A woman upset by the apparent violation of a city agreement to save eight New Zealand pine trees in front of the Central Library, halted the destruction of their concrete planter boxes and several remaining stumps Tuesday. 

When Berkeley resident Debbie Moore heard from a friend that the trees had been cut down she immediately went to the library and climbed into a 3-foot high concrete planter box on Shattuck Avenue near Kittredge Street where she had been arrested in November 1999 during a protest to save the trees. 

“I felt utter despair when I heard,” Moore said. “I felt really threatened by the fact that the city would come in and destroy these trees after they made a contract to save them.” 

Public Works engineer Sam Lee, who is in charge of the Shattuck Avenue Redevelopment Project, said the trees were deemed un-savable by Jerry Koch, who heads the city’s forestry division. Lee said Koch ordered the destruction of the trees and their planter boxes. The trees were cut down Tuesday morning by a work crew from Bauman Landscaping Co.  

The planter boxes were not demolished. 

Koch did not return calls to the Daily Planet before press time to respond to questions on the specifics of why the trees could not be saved. 

During the planning process for the Shattuck Avenue Redevelopment Project in 1998, there was a proposal to remove nearly all of the trees along Shattuck from University Avenue to Dwight Way. A protest, known as the Lorax Protest, ensued and the City Council ultimately adopted a compromise in which certain trees would not be cut down.  

The protest was named Lorax after a 1971 Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax.” 

Berkeley librarian Elizabeth Overmyer, said the story is about a cranky tree-Nome type character who tries to alert the world that the expansion of capitalism will result in the deforestation of the planet. 

The Parks and Waterfront and Planning departments determined which trees would be saved and which destroyed according to the health of individual trees and how their presence affected the redevelopment project. 

Assistant City Manager Michael Caplan said the list of trees to be saved was contained on what was known as the “dot map.” He did not have the map in his possession and the Daily Planet was unable to review a copy of it before press time. 

Councilmember Dona Spring said the eight trees in front of the Central Library were included among those to be saved. “There’s no doubt about it, those trees were to be moved and not killed,” Spring said. “It’s very upsetting that agreements and contracts are broken and there’s no accountability in the city of Berkeley.” 

Moore spent the morning and afternoon foiling the attempts of the work crew to jack hammer the planter boxes by moving from planter box to planter box.  

Moore said the foreman of the work crew asked police to arrest her but they refused because the containers are considered public property.  

Moore said she would remain in the planter box to make sure the work crew did not destroy the tree roots. “I know it’s not very pretty now, but this stump can be planted in People’s Park and it will still grow,” she said.  

The foreman of the work crew, which cut down the trees refused to give his name or comment as did the owner of the Richmond-based landscape company. 

The planter boxes were not demolished. 

Koch did not return calls to the Daily Planet before press time to respond to questions on the specifics of why the trees could not be saved. 

During the planning process for the Shattuck Avenue Redevelopment Project in 1998, there was a proposal to remove nearly all of the trees along Shattuck from University Avenue to Dwight Way. A protest, known as the Lorax Protest, ensued and the City Council ultimately adopted a compromise in which certain trees would not be cut down.  

The protest was named Lorax after a 1971 Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax.” 

Berkeley librarian Elizabeth Overmyer, said the story is about a cranky tree-Nome type character who tries to alert the world that the expansion of capitalism will result in the deforestation of the planet. 

The Parks and Waterfront and Planning departments determined which trees would be saved and which destroyed according to the health of individual trees and how their presence affected the redevelopment project. 

Assistant City Manager Michael Caplan said the list of trees to be saved was contained on what was known as the “dot map.” He did not have the map in his possession and the Daily Planet was unable to review a copy of it before press time. 

Councilmember Dona Spring said the eight trees in front of the Central Library were included among those to be saved. “There’s no doubt about it, those trees were to be moved and not killed,” Spring said.  

“It’s very upsetting that agreements and contracts are broken and there’s no accountability in the city of Berkeley.” 

Moore spent the morning and afternoon foiling the attempts of the work crew to jack hammer the planter boxes by moving from planter box to planter box.  

Moore said the foreman of the work crew asked police to arrest her but they refused because the containers are considered public property.  

Moore said she would remain in the planter box to make sure the work crew did not destroy the tree roots. “I know it’s not very pretty now, but this stump can be planted in People’s Park and it will still grow,” she said.  

The foreman of the work crew, which cut down the trees refused to give his name or comment as did the owner of the Richmond-based landscape company.

Wednesday, Mar. 21

Stagebridge Free Acting  

& Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit  

www.stagebridge.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering  

& Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets. 644-6226 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107 

Chimneys From A - Z  

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by Irish Sweep Sally McKnight.  

$35 525-7610 

Design Dung  

7 - 9 p.m.  

School of Journalism Library  

121 North Gate Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Part of the Terner Series, an informal salon-style discussion series, which brings together industry professionals, students, and interested community members. This session is a discussion of the failure to communicate good and bad architecture. Free 

Alzheimer’s Support Group 

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

For families and caregivers.  

Thursday, March 22

Trekking in Bhutan  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ruth Ann Kocour and Elizabeth Rassiga will share slides of their 25-day journey along the Snow Leopard Trek to the sacred mountain Chomolhari and beyond. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Ribbon Cutting  

& Evening Mixer  

5:30 - 7 p.m.  

National Car Rental  

920 University Ave.  

Sponsored by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Special drawing for a weekend rental of a 4x4.  

549-7003 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107. 

Basic Electrical Theory  

& National Electrical Code 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by author, speaker and retired City of Oakland Building Inspector Redwood Kardon. 

$35 525-7610 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays.  

Keeping the Commitment 

12:10 - 1:10 p.m. 

California Department of Health Services  

2151 Berkeley Way, Room 804 

The State Health Toastmasters present the sixth of six sessions to take the terror out of talking.  

649-7750 

Friday, March 23

Stagebridge Free Acting  

& Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Call 444-4755 or visit  

www.stagebridge.org 

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets. 644-6226 

“Jewish Holidays from  

a Secular Perspective”  

8 p.m.  

Albany Community Center  

1249 Marin Ave.  

Hershl Hartman, international authority on secular humanistic Judaism, will speak. Sponsored by Kol Hadash, Northern California Community for Humanistic Judaism. 428-1492 

— Compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

“Turandot” 

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

The opera.  

644-6107 

Commission on Disability 

Subcommittee on Transportation  

2:30 - 4:30 p.m. 

2180 Milvia St.  

Third Floor North, Maple Room 

The subcommittee will discuss the paratransit program, pedestrian access problems, AC Transit access issues and the Berkeley program of nightlights for wheelchair users. 

Saturday, March 24

Ashkenaz Dance-A-Thon 

2 p.m. - 2 a.m.  

Ashkenaz  

1370 San Pablo Ave.  

Join Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers along with African, Cajun, North African, Balkan, reggae, and Caribbean bands in this twelve hour dance music-fest. This is Ashkenaz big fundraiser for making improvements, including a new dance floor and ventilation system.  

$20 donation  

525-5054 or visit www.ashkenaz.com  

Disaster First Aid 

9 a.m. - Noon  

Emergency Operations Center 

997 Cedar St.  

A free class as part of Community Emergency Response Training (CERT). Sponsored by the Berkeley Fire Dept. and the Office of Emergency Services.  

Call 644-8736 

“LGBT Family Night at the Y” 

6 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley YMCA  

2001 Allston Way  

The third annual free night for gay and lesbian families at the Y. The event will feature floor hockey, swimming, soccer, basketball and other sports, as well as arts and crafts. Free; donation requested.  

Call 848-9622 

Diabetes & Cardiovascular Disease Health Clinic 

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church  

2024 Ashby Ave.  

Dr. Lenore Coleman, Bayer Clinical Science specialist and certified diabetes educator and Dr. Cassandra Herbert Whitman, Alta Bates Medical Associates will be available to answer questions. Free comprehensive screenings will be given people to identify cardiovascular risk factors. Free 

848-2050 

Energy Ideas for Remodeling  

9:30 - 11 a.m.  

City Energy Officer Neal De Snoo will conduct a seminar on the options available for incorporating energy efficient fixtures and systems into residential remodeling and renovation projects. Sponsored by Truitt & White Lumber Company of Berkeley. Free 

Call 649-2674 for reservations  

Visit www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/energy for info. on energy conservation and efficiency 

Hunger Hike in the Redwoods  

10 a.m.  

Joaquin Miller Park  

Ranger Station on Sanborn Dr.  

Oakland  

Join the Alameda County Community Food Bank for this educational hike. Enjoy the views while learning about local edible and medicinal plants. Bring a bag lunch.  

$25 donation  

834-FOOD x327 

“Five a Day from Local Farms & Gardens” 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.  

Berkeley Farmers Market  

Center St. @ MLK Jr. Way 

Sponsored by the Berkeley Food Policy Council and the Ecology Center there will be cooking demonstrations and samples of healthy, nutritious food, featuring seasonal produce. Free 

Compassionate Listening  

8 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. (at Rose) 

Hear Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener and three other local women report on their recent visit to Israel and Palestine. They listened to Israelis and Palestinians from a variety of political, religious and social perspectives tell their stories, hopes, fears and dreams. Donation requested. Proceeds benefit the Mideast Citizen Diplomacy.  

Live from Death Row 

2 p.m.  

YWCA  

1515 Webster St.  

Hosted by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), “Live From Death Row” is a public forum where death row inmates meet via speakerphone with a speakers’ panel and the general public to share their experiences of living with the brutal reality of capital punishment. Includes Nobel Peace Prize nominee and San Quentin death row inmate Stanley “Tookie” Williams.  

Sunday, March 25

Women in Science & Technology  

1 - 4 p.m.  

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley  

In celebration of Women’s History Month, LHS presents a day to inspire and inform students. Women who work in such fields as computer graphics, geology, and astronomy demonstrate how they use math, science, and technology in their professional lives. Free with museum admission.  

Passover Family Day  

12:30 - 3 p.m. 

Judah L. Magnes Museum  

2911 Russell St.  

Create a Passover seder plate, view Magnes treasures, see “Madame Matza Ball Celebrates Passover,” a puppet show for the tikes, enjoy free refreshments, and exchange recipes. 

Beth El question not about good works but good development 

Editor: 

Michael Fajans’ letter in the Berkeley Daily Planet (”Beth El’s a respected part of the community,” March 19) claims that Congregation Beth El’s power derives from the “Congregation’s many and ongoing contributions to the community.” Mr. Fajans then lists a number of ways in which Congregation Beth El and its membership is involved in the community. No one is disputing the involvement or value of Congregation Beth El’s membership in the community. 

What Mr. Fajans would have us ignore by his recitation of good works is the impact that the proposed synagogue and school would have upon the immediate neighborhood. Let’s ask Mr. Fajans if the good works of Congregation Beth El’s membership will do the following: 

• Keep car fluids (leaking oil, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, etc.) from running off their proposed driveway into Codornices Creek? 

• Result in daylighting the culverted portion of Codornices Creek at the site of the proposed project? 

• Ensure adequate parking on site for Congregation Beth El’s activities and services? 

• Ensure that Congregation Beth El’s hours of operation not interfere with the quiet and peaceful enjoyment of our homes? 

• Ensure that traffic on Spruce Street will not become a demolition derby should Congregation Beth El’s proposed driveway exit on Spruce Street near Berryman Path as currently planned? 

These questions and others have been asked for many months now by neighbors and have gone unanswered by Congregation Beth El’s leadership. Why? 

David A. Dempster 

Berkeley, CA  

Save money, nerves: use public transit 

Editor: 

Two interesting points Steve Geller (3/14) raised in his response to our letter concerning BUSD’s request for staff permits to daily park in residential parking zones I’d like to reply to: 

First, many may not realize that residents who live in RPP zones cannot park on their streets unless they pay for an annual stickers€“only non-area residents park for free. The city’s enforcement and monitoring is sufficiently haphazard that many commuters do park for free simply by moving their cars around. 

Secondly, it is not quite so simple as the streets are public property. As we understand it, each adjacent property owner owns property to the middle of the street and the city has an easement to use the area as a public right of way. Neither property owners nor the community have weighed in on how they (we) want the public right of way used. 

We join Mr. Geller in urging better transportation incentives and alternatives and thank him for raising our consciousness. Residents and non-residents alike would be surprised how much anxiety and money can be saved by using transit. Higher costs for and less access to parking will encourage more travelers to try public alternatives. 

Wendy L. Alfsen 

Berkeley 

High Tech products don’t stand up to high standards 

Editor: 

It’s no wonder that the market is teetering away these days. An honest look at the majority of hi-tech products just don’t hold up to reasonable standards of reliability and customer support. Networks are so overloaded that one wastes as much time as one saves just trying to get through to certain sites or completing a download without an unexplainable disconnect. Junk programs proliferate and are often just come-ons to lure “users” into paying for the upgrade that, perhaps, does what it claims. Tech-Support is often a hopeless labyrnthian ride to nowhere…and when you do get to talk to someone, you’re lucky if they know what they’re talking about.  

It is obvious that too many companies have greedily taken on more customers than they are capable of handling. Moreover, their software is highly fallible and frustrating to use. But rather than ‘fess up to this, they run their predictable mantras about ‘upgrades,’ re-configurations, refreshing your drivers, etc. ad nauseum. I suppose though, they are just riding the wave of nascent 21st century avarice and greed. It is this self-centered profligacy that has led to similar crisis in housing, energy, the ubiquitous rape of our natural resources and the protection of intellectual property. 

Meanwhile, consumers and even some businesses are finally showing some hard-earned caution and are pulling back from the madness. The market, accordingly, goes south. Frankly, I need a new computer just to keep up with it all. But I hesitate…… as I know it will probably take a good month of file transfers, program loading, re-connecting and spending precious evenings ‘on hold’ waiting for someone behind some firewall to waste more of my time. 

The hi-tech boom which propelled the euphoria of the 1990’s was built on an hysterically optimistic and in many ways, fraudulent foundation. But after all the cock-a-doodle-doin’…some folks are beginning to wake up, though there’s a lot less for all of us to roost on these days. 

Marc Winokur  

Oakland 

Stock market plunge reflects Bush’s tax cut plan 

Editor, 

Last November, a majority of the voters repudiated Bush’s economic plans and voted for Gore, but Bush’s fixers made him President anyway. Now, the stock market is showing its opinion of W’s tax plan and economic priorities. 

The multi-headed Market knows that a strong middle class is much more valuable to the economy than making a few rich people even richer. If “Humpty Dumpty” gets his tax cut, all the king’s fixers and all the kings men won’t be able to put the economy together again. 

Bruce Joffe 

Oakland 

End the drug war, legalize marijuana 

Editor: 

Cannabis has no lethal dose and its pharmacological effects have never caused a single death in over 5,000 years of recorded history. 

The (unseen) driving force against medical (or unrestricted adult) legalization of cannabis is the fact that cannabis can’t be patented. This precludes the need for big business to be involved and that fact makes cannabis commercially unattractive to the pharmaceutical, tobacco and alcohol industries (lobbies). It seems that if it can’t be profitized successfully the government can’t justify legalization even for the sick and dying. 

Furthermore, the war on cannabis drives the war on drugs. Without cannabis prohibition, the drug war would be reduced to a pillow fight. This is the politics and the economics of cannabis prohibition. 

Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party line of cannabis prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison and military industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the “drug treatment” industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians themselves et al can’t live without the budget justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them.  

Myron Von Hollingsworth 

Fort Worth, Texas 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership March 23: 18 Visions, Walls of Jericho, Time In Malta, Undying, Betray the Species; March 24: Workin’ Stiffs, The Bodies, Strychnine, East Bay Chasers, For the Alliance 525-9926  

Ashkenaz March 21, 9 p.m.: Gator Beat, dance lesson at 8 p.m.; March 22, 9:30: Groundation; March 23, 8 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Dead-A-Thon with Digital Dave, Legion of Mary, Cosmic Mercy; March 24, 2 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Ashkenaz fourth annual dance-a-thon featuring Lavay Smith, African, Caribbean, reggae, Balkan, North African and cajun bands for 12 hours of nonstop dance music; 1370 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Doors open at 8 p.m. March 23: Carlos Zialcita; March 24: Daniel Castro; March 30: Craig Horton Blues Band 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. March 21: Reverend Billy C. Wirtz; March 22: Sid Selvidge, Alan Smithline; March 23: Perfect Strangers; March 24: Barry & Alice Olivier; 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzschool/La Note All music at 4:30 p.m. March 22, 8 - 10 p.m.: Adult Big Band; March 25 & 27 - 29, 4 - 10 p.m.: Student Winter Recitals; April 8: The Marcos Silva Quartet; 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 or visit www.jazzschool.com  

Live Oak Concert Series All music at 7:30 p.m. March 25: Horizon Wind Quartet play music of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Ravel, Ligetti and others All concerts $8 - $10 Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Cal Performances March 23, 7 p.m. & March 24, 1 & 8 p.m.: “The King Stag: A Tragicomic Tale for the Theatre” by Carlo Gozzi $24 - $46; April 1, 3 p.m.: Pianist Richard Goode play the music of Bach, Chopin and Beethoven $28 - $48 Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu March 25, 3 p.m.: Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio perform music of Beethoven, Ravel and Tchaikovsky $32; Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

“An Afternoon of Song” with Elaine Bernstein March 25, 2 p.m. Bernstein, soprano and Sally Munro, mezzo, with Gwendolyn Mok at the piano, will perform a variety of duets from the operas “Hansel & Gretel,” “Cosi Fan Totte,” “Der Rosenkavaher,” and “Lakme,” and more. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra April 3 and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

New Century Chamber Orchestra present “Time Past and Time Present” March 22, 8 p.m. $25 - $30 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave. 415-392-4400 

BHS Jazz Ensemble March 23, 7:30 p.m. The spring concert performance from the award-winning jazz ensemble. Proceeds benefit the students who will travel to Europe this summer to perform in Italy and Switzerland. $5 - $8 Florence Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way  

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 21, 7 p.m.: Gay/Bi Men’s Book Group will discuss “Lost Language of Cranes” by David Leavitt; 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 21: Poetry of James Schevill; March 25: Poetry of Beverly Matherne & A.J. Rathbun; March 28: Poetry of Craig Van Riper & Jaime Robles; April 4: Poetry of Carole Simmons Oles & Matthew McKay 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 27: Travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, author of “The Practical Nomad” will provide essential tips, advice, and consumer skills for the independent traveler 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mike March 25, 2 p.m. Featuring poet Paradise Berkeley Art Museum 2621 Durant (at Bowditch) 527-9753 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

“Slam the Prisons” April 6, 6 p.m. - 1 a.m. A benefit for prison activism featuring Tang, Company of Prophets, Sheryl D. Mebane and many others. Proceeds benefit the defense of New Afrikan political prisoner Khalfani X. Khaldun and the Prison Activist Resource Center. $10 La Pena Cultural Center 3205 Shattuck Ave. 898-0431  

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

Lectures 

UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Research Seminars Noon seminars are brown bag  

April 23, 4 p.m.: Mary Dudziach of USC will discuss “Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.” 119 Moses Hall UC Berkeley 642-4608  

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Through April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

City Commons Club Lecture Series Fridays, 12:30 p.m. $1 general Students Free March 23: Guy Colwell, master painter of Nasters, will speak on “Using Painting to Teach Art History”; March 30: Jana Grittersova, professor of International Relations, UC Berkeley will speak on “The European Union - Integration and Expansion” Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 848-3533 

“Color, Color, Color” March 26, 7:30 p.m. A lecture by Christine Barnes which looks at three characteristics of color common to all quilts: Value, temperature and intensity. Free - $3 First Unitarian Church One Lawson Road Kensington 834-3706 

One class minus  

3 teachers equals negative learning 

Parents of Willard Middle School sixth-graders are concerned that an unusually high rate of teacher turnover in sixth-grade math has left their children far behind and in danger of failure through no fault of their own. 

“I’m not sure how much they’ve lost in the course of all these events,” said Willard parent Beverly Dynes, who has a daughter in one of the troubled math classes. “I’m just at a loss right now to know what to do.” 

The problems began in the fall when the students’ full-time math teacher, Ann Strong, was replaced by a substitute, parents said. In February, yet another substitute took over the class. And then he disappeared as well. 

“It’s a very unique situation,” said Berkeley Unified School District Associate Superintendent for Instruction Christine Lim. “It’s been a series of unfortunate situations,” she said. 

Parents said the situation deteriorated over the course of the year, with math class becoming more and more chaotic for their children. 

“There’s been very skimpy homework for the last three months, which is an indication that there is not a lot going on in the class,” Dynes said. 

Paco Montfort, who has a son is in one of the math classes, said the school district ought to consider providing summer classes to help the students get caught up. 

“There are only two months of classes left,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll be prepared for seventh-grade.” 

Last week two of Willard’s most experienced math teachers agreed to teach sixth-grade math for the rest of the year, even though it means giving up a preparation period to which they are entitled under contract, said Willard Vice Principal Ellen Dean. Dean said school administrators are confident these teachers will help the students overcome any deficits they may have developed in math.  

“Certainly everyone is aware of how disruptive the program has been,” Dean said. “Every effort is being made to make sure these children finish the school year with the same preparation as other children.”  

But, while parents report being impressed with the new teachers so far, they wonder if this solution might not be too little too late. 

Rebecca Poliskin said she plans to enroll her daughter in a UC Berkeley math class this summer to help make up the deficit.  

Dynes said she cannot afford to pay a tutor to help her daughter get up to speed. She plans to work with the youngster herself over the summer but, she said, “That’s really not a good solution. I don’t even know the curriculum.” 

“I’m concerned that she’ll fall behind and become discouraged and lose confidence in her abilities,” Dynes said. “It’s more than unfortunate. It can be a turning point in a kid’s life.” 

Dynes and Poliskin expressed frustration that, despite repeated efforts, they hadn’t been able to get Willard Principal Gail Hojo to respond to their continuing concerns.  

“She refused to acknowledge that there was a problem,” Poliskin said. 

Hojo did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story. 

Lim, a former principal at Willard, said she believed the problem is being solved by the students’ current teachers, who “know the curriculum and the community” and can “hit the ground running.” 

“We have a plan for the rest of the year that is going to stick and remain,” Lim said. “And it’s a good plan.”

The much anticipated Transportation Demand Management study, jointly sponsored by the city and the university, revealed some surprising facts about the state of parking in Berkeley: “Lack of parking has more to do with perception than reality,” said Jeffrey Tumlin, a principal for Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, the group which conducted the study.  

The $90,000, 18-monthlong study found the perceived scarcity stems from the fact that existing parking resources are poorly coordinated. Robert Wrenn, chair of the Planning Commission pointed out that evening visitors downtown complain that they can’t find parking although the Tang Center university parking lot on Bancroft Way is available – to those willing to pay the parking fee.  

“There was no time of day when the parking was completely full,” Tumlin told the audience of about thirty transportation-minded citizens during a presentation of the study Monday night. 

While UC Berkeley lots are at capacity at mid-day, only two of the four city lots are completely full, he said. 

The study also countered the notion that the city is on the verge of a major parking crisis. Downtown growth is estimated to be minimal over the next 10 years. According to the study, to accommodate an increase in the student and UC Berkeley employee population with single occupancy automobiles, 915 new parking spaces would be needed by 2010. The study also pointed out that minor increases in the use of bicycles and transit alternatives would easily accommodate the growth without requiring more parking spots. 

The question of new parking versus alternatives to the single-occupancy auto, was the center of most of the tension and disagreement amongst residents at the study’s unveiling.  

“It comes down to the values of the community; controlling parking is the tool of controlling congestion.” Tumlin said. 

Wrenn said when parking is cheap and easily available, people take their cars rather than using public transportation. When parking is more expensive and harder to find, they use other options. 

Wrenn said he believes the parking is appropriately dense. Citing the figure that parking density is usually at about 85 percent, he called that rate “good.”  

“It’s not easy to find a space but it’s not impossible.” 

Already many people in Berkeley use alternative modes of transportation to get to work or school. Only 15 percent of students, and about half of both UC Berkeley employees and other employees drive alone in their cars. But, the study suggested that those figures could decrease.  

“We need to focus the Transportation Demand Management on improving AC Transit, and the ability to walk and bike,” said Tumlin 

According to the study about 75 percent of people who work or study in Berkeley live within a seven miles of their destination. While people who live within three miles of Berkeley tend to use transportation alternatives, people living four miles or more away from their destination drive at the same rate as people coming from as far away as East Contra Costa County, he said.  

Although questions over parking caps and transit focus provoked controversy, Tumlin was surprised at how often people, “who had historically come down on the opposite sides of the fence,” agreed. The residential neighbors who want less traffic and fewer cars and the businesses that want more parking to bring people downtown both recognized that massive congestion would be a problem. Both sides want a livable city where people can live and play safely and comfortably, and they also want a vibrant and vital downtown.  

One possible mechanism to improve parking availability without increasing supply is to create a coordinating board with all the parking space owners in the city, to make sure that resources can be more flexible. One example of this, said UC Principal Planner Jennifer Lawrence, would be for the university to subsidize church parking lots that aren’t being used during the day, and offer church spaces for UC permit holders.  

But even that proposal is controversial, said graduate student Jonathan Kass, of Students for a Livable City. “There’s really a compromise in just managing parking more efficiently,” he said, because that means more cars and more traffic. 

The study, which examined the area surrounding the UC campus and the southside, did not provide any easy solutions for the community. Instead, the $90,000 Transportation Demand Management study will inform the Berkeley General Plan, the Southside Plan, and the UC development plan, all in progress. Now residents and planners must decide which options to use, according to their goals.  

Those priorities may become clearer when it comes time to allocate funds and hire people. “We need to look at it from a budget standpoint and figure out where we should put money,” said city Planning Director Wendy Cosin. “Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and get specific about what we can feasibly implement and what it would cost.” 

For some, Starbucks is java heaven. For others, it’s the enemy.  

Those who hold the latter view stood with placards and information sheets outside company branches across the country Tuesday, trying to get regulars to join a one-day boycott. 

“I don’t want corporations  

taking over our local coffee shops,” said Terri Compost of Oakland, as she distributed leaflets outside the Starbucks at Cedar Street and Shattuck Avenue. The local organizing group, which had set up a sidewalk stand offering free organic tea, came together through the Ecology Center where people were meeting over concerns about genetically-engineered foods. The national boycott was organized by the Minnesota-based Organic Consumers Association. 

Boycott efforts got a little help from PG&E’s rolling blackouts, Compost said with a laugh. On a more serious note, she pointed to Starbucks’ corporate culture: a Starbucks will come into town and locate near a competitor to drive it out of business, she said.  

There are problems with the brew itself, she said. Most of the coffee carried by Starbucks is not “fair-trade” coffee, which means that a third party certifies that workers who grow it are paid a fair wage. They do carry one fair-trade coffee, but only the beans. Protesters say they should promote brewed fair-trade coffee. 

Also, milk products sold at Starbucks contain Bovine Growth Hormone which organizers claim is associated with cancer. 

Starbucks prepared its response in a document signed by Orin Smith, president and executive officer. He said the company concluded its products are safe “either because they have been approved by government agencies or conform to governmental regulations.” 

As for the Bovine Growth Hormone in milk, Smith wrote: “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, American Medical Association, National Institute of Health and regulatory agencies in 30 countries take the position that milk from cows supplemented with ...(recombinant bovine somatropin) is no different from milk from untreated cows.” However, in response to concerns, the company is looking for an alternative which Smith said they expect to stock by the end of summer. 

Smith quotes Paul Rice, executive director of TransFair USA – the company that certifies fair trade coffee – saying: “Starbucks high-profile support for Fair Trade sends a powerful and visionary message to the rest of the coffee industry....”

The school board is expected to approve the 2001-2002 academic schedule for kindergarten through 12th-grade at its regular board meeting tonight. 

It will also consider passing a resolution that would call on actors and filmmakers to support films that do not glamorize the use of tobacco products, but rather “accurately” portray the “cosmetic, social and physical consequences of tobacco use.” 

Although California’s teen smoking rates are the lowest in the country at 6.4 percent, smoking in feature films is on the rise, according to a report prepared by school district staff. 

In other business, the board will consider entering into an agreement with the Albany– Berkeley Girls Softball League to build a new softball field at Longfellow Arts & Technology Magnet Middle School, decide whether to approve, in concept, a plan for working with the city and UC Berkeley to construct affordable housing for district employees over the Ashby BART station’s parking lot, and hear a status report from the district’s Energy Conservation Committee.

NEW YORK — Investors, disappointed by the Federal Reserve’s latest interest rate cut, turned their fury on Wall Street yet again Tuesday, sending prices skidding and leaving the Dow Jones industrials at their lowest level in two years. 

Many investors had hoped the Fed would slash rates by an aggressive 0.75 percentage point, but when the central bank announced in mid-afternoon it was lowering rates by 0.50 for the third time this year, stocks began to slide. 

The decline continued the massive selloff that last week gave the Dow its biggest one-week point drop ever. Analysts called the market’s mood about as grim as the litany of profit warnings that have pulled Wall Street’s major indexes into bear market territory. 

“Negative psychology is increasing and confidence is eroding,” said Alan Ackerman, executive vice president of Fahnestock & Co. “It is fair to say, with prices drifting downward, everything appears to be for sale from Main Street to Wall Street.” 

The Dow ended a heavily traded session down 238.35 at 9,720.76 The last time the Dow closed lower was March 24, 1999, when it dropped 154.90 to 9,666.84. 

The market was disappointed by the Fed, Ackerman said, because the central bank needed to “do something dramatic to show that it recognizes the need for improved confidence,” among consumers and investors. Many investors believed an extraordinarily large rate cut was needed to prompt consumers and businesses to increase spending and reinvigorate the economy. 

Tuesday’s drop left the Dow, which has now lost 1,137.49 over the past eight sessions, down 17 percent from its high close of 11,722.98, reached Jan. 14, 2000. 

The Nasdaq, meanwhile, is off more than 63 percent from its own high close of 5,048.62, reached March 10, 2000, and the S&P 500 has lost more than a quarter of its value since peaking at 1,527.46 a year ago. 

Investors also sold amid confusion about just how much the economy is hurting, because data is unclear about the extent to which growth has slowed, said Ronald J. Hill, investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. He noted, for example, that while slumping consumer demand has created big inventory gluts, employment remains strong. 

“The market is sort of groping for a bottom. We haven’t had a real cathartic selloff, but last week felt pretty ugly,” Hill said. 

Wall Street’s pessimism has been increasing since last week’s debacle that gave the Dow its worst-ever weekly point drop of 821.21. 

The companies whose bleak outlooks helped trigger last week’s selloff also fell sharply Tuesday. Compaq Computer declined 85 cents to $17.75, while Oracle tumbled $1.06 to $14.38. 

Last week’s blue chip decline, which was also spurred by bad economic news from Japan, particularly rattled investors because such routs had been largely confined to the tech-laden Nasdaq. Investors had bid blue chips higher, believing the broader market was mostly intact despite the cooling economy. 

Now investors are worried about the degree to which non-tech companies stand to suffer from the slowing economy. Investors interpreted the slimmer cut by the Fed as reason to punish economically sensitive sectors such as financial and retailing stocks, along with consumer cyclicals like auto shares. 

General Motors, which is idling two assembly plants this week as it whittles down inventories, fell $1.10 to $55.19. 

Retailing stocks fell as investors bet that consumers would continue to curb their spending. Electronics retailer Best Buy plunged $2.40 to $41.60. 

Likewise, financial stocks traded lower on the notion that consumers and businesses will borrow less. Citigroup stumbled $2 to $44.30. 

Declining issues outnumbered advancers nearly 18 to 13 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume was 1.45 billion shares, ahead of 1.32 billion on Monday. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller companies stock, fell 6.79 to 444.48. 

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average slipped 0.3 percent amid fears that deflation and banking problems would cripple the economy. 

However, stocks in Europe moved higher. Germany’s DAX index rose 2.2 percent, Britain’s FT-SE 100 advanced 1.7 percent, and France’s CAC-40 climbed 1.8 percent.

The City Council will decide tonight whether to hear an appeal by developers of a proposed four-story project consisting of 48 units of housing with a floor of commercial space at 2700 San Pablo Ave. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board denied the 44,300-square-foot project in November by a vote of 7-0 with two abstentions because it said the project was too dense and too tall. Developers argue in their appeal that the project conforms with the West Berkeley Plan, which calls for increased housing stock and more neighborhood-oriented businesses.  

It is likely the City Council will accept the city manager’s recommendation and set a public hearing on the appeal for April 24.  

The project includes 5,400-square-feet of commercial space that will likely be used as a “quick service food” outlet. In addition, the housing units will include nine units of affordable housing. 

Councilmember Miriam Hawley said she will recuse herself from voting on any aspect of the appeal at the recommendation of City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque. According to Hawley, Albuquerque said she has a conflict of interest because of a letter she wrote last June to the ZAB supporting denser development along transit lines. Hawley was an AC Transit Director at the time. 

“My philosophy is that if I ask the city attorney’s opinion, I will follow her advice,” Hawley said. “I think we have a good and conscientious city attorney and if we don’t have faith in her judgment we’re in trouble.” 

During the November permit hearing, the developers of the project, Panoramic Interests and the nonprofit Jubilee Restoration, refused an offer from ZAB members to reduce the size of the project by one story, which board members said would likely be approved.  

Panoramic Interest project manager Chris Hudson told the board that the project was appropriate for the site and the developers would rather take their chances by appealing to the City Council. 

“Our plans are still the same as they were in November,” Hudson said. “We feel that the ZAB didn’t consider what the West Berkeley Plan, a plan that took 10 years and a whole lot of neighborhood input to make, calls for.” 

The project has faced strong opposition by a group known as Neighbors for Responsible Development. They submitted a petition with over 400 signatures from neighbors who are against the size of the project. 

NRD member Howie Muir said in a letter to county and state representatives that the project site is surrounded with one and two-story private homes and “the proposed design is hugely out of scale: it is too high, too massively composed, and too densely populated for its location.” 

Muir said 20 percent of the vacant and under utilized lots in Berkeley are on San Pablo and his group has fought the size of the development because they are concerned it will set a tone for future development. 

“We’d love to see development along San Pablo, just not this type of oversized design,” he said. 

Former ZAB member Ted Gartner, who voted against the project in November, said it was frustrating dealing with the developers because they resisted most of the ZAB’s suggestions. “They flatly refused to take mind of suggestions from the Design Review Board and the ZAB,” Gartner said. “Clearly they felt confident they would be able to get what they wanted from the City Council.” 

Gartner said his appointing councilmember, Margaret Breland, removed him from the ZAB in January because of differing visions about future development on San Pablo Avenue. 

Jubilee Restoration project manager Gordon Choyce said the developers have not made any plans in case the appeal is denied. “We’re pretty optimistic about the project being approved,” he said. “City staff has consistently recommended that the project be approved and we’re confident the project meets zoning requirements.” 

Tuesday, March 20

“Great Decisions” - Mexico Reexamined  

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Fibromyalgia Support Group  

Noon - 2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way  

Don Hill, RPH, BS, Pharmacist, will discuss “FM/A Generalized Review of Medications.” Free 

204-4503 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 10 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

A movie night extravaganza featuring “The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.” Pizza, sodas, and even sushi. Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Berkeley Intelligent  

Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is death and dying in celebration of the Ides of March. 527-9772  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Lavendar Lunch 

12:30 - 1:30 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave.  

Mudd Bldg., Room 103  

Unitarian-Universalist minister Sean Parker Dennison discusses his experiences as a transgender minister working in parish ministry.  

849-8206 

Rethinking Creation  

7 p.m. 

Tucson Common Room  

Church Divinity School of the Pacific 

2450 Le Conte Ave.  

Dr. Sjoerd L. Bonting will speak on “Rethinking Creation: ‘Chaos Events’ and Theology.”  

Call 848-8152 

TREES Forum  

12:30 p.m. 

Hewlett Library  

2400 Ridge Rd., Dinner Board Room  

Marty Kheel will present “Women, Animals and Nature: Eco-feminist Reflections.”  

trees@gtu.edu 

Debate Lobbying 

Noon  

Harris Room  

119 Moses Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Kevin Esterling, Robert Wood Johnson Fellow, UC Berkeley, will discuss “Does Policy Research Matter in Lobbying Debates?” Bring a brown bag lunch. Free. 

Advice for Life  

12:30 - 2:30 p.m. 

Albany Senior Center 

646 Masonic Ave.  

Albany  

A series of Tuesday presentations and discussions that will cover: Memory loss, assertiveness, loss, grief, insight into life changes, opening communication in relationships, and independence in the later years. Free  

Wednesday, Mar. 21

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering  

& Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets. 644-6226 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107. 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Chimneys From A - Z  

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by Irish Sweep Sally McKnight.  

$35  

525-7610 

Design Dung  

7 - 9 p.m.  

School of Journalism Library  

121 North Gate Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Part of the Terner Series, an informal salon-style discussion series, which brings together industry professionals, students, and interested community members. This session is a discussion of the failure to communicate good and bad architecture. Free 

Alzheimer’s Support Group 

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

For families and caregivers.  

Thursday, March 22

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Anna Mae Stanley and host Louis Cuneo.  

644-0155 

Trekking in Bhutan  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ruth Ann Kocour and Elizabeth Rassiga will share slides of their 25-day journey along the Snow Leopard Trek to the sacred mountain Chomolhari and beyond. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Ribbon Cutting & Evening Mixer  

5:30 - 7 p.m.  

National Car Rental  

920 University Ave.  

Sponsored by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Special drawing for a weekend rental of a 4x4.  

549-7003 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107. 

Basic Electrical Theory & National Electrical Code 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by author, speaker and retired City of Oakland Building Inspector Redwood Kardon. 

$35  

525-7610 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Keeping the Commitment 

12:10 - 1:10 p.m. 

California Department of Health Services  

2151 Berkeley Way, Room 804 

The State Health Toastmasters present the sixth of six sessions to take the terror out of talking.  

649-7750 

Friday, March 23

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets.  

