interference in their lives has been turned completely upside down. Edward Snowden’s leaks have shown that the National Security Agency has paid millions to Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft, as well as telephone companies, for data about its customers. The […]

Posted inArts

Knocking on Heaven’s Door: Do we die a good death?

Katy Butler. Photo: Cristina Taccone Katy Butler was living in Mill Valley, pursuing a successful freelance writing career, when she got the call we all dread: her father, a successful, dynamic 79-year-old retired Wesleyan professor, had had a debilitating stroke. Butler flew back to Middletown, Conn. and unknowingly entered into an nine-year medical and moral […]

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Khaled Hosseini: ‘All fiction is characters facing a choice’

Khaled Hosseini: in conversation with Berkeleyside’s Frances Dinkelspiel on Sunday June 23 for a Berkeley Arts & Letters event. Khaled Hosseini: in conversation with Berkeleyside’s Frances Dinkelspiel on Sunday June 23 for a Berkeley Arts & Letters event. If you are ever stranded on that proverbial deserted island, you might hope to have author Khaled […]