Features

WRITER FOR HIRE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It has been reported that the Bush administration has been paying columnists to push its agenda. First, Armstrong Williams, who worked for Tribune Media was reported in USA Today (a bastion of hard-hitting investigative reporting) to have received $240,000 from the Department of Education to push the No Child Left Behind Act in his columns and through public speaking. Although Williams says he “regrets taking the contract,” he doesn’t regret it so much that he will give the money back. “That would be ludicrous,” he said, “because they bought advertising, and they got it.”  

Then CNN reported that Maggie Gallagher was paid $21,000 to help the Department of Health and Human Services to support the administration’s effort to promote healthy marriages (except, we suppose, between persons of the same sex.) Later, HHS revealed that it also had paid conservative columnist Mike McManus $10,000 to support healthy marriages. 

Of course, as an occasional contributor to the Berkeley Daily Planet I am aghast and outraged at these payments. Mostly I am outraged that the government isn’t paying me. I here and now announce that I am willing to sell out, providing that we can arrive at a fair and equitable price. (Please, though, don’t tell the O’Malleys. They do have these tedious ethics and probably would look poorly on it. I think it has something to do with a pre-Sept. 11 world-view and ties to Old Europe—probably France.)  

I already have been ordained in the Universal Life Church in an effort to attract some of that faith-based money that I thought the administration would soon hand out. Alas, none of it seemed to find me, but this seems far easier. 

Pushing marriage looks to be particularly lucrative, with two of the three disclosed columnists in on that scheme—er, program. I’d be glad to extol the virtues of marriage in these pages for a small fee—say $100,000 plus expenses and a stipend for the speeches I’d surely be asked to give. For the right price I will even downplay my own marriage—which broke up one afternoon while I was watching the Giants play a ball game on TV. My wife accused me of loving baseball more than I loved her. I replied, “But honey, I love you more than ice hockey!” She took it poorly. The next time I saw her was in court. And to think, after such a lengthy marriage: I had given that woman the best weeks of my life. 

Obviously then, my columns on that subject wouldn’t be from life. I’d have to just make things up. Making things up shouldn’t trouble this administration which has so much experience in that area.  

I could push privatization of social security for perhaps $150,000. That would compensate me for the amount I would lose if the program actually passed. I’d do No Child Left Behind for $80,000 and even refrain from mentioning that no child would get ahead either. Does the administration want a column stating that air pollution is good for you? I’m your columnist! Tax rebates for the wealthy? No problem. If the administration would only pay me enough for such columns, I could become one of the wealthy myself and support the program with all my heart. 

And I promise that I would spend the money in a way that would help the economy and create jobs. So it would be win-win. Anyone in the administration who is reading this, just contact me in care of this paper. But be discreet. Maybe use a fake name, or wear a Groucho Marx nose and mustache. And pay in unmarked bills, or untraceable Halliburton common stock. Remember, if the owners of this paper find out, it’s over. 

Paul Glusman 

BAY BRIDGE FIASCO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have three points concerning the over-budget controversy for the Oakland Bay Bridge. This is based upon many years as an urban planner and architect who appreciates suspension bridges more than concrete “freeway s on stilts.” 

• The news tells us that Southern California state legislators claim that they should not have to pay for Caltrans “budget overruns” and especially the Bay Bridge suspension-tower span. I believe that Southern California concrete freeways a re far in excess on a tons of concrete/ taxpayer ratio to that spent in Northern California. Besides that Northern California has closed more freeways than down south. Another figure for comparison is the Southern California Caltrans over budget total tha t was paid for by California taxpayers. 

• The Caldecott fourth bore is a controversial project opposed by many in the East Bay and that is in my professional opinion ill-conceived and a direct result of urban sprawl in Contra Costa County and easterly. All of Caltrans, MTC, other local funds, and any federal funds budgeted for that “hole-in-the-ground” should be legislatively transferred to the Bay Bridge account. Let the bridge be built as we have been promised for over 10 years. Caltrans is famous for freeway budget over-runs and sliding funds from one project to another. (Reference: The 1989 “Cypress” freeway, Loma Prieta EQ collapse, was traced to Caltrans’ transfer of seismic retrofit funds to new freeways and interchanges.) 

• I am suspicious that the alleged over-budget amounts for the east span suspension tower are partially coming out of cost over runs from the concrete bridge piers now underway. An audit may show, I suspect, that Caltrans has been infamous for transferring funds from project ac counts to cover up cost-over-budget situations. 

I urge loyal Daily Planet readers, contributors, and advertisers to e-mail and call Assembly Member Hancock, State Sen. Torlakson, and State Sen. Perata.  

Ken Norwood 

• 

SOCIAL SECURITY SCAM 

Editors, Daily P lanet: 

As Bush campaigns to sell us on privatizing Social Security, people should know this is a con. The politicians that conned us about WMDs in Iraq now want us to think that putting our SSI money into private accounts will guarantee more at retiremen t time. 