Call 644-6226 

“Jewish Holidays from a Secular Perspective”  

8 p.m.  

Albany Community Center  

1249 Marin Ave.  

Albany  

Hershl Hartman, international authority on secular humanistic Judaism, will speak. Sponsored by Kol Hadash, Northern California Community for Humanistic Judaism.  

428-1492 

“Turandot” 

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

The opera.  

644-6107 

Commission on Disability 

Subcommittee on Transportation  

2:30 - 4:30 p.m. 

2180 Milvia St.  

Third Floor North, Maple Room 

The subcommittee will discuss the paratransit program, pedestrian access problems, AC Transit access issues and the Berkeley program of nightlights for wheelchair users. 

Saturday, March 24

Ashkenaz Dance-A-Thon 

2 p.m. - 2 a.m.  

Ashkenaz  

1370 San Pablo Ave.  

Join Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers along with African, Cajun, North African, Balkan, reggae, and Caribbean bands in this twelve hour dance music-fest. This is Ashkenaz big fundraiser for making improvements, including a new dance floor and ventilation system.  

$20 donation  

525-5054 or visit www.ashkenaz.com  

Disaster First Aid 

9 a.m. - Noon  

Emergency Operations Center 

997 Cedar St.  

A free class as part of Community Emergency Response Training (CERT). Sponsored by the Berkeley Fire Dept. and the Office of Emergency Services.  

Call 644-8736 

“LGBT Family Night at the Y” 

6 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley YMCA  

2001 Allston Way  

The third annual free night for gay and lesbian families at the Y. The event will feature floor hockey, swimming, soccer, basketball and other sports, as well as arts and crafts. Free; donation requested.  

Call 848-9622 

Diabetes & Cardiovascular Disease Health Clinic 

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church  

2024 Ashby Ave.  

Dr. Lenore Coleman, Bayer Clinical Science specialist and certified diabetes educator and Dr. Cassandra Herbert Whitman, Alta Bates Medical Associates will be available to answer questions. Free comprehensive screenings will be given people to identify cardiovascular risk factors. Free 

848-2050 

Energy Ideas for Remodeling  

9:30 - 11 a.m.  

City Energy Officer Neal De Snoo will conduct a seminar on the options available for incorporating energy efficient fixtures and systems into residential remodeling and renovation projects. Sponsored by Truitt & White Lumber Company of Berkeley. Free 

Call 649-2674 for reservations  

Visit www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/energy for info. on energy conservation and efficiency 

Hunger Hike in the Redwoods  

10 a.m.  

Joaquin Miller Park  

Ranger Station on Sanborn Dr.  

Oakland  

Join the Alameda County Community Food Bank for this educational hike. Enjoy the views while learning about local edible and medicinal plants. Bring a bag lunch.  

$25 donation  

834-FOOD x327 

“Five a Day from Local Farms & Gardens” 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.  

Berkeley Farmers Market  

Center St. @ MLK Jr. Way 

Sponsored by the Berkeley Food Policy Council and the Ecology Center there will be cooking demonstrations and samples of healthy, nutritious food, featuring seasonal produce. Free 

Compassionate Listening  

8 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. (at Rose) 

Hear Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener and three other local women report on their recent visit to Israel and Palestine. They listened to Israelis and Palestinians from a variety of political, religious and social perspectives tell their stories, hopes, fears and dreams. Donation requested. Proceeds benefit the Mideast Citizen Diplomacy.  

Live from Death Row 

2 p.m.  

YWCA  

1515 Webster St.  

Hosted by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), “Live From Death Row” is a public forum where death row inmates meet via speakerphone with a speakers’ panel and the general public to share their experiences of living with the brutal reality of capital punishment. Includes Nobel Peace Prize nominee and San Quentin death row inmate Stanley “Tookie” Williams.  

Sunday, March 25

Women in Science & Technology  

1 - 4 p.m.  

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley  

In celebration of Women’s History Month, LHS presents a day to inspire and inform students. Women who work in such fields as computer graphics, geology, and astronomy demonstrate how they use math, science, and technology in their professional lives. Free with museum admission.  

Passover Family Day  

12:30 - 3 p.m. 

Judah L. Magnes Museum  

2911 Russell St.  

Create a Passover seder plate, view Magnes treasures, see “Madame Matza Ball Celebrates Passover,” a puppet show for the tikes, enjoy free refreshments, and exchange recipes. 

Proposed regs for medical pot already found viable 

By Don Duncan  

Tonight the City Council will once again take up the issue of medical cannabis use in Berkeley (Pot growing limits on council agenda, Weekend, March 17-18, 2001). The medical cannabis ordinance before the council is virtually identical to the policy adopted by the city of Oakland more than three years ago. It allows patients to possess quantities of medication and grow a number of plants based on the Federal Investigational Use Program that currently supplies medical cannabis to nine patients in the United States.  

The Oakland protocols have been remarkably successful at protecting the health and safety of patients, while setting clear and consistent guidelines for the community. No one in Oakland – including the police department, health officials, or civic leaders – believes that the protocols have led to widespread abuse or an increase in crime. 

The Berkeley City Council has the rare opportunity to adopt a policy that has already been tested in a neighboring city. Unfortunately, the Department of Public Health has joined the City Manager and City Attorney’s office in opposing this important measure. Despite their public statements, this opposition from city staff is clearly not based on the facts. 

At a special meeting of the Community Health Commission on January 25, expert witnesses testified that the Oakland protocols were more likely to provide for the needs of patients than the arbitrary limits set by city staff in their counter-proposal. In fact, one cannabis cultivation expert dismissed the staff’s 10-plant limit as "utopian." Federal studies have shown that a variety of factors contribute to plant yields – most importantly the skill of the individual cultivator. City staff chose to ignore the testimony of doctors, cultivation experts, and patients by submitting a highly restrictive version of the ordinance. Additionally, city staff has again defied the wisdom of the Community Health Commission, which has twice voted in favor of the Oakland protocols. 

The Community Health Commission made its decision after hours of testimony and weeks of consideration. The Council should listen to the commission and adopt the medical cannabis ordinance as approved by its members. The city staff’s recommendation is arbitrary and does not protect patients. It may also leave the city vulnerable to more lawsuits and legal challenges from patients and their loved ones. 

We must urge the City Council to see past the staff’s rhetoric and remember the overwhelming mandate of Proposition 215. More than 85 percent of Berkeley residents voted to support medical marijuana. We must adopt local guidelines that protect patients and set reasonable limits. 

Don Duncan is the director of the Berkeley Patients’ Group 

Glory-seeking authorities must slow down when at the wheel 

By Raymond A. Chamberlin 

Year after year the California Highway Patrol and nearly all its local emulators around this state pursue their real-fun road game of chase a drunk, teenage thrill-seeker or whatever – anyone who is, at the time, mentally unfit to drive a car in a normal manner, let alone as chased at speeds well over double the speed limit – into any innocent bystander or other handy obstacle.  

Public safety is totally subordinated here to 'get your man', regardless of the relative risk of not doing so within the chase. That is the rule of our glory-seeking authorities. Somebody ends up killed? Just label the crazed fugitive as the murderer and the presumed cool-headed pursuers as heroes totally free of fault. 

A year and a half ago it was a woman pedestrian in Oakland at a busy hour in the morning next to a high school – knocked thoroughly dead against a gas pump. The fugitive had merely displayed unsafe driving and was not wanted on warrant for any crime. So the Oakland Police chasers made up a false and very corny story that the fugitive had threatened one of them with his vehicle.  

The fugitive ended up getting nine years for manslaughter but the woman is still very dead. 

Early this Wednesday morning, it was a man driving legally on Berkeley streets – crunched indisputably dead in his totaled automobile. The fugitive is said to have been driving under the influence and was known to have a warrant out against him for a previous DUI. The authorities are thinking of charging him with second-degree murder – whatever will improperly establish him as the killer – while these police, whose heads we’re supposed to think of as having been clear at the time, were obviously the cause of this innocent driver's death. 

Particularly, in this state, whose Southland has long been entertained by hot pursuit, we are just on the street as clay pigeons, at the mercy of our police authorities.  

We're told, though, that Berkeley's police are much more restricted as to when and how they may chase. But what is the actual legal setting that perpetuates, in this state, the equivalent of human sacrifices to the gods as once practiced in primitive societies? 

Look up California Vehicle Code Sections 17004 and 17004.7: 

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=3904613307+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve 

Those are the code sections that give the CHP and its local copycats license to kill anything in the path of anyone they take a fancy to chase. None of us who legally walk the sidewalks or drive the streets of this state will ever be safe from the police until we get the members of our Legislature to CHANGE THIS OUTRAGEOUS LAW! 

Raymond A. Chamberlin lives in Berkeley. 

Reviewer got play’s essence  

Editor: 

I have frequently admired John Angell Grant's excellent reviews but have been slow to write to you. The review of “Agamemnon” was especially fine. Without talking down to readers, Grant managed to convey the essence of the play in recognizable contemporary language. I always look forward to his reviews. 

Estelle Jelinek 

Berkeley 

$1.44 billion but not for housing  

Editor: 

No matter how you look at it and no matter how it’s raised, $1.44 billion – raised by UC Berkeley alumni since 1993 for the “New Century Plan” – is a whole lot of money. I’m still blown away, and before I get any further let me congratulate all who helped achieve that amazing feat. 

But let’s not get too carried away. Some great stuff will undoubtedly come out of that gargantuan effort, but there was also something that was noticeably lacking in everything that I read about the UC Berkeley New Century Campaign. While there were a few programs that seemed to directly benefit undergraduate students, including scholarships and research 

programs, the one program that students repeatedly say is their No. 1 priority was totally ignored. In short, where the heck are students going to live? With $1.44 billion on hand, you would think that there would some interest in beginning to address a situation that is already at crisis levels. The housing situation has reached an emergency level, but we still don’t seem to be getting much help. 

While I occasionally enjoy the benefits of the new Haas Pavilion, it seems odd that the sports facility is the headliner in the plan’s “Improving Undergraduate Life” category, while housing and so many other important student issues didn’t even receive an honorable mention. Who set these priorities, anyway? If I had anything to do with it, the basketball teams would still be playing in Harmon Gym (which some say was one of the best in the land) and all students would have close, safe, affordable housing. But, then again, nobody seemed to ask me what I thought was most important. 

Now is the time to take serious action to address the housing emergency. Actually, the time was about ten years ago, so we have some catching up to do. With $52.6 million in unrestricted gifts to the Chancellor’s Millennium Fund, Berdahl could do a great deal to help, even with just 1 or 2 percent of his stash. For example, the Cooperative Student Association, which manages all the student-run coops, offered to cover all capital costs for construction 

and expansion of student housing, in exchange for a very low lease on available university-owned land. The Berkeley community has been supportive of the idea of increasing student housing, yet Berdahl turned them down. 

The university’s obsession with cars also hurts students and the greater community. Even though nearly 3/4 of students who commute to Cal would trade in their car if they could live close to campus, the Chancellor still seems to prioritize parking over housing. 

And don’t think the housing situation is going to get any better, either. If you haven’t heard yet, a tidal wave is about to crash on our campus and across the UC system.  

Tidal Wave II is expected to increase the whole UC population by about 64,000 by the end of the decade, and bring about 4,000 more students to our own home-away-from-home. The university’s gracious 

response to absorb this increased pressure on the dwindling housing stock is a planned increase of about 900-1000 beds over that same time period. That means 3000 more people fighting over your next apartment, or backyard shack if you’re lucky. Good luck! 

David Nabti 

Student, UC Berkeley 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm.”An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels like an earthworm, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “The Mule Train: A Journey of Hope Remembered” through March 26. “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Through May 27. The selections include 150 collages, assemblages, paintings, drawings, and book covers. Brainard’s art is characterized by its humor and exhuberant color, and by its combinations of media and subject matter; Muntadas - On Translation: The Audience, Through April 29. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. 642-0808. 

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery” A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection. “Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. “Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. “Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 642-0808 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 by 40-foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. “Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology “Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended. This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history.“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing.This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. $2 general; $1 seniors; $.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership March 23: 18 Visions, Walls of Jericho, Time In Malta, Undying, Betray the Species; March 24: Workin’ Stiffs, The Bodies, Strychnine, East Bay Chasers, For the Alliance; March 30: Deathreat, Ahimsa, F*** God In the Face, The Black, Creation Is Crucifixion; March 31: The Jocks, The Cost, The Fleshies, Quest for Quintana Roo, Chi Chi Nut Nut & The Pinecone Express 525-9926  

Ashkenaz March 20, 9 p.m.: Brass Menagerie, dance lesson at 8 p.m.; March 21, 9 p.m.: Gator Beat, dance lesson at 8 p.m.; March 22, 9:30: Groundation; March 23, 8 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Dead-A-Thon with Digital Dave, Legion of Mary, Cosmic Mercy; March 24, 2 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Ashkenaz fourth annual dance-a-thon featuring Lavay Smith, African, Caribbean, reggae, Balkan, North African and cajun bands for 12 hours of nonstop dance music; May 6, 7 p.m.: Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble 1370 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Doors open at 8 p.m. March 23: Carlos Zialcita; March 24: Daniel Castro; March 30: Craig Horton Blues Band 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. March 21: Reverend Billy C. Wirtz; March 22: Sid Selvidge, Alan Smithline; March 23: Perfect Strangers; March 24: Barry & Alice Olivier; March 25: Boogie Woogie Piano Cavalcade w/Beverly Stovall, Sue Palmer, Wendy De Witt, Big Joe Duskin; March 27: Maria Muldaur; March 28: Todd Phillips, David Grier & Matt Flinner; March 29: Tom Paxton; March 30 & 31: House Jacks 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzschool/La Note All music at 4:30 p.m. March 22, 8 - 10 p.m.: Adult Big Band; March 25 & 27 - 29, 4 - 10 p.m.: Student Winter Recitals; April 8: The Marcos Silva Quartet; April 15: Art Lande and Mark Miller; April 22: Alan Hall & Friends; April 29: Nancy King/Rob Scheps/Glen Moore Trio 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 or visit www.jazzschool.com  

Live Oak Concert Series All music at 7:30 p.m. March 25: Horizon Wind Quartet play music of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Ravel, Ligetti and others All concerts $8 - $10 Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Cal Performances March 23, 7 p.m. & March 24, 1 & 8 p.m.: “The King Stag: A Tragicomic Tale for the Theatre” by Carlo Gozzi $24 - $46; April 1, 3 p.m.: Pianist Richard Goode play the music of Bach, Chopin and Beethoven $28 - $48 Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu March 25, 3 p.m.: Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio perform music of Beethoven, Ravel and Tchaikovsky $32; Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

“An Afternoon of Song” with Elaine Bernstein March 25, 2 p.m. Bernstein, soprano and Sally Munro, mezzo, with Gwendolyn Mok at the piano, will perform a variety of duets from the operas “Hansel & Gretel,” “Cosi Fan Totte,” “Der Rosenkavaher,” and “Lakme,” and more. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra April 3 and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

New Century Chamber Orchestra present “Time Past and Time Present” March 22, 8 p.m. $25 - $30 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave. 415-392-4400 

BHS Jazz Ensemble March 23, 7:30 p.m. The spring concert performance from the award-winning jazz ensemble. Proceeds benefit the students who will travel to Europe this summer to perform in Italy and Switzerland. $5 - $8 Florence Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way  

The Berkeley Opera presents “The Marriage of Figaro” March 23 - April 1, call for specific times $10 - $30 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Solo Opera Opera Gala Concert March 23, 8 p.m. $25 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave. 925-685-4945 or e-mail: solomail@pacbell.net 

Rebecca Riots March 24, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. $12 - $14 Club Muse 856 San Pablo Ave. Albany 528-2878 

Benefit Concert for the Xiana Fairchild Volunteer Center March 25, 7:30 p.m. Featuring The Sick, Simplistic, Mastema, Drain, and an all-star jam with surprise guests. All proceeds to benefit the volunteer center. 18 and over show. $8 Blake’s on Telegraph 2367 Telegraph Ave. 848-0886  

Music in Great Berkeley Houses March 31, 7 p.m. $35 Gwendolyn Mok, piano, and Jean-Michel Fonteneau, cello, will play the music of Frank Bridge, Debussy, and Poulenc. Palache House Reserved tickets required 841-2242 

“How Desolate Lies the City...” March 31, 8 p.m. The cantatas of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries. $20 - $37 First Congregational Church of Berkeley 2345 Channing Way 415-621-7900 

Jesus Diaz y su QBA March 31, 9:30 p.m. Cuban timba dance music. $12 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568  

Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble Brunch April 1, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Free - $40 Santa Fe Bar & Grill 1310 University Ave. 527-8245 

“From Broadway to Brazil” April 1, 4 p.m. Berkeley Broadway Singers is a 70-member chorus led by Ellen Hoffman. They will be singing Motown classics along with class Broadway showtunes Free Saint Ambrose Church 1145 Gilman St. 524-0107 

Trio Accorde April 1, 7:30 p.m. $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley One Lawson Road Kensington 525-0302 

Hillbillies From Mars April 8, 2 p.m. Rocking the Bay for twenty years, the Hillbillies fuse rock n’ roll, swing, Latin and African beats. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

“Bravo! Opera!” April 8, 7:30 p.m. A veritable Opera chorus smorgasbord with Bizet’s “Carmen,” Verdi’s “IL trovatore,” and Copland’s “The Tenderland.” $8 - $12 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 643-9645 

Young Emerging Artists Concert April 10, 7 - 8 p.m. The Young Musicians Program Jazz Combo will perform jazz standards and original compositions. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798 

“Under Construction No. 11” April 8, 7:30 p.m. A concert of new works by local composers, including Mary Stiles, Mark Winges, and David Sheinfeld. Free St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 21, 7 p.m.: Gay/Bi Men’s Book Group will discuss “Lost Language of Cranes” by David Leavitt; March 24, 7 p.m.: Aliza Sherman will read and sign “Cybergrrl@Work: Tips and Inspiration for the Professional You” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 21: Poetry of James Schevill; March 25: Poetry of Beverly Matherne & A.J. Rathbun; March 28: Poetry of Craig Van Riper & Jaime Robles; April 4: Poetry of Carole Simmons Oles & Matthew McKay; 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 27: Travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, author of “The Practical Nomad” will provide essential tips, advice, and consumer skills for the independent traveler; March 29: Katherine Widing, author of “Cycling France” will give a slide presentation/talk on just that 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mike March 25, 2 p.m. Featuring poet Paradise Berkeley Art Museum 2621 Durant (at Bowditch) 527-9753 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

“Slam the Prisons” April 6, 6 p.m. - 1 a.m. A benefit for prison activism featuring Tang, Company of Prophets, Sheryl D. Mebane and many others. Proceeds benefit the defense of New Afrikan political prisoner Khalfani X. Khaldun and the Prison Activist Resource Center. $10 La Pena Cultural Center 3205 Shattuck Ave. 898-0431  

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

Lectures 

UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Research Seminars Noon seminars are brown bag  

April 23, 4 p.m.: Mary Dudziach of USC will discuss “Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.” 119 Moses Hall UC Berkeley 642-4608  

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Through April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

City Commons Club Lecture Series Fridays, 12:30 p.m. $1 general Students Free March 23: Guy Colwell, master painter of Nasters, will speak on “Using Painting to Teach Art History”; March 30: Jana Grittersova, professor of International Relations, UC Berkeley will speak on “The European Union - Integration and Expansion” Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 848-3533 

“Color, Color, Color” March 26, 7:30 p.m. A lecture by Christine Barnes which looks at three characteristics of color common to all quilts: Value, temperature and intensity. Free - $3 First Unitarian Church One Lawson Road Kensington 834-3706 

City Council members, community activists and others gathered late Monday afternoon to celebrate the first day of training for the Berkeley Police Department in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. 

When the training is complete, the Berkeley Police Department will be the first department in the county and possibly the world to train all its employees in LGBT issues, said City Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

The goal of the training is to improve the manner in which police “approach, react to, connect with and respond to the transgender community in Berkeley,” said Darryl Moore, senior management analyst for the public works department and an early advocate of the training. 

“Last year in San Francisco alone over half of all violent incidents against (the LGBT community) were perpetrated by police or security personnel,” said Catherine Ahn, a senator for the Associated Students of the University of California at Berkeley. 

“How (police) treat minorities is important for everybody because it sets the standard,” said Berkeley resident Laura Mankikar, whose partner is transsexual. 

City Councilmember Dona Spring said the training is important because it will help police “understand the discrimination that (gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender) people face and the hate crimes they can be subjected to.” 

“In some places in this country gays and lesbians are losing their rights,” Spring said. “This legitimizes their gains and issues (in Berkeley). It’s really a conscious-raising event.” 

Police will be trained in groups of 25-30 over the next couple of months, Worthington said.  

The six-hour training sessions are divided into two parts. The first two hour session covers the history of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community and laws affecting this community. The second and longer segment deals the transgender community. 

“There are a lot more questions and a lot more confusion” about transgender people, Worthington said. 

Officers are given definitions of terms and overview of social issues impacting the transgender community. They study some case histories, learn how to search transgender people and place them into custody, and review hate crime and domestic violence scenarios as they might be experienced by transgender people. 

“A lot of times, not knowing, people make certain assumptions about a situation,” said Berkeley City Manager Weldon Rucker. “This gives (the police department) another level of understanding.” 

Rucker said he expected LGBT training to be instituted in other city departments in the future.  

Moore said it was particularly important for the training to be instituted for city employees who come into regular contact with the public, adding that it made sense to start with police “because they are the front line.” 

“This is not just a token training. This is almost a full day of training.” said Frank Gurucharri, executive director of the Pacific Center for Human Growth, which provides community services for gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender people. 

“When you do sensitivity training about people, they become people, and you move one step out of stereotypical relationships,” he said. 

The City Council will consider a variety of issues including the controversy surrounding Gordon Wozniak’s position on the Community Environmental Advisory Commission. 

In January City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque issued opinions claiming Wozniak’s employment as a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was in conflict with his role on the CEAC. Albuquerque suggested Wozniak resign because of the many issues CEAC considers related to the laboratory. Wozniak disagreed with the opinions and refused to resign from the commission. Two CEAC meetings ended abruptly over  

internal arguments among commissioners over his continued  

participation. 

Wozniak’s future on the commission may be determined by an amendment to the Berkeley Municipal Code, which is also on tonight’s agenda. The new sections of the code would give the council the authority to terminate appointed commissioners and board members if the council determines they were “engaged in an employment, activity or enterprise for compensation, which is inconsistent, incompatible or in conflict with his or her duties as a board or commission member.” 

If the council adopts the new ordinance and determines Wozniak’s employment is in conflict with his role on CEAC, his seat on the commission could be declared vacant.  

Since November the city attorney has said seven commissioners have conflicts of interest to some degree.  

Wood Smoke 

The council will consider a CEAC recommendation to limit the use of wood in fireplaces based on studies by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District that have determined that wood smoke particulate matter causes adverse health effects. 

The CEAC has recommended the council prohibit the installation of open fireplaces in new residential construction and require smoke-reducing equipment on all new commercial wood-burning fire places. The recommendations also called for long-term community education and an ambient air study.  

However the City Manager’s Office suggested the council not adopt the education and air-study sections of the recommendation, because those projects would be too expensive in light of other pressing environmental issues such as lead poisoning, pesticide use, polyvinyl chloride use, dioxins and automobile impact on air quality. 

Harrison Park air study 

The council will consider a resolution authorizing the city manager to contract an air study at Harrison Park with Applied Measurement Science to determine if the Interstate 80 vehicle traffic is causing a health risk to park users. 

The $39,700 study will be a follow up to another study done in 1997 by Acurex Environmental Corp. Acurex determined that the measurements of harmful materials in the air around the park, located at Fourth and Harrison streets, were normal accept for small particulate material, which was likely from automobile exhaust coming from the nearby freeway. 

Since 1997 two things have happened that warrant a new study: I-80 was widened resulting in a 20 percent increase in traffic, an the Environmental Protection Agency has revised health standard related to particulate material. 

Medical marijuana 

The council may adopt a medical marijuana ordinance tonight. It first referred the issue to the city attorney in December 1999 and it has been bouncing between the City Manager’s Office and the Community Health Commission ever since.  

The question has been how many plants will qualified individuals be allowed to grow at one time. The commission would like to allow 144 indoors or 60 outdoors. City staff has consistently advocated for much less, no more than 10 indoors or outdoors.  

Medical marijuana advocates say that more plants insure a good crop and city staff says too many plants could lead to abuse of the ordinance with surplus crop finding its way into the hands of recreational dealers.  

The police department has said they are concerned that large numbers of plants could provoke burglary and possibly home-invasion styled robberies. 

Other items on the agenda include: 

• Adoption of an ordinance that requires a two-week notice to the police department for any large indoor events. 

• Acceptance of a $50,000 donation from Albany for the construction of the Harrison Street Skate Park. 

• Adoption of a resolution in support of the University Professional and Technical Employees, CWA Local 9119 who are working without a contract. 

• A request for the city attorney to review the police department’s policy on requesting identification from members of the public. 

The council meets at 7 p.m. at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Meetings are broadcast on KPFB 89.3 and TV-25.  

There is a 5 p.m. special meeting at the same place to discuss staff feedback on council priorities.

A 26-year-old woman returning home from a party was allegedly dragged behind a house by three men and forced to perform oral sex on one of them, police said.  

Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes said the victim was leaving a party March 9 with friends when they stopped at a Shell station on the corner of Fulton Street and Durant Avenue to discuss their next move. When her friends decided to proceed to another party, the victim set out for home alone, Lopes said.  

Three men walking on the opposite side of the street crossed over and forcibly carried the woman off the street about 3 a.m., police said. Then, as one man stood lookout on the street, the others forced the woman to perform oral sex. 

The three man fled when the lookout reported someone approaching, police said. Police said the victim reported the crime on March 12. An investigation is ongoing. 

••• 

After a weeklong investigation into the disappearance of a maintenance worker at Berkeley Marina Yacht rental company, Berkeley Police homicide investigators called in Alameda Country Sheriff’s Department divers to search the waters near where the man was last seen working. 

On March 15, the divers discovered the body of Berkeley resident Ronnie Smith, 34, submerged in four feet of water near the boat he had been working on, Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes said. He said investigators are assuming that Smith, a nonswimmer, fell into the water in a spot more than 12-feet deep. 

“There were no signs of foul plays,” Lopes said, adding the a preliminary report from the coroner’s office indicates the cause of death as accidental drowning.  

The investigation remains open until the results of a complete autopsy are in, Lopes said.  

••• 

In what police say may be a gang related dispute, a heated argument between two groups of youth ended in gun fire and broken windows on Sunday. 

Lopes said what started as a verbal altercation between two groups near the parking lot of H’s Lordships Restaurant on the 100 block of Seawall Drive escalated when a member of one group smashed out the windows of a car belonging to a member of the other group. 

In response to the assault on the car, an unidentified youth produced a gun and fired a series of shots into the air, causing dozens of people to flee the area in panic, Lopes said. 

By the time police arrived on the scene all suspects were gone, Lopes said. One youth was at a hospital in Walnut Creek late Sunday with an injured arm. He later told Berkeley Police he had been present during the earlier incident. Lopes said he refused to identify any of the other participants or describe what had taken place.

Some 30 students spent the night outside the mansion of University of California at Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl Monday night to urge the university to work on affordable housing issues. 

The students are part of a coalition including the university's student government, a renters' advocacy group and the public interest group CalPIRG that is urging the university to support measures that insure that housing for students is close to the campus, livable and affordable. 

The students say that the university has many options it is not pursuing to provide housing opportunities to the students, including fund-raising for housing, and changing policies that prevent the university from financing housing. 

At the moment, according to student spokesman Andy Katz, the chancellor's mansion is the only housing the university provides that is on-campus. All student housing has to be self-financed, which means that only those living in the residence halls can finance housing. 

Some of the students say that unavailable housing provides an added stress that can prevent them from achieving their full academic potential. 

SAN JOSE — Jay Harris, chairman and publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, resigned Monday, saying he hoped his action would prompt the newspaper’s parent company, Knight Ridder, to “closely examine the wisdom” of the paper’s profit targets. 

Harris, 51, who had been publisher for seven years, announced his surprise resignation in a wistful e-mail to the paper’s employees. 

“In a letter to Knight Ridder CEO Tony Ridder and the Newspaper Division president, Steve Rossi, I explained I was stepping down ’in the hope that doing so will cause them to closely examine the wisdom’ of the profit targets we’ve been struggling to find a way to meet,” Harris wrote. 

In a self-profile published by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Harris described himself as a “journalistic traditionalist” and bemoaned when short-term demands cause papers to sacrifice core values. 

“We all know we must make significant adjustments in the face of the currently severe economic downturn,” Harris wrote Monday. “But so far, we have been unable to find a way to meet the new targets without risking significant and lasting harm to the Mercury News – as a journalistic enterprise and as the special place to work that it is.” 

Calls to Harris’ office, as well as to a spokesman for Knight Ridder, were not immediately returned. Mercury News spokeswoman Patty Wise said the paper had no comment. 

Earlier this month, Harris had announced plans to lay off an unspecified number of employees, blaming a dramatic fall in help-wanted ad revenue and other signs of Silicon Valley’s economic slowdown. 

The paper, which has 1,700 employees, is the third-largest in Northern California with a daily circulation of 289,000. 

In a March 5 memo to his staff, Harris said that early retirement offers might help, but that “we will be unable to achieve the level of expense reduction we are seeking to achieve without layoffs.” 

A newspaper industry analyst said Monday that Harris’ resignation was unexpected. 

“He’s always been one of the company’s most highly regarded executives and has successfully run one of the company’s biggest profit centers,” said John Morton, a newspaper analyst from Silver Spring, Md. “I’m very surprised.” 

Harris has been noted for efforts to bring increased racial diversity to American newsrooms.  

In the last five years, he also launched weekly Spanish- and Vietnamese-language newspapers tied to the Mercury News. 

Harris said he will stay in the Silicon Valley area, but that he did not know what his next professional step would be. 

“I’m looking forward to a brief break from public life and a period of reflection and rejuvenation,” he wrote his staff. “I will look for another platform from which to serve the public interest. Maybe I will do some writing. I used to do that for a living.” 

Also on Monday, Knight Ridder, the nation’s second-largest newspaper publisher group, lowered its expectations for first-quarter earnings for the second time. 

After warning a month ago that first-quarter earnings would be down “modestly” from the same period a year ago, the company said that the “revenue environment continues to deteriorate, and we do not see relief in March.” 

The company now expects first-quarter earnings to fall 15 cents to 20 cents. Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial had expected Knight Ridder to earn 71 cents a share in the first quarter, down from 74 cents in the period a year ago. 

The San Jose, Calif.-based company, whose newspapers include The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Detroit Free Press, said advertising revenues fell 2.7 percent in February compared to February 2000, with markets in San Jose, Philadelphia and Detroit showing the most weakness. 

Knight Ridder’s stock was off $1.13 to close at $54.36 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Other newspaper publishers have warned of lower profits in the first quarter due to a drop in advertising revenues. Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, also has warned investors twice of lower profits. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www0.mercurycenter.com/ 

http://www.kri.com/ 

NEW YORK — Investors hoping for a big interest rate cut sent blue chip stocks higher Monday, helping Wall Street’s major indexes recover after last week’s beating. But analysts warned that the market’s mood will likely sour again if the Federal Reserve doesn’t deliver the aggressive action the market wants. 

Much of the gains came in the tech sector, which suffered heavy damage last week. A series of earnings warnings and cautionary statements from tech companies left the Dow with its biggest weekly point drop ever and pushed the Nasdaq below 2,000 for the first time in 27 months. 

Financial stocks also rose after Lehman Brothers upgraded its rating on Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley just days before the firms report earnings for the three months ending in February. 

But the main driver for the late rise in blue chips seemed to be hopes for a rate cut from the Fed. While a rate cut of some kind has been widely expected from Tuesday’s meeting of the Fed’s Open Market Committee, investors debated how big the cut would be. 

The most optimistic observers said the Fed might make an unusually aggressive cut of three-quarters of a percentage point, or 75 basis points. But others expected the Fed to match the two half-point cuts it made during January, and that, some market watchers fear, could lead to further declines. 

“Equity investors want to be bailed out by the Fed, but there are plenty of reasons for the FOMC not to act as aggressively as investors want,” said Charles White, portfolio manager at Avatar Associates. 

“The real risk here is that there are a lot of people looking for 75 basis points, but the higher probability is that we’ll get a smaller cut,” White said. “The question is how the market is going to react to that. I think people will be disappointed.” 

No matter what the Fed does Tuesday, some analysts warned that other lingering concerns would make a sustained comeback unlikely over the next several weeks. 

— The Associated Press 

A number of companies have announced layoffs and issued warnings about profits for the first quarter, which ends March 31, and there are still signs that the broader economy remains stuck in a slowdown. 

“I don’t see the market running away on the upside when you’ve got all this first quarter news coming out as well as guidance for the rest of the year,” said Barry Berman, head trader for Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee. “On the other hand, if you start to see news that’s better than expected, you could start to see people looking for a bottom.” 

Advancing issues outpaced decliners by 7 to 4 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 1.32 billion shares, well off the pace of Friday, when volume was inflated by the expirations of futures and options contracts. 

The Russell 2000 index was up 9.47 at 451.27. 

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 2 percent during the day on growing hopes that Japanese officials may be able to prevent the country’s financial problems from deepening, but the indicator couldn’t sustain the gains and ended the down 0.34 percent. 

Germany’s DAX index fell 1.35 percent, Britain’s FT-SE 100 was off 0.20 percent, and France’s CAC-40 was down 1.10 percent. 

The Berkeley School Board will consider at its regular meeting Wednesday whether to adopt new Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards published by the California State Board of Education in January. 

The content standards specify what students should know at each grade level, kindergarten through twelfth grade, in dance, music, theater and visual arts.  

Since arts standards are not tested, the Berkeley Unified School District doesn’t have to adopt them.  

“The content standards are intended to provide a framework for programs that a school may offer in the instruction of visual or performing arts,” said a law calling for the creation of arts standards, signed by Governor Gray Davis last year. 

But Board of Education Director John Selawsky said the standards are needed in Berkeley. The arts curriculum in the district is implemented on a somewhat “piecemeal” basis, Selawsky said.  

Selawsky said some schools having strong arts curriculums supported at all grades by grant money while other schools have only occasional art lessons offered by regular classroom teachers with no special training in arts education. 

Arts in the district “are not under any framework or guidelines or standards today,” Selawsky said, so no effort is made to determine what art classes ought to involve on a districtwide basis. 

“What is an arts class (in Berkeley)?” Selawsky asked. “Cutting out hearts for valentine’s day. Is that an arts class? The standards get people thinking about what an articulated arts program looks like.”  

The state standards evaluate students’ knowledge of dance, music, theater and the visual arts based on five criteria: Artistic perception, creative expression, historical and cultural context, aesthetic valuing and connections, relations and applications. 

In theater, for example, the standards recommend that a third grader: learn basic theater vocabulary like character, setting, audience and motivation; be involved in an actual dramatic production; and understand some universal themes in dramatic stories drawn from different periods and places.

Monday, March 19

Timber Framing  

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Instructed by builder/timber framer Doug Eaton.  

$35  

525-7610 

Socratic Solutions  

7:30 - 9 p.m.  

International House  

Home Room  

UC Berkeley  

The Socratic Society presents a lecture by Theoharis Kemos on Socratic insights into our social problems. Celebrate Socrates’ 2470th birthday anniversary. Free. 

Social Dance  

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

With the North Berkeley Senior Dancing Group.  

644-6107 

A New Softball Field at  

Longfellow? 

7 p.m. 

Longfellow Theater  

1500 Derby (at Sacramento)  

The BUSD, Longfellow School, and the Berkeley/Albany Girls Softball Association invite you to attend a community meeting to discuss the proposed field.  

644-6320 

Tuesday, March 20

“Great Decisions” - Mexico Reexamined  

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Fibromyalgia Support Group  

Noon - 2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way  

Don Hill, RPH, BS, Pharmacist, will discuss “FM/A Generalized Review of Medications.” Free 

204-4503 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 10 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

A movie night extravaganza featuring “The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.” Pizza, sodas, and even sushi. Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Berkeley Intelligent  

Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is death and dying in celebration of the Ides of March.  

Call 527-9772  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Lavendar Lunch 

12:30 - 1:30 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave.  

Mudd Bldg., Room 103  

Unitarian-Universalist minister Sean Parker Dennison discusses his experiences as a transgender minister working in parish ministry.  

849-8206 

Rethinking Creation  

7 p.m. 

Tucson Common Room  

Church Divinity School of the Pacific 

2450 Le Conte Ave.  

Dr. Sjoerd L. Bonting will speak on “Rethinking Creation: ‘Chaos Events’ and Theology.”  

Call 848-8152 

TREES Forum  

12:30 p.m. 

Hewlett Library  

2400 Ridge Rd., Dinner Board Room  

Marty Kheel will present “Women, Animals and Nature: Eco-feminist Reflections.”  

trees@gtu.edu 

Debate Lobbying 

Noon  

Harris Room  

119 Moses Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Kevin Esterling, Robert Wood Johnson Fellow, UC Berkeley, will discuss “Does Policy Research Matter in Lobbying Debates?” Bring a brown bag lunch. Free. 

Advice for Life  

12:30 - 2:30 p.m. 

Albany Senior Center 

646 Masonic Ave.  

Albany  

A series of Tuesday presentations and discussions that will cover: Memory loss, assertiveness, loss, grief, insight into life changes, opening communication in relationships, and independence in the later years. Free  

Wednesday, Mar. 21

Stagebridge Free Acting &  

Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets.  

Call 644-6226 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107. 

Chimneys From A - Z  

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by Irish Sweep Sally McKnight.  

$35  

525-7610 

Design Dung  

7 - 9 p.m.  

School of Journalism Library  

121 North Gate Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Part of the Terner Series, an informal salon-style discussion series, which brings together industry professionals, students, and interested community members. This session is a discussion of the failure to communicate good and bad architecture. Free 

Alzheimer’s Support Group 

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

For families and caregivers.  

Thursday, March 22

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Anna Mae Stanley and host Louis Cuneo.  

644-0155 

Trekking in Bhutan  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ruth Ann Kocour and Elizabeth Rassiga will share slides of their 25-day journey along the Snow Leopard Trek to the sacred mountain Chomolhari and beyond. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Ribbon Cutting & Evening Mixer  

5:30 - 7 p.m.  

National Car Rental  

920 University Ave.  

Sponsored by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Special drawing for a weekend rental of a 4x4.  

549-7003 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107. 

Basic Electrical Theory & National Electrical Code 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by author, speaker and retired City of Oakland Building Inspector Redwood Kardon. 

525-7610 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays.

KPFA value is its diverse programs 

Editor: 

Re: Wayne Huber’s comments about the lack of diversity of opinion within KPFA. 

Mr Huber's criticism is misdirected when referring to KPFA. The entire radio spectrum has been homogenized into a selling machine. Commercial radio has many voices with one purpose. National Public Radio has become an outlet for the same purpose with just a slightly different voice. KPFA is one of the few stations in the nation that speak with a unique voice. It was designed that way. Those that like the voice get a vote by paying for 

it. If Mr. Huber wants a vote he should forget his radio dial and send in a contribution to the station. 

Harry Wiener 

Berkeley 

Helicopter hell over San Pablo Park 

Editor: 

While the question of whether the CHP was correct in choosing to chase a drunk driver continues; I want to question why 4 hours after the accident some branch of the media felt it was necessary to have a helicopter hovering at low altitude over a residential neighborhood. I live 3 blocks from the accident. I did not hear sirens or crashing, but at 5:30 a.m. an unidentified helicopter arrived over San Pablo Park Neighborhood and hovered in the area for an hour. I have to assume that by that time the cars had been towed off, the investigation was over and all that was left was flashing red lights. Is there any one we can call or hold accountable for destroying the peace of a flatland morning? 

Lucina Pearson  

Berkeley,  

Beth El’s a respected part of the community 

Editor: 

In an article March 8, you quoted Zoning Board member David Blake claiming Congregation Beth El received a permit from ZAB because it is “powerful.” Beth El has participated in a lengthy and difficult Berkeley permit process.  

To the degree the fifty-year-old Congregation has any power in Berkeley, it comes about because of respect gained through the Congregation’s many and ongoing contributions to the community.  

Congregation Beth El educates children and adults and teaches them their responsibilities in the world. The Congregation provides a summer day camp (Camp Kee Tov) that serves the children of the wider community.  

Beth El creates a community for its members and unites with other religious institutions in Berkeley to do good works. Our members work in the Berkeley schools, helped create BOSS, feed the homeless, and receive awards for the amount of food contributed to the Alameda County Food Bank. 

Members and supporters of Congregation Beth El are deeply grateful that the Zoning Adjustments Board voted to grant the congregation a use permit, so it will be able to go on providing these essential human services in the future. David Blake’s first question to Beth El at Zoning Adjustments Board hearings was “why didn’t we look for a new site in Albany or El Cerrito.” Our congregational family has been in North Berkeley for 50 years, and we want to stay here where the majority of our members live. 

Michael Fajans 

Berkeley 

BART director: need housing at transit hubs not more parking 

Editor: 

Re; Heather Petersen’s Letter of 3-07: 

Petersen uses excellent quotes but what she suggested is at cross-purposes to her quotes. She calls for a shuttle service on one hand, which I believe needs to be provided, but on the other hand she says build structured parking.  

Paraphrasing John Levy, she says greater auto use discourages transit use.  

In fact, building more parking will only promote more auto use and less transit use and for an effective remedy we need to get people out of cars and into transit. However, most of all, we need to work towards building transit-oriented developments to make transit more viable.  

These developments should not be just at BART stations but along high mixed use dense corridors as in Curitiba, Brazil where most of the trips are along the corridor and not to centers or nodes. 

Since BART parking fills every day, riders are parking throughout the neighborhood causing parking problems. Parking is the worst use of land for such a high activity and high property value area. Most BART parkers are long-term parkers and their cars will not generate added activity or use. 

Land cost around BART, even in the suburbs, now ranges up to over $80 per square foot; so one surface parking space could cost $18,000 to $25,000. Structured parking over existing BART spaces will cost about the same. 

At $20,000 per space the public would subsidize a free parker over $6 per day when including maintenance and operating costs. Instead of more parking, we can provide far superior service for more than twice the riders and be more environmentally sound by providing free bus shuttles indefinitely at these costs.  

BART has established a Strategic Plan that incorporated a policy that promotes Transit Oriented Developments where people can live, work and walk around such as there is in Paris, or Barcelona, in lieu of parking.  

A limitation however is that BART owns only a limited area and for a decent TOD of one half to three quarter mile area, it will take a partnership with the city and developers to have this happen. 

Roy Nakadegawa  

BART Director, District 3 

District 3 includes parts of Berkeley 

Recently, I was privileged to spend several afternoons visiting with James Schevill, esteemed friend and poet, Berkeley born and bred. I would like to share something of our talks about his life and work with Daily Planet readers 

His literary publication spans more than half a century, from Tensions, 1947 to New and Selected Poems, Swallow Press, 2000. His work includes other volumes of verse, a novel, plays and two biographies.  

Our talks meandered. 

“I wrote my first poem after Kristallnacht, the night in 1938, when Nazi storm troopers went through the country destroying Jewish properties and desecrating Jewish cemeteries,” he told me. In Germany studying music, he happened to be in Freiburg visiting a friend. When he saw what havoc the Nazis had wrought, and that they had built fences to conceal their desecrations, he was profoundly moved. 

A developing political consciousness infused his work thereafter. 

Of his Stalingrad Elegies, 1964, a critic wrote in the summer 1965 Virginia Review Quarterly, “Schevill does more than reflect on his time; he recreates his time as an emblem of all times.” 

The Complete American Fantasies, 1996, is his favorite work. “We have no myths, except that we’re a democracy,” he says. Schevill’s poetry exposes the collective fictions and false dreams that we in the United States live. We do not live in a white country, he says. 

He allows his mind to go where it will, and come back and tell us where it’s been. Not travel pieces, but poems that give us his sense of what he’s seen and experienced in such places as Haiti, U.S.S.R., Mexico, Europe, and many regions of the United States.  

Your music study accounts for the musical quality of much of your work, I suggested. “Yes, several of my pieces have been set to music. Poetry has to have music, and rhythm. It’s always been that way. You can even look at today’s rappers.” I agreed. 

Howard Nemerov says of Schevill’s verse, “The excitement of language depends for him on its jaggedness, its eccentricity.” In The Buddhist Car and Other Characters, “the marvelous and the mundane rub shoulders.” Schevill admires “the constant transformations” in the Armenian poet Balakian’s work. “It’s death to the poet when you lose the impulse to experiment,” he emphasizes. 

Schevill, who has also written a novel and a biography, is Professor Emeritus of Literature at Brown University. 

One of his strengths: as poet and dramatist is his ability to so thoroughly imagine the lives of his characters that he can evoke them for us in their voice. His work in theater shows in his verse, much of which is dramatic monologue. 

Schevill likes theater for its immediate response from the audience. When you’ve produced a play you know whether it’s a success or not. The audience tells you. 

Throughout his life he has worked not only as artist, but to support the community of artists. He was an early director of the San Francisco Poetry Center. He presented plays at San Francisco’s Actor’s Workshop, an experimental group and served on its board of directors.  

His proudest moments: “When I do my best work.”  

One of the aims of his work is to restore people to poetry. In restoring people to poetry Schevill lets his characters tell their stories. 

As we continue telling our stories to each other, we are led inevitably to talk of our advanced age and its losses. “Our friends’ dying reminds me of my own mortality,” he says. 

Followers of his work will be happy to hear that he is continuing to write, after a crippling stroke suffered February a year ago. When I ask what he is working on now, he answers without hesitation, “I am working on poems and a new play.” 

“Be sure to tell them about my most recent book.” New and Selected Poems represent what Schevill thinks are the strongest pieces from his books of verse. 

William Butler Yeats wrote some of his finest poems when he was 80. If James Schevill, born in 1920, continues to write at the level of the new pieces in New and Selected Poems, he will do the same. 

Poet Adam David Miller is the author of Land Between and Apocalypse is My Garden.

Guards lead St. Mary’s past bigger foe 

Just minutes after winning the first state basketball title in St. Mary’s history, head coach Jose Caraballo laid out his plans for even bigger goals next season. 

“We wanted to take care of business in Division IV, and we did that,” Caraballo said, a huge smile on his face. “Next year we move up to Division I and see if we can win that.” 

The coach’s confidence was brimming over, and with good reason: his Panthers had just beaten Southern Section champ Crossroads, 76-62, in a remarkably easy win. Caraballo’s talented backcourt of DaShawn Freeman and John Sharper dominated the action, combining for 37 points, 11 steals, six rebounds and five assists, carrying their team past the bigger Roadrunners. 

“I personally think my backcourt’s the best in the state. They give me everything,” Caraballo said of his guards, who also play together during summer. “They’re born leaders, and they know each other very, very well.” 

Crossroads came into the game looking to take advantage of their most obvious asset: center Isaiah Fox. The 6-foot-10 senior will play for Arizona next season, but first he wanted to deliver a third state championship to his school. Fox did his part, scoring a game-high 30 points and grabbing 21 rebounds. He drew numerous fouls on the Panthers shooting 14-of-18 from the charity stripe, and was largely responsible for three St. Mary’s players fouling out in the fourth quarter. 

“I thought there were more fouls out there than they called, but I was hitting my free throws, so it wasn’t really a problem,” Fox said after the game. 

Fox’s coach, Daryl Roper, said he thought the officials didn’t call the game equally. 

“It’s the inconsistency of the calls that bothers me,” Roper said. “He just happens to be overpowering, and the refs seem to think the fouls don’t affect him.” 

But Fox’s teammates weren’t up to the championship task, as forward Jordan Rush was the only other Crossroads player to score in double figures with 10 points. The Roadrunners committed 28 turnovers in the face of the St. Mary’s defensive pressure, including eight by Fox, and shot just 37 percent from the floor. 

The Panthers, on the other hand, got balanced scoring with 20 from Freeman, 17 from Sharper, and 14 from forward Chase Moore, who also pulled down 12 rebounds. They also got key offensive contributions from reserve guards Matt Straus and Terrence Boyd. 

The Panthers were clearly the aggressors in the game, as they have been all season. Caraballo has his squad pressing non-stop on defense, and he counts on their superior quickness and hustle to get them through rough patches. 

“The kids played so hard. It’s all about their heart, their will, their desire,” Caraballo said. “They just left everything out on the floor.” 

Freeman, the team’s leader, agreed with his coach. 

“We worked hard, hustled, got every loose ball,” Freeman said. “Maybe we just wanted it a little more than they did.” 

The Panthers started slowly, and the teams were tied at 14-14 after the first quarter. But St. Mary’s got a kick-start from Straus, who led a 10-point run that put them up for good. First he drove the lane and pump-faked the Crossroads big men out of their shoes, spinning for an easy layup. A minute later, he hit an open 3-pointer, which Moore followed with a hook shot over Fox for a 26-17 Panther lead.  

Fox brought his team back to within two points with a bunch of free throws, but Freeman stole an inbounds pass with just seconds left and spun past Rush for a layup at the buzzer for a 31-27 halftime lead. 

The second half was more of the same, as the Panther guards doubled down on Fox whenever he got the ball, stripping him several times. Freeman continued to penetrate with impunity, scoring nine points on layups and free throws, and Boyd added six points as the Panthers took a 54-41 lead.  

“They started slowing down on defense, and that’s when we started running,” Freeman said. “We got to them in the second half, and that’s how we won the game.” 

The Roadrunners never got closer than 13 points in the final period, and all that was left was a meltdown by Fox. The big man took umbrage at an intentional foul call, ranting at the officials and earning a technical foul, which put him on the bench for the rest of the game. 

The Panthers had a big dog-pile in the middle of the floor after the game, but once they calmed down, the players started talking about next year’s goals. The team loses just one starter, defensive specialist Jeremiah Fielder, and should be among the state’s top teams next year. 

“I think we’ve got a really good chance. Most everybody’s coming back, and we have the heart to win at the next level,” Sharper said. 

“We’re going to do the same thing we did this year,” Freeman said. “Nobody even picked us to win our league, and look what we did. We just take it as motivation.”

Aroner calls for legislation to stop punishing disabled who go to work 

Twin 14-year-olds with spina bifida – a birth defect due to spinal cord damage often causing paralysis – who attend Oakland Technical High School cannot get personal assistant help because they are homeless and therefore have no address. Disability rights activist Jane Jackson, a mentor to the twins, testified on their behalf before the Assembly Human Services Committee last week.  

The committee, chaired by Assemblymember Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, held the hearing to get specifics on the barriers that disabled people face when they try to access education and employment. 

Aroner has introduced a bill to the Assembly, AB925, that attempts to help disabled people get what they need in order to work. About 72 percent of people with disabilities across the country are unemployed. 

Speaking to the committee via video-conferencing technology from a room in Dwinelle Hall on the UC Berkeley Campus on Wednesday, Jackson was one among the hundred or so participants who testified from four different venues around the state. Committee members who watched the proceeding in Sacramento, including Wilma Chan, D-Alameda, walked away with a list of horror stories: 

• Chrissy Thomson testified in Berkeley that she can’t put money away for her future. She’s a paraplegic who is employed, but rules that govern programs for the disabled do not permit her to have more than $2,000 in the bank or she’ll lose her medical benefits. Her degenerative disease means that eventually she may be unable to work – squirreling away money now would ease her worries for the future. “I should be able to work as much as I can and not lose benefits,” she said. 

• A man speaking from San Diego is a quadriplegic with one set of needs. His wife is disabled with a completely different set of needs. Each has a vehicle and neither can drive the other’s. They were denied services from the state department of Health and Human Services because its rules permit a family to own only one vehicle. 

• Someone speaking from a hearing room at UC Los Angeles stated that he spent 47 percent of his income on attendant care. “There’s not enough money left to pay for room and board,” he said. 

• Others addressed the attendant situation from the standpoint of the workers who earn $7.50 an hour. “That’s not enough to support a family on,” said one person, also speaking from Los Angeles. 

• Mary Skyer, who works in deaf services in San Francisco, testified through a sign-language interpreter about a young deaf man who trained and got a job doing smog inspections. As soon as he got the job, his Social Security Disability Insurance was cut off. Skyer suggested that SSDI should give people a reasonable amount of time to get on their feet, and gradually decrease payments. 

Aroner’s AB925 is would require the Health and Human Services Agency “create a sustainable, comprehensive strategy to accomplish various goals aimed at bringing persons with disabilities into employment....” The bill would set up “one-stop centers” to provide services to people with disabilities, so that they do not have to go from agency to agency, where they sometimes have to confront conflicting requirements. The bill would allow people to maintain their medical benefits while they are working or going to school. 

Senior scores 13 points in fourth quarter to lead furious comeback, but Berkeley falls to Narbonne in title game for third time 

By Jared Green 

Daily Planet Staff 

It was almost a storybook ending for Robin Roberson and the Berkeley Lady ’Jackets in the CIF Division I state final Saturday night, but a questionable call and a big size disadvantage kept Roberson and her teammates from claiming the school’s third crown. Berkeley fell to defending national champion Narbonne (Harbor City), 48-45, at ARCO Arena in Sacramento. 

Roberson scored 13 points in the fourth quarter to bring the ’Jackets back from a 10-point deficit, her last basket giving her team their first and only lead of the game at 45-44 with 1:20 left in the game. But the Lady Gauchos (28-3) came up with five offensive rebounds down the stretch, including two from their own missed free throws in the final seconds, and Berkeley wouldn’t score again. 

After Roberson’s final bucket, which capped a 17-6 Berkeley run, center Sabrina Keys fouled Narbonne’s Wilnett Crockett, who hit one free throw to tie the game. The ’Jackets got the ball back with 18.7 seconds left when Narbonne’s Amber Pruitt traveled, and it looked like Berkeley would get the last shot. With the way Roberson, who scored 22 of her game-high 26 points in the second half, was scorching the nets, head coach Gene Nakamura had to believe his team was on the winning track. 

But before the ’Jackets (27-6) could inbound the ball, the referees intruded. Berkeley guard Angelita Hutton was called for pushing off on Narbonne point guard Loree Moore, and the ball went back to the Gauchos. 

“It’s very disappointing to have a call change the game,” Nakamura said. “I was speechless, because I can’t imagine that call being made at that point in the game like that.” 

The call was out of character for the game, which grew increasingly physical in the second half with little intervention from the officials. 

“I was just a little surprised that people that weren’t making any calls suddenly were making calls late in the game,” Nakamura said. “But they’re human, and that’s just part of the game you have to live with.” 

Moore, who will play for national power Tennessee next season, made the first free throw but missed the second. But Narbonne’s height advantage, which Berkeley had managed to negate for much of the second half, came back into play as the 6-foot-2 Lisa Willis grabbed the rebound for the Gauchos. Keys tied her up for a jump ball, but the possession arrow was with Narbonne. They inbounded to Moore, and Rebekah Payne fouled her with 7.8 seconds left. 

“When you have your second rebounder being 6-3 and stepping into the lane, that’s tough,” said Nakamura, whose team has just one six-footer in Keys. “They were long rebounds, and that’s the way the ball bounces.” 

Moore missed the front end of a one-and-one, but Crockett got the rebound and was fouled with 3.7 seconds left. She knocked down both free throws, and Berkeley could only manage an off-balance runner from Roberson that missed the rim as time ran out. 

Narbonne head coach James Anderson said his team’s late rebounding was the key to the win, downplaying the contoversial foul call. 

“Was it a foul? I thought it might not have been,” Anderson said. “But those two rebounds at the end were the crucial plays in the win. If we make our free throws, we win that game earlier.” 

The loss was an especially tough pill to swallow for Roberson, who will play at Arizona next season. She ends her Berkeley career without a state championship, having lost to Narbonne three times (1998, 2000 and this year) in the final game. After struggling in the semifinal game against Oakland, she came out slowly against the Gauchos, shooting just 2-for-9 from the field. But she came out on fire in the second half, and nearly led her team to victory. 

“I was trying to get everyone pumped up, because I feel like everyone feeds off of me,” Roberson said of her second-half exploits. “I felt like it was on my shoulders to pick it up.” 

She got help from Keys, who battled all day against the Narbonne’s huge front line. The junior had 13 points and 12 rebounds, including eight boards in the second half. Berkeley’s size disadvantage was a major reason most predictions were for a Narbonee walk-over, but Keys more than held her own against Willis, 6-foot-3 Crockett and 6-foot-3 Jamie Funn. Narbonne also had 6-foot-2 Indi Johnson off the bench. 

“I felt pretty good about my rebounding today. That’s my role, I’m the rebounder of the team. It doesn’t matter to me if I score as long as I rebound and as long as we win,” Keys said. 

But other than Roberson and Keys, the ’Jackets were horrible on offense. Without Roberson’s 12-for-27 shooting day, Berkeley was just 4-of-34 from the field, and the team was an ice-cold 4-for-30 in the first half and took a 22-12 deficit into halftime. 

But despite his team’s first-half slump, Nakamura felt they outplayed the Gauchos, who will likely be named national champions for the second year in a row by USA Today. 

“I feel we won that game. I couldn’t have asked more from our girls,” he said. “We out-played them, and we should have won the game, plain and simple.” 

Nakamura pointed out the play of Payne on the defensive end, as she harrassed Moore into several uncharacteristic turnovers. But Moore also had a good all-around game, leading her team with 11 points, eight steals and seven assists.

In an attempt to facilitate rent hikes for Berkeley landlords approved by HUD two years ago, the interim manager of the Berkeley Housing Authority discussed the procedure with the Black Property Owners Association on Thursday. 

Recently hired BHA manager Sheila Maxwell provided the landlords with a copies of the application for rent increases and a two-page list of procedures landlords must follow to legally receive the increases, said Frank Davis, president of the BPOA. 

According to the handout, the rental increases will provide landlords with “rents that are similar to market rents.” 

In February, at a Housing Authority Board meeting, interim Housing Director Stephen Barton and Maxwell outlined the two major failings of the Housing Authority. One was the organization’s inability to provide Section 8 landlords with increases approved by Housing and Urban Development and the other was the agency's failure to process a backlog of qualified Section 8 applicants.  

BHA, which was $255,000 over budget last year and is projected by Barton to be $245,000 over this year, is at risk of being dissolved by the City Council, which has the authority to do so under state law. 

Neither Maxwell nor Barton returned Daily Planet calls Friday to update housing authority progress in the areas of deficiencies they had defined in February. 

HUD has made 1,840 Section 8 certificates available to the Housing Authority, but as of February only 1,300 households were receiving the rental subsidies. Last year the city was fined $54,000 by HUD for failing to process the backlog of applications. 

The shortcomings of the Housing Authority have been amplified by many Section 8 landlords who have taken their properties out of the program seeking higher profits on the Bay Area's red-hot rental market.  

Councilmember Dona Spring said at the February BHA board meeting that Berkeley lost an average of 10 Section 8 units a month in 2000 compared to a rate of 2.5 during 1999. 

According to the information Maxwell gave BPOA members, new payment standards will allow landlords to receive $750 for studios, $980 for one-bedroom units and $1,308 for two-bedroom units. 

The procedures for landlords to receive the increases include filling out a one-page application and giving 60-day notice to eligible tenants. BHA inspectors will verify that the unit meets HUD standards and the rent increase should go into effect on the anniversary the tenancy began. 

Davis said Maxwell addressing his association seemed like a step in the right direction. “It's a start but BHA is in bad shape and will have to really follow through to turn things around,” he said. 

For more information about applying for rental increases or for Section 8 call the Berkeley Housing Authority at (510) 644-4840 or e-mail at bha@ci.berkeley.ca.us

It took a while, but the Cal rugby team eked out a 25-0 win over Army Sunday to clinch its own Invitational Tournament. 

The Bears were held to just 10 first half points and it took another 20 minutes of the second period before constant Cal pressure was converted into a reasonably comfortable margin on the scoreboard.  

More often than not, the Bears’ own mistakes took pressure off Army and kept the game close. 

“I’m not sure if we were made to look bad by a game Army side, or whether we just weren’t up to it, irrespective of the opponent. Certainly, we were average at best,” said Cal head coach Jack Clark. 

The Bears beat Minnesota and Army were winners over Humboldt Saturday to set up a rematch between last year’s national championship semi-final opponents. And early on, the Invitational final was something of a reprise of that encounter with the Bears making a slow start. 

Fullback Dave Guest missed a couple of penalty attempts early in the game, but was able to make amends with a try at 17 minutes. Guest added a penalty just before the halftime whistle, but the team still faced a stern halftime talk from the coaching staff. 

Early in the second period, wing Cameron Bunce was also the recipient of a well-timed pass from Sherman to cross for the Bears’ second try. 

It took a big scrum to put Cal into the clear. The Bears pushed Army off their ball just 5 meters from the Black Knights’ line, and loose forward John Willenborg dotted down – just reward for a busy game.  

Still lacking rhythm, the Bears held out the never-say-die Army side, and Guest added a late penalty to the scoreline.

A 17-year old boy from San Pablo drowned in Lake Anza Saturday afternoon, despite his friends’ attempts to rescue him. 

At about 4 p.m., John Johnson was swimming across the lake in Tilden Regional Park. He got about three-quarters of the way to the other side, when he began to struggle and yell for help. His friends swam toward him, but the boy sank below the surface. His friends were unable to find him, according to an East Bay Regional Park District Police report.  

Members of the Berkeley Fire Department, Berkeley Police, Regional Parks Police, Regional Parks Fire Department and the Contra Costa County Sheriffs Department responded for rescue.  

The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s department dive team recovered the victim’s body at about 7 p.m. Saturday. 

The incident is under investigation. An official in the Contra Costa County coroner’s office said Sunday the drowning, still under investigation, is thought to be accidental at this time.

A joint city and university study has been released, about eight months after it had been anticipated. The study addresses traffic congestion and transit use in and around the campus area. It will play an important role in informing planning programs and strategies of the university and the city, particularly around such volatile questions as whether to increase parking. 

A joint city-university meeting on the study will be held tonight at 7 p.m. at the Trinity United Methodist Church, 2362 Bancroft Way.

20-year-old experimental neighborhood not living up to promises, owners say 

BENICIA – A 258-home neighborhood here was an innovative experiment in energy efficiency — 20 years ago. 

Now, with a different energy crisis bringing renewed attention to solar power, some residents say the savings don’t quite measure up. 

Rooftop solar water heaters, double paned windows and walls insulated six inches thick didn’t bring the savings they expected and many have jettisoned solar power all together after facing repairs they couldn’t afford. 

“In the beginning, it worked out great,” said Lucy Grijalva, who bought her home 18 years ago. 

Thanks to the federal government, she enjoyed a $10,000 tax credit for buying the solar-equipped home. 

The credit, sparked by the 1973 oil embargo, was created as part of a federal program to offset the country’s energy crisis. 

Both homeowners and developers received the tax credit, so Benicia’s Southhampton Co. jumped on it. 

Architects designed the houses for passive and active solar energy, said Stuart Posselt, one of the project’s managers. 

The homes had 12 inches of insulation in the ceilings and every opening in the walls was caulked to keep the cool or hot air inside. Landscapers designed the lots with trees that lost their leaves in the fall so as not to obstruct winter sun. Ceiling fans circulated warm air blown from fireplace fans. Solar panels on the roofs heated water pumped to a hot water tank. The panels also help heat the house. 

“When this was done, it was state of the art,” Posselt said. 

That was two decades ago, and many homeowners have abandoned their solar panels when faced with repair bills costing thousands of dollars. 

Shirley Florio moved into her house six years ago, she said, because it was affordable and well constructed. 

When it came time to get a new roof, she took off the solar panels. She thought about fixing her broken water tank, and received a $3,500 estimate to fix it and $7,000 estimate to replace it. 

“I said, ’Forget it,”’ she said. “I didn’t notice that much of a benefit.” 

J.D. and Lorna-Dee Johnson said their system has worked well for the six years they have lived in their house, but it’s starting to break down. 

They will fix their water tank because they care about energy conservation and they can afford the repairs. They save about $25 a month on their gas bill.

Overnight Amtrak crash injures 90; investigators unsure what caused wreck 

OMAHA, Neb. – Tony Plocinik and his wife, Joann, were thrown across their train car when an Amtrak train derailed in southwest Iowa. 

“All of a sudden, bam, we flew,” he said. “I went flying off and hit the chair and seat and she landed on top of me.” 

One person died and 90 were injured in the wreck Saturday night. Investigators had not determined what caused the accident, which left twisted train and rail wreckage. 

“It was devastating, and fortunate that only one person was killed,” Plocinik said. 

Exhausted survivors on the 195-passenger train huddled on chairs and sofas in several Omaha hotels after being bused 60 miles from the wreck. 

Amtrak arranged for them reach their destinations by whatever means they chose — airplane, bus or perhaps even another train. 

After the derailment, passengers stood outside or inside the wreck and watched red rescue lights streak the darkness. People from nearby Nodaway, Iowa, scrambled to help and area farmers used their trucks to take many survivors to hospitals and a nearby shelter. 

Plocinik, 69, of Eastpointe, Mich., was sleeping next to his wife when the train derailed. His neck and left shoulder were jarred, but he wrestled open two emergency exit windows in the darkness. He said it took only 15 minutes for rescuers to arrive, and an Amtrak employee handed him an emergency light stick that illuminated the compartment. 

“All of the seats in that little compartment were twisted,” Plocinik said. “The luggage rack was twisted metal and baggage was jammed. You couldn’t get out of the emergency door, only the windows.” 

Passenger Mary Clare Maloney, 16, of Des Moines, Iowa, said she waited more than an hour in her car’s upper level to be rescued. The car was at a 45-degree angle, she said, tipped so passengers had to walk on the wall and not the floor to get out. “That was kind of weird and dizzying,” she said. 

Beth Giudcessi, a classmate of Maloney’s, was traveling to Colorado with her and seven other students for a ski vacation. 

“There was a sudden push, just a sharp turn to the right and we were thrown against the wall. It happened very quickly,” Giudcessi said. 

Maloney and others did not blame Amtrak for the wreck. 

“It was one of those things that just happened,” she said. “There was nothing they could do about it.” 

Briana Dreyer, 14, of Des Moines, was traveling with her father and a friend to ski in Glenwood Springs, Colo., during a weeklong break from school. She said she would board another train so she could enjoy her vacation. 

“I’ll be scared,” she said, “but I mean, it’s spring break.”

Grant awarded to battle cancer 

OAKLAND – The Ethnic Health Institute program at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center has been awarded a $707,000 grant to help combat prostate cancer among blacks. 

The grant will be used to implement a program in Alameda County to improve and manage rates of prostate cancer in black men. 

The program will also provide educational outreach, early detection, screening, and follow-up care while raising awareness of the disease. 

The county health status report for 2000 said the prostate cancer death rate in black men is 2 1/2 times higher than for whites. 

Gospel CD may help AIDS cause 

SAN FRANCISCO – A new gospel CD is expected to raise awareness and money for AIDS advocacy in the black community. 

Proceeds from the “One Voice” CD will be distributed to AIDS agencies serving the black faith community beginning later this year. 

The “One Voice” CD features a collaboration of contemporary Gospel luminaries, including lead vocal contributions by Donald Lawrence, Edwin Hawkins, Bishop Walter Hawkins, BeBe Winans and others.

OAKLAND – In the upstairs room of a mission-style library, two dozen men and women lean over giant maps of the East Bay and consult color-coded computer printouts showing where Hispanics, blacks, Asians, Republicans and Democrats live. 

Wielding markers and calculators, they argue about what areas should be in or out of a new state Assembly district — Alameda, Piedmont, northern San Leandro or western Oakland. 

This strange exercise is a workshop designed to show community groups how ordinary people, with the help of the new technology, can get involved in that most political of processes — redistricting. 

The redrawing of government election districts every 10 years to reflect population changes has always been the ultimate arcane smoke-filled-room political activity. Political bosses kept their plans secret and the public rarely knew what was going on until the deal was done. 

This year, technology means groups with computer smarts can use the census figures being released this month to participate in the redistricting process. That process will determine which politicians will make decisions for the next decade on issues ranging from school funding to pothole filling. 

Politicians used computers to do redistricting in 1981 and 1991, but machines and database software used to analyze the complex information were much more expensive, difficult to use and essentially inaccessible to the general public, unless they went through a big university. 

The Internet and the widespread availability of powerful computers and software have changed everything. 

“We feel that technology is bringing redistricting all the way down to the grass roots now,” says Zachary Gonzalez, redistricting coordinator for the Willie C. Velasquez Institute, a think tank based in Los Angeles and San Antonio, Texas, that focuses on Latino election issues. “With the new software, it’s as simple as pointing and clicking.” 

The Velasquez Institute joined with Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in a redistricting alliance to conduct the Oakland workshop and 19 others around the state. 

The alliance is also planning two statewide conferences next month. One, in Sacramento, will bring together Latino community leaders to train them in the legal and computer aspects of redistricting. The second, in Los Angeles, is being cosponsored by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center to discuss redistricting issues affecting all minority groups. 

In addition, MALDEF, the NAACP-LDF and the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (an affiliate of APALC) wrote a community redistricting guide that is available both in book form and online. 

The lines that will be redrawn over the next year include everything from U.S. congressional and state legislative districts down to local government bodies such as city councils and school boards. The state Legislature does the congressional and legislative districts, while local bodies generally do their own lines. 

Redistricting “is the ultimate basic test of political power and one our communities have to play hard in,” said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Velasquez Institute. 

“Defining a district determines what kind of people can run and win in a district,” he says. Redistricting “is the best opportunity to expand representation” and give communities “a bigger, better, broader voice in governance.” 

Anyone with Internet access and the right software can use the Statewide Database at the University of California, Berkeley, to look at the same Census 2000 and voter information that the politicians will be using — racial, ethnic, income and party registration breakdowns down to the block level. 

Statewide Database staff will help the general public, scholars and politicians learn how to use the data, but will not actually draw redistricting maps, says director Karin MacDonald. 

However, groups such as the alliance plan to produce their own model plans to present to the Legislature and local bodies. When lawmakers release their plans, the groups will quickly analyze and critique them — and go to court if they feel the plans are unfair. 

They will use the same software program being used by the Legislature and many local governments, Maptitude for Redistricting, which costs about $3,500, said Zachary Gonzalez. 

The alliance is also offering “remote redistricting sessions” to make it even easier for small community groups to know what’s going on with their own congressional, legislative and local government lines. 

Community groups will be able to connect by phone lines with the main MALDEF computer and draw district lines on the Maptitude program sitting on the MALDEF computer, all for the cost of the phone call, said Zachary Gonzalez. 

Antonio Gonzalez says the Hispanic alliance will be working with the NAACP, the APALC and Native American groups to see how their analyses agree and try to resolve differences that could hurt all their efforts. 

“If we want to make an impact as minorities in this area, we have to work together,” agreed Arnold Fong of the Organization of Alameda Asians, a participant at the Oakland workshop. 

Ultimately, all this high-tech knowledge means that the politicians drawing the lines are likely to face greater scrutiny this year right down to the very smallest local boards. 

Ignacio De La Fuente, president of the Oakland City Council, told the workshop that the locally elected boards that run the Bay Area Rapid Transit and AC Transit, the basic transportation for millions in the East Bay, have never had Latinos elected to them. 

Latinos may have the numbers, he said, “but if we don’t have political representation at every level, it doesn’t mean a damn thing.” 

Facts about California’s redistricting process 

— What is redistricting? Taking the latest census figures and redrawing boundaries of electoral districts within a state — U.S. congressional, state legislative, county supervisor, city council, local school board and other districts. 

— When is it done and why? Every 10 years, right after the census, to reflect shifts in population and make sure districts each have about the same number of people. 

— Who does it? The state Legislature does congressional, legislative and Board of Equalization districts and the governor must sign the plans. Local government bodies do their own local districts. 

— When will it be done? The Legislature will be doing it next summer, before it adjourns on Sept. 14. Local bodies have different deadlines. 

— How many state districts are there? California’s congressional delegation is increasing from 52 to 53 because the state gained population. The Legislature’s districts remain 40 for the Senate and 80 for the Assembly. 

— Why should I care? The district boundaries will help determine which candidates will be running for those offices for the next decade. You want to be able to vote for representatives who share your interests on important issues ranging from income taxes and school funding to street lights and new playgrounds. 

— What are the rules? The most important is “one person, one vote,” meaning districts must have about the same population. Federal law also forbids giving members of a racial or ethnic group less of a chance of electing candidates of their choice. This means such groups cannot either be split thinly among lots of districts or packed into a small number of districts, either way diluting their voting strength. District drawers should also attempt to make them appear compact and contiguous, respect political boundaries (such as city lines), preserve similar communities and protect incumbents. 

— What is “gerrymandering”? A very weirdly shaped district drawn to meet political interests, such as maximizing voters of one party. The name comes from an 1812 redistricting law signed by Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry that included strange salamander-shaped districts that were nicknamed “gerrymanders.”

Search engine hopes to keep results more current 

SAN FRANCISCO – Web search engine AltaVista will add an online newsstand to its main index Monday to make its results more topical and useful to surfers looking for up-to-the-minute information. 

With the new service, Palo Alto-based AltaVista will automatically produce the top stories related to search requests. Clicking on a news center at the top search page will provide a complete index of all the latest online stories about the requested topic. 

The new feature, licensed from San Francisco-based Moreover, addresses a glaring shortcoming for even the most powerful search engines. 

Even though they have indexes covering a staggering amount of information on the Web, the top search engines rarely produce results that pick up on breaking news developments. 

“This is definitely going to be a big plus for search engine users,” said Danny Sullivan, an industry analyst for Searchenginewatch.com. 

“Right now when you use a traditional search engine to find the latest news on the Web, you’re really using the wrong tool. It’s like you are using a hammer when you really need a screwdriver.” 

The information void stems from how search engines find out what’s on the Web. The engines rely on computers, known as “crawlers,” that comb most Web sites every 15 to 30 days and then update the information. 

The lag time between when an article is first posted on a Web site and when it shows up in a search engine’s database means vital information might not be produced on a topic. 

For instance, enter “Tim Koogle” in a major search engine and you will get plenty of links to information about the Yahoo! Corp. CEO. But none of the top results would indicate that Koogle is relinquishing the reins of the company or produce articles explaining why because the decision was announced two weeks ago. 

Even Yahoo’s own search engine doesn’t provide the latest details about Koogle. The No. 1 result on Koogle is an article from May 2000. 

Moreover’s technology delivers the latest articles, including information posted on the same day, by searching more than 2,400 newsy sites every 15 minutes or so. Some publishers pay Moreover to review their Web sites, a structure that could lead to news articles from some Web sites will be featured more prominently in the search results. 

Privately held Moreover’s lead investors include the Reuters news service. The company has raised a total of $21 million in venture capital and expects to be profitable a year from now, said CEO Nick Denton, a former business reporter for Financial Times. 

Moreover introduced its technology last summer, but only recently began to license it to other sites. Before Monday’s announcement, Moreover’s highest profile deal was with Inktomi Corp., which incorporated the specialty search engine at NBCi.com and iWon.com. 

As one of the world’s most popular search engines, AltaVista “is the one deal that should take us over the top,” Denton said. 

Terms of the licensing agreement weren’t disclosed, but Moreover doesn’t expect to make much money from the partnership. Denton said Moreover expects to make most of its money through licenses with companies that use the service on their Web sites or Intranets. 

Moreover already is in talks to license its news-searching service to Yahoo and two other major search engines, Google and Excite, Denton said. 

Mountain View-based Google already provides links to three news stories on some searches and plans to offer more later this year, said spokesman David Krane. He declined to comment if the improvements would include a deal with Moreover.