This is a con because the basic mechanism of the stock and bond markets, where privatized accounts would invest, is “win-lose.” For every person who makes money in the stock market, there are others who lose money. We all know that you make money in the market by buying low and selling high. But for every high-price seller, there has to be someone willing to buy at that price. Each buyer believes that the prices will continue to rise. But prices rise only so long as there are more buyers in the m arket than sellers. Eventually, fewer people believe the market will continue rising than those who want to sell. Then the prices drop, rapidly. This happened in 1989 and in 2001, leaving many people with less than half their savings. 

We’ve heard that Bu sh’s plan is a scam because it would add $ 2 trillion (that’s 2 million million) dollars to our national debt, and it would give stock brokers windfall commissions. But the fundamental con is that it would pump money into the market for immediate gain whi le leaving long-term, privatized SSI accounts busted when retirement time comes. 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

MEASURE R RECOUNT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Debby Goldberg’s article about Measure R’s defeat and about the “recount” was disturbing. 

I worked as a cle rk in the Nov. 2 election. We were fairly close to the campus. Student after student came in to vote. Many of the students were not on our list of registered voters. All of the students not on our list said that they had registered to vote on campus. Of c ourse we gave them provisional ballots. 

The idea that provisional ballots were not kept in a secure place, were not carefully checked against an accurate list of registered voters, was news to me, depressing news.  

I believe that the national election w as changed by fraud. Until I read Debby Goldberg’s article, I believed that Berkeley election workers were honest and careful. Also I believed that every provisional ballot was checked efficiently against a 100 percent correct list of registered voters. N ow that I have read your article, I am very glad that there was a lawsuit and that the election outcome will be decided by the California Superior Court. 

Julia Craig 

• 

BROWER CENTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many thanks for the piece on the David Brower Cen ter. It is wonderful that the Design Review Board was so enthusiastic. Let’s hope the rest of the approval process proceeds quickly and without hindrance. 

The center will be a building to be proud of. Dave was one of Berkeley’s major contributions to the world, and his vision and brilliance are needed now more than ever. A state-of-the-art green building at the edge of the campus is the perfect monument to this extraordinary man and a wonderful vehicle to ensure that what he taught us over his long life is never forgotten but repeated and amplified until the world comes to its senses and stops destroying the life support systems we all depend on. 

Thanks again for the article. When do they expect to break ground? 

Tom Turner 

• 

MORE ON BROWER CENTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was with great interest that I read the account of the meeting where the initial structural plans for the David Brower Center/Oxford Plaza were unveiled (“Design Committee Praises Plan for Brower Center,” Daily Planet, Jan. 25-27). 

I was heartened that committee members saw the merits behind this proposed project, bound to be a positive community resource center in a city known for its environmental and social leadership. It will offer progressive nonprofit organizations a well-designed green space to share ideas and collaborate as they work toward similar goals—a point not to be taken for granted. 

And with its attention to resource efficiency, it will also act as a model for future development both in the Bay Area and beyond. 

I look forward to the day when the David Brower Center/Oxford Plaza is open for business. 

Sara Marcellino 

• 

TOM LAWRENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Tom Lawrence passed away last month, and many people may have noticed his obituary in the San Francisco Chroni cle. Tom was a great man, and educated man, a charming man and a generous man. If you needed to know anything about thrips, or what they could do to your garden, Tom was your man. Regularly strolling with his gangly gait down Shattuck, I loved running int o him and chatting. I’m certain he touched many, and I feel fortunate to have known him. He made the world a better place, an example to us all. God Speed, Tom. 

Tim Cannon 

• 

DENNEY’S CRITICISMS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

With reference to the article by Carol Denney, “Celebrating Poetry in the ‘Arts District’” (Daily Planet, Jan. 21-24), and Pepper Spray Times, Feb. 1-3, Ms. Denney has inaccurately stated that I apologized for the removal of her flyers taped to the sidewalk adjacent to the Poetry Panels in the Arts District. Ms. Denney’s flyers went far beyond “a gentle criticism,” but were instead offensive and dishonest to the writers and poets who are celebrated in these panels. After discussing the events of the day with Sherry Smith later, I fully supported what she and others did as an appropriate response to the “tagging.” I certainly did not apologize for Sherry or for anyone else. Those who removed the flyers did so properly and in respect for the artists and for the hundreds of poetry readers who came to enjoy the spoken word.  

In a printed handout she offered to the people waiting in line to attend the poetry reading, Ms. Denney continued in her misguided attempt to connect the tragic death of a disabled local activist in a traffic related incid ent on Ashby Avenue last year, to the construction of sidewalk improvements in the Arts District. This distortion lacks any reason or any truth, but somehow serves as “irony” in her view.  