The City Council will have to hash out one final problem in the Medical Marijuana Ordinance it will consider Tuesday night – what amounts individuals and collectives will be allowed to grow and possess. 

Medical marijuana advocates want the ordinance to match Oakland’s, which allows individuals to grow 144 plants indoors or 60 outdoors. Collective growers have no limits. City staff is recommending that Berkeley’s ordinance stay more in line with counties such as Marin and allow individuals to grow no more than 10 plants and limit collectives to  

50 plants.  

The council first referred the issue to the City Attorney’s Office in December 1999 asking for a draft ordinance that would allow chronically ill and terminally ill patients to legally grow and use marijuana. 

The draft was then sent to the Community Health Commission in July. The CHC revised the ordinance allowing more plants for personal use and possession than city staff had recommended. City Manager Weldon Rucker asked the commission to reduce the allowable numbers. The CHC voted not to reduce the quantity and sent the recommendation to the City Council on Jan. 25. 

Now the City Council will attempt to decide on reasonable amounts for individuals and collectives to grow. 

“We had staff look at what was a reasonable dosage and considered legal implications,” said Fred Medrano, director of Health and Human Services.  

“Oakland allowing 144 plants just doesn’t make any sense. You just don’t need that many for medical purposes.” 

Lt. Russell Lopes addressed the CHC on Jan. 25 and said the department supports medical marijuana use but does not support growing a large number of plants. He said that large amounts of marijuana being grown in homes or in collectives might encourage burglary and possibly home-invasion robberies. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said he supports a larger number of allowable plants, but said what number the council will be able to agree on remains to be seen. “Ten plants per year is clearly not sufficient,” he said. “When you say 10 plants you have to remember that not every plant becomes full grown and is usable.” 

Councilmember Polly Armstrong said it will be a challenge for the council to determine a fair number. She said she would rather err on the side of smaller amounts. “We want to take care of people who need it and we have a lot of learning to do to know what that means,” she said. “I have to say 144 plants sounds like a lot, but I’m not a farmer or a marijuana cultivator,” she said. “I do know that we don’t want Berkeley to turn into the Amsterdam of northern California.” 

Tod Mikuriya, a Berkeley resident and former psychiatrist in charge of marijuana research for the National Institute of Mental Health, said Oakland enacted its Medical Marijuana Ordinance two years ago and has not had problems. 

He said Berkeley should have adopted an ordinance a long time ago and would have if the city attorney and city manager had not tried to stall the issue. 

“It’s really a disgrace when a city like Oakland, which does not have a reputation for being terribly liberal, can move ahead with a good ordinance,” Mikuriya said “and here in Berkeley we have a city government that’s being run by a group of civil servants against the will of the people.” 

Court approved cannabis expert Chris Conrad said the problem with lower numbers of allowable plants is that it assumes all the plants will be usable and the grower will experience no problems. 

“The city manager’s recommendation for 10 plants is utopian in that it assumes your growing system will work perfectly all year around,” he said. “It doesn’t take into consideration things like bug infestations or growers having to stop a crop because their electricity bill is too high.” 

Co-medical Director of the East Bay Aids Center Steve O’Brien said growing 20 to 25 plants would be reasonable. He said that his patients who grow marijuana usually grow between four and 10 plants at a time. “The number one goal should be to protect the rights of sick people to use the drug,” he said. “If the higher numbers are approved there will be too much room for abuse.”  

Saturday, March 17

Light Search & Rescue  

9 a.m. - Noon  

Emergency Operations Center 

997 Cedar St.  

A free class as part of Community Emergency Response Training (CERT). Sponsored by the Berkeley Fire Dept. and the Office of Emergency Services. 644-8736 

Burma Human Rights Day  

2 p.m.  

Berkeley Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

KPFA Journalist Dennis Bernstein and members of the Burmese Resistance Movement will speak. Sponsored by the Burmese American Democratic Alliance and the Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists Social Action Committee.  

528-5403  

Berkeley Folk Dancers  

Fun Night 

7:45 - 10:45 p.m. 

Live Oak Park Hall  

Shattuck at Berryman  

“The Green Party” Dance  

$5 - $7  

655-3074 

Feminist Politics of Family  

9 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.  

Maude Fife Room (315) 

Wheeler Hall  

UC Berkeley  

A yearly symposium highlighting graduate student work. The focus of the conference this year is re-envisioning feminist conceptions of the 21st century family. Keynote speakers include Evelyn Nakato Glenn on “Caring” and Carol Queen on “Erotic Families in Choice.” Free and open to the public.  

643-3040 

Free Puppet Shows 

1:30 & 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health  

2230 Shattuck Ave.  

The Kids on the Block, the award-winning educational puppet troupe, which includes puppets with cerebral palsy, blindness and Down syndrome, promotes acceptance and understanding of physical and mental differences.  

549-1564 

Greenbelt Outing:  

Clean Up Cerrito Creek 

9:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Meet at El Cerrito BART 

Join Greenbelt Alliance and Friends of Five Creeks for a work party to clear invasive plants and restore native habitat to Cerrito Creek. Afterwards, take a moderate loop hike up to Albany Hill and down to the Bay Trail. Bring work gloves, weeding tools, rain gear if necessary, and a lunch. Snacks will be provided.  

415-255-3233 

Sunday, March 18

East Bay Men’s Chorus Rehearsal  

6:30 p.m. 

University Lutheran Chapel  

College & Haste  

UC Berkeley 

Calling for gay and bisexual men and their allies and friends to join this choral ensemble directed by J.R. Foust. There is no obligation to join the chorus after the first rehearsal. Rehearsal season runs March through July.  

Call to RSVP 664-0260 or e-mail eastbaymenschorus@yahoo.com 

“Parenting in the Second  

Half of Life” 

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Author Roberta Maisel will discuss ways parents and their grown children can get on a positive and guilt-free path. 848-0237  

“Hope Against Darkness”  

7:30 p.m. 

Newman Hall  

2700 Dwight Way (at College) 

Richard Rohr will respond to the questions: What is the darkness? What is hope? 848-7812  

The Bungalow - Tradition & Transformation 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by architect/contractor and West Berkeley bungalow restorer Barry Wagner.  

$35 525-7610 

Awareness In Action  

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Place  

Barr Rosenberg will speak on the Skillful Means teachings and practices toward a joyous, energetic, and relaxed approach to work.  

843-6812 

T. Rex: Mover & Shaker  

2 p.m.  

Lawrence Hall of Science 

UC Berkeley  

John Hutchinson of the Department of Integrative Biology at UCB, using video and hands-on activities, will demonstrate how some of the largest creatures roamed the earth. Free with museum admission.  

Monday, March 19

Timber Framing  

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Instructed by builder/timber framer Doug Eaton.  

$35 525-7610 

Socratic Solutions  

7:30 - 9 p.m.  

International House  

Home Room  

UC Berkeley  

The Socratic Society presents a lecture by Theoharis Kemos on Socratic insights into our social problems. Celebrate Socrates’ 2470th birthday anniversary. Free 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Social Dance  

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

With the North Berkeley Senior Dancing Group.  

644-6107 

A New Softball Field at Longfellow? 

7 p.m. 

Longfellow Theater  

1500 Derby (at Sacramento)  

The BUSD, Longfellow School, and the Berkeley/Albany Girls Softball Association invite you to attend a community meeting to discuss the proposed field.  

644-6320 

Tuesday, March 20

“Great Decisions” - Mexico Reexamined  

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Fibromyalgia Support Group  

Noon - 2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way  

Don Hill, RPH, BS, Pharmacist, will discuss “FM/A Generalized Review of Medications.” Free 

204-4503 

Young Queer Women’s Group 

8 - 10 p.m.  

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

A movie night extravaganza featuring “The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.” Pizza, sodas, and even sushi. Make some new friends, expand your horizons and get support with a bunch of queer women all in the same place at the same time (somewhere between 18 and 25).  

548-8283 or visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is death and dying in celebration of the Ides of March.  

Call 527-9772  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Lavendar Lunch 

12:30 - 1:30 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave.  

Mudd Bldg., Room 103  

Unitarian-Universalist minister Sean Parker Dennison discusses his experiences as a transgender minister working in parish ministry.  

849-8206 

Rethinking Creation  

7 p.m. 

Tucson Common Room  

Church Divinity School of the Pacific 

2450 Le Conte Ave.  

Dr. Sjoerd L. Bonting will speak on “Rethinking Creation: ‘Chaos Events’ and Theology.”  

Call 848-8152 

TREES Forum  

12:30 p.m. 

Hewlett Library  

2400 Ridge Rd., Dinner Board Room  

Marty Kheel will present “Women, Animals and Nature: Eco-feminist Reflections.”  

trees@gtu.edu 

Debate Lobbying 

Noon  

Harris Room  

119 Moses Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Kevin Esterling, Robert Wood Johnson Fellow, UC Berkeley, will discuss “Does Policy Research Matter in Lobbying Debates?” Bring a brown bag lunch. Free  

Advice for Life  

12:30 - 2:30 p.m. 

Albany Senior Center 

646 Masonic Ave.  

Albany  

A series of Tuesday presentations and discussions that will cover: Memory loss, assertiveness, loss, grief, insight into life changes, opening communication in relationships, and independence in the later years. Free  

Wednesday, March 21

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Free Writing, Cashiering & Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets.  

Call 644-6226 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107. 

Chimneys From A - Z  

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by Irish Sweep Sally McKnight.  

$35  

525-7610 

Design Dung  

7 - 9 p.m.  

School of Journalism Library  

121 North Gate Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Part of the Terner Series, an informal salon-style discussion series, which brings together industry professionals, students, and interested community members. This session is a discussion of the failure to communicate good and bad architecture. Free 

Alzheimer’s Support Group 

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

For families and caregivers.  

Frohe  

Weihachten 

Editor: 

I am a visitor from Germany. Your beautiful town is surrounded by lovely scenery, has an impressive campus and countless handsome neighborhoods with their small, distinctive shopping centers. I’m appalled by the filthiness of some areas, and I can tell you’re still working on your downtown.  

I am amused by the presence of nutcrackers, peace & joy doves, and poinsettias that still festoon the downtown lamp poles. 

Has time stood still in Berkeley? In Cologne, where I come from, they’re getting ready for Easter. 

Heilecke Witschke 

Cologne, Germany 

Un-Berkeley to harass Wozniak 

Editor:  

Gordon Wozniak, member of the environmental commission is being harassed and run down, not for anything he did or is doing but for what he might do. For centuries, people were destroyed not for what they did but for what they believed or for what they might do. This is regressive, brutal, and perfidious and as UN-Berkeley as it gets.  

Wozniak is a distinguished scientist and about to retire. Without any evidence or basis he is accused, by some without credentials or credibility, of malfeasance. If Wozniak does wrong, he should be censured. But for his professional expertise he ought to be acknowledged, even by those who disagree with him.  

Why would a man with a long sterling record of community service jeopardize his reputation? There is not evidence of any quid pro quo or any other benefit to him. His peers and our civic leaders need the guts to stand up not only to defend Gordon from self-serving attacks, but do it for the integrity and quality of volunteer public service in Berkeley. 

Berkeley is fortunate that able people accept public service. No one gets rich from it and by and large its not even fun. To keep capable volunteers doing public service in our city we must throw roses their way and not rotten tomatoes.  

Harry D. Weininger 

Berkeley 

Smoke scream 

Editor: 

There has been some misunderstandings with regard to the recommendations of the Community Environmental Advisory Commission for a proposed Woodsmoke Ordinance due to be heard by the Berkeley City Council on March 20.  

This is a very good thing for Berkeley. It has been put together with the greatest of consideration for people who love their fireplaces. The proposed ordinance will not affect existing fireplaces or residential woodstoves. It only restricts wood burning fireplaces in new home construction. Restrictions would probably apply to less than a half dozen units a year in Berkeley. 

Because of the growing concern regarding the unhealthy conditions created by residential woodburning, especially during stagnant air days in winter, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has encouraged local governments to pass a model ordinance similar to the one being considered. To date, 8 or 9 cities and municipalities have had the foresight to pass such an ordinance to help clear the air that residents must breathe. 

Burning wood produces particulate pollution proven to be a serious health hazard to everyone, especially to children, the elderly, and people with respiratory problems. The main objective of the proposed ordinance is to get funding for a public education program so that the public can make an informed choice with regard to if, when, and how often they use their wood burning appliances. 

The ordinance is based on many health studies and has been put together by people who care about keeping our air as clean as possible. Please let your Council person know that you support their voting for the proposed ordinance.  

For more information on the proposed ordinance please contact the Toxics Management Dept., City of Berkeley at 705-8150. For more information regarding particulate pollution from woodsmoke, please check out burningissues.org on the world wide web. 

Jami Caseber, Chair 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission  

Fire fought with force 

Editor: 

Your report of fire dancing classes in San Francisco was inspiring, but Berkeleyans should be forewarned that to attempt to enjoy fire in this town will be met with fierce repression. 

While emergency flares, cigarettes tossed every which way, and of course an endless barrage of internal combustion engines spewing lung damaging carcinogens may fill the streets with impunity, the ongoing war on culture and freedom in Berkeley demands that fire not be used for any other purpose, particularly for free expression and art. Public safety is certainly not the concern. 

In a recent example, a Reclaim the Streets demonstration on February 9 of this year, in solidarity with indigenous in Ecuador who are suffering our country’s imperialism, included some individuals who lit torches with which to light an effigy of the almighty dollar (which recently forced its way into Ecuador to destabilize and leach off the economy there).  

The effigy was but 5-6 feet high and burned in about a minute in the middle of the street. This was used as an excuse by police to attack the demonstration, violating our civil right to free speech. Police essentially instigated martial law. They forcefully confiscated and destroyed valuable property including bicycles, hand-made trailers, a sound system, a personal backpack with ID, keys, etceteras, a banner which read, ‘Indigenous Freedom’, and our beloved couch. They used violence to drag targeted individuals off the sidewalk and into the street where they were arrested with false charges and held for many days, some are still falsely charged. 

The following month, police and business groups attempted to use the manufactured concept that the demonstration was ‘violent’ (coupled with the unrelated and unfortunate looting at an affirmative action demonstration) to justify further repression of demonstrations in 

Berkeley, this time targeting the monthly critical mass bicycle celebration on its 8th birthday. Claiming without substantiation that the riders were planning to burn two buildings (even in the worst rioting in Berkeley’s history people have not lit buildings on fire!), the ride was treated to armadas of riot police, helicopters, motorcycles, and of course the media. Perhaps the media’s presence is all that protected us that day. This is a family ride with children on it, which has been peaceful and positive on a monthly basis for eight years! But police have made no secret about their desire to suppress it. Business groups (the TAA and BID) even released their own alarmist and inaccurate communiques, with such misinformation as to claim that Reclaim the Streets has set fire to cars (never). 

Berkeley should be smart enough not to continually increase its police forces. Where is the balance of powers? Who is protecting the vulnerable from everyday abuses? (Essentially no one). The division between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives’ is sharp and deep, and the police are the conservatives’ primary tool of cultural repression, racist whitewashing, and gentrification against the barely outnumbered progressives. So when the kids on Telegraph are swept away, your innocent experimentation with traditional fire dancing may be next. At this rate, the peoples of Ecuador will have to hold demonstrations in support of the oppressed peoples of Berkeley. 

Jason Meggs 

Berkeley 

Last weekend Subterranean Shakespeare began its 14th season of low-budget productions of the Bard at LaVal’s Subterranean with a modern-dress production of Shakespeare’s last play “The Tempest.” 

“The Tempest” is the story of a magician giving up his magic powers and retiring from the world. It is often viewed as an allegory about Shakespeare himself giving up the theater and retiring from London back to his land and prosperity in Stratford, where he was born. 

For this production, director Stanley Spenger has done some gender-bending, casting several women to play the parts of men. In addition, he has changed several of the characters in the play from male to female. 

These gender decisions, however, are haphazard artistically, and don’t serve a clear vision for the play. 

For example, in one scene in this reconfigured casting, two men from the shipwrecked court of Naples rudely insult two women of the court. This behavior profoundly contradicts the important etiquette of Shakespeare’s world of courtly manners, but without adding new insights to the story. 

In “The Tempest,” magician Prospero lives with his daughter Miranda (Jasmin Fiandaca) on a lonely remote island, after losing the dukedom of Milan to a conniving brother. 

As the play begins, Prospero is able through his magical powers to create a storm that shipwrecks onto the island the treacherous brother and his allies from back home. So in part the play is a story of Prospero’s family reckoning.. 

But “The Tempest” is also in large part a romance and a comedy. Drunken shipwrecked sailors stumble comically around the island, and a young couple falls in love.  

The Sub Shakes staging is a no-frills production that focuses on the words, rather than the visuals, and completes the play in a brisk two hours and fifteen minutes, including an intermission. 

I have mixed feelings about the Subterranean Shakespeare productions that are directed by Spenger.  

On the one hand, as the driving force behind the group for many years, he is to be commended for giving Berkeley so many affordable productions of these classics. 

On the other hand, although some of the directors who stage plays for him are good, Spenger himself is neither a strong director nor a strong actor. 

Despite cooking up a clever low-budget makeshift shipwreck to open “The Tempest,” Spenger loses much of the humor, magic and poetry of this play in this production. 

For example, the usually riotous three-way drunk among monster Caliban (Geoffrey Pond) and shipwrecked sailors Trinculo (Diane Jackson) and Stephano (James Ryder) is rushed and hammy.  

There are few opportunities in this staging for the comical reaction shots, double takes and visual humor that this segment generally contains. 

Often the actors in this production look like fish out of water, performing without the thoughtful guidance that a good director can provide. There is lots of standing around by performers who don’t have lines to speak. 

Gregory Pond’s buffoonish Caliban doesn’t feel like a monster. The show’s blocking is muddy. 

Nor is Spenger a strong actor. In “The Tempest” he has cast himself in the central role of ringmaster magician Prospero. 

Spenger obviously loves the poetry of Shakespeare, but he largely mugs and poses his way through a childish and mercurial portrayal. Basic craft elements are missing from his acting – like performance objectives and focus. 

Spenger appears to be a theatrical autodidact, and it shows in this production. If he worked on the craft seriously with good teachers, he could make his shows better. 

That’s what it’s going to take to get the plays he directs and performs in at LaVal’s to the next level. 

Planet theater reviewer John Angell Grant has written for "American Theatre," "Callboard," and many other publications. E-mail him at jagplays@yahoo.com.

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm.”An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels like an earthworm, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

UC Berkeley Art Museum “The Mule Train: A Journey of Hope Remembered” through March 26. “Joe Brainard: A Retrospective,” Through May 27. Muntadas - On Translation: The Audience, Through April 29. Ernesto Neto/MATRIX 19 A Maximum Minimum Time Space Between Us and the Parsimonious Universe, Through April 15. Made from disposable materials such as styrofoam pellets, glass, paper, paraffin wax, and nylon stockings, Neto’s sensual sculptural works provoke viewers to interact with his art. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. 642-0808. 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology “Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended. This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history.“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing.This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. $2 general; $1 seniors; $.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” Ongoing. A math exhibit of hands-on problem-solving stations, each with a different mathematical challenge.“Within the Human Brain” Ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Vision,” Through April 15 Get a very close look at how the eyes and brain work together to focus light, perceive color and motion, and process infomation. “T. Rex on Trial,” Through May 28 Where was T. Rex at the time of the crime? Learn how paleontologists decipher clues to dinosaur behavior. “Fossil Finding with Annie Montague Alexander” March 17 - 18, 24-25, 31 & April 21; “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. Computer Lab, Saturdays 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership March 17: The Hoods, Benumb, Above The World, Chronic Disorder, Eulogy; March 23: 18 Visions, Walls of Jericho, Time In Malta, Undying, Betray the Species; March 24: Workin’ Stiffs, The Bodies, Strychnine, East Bay Chasers, For the Alliance; March 30: Deathreat, Ahimsa, F*** God In the Face, The Black, Creation Is Crucifixion; 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted March 17: Maureen Brennan Group 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz March 17, 9:30 p.m.: Sensa Samba, dance lesson at 8:30 p.m.; March 18, 5 - 10 p.m.: Aid for Ahmedabad Earthquake Relief Concert featuring Vinyl, New Monsoon, Raja & Srini, plus Henry Kaiser, $20; March 20, 9 p.m.: Brass Menagerie, dance lesson at 8 p.m.; March 21, 9 p.m.: Gator Beat, dance lesson at 8 p.m.; March 22, 9:30: Groundation; March 23, 8 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Dead-A-Thon with Digital Dave, Legion of Mary, Cosmic Mercy; March 24, 2 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Ashkenaz fourth annual dance-a-thon featuring Lavay Smith, African, Caribbean, reggae, Balkan, North African and cajun bands for 12 hours of nonstop dance music; May 6, 7 p.m.: Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Doors open at 8 p.m. March 17: Sugar G; March 23: Carlos Zialcita; March 24: Daniel Castro; March 30: Craig Horton Blues Band 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. March 17: The Black Brothers: Shay, Michael & Martin; March 18: Hanes Family; March 19: Liam O’Flynn & The Pipers Call; March 21: Reverend Billy C. Wirtz; March 22: Sid Selvidge, Alan Smithline; March 23: Perfect Strangers; March 24: Barry & Alice Olivier; March 25: Boogie Woogie Piano Cavalcade w/Beverly Stovall, Sue Palmer, Wendy De Witt, Big Joe Duskin; March 27: Maria Muldaur; March 28: Todd Phillips, David Grier & Matt Flinner; March 29: Tom Paxton; March 30 & 31: House Jacks 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzschool/La Note All music at 4:30 p.m. March 18: Wayne Wallace Septet $6 - $12; March 22, 8 - 10 p.m.: Adult Big Band; March 25 & 27 - 29, 4 - 10 p.m.: Student Winter Recitals; April 8: The Marcos Silva Quartet; April 15: Art Lande and Mark Miller; April 22: Alan Hall & Friends; April 29: Nancy King/Rob Scheps/Glen Moore Trio 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 or visit www.jazzschool.com  

Live Oak Concert Series All music at 7:30 p.m. March 18: Mark Sanders, flute, David Cheng, violin, Darcy Rindt, viola, Paul Rhodes, cello. Flute quartets of Haydn and Mozart; March 25: Horizon Wind Quartet play music of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Ravel, Ligetti and others All concerts $8 - $10 Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Cal Performances March 23, 7 p.m. & March 24, 1 & 8 p.m.: “The King Stag: A Tragicomic Tale for the Theatre” by Carlo Gozzi $24 - $46; April 1, 3 p.m.: Pianist Richard Goode play the music of Bach, Chopin and Beethoven $28 - $48 Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu March 25, 3 p.m.: Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio perform music of Beethoven, Ravel and Tchaikovsky $32; Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

“An Afternoon of Song” with Elaine Bernstein March 25, 2 p.m. Bernstein, soprano and Sally Munro, mezzo, with Gwendolyn Mok at the piano, will perform a variety of duets from the operas “Hansel & Gretel,” “Cosi Fan Totte,” “Der Rosenkavaher,” and “Lakme,” and more. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra April 3 and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Yair Dalal & Hamza El Din March 17, 8 p.m. Traditional and contemporary compositions rooted in their rich and diverse cultures. Special guest include cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, formerly of Kronos Quartet, percussionist Salaheddin Takesh, and KPFA Radio’s Kutay Derin Kugay as master of ceremonies $23 - $25 Wheeler Auditorium UC Berkeley  

John Santos & The Machete Ensemble March 17, 8:30 p.m. $12 - $14 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 

Terry Gibbs March 18, 2 p.m. A concert/dance featuring the celebrated vibraphonist. $15 Longfellow School of the Arts 1500 Derby St. (at Sacramento) 420-4560 

Jack Wright with Tom Dill, Morgan Guberman Trio & Viv Corringham March 18, 7:48 p.m. $8 donation Tuva Space 3192 Adeline (at MLK Jr. Way) 649-8744 

New Century Chamber Orchestra present “Time Past and Time Present” March 22, 8 p.m. $25 - $30 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave. 415-392-4400 

BHS Jazz Ensemble March 23, 7:30 p.m. The spring concert performance from the award-winning jazz ensemble. Proceeds benefit the students who will travel to Europe this summer to perform in Italy and Switzerland. $5 - $8 Florence Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way  

The Berkeley Opera presents “The Marriage of Figaro” March 23 - April 1, call for specific times $10 - $30 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Solo Opera Opera Gala Concert March 23, 8 p.m. $25 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave. 925-685-4945 or e-mail: solomail@pacbell.net 

Rebecca Riots March 24, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. $12 - $14 Club Muse 856 San Pablo Ave. Albany 528-2878 

Benefit Concert for the Xiana Fairchild Volunteer Center March 25, 7:30 p.m. Featuring The Sick, Simplistic, Mastema, Drain, and an all-star jam with surprise guests. All proceeds to benefit the volunteer center. 18 and over show. $8 Blake’s on Telegraph 2367 Telegraph Ave. 848-0886  

Music in Great Berkeley Houses March 31, 7 p.m. $35 Gwendolyn Mok, piano, and Jean-Michel Fonteneau, cello, will play the music of Frank Bridge, Debussy, and Poulenc. Palache House Reserved tickets required 841-2242 

“How Desolate Lies the City...” March 31, 8 p.m. The cantatas of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries. $20 - $37 First Congregational Church of Berkeley 2345 Channing Way 415-621-7900 

Jesus Diaz y su QBA March 31, 9:30 p.m. Cuban timba dance music. $12 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568  

Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble Brunch April 1, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Free - $40 Santa Fe Bar & Grill 1310 University Ave. 527-8245 

“From Broadway to Brazil” April 1, 4 p.m. Berkeley Broadway Singers is a 70-member chorus led by Ellen Hoffman. They will be singing Motown classics along with class Broadway showtunes Free Saint Ambrose Church 1145 Gilman St. 524-0107 

Trio Accorde April 1, 7:30 p.m. $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley One Lawson Road Kensington 525-0302 

Hillbillies From Mars April 8, 2 p.m. Rocking the Bay for twenty years, the Hillbillies fuse rock n’ roll, swing, Latin and African beats. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

“Bravo! Opera!” April 8, 7:30 p.m. A veritable Opera chorus smorgasbord with Bizet’s “Carmen,” Verdi’s “IL trovatore,” and Copland’s “The Tenderland.” $8 - $12 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 643-9645 

Young Emerging Artists Concert April 10, 7 - 8 p.m. The Young Musicians Program Jazz Combo will perform jazz standards and original compositions. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra presents “Under Construction No. 11” April 8, 7:30 p.m. A concert of new works by local composers, including Mary Stiles, Mark Winges, and David Sheinfeld. Free St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Theater 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Through March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“A New Brain” by William Finn Through March 18, Fridays & Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Watch as Gordon Schwinn, in the face of a life-threatening brain tumor, composes a farewell concert in which all the important figures in his life make show-stopping appearances. Presented by BareStage Productions $8 - $12 Choral Rehearsal Hall, Lower Level of Caesar Chavez Student Center UC Berkeley 642-3880  

“Little Shop of Horrors” Through Apri 1, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday & Sunday, 2 p.m., no show Friday, March 23; $12 Berkeley Community Little Theatre Allston Way at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way Call 943-SHOW  

“The Oresteia” by Aeschylus Through May 6 Directed by Tony Taccone and Stephen Wadsworth, Aeschylus trilogy will be the first production staged on the Berkeley Rep’s new prosenium stage. Please call Berkeley Repertory Theatre for specific dates and times. $15.99 - $117 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. (at Shattuck) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Chappy Knuckles (Semi-Regional Motorcross And) Family Fun Hour” March 19 & 20, 7 & 9 p.m. Shotgun Players’ Black Box Productions presents Old Man McGinty, who has a rubbing stone that he would love for you to touch. $10 LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid Ave. 655-0813 or visit www.shotgunplayers.com  

“The Tempest” by William Shakespeare Through April 14, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Stanley Spenger $8 - $10 LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid Ave. (at Hearst) 237-7415 

Action Movie: The Play March 23 - April 21, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m. Non-stop action and martial arts mayhem with comedy, surprise plot twists, and the occasional movie reference thrown in. $7 - $12 The Eighth Street Studio 2525 Eighth St. 464-4468 

Stagebridge presents the 10th annual Family Matinee Theatre and Ice Cream Social March 25 & April 1, 3 p.m. The premiere of Linda Spector’s “Strega Nona and Other Grandparent Tales,” with a cast aged 9 - 70. $4 - $8 First Congregational Church 2501 Harrison Oakland 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org.  

Films 

“Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win” March 18, 6 p.m. A historic documentary of the May - June 1968 General Strike in France. Directed by Paris working class filmmaker Jean Pierre Thorn. Also to be shown is “France on Strike,” on the 1995 French public workers strike by rail workers, teachers, electrical and postal workers. $7 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 849-2568  

The Bullfighter & the Lady and Seven Men From Now March 17, 6:30 p.m. Join Budd Boetticher, director of Westerns, who will discuss his career and screen two of his favorites. $7 Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch St.) 642-1412 

“Dreamers” March 17 - 24 The American feature film debut of Chinese-born writer/director Ann Lu. The executive producer of the film is UC Berkeley alumnus Peiti Feng Fine Arts Cinema 2451 Shattuck Ave. 848-1143 

“Earth” April 7, 7:30 p.m. A 1930 film, set in Ukraine, by Soviet director Alexander Dovzhenko with an original music score created and performed by composer and musician Adrian Johnston. $7 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“Regeneration” April 8, 5:30 p.m. The first feature-length gangster movie, filmed around 1915 on the streets of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. Directed by Raoul Walsh, the movie will have a new original music score created and performed by composer and musician Adrian Johnston. $7 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

Exhibits 

Berkeley Historical Society “Berkeley’s Ethnic Heritage.” An overview of the rich cultural diversity of the city and the contribution of individuals and minority groups to it’s history and development. Thursday through Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m. Free. 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Dorchester Days,” the photographs of Eugene Richards is a collection of pictures portraying the poverty, racial tension, crime and violence prevalent in Richards’ hometown of Dorchester, Massachusetts in the 1970s. Through April 6. UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism 121 North Gate Hall #5860 642-3383 

“Still Life & Landscapes” The work of Pamela Markmann Through March 24, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Red Oak Gallery 1891 Solano Ave. 527-3387 

“Contemporary Photogravure” Printing from hand-inked plates etched from a film positive, a unique exhibition of photographs with luxurious tones. Through March 30, Tuesday - Friday, Noon - 5 p.m. or by appointment Kala Art Institute 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977 

“Musee des Hommages,” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Boticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours 2028 Ninth St. (at Addison) 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

“Sugar N’ Spice N’ Everything Nice: Live, Loves and Legacies of Women of Color” Through April 21, Wednesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Works by Aissatoui Vernita, Flo Oy Wong, Tomoko Negishi, Consuelo Jimenez and many others. Pro Arts Gallery 461 Ninth Street Oakland 763-9425 

Amanda Haas, New Paintings and Olivia Kuser, Recent Landscapes Through March 24, Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Traywick Gallery 1316 Tenth St. 527-1214 

“Travels in Color” Wax crayon sketches by Pamela Markmann made over the past 35 years Through March 31, 5 - 8 p.m. daily Voulez Vouz Bistro 2930 College Ave. 548-4708 

“Chicano Art and Visions of David Tafolla” Vivid color acrylic and oil paintings with Latino imagery. Through April 12, Tuesday - Thursday, 1 - 7 p.m., Saturday Noon - 4 p.m. and by appointment. 548-9272 or www.wcrc.org 

Nylan Jeung and David Lippenberger Lippenberger renders figures in acrylic and Jeung work with ink and watercolor on rice paper, using traditional eastern techniques. Through April 7, Wednesday through Sunday, Noon - 5 p.m Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893 

Recent Works of Narangkar Khalsa & Pete Glover Through March 31; Opening reception March 10, 7 - 9 p.m. !hey! Gallery 4920-B Telegraph Ave. Oakland 428-2349  

“The Art of Meadowsweet Dairy” Objects found in nature, reworked and turned into objects of art. March 19 - May 15, call for hours; Opening reception: April 6, 6 - 9 p.m. Current Gallery at the Crucible 1036 Ashby Ave. 843-5511  

Bernard Maisner: Illuminated Manuscripts & Paintings March 18 - August 8 Maisner works in miniature as well as in large scales, combining his mastery of medieval illumination, gold leafing, and modern painting techniques. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library 2400 Ridge Rd. 849-2541 

Readings 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 21, 7 p.m.: Gay/Bi Men’s Book Group will discuss “Lost Language of Cranes” by David Leavitt; March 24, 7 p.m.: Aliza Sherman will read and sign “Cybergrrl@Work: Tips and Inspiration for the Professional You” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 18: Poetry of Yvonne Cannon, Lara Gularte, Richard Rocco; March 19: Jean Rouverol talks about “Refugees From Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist”; March 21: Poetry of James Schevill; March 25: Poetry of Beverly Matherne & A.J. Rathbun; March 28: Poetry of Craig Van Riper & Jaime Robles; April 4: Poetry of Carole Simmons Oles & Matthew McKay; April 11: Poetry of Kurt Brown & Al Young 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 27: Travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, author of “The Practical Nomad” will provide essential tips, advice, and consumer skills for the independent traveler; March 29: Katherine Widing, author of “Cycling France” will give a slide presentation/talk on just that 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mike March 25, 2 p.m. Featuring poet Paradise Berkeley Art Museum 2621 Durant (at Bowditch) 527-9753 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

“Slam the Prisons” April 6, 6 p.m. - 1 a.m. A benefit for prison activism featuring Tang, Company of Prophets, Sheryl D. Mebane and many others. Proceeds benefit the defense of New Afrikan political prisoner Khalfani X. Khaldun and the Prison Activist Resource Center. $10 La Pena Cultural Center 3205 Shattuck Ave. 898-0431  

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

Lectures 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested March 18: “Topaz Moon,” Kimi Kodani Hill will discuss artist Chiura Obata’s family and the WWII Japanese relocation camps. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Research Seminars Noon seminars are brown bag  

March 19, Noon: Anne Balsamo of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, will explore IT issues within the humanities; April 23, 4 p.m.: Mary Dudziach of USC will discuss “Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.” 119 Moses Hall UC Berkeley 642-4608  

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Through April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

City Commons Club Lecture Series Fridays, 12:30 p.m. $1 general Students Free March 16: Paul H. Young, Jr. retired foreign service officer, will present “A Pilgrim’s Visit to Athos”; March 23: Guy Colwell, master painter of Nasters, will speak on “Using Painting to Teach Art History”; March 30: Jana Grittersova, professor of International Relations, UC Berkeley will speak on “The European Union - Integration and Expansion” Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 848-3533 

“Color, Color, Color” March 26, 7:30 p.m. A lecture by Christine Barnes which looks at three characteristics of color common to all quilts: Value, temperature and intensity. Free - $3 First Unitarian Church One Lawson Road Kensington 834-3706 

For the first time ever, two Berkeley high school basketball teams could bring home state championships in the same season. But if the Berkeley Lady ’Jackets and the St. Mary’s Panthers are to win their respective titles, they will both have to overcome bigger, stronger opponents. 

For Berkeley, this is no new situation, as the ’Jackets have won two state titles in the last decade. They face an opponent as familiar as any other in Narbonne, which defeated Gene Nakamura’s squad in 1998 and last year in the Division I Final, although the Lady Gauchos were forced to vacate the title in 1998 due to recruiting violations. 

The Panthers, on the other hand, have never been this far, with their loss in the Northern Section semifinals last year their best effort until now. The ultra-quick Panthers will take on Southern Section Division IV champ Crossroads, which features 6-foot-10 center Isaiah Fox and 6-foot-6 forward Jordan Rush. 

The Lady ’Jackets are led by senior forward Robin Roberson, who has signed to play at Arizona next year. Roberson has added 3-point range to her game this season to go with her tough inside game, but she will be facing a Narbonne squad that has one of the nation’s biggest and best frontcourts. Forwards Amber Pruitt, Wilnett Crockett and Jamie Funn are all taller than the 6-foot Roberson, so the Berkeley star will likely look for her points outside the paint. 

While Narbonne’s most explosive player is Tennessee-bound guard Loree Moore, Nakamura is concerned with the Lady Gauchos’ front line and their ability to dominate the offensive glass. His team gave up 19 offensive rebounds to Oakland in the Northern Section Final. 

“Narbonne is such a multi-talented team, and they’re a big team,” Nakamura said. “They go 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 across the front line, and if we don’t block out, they’ll beat us on putbacks alone. If they control the boards on us, we’ll be in deep trouble.” 

The task of containing the taller Gauchos will fall to center Sabrina Keys and forwards Roberson and Gelater Fullwood. Keys has had a disappointing year on the offensive end, but she uses her 6-foot-1 frame well to grab rebounds. Fullwood will be at a size disadvantage, but she is very active and plays with more energy than her bigger teammates. 

Berkeley’s offense will hinge on whoever Nakamura decides on at the point. Senior Danielle Milburn and sophomore Michi Yamamoto have both performed well at times this season, but neither has been able to hold down the starting job for more than a few games. Late in the season, Nakamura has depended on junior Angelita Hutton to bring the ball up the court, but she isn’t a true point guard and has struggled in the playoffs. If Milburn or Yamamoto can run the offense against Narbonne, it should allow Hutton to concentrate on her scoring, which would in turn take the heat off of Roberson. 

On the boys’ side, St. Mary’s will use their quickness to offset the size of Crossroads in a David vs. Goliath matchup. Fox, who will play at Arizona next year, has had a monster impact in the playoffs, culminating in a 33-point, 22-rebound effort against Bakersfield in the section final. St. Mary’s coach Jose Caraballo will defend him with 6-foot-8 sophomore Simon Knight and hope for the best. Knight has the size to match up with Fox, but his lack of experience could mean trouble for the Panthers. 

Fox is the latest in a line of standout players for the Roadrunners, who won a state title in 1997. Crossroads has produced current NBA players Baron Davis and Austin Croshere. 

Senior guard Joe Abraham will run the offense for Crossroads, and how he handles the St. Mary’s press will be a key to the game. If the Roadrunners can consistently set up their half-court offense, they can pound the ball inside to Fox and Rush. But if the Panthers can make the game a chaotic, run-and-gun affair, the odds will favor the Berkeley squad. 

Caraballo will answer the Roadrunners’ size with his quicksilver backcourt, point guard DaShawn Freeman and John Sharper. Freeman, one of the top junior guards in the state, has played well-rounded games in the playoffs and should create havoc for the Crossroads guards. Sharper has been on fire lately, averaging 25 points per game in the playoffs. The guards team with forwards Chase Moore and Jeremiah Fielder to pressure the other team into turnovers, and Fielder has proven time and time again that he can shut down a big scorer. 

The game should come down to tempo. Whichever team controls the pace should win the championship.

Fifth-graders Erin Williams and Keila Russell lead busy lives. 

But that didn’t stop them from making time away from their regular occupations (Erin is a newspaper publisher and Keila is vice mayor of a small town) to start a small photography business. As first time entrepreneurs, they ran into difficulties making the business profitable. It may have been unrealistic to charge $7 retail for a product that cost only 50 cents to produce, they said. 

But in the bustling corridors of the City of Franklin Microsociety Magnet School last week, the business partners seemed undeterred. They’re already working on another business plan for a gourmet food shop specializing in caramel apples. 

“Food is a big seller,” Keila said. 

“And we want big sellers,” Erin said. 

Keila let this daring display of entrepreneurial spirit sink in before marching out the deal clincher. 

“And caramel apples are good with ice cream.” 

One of four magnet schools launched in Berkeley under a $3 million, three-year federal grant awarded in 1999, the City of Franklin teaches kids the skills they need to survive in the real world by building a real world within the school.  

The students study the same curriculum as other grade-schoolers, but for at least 45 minutes, twice a week, they use the things they learn as adult professionals might. 

“They say, ‘Oh, that’s why I need to know this,’” said Franklin Principal Barbara Penny-James. “Rather than just an academic exercise they see the practical application of what they learn.” 

Each grade is in charge of running an agency that the whole school, in community meetings, determined was a necessary component of their microsociety. Each agency is tied in carefully with the curriculum of that particular grade. 

Kindergartners, for example, draw on their science curriculum to run the school’s recycling agency. First-graders practice critical reading and writing skills as the employees of the school’s post office.  

Second-graders might be called a wing of the school’s state department. Their social studies revolve around the country of Brazil, and the students periodically launch public education campaigns to bring the rest of the school up to speed on South America’s largest and most populous country.  

Third-grade is the financial district. Students hone basic math skills as employees of the school store and the school bank. Fourth-grade is for the foodies. As the staff of the school restaurant, these students take field trips to Wild Oats Market on University Avenue to learn about nutrition. They visit area restaurants to study a broad array of menus before drafting one of their own. 

Fifth-graders report on everything going on in the lower grades as the staff of the “201 Times” newspaper. They work on writing and communication skills and draw on concepts learned in math, history and science classes to narrate the life of the school. 

“We’re preparing them to become more active participants in society,” said Franklin fifth-grade teacher Lourdes Lejano. “They don’t want to miss anything, because they have an opportunity to see the consequences if they do miss anything.” 

Franklin students are paid for the jobs in microdollars. They’re paid one microdollar for coming to school each day and another microdollar for coming to school on time. They, in turn, must to pay rent for the desks and school materials. Money left over can be spend at the school store, or on Market Day once a year, when students like Erin and Keila test their skills by operating entrepreneurial businesses. 

The power of the microsociety model is that it teaches responsibility and accountability, said Berkeley Chamber of Commerce CEO Rachel Rupert. 

“We get kids coming out of high school who can’t spell, don’t know how to problem solve, or don’t have the accountability to be on time (for work),” Rupert said. “(Franklin kids) are going to have a better understanding of what it takes” to hold down a real job. 

The microsociety isn’t just based on the real city of Berkeley, it’s actually linked to it wherever feasible. The school is a member of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and sends a delegation to its annual trade show. A banker has visited campus to help third graders understand what it takes to run a real bank and a retired judge stops in occasionally to help with the school court. Next month he’ll swear in students lucky enough to pass the City of Franklin BAR examination. 

Students begin to see how the things they learn in school help determine which career path they can take, Franklin teachers said. 

“They’re able to link their own experiences and the experiences of their parents,” said Lejano. 

City of Franklin Microsociety Magnet School will soon expand to become the city’s only K-8 school, adding one grade each year for the next three years. 

“Everywhere I go people say, ‘Yes, this is the way to go,’ ‘Yes, this makes so much sense,’” Penny-James said. 

Penny-James said the microsociety works best with the middle school component in place because the activities of the older students enrich the school society and provide additional learning opportunities for students at all levels. 

For example, Franklin’s first sixth-grade class next year will study French and have an opportunity to travel to a French speaking country. Penny-James said the school will begin teaching some French even at lower grades, anticipating that students will want to start early when they see what’s in store for them in sixth grade. 

Irving Phillips, director of magnet programs for the Berkeley Unified School District, said it’s too early to say how well Franklin has met some of the key goals of federally funded magnet schools, like reducing racial segregation and raising student achievement. The school is still in the early stages of recruiting students from across Berkeley, he said, and it has only one year’s test scores under its belt. 

Franklin faired worse that most Berkeley elementary schools last year on standardized tests for reading, math, language and spelling, but part of that could be that the many of the school’s 170 students were underperforming in other schools and came to Franklin for “a second chance,” Penny-James said.  

Other Berkeley magnet schools have seen their test scores improve dramatically from the first year to the second, Phillips said. Malcolm X Arts & Academic Magnet School saw its state Academic Performance Index (API) rating climb from 622 in 1999 to 688 in 2000. The Rosa Parks Environmental Science School API climbed from 522 to 614 in the same period. 

Franklin had an API of 610 last year, the first year it was rated. 

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Demetrius Porter scored a career-high 27 points and helped stem three second-half comebacks by California as ninth-seeded Fresno State beat the Bears 82-70 on Friday night in the first round of the South Regional. 

The victory gave coach Jerry Tarkanian a 17-1 record in the first round of the NCAA tournament and set up a second-round matchup with top-seeded Michigan State on Sunday. 

The defending national champions beat Alabama State 69-35. 

It was Tarkanian's first NCAA win at Fresno State (26-6) and the second in school history. He won four first-round games at Long Beach State and 12 at UNLV, including the championship season of 1990. 

Porter, a senior guard whose previous best was 26 points against Rice as a junior, hit a 3-pointer to start an 8-0 run when the eighth-seeded Bears (20-11) closed to 46-43 with 13:54 to play. He ended the run with a nice high-arching shot on a long drive. 

Cal, which was making its first tournament appearance since 1997, closed to 56-51 but Porter hit the last of his five 3-pointers with 7:34 left to give Fresno State a 61-51 lead. He finished 5-for-10 from 3-point range. 

The last run by the Bears had them within six at 68-62 with 3:38 to play when Porter made two free throws to start Fresno State's closing run of 14-8 with all the points coming from the free-throw line. 

Melvin Ely, the Western Athletic Conference player of the year, added 21 points and 13 rebounds for Fresno State, while Chris Jeffries had 15 points. 

Shantay Legans had 15 points to lead the Bears, while Pac-10 player of the year Sean Lampley had 13, six below his average. He had just four points in the first half on 2-for-8 shooting and was 6-for-18 for the game, well off his season mark of 51 percent. California lost four of its last five games.

In the 1960s, then UC Berkeley master’s student and campus activist David Horowitz was hauled before the campus administration and disciplined for holding an unscheduled “rally” for a liberal cause.  

Horowitz told an audience of over 450 people Thursday night that he came back to campus to stop what he’d started. 

“Forty years ago I tried to start the ball rolling,” Horowitz said in an interview before the talk at the Valley Life Sciences building. “I’d like to spend my later years trying to roll it back.” 

Two conservative student groups, the Berkeley College Republicans and the Berkeley Conservative Foundation, invited Horowitz to campus after the student-run newspaper, the Daily Californian, publicly apologized for an ad it had run. The ad, written by Horowitz, listed 10 reasons why paying reparations for slavery was a bad idea. Among other arguments, the ad claimed that blacks had already received trillions of dollars in welfare payments and that blacks, like whites, had benefited from the wealth that slavery had helped to bring to the country. 

Many of Horowitz’ opponents on campus used words like “racist” and “bigot” to describe him. Comparing the word “racist” to the word “communist” Horowitz declared the current political climate on campus “racial McCarthyism.”  

In the McCarthy era, people who were called communists were stigmatized, censored and often lost their jobs. Horowitz implied that calling people “racist” was an effective way of censoring them. 

But Horowitz reserved his fiercest criticism for UC Berkeley officials, calling them the “parents” who should be overseeing students and fostering free speech. 

“It’s the job of the administration to protect political minorities,” he said. “There should be ethnic, religious and intellectual diversity.” 

Instead they create a climate where only certain liberal, progressive sentiments are condoned, he said, adding, “Apparently at this campus some ideas are too dangerous for the students or the university community to hear.”  

Horowitz claimed that protecting students from speech that makes them uncomfortable is part of a whole trend of treating minority students as if they are “weak, ill, and crippled.” Instead people should be able to handle challenges to their opinions. 

“I have no ill will to the students whose feelings were hurt by the ad,” he said, referring to the group of students who demanded a retraction from the Daily Californian. “I’m angry at the parents.” 

Horowitz did not explain why he held the university responsible for the apology issued by the editor of the Daily Californian. University spokeswoman Marie Felde refuted the implication that the administration has any control over the ideas presented on campus. “There are regulations that deal with the time and place of organized rallies and amplified sound,” she said. “The content of the speech is never regulated and it would never be here at Berkeley.”  

She said that Horowitz’ presence at the university, speaking to a packed house, “questions the comment” that Berkeley is a “monolith” of liberal ideology, as Horowitz said.  

But some students in the audience, on both extremes of the political spectrum, heard an unwelcome truth in Horowitz’ words.  

Jennifer Simmons, an African-American student and member of the Berkeley College Republicans, said she feels limited by an environment where she feels proscribed political opinions reign. 

“It’s hard to be conservative on this campus,” she said, “All the minorities are so liberal. Going out on my own and saying, ‘This is what I believe in,’ ostracizes me.” 

Shagha Balali took a breather from intense discussions on the steps outside the Valley Life Sciences building, to address the question of free speech on campus.  

“People will not state opposing opinions because of their fear that they’re going to be bashed because of it,” she said matter-of-factly. 

University administrators disagree; they say that public discussion is thriving. 

“The best possible illustration of the welcoming of a multitude of viewpoints is to come onto campus at noon,” Felde said. “There was one table the other day that sought support to end the death penalty and another selling campus yearbooks, and I don’t know how much more open to a range of opinions you can have.” 

Thursday’s event ended abruptly during a question and answer session that followed Horowitz’ speech. The first two speakers questioned his facts on African-American history. The third speaker got to the heart of the debate, saying that the First Amendment does not require a newspaper to publish somebody’s opinion, just because the person pays for ad space. The Daily Californian, he said, was not required to publish Horowitz’ ad.  

When Horowitz tried to respond, the speaker yelled over him. The audience got involved, some of them shouting for the man to quit talking, others shouting for his right to “free speech.”  

The question became moot when someone turned off the speaker’s microphone, and Horowitz quickly left the stage.  

Stephen Brooks, administrative director for the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which Horowitz founded, described the reason for the rapid exit.  

“His assessment of the situation was that it had devolved beyond the point which reasonable dialogue would be possible,” Brooks said. Horowitz realized that the student was making a speech, not asking questions, and wouldn’t relinquish the microphone, he said. “He realized there was no way back to the civil discourse that had taken place before.” 

The move disappointed many of the audience members, who declared it counter to the entire message of free speech and public debate. 

Law student Richard Petty sat right up in the front of the auditorium with the event organizers. “I think it was very disappointing,” he said. The spirit that makes it possible for unwelcome ads to run in campus newspapers, said Petty, is the same one that means the microphone of an unwelcome speaker should be left turned on.  

Last year, Arizona State was a team experts predicted would be hampered by inexperience and youth. They only won the Pac-10 championship and advanced to a NCAA regional final. Cal’s baseball team has such lofty goals, but they are now the inexperienced team in the Pac-10, and their inexperience showed this afternoon in a frustrating 7-4 loss to the Sun Devils at Evans Diamond.  

“We pitch and play enough defense that we should be able to play with the better teams,” Cal head coach Dave Esquer said. “We need to produce more offensively if we’re going to be the kind of team that’s not just close, but will beat those teams.” 

The game’s key moment came in the top of the fifth inning. Cal starter Trevor Hutchinson (2-4) escaped harm when Mel Stocker, who doubled to start the inning, was cut down at the plate trying to score on a single by Jeff Phelps. Hutchinson then walked catcher Casey Myers but retired Jeremy West on a grounder to second. With two outs, shortstop Brooks Conrad slapped a 2-2 fastball into the left-centerfield gap, scoring Phelps and Myers and giving the Sun Devils their first lead of the ballgame.  

Arizona State (18-4-1, 1-0 Pac-10) never trailed after Conrad’s hit. Hutchinson struggled with his control throughout the game, walking four batters and throwing 106 pitches in only 4 2/3 innings.  

“I don’t think Trevor had his best stuff today,” Esquer said.  

Cal (13-10, 0-1) opened the scoring in the bottom of the first. Senior first baseman Clint Hoover’s two-run triple drove in Ben Conley and Brian Horowitz, giving the Bears an early 2-0 lead. However, pitcher Jon Switzer induced a fly-out to centerfielder Chris Duffy, who threw to the plate to nail the tagging Hoover and end the Cal threat. The Bears would add another run in the top of the third as Conley scored on Switzer’s wild pitch. 

As soon as the Bears grabbed a lead, however, Arizona came back, as the Devils were in the details. Hutchinson committed a fielding error on a comeback grounder by Phelps, which led to a bases-loaded, one out battle with Myers. The All-American catcher promptly laced a two-out, two-run single to center to cut the lead to 3-2.  

“We have to be better at these little details,” explained Esquer. “Casey Myers is one of the best hitters in the Pac-10, and because of that (error), he’s up with bases loaded instead of being up with runners on second and third. That changes the complexion of the whole inning.” 

Cal would tie the game in the fourth inning on an error by second baseman Steve Garrabrants, but would not lead again after Conley’s double in the fifth. The Devils added two insurance runs in the seventh inning with RBI singles from Rod Allen and Duffy. Conrad and Myers led Arizona State with three hits and 2 RBI’s apiece. 

Freshman leftfielder Brian Horowitz singled in his first at-bat, extending his hitting streak to18 games. Horowitz has reached safely in 22 of the Bears’ 23 games this season. 

Arizona State will play two more games at Evans Diamond; both tomorrow and Sunday’s games will begin at 1 p.m.

It’s got boxes of old buttons, stacks of paper of all shapes, sizes and colors, lots of paper clips and ribbons. 

And now the 26-year-old East Bay Depot for Creative Use has a home – at least it does for 18 more months. The Depot, at 6713 San Pablo Ave., is a place where teachers and artists come to find recyclables for art projects and a place where the public in general comes to find, well, almost anything – faux fireplaces, refinished chairs, lampshades. 

The Depot, which employs 41 people – 25 of them work there full time – almost lost its lease about a year ago when the nonprofit’s landlord, UC Berkeley, announced it wanted to reclaim the Depot’s 4,500 square-foot space.  

The university wanted to move employees to the San Pablo Avenue building, who are being displaced by large retrofitting projects on campus. 

After months of negotiations that director Linda Levitsky said included letters from numerous Berkeley and Oakland teachers and work on the part of Councilmember Linda Maio and other public officials, she got the good news on Thursday. The university said they could stay temporarily. 

Levitsky said the plan is that when it’s time to leave, the new space around the block at Urban Ore’s Eco Park will be ready. With the help of the city, Urban Ore, a business that recycles products such as furniture and plumbing supplies, moved into its current location at 900 Murray St. They are retrofitting a building on the site which they plan to share with a number of other businesses that recycle.  

“The beauty for the Depot, if it goes over there, is we’ll have a 15 year lease,” Levitsky said. “The key to success is a long-term lease.”

Berkeley Observed 

Looking back, seeing ahead 

The 1852 U.S. Coastal Survey Map is one of the very earliest maps of Berkeley.  

It shows the original Berkeley shoreline before it was developed.  

The natural shape of the creeks as they make their way to the Bay are clearly visible. Two of the ancient shell mounds built by the native people who once populated the shoreline, are also shown: one at Temescal Creek in Emeryville and the other at Strawberry Creek in Berkeley.  

The map also shows that the foot of Strawberry Creek once ended in a medium-sized marsh and that Codornices Creek ended in a very large one.  

Location of the creeks may not be completely accurate. There are several parcels outlined and some buildings. Only one road is shown, extending from Strawberry Creek north along the foot of the hills. 

Old maps can often explain present conditions. Today, the marshy mouth of Strawberry Creek is located between Fourth and Seventh streets, University Avenue and Addison Street. A memoir by retired teacher Wilhemina Bolsted Ciarciarulo of life in Berkeley in the 1880s, describes how school children walked along plank boardwalks to cross the pond that appeared here during the rainy season.  

She reported, that sometimes they even fell into the pond. 

After the 1906 earthquake the pond disappeared and never returned. If you buy property here today you would be told it is in a flood hazard zone, and this map explains why.  

A second map by the U.S. Coast Survey from 1856 shows the marshy area at the foot of Strawberry Creek already half the size as it was in 1852.  

It also shows Berkeley’s first wharf, and Jacob’s Landing has been built.  

The updated 1856 map also shows roads and delineates parcels of land, which the 1852 map did not.  

Survey maps were important tools as land was subdivided and sold.  

Early maps give us the opportunity to see how the topography was modified as it was used and developed. By working backward one can piece this together.  

The 1852 map is located at UC Berkeley, in the Berkeley Map Room in the Earth Sciences Library. The Bancroft Library on the campus is another source for early California maps.  

Susan Cerny and Stephanie Manning wrote this column in conjunction with the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association

ANAHEIM — Biographies on homosexuals will be returned to a school library under terms of a settlement between the American Civil Liberties Union and the Anaheim Union High School District. 

In December, the ACLU filed a federal suit on behalf of two students claiming the district violated constitutional free speech rights when it removed 10 biographies from the library at Orangeview Junior High School. 

Among the banned books was a series called “Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians” and biographies on tennis player Martina Navratilova, economist John Maynard Keynes, and writers Willa Cather and James Baldwin. 

The district approved a settlement during a Thursday night meeting and a motion for approval of the agreement was being filed Friday in U.S. District Court, ACLU attorney Martha Matthews said.  

The student plaintiffs weren’t identified. 

“The two plaintiffs in this case and their families, as well as the two librarians who fought to defend a core principle of their profession – intellectual freedom – deserve the thanks of every student and parent in the district for ensuring an environment that doesn’t shut out the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,” Matthews said. 

Protesters staged a noisy demonstration during the Thursday night school board meeting to demand settlement of the lawsuit. 

Board members discussed the lawsuit in closed session, although in open session they listened silently as protesters from both sides urged them to return the books at once or banish them forever. 

They did not publicly discuss a March 1 formal complaint filed against them by fellow board member Alexandria Coronado, who is opposed to returning the books to libraries. 

Coronado charged that the board secretly voted 3-to-1 to settle the lawsuit last month, but then refused to tell the public. The claim states she cast the dissenting vote.  

If her colleagues don’t admit that they have settled and publicly apologize for keeping it secret, Coronado said she would sue them for violating the state’s open meeting laws. 

“Everyone has a right to protest, but that doesn’t mean I think the books should go back on the shelves,” said Robin Bowman, a parent at Kennedy High School.

SACRAMENTO — California may be in the midst of an energy crisis and a high-tech slowdown, but those developments are not yet affecting the state’s employment rate, which is at a three-decade low. 

The February jobless rate was 4.5 percent, the state Employment Development Department announced Friday. That was the lowest since December 1969, when it was 4.4 percent, the department said. 

The January rate was 4.6 percent. However, when the department first announced that rate a month ago, it, too, was 4.5 percent. State experts routinely adjust the rate after the initial announcement as they get additional information from employers and unemployment claims offices, said department spokeswoman Suzanne Schroeder. 

The jobless rate in February 2000 was 4.9 percent. The national figure was 4.2 percent for last month. 

A record 16.5 million Californians had jobs last month, up by 32,000 from January and by 432,000 from a year ago.  

The biggest gains came in service and retail jobs, particularly in health, engineering and management services and in food and clothing shops, the department said. 

“In terms of job growth, it looks like our economy is still strong. We’re outperforming the rest of the nation,” said Sandy Harrison, spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis’ Department of Finance. 

His department’s March economic analysis said that employers identified fewer than 600 unemployment claims related to the current energy crisis during the first seven weeks of 2001. 

The effects of the energy problems and Silicon Valley layoffs won’t show up until later this year, said Tom Leiser, senior economist for the UCLA Anderson Forecast. 

He said layoffs that have been announced in high-tech industries in the past few months have come in areas with labor shortages, meaning people were able to quickly get new jobs. 

“We’re seeing the beginning of weakness in the labor market, but not yet in the unemployment figures.  

As long as people are hanging onto their jobs, they’re continuing to spend at a reasonable pace,” he said. 

A total of 771,000 people did not have jobs last month, down by 25,000 from January and by 65,000 from a year ago. The total was the lowest number of unemployed since January 1990. 

Of the jobless, 460,000 were laid off, 98,800 left their jobs voluntarily and the rest were new entrants or re-entrants into the job market. 

The job figures were not uniform around the state, with the San Francisco Bay area and other coastal counties generally retaining their very low rates and agriculture-dependent counties having the highest. 

San Mateo and Marin counties had the lowest rates at 1.6 percent, followed by Santa Clara County at 1.7 percent. 

The highest rate of 27.9 percent was in Colusa County, followed by Imperial County with 18 percent and Merced and Tulare counties at 17.9 percent.

NEW YORK — It felt at first like stocks had perhaps hit bottom this past week – and not just once, but twice. 

Then, when the two big routs failed to inspire rallies, it became clear prices still have further to fall. 

The steep selloffs – sparked by yet more bad earnings news and fears of a global recession – pushed the Dow Jones industrials below 10,000 for the first time in 27 months and sank the Nasdaq composite index under 2,000 for the first time since October. And stocks slid even further with the Dow losing 821 points to end the week at 9,823.41, and the Nasdaq falling 161 to 1,890.91. 

When such drops fail to demonstrate that the markets have reached “the bottom” that Wall Street has been looking for, investor confidence slips further. That’s not going to help the market in days to come, said Brian Belski, fundamental market analyst for U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. 

“The biggest problem with the market is that people are continuously looking for a bottom,” Belski said. 

Stocks failed to rally after the Nasdaq fell below 2,000 Monday and the Dow plunged more than 430 points. Likewise, the market didn’t fare better after the Dow lost 317 points Wednesday. 

Add to that reports that Japan’s economy, the second largest in the world, is in a state of deflation and investors here simply see no reason to buy stocks. 

“There is just so much pessimism around and it seems to be growing, which could be a good thing because that often happens at the bottom,” said Eugene G. Mintz, financial markets analysts at Brown Brothers Harriman. 

But Belski was less confident of a bottom being reached any time soon. 

“This is a market that has surprised everybody. Everybody is asking, ‘When are we going to turn around?” Belski said. “It’s not going to be easy.” 

A longer wait shouldn’t surprise people, analysts say, reminding investors that the market in the last year has lost more than $4 trillion. Yet who can blame investors for yearning to feel as rich as they did this time last year, just before the high-flying tech sector started tumbling? 

Just wanting the drubbing to end isn’t enough. For the market to really rebound – longer than a token session at a time – analysts say it’s going to take signs that the economy is getting out of its funk, earnings reports that beat rather than miss expectations and consumers starting to spend freely again. 

Earnings warnings, the latest coming late Thursday from Compaq Computer and Oracle, are what’s keeping stock prices and consumer confidence down. All it takes to quash a rally is one big-name company warning that business will continue to slump. 

“Every time the market gets its feet together, this happens,” said Larry Wachtel, market analyst for Prudential Securities. 

With healthier earnings, stock prices, economic growth and consumer confidence all dependent on one another, improving all of them is going to take some time – perhaps all year. The market, which had taken comfort in the belief that a reprieve would come in the second half of 2001, now is struggling to cope with a longer-term recovery. 

“The real question for this market is, when are earnings going to turn around, and earnings aren’t going to turn around until consumers start spending more money,” said James Meyer, director of research at Janney Montgomery Scott. “So, I want to see some positive sentiment.” 

Even reductions in interest rates, with the year’s third cut expected Tuesday from the Fed, will take at least six months to lift profits and stock prices. 

Although the wait for a market recovery will be longer than expected and a new bull market is even further away, many investors say they’re not concerned, because they’re in the market for the long haul. 

“I don’t get caught up in bull market, bear market, recession or whatever,” said Jim Nuckols, a 46 year-old tobacco and cattle farmer in Midway, Ky. 

“I just have every intention of putting my money where I have it and continually investing in stocks and mutual funds and hope for the best.” 

For the week, the Dow lost 821.21, eclipsing the 805.71 the blue chips lost during the week ended April 14, 2000. However, the Dow’s 7.71 percent slide was only its 44th-biggest weekly drop in percentage terms. The blue chips have now fallen 9.2 percent since they peaked at 11,722.98 on Jan. 14, 2000. 

The Nasdaq fell 161.79, or nearly 7.9 percent for the week, leaving the index 59.3 percent below the peak of 5,048.62 it reached March 10, 2000. The Nasdaq is also at its lowest close since Nov. 17, 1998. 

The S&P 500 fell 82.86 or 6.72 percent for the week. It has lost a quarter of its value from the high of 1,527.46 it reached a year ago. 

The Russell 2000 index, which measures the performance of smaller company stocks, fell 31.85, or 6.7 percent, for the week. It closed Friday at 441.80 after losing 10.36. 

The Wilshire Associates Equity Index — which represents the combined market value of all New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq issues — ended the week at $10.56 trillion, off $772.36 billion from the previous week. A year ago, the index was $14.27 trillion. 

Only about 25 people turned out Thursday evening outside the Valley Life Sciences building to protest a speech on the UC Berkeley campus by David Horowitz, author of a controversial ad run in the Daily Californian opposing reparations for African Americans. 

The speech was sponsored by the Berkeley College Republicans and the Berkeley Conservative Foundation. 

“David Horowitz wants a lily-white campus,” said Diana Coleman, a member of the Spartacus League, speaking to the protesters.  

“He wants to return to the 1950s when women stayed in the kitchen and blacks stayed in the back of the bus.” 

Nearby, Libertarian counterprotesters, calling themselves Bureaucrash, held signs calling for “free speech.” 

Some 450 people filed into the auditorium to hear Horowitz and about 150 were left outside without tickets. Organizer Kelso Barnett, from the Berkeley Conservative Foundation, said they brought Horowitz to speak because there is a need for dialogue. “Tonight I think it’s important for people to be open to listening to him,” he said.  

Not all those going into the speech were fans of Horowitz. Freshman Nithya Krishnan said she was upset by the ad in the Daily Cal. “I’m reserving judgment until I hear the talk,” she said. 

Robb McFadden, chair of the Berkeley College Republicans, agreed that “Horowitz speaking on campus makes a statement that free speech is important. Some people on this campus will disagree.” 

The ad placed in the Daily Cal was called “blatantly racist” by those who called for and received an apology from the college paper. The ad said that blacks had no right to reparations because they had already received trillions of dollars in the form of welfare benefits and preferential contracts. It also said that blacks, like whites, benefited from the wealth created by slavery. 

See the weekend edition of the Berkeley Daily Planet for a report on the Horowitz speech. 

Friday, March 16

Stagebridge Free Acting  

& Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Free Writing, Cashiering  

& Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets.  

Call 644-6226 

Gay & Lesbian Panel Discussion 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Everyone is welcome. 644-6107 

Scholastic Book Fair  

8 - 9 a.m. & 1:45 - 3:45 p.m. & 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Jefferson School Cafetorium  

Acton & Rose  

Reasonably-priced Scholastic books will be sold to promote books and reading and to raise money for the school. Children and adults are invited to wear pajamas for Pajama-Rama reading night from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.  

525-7567  

Perspectives on Work 

9:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. 

Room 370  

Dwinelle Hall  

UC Berkeley  

A day-long conference featuring prominent sociologists and graduate students from UC Berkeley, Harvard and other universities. The conference will bring together research from around the country on work, the lure of work and consequences of overwork.  

643-7944 

Saturday, March 17

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Light Search & Rescue  

9 a.m. - Noon  

Emergency Operations Center 

997 Cedar St.  

A free class as part of Community Emergency Response Training (CERT). Sponsored by the Berkeley Fire Dept. and the Office of Emergency Services. 644-8736 

Burma Human Rights Day  

2 p.m.  

Berkeley Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

KPFA Journalist Dennis Bernstein and members of the Burmese Resistance Movement will speak. Sponsored by the Burmese American Democratic Alliance and the Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists Social Action Committee. 528-5403  

Berkeley Folk Dancers Fun Night 

7:45 - 10:45 p.m. 

Live Oak Park Hall  

Shattuck at Berryman  

“The Green Party” Dance  

$5 - $7  

655-3074 

Feminist Politics of Family  

9 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.  

Maude Fife Room (315) 

Wheeler Hall  

UC Berkeley  

A yearly symposium highlighting graduate student work. The focus of the conference this year is re-envisioning feminist conceptions of the 21st century family. Keynote speakers include Evelyn Nakato Glenn on “Caring” and Carol Queen on “Erotic Families in Choice.” Free and open to the public.  

643-3040 

Free Puppet Shows 

1:30 & 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health  

2230 Shattuck Ave.  

The Kids on the Block, the award-winning educational puppet troupe, which includes puppets with cerebral palsy, blindness and Down syndrome, promotes acceptance and understanding of physical and mental differences.  

549-1564 

Greenbelt Outing:  

Clean Up Cerrito Creek 

9:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Meet at El Cerrito BART 

Join Greenbelt Alliance and Friends of Five Creeks for a work party to clear invasive plants and restore native habitat to Cerrito Creek. Afterwards, take a moderate loop hike up to Albany Hill and down to the Bay Trail. Bring work gloves, weeding tools, rain gear if necessary, and a lunch. Snacks will be provided.  

415-255-3233 

Sunday, March 18

East Bay Men’s Chorus Rehearsal  

6:30 p.m. 

University Lutheran Chapel  

College & Haste  

UC Berkeley 

Calling for gay and bisexual men and their allies and friends to join this choral ensemble directed by J.R. Foust. There is no obligation to join the chorus after the first rehearsal. Rehearsal season runs March through July.  

Call to RSVP 664-0260 or e-mail eastbaymenschorus@yahoo.com 

“Parenting in the  

Second Half of Life” 

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish  

Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Author Roberta Maisel will discuss ways parents and their grown children can get on a positive and guilt-free path.  

848-0237  

“Hope Against Darkness”  

7:30 p.m. 

Newman Hall  

2700 Dwight Way (at College) 

Richard Rohr will respond to the questions: What is the darkness? What is hope? 848-7812  

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

The Bungalow - Tradition & Transformation 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by architect/contractor and West Berkeley bungalow restorer Barry Wagner.  

$35  

525-7610 

Awareness In Action  

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Place  

Barr Rosenberg will speak on the Skillful Means teachings and practices toward a joyous, energetic, and relaxed approach to work.  

843-6812 

T. Rex: Mover & Shaker  

2 p.m.  

Lawrence Hall of Science 

UC Berkeley  

John Hutchinson of the Department of Integrative Biology at UCB, using video and hands-on activities, will demonstrate how some of the largest creatures roamed the earth. Free with museum admission.  

Monday, March 19

Timber Framing  

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Instructed by builder/timber framer Doug Eaton.  

$35  

525-7610 

Socratic Solutions  

7:30 - 9 p.m.  

International House  

Home Room  

UC Berkeley  

The Socratic Society presents a lecture by Theoharis Kemos on Socratic insights into our social problems. Celebrate Socrates’ 2470th birthday anniversary. Free 

Social Dance  

1 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

With the North Berkeley Senior Dancing Group.  

644-6107 

Pacifica radio is about listener participation 

Editor:  

Mel Baker’s letter to the Planet of Wednesday, March 7, urging the sale of KPFA and WBAI misses entirely one of the fundamental issues: Both stations are listener supported, which has also meant listener participation. The sale of these two transmitters would destroy this historic, democratic tradition and reduce them to commercial fare already abundantly available.  

Jack W. Fleming 

Berkeley 

Developing community’s not that hard 

Editor:  

And another front page article about “Berkeley Community Battles Developers.” I cannot understand why other Berkeley communities do not follow the model of North Berkeley, which nearly two decades ago put together the nation’s first truly community-generated Area Plan.  

I founded and organized the North Berkeley Alliance and the Area Plan, so you shouldn’t take my word for it; go on up to North Berkeley and look around. Ask around, and you’ll find people that remember what we all did. They’ll tell you about how homeowners and renters, Co-opers, collectivists, owners of small businesses and major developers, students and retired people, street people and workers, activists and folks simply curious worked together and produced the Area Plan.  

Nobody was paid. There were no outside “experts,” no consultant firms, and City Hall was told “hands off!” It was the people of North Berkeley, seeing preservation vs. developer battle after developer battle with no end in sight, who took control of the future of their community into their own hands.  

Go on up to North Berkeley and look around and you’ll see the result. It looks just about, well, almost exactly the way it looked 20 years ago. Back then it was a troubled community, with real fears of the “Gourmet Ghetto” becoming a regional shopping district, but now you’ll see a community two-decades-free of the anti-development battles that plague and exhaust every other community in Berkeley.  

I can’t understand why it isn’t done elsewhere. North Berkeley had nothing “special” about it, not a thing that said “We can do here, but you can’t do it there!”  

You can do it, too. Go and look around. Ask around. There are people on the City Council who were there. Ask around.  

Stop fighting the developers: It’s playing their game. They’ve got the time and the money, and all they have to do is win, say one out of five and in a couple of years they’ll have it all.  

Look. Ask. Do it.  

Richard Berkeley 

Berkeley 

In school issues fairness is key 

Editor:  

Thanks again to the Berkeley School Board for reaffirming its commitment to quality education for everyone at Berkeley High by supporting the “Rebound” program.  

Although the reorganization of the budget will be the next immediate problem to be solved, the selection of a new superintendent must remain at the top of the agenda. And I would like to recommend “fairness” as a key factor in determining just who this will be. Fairness, as in equal, just, impartial and unprejudiced must be a major component in the approach and application of our new leadership.  

Unfortunately, over the past few years, fairness has not been the main concern of our top administration. Yes, some significant buildings were constructed, but it is also obvious that even in this category, not all schools were treated in the same way. Some renovations were spectacular, others average, and still others substandard in size and improvements, e.g. the High school still does not have phone connections between classrooms and the main office or security, while some primary schools had new classrooms added that are half the size of other schools’ additions. 

Nor have our students been receiving a “fair” education, if we look at the important factor of test scores. Depending on which school a student attends, his or her scores may vary tremendously, and sometimes even within the same school. Thousand Oaks and City of Franklin score among the lowest in the state, while others are among the highest. Additionally, if you measure the rating that individual schools use as a guide for self-improvement, the picture is not as bad but still dismal, since a few schools couldn’t even reach the goals that they, themselves, set. E.g. City of Franklin, Washington, and Berkeley High School. The latter, of course, has stood out for years for having the most inequalities.  

Incredibly, Berkeley High was denied full accreditation the last two times, mainly because large groups of the student body were not being served adequately, particularly the Latin American and African American students. (It should come as no surprise that Washington, City of Franklin, and Thousand Oaks have very large numbers of African American and Latin American students). Meanwhile, other ethnic groups of Berkeley High continue to score among the highest in the nation.  

And then there’s the rules that are not being fairly enforced, like the difference in primary school racial enrollments. How has this been allowed to continue? Go into a southside school and you see a very different enrollment pattern from a northern one.  

In summary, as we come closer in our search for a new superintendent, fairness is going to have to be a key issue. A “Potempkin Village” of neat, new buildings cannot be allowed to hide some mighty inequalities.  

Bill Moore 

Berkeley 

Berkeley’s good cops 

Editor:  

Here’s how I made a mistake, for about 14 hours, of assuming my car was stolen off the street on March 6.  

I’d parked on Rose Street and walked to the Black Oak Bookstore to hear a talk that lasted about two hours. But instead of walking back to my car, I walked to where I mistakenly assumed it was located.  

If it was daylight and there wasn’t so much traffic and so many parked cars I might have seen my car, but I didn’t, even though I walked around a bit in the wrong direction looking for it. Finally, I walked to a bus stop, bused home and left a message on your “Auto Theft” telephone number.  

I called the department yesterday morning and was told that I needed to come to the department to give and sign a report. I promptly proceeded to the station and spoke with a policeman.  

It was good fortune to be interviewed by Police Officer Lester Soo, who offered to drive me through the area. As he made the left turn off Shattuck onto Rose, there was my 1963 Plymouth Valiant. To say I was gratefully surprised is putting it mildly.  

What I want you to know is how much I appreciated Officer Soo’s courteous and friendly concern and the manner in which he solved my problem. He made the incident one I shall never forget.  

Let me assure you that, as one who has always had great respect for members of police forces whose services are so vital to the maintenance of law and order in communities in our country, the way Officer Soo treated me measures and lives up to the very best traditional police conduct, for which citizens should have profound respect and gratitude.  

Alfred Williams 

Oakland

Judah L. Magnes Museum “Telling Time: To Everything There Is A Season” Through May, 2002 An exhibit structured around the seasons of the year and the seasons of life with objects ranging from the sacred and the secular, to the provocative and the whimsical. 2911 Russell St. 549-6950  

The Asian Galleries “Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery” A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection. “Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. “Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. “Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. $6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 642-0808 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 by 40-foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. “Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology “Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended. This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history.“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing.This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. $2 general; $1 seniors; $.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Ave. 643-7648  

Lawrence Hall of Science “Math Rules!” Ongoing. A math exhibit of hands-on problem-solving stations, each with a different mathematical challenge.“Within the Human Brain” Ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Vision,” Through April 15 Get a very close look at how the eyes and brain work together to focus light, perceive color and motion, and process information. “T. Rex on Trial,” Through May 28 Where was T. Rex at the time of the crime? Learn how paleontologists decipher clues to dinosaur behavior. “Fossil Finding with Annie Montague Alexander” March 17 - 18, 24-25, 31 & April 21; “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. Computer Lab, Saturdays 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. 642-5132 

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership March 16: The P.A.W.N.S., Kill the Messenger, Phoenix Thunderstone, Sugarlips, Dory Tourette & The Skirtheads; March 17: The Hoods, Benumb, Above The World, Chronic Disorder, Eulogy; March 23: 18 Visions, Walls of Jericho, Time In Malta, Undying, Betray the Species; March 24: Workin’ Stiffs, The Bodies, Strychnine, East Bay Chasers, For the Alliance; March 30: Deathreat, Ahimsa, F*** God In the Face, The Black, Creation Is Crucifixion 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted March 17: Maureen Brennan Group 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz March 16, 9:30 p.m.: Samba Ngo; March 18, 5 - 10 p.m.: Aid for Ahmedabad Earthquake Relief Concert featuring Vinyl, New Monsoon, Raja & Srini, plus Henry Kaiser, $20; March 22, 9:30: Groundation; March 24, 2 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Ashkenaz fourth annual dance-a-thon featuring Lavay Smith, African, Caribbean, reggae, Balkan, North African and cajun bands for 12 hours of nonstop dance music; May 6, 7 p.m.: Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Doors open at 8 p.m. March 16: Little Jonny & the Giants; March 17: Sugar G; March 23: Carlos Zialcita; March 24: Daniel Castro; March 30: Craig Horton Blues Band 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All music at 8 p.m. March 16: John Stewart; March 17: The Black Brothers: Shay, Michael & Martin; March 18: Hanes Family; March 19: Liam O’Flynn & The Pipers Call; March 21: Reverend Billy C. Wirtz; March 22: Sid Selvidge, Alan Smithline; March 23: Perfect Strangers; March 24: Barry & Alice Olivier; March 25: Boogie Woogie Piano Cavalcade w/Beverly Stovall, Sue Palmer, Wendy De Witt, Big Joe Duskin; March 27: Maria Muldaur; March 28: Todd Phillips, David Grier & Matt Flinner; March 29: Tom Paxton; March 30 & 31: House Jacks 1111 Addison St. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzschool/La Note All music at 4:30 p.m. March 18: Wayne Wallace Septet $6 - $12; March 22, 8 - 10 p.m.: Adult Big Band; March 25 & 27 - 29, 4 - 10 p.m.: Student Winter Recitals 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 or visit www.jazzschool.com  

Live Oak Concert Series All music at 7:30 p.m. March 18: Mark Sanders, flute, David Cheng, violin, Darcy Rindt, viola, Paul Rhodes, cello. Flute quartets of Haydn and Mozart; March 25: Horizon Wind Quartet play music of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Ravel, Ligetti and others All concerts $8 - $10 Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Cal Performances March 23, 7 p.m. & March 24, 1 & 8 p.m.: “The King Stag: A Tragicomic Tale for the Theatre” by Carlo Gozzi $24 - $46; April 1, 3 p.m.: Pianist Richard Goode play the music of Bach, Chopin and Beethoven $28 - $48 Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu $32; Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

“An Afternoon of Song” with Elaine Bernstein March 25, 2 p.m. Bernstein, soprano and Sally Munro, mezzo, with Gwendolyn Mok at the piano, will perform a variety of duets from the operas “Hansel & Gretel,” “Cosi Fan Totte,” “Der Rosenkavaher,” and “Lakme,” and more. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra April 3 and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

“Treacherous Crossings” March 16, 10:30 a.m. & 7 p.m. An opera about people looking for a better life, leaving Mexico to come to California. Produced entirely by 8 - 11 year olds Malcolm X Arts & Academics Magnet School Malcolm X Auditorium 1731 Prince St. 644-6313. 

John Santos & The Machete Ensemble March 17, 8:30 p.m. $12 - $14 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 

Terry Gibbs March 18, 2 p.m. A concert/dance featuring the celebrated vibraphonist. $15 Longfellow School of the Arts 1500 Derby St. (at Sacramento) 420-4560 

New Century Chamber Orchestra present “Time Past and Time Present” March 22, 8 p.m. $25 - $30 St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave. 415-392-4400 

BHS Jazz Ensemble March 23, 7:30 p.m. The spring concert performance from the award-winning jazz ensemble. Proceeds benefit the students who will travel to Europe this summer to perform in Italy and Switzerland. $5 - $8 Florence Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way  

Rebecca Riots March 24, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m. $12 - $14 Club Muse 856 San Pablo Ave. Albany 528-2878 

Benefit Concert for the Xiana Fairchild Volunteer Center March 25, 7:30 p.m. Featuring The Sick, Simplistic, Mastema, Drain, and an all-star jam with surprise guests. All proceeds to benefit the volunteer center. 18 and over show. $8 Blake’s on Telegraph 2367 Telegraph Ave. 848-0886  

Music in Great Berkeley Houses March 31, 7 p.m. $35 Gwendolyn Mok, piano, and Jean-Michel Fonteneau, cello, will play the music of Frank Bridge, Debussy, and Poulenc. Palache House Reserved tickets required 841-2242 

The American Bach Soloists present “How Desolate Lies the City...” March 31, 8 p.m. The cantatas of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries. $20 - $37 First Congregational Church of Berkeley 2345 Channing Way 415-621-7900 

Jesus Diaz y su QBA March 31, 9:30 p.m. Cuban timba dance music. $12 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568  

Berkeley Broadway Singers present “From Broadway to Brazil” April 1, 4 p.m. Berkeley Broadway Singers is a 70-member chorus led by Ellen Hoffman. They will be singing Motown classics along with class Broadway showtunes Free Saint Ambrose Church 1145 Gilman St. 524-0107 

Music on Squirrel Hill presents Trio Accorde April 1, 7:30 p.m. $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley One Lawson Road Kensington 525-0302 

Hillbillies From Mars April 8, 2 p.m. Rocking the Bay for twenty years, the Hillbillies fuse rock n’ roll, swing, Latin and African beats. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

UC Alumni Chorus presents “Bravo! Opera!” April 8, 7:30 p.m. A veritable Opera chorus smorgasbord with Bizet’s “Carmen,” Verdi’s “IL trovatore,” and Copland’s “The Tenderland.” $8 - $12 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 643-9645 

Young Emerging Artists Concert April 10, 7 - 8 p.m. The Young Musicians Program Jazz Combo will perform jazz standards and original compositions. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra presents “Under Construction No. 11” April 8, 7:30 p.m. A concert of new works by local composers, including Mary Stiles, Mark Winges, and David Sheinfeld. Free St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Theater 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Through March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“A New Brain” by William Finn Through March 18, Fridays & Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Watch as Gordon Schwinn, in the face of a life-threatening brain tumor, composes a farewell concert in which all the important figures in his life make show-stopping appearances. Presented by BareStage Productions $8 - $12 Choral Rehearsal Hall, Lower Level of Caesar Chavez Student Center UC Berkeley 642-3880  

“Little Shop of Horrors” Through Apri 1, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday & Sunday, 2 p.m., no show Friday, March 23; $12 Berkeley Community Little Theatre Allston Way at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way Call 943-SHOW  

“The Oresteia” by Aeschylus Through May 6 Directed by Tony Taccone and Stephen Wadsworth, Aeschylus trilogy will be the first production staged on the Berkeley Rep’s new prosenium stage. Please call Berkeley Repertory Theatre for specific dates and times. $15.99 - $117 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. (at Shattuck) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Chappy Knuckles (Semi-Regional Motorcross And) Family Fun Hour” March 19 & 20, 7 & 9 p.m. Shotgun Players’ Black Box Productions presents Old Man McGinty, who has a rubbing stone that he would love for you to touch. $10 LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid Ave. 655-0813 or visit www.shotgunplayers.com  

“The Tempest” by William Shakespeare Through April 14, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Stanley Spenger $8 - $10 LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid Ave. (at Hearst) 237-7415 

Action Movie: The Play March 23 - April 21, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m. Non-stop action and martial arts mayhem with comedy, surprise plot twists, and the occasional movie reference thrown in. $7 - $12 The Eighth Street Studio 2525 Eighth St. 464-4468 

Stagebridge presents the Tenth Annual Family Matinee Theatre and Ice Cream Social March 25 & April 1, 3 p.m. The premiere of Linda Spector’s “Strega Nona and Other Grandparent Tales,” with a cast aged 9 - 70. $4 - $8 First Congregational Church 2501 Harrison Oakland 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org.  

Films 

“Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win” March 18, 6 p.m. A historic documentary of the May - June 1968 General Strike in France. Directed by Paris working class filmmaker Jean Pierre Thorn. Also to be shown is “France on Strike,” on the 1995 French public workers strike by rail workers, teachers, electrical and postal workers. $7 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 849-2568  

The Bullfighter & the Lady and Seven Men From Now March 17, 6:30 p.m. Join Budd Boetticher, director of Westerns, who will discuss his career and screen two of his favorites. $7 Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch St.) 642-1412 

“Dreamers” March 17 - 24 The American feature film debut of Chinese-born writer/director Ann Lu. The executive producer of the film is UC Berkeley alumnus Peiti Feng Fine Arts Cinema 2451 Shattuck Ave. 848-1143 

“Earth” April 7, 7:30 p.m. A 1930 film, set in Ukraine, by Soviet director Alexander Dovzhenko with an original music score created and performed by composer and musician Adrian Johnston. $7 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

“Regeneration” April 8, 5:30 p.m. The first feature-length gangster movie, filmed around 1915 on the streets of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. Directed by Raoul Walsh, the movie will have a new original music score created and performed by composer and musician Adrian Johnston. $7 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

Exhibits 

Berkeley Historical Society “Berkeley’s Ethnic Heritage.” An overview of the rich cultural diversity of the city and the contribution of individuals and minority groups to it’s history and development. Thursday through Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m. Free. 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Dorchester Days,” the photographs of Eugene Richards is a collection of pictures portraying the poverty, racial tension, crime and violence prevalent in Richards’ hometown of Dorchester, Massachusetts in the 1970s. Through April 6. UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism 121 North Gate Hall #5860 642-3383 

“Still Life & Landscapes” The work of Pamela Markmann Through March 24, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Red Oak Gallery 1891 Solano Ave. 527-3387 

“Contemporary Photogravure” Printing from hand-inked plates etched from a film positive, a unique exhibition of photographs with luxurious tones. Through March 30, Tuesday - Friday, Noon - 5 p.m. or by appointment Kala Art Institute 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977 

“Musee des Hommages,” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Boticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours 2028 Ninth St. (at Addison) 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

“Sugar N’ Spice N’ Everything Nice: Live, Loves and Legacies of Women of Color” Through April 21, Wednesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Works by Aissatoui Vernita, Flo Oy Wong, Tomoko Negishi, Consuelo Jimenez and many others. Pro Arts Gallery 461 Ninth Street Oakland 763-9425 

Amanda Haas, New Paintings and Olivia Kuser, Recent Landscapes Through March 24, Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Traywick Gallery 1316 Tenth St. 527-1214 

“Travels in Color” Wax crayon sketches by Pamela Markmann made over the past 35 years Through March 31, 5 - 8 p.m. daily Voulez Vouz Bistro 2930 College Ave. 548-4708 

“Chicano Art and Visions of David Tafolla” Vivid color acrylic and oil paintings with Latino imagery. Through April 12, Tuesday - Thursday, 1 - 7 p.m., Saturday Noon - 4 p.m. and by appointment. 548-9272 or www.wcrc.org 

Nylan Jeung and David Lippenberger Lippenberger renders figures in acrylic and Jeung work with ink and watercolor on rice paper, using traditional eastern techniques. Through April 7, Wednesday through Sunday, Noon - 5 p.m Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893 

Recent Works of Narangkar Khalsa & Pete Glover Through March 31; Opening reception March 10, 7 - 9 p.m. !hey! Gallery 4920-B Telegraph Ave. Oakland 428-2349  

“The Art of Meadowsweet Dairy” Objects found in nature, reworked and turned into objects of art. March 19 - May 15, call for hours; Opening reception: April 6, 6 - 9 p.m. Current Gallery at the Crucible 1036 Ashby Ave. 843-5511  

Readings 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 16: Rik Isensee will read from his novel “The God Squad: A Spoof on the Ex-Gay Movement”; March 21, 7 p.m.: Gay/Bi Men’s Book Group will discuss “Lost Language of Cranes” by David Leavitt; March 24, 7 p.m.: Aliza Sherman will read and sign “Cybergrrl@Work: Tips and Inspiration for the Professional You” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 18: Poetry of Yvonne Cannon, Lara Gularte, Richard Rocco; March 19: Jean Rouverol talks about “Refugees From Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist”; March 21: Poetry of James Schevill; March 25: Poetry of Beverly Matherne & A.J. Rathbun; March 28: Poetry of Craig Van Riper & Jaime Robles; April 4: Poetry of Carole Simmons Oles & Matthew McKay; April 11: Poetry of Kurt Brown & Al Young 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 27: Travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, author of “The Practical Nomad” will provide essential tips, advice, and consumer skills for the independent traveler; March 29: Katherine Widing, author of “Cycling France” will give a slide presentation/talk on just that 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mike March 25, 2 p.m. Featuring poet Paradise Berkeley Art Museum 2621 Durant (at Bowditch) 527-9753 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

“Slam the Prisons” April 6, 6 p.m. - 1 a.m. A benefit for prison activism featuring Tang, Company of Prophets, Sheryl D. Mebane and many others. Proceeds benefit the defense of New Afrikan political prisoner Khalfani X. Khaldun and the Prison Activist Resource Center. $10 La Pena Cultural Center 3205 Shattuck Ave. 898-0431  

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

Lectures 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested March 18: “Topaz Moon,” Kimi Kodani Hill will discuss artist Chiura Obata’s family and the WWII Japanese relocation camps. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Research Seminars Noon seminars are brown bag  

March 19, Noon: Anne Balsamo of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, will explore IT issues within the humanities; April 23, 4 p.m.: Mary Dudziach of USC will discuss “Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.” 119 Moses Hall UC Berkeley 642-4608  

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Through April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

City Commons Club Lecture Series Fridays, 12:30 p.m. $1 general Students Free March 16: Paul H. Young, Jr. retired foreign service officer, will present “A Pilgrim’s Visit to Athos”; March 23: Guy Colwell, master painter of Nasters, will speak on “Using Painting to Teach Art History”; March 30: Jana Grittersova, professor of International Relations, UC Berkeley will speak on “The European Union - Integration and Expansion” Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 848-3533 

“Color, Color, Color” March 26, 7:30 p.m. A lecture by Christine Barnes which looks at three characteristics of color common to all quilts: Value, temperature and intensity. Free - $3 First Unitarian Church One Lawson Road Kensington 834-3706 

When the Cal Bears tip off their NCAA Tournament opening round game tonight, they will be taking on a legend: Jerry Tarkanian, the ultimate rebel of big-time college basketball. But what they face on the court will be even tougher: a run-and-gun Bulldog squad that is as talented as any team in the country. 

The key to stopping the Bulldogs is simple, but hard to accomplish: stop Tito Maddox. The sophomore point guard, who joined the team midway through the season, has been spectacular at times, averaging 14 points and eight assists per game. But he has also been inconsistent, playing out of control at times and committing too many turnovers. 

The job of stopping Maddox will likely fall to Cal point guard Shantay Legans, who will give up six inches to the 6-foot-4 Maddox. Legans should get help from his wingmen, Joe Shipp, Brian Wethers and Ryan Forehan-Kelly, but the other Bulldogs can make the Bears pay if they double-team Maddox.  

Three other Fresno State players each average 15 points per game. Center Melvin Ely is the team’s leading scorer, and Berkeley post players Solomon Hughes and Nick Vander Laan will have their hands full with the senior, who is shooting 59 percent from the field. Shooting guard Demetrius Porter and wingman Chris Jefferies can also fill it up. 

The Bears, as usual, will lean heavily on their senior leader, forward Sean Lampley. The Pac-10 Player of the Year, Lampley leads Cal is points and rebounds, and the Bears can’t win without a solid game from him. If Lampley scores at least 20 points and controls the boards, he could lead a young Cal team to a win and a likely second-round matchup with Michigan State. 

But Cal will have to get points from someone else, and no Bear has shown a consistent ability to score, as Lampley is the only player averaging more than 10 points per game. The Bulldogs average 82 points per game, so Legans will have to get his teammates good shots and direct the offense, as well taking on the considerable task of containing Maddox.v

A joint committee of city and school district leaders vowed to get tough on violence at Berkeley High School Thursday after hearing a student paint a grim portrait of life at the school. 

“Berkeley High is a great school but it’s being run into the ground by (a violent) element,” Berkeley High student Varun Paul told the “2 x 2” committee, which includes Mayor Shirley Dean, City Councilmember Linda Maio, City Manager Weldon Rucker, Board of Education President Terry Doran and Board of Education Vice-president Shirley Issel. 

Paul said he had witnessed attacks on students and teachers and had been attacked himself in the hallways of BHS. 

“If you were to go there I think you would be shocked,” Paul said. “There are areas of the school where it is just extremely, extremely hazardous.” 

“It’s a culture full of retaliatory violence,” said Laura Menard, the parent of a Berkeley High student. She said she tells her son to “watch his back” when she drops him off at school each morning. 

“You have to move in and create real enforcement,” Menard said.  

The committee adopted a proposal by Menard Thursday to appoint a task force to come up with recommendations for reducing the number of violent incidents on campus. 

Dean said she hoped the task force would deal quickly with problems on the BHS campus today. 

“This time it gets taken care of,” Dean said. “I don’t ever want to hear about students getting beaten up at Berkeley High anymore. 

Meanwhile, students leaving Berkeley High Thursday, minutes after the committee meeting, reported seeing a fight in the C Building where one girl was lead away with her face “busted up.” 

Fights on campus – notably fights between  

girls – are a regular occurrence, the students said, and not something that can be easily prevented by the school’s teachers or security staff. 

“I don’t think they could stop it if they wanted to,” said sophomore Myron Seals. “If kids want fight they’re going fight.” 

Students underscored that those who picked fights were not part of a small clique. They said it was a general phenomena. Some said they believed as many as one-third of the school’s students might be involved in the fighting, which they said often stems from regional rivalries and friction between ethnic groups. 

Asked if he felt unsafe at Berkeley High, sophomore Rocky Garcia said : “I don’t really let myself feel uncomfortable. It’s kind of like wolves: If they smell fear they’re gonna call you on it.” 

Issel said the school district has implemented a number of initiatives to deal with violence at Berkeley High over the years but needs to step up its efforts in light of the stories told by Paul and others. 

“There’s something going on here that’s impacting our kids in ways that are very troubling to them and to us.” 

Doran agreed. The problem of violence at Berkeley High “is serious and it hasn’t been dealt with effectively and successfully in a long time,” Doran said.  

But Doran warned that there is a gulf between asking for more stringent rule enforcement and getting it.  

“What happens is the staff get overwhelmed and retreat to their classrooms because they feel their first commitment is to (the students there),” Doran said, referring to the high numbers of students out of class at any given moment at Berkeley High, a factor many agreed provides opportunities for misbehavior. 

Berkeley Unified School District Interim Superintendent Stephen Goldstone said the success of the proposed task force would depend on setting a firm time line for implementing its recommendations, and then making sure the city and school board defend the new measures if they should come under fire by unhappy Berkeley High parents. 

Others warned that the only way to protect new measures from coming under attack was to create an inclusive process for addressing the violence from the get go. 

Maio said, “We don’t want to be in the position where we hear shouts from the community that this is racist.”  

Unless the task force involves all the different segments of the community working together in partnership “we’re not going to get anywhere at all,” Maio said. 

Dean said the task force should include members of the 2 x 2 committee, students, police, parents and perhaps some mental health experts. 

Doran said it is important not to view more stringent enforcement of rules as a panacea for changing the environment at Berkeley High. Administrators should also consider how to reorganize academic programs at Berkeley High to relieve pressures that drive students to violence, he said. 

The sheer size of the campus leads to feelings of “alienation and anonymity” by students, Doran said, adding that the board is considering plans to implement additional “small learning” communities at Berkeley High to give more students a sense of belonging.  

Rucker supported the creation of a task force Thursday but said it would be better to deal with problems such as those described by Paul as they occur rather than in a committee meeting after the fact. 

“Why don’t we communicate better as responsible adults that we have some problems?” Rucker asked. “If someone is violating the law, then we need to enforce the law. Somebody needs to be observing this and reporting this at a much earlier stage.”  

Paul told the committee he warned school staff that out-of-town students in Berkeley for last week’s affirmative action protest were planning a “raid” on Berkeley High to start fights. His warnings went unheeded, he said. 

Berkeley Police Sergeant Steve Odom said police had known about the threat for days and did all they could to prevent it. Police anticipate such incidents and have a game plan for when they occur, he said.  

“The first thing we do is share the information with the school,” he said. 

Last week, Berkeley Police stationed additional officers around Berkeley High on streets the out-of-town students would likely traverse to get to the school, Odom said. They tried to be in all the places where large groups of Berkeley High students and students from the rival school might encounter one another. 

“The things that were done were the right things,” Odom said. “I really believe we prevented a lot of things from happening.” 

Panthers dominate Albany, St. Joe’s in first league meet 

The St. Mary’s track and field team has been an East Bay powerhouse for a while now, and they showed no signs of letting up in their first league meet of the year, thoroughly dominating Albany and St. Joseph’s on Thursday at St. Mary’s. 

The Panthers’ varsity boys beat Albany 95-20 and the Pilots 103-24, while the girls won 90-23 and 96-17, respectively. The boys won all but two individual events they entered, while the girls lost just one individual title. St. Mary’s didn’t enter the distance events, since they have a distance meet this afternoon. 

Multiple event winners for the Panthers were sprinter Chris Dunbar, who won the 200- and 400-meter dashes, Phil Weatheroy and Kamaiya Warren in shotput and discus, Quiana Shaw in the triple jump and high jump, and Brielle Plump, who won the 100-meter dash, 300-meter hurdles and high jump. 

There were several highlights from the meet that illustrated the Panthers’ dominance. Shaw, who was the only girl to clear higher than 4-foot-2 in the high jump, set a new personal record when she cleared 5-foot-2, then proceeded to make 5-foot-4. The Panthers took the top three places in the girls’ 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes, the triple, long and high jumps and shotput and discus, while the boys swept the 100, 200, long jump, 110-meter hurdles, shotput and discus. 

The boys lost just one event they entered, the 1600-meter race, while the girls lost only the 800-meter race. 

St. Mary’s long distance runners will take part in the Distance Carnival this afternoon at Piedmont High School, and the relay teams will travel to Contra Costa College tomorrow for the El Cerrito Relays.

An accidental spill of 630 gallons of water contaminated with chrome 6 that was being pumped out of the skate bowls at Harrison Field last Sunday has flowed into the Bay. 

Environmental experts said the spill resulted in a relatively small amount of chromium 6 reaching the Bay and it is likely that there would be no significant ecological impact. 

Secor International, an environmental engineering company, was in the process of pumping contaminated water out of partially constructed skate bowls when an improperly installed sump pump failed to shut off after a 20,000 gallon, above-ground tank had become filled.  

The water, spilling over at a rate of approximately seven gallons per minute, flowed into a storm drain on Harrison Street and into the Bay near the end of Gilman Street. 

According to Nabil Al-Hadithy, the city’s hazardous materials supervisor the water originally contained approximately .1 to .15 milligrams per liter of chromium 6, a carcinogen that is dangerous to humans if ingested or inhaled. Al-Hadithy said the chromium was diluted when it entered a storm drain that contained several hundred gallons of water. 

“Tests were done at the point the water flowed into the Bay and the ratio was .004 milligrams of chromium 6 per liter of water,” Al-Hadithy said. 

He said there was no exposure to humans, and tests are being conducted to determine if there are any ecological consequences to the Bay. 

Dr. Khalil Abu-Saba, environmental specialist with the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, said there would probably be little ecological effect.  

“The limits on chrome 6 in water is 11 parts per billion for fresh water and 50 parts per billion for sea water,” Abu-Saba said. “If .004 per liter is accurate then the spill is below what would be considered safe for fresh water.” 

Dr. Angus McGarth, principle geochemist with Secor, said they have taken precautions to ensure against any more accidental spills. “I pride myself on cleaning up contamination, not contributing to it,” he said. 

Hesaid the cost of the spill in additional time and testing was about $2,500, for which Secor is taking responsibility. 

The Toxics Management Division discovered the contaminated water in November when groundwater poured into two pits that were being excavated for skate bowls at Fourth and Harrison streets. The contaminated water had been drawn into the bowls from a nearby chrome 6 plume that the city had known about since 1990. 

The city stopped construction of the park when the contaminated water was discovered. 

The plume was the result of a leaky storage tank located at Color Tech two blocks away.  

So far the city has paid approximately $150,000 in costs related to the clean up of the contaminated groundwater. 

The Parks and Waterfront Department plans to continue the construction of the skate park and recently began to accept bids for a new design that will raise the skate bowls above groundwater depth with is about 9 feet below the surface. 

Bouquets of flowers surround the traffic-light pole at Hearst and Shattuck avenues near where Jane Ash was struck by a cement truck Tuesday. The 35-year-old Berkeley resident, a controller in the tuberculosis section of the State Department of Health, is said by a nursing supervisor to be near death at Alameda County Medical Center. 

In a week laced with vehicular accidents, Theodore Resnick of San Francisco died at the scene about 1 a.m. Wednesday at San Pablo and Ashby avenues, after being hit by a driver pursued by California Highway Patrol officers. On Thursday an unoccupied AC Transit bus struck a lightpole sending a woman and her baby to the hospital. 

On Tuesday, Ash took a coffee break at the Berkeley Express, across Shattuck Avenue from her job on the sixth floor of the state health department at Hearst and Shattuck. Jerry Brecher, a regular customer at the Express said he heard the noise when the truck hit the pedestrian. “Thirty seconds before she was getting coffee,” Brecher said.  

Moments before the accident, Ash waited on the northwest corner of the street until the light turned green, then proceeded to cross inside the crosswalk, said Lt. Russell Lopes, spokesperson for the Berkeley Police Department. A cement pumper truck was headed west on Hearst, then turned left onto Shattuck, striking Ash, Lopes said. 

“The driver admits he did not see the woman,” Lopes said. “He heard the impact,” and saw people gesturing, then stopped. Berkeley Cement referred the Daily Planet to its attorney who said he could not comment because an investigation was still in process. 

Lopes said when Ash was hit, she fell to the ground, hitting her head on the pavement. She suffered massive brain injuries, Lopes said. 

“It’s hard for all of her friends,” said Ash’s friend, Carol Lopes, who works for the city. Lopes said Ash was being kept on life support, waiting for a recipient for organs which she had wanted to donate. “She is just a wonderful person,” said Lopes, using the words “happy” and “open-hearted” to describe her friend. 

Dr. Sarah Royce, chief of the T.B. control branch of the Department of Health Services, said Ash has worked in her department for three years. She has been active in her field as director of the California TB Controller’s Association, Royce said, calling Ash a “hard-working dedicated T.B. controller.” She had been working on next Friday’s World T.B. day, Royce said. 

An AC transit bus, parked on the northeast corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Streets, took off on its own Thursday about 4 p.m., knocking over a traffic signal and sending a passerby and her baby to the hospital, witnesses said. 

Berkeley police at the scene said the pair were not hurt. An AC Transit spokesperson was not available for comment. 

“I heard a loud crash,” said a bystander, one of the Berkeley Guides, who wanted to be identified only as Guide No. 18. “The bus hit the pole. It looked like it hit the baby. The mother was screaming.” 

Anna Schavin and Mercy Star also saw the accident. They said the bus was traveling very slowly, at about 5-10 miles per hour. 

They said they witnessed the bus running into the pole and the pole going into the baby stroller. They said the mother grabbed the baby who was crying, but appeared unharmed. 

Henry Porche also witnessed the accident. “I looked up. There was no driver in the bus,” he said. 

Apparently, the driver had fixed the parking brake of the bus and had taken a break. The end of the No. 40 bus route is on the northeast corner of Shattuck and Center. No passengers were on the bus when it crossed Shattuck on its own.

SAN FRANCISCO — A powerful builders group sued the City of San Francisco Wednesday for banning live-work projects. 

The Residential Builders Association claims that voters should decide on the future of live-work lofts.  

Because the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a six-month moratorium on the housing units last month as a resolution rather than an ordinance, it cannot be challenged with a ballot measure. 

The association’s lawyers asked a judge to declare the moratorium an ordinance. A hearing is scheduled for next week. 

If the moratorium becomes an ordinance, it will take 19,000 signatures to put the issue on the ballot. If that happened, the moratorium would cease, meaning live-work construction would continue until the November election. 

Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano, who authored the moratorium, said resolutions take less time and study to approve than ordinances. 

The builders association had submitted a referendum petition calling on supervisors to rescind the moratorium or let the public vote on it, but the director of the Department of Elections refused to authorize it. 

The association asked Superior Court Judge A. James Robertson II on Wednesday for an immediate order to force the Department of Elections to accept the petition. That request was denied, and instead a hearing was set for March 22.

Gov. Gray Davis named the founder of the Gap clothing chain and a business and education lobbyist to the state Board of Education. 

The appointments of Donald Fisher, 72, of San Francisco and Suzanne Tacheny, 36, of Sacramento were announced Thursday.  

They replace two appointees of former Gov. Pete Wilson, Marian Bergeson of Newport Beach and Kathryn Dronenburg of El Cajon, whose terms expired in January. 

Fisher is founder and chairman of Gap Inc., which he and his wife started in 1969. 

Tacheny is executive director of California Business for Education Excellence, a lobbying group financed by businesses to push for improvements in public schools. 

The 11-member state Board of Education sets policy for public schools in areas such as textbook purchases, statewide tests and charter schools. 

Davis announced several other appointments Thursday to state boards. 

He selected Gerald O’Hara, 64, of Davis for the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board, which handles appeals from employers of citations for workplace safety and health hazards. 

Named to the State Mining and Geology Board were Allen Jones, 51, of San Diego, Brian Baca, 46, of Solvang, Robert Hablitzel, 50, of El Dorado Hills, Maureen Rose, 36, of Oakland, Robert Tepel, 63, of San Jose and Donna Thompson, 47, of Bakersfield.  

The board deals with mineral resources, reclamation of mined land and geologic and seismic information. 

New members of the Exposition and State Fair Board are Gilbert Albiani, 63, of Elk Grove, Sonney Chong, 53, of Sacramento, Rex Hime, 53, of Loomis, John Growney, 53, of Red Bluff and Edward Phillips, 58, of Sacramento. The board oversees the state fair and manages the fairgrounds. 

Board members do not receive a salary. The appointments must be confirmed by the Senate. 

California’s next execution, scheduled for later this month, is mired in new litigation that’s not from the condemned inmate who dropped his appeals. 

A hearing was set for Thursday on a request by the state Corrections Department asking a federal judge to block a court order allowing witnesses at San Quentin to view executions in their entirety. 

Opposing that petition are media organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union, which jointly convinced a judge in July to order the state to abolish the practice of partial viewings of lethal injections. 

Citing security concerns, the Corrections Department adopted the restrictions in 1996, shortly before the state’s first lethal injection execution. On Feb. 23, 1996, at William Bonin’s execution, a curtain was pushed back to reveal Bonin already strapped to the table with needles and tubes inserted into his body. 

Afterward, officials reported Bonin’s last words and described the difficulty a staff member had in inserting a needle into a vein. 

The procedures were challenged by The Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists and the California First Amendment Coalition. 

They argued the state effectively prevented the public from learning what happens during an execution, and that the law demands that independent observers witness an execution, “not a corpse already on the table,” said Terry Francke, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition. 

It is uncertain whether U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will reverse his own order demanding the executions be shown in their entirety. The state said it would appeal Walker’s ruling if he doesn’t reverse himself. 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has been asked to intervene in the case twice. It sided with the state once and then with the media, ordering the state to allow witnesses full view of Keith Williams’ lethal injection execution on May 3, 1996. 

“We’re questioning whether the opinion Judge Walker made was correct,” said state Deputy Attorney General Thomas Patterson. 

The state already has appealed Walker’s original decision to the circuit court. But because of the slow appellate process, the state filed a petition asking Walker to block his own order before the scheduled March 27 execution of Robert Massie so the appeal can be heard after the execution. 

It’s a move the ACLU, which is representing the media groups, opposes. 

“There are absolutely no security problems resulting from the state opening up its execution,” ACLU attorney David Fried said. “And there was none at Williams’ execution.” 

Past and present San Quentin wardens testified before Walker in support of keeping reporters and other execution witnesses from seeing guards or the prisoner at a lethal injection until the chemicals begin flowing. 

Former wardens Arthur Calderon and Daniel Vasquez and the current warden, Jeanne Woodford, said allowing reporters to see more would increase the chances that guards would be identified and endangered. 

Walker said San Quentin’s policy was “an exaggerated response” to safety concerns. 

The media charged that claims of danger to guards were unfounded and could be addressed by protective measures such as using surgical masks to conceal their identity. 

The state countered that masks would be undignified and ineffective. Calderon, the warden during four executions, testified he thought a prisoner could tear off a guard’s mask in a struggle, despite being chained by the arms. 

Walker ruled in 1997 that an execution must be visible to reporters from start to finish. His order was in effect for only one execution before the 9th Circuit reinstated the state’s restrictions in 1998. The circuit said the public and press have, at most, a “severely limited” constitutional right to view executions, which must be balanced against the prison’s security concerns. 

The circuit returned the case to Walker to determine whether the state’s rules were an “exaggerated response” to its security needs. 

Eight inmates have been executed in California since voters reinstated capital punishment in 1978. 

The case is California First Amendment Coalition vs. Woodford, C-96-1291-VRW. 

LOS ANGELES — Students indignant over the University of California’s ban on affirmative action are threatening to stop recruiting minority prospects. 

Jackie Melendez, a UC Berkeley student, told regents meeting at UCLA Thursday that she and others in outreach groups weren’t willing to encourage minority students to enroll in the nine-campus system with the ban in place. 

UC officials are reviewing applicants this month and will make offers soon. That usually means a month of intensive recruiting of minorities as top campuses like Berkeley and UCLA try to boost enrollment of blacks and Hispanics, which has slipped since affirmative action admissions stopped in 1998. 

Melendez said students wouldn’t deliberately try to dissuade prospective students, but “we feel that the truth about what it feels like to be a student of color at UC Berkeley is discouraging enough. I’d like to send an invitation for you to walk to my classes. Walk through a day of life at UC Berkeley with me.” 

Several minority outreach groups at Berkeley announced earlier this month they would not help with recruiting. Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said Thursday that if they carry through the threat he will withhold about $27,000 in campus funds usually given to the groups for their participation. 

“I hope they change their minds,” he said. “I think they’ve done nothing to date that would indicate that they actually have discouraged students.” 

Affirmative action wasn’t on the regents agenda for the meeting this week, which wrapped up Thursday. But some on the board do want to repeal the ban, and it could come up at the May  

meeting, which will be held  

in San Francisco. 

Repealing the ban will not restore affirmative action. A year after regents voted to drop affirmative action, state voters made a similar decision with passage of the ballot initiative Proposition 209 that forbade using race or gender in most public programs, including education. 

Wednesday, more than 1,000 students rallied outside the regents’ meeting to demand that they vote for repeal of the ban.  

About 200 students later occupied a campus auditorium, forcing cancellation of a planned debate among Los Angeles mayoral candidates. 

Thursday, protests were much quieter with a small group marching outside the building where regents met. 

Also Thursday, regents got an update on the 10th campus, UC Merced, which is scheduled to start accepting students in fall 2004. 

Funding for construction, a total of $162 million, had been taken out of the state budget by the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee earlier this month.  

But on Wednesday a Senate subcommittee reinstated the money after hearing from Merced Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey and others.

PASADENA — Astronomers have successfully linked the world’s two largest telescopes to create a single optical instrument powerful enough to pinpoint planets orbiting other stars. 

A team of National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronomers said Wednesday that its members had gathered the first starlight from the linked 33-foot telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea. 

Using a process called interferometry, the twin telescopes both captured the light from HD61294, a faint star in the constellation Lynx, late Monday.  

The starlight was then shuttled across the 275 feet separating the two telescopes and combined in a way to mimic the light-gathering potential of a single, larger telescope. 

“Successfully combining the light from the two largest telescopes on Earth is a fabulous technical advancement for science,” said Anne Kinney, director of NASA’s astronomical search for origins program, which includes the Keck interferometer. “Using them in this way gives us the equivalent of an 85-meter (279-foot) telescope.  

This will open the possibility of obtaining images with much greater clarity than ever before.” 

Astronomers will continue to test the Keck Interferometer through the summer, with limited science operations slated to begin this fall. 

One key role the new instrument will play is in the ongoing search for planets orbiting stars other than our own sun. 

Since 1995, astronomers have discovered nearly 50 planets, most Jupiter-sized, orbiting other stars. The Keck Interferometer will expand that hunt to include planets that orbit farther from their parent stars.

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors in the case of an Algerian accused of a terrorist conspiracy on Thursday began laying groundwork to try to tie him to a worldwide network that allegedly aids Islamic extremists. 

But the U.S. District Court jury in the trial of Ahmed Ressam, 33, was not given an explanation of the various individuals whose names surfaced in testimony. 

Ressam was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, when he crossed the border from Canada to Port Angeles, Wash., in a car carrying explosives and timing devices. Federal officials say West Coast sites were to be attacked in conjunction with Year 2000 celebrations. 

Using videotaped testimony of witnesses speaking through translators, government attorneys introduced pictures of well-known figures in an Algerian community of refugees who immigrated to Canada and then spread out across Europe. 

A number of them are on trial in France on charges of criminal associations with a terrorist enterprise involving a fraudulent passport operation. 

Ressam is also on trial in absentia in the French proceeding, but the Los Angeles jurors were not told of the connections between the men whose pictures were flashed before them in benign settings such as restaurants where groups are seen smiling at the camera in social situations. 

Witnesses identified among them Fateh Kamel, a defendants in the French case, who acknowledged in the Paris trial last month that he met Ressam but insisted he did not know him very well. 

Kamel and Ressam allegedly trained in camps in Afghanistan and are suspected of links to Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi whom U.S. investigators claim was behind the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, that killed 224 people. 

Ressam’s fugitive co-defendant, Abdelmajid Dahoumane, also figured in testimony as witnesses remembered a time when he lived in a Montreal apartment with Ressam. 

But the witnesses, who testified in Montreal, appeared reluctant to give details of the Algerians’ relationships and said only that Ressam attended mosque with others, played soccer and often had coffee with his countrymen. 

One witness, Nabil Ikhlef, said he did not want to come to Los Angeles to testify “because of reasons of my security” and told of losing contact with Ressam for several years after they met in the mid-1990s in Montreal. In 1999, he said, they met up again in Vancouver. He was asked if he knew where Ressam had been in the interim. 

“I heard he was in Europe,” Ihklef said. 

The defense objected that the statement was hearsay. The prosecutor then suggested Ikhlef had been more forthcoming about it in a pretrial interview, saying he had talked to Ressam about his whereabouts. 

“Now that I have been sworn in I am not sure if I had that discussion,” said Ikhlef, 28, who did not provide any detailed personal history beyond immigrating from Algeria to Canada and being married. 

A Sudanese living in Montreal, Aboussian Adelrazik, said that he met Ressam at a mosque in Montreal and used to visit a friend who lived with Ressam. He said he stopped communicating with Ressam about two years ago. 

“I do not know anything. How would I know?” he testified at one point. 

The government also presented witnesses in person and on videotape to explain in minute detail how two men identified as Ressam and Dahoumane rented a motel suite in Vancouver which they occupied for nearly a month, paying in cash. 

Housekeepers testified that the men kept all the windows open in their suite even though it was winter and freezing. One maid said she smelled something funny in the room but could not identify the odor and that the men would not allow her to clean one of the rooms. When they checked out, they left behind an empty suitcase, a coffee grinder and a stain on a table top which appeared to be a burn. 

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer testified he went to a supermarket and purchased a jar of olives matching a jar full of explosives that was found in Ressam’s car. He showed the jury that the bottom of the jar matched the table burn mark. 

Prosecutors also sought to link Ressam to purchases at Canadian electronics stores that were used to make bomb components. 

Ressam was linked to the materials by credit cards issued in the name of his alias, Benni Noris, and signed in August and September 1999, a few months before he was arrested in Port Angeles. 

The credit card purchases included sockets, rolls of wire, integrated circuits, various types of glue, soldering equipment and circuit boards. 

Patricia May, manager of Active Electronics in Montreal, was shown a picture of the completed timing device found in Ressam’s rental car and said the only things in the picture that did not come from her store were a wrist watch and a miniature lamp. 

May said the purchases from her store were made in two visits in which the credit card user spent a total of about $300. 

The manager of another branch of that store said the same credit card was used to buy screws and cables on Sept. 3, 1999. Yves Gurin identified a screw on the timing device which he said came from his store. 

Neither manager was asked to identify Ressam in court because they did not handle the transactions.

SACRAMENTO — Reacting to suspicion that some power suppliers have shut down California plants to raise prices, the Assembly approved a proposal Thursday that would let state regulators fine generators that cannot justify their outages. 

The Legislature’s focus on the state’s electricity supply came as the managers of California’s power grid Thursday declared their first electricity alert since March 5. 

The Independent System Operator called the Stage 2 alert as power reserves fell below 5 percent. The falling supply was due in part to the loss of at least 1,600 megawatts from the Pacific Northwest. That’s enough power for roughly 1.6 million households. 

“This demonstrates how we’re still operating on the edge here, and how critical these imports from the Northwest are,” ISO spokeswoman Stephanie McCorkle said. 

Much of the lost power came from the federal Bonneville Power Administration. It had been supplying much of the Northwest power because it needed to run water over its dams to help salmon eggs hatch, BPA spokesman Mike Hansen said. 

However, the fish have hatched and Bonneville is cutting releases to build summer reserves, Hansen said. 

The unanticipated cut in imports came as California was already down about 10,000 megawatts due to power plant maintenance, ISO spokesman Patrick Dorinson said. That’s enough electricity for about 10 million households. 

Despite the tight reserves, the ISO did not immediately require “interruptible” customers — who get lower rates for turning off power when needed — to shut down. 

Also Thursday, the Assembly took several steps to cope with California’s energy crisis, passing bills that would regulate power plant outages and expand the utilities’ interruptible-service programs. 

A measure by Assemblywoman Carole Migden would give the ISO authority to coordinate plant outages to prevent too many from going off-line for maintenance at any one time. 

If a power plant seemed to have too many outages or was shut down for a suspicious length of time, the ISO could investigate. If the outages were found to be unwarranted, the state Electricity Oversight Board could order fines. The fines would be based on the cost of power the ISO had to buy as a result of a plant’s shutdown. 

“We have suspected that in some instances these generators have shut down and this has not been in the public interest,” said Migden, D-San Francisco, adding that she was not accusing anyone of wrongdoing. “What we’re trying to do is create an audit and accountability system.” 

The bill largely puts into state law an executive order issued last month by Gov. Gray Davis and goes further by giving the Electricity Oversight Board the power to issue fines. 

Senate leader John Burton on Wednesday announced a Senate committee will investigate whether electricity wholesalers illegally withheld power to drive up prices. 

He cited plant outages for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance that have contributed to the state’s strapped power supply and forced the ISO to scramble for power at premium prices to fill gaps on the grid. 

Duke, Dynegy, Mirant and Reliant will be among major providers included in the inquiry. The wholesalers deny any wrongdoing. 

The Assembly approved Migden’s plant outage bill 57-5 and sent it to the Senate, which is considering a rival bill to give the authority over generators to the California Public Utilities Commission. 

That bill by Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, was approved Wednesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee and sent to the full Senate. 

The Independent Energy Producers Association supports Migden’s bill, but opposes Speier’s. The PUC does not have the expertise to handle the task, IEPA executive director Jan Smutny-Jones said. 

The Assembly also passed two proposals to modify the utilities’ interruptible programs. Both measures were approved 67-0 and sent to the Senate. 

One would expand the program with an eye to the critical summer months; the other would let customers hit hard by frequent outages this year, such as schools, get out of the program now. 

The programs give participating factories and other large users a discount of about 15 percent for cutting their power during shortages. In the past, those interruptions have occurred in summer, leading many school districts to sign up. 

However, because of this winter’s problems, many customers have already hit their yearly limits for power interruptions. That could cause problems this summer when the flexibility will be most needed. 

A bill by Assemblyman Rod Wright, D-Los Angeles, would extend the programs through 2002 and create several new options, offering different credits for different conservation commitments. 

The new options could save 2,700 megawatts this summer, said Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg. That’s enough power for 2.7 million households. 

A proposal by Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher, R-Brea, would give some relief to interruptible customers such as school districts that have been unable to cut power during this winter’s shortages and have faced huge penalties. 

The PUC last November prohibited customers from getting out of the program, then suspended the penalties for doing so Jan. 26. 

The bill would allow customers in the program at least a year to get out and would waive any penalties against them between November and Jan. 26. 

Also Thursday, the PUC voted to bar Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison from cutting thousands of workers. The commission said the proposed layoffs could slow response time to power outages and harm service. 

PG&E and Edison representatives say the layoffs would help them conserve cash — as much as $100 million for PG&E if they were able to complete all layoffs, spokesman Jon Tremayne said. 

d.us 

WASHINGTON — Power blackouts “appear inevitable” in California this summer and could spill into neighboring Western states, the Bush administration says, even as stocks of a gasoline additive raise concerns of another summer of price spikes at the pump. 

Energy Secretary Spence Abraham told a Senate hearing that the administration is trying to find ways to increase power supplies in the West, where prices have soared because of shortages. The administration strongly opposes price controls, he said. “The problem will get worse, and blackouts this summer appear inevitable,” Abraham said. The administration’s hope is that “California doesn’t start a wave of blackouts that go beyond its borders,” he said. 

Abraham announced no specific actions to ease the Western electricity crunch, although he said he has discussed the possibility of a small amount of additional power being obtained from Mexico. 

He said the administration opposes price controls on wholesale power sales in the West, despite pleas from California and the Northwest that federal intervention in “a broken market” is essential. 

“Let me be clear on this,” he told a hearing on price control legislation, “Any action we take must either help increase supply or reduce demand. ... Price caps will not increase supply or reduce demand.” 

He said that California tried price controls and prices soared. He said the debate over wholesale prices is diverting attention from the need to find ways to increase supplies and prevent blackouts. 

“All we’re asking for is help to prevent price gouging,” added Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. She said her state faces a likely shortage of 5,000 megawatts of power during peak demand periods this summer. One megawatt supplies about 1,000 homes. 

Smith and Feinstein have proposed legislation to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to limit prices charged by power generators across 11 states in the West. Wholesale electricity in California averaged $228 a megawatt hour in February, eight times what it cost a year earlier. 

At the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer indicated Bush’s opposition to the Smith-Feinstein legislation. “The president does not support price controls,” Fleischer said. 

Meanwhile, there was growing concern that this summer may bring another series of price spikes for gasoline, although many energy experts said it was too early to tell if it will be another season of $2-a-gallon fill-ups. 

The Energy Information Administration forecast average gasoline prices this summer of $1.49 a gallon, about a dime higher than in recent weeks. 

“Gasoline inventories are below the average expected range. It’s something we’ve got to keep an eye on,” said Jonathan Cogan, a spokesman for the EIA. 

Refiners traditionally step up gasoline production in late March and April to build up stocks. But refiners reportedly are behind schedule in producing MTBE, the clean air additive, because of this winter’s high natural gas demand. MTBE is derived from natural gas. 

Such a shortage could affect gas supplies for major cities that must use the additive because of pollution. Last summer shortages of reformulated gasoline in Chicago and Milwaukee were blamed for gasoline prices above $2 per gallon. 

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., called in Abraham and Environmental Protection Agency head Christie Whitman to discuss the issue. 

After the Thursday meeting, Whitman said she planned to issue revised air quality standard for ethanol, the corn-based additive widely used in gasoline in parts of the Midwest, so it will be cheaper and less complex for refiners to produce. The change could ease supply concerns as it goes into effect when refiners begin building summer gasoline stocks. 

In New York, meanwhile, a report from the state’s Independent System Operator said the state could avoid the power problems that have hit California by speeding up the process under which new power plants are built. New York is nowhere near the crisis stage reached in California this year, “but we are going in the wrong direction,” said William J. Museler, ISO president. 

In Washington, Western electricity problems dominated the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing. 

Washington Gov. Gary Locke said rates could jump as much as 200 percent this summer as supplies dwindle. The region, which relies heavily on hydroelectric power, is in the midst of a drought and may face California-like rolling blackouts this summer. 

The high prices and shortages “will cripple the agriculture economy of our state,” he told the senators, pleading for federal intervention to control wholesale power prices. “We simply need a timeout.” 

But Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said, “We cannot continue to send false signals to the market” by holding back prices. He said his state is facing 35 percent higher power costs, more than consumers in California who are protected by retail price controls. 

Indeed, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said people in 37 states have higher electricity bills than California. 

Lake Michigan has a lesson for the thousands of homeowners who will install water gardens in their backyards this year. So does the Hudson River. 

The lesson: Mimic nature. Take the project easy. Make it natural. Fight Mother Nature, and you will lose, sooner or later. Even in your backyard. 

Such is the opinion of Greg Wittstock, president of Aquascape Designs, a Chicago-area firm that says it installs more water features – ponds, waterfall, fountains and so on – than anyone else in the country. 

Replicating the ecosystem of a large body of water is easier than most think, but in Wittstock’s opinion, flies in the face of much of what is written about water gardening. 

Water gardening is exploding in popularity. Some $750 million was spent at wholesale in 2000, and the industry is expecting growth at wholesale to reach $1.4 billion by 2005, Wittstock said. Most sales to date have been to do-it-yourselfers who secured supplies at a garden center or home center. 

Wittstock’s company installed about 150 gardens in the Chicago area in 2000, and most ranged in price from $5,000 to $7,000. A few topped $100,000. 

Much of its business is selling supplies and equipment to other installers and educating installers through workshops. 

Why the popularity? 

“Our customers are not enthusiastic gardeners. It’s the average person who wants to have a place to relax every day after work, rather than waiting for a vacation that is six months away,” Wittstock said. 

“Ask anyone with a water garden. They will tell you it is a place to escape to, that it is soothing, relaxing and environmentally friendly. These things are incredibly important now because people have less time and more stress in their lives.” 

Another reason for their surging popularity: Water gardens are still an unusual landscape feature, so they have “one-upmanship” value to many people. 

Back to Mother Nature and mimicking her design for an ecosystem.  

Wittstock believes the water garden must have these five components to deliver on its potential of beauty and maintenance that should take no longer than five minutes each week: 

• Rocks and gravel, to provide surface area for bacteria to colonize and be available to break down fish waste and other organic matter. 

• Plants, to consume nutrients from organic matter in the water and reduce the presence of algae. 

• Fish, to eat the algae that inevitably occur. 

• Recirculatory system, to move the water and by doing so, create pleasing movement and sound. 

• Mechanical and biological filters, to get rid of leaves and products of decomposition. 

Wittstock believes homeowners stumble early on by installing a pond that is too small to maintain itself and to accommodate the desire for more plants and fish. The right size to start with, he believes, is about 200 square feet.  

A pond of this size is big enough to create an ecosystem that largely maintains itself and gives the homeowner a chance to add more features such as fish, plants, fountains and so on in the future. 

Marvin Pritts, a professor of horticulture at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., recommends consumers think hard about the purpose of the garden. 

“The first step is to decide what you want the pond for – a reflection pool, water lilies and other aquatic flowers, fish, fountains. Each choice has implications for how the pond is built, particularly in relation to its size,” he said. 

Pritts believe the easiest water feature is a reflection pool. It can be as shallow as two to six inches. Create it with a black liner and the pool will reflect the landscape behind it. 

He agrees with Wittstock about size. “The larger the pond, the better buffered it will be against fluctuations in temperature and chemistry and the greater amount of oxygen that it can retain. Your success in maintaining a healthy fish and plant population is increased with pond size.” 

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For more information, search the Internet and as you explore, be aware that opinions differ. A few places to look: 

Cornell University - http://www.hort.cornell.edu/gardening/fctsheet/egfactsh/watergar.htm l 

Aquascape - http://www.aquascapedesigns.com. 

Mimosa is both inedible and homely, but you might want to grow it anyway for entertainment purposes. Touch the leaves on this tropical shrub and they suddenly collapse. 

The response to touch is the result of an electrical stimulus and a chemical stimulus which travel through the plant at about an inch per second. You can watch the leaves of a large plant collapse in a wave of motion after one leaf is touched. 

Response to touch is common in the plant kingdom. This spring, watch how your peas’ tendrils grab onto a trellis, or whatever else is nearby, to pull up the vines. Your bean vines will close in tight spirals around any poles you have set out for them. And how about the Venus’ flytrap, which closes its hinged leaf around any unwitting fly? 

Plants are discriminating about what they will move for. Venus’ flytrap distinguishes between living and dead prey by closing only if two different sensing hairs within its “jaws” are touched in succession, or if one hair is touched twice. Pea tendrils respond more quickly to rough or textured surfaces than to smooth or soft surfaces. 

All this moving around serves a purpose. Tendrils and twining stems help get plants off the ground. Leaves that close around a fly help nourish the Venus’ flytrap. “Fainting” of sensitive plants might be useful for helping the plant conserve water in drying winds, or for making the plant less appetizing to a hungry animal or insect. 

Lee Reich is a columnist for The Associated Press

Gardening books preview your horticultural treasures: 

• The ancient Egyptians treasured flowers because they symbolized life in that desert region, notes Malcolm Hillier in “Flowers: The Book of Floral Design.” 

Flower arrangements have evolved in life and art through history and to the present, when your own creative versions join the tradition – from the single flower on a cafe table to a complex design for a parade float. Hillier lays out the fundamentals and offers some intriguing ideas, including one arrangement that features a series of different blooms encapsulated under water in tumblers. 

• People in northerly climates have particular challenges to keep their gardens in good health. “Growing Shrubs and Small Trees in Cold Climates.” by Nancy Rose, Don Selinger and John Whitman, is full of practical advice on choosing, planting and maintaining the “bones” of northern gardens. 

• Growing annuals is a relatively inexpensive, quick-return way to creative gardening. “Annuals with Style” (Taunton Press, $29.95 hardcover), by Mike Ruggiero and Tom Christopher, offers ideas and inspiration for interesting ways to grow and display these flowers and plants. 

• The garden can be defined with something as simple as a picket fence or as complex as a classic arcaded trellis, pond or terrace. Some of the possibilities are included in “Smith & Hawken Garden Structures,” by Linda Joan Smith. 

• Some of the best landscaping and garden design advice appearing in Fine Gardening magazine has been compiled in a new series of practical paperbacks by the magazine’s publisher, Taunton Press. The first four titles in the Fine Gardening Design Guides series are “Creating Beds and Borders,” “Landscaping Your Home,” “Designing With Plants,” and “Exploring Garden Style.” Barbara Ashmun, Doug Ruhren, Sydney Eddison, Keeyla Meadows, Erica Glasener and Ken Twombly are among the experts whose bylines are included. 

They were growing and gathering herbs in the Appalachians of Western North Carolina probably before the 19th century, when the mountain folk called it “wildcrafting.” 

Now this cottage industry is big industry, generating $40 million or so every year for consumers newly interested in plants that can flavor, scent or maybe even heal. 

Alan Salmon is a veteran herb grower who now advises customers at his retail nursery, the Wildwood Herbal Flower Farm, in the valley just north of Asheville. 

For example: “If you are a card-holding Cilantro lover, you need to sow seeds every two weeks. Sow and cover them lightly in a pot or in your garden in a sunny spot, and water infrequently.” 

Limit the chemical fertilizers, he advises, because these can adversely affect flavor. And watch for late spring freezes. 

Other tips about herbs from Salmon and other growing experts: 

• Start early. Sow indoors during those weeks before early-morning frosts are over. You should be able to count on the heads of seedlings to be up and ready for planting outdoors. Keep in mind some herbs don’t germinate as well indoors as they do outside. 

• Give them a clip. Seedlings need a few weeks to get established, but then start cutting them back. Even if you want to leave flowers on the plants for the bees, cut most back for bushier, shaplier, plants. 

• Know what you grow. Check out books and references about herbs and their uses.  

• Grower beware. Some herbs can be harmful if used incorrectly. Always check with your doctor before trying herbs for medicinal use. And it’s important to know which part of the plant has medicinal benefits (flower, leaves or root). 

• Seasoning. Plant for all seasons, and if you’re in a colder area, try hardier herbs such as lavender, rosemary, thyme and sage. 

• Keep a journal. Make a record of new spring plantings and their care. Draw garden layouts so you’ll know where to look for the perennials to come up again and avoid planting something else on top of the established plant.  

• Diversify. Choose plants for texture, leaf and flower color, scent and taste.

In the wacky world of plastic laminates, river rocks never wash away, grass doesn’t need cutting, a heap of jellybeans never gets stale and a red-and-white checked picnic cloth doesn’t have to be laundered. 

Such frankly faux novelty patterns, along with metallic effects and unusual textures, can turn cabinet surfaces, counters and walls into conversation pieces. 

Through the use of digital photography, virtually any image – a logo, a photograph, lines of text – can be custom-printed onto a sheet of laminate. This conjures up thoughts of surfaces decorated with wedding invitations, children’s artwork, heirloom photographs and favorite pet portraits. 

Don’t be in a hurry to plan a room around little John or Jane’s latest art effort. At the moment, custom-designed patterns on laminates are available to large commercial clients rather than Mr. and Mrs. America and mainly employed in signs, point-of-purchase displays and restaurant and store interiors. 

“Our most popular installations are in hotels, retail displays, casinos and nightclubs – anywhere a designer wants to make an impact,” says Beverly Palmer, commercial marketing manager of Formica Corp. Cincinnati. 

As designers employ special effects in laminates and novelty laminate patterns in their own homes and for residential clients, the word is slowly trickling out. Furthermore, the number of patterns continues to grow. 

“There are two design trends,” says Grace Jeffers, design editor of Laminating Design & Technology Magazine, a trade publication in Fort Atkinson, Wis., and a consultant to Wilsonart. “One trend is for intriguing graphically bold patterns or effects, and the second trend is for dimensional textures. 

Among the more startling patterns, Jeffers singles out an iridescent pattern as well as a laminate that looks like troweled plaster (from Abet Laminate, an Italian company), those jelly beans and that picnic check (from Wilsonart), and a corrugated cardboard look (Formica). 

Formica introduced its DecoMetal this past summer with 48 patterns. Some unusual effects are created by combining two sheets of material. The top sheet is perforated to reveal a different material beneath. One pattern combines a perforated wood surface with a metal underlay exposed as small squares. 

At this point, it can be hard for a consumer to see samples of unusual patterns since they are rarely sampled by the big box retail outlets like Home Depot and Lowe’s.  

You might find some of these special patterns at showrooms of independent kitchen and bath dealers and in upscale home design centers. Another way to learn what’s new is to visit manufacturer Web sites or call their customer service numbers. 

Expect to pay a premium. Most of the unusual patterns are more expensive than standard patterns – about $5 per square foot instead of $1.25, Jeffers estimates. 

Perhaps more of the unusual is on the way. Already patterns are replacing solid colors in laminates. “At our design launch in April, Everything was some sort of pattern,” says Brenda White, public relations coordinator for Wilsonart International in Temple, Texas. “A pattern is more practical because you don’t notice stains or scratches.” 

When working with highly patterned laminates, there are some decorating dos and don’ts. “With the super-bold patterns, a little goes a long way,” Jeffers says.  

“It is a good idea to have a table or a few cabinet faces but not to plaster the pattern all over your kitchen cabinets.” 

When using laminates with highly reflective surfaces, Palmer says “if there is light shining directly onto the surface, you will see all the fingerprints and smudges. Duller finishes are more popular in residential use.” 

Those who like the newly fashionable look of stainless steel for a countertop won’t be happy with a laminate version for a surface that requires a workhorse material. They need an industrial sheet grade of metal attached with rivets. 

Another use for unusual laminates is as furniture. 

Gary Roberts of Cleveland is making desks, credenzas and pedestal filing cabinets surfaced with Formica’s Ligna laminates. The top surface of the laminate is actually a form of poplar embossed with a grain pattern duplicating various woods such as Birdseye maple. The pieces are made by hand and prices are fairly high – from $4,000 and up for a desk or a credenza. 

“When you tell people it’s a laminate, the perception is that it’s a cheap material. Actually, it’s a fairly expensive material that has a unique look. Formica’s pricing on this product is five to 10 times greater than what its lower products would cost,” says Roberts. “The laminates work well for furniture. They are as scratch-resistant as a wood veneer and they bring color and pattern to design.” says Roberts. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater opened the first show in its striking, new-built, steeply vertical 600-seat Roda Theater Wednesday with an ambitious production of “Agamemnon,” the first part of 5 century B.C. Greek playwright Aeschylus’ epic trilogy “The Oresteia.” 

Parts two and three of the trilogy – “The Libation Bearers” and “The Eumenides”– open next Wednesday, and then the full trilogy continues in repertory through the first week of May. 

“The Oresteia”– the only surviving example of an ancient Greek trilogy – is generally considered to be ground zero in Western dramatic tradition. As far as we know, playwright Aeschylus is the writer who invented dialogue on the stage. Only seven of his approximately 90 plays have survived. 

The Berkeley Rep production is an ambitious one. This trilogy is rarely performed in its entirety. 

“The Oresteia” is complicated epic story of human beings and gods locked in conflict with each other over land and power. 

Built around the events that triggered the Trojan War, and then the bloody outcome that ensued, “The Oresteia” centers on one family caught in a cycle of murder and revenge. 

By its end, the trilogy evolves from a story of murder and revenge to one of the discovery of self-determination among human beings, and the creation of justice. 

Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone said, “In planning for the opening of our new theater. I wanted to go back to the roots of drama and western civilization.” 

“ ‘The Oresteia’ explores a community’s break from a cycle of vengeance,” he said. “It’s a formation of a new world of democracy and dispassionate justice.” 

The “Agamemnon” segment of the trilogy, which opened Wednesday, is a violent and bloody story of karmic retribution. 

In this play, Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the Greek army, returns home exhausted but victorious after a 10-year absence fighting the Trojan War, only to be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra. 

The wife’s act is one of revenge for her husband having sacrificed one of their daughters 10 years earlier in order to appease a god who caused ill winds that prevented the Greek army from sailing for Troy. 

In the second episode of the trilogy, opening at the Rep next week, wife and mother Clytemnestra herself is then murdered by son Orestes as revenge for her killing his father Agamemnon. 

“The Oresteia” is co-directed by Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone and distinguished collaborator Stephen Wadsworth. 

In past seasons, Wadsworth has directed at the Rep productions of "The Triumph of Love" and "Changes of Heart," by Marivaux, and Oscar Wilde’s "An Ideal Husband." He is well-known around the country and around the world as the director of many distinguished productions of theater and opera. 

"Agamemnon" is a bleak story, but a powerful one. At its start, a chorus of citizens--led by the impressive Frank Corrado--wait around the palace for Agamemnon to return, retelling the long history of this family and its struggle, point by point. 

Directors Taccone and Wadsworth have effectively divided up the chorus lines among several chorus characters, to create some sense of individual personalities within the chorus. 

News of the arrival of Agamemnon soon brings joy and fear. The people of the land are glad to have him back, but Clytemnestra’s evil intentions are floating in the air. 

Among the actors, Robynn [sic] Rodriguez’ calculating and focused Clytemnestra is a force of nature, waiting for her estranged husband to arrive so she can kill him. L. Peter Callender has a very powerful segment as the herald arriving in advance of Agamemnon’s army to tell the story of their history and psychology. 

There are many subtle and moving directorial touches in this production, especially in the first half. The first meeting in ten years between Agamemnon (Derrick Lee Weeden) and Clytemnestra is a powerful cat and mouse game. 

There is a long, tantalizing segment in which Agamemnon (Derrick Lee Weeden) is reluctant to step off the carriage he arrives in, and touch the ground of his homeland for the first time in ten years. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra take a long time getting to their first kiss. 

In this primal story of war and political struggle, individual chorus members communicate subtle information about the gender politics of this world in unspoken background reactions. 

For me, the Berkeley Rep production is more powerful in its first half than its second half. When Agamemnon’s concubine from the war tells her long story of forecasting and divination, the staging gives up its interesting gloss on the action that the secondary characters in the chorus have provided early on with their distinctive individual reaction moments. 

Peter Maradudin’s stark lighting design is an important part of this telling, which begins in the darkness of night, and then changes with the time of day and the gloomy, unpredictable weather. 

“Agamemnon” opens with a vengeful wife’s grief and anger over a daughter’s murder. When the curtain falls, another daughter Electra is grieving over the latest family homicide, and contemplating her own revenge. 

The murdering continues with Part Two, next week. Welcome to a deep karmic nightmare. This is a scary family. 

Planet theater reviewer John Angell Grant has written for “American Theatre,” “Callboard,” and many other publications. E-mail him at jagplays@yahoo.com

SAN FRANCISCO — The number of songs being traded through Napster Inc. has dropped sharply since the company began policing its system for unauthorized songs, a research firm reported Thursday. 

Napster users were downloading 50 percent fewer files as the company beefed up its screening technology Wednesday, according to Webnoize, a firm that has followed Napster usage closely. 

Prior to upgrading its system in order to block access to infringing content, the average number of files shared per Napster user was 172.  

After the upgrade, the average number of files shared per user dropped to 71, Webnoize reported. 

Napster officials continue to disagree with the recording industry about the burdens the company must bear in policing its system for unauthorized content. 

Napster told U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in a document filed Monday that “critical disputes” have arisen with the recording industry. 

The Redwood City-based company says the record labels are wrong in thinking the March 5 order meant Napster must search for infringing content even prior to proper notification form copyright holders. 

More specifically, Napster says many of the submissions of copyright works from the recording industry have no associated file names for the company to block. 

“Where a file name is connected to the work in the notice, Napster will exclude them. Where no file name is connected to the work, Napster will not,” the company’s compliance report to the court read. 

The recording industry has said Napster’s niggling over particulars is an attempt to buy more time. 

“We are not going to debate the fine points of the order’s implementation. We believe the court’s intent is clear.  

“Napster is required to stop infringing. Stall tactics are unacceptable,” RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said Monday. 

Napster says the recording industry is failing to share the workload and provide required information. 

Part of the problem, according to Napster, is that the growing costs of implementing the new screening technology has interrupted other business plans. 

Napster claims it has spent $150,000 and more than 2,700 employee hours to develop and implement a screening technology to block access to unauthorized content. 

On Tuesday, Napster announced it had signed a deal with Gracenote, a Berkeley-based company that maintains a database of more than 12 million musical works cataloged by artist and title, including spelling variations that may have slipped through Napster’s system in the past. 

Pig Latin translators that automatically twist the names of artists and song titles proved popular as users sought an end-around to Napster’s screening technology.  

But Napster has cracked down on that, too. 

At the request of Napster, file-sharing firm Aimster removed from its Web site a program based on pig Latin that enabled users to continue sharing songs with slightly altered words. 

CLAIMING PROBLEMS  

Part of the problem, according to Napster, is that the growing costs of implementing the new screening technology has interrupted other business plans. Napster claims it has spent $150,000 and more than 2,700  

employee hours to develop and implement a screening technology to block access to unauthorized content.

SAN FRANCISCO — Software maker Oracle Corp. offered little hope Thursday of a quick recovery from a sudden sales slump that diminished its quarterly earnings, meeting analysts’ lowered expectations. 

For the three months ended Feb. 28, the Redwood Shores-based company reported net income of $582.7 million, or 10 cents per share. In the year-ago period, Oracle earned $763.2 million, or 13 cents per share, including investment gains. 

Two weeks ago, officials said a wave of last-minute sales losses would cause its earnings to fall below Wall Street’s consensus estimate of 12 cents per share. It marked the first time since December 1997 that Oracle has fallen shy of Wall Street’s earnings expectations. 

Oracle’s quarterly revenues totaled $2.67 billion, up 9 percent from last year’s $2.45 billion. 

In a conference call, management said the company is bracing for at least three more quarters of feeble demand. 

“Our assumption now is that things are not getting better and maybe they will get worse,” said Jeff Henley, Oracle’s chief financial officer. “I think it’s reasonable to think it will take a while to recover.” 

Oracle will likely follow in the footsteps of other tech companies and trim its payroll, but CEO Larry Ellison didn’t specify how many jobs might be cut. 

“You will see us controlling costs and one of the ways to control costs is to manage head count,” Ellison said. “There is no organization right now that isn’t being asked to do more with less.” 

As of Feb. 28, Oracle had 43,300 employees worldwide. In an interview, Henley said it’s unlikely Oracle will cut as deeply as fellow tech titan Cisco Systems Inc., which last week disclosed plans to lay off up to 8,000 workers. 

The sluggish climate comes at a particularly bad time for Oracle, because the next few months traditionally mark the high point of its business cycle. 

Oracle’s profit for this quarter should be about 15 cents per share, Henley said. The consensus estimate among analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial is 17 cents per share. 

“It looks like they are going to be slogging through a very tough period,” said industry analyst Bob Austrian of Banc of America Securities. “And the stock isn’t likely to go back up until we get through this malaise” 

The company’s stock has plunged 31 percent since its March 1 warning. Before Thursday’s earnings release, Oracle’s shares closed at $14.69, down $1.38, during regular trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. 

In after hours trading, the shares recovered somewhat slightly, rising to $14.88. The shares are well below their 52-week high of $46.46 reached last summer. 

In a bit of heartening news, Oracle’s sales of its database products – the heart of its business – improved 6 percent to $823 million, slightly better than management predicted two weeks ago. At that time, Oracle warned its database sales might have decreased during the quarter. 

The news might ease fears that Oracle is losing market share to rival IBM Corp., which sells a lower-priced database product that might be more appealing as corporate customers pinch their pennies during the current slowdown. 

“Oracle is the dominant player in the database market, but their product is three to five times more expensive,” said Meta Group analyst Mark Shainman. 

“They should be steamrolling the competition, but they aren’t because of their prices. It would behoove Oracle to lower its prices now.” 

Oracle has no plans to slash price to “unnaturally create demand,” Henley said. 

Ellison said Oracle’s eroding sales have nothing to do with tougher competition. 

“It’s an economic issue,” he said. 

Sales of Oracle’s software designed for companies trying to automate their businesses on the Internet were disappointing. Oracle said its application sales grew by 25 percent to $249 million, less than the 50 percent improvement management projected two weeks ago. 

In quarter ending May 31, Oracle expect database sales to remain flat and application sales to increase by 15 to 30 percent, Henley said. 

———— 

On The Net: 

http://www.oracle.com 

NEW YORK — The stock market stabilized Thursday following three days of volatile trading, but tense investors traded cautiously amid continuing uncertainty about the economy in this country and overseas. 

Although investors were hoping that the 317-point plunge blue chips took Wednesday would inspire a rally, they saw little reason to do much buying. 

The dive blue chips took Wednesday was particularly unsettling because such upsets had for months been largely reserved for the Nasdaq. Investors had taken comfort in thinking the slowing economy was hurting mostly the tech sector, leaving the broader market relatively intact. 

Thursday’s slim gains followed a positive session in Japan, in which stocks finished up 2.6 percent.  

— The Associated Press 

Economic instability in Japan, where the government admitted that the country is in a state of deflation, helped send shares skidding in the United States and in Europe Wednesday. 

Most analysts doubt the market here will move substantially higher anytime soon. They say investors still are grappling with fears that earnings and the economy will be weak for the foreseeable future. 

“The real question that is smacking us in the eyeballs is, has the stock market reached a level that can be stabilized and investors can be encouraged?” said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer for First Albany Corp. 

Unfortunately, “this is not an inspiring stock market today,” Johnson said. “I’m not impressed.” 

Thursday’s session mirrored the meager bump-up stocks made Tuesday after the Nasdaq’s big slide the day before. Analysts said that lack of commitment by investors doesn’t bode well for a rally. 

Stocks are expected to remain in a slump until companies report healthier earnings, but based on many firms’ lowered outlooks, it now appears a turnaround might not happen this year. And while the Federal Reserve likely will lower interest rates next week, that widely-anticipated move probably will have little effect on Wall Street. 

Investors’ nervousness and lack of inspiration was clear Thursday in the minimal gain in the Dow, the slight retreat in the Nasdaq and in more movement into safer sectors such as energy stocks, Johnson said. Enron rose $3.78 at $66.53, and Dynegy advanced $2.77 to $48.32. 

Bleak earnings outlooks pulled the tech sector lower. Software maker Intuit plummeted $12.63, or nearly 30 percent, to $29.63 after saying business will grow more slowly than expected. 

Oracle announced after the market closed that its third-quarter earnings met analysts’ lowered expectations. The software maker also warned it’s unsure how the economy will affect business, but its stock gained 11 cents in extended-hours trading, retracing some ground lost in the regular session, where it fell $1.38 to $14.69. 

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 8 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange where volume was 1.45 billion shares, compared with 1.63 billion Wednesday. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller company stocks, slipped 1.53 to 452.16. 

European markets closed higher Thursday. Britain’s FT-SE 100 gained 1.8 percent, France’s CAC-40 rose 1.2 percent, and Germany’s DAX index advanced 1.7 percent. 

——— 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

NEW YORK — Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. says it will sell a second AIDS medication at below cost to African countries, a decision hailed by activists who have been urging drug makers to drastically reduce prices in poverty-stricken nations. 

The action, announced Wednesday, comes on the heels of an announcement by Merck and Co. that the drug maker will sell its two key AIDS drugs – Crixivan and Stocrin – to poor countries for about a 10th the U.S. price. 

Bristol-Myers said it will make AIDS drugs Videx and Zerit available to any African country for $1 a day for the two drugs, compared with $1.60 before. Videx’s price was unchanged at 85 cents – Bristol-Myers said it had already been reduced to below cost – and the daily cost of Zerit was cut from 75 cents to 15 cents. 

In the United States, the same drugs sell for about $18 a day. 

The company also said its patent rights for Zerit, which are owned jointly by Bristol-Myers and Yale University, will be waived in South Africa, which would open the market to generic versions from other companies. Bristol-Myers said it has no other patent rights elsewhere in Africa involving AIDS therapies. 

More than 25 million of the 36 million people infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s most impoverished regions. Unlike in wealthier Western countries, the vast majority of the developing world’s people infected with the virus have no access to life-prolonging AIDS medication and will die from the debilitating effects of the disease. 

“This is not about profits and patents; it’s about poverty and a devastating disease,” said John L. McGoldrick, Bristol-Myers executive vice president. “We seek no profits on AIDS drugs in Africa, and we will not let our patents be an obstacle.” 

The Treatment Action Campaign, a South African AIDS activist group, called the decision a major victory. 

“This victory has come about as a result of the global effort by HIV/AIDS activists,” the organization said. “The pressure has become too much for (Bristol-Myers) and they are relenting.” 

The group also called on Bristol-Myers to drop out of a lawsuit it has filed with other drug companies in South Africa to keep generic-drug makers from making copycat medicines. 

Company executives said the lawsuit was needed because it applies to all prescription drugs. 

Bristol-Myers said it would offer the drugs through its existing partnerships with UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund. 

Merck’s Crixivan sells for about $6,016 annually per patient in the United States, but will be sold to developing nations for about $600 per patient per year.  

Stocrin will be sold for about $500 per patient per year, instead of the $4,730 it costs in the United States. 

On the Net: 

Bristol-Myers: http://www.bms.com 

Merck: http://www.merck.com

WASHINGTON — Half the adult Americans with disabilities have jobs, and the employed typically earn less than the average American, new Census Bureau estimates show. 

The disparity is worse among those people whose disabilities are considered “severe,” according to the Census Bureau report being released Friday. 

The results show that more needs to be done by the federal government and the private sector for people with disabilities who actively seek work to become more accepted in the workplace, said Olivia Raynor, director of the National Arts and Disabilities Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

Overall, 20 percent of Americans in 1997, or 52.6 million people, said they had disabilities. Of that total, 33 million said their disability was severe. 

The data, based on a survey separate from the 2000 census, were the latest available. 

Of the 27.8 million people age 21 to 64 with disabilities, half worked in 1997, with average earnings of $23,373 per year, the report said. 

Of those with severe disabilities in the same age category, 31 percent had a job, with average earnings of $18,631 per year. By comparison, 78 percent of all Americans age 21 to 64 worked, averaging $30,155 a year. 

The report comes 11 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Despite the landmark legislation, people with disabilities who seek jobs “already have two strikes going against them going into a job interview,” said Kirk Bauer, executive director of Rockville, Md.-based Disabled Sports USA. 

The term “disability” accounted for a variety of definitions, including those who use a wheelchair or cane; those who had difficulty performing simple tasks on their own, such as eating or bathing; and people with learning disability or mental retardation. 

Many employers are ignorant of the skills that people with disabilities bring to a job interview, and many potential bosses see their hiring as “expensive or litigious,” Bauer said. 

Those with disabilities also tend to have lower than average educational and training backgrounds, which leave them less prepared, especially during a time of low unemployment, advocates said. 

The study also found that 28 percent of those age 25 and over with severe disabilities lived in poverty, compared with 10 percent of those with disabilities considered “not severe” and 8 percent of people with no disability.

Claiming the University of California has not fairly negotiated a new labor contract, laboratory technicians and firefighters staged a one-day strike at the entrance to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on Wednesday. 

About 60 LBNL union employees participated in a strike action along Cyclotron Road, near the entrance to the laboratory early Wednesday morning, greeting fellow workers with strike signs and shouts of “take the day off,” and “support workers, honk your horn.”  

The University Professional and Technical Employees contract expired in September and for nine months the union and the university have been negotiating for a new statewide contract that will cover technical workers throughout the nine-campus UC system – LBNL comes under the purview of the UC Regents. On Monday workers staged a one-day strike at the UC San Francisco campus. Union representatives said more strikes will be scheduled at other campuses. 

UPTE represents various types of workers including fire department employees and radiation and laboratory technicians. There are 300 UPTE employees at LBNL and 10,000 system wide. 

Union representatives claim that in addition to a general pattern of bad faith bargaining practices, the University of California negotiators have violated the state’s Unfair Practice Law by not providing data necessary for negotiations. The union’s attorney, Oakland-based lawyer James Eggleston, filed a claim of unfair practices against the university with the state Public Employment Board on Jan. 25. 

UC spokespeople and negotiating staff deny the union’s charges saying they have offered fair salary increases. UC’s Chief Negotiator Peter Chester said the university has tried its best to work with the unions.  

He said the unions know negotiations are ongoing and they are simply trying to put pressure on the university to get larger raises. 

UPTE systemwide coordinator Daniel Martin said the union requested individual employee data from the university to determine if a merit-based salary system negotiated 15 years ago has been abused to favor  

some employees. The merit-based system increases salaries based on performance rather than a mandatory-raise system. 

“There’s no accountability for the merit-based system,” Martin said. “An outstanding employee in one department might get a 4 percent raise and someone else in another department will get a 6 percent raise and there’s no record of who’s getting what.” 

Martin said they requested individual race, ethnicity and gender salary data to determine if the university was favoring white workers. 

Chester said the university has cooperated with the majority of the union’s requests for information.  

“The underpinning of the unfair practice charge is that we did not provide the union with the information they requested,” Chester said. “In fact, they are up to date with all the information they’ve requested except the individual salary data which we can’t provide because it would violate the individual employee’s right to privacy.” 

Martin said the university’s reasons for not supplying the individual data was a smoke screen. “All they have to do is ink out the employee’s name,” he said. “They gave us the same information last year for non-unionized employees.” 

LBNL Fire Captain Wayne Nordby said the 15 firefighters employed by the laboratory are paid 20 percent less than firefighters in Berkeley or the at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. 

“The last three guys we’ve hired are commuting three hours each way because they can’t afford to live in the Bay Area on what LBNL is paying,” he said. 

Mayor Shirley Dean, who participated in the strike action to show support for the firefighters, said it’s important that LBNL have experienced firefighters because of fire danger posed by nearby wildlands. 

“If another fire were to come up from the wildlands, like it has twice before in 1929 and 1991, these guys are the first responders,” she said. “It’s so important that there are qualified and experienced firefighters here.” 

LBNL spokesperson Ron Kolb said it’s true the laboratory’s firefighters are paid less than those for the City of Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory but there are also different circumstances. “There is a larger radius of responsibility for both those fire departments,” he said. “Berkeley has a variety of fire dangers it has to worry about and the firefighters at LBNL are required to have ‘acute clearance’ because its a nuclear facility.” 

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, D-Sylmar, who is the Assembly Budget Committee chair, is watching the system-wide union negotiations carefully. His Chief of Staff Jose Cornejo said the university has a history of not being forthright with union employees. “The assemblyman wants to make sure the workers are treated fairly and will do what he can to ensure that they are,” he said.  

Cornejo said they will pay close attention to how the University responds to the workers during the 2002 budget discussions which have begun and will continue through May. 

The nine campuses in the UC system received $15 billion in funding last year compared to $5.1 billion for the 20-campus California State University system. 

Thursday, March 15

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicity,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.  

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

LGBT Catholics Group  

7:30 p.m. 

Newman Hall  

2700 Dwight Way (at College)  

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Catholics group are “a spiritual community committed to creating justice.” This meetings discussions will center on Lenten Service.  

654-5486 

Harriet Tubman Re-created 

3:30 p.m. 

South Branch Library  

1901 Russell St.  

Storyteller and musician Jamie Myrick will present an interactive musical performance which introduces a heroine and her deeds. Information about the secret codes and maps used as part of the Underground Railroad will be shared. Free 

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Cancer Support Group 

Noon - 2 p.m. 

Summit Medical Center 

Markstein Cancer Education & Prevention Center 

450 30th St., Second Floor  

Oakland  

Free support group for families, friends, and patients diagnosed with cancer.  

869-8833 to register  

Fair Campaign Practices  

Commission  

7:30 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. Discussion and action regarding possible violations of the Berkeley Election Reform Act with respect to the first and second pre-election statements filed Oct. 5 and Oct. 26, 2000, late contribution reports and semi-annual statements filed Jan. 31, 2001.  

Myanmar: The Golden  

Kingdom  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment Inc.  

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Philip Hassrick of Lost Frontiers will introduce you to Myanmar’s unique history and culture.  

Call 527-4140 

“Respecting Creation”  

7:30 p.m. 

King Middle School  

1781 Rose St.  

Winona LaDuke, Native American Indian activist, environmentalist, author, and Green Party Vice Presidential candidate will speak about the environmental situation under the Bush administration, including California’s power dilemma. A benefit for KPFA and Speak Out.  

$10 - $12  

Call 848-6767 x609 or visit www.kpfa.org 

Income Tax Assistance  

9 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Call Maggie for an appointment, 644-6107. 

Dam Them Rivers  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Wheeler Hall, Room 30  

UC Berkeley  

Steve Rothert of American Rivers and Steve Linaweaver of International Rivers Network will discuss the damming of the Nile and the Bujagoli Dam. Free  

Celtic Theology  

6:30 p.m. 

Dinner Board Room  

Flora Lamson Hewlett Library  

2400 Ridge Rd.  

Thomas O’ Loughlin, lecturer a the University of Wales, will present a lecture entitled “A Celtic Theology: The Dream, the Myth, and Some Questions for Academics.” 649-2490 

Jazz Singers’ Collective  

8 - 10 p.m. 

Anna’s Bistro  

1801 University Ave.  

Featuring Marya Ashworth, Rory Bakke, Vicki Burns and Kathy Freeburg with Mark Little on piano.  

Time Windows  

4 p.m. 

North Branch Library  

1170 The Alameda  

Kathryn Reiss, Oakland author of nine suspense novels for middle school and young adult readers will speak. Free 649-3943  

Scholastic Book Fair  

8 - 9 a.m. & 1:45 - 3:45 p.m. 

Jefferson School Cafetorium  

Acton & Rose  

Reasonably-priced Scholastic books will be sold to promote books and reading and to raise money for the school 525-7567  

Evaluate to Motivate  

12:10 - 1:10 p.m.  

California Department of Health Services  

2151 Berkeley Way, Room 804 

The State Health Toastmasters present “Take the Terror Out of Talking!” Session five of six. Free  

649-7750 

Berkeley Path Wanderers  

7 - 9 p.m.  

Live Oak Park Recreation Center 

1200 Shattuck Ave.  

Richard Schwartz, author of “Berkeley 1900: Daily Life at the Turn of the Century,” will speak on Berkeley’s early biways. Free  

527-2693 

“Hear. Youth. Speak.” 

6 - 8:30 p.m.  

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave.  

Speaker panel and community meeting. Speakers will include students from BHS who are part of the Activist Youth Coalition and members of Asian Pacific Environmental Network, a youth-driven environmental activist group. Free and open to the public.  

642-4475 

University Ave. Transportation Improvements  

Project Community Workshop 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Adult School Cafeteria  

1222 University Ave. 

The project is intended to make the segment of University Ave. between San Pablo Ave. and Sacramento St. more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly, improve the appearance of public areas, link residential and business districts on either side of University, and create easier access to the North Berkeley BART Station. Comments anyone?  

Friday, March 16

Stagebridge Free Acting  

& Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Call 444-4755 or  

visit www.stagebridge.org 

Living Philosophers  

10 a.m. - Noon  

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. Hear and entertain the ideas of some modern day philosophers: Jacob Needleman, J. Revel, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Saul Kripke, Richard Rorty and others. Every Friday, except holidays. Facilitated by H.D. Moe.  

Free Writing, Cashiering  

& Computer Literacy Class 

9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  

AJOB Adult School  

1911 Addison St.  

Free classes offered Monday through Friday. Stop by and  

register or call 548-6700. 

www.ajob.org 

Computer Literacy Class 

6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

MLK Youth Services Center  

1730 Oregon St.  

A free class sponsored by the City of Berkeley’s Young Adult Project. The class will cover basic hardware identification and specification, basic understanding of software, basic word-processing and basic spreadsheets. 644-6226 

—Compiled by 

Chason Wainwright 

Gay & Lesbian Panel Discussion 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

Everyone is welcome.  

Call 644-6107 

Scholastic Book Fair  

8 - 9 a.m. & 1:45 - 3:45 p.m. & 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Jefferson School Cafetorium  

Acton & Rose  

Reasonably-priced Scholastic books will be sold to promote books and reading and to raise money for the school. Children and adults are invited to wear pajamas for Pamjama-Rama reading night from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.  

525-7567  

Perspectives on Work 

9:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. 

Room 370  

Dwinelle Hall  

UC Berkeley  

A day-long conference featuring prominent sociologists and graduate students from UC Berkeley, Harvard and other universities. The conference will bring together research from around the country on work, the lure of work and consequences of overwork.  

643-7944 

Saturday, March 17

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Light Search & Rescue  

9 a.m. - Noon  

Emergency Operations Center 

997 Cedar St.  

A free class as part of Community Emergency Response Training (CERT). Sponsored by the Berkeley Fire Dept. and the Office of Emergency Services.  

Call 644-8736 

Burma Human Rights Day  

2 p.m.  

Berkeley Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

KPFA Journalist Dennis Bernstein and members of the Burmese Resistance Movement will speak. Sponsored by the Burmese American Democratic Alliance and the Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists Social Action Committee.  

528-5403  

Berkeley Folk Dancers Fun Night 

7:45 - 10:45 p.m. 

Live Oak Park Hall  

Shattuck at Berryman  

“The Green Party” Dance  

$5 - $7  

655-3074 

Feminist Politics of Family  

9 a.m. - 8:30 p.m.  

Maude Fife Room (315) 

Wheeler Hall  

UC Berkeley  

A yearly symposium highlighting graduate student work. The focus of the conference this year is re-envisioning feminist conceptions of the 21st century family. Keynote speakers include Evelyn Nakato Glenn on “Caring” and Carol Queen on “Erotic Families in Choice.” Free and open to the public.  

643-3040 

Free Puppet Shows 

1:30 & 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health  

2230 Shattuck Ave.  

The Kids on the Block, the award-winning educational puppet troupe, which includes puppets with cerebral palsy, blindness and Down syndrome, promotes acceptance and understanding of physical and mental differences.  

549-1564 

Greenbelt Outing: Clean Up Cerrito Creek 

9:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Meet at El Cerrito BART 

Join Greenbelt Alliance and Friends of Five Creeks for a work party to clear invasive plants and restore native habitat to Cerrito Creek. Afterwards, take a moderate loop hike up to Albany Hill and down to the Bay Trail. Bring work gloves, weeding tools, rain gear if necessary, and a lunch. Snacks will be provided.  

415-255-3233 

Sunday, March 18

East Bay Men’s Chorus Rehearsal  

6:30 p.m. 

University Lutheran Chapel  

College & Haste  

UC Berkeley 

Calling for gay and bisexual men and their allies and friends to join this choral ensemble directed by J.R. Foust. There is no obligation to join the chorus after the first rehearsal. Rehearsal season runs March through July.  

Call to RSVP 664-0260 or e-mail eastbaymenschorus@yahoo.com 

“Parenting in the Second Half of Life” 

10:30 a.m.  

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Author Roberta Maisel will discuss ways parents and their grown children can get on a positive and guilt-free path.  

848-0237  

“Hope Against Darkness”  

7:30 p.m. 

Newman Hall  

2700 Dwight Way (at College) 

Richard Rohr will respond to the questions: What is the darkness? What is hope?  

848-7812  

The Bungalow - Tradition & Transformation 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St.  

Taught by architect/contractor and West Berkeley bungalow restorer Barry Wagner.  

$35  

525-7610 

Awareness In Action  

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Place  

Barr Rosenberg will speak on the Skillful Means teachings and practices toward a joyous, energetic, and relaxed approach to work.  

843-6812 

T. Rex: Mover & Shaker  

2 p.m.  

Lawrence Hall of Science 

UC Berkeley  

John Hutchinson of the Department of Integrative Biology at UCB, using video and hands-on activities, will demonstrate how some of the largest creatures roamed the earth. Free with museum admission.  

Comments taken out of context 

Editor: 

Zoning Board Commissioner David Blake defamed me personally at a public meeting by taking my comments out of context and by misinterpreting my remarks.  

I want to set the record straight.  

Mr. Blake recalled my noting at the Zoning Board meeting on November 9 that that day was the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass. On that night in 1938 Jewish homes and institutions in Germany and Austria were desecrated and destroyed. The “Berkeley Daily Planet” article of Weekend March 10-11, 2001, referred to Mr. Blake’s remark that my comment was a gentle way of reminding the board that its members could be considered anti-Semitic if a permit to develop the site at 1301 Oxford St. wasn’t approved. 

The truth is that, for me, it was very gratifying that the November 9 hearing was held on that day, because, as a refugee who saw the destruction of synagogues in my native Hungary, I was thrilled to be able to be part of a building project to construct a new synagogue in free America. That’s what I said, on more than one occasion. In fact, in the Nov. 10, 2000 “Express” I was quoted as follows: “You can imagine how happy I am to be building a synagogue when I saw in my lifetime the desecration and destruction of so many synagogues.” 

That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant.  

I strongly object to Mr. Blake’s interpreting my remarks in a way calculated to harm me and my congregation.  

Rabbi Ferenc Raj 

Congregation Beth El,  

Berkeley 

Sell KPFA; doesn’t reflect diverse territory covered 

Editor: 

I agree with the letter by Mel Baker advocating the selling of Pacifica in your March 7 edition. 

Since I‘ve been an occasional listener to KPFA I‘ve noticed that they put out one-sided propaganda of the crudest and most amateurish sort. Everyone interviewed seems to be of people within a narrow spectrum of political views. Not just interviews but chats, livingrooms and call ins seem to be of people who fall within this narrow band. I will admit that there is some good music and interesting narratives that I catch late at night while driving home. 

But regardless of my opinion it seems that the station should serve its listeners throughout its broadcast area. I am able to hear KPFA down to Monterey, up to Clearlake and almost to Tahoe. Shouldn’t the station be responsive to all its (potential) listeners which runs into the millions rather than some 10,000 who demonstrate on University Avenue? I realize that there are local listeners who contribute to Pacifica ( along with the Federal Government) but I feel the entire listening audience should vote with their dial on Pacifica. 

Wayne Huber 

Berkeley 

Fight against chemophobia; be scientific 

Editor: 

The Bauce letter (”Science not always the answer,” March 10) carries a critique (for environmental and health) as “science based” with a terminal comment that today’s (science) becomes tomorrow’s science fiction. He obviously knows neither science fiction nor science, as yesterday’s science fiction is today’s science fact.  

However, we scientists have been dealing with such ignorance for centuries. We tend to dismiss such, probably to our own detriment, instead of dealing with the debate. I have published (in print and on my web page) a discussion of the alternative objectives ecohysterics and chemophobics have in the critiques of our advancing society. See “Combatting Chemophobia and Ecohysteria” at “www.atheytechnologies.com”.  

Fortunately, there are medical/scientific communities that deal with environment and health issues in a rational manner. Those communities have protocols for what is acceptable evidence for a problem, and may recommend a solution of known, or do the research necessary to solve the problem if it is not known.  

I am reminded of the Shakespearean quote on “tale told by an idiot signifying nothing” by those who would downplay our scientific advances in health, medicine and life in general.  

Robert D. Athey Jr. 

El Cerrito 

Davis should back up claims with some facts 

Dear Editor, 

In response to Frank Davis, Jr.’s opinion of 13 March, 2001: 

At the bottom of Mr. Davis’ argument I hear the bitter whine of a greedy landowner who has been prevented from gouging absurdly high prices for modest accommodations.  

We’ve heard the same arguments from Peggy Schioler and Robert Cabrera; why, why, why can’t we just kick those low-paying tenants out and get us some new ones that bring in twice as much dough? After all, there was so much money to be had during the dot-com boom (R.I.P.)--what a shame that it was over so quickly! 

The people of Berkeley have made it clear, through their elections to the Rent Stabilization Board and the passage of Measure Y, that they support rent control for Berkeley; this despite heavy lobbying, generous monetary subsidies from out of town, and misleading campaign flyers from Mr. Cabrera and company. No amount of arm-flapping, hand-wringing and finger-pointing will change this fact. 

Mr. Davis claims, somewhat disingenuously, that rent control has somehow caused Berkeley’s population of black tenants and landlords to decrease. I‘m unclear as to how this has come about. To me, the opposite effect is implied: as long-term tenants leave their residences, landlords are free to charge whatever prices the market will bear for their properties. It would seem self-evident that this situation would not favor low-income tenants, black or otherwise, and that low-income blacks are leaving Berkeley because it’s too expensive to live here – but then perhaps Mr. Davis is privy to information I don’t have.  

Certainly he wouldn’t be referencing black issues in order to provide moral gravitas for his venality. Perhaps he’d be willing to share with us some of his “compelling evidence.” It might be very interesting to compare the rates of black flight from Berkeley pre-and post-Costa-Hawkins. 

Matthew Weber 

Curatorial Assistant 

Music Library, UC Berkeley 

Tool-lending library staff deserves support 

Editor:  

As relatively new home owners in Berkeley, we would just like to say thank you, thank you, thank you to Mike, Adam and Candida, who patiently instruct all of us lucky enough to have access to the tool library at the Martin Luther King (South Berkeley) branch of the Berkeley Public Library system.  

These guys (and woman) are always gracious and so helpful while schlepping those tools in and out for us come rain, shine or locusts. We sure hope the powers that be give these employees the hours and benefits they so richly deserve.  

Nestor Padron and 

Elizabeth Padron Vos 

Berkeley

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership March 16: The P.A.W.N.S., Kill the Messenger, Phoenix Thunderstone, Lesser of Two, Dory Tourette & The Skirtheads; March 17: The Hoods, Benumb, Above The World, Chrome Disorder, Eulogy; March 23: 18 Visions, Walls of Jericho, Time In Malta, Undying, Betray the Species; March 24: Workin’ Stiffs, The Bodies, Strychnine, East Bay Chasers, For the Alliance; March 30: Deathreat, Ahimsa, F*** God In the Face, The Black, Creation Is Crucifixion 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted March 15: Keni “El Lebrijano”; March 17: Maureen Brennan Group 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz March 15, 9 p.m.: Babatunde Olatunji; March 16, 9:30 p.m.: Samba Ngo; March 18, 5 - 10 p.m.: Aid for Ahmedabad Earthquake Relief Concert featuring Vinyl, New Monsoon, Raja & Srini, plus Henry Kaiser, $20; March 22, 9:30: Groundation; March 24, 2 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Ashkenaz fourth annual dance-a-thon featuring Lavay Smith, African, Caribbean, reggae, Balkan, North African and cajun bands for 12 hours of nonstop dance music; 1370 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Doors open at 8 p.m. March 16: Little Jonny & the Giants; March 17: Sugar G; March 23: Carlos Zialcita; March 24: Daniel Castro; March 30: Craig Horton Blues Band 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Jazzschool/La Note All music at 4:30 p.m. March 18: Wayne Wallace Septet $6 - $12 2377 Shattuck Ave.  

Live Oak Concert Series All music at 7:30 p.m. March 18: Mark Sanders, flute, David Cheng, violin, Darcy Rindt, viola, Paul Rhodes, cello. Flute quartets of Haydn and Mozart; March 25: Horizon Wind Quartet play music of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Ravel, Ligetti and others All concerts $8 - $10 Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St.  

Cal Performances March 23, 7 p.m. & March 24, 1 & 8 p.m.: “The King Stag: A Tragicomic Tale for the Theatre” by Carlo Gozzi $24 - $46; Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu March 25, 3 p.m.: Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio perform music of Beethoven, Ravel and Tchaikovsky $32; Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

“Treacherous Crossings” March 15 & 16, 10:30 a.m. & 7 p.m. An opera about people looking for a better life, leaving Mexico to come to California. Produced entirely by 8 - 11 year olds Malcolm X Arts & Academics Magnet School Malcolm X Auditorium 1731 Prince St. 644-6313 

Za’atar Performance/Community Jam March 15, 7:30 p.m. $14 - $16 Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237 

Berkeley High School Concert Orchestra March 15, 7 p.m. Performing works by Beethoven, Haydn, Shostakovich, as well as student compositions. Sponsored by North Branch, Berkeley Public Library’s Teen Services, and the Friends of the Library Free North Branch Library 1170 The Alameda 

BHS Jazz Ensemble March 23, 7:30 p.m. The spring concert performance from the award-winning jazz ensemble. Proceeds benefit the students who will travel to Europe this summer to perform in Italy and Switzerland. $5 - $8 Florence Schwimley Little Theatre 1920 Allston Way  

Hillbillies From Mars April 8, 2 p.m. Rocking the Bay for twenty years, the Hillbillies fuse rock n’ roll, swing, Latin and African beats. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

“Bravo! Opera!” April 8, 7:30 p.m. A veritable Opera chorus smorgasbord with Bizet’s “Carmen,” Verdi’s “IL trovatore,” and Copland’s “The Tenderland.” $8 - $12 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 643-9645 

Young Emerging Artists Concert April 10, 7 - 8 p.m. The Young Musicians Program Jazz Combo will perform jazz standards and original compositions. $5 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. 925-798-1300 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Through March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“A New Brain” by William Finn Through March 18, Fridays & Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Watch as Gordon Schwinn, in the face of a life-threatening brain tumor, composes a farewell concert in which all the important figures in his life make show-stopping appearances. Presented by BareStage Productions $8 - $12 Choral Rehearsal Hall, Lower Level of Caesar Chavez Student Center UC Berkeley 642-3880  

“Little Shop of Horrors” Through Apri 1, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday & Sunday, 2 p.m., no show Friday, March 23; $12 Berkeley Community Little Theatre Allston Way at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way Call 943-SHOW  

“The Oresteia” by Aeschylus Through May 6 Directed by Tony Taccone and Stephen Wadsworth, Aeschylus trilogy will be the first production staged on the Berkeley Rep’s new prosenium stage. Please call Berkeley Repertory Theatre for specific dates and times. $15.99 - $117 Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2015 Addison St. (at Shattuck) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Chappy Knuckles (Semi-Regional Motorcross And) Family Fun Hour” March 19 & 20, 7 & 9 p.m. Shotgun Players’ Black Box Productions presents Old Man McGinty, who has a rubbing stone that he would love for you to touch. $10 LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid Ave. 655-0813 or visit www.shotgunplayers.com  

“The Tempest” by William Shakespeare Through April 14, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Stanley Spenger $8 - $10 LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre 1834 Euclid Ave. (at Hearst) 237-7415 

“Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win” March 18, 6 p.m. A historic documentary of the May - June 1968 General Strike in France. Directed by Paris working class filmmaker Jean Pierre Thorn. Also to be shown is “France on Strike,” on the 1995 French public workers strike by rail workers, teachers, electrical and postal workers. $7 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 849-2568  

The Bullfighter & the Lady and Seven Men From Now March 17, 6:30 p.m. Join Budd Boetticher, director of Westerns, who will discuss his career and screen two of his favorites. $7 Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch St.) 642-1412 

“Dreamers” March 17 - 24 The American feature film debut of Chinese-born writer/director Ann Lu. The executive producer of the film is UC Berkeley alumnus Peiti Feng Fine Arts Cinema 2451 Shattuck Ave. 848-1143 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 16: Rik Isensee will read from his novel “The God Squad: A Spoof on the Ex-Gay Movement”; March 21, 7 p.m.: Gay/Bi Men’s Book Group will discuss “Lost Language of Cranes” by David Leavitt; March 24, 7 p.m.: Aliza Sherman will read and sign “Cybergrrl@Work: Tips and Inspiration for the Professional You” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 15: Randy Shaw talks about “The Activist’s Handbook: A Primer”; March 18: Poetry of Yvonne Cannon, Lara Gularte, Richard Rocco; March 19: Jean Rouverol talks about “Refugees From Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist”; March 21: Poetry of James Schevill; March 25: Poetry of Beverly Matherne & A.J. Rathbun; March 28: Poetry of Craig Van Riper & Jaime Robles; 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

845-7852  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted March 15: Lecture and demonstration by Philip Smith, editor of the “Gerardus Mercator’s 1595 Historic Atlas” of cartography, “Octavo” Editor Philip Smith will discuss the history of the Mercator Atlas; March 27: Travel writer Edward Hasbrouck, author of “The Practical Nomad” will provide essential tips, advice, and consumer skills for the independent traveler; March 29: Katherine Widing, author of “Cycling France” will give a slide presentation/talk on just that 1385 Shattuck Ave. (at Rose) 843-3533 

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. March 15: Elanor Watson-Gove; March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

Women’s Word March 14, 7:30 p.m. An evening of women’s word honoring International Women’s month and featuring Avotcja, Straight Out Scribes, Tureeda & Kira Allen. Hosted by Joyce Young. Open mic will follow. $4 La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568 

“Slam the Prisons” April 6, 6 p.m. - 1 a.m. A benefit for prison activism featuring Tang, Company of Prophets, Sheryl D. Mebane and many others. Proceeds benefit the defense of New Afrikan political prisoner Khalfani X. Khaldun and the Prison Activist Resource Center. $10 La Pena Cultural Center 3205 Shattuck Ave. 898-0431  

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2 848-7800  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

Lectures 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested March 18: “Topaz Moon,” Kimi Kodani Hill will discuss artist Chiura Obata’s family and the WWII Japanese relocation camps. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Research Seminars Noon seminars are brown bag  

March 19, Noon: Anne Balsamo of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, will explore IT issues within the humanities; April 23, 4 p.m.: Mary Dudziach of USC will discuss “Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.” 119 Moses Hall UC Berkeley 642-4608  

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Through April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

City Commons Club Lecture Series Fridays, 12:30 p.m. $1 general Students Free March 16: Paul H. Young, Jr. retired foreign service officer, will present “A Pilgrim’s Visit to Athos”; March 23: Guy Colwell, master painter of Nasters, will speak on “Using Painting to Teach Art History”; March 30: Jana Grittersova, professor of International Relations, UC Berkeley will speak on “The European Union - Integration and Expansion” Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 848-3533 

The St. Mary’s baseball team finally got on track Wednesday, beating Redwood Christian 11-0 in just five innings. The Panthers (2-5) open league play Friday, visting St. Joseph’s to kick off BSAL play. 

Starting pitcher Tom Carman threw four shutout innings, giving up just two hits and two walks to get the win. Second baseman Chris Alfert supplied much of the offense for St. Mary’s, hitting a long three-run home run in the first inning and driving in two more runs with a triple in the second. 

“He’s been swinging the bat really well, and we’re hoping it’ll continue,” St. Mary’s head coach Andy Shimabukuro said. 

Alfert’s homer was hit to straightaway centerfield, the longest part of the ballpark, giving his team the early 3-0 lead. The Panthers tacked on two more runs in the first, three in the second, one in the third and two more in the fourth. Since they were winning by more than 10 runs after retiring Redwood Christian in the fifth, the game was called after four and a half innings. 

“We needed a win badly,” Shimabukuro said. “Our pitching has been the one good thing so far this year. Our defense has let us down and we haven’t started to hit the ball yet. Hopefully come Friday when league starts, we’ll be ready to go.” 

Right fielder Jeff Marshall came in to pitch the final inning for the Panthers, giving up one hit before retiring the side. 

The Panthers have struggled a bit so far this season, which is understandable considering they’ve played without two key starters. Shortstop Jeremiah Fielder and outfielder Chase Moore are members of the school’s basketball team, which will play for the Division IV state championship this Saturday, after which they will return to the diamond. Shimabukuro said the two will bring a new attitude with them. 

“The most important thing is their leadership, the energy they bring,” he said. “They’re good ballplayers, but the energy they bring can’t be measured.”

Malcolm X arts magnet school teachers Marilyn Hiratzka and Jennifer Adcock have directed enough student theatrical productions to know what’s doable and what’s dream. 

That’s why the fourth- and fifth-grade teachers turned to each other a few hours into a week-long New York Metropolitan Opera Guild teacher-training program last summer with knowing looks. 

“It can’t be done. What are they talking about?” Adcock said, remembering what she was thinking to herself. 

The Opera Guild experts had dreamed up the theatrical equivalent of JFK’s 1961 promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Give a group of fourth- and fifth-graders six months, they said, and they cannot only create a musical from scratch – write and perform the script, design and build the set, compose and play the music – but put on a performance they and their teachers would never forget. 

Adcock and Hiratzka were skeptical, but curious. Two theater veterans themselves, they understood the rewards of seeing a dramatic production through from start to finish. But could the kids stay focused on so many details? Could they make the tough decisions needed to move the production forward with limited teacher intervention? 

After six long months of labor, the answers to these questions are now on display for all to see. Forty Malcolm X fourth- and fifth-graders launched the world premier of their musical, “Treacherous Crossings,” Wednesday morning at the Malcolm X auditorium, to the roaring acclaim of a kindergarten and first grade audience. 

Through a democratic process, the students had decided to create a musical that would portray four Mexican youth attempting the hazardous crossing into California in search of work, education and “a better life.”  

There are few Latinos in the group, Adcock said, but fifth-grader Dylan Moniz persuaded his classmates to tackle the issue after he learned that hundreds of Mexicans die of thirst and exposure to the elements each year, attempting to cross into California over mountains or through the desert. 

“Mexicans don’t really have a chance to have a better life,” said Moniz, the musical’s production manager. “They have to work in the fields - and kids like my age have to do it too. I’m lazy and I couldn’t imagine working like that all day long.” 

Adcock and Hiratzka were at first a little mystified that Northern California students would choose this topic. But as they watched the musical develop the choice began to make sense, they said. 

“They feel injustice very strongly at their age,” Hiratzka said. 

Back in September it took a while for the musical to catch on with some students, but Adcock and Hiratzka demanded absolute dedication, telling the students to treat their roles in the production as a job that could be lost if they failed to live up to certain expectations. 

“People actually got fired,”said Erin McLaughlin, who portrayed one of the Mexican migrants Thursday. “We learned what it’s like to work with others, and what it is to keep a job.” 

In recent weeks the students’ enthusiasm for the project has gone beyond anything Adcock and Hiratzka have experienced before. 

“When they finally saw what it was they had done they went, ‘Ooo, this is good,’” Hiratzka said. 

“In all the productions I’ve done with kids this is the first time they’ve had a hand in everything,” Adcock said. “Boy howdy, did we get a totally different kind of focus and intensity.” 

“I’ll never go back to using a script that the students didn’t create because it makes all the difference in how committed they are (to the production),” Adcock said. 

In addition to the one period a day devoted to working on the musical, Adcock adjusted her fifth-grade curriculum to teach students more about the Mexican-American experience. In essence, she let the students dictate the focus in their instruction around issues such as civil rights and labor history, so students’ enthusiasm for the musical could carry over into the classroom. 

It’s students who typically are not engaged by classwork and homework who have benefited most by their involvement in the musical, Adcock said. 

“You put them in this context and they shine, and that’s reason enough to do it.” 

Treacherous Crossing shows at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday in the Malcolm X Arts & Academic Magnet School auditorium, 1731 Prince St. Those interested in seeing the show are advised to call ahead to reserve seats: 644-6313. 

In a game that took only two hours to complete, Andrew Sproul pitched five solid innings and Brian Horwitz had three hits and drove in a run to lead California past Columbia, 5-2, this afternoon at Evans Diamond. The win was the third in a row for the Bears, and improves their record to 13-9 on the season. 

Sproul (2-0) was solid in his five innings of work, striking out four and walking only one batter. The Cal right-hander gave up an RBI double to Columbia catcher Joe Catsom in the second inning, then settled in to shut down the Lion offense.  

“I thought our pitchers did well today, and we took advantage of opportunities to score,” said Cal head coach David Esquer. “We don’t always take advantage; we’re a young team, and we show that sometimes.” 

The Bears, meanwhile, were hitless going into the fourth inning. With two outs, Horwitz sent a Brian McKitish (0-2) fastball over the left field fence to tie the score. Horwitz’s first home run as a Golden Bear was followed by a walk to first baseman Clint Hoover and consecutive doubles into the left-centerfield gap by Conor Jackson and John Baker, giving the Bears a 3-1 lead. Horwitz was 3-for-4 on the afternoon, extending his hitting streak to 17 games.  

“(Horwitz) is hitting the ball very well for us,” said Esquer. “We need to get other guys to hit at his level.” 

The Bears tacked on insurance runs in the later innings. In the 6th, rightfielder Rob Meyer reached on a throwing error by shortstop Billy Hess, and advanced to third on Horwitz’ single to right. He scored on a groundout to second by Jackson. In the 7th, Carson White hit a leadoff double off of reliever Adam Schwartz and advanced to third on leftfielder PJ Monyihan’s fielding error, then scored on a sacrifice fly by catcher Spencer Wyman. 

The Lions’ final rally came in the top of the 8th inning. With one out, Keith Palmieri and Monyihan hit back-to-back singles off of reliever Ryan Lubner to put runners on first and third with one away. Matt Buckmiller popped up to short, but senior rightfielder Justin Berti came through with a two-out single to drive in Palmieri and push the score to 5-2. Hess, representing the tying run, hit a hard line drive to rightfield that ended up in Meyer’s glove, ending the inning and the threat. Matt Brown struck out two batters in the 9th to record his fourth save. 

The Bears will open their Pac-10 conference schedule this weekend as 4th-ranked Arizona State comes to Evans Diamond.  

“We have to pay attention to detail even more against a team like Arizona State,” commented Esquer. “Against teams like (ASU) and Stanford, the game is often decided by a small details.”  

Friday’s game begins at 2 p.m.; both weekend contests will start at 1 p.m.

The California Highway Patrol’s high-speed pursuit of a suspect alleged to be driving erratically ended at San Pablo and Ashby avenues in the death of a 33-year-old man from San Francisco, police said. 

The victim was not involved in the chase. 

The incident began in Richmond a little before 1 a.m. when CHP officers spotted a car driven by a man whom they allege appeared to be under the influence of alcohol.  

The officers chased the suspect, Lyle Eric Norbert, 41, down San Pablo Avenue through the cities of Richmond, San Pablo, El Cerrito, Albany and Berkeley, said Lt. Russell Lopes, spokesperson for the Berkeley Police Department. The speed was clocked at 85 mph, Lopes said. 

The Highway Patrol has the primary responsibility for patrolling the freeways, “but they can go anywhere they want,” Lopes said. HE said San Pablo and Ashby avenues are state highways. 

The victim, Theodore Resnick of San Francisco, was making a left turn from San Pablo onto Ashby when the car he was driving was hit by the car driven by the suspect, Lopes said. 

When asked about the Berkeley Police Department’s rules about high-speed pursuit, Lopes characterized it as “a very strict pursuit policy.” He declined to go into the policy in more detail. “I do not want to get into a question and answer about the pursuit,” he said, explaining that “the media” was trying to compare the BPD and CHP’s regulations and he did not want to do that until after the investigation into the incident was compete