While the Pepper Spray Times feature is intended to amuse and mil dly outrage your readers with little regard to the truth, her commentary article should at least be held to a higher level of honesty and some measure of objectivity. Ms. Denney, a well-educated person from a privileged family background, is a very talent ed and persistent critic of national and local political affairs, although in this matter she lacks the ability to distinguish criticism and irony from outright offensiveness and distortion of the facts.  

David Snippen 

Chair of the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission 

• 

TRAFFIC CALMING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dear Becky O’Malley: Gosh, you must be the most sensitive and unadaptable person in the world. Thirty years on Ashby, and the traffic noise still bothers you (“Traffic Calming Needed,” Daily Planet, Feb. 1-3). When I moved to an apartment on Telegraph Avenue, it took me all of a week to no longer hear the traffic, including the bus that stops on the corner. Ashby Avenue is a major thoroughfare—State Highway 13, I believe. Because it’s a narrow road, with a number of stoplights, it has always had backed up traffic. If traffic on Ashby were any “calmer” it would be permanent gridlock. Despite your protestations of affordability, you knew you were buying a house on a busy street, and I’m sure that even back in the ‘70s an address “east of College” was a whole lot finer and more expensive than one, say, west of Shattuck or even west of Sacramento, so you had other choices. 

Unless you want to shut off all freeway exits to Berkeley, make people give up their c ars within city limits, and institute a dictatorship to accomplish this, people will always need a way to get in, out and through Berkeley. There are too many people in the Bay Area, and there is no humane way to change that. You mention that it takes you a long time to get to your house by car on Ashby—so, you’re part of the problem. What, you say, you sometimes need to get out of town, maybe to a mall to buy things you can’t get in business-unfriendly Berkeley, or you have packages to carry, or you get tired walking, or the bus doesn’t come often enough? Guess what—that’s true for everyone else too. Making it even harder to drive in Berkeley for the benefit of individual neighborhoods and streets will make matters worse, and increase the incredible rude ness and road rage exhibited by our fellow citizens. There are no easy solutions as long as we live in a world with cars. 

As far as university-bashing goes: Without the University, Berkeley would be just a bump on the map, more akin to El Cerrito (this is not a criticism of El Cerrito—I’d live there in a minute if I could afford to rent one of those cute little houses in a friendly town with light traffic and an actual shopping center!) than to the intellectual and culinary center that it is today. Yes, much of the morning and evening traffic on main streets is university employees. If you want to help alleviate that, why not help lobby the university for a universal low-cost or free transit pass for employees? That might help a bit, but it won’t get rid of the problem of inadequate public transit and too many people—when parking spaces at BART stations are full by 6:30 a.m., people are less inclined to take the train. Oh, and about the West Berkeley Berkeley Bowl—there are no grocery stores in West Berk eley, let alone affordable ones. Give those folks buying tired lettuce at the liquor stores a break!  

Now, as far as your own situation, Ms. O’Malley: I’ve got the place for you—Weaverville, Calif., an old goldmining town in the Trinity Alps. A very smal l town—a village, really—which is beautiful, friendly, economically depressed. With the proceeds from selling your Berkeley home, you could buy up a nice-size chunk of town. Weaverville has an active historical society, and a local weekly, the Trinity Jou rnal, which actually provides balanced coverage of local events, and lobbies for things which need to be lobbied for, such as a parcel tax to keep the hospital from closing. You could move up there and start Big Trouble. Just make sure you don’t buy a house on Main Street (State Highway 299). The logging trucks will keep you awake at night, and the locals won’t take kindly to you petitioning for “traffic calming.” 

Aija Kanbergs 

Oakland 

• 

SMOKE-FILLED CARD ROOM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your recent article (“Urban Gambling: Godsend or Curse?” Daily Planet, Jan. 28-31) cited many concerns about the proposed expansion of Casino San Pablo, but didn’t mention the casino’s smoke-choked air. In 1995, Casino San Pablo was opened as a smoke-free establishment; six years later the venue was transferred to the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians. Under the tribe’s ownership, the casino’s smoke-free policy was rescinded, endangering the health and lives of its employees and patrons.  

The tribe plans to install ventilation s ystems rather than provide smoke-free air. Sadly, ventilation systems do not protect people from the health hazards caused by tobacco smoke. These systems merely address odor. The only solution is a smoke-free environment. As such, we strongly recommend t hat any compact approved include a provision requiring smoke-free air.  

If the Casino San Pablo is allowed to expand as proposed it would become California’s largest smoke-filled workplace. Employee and public safety should not be negotiable. Casino work ers should have the right to breathe smoke-free air just like employees in any other California workplace.  

Secondhand smoke is a leading cause of disease and premature death and has been classified by the EPA as a Class A carcinogen a toxin known to cau se cancer in humans and which has no safe level of exposure. 

Cynthia Hallett 

Executive Director 

Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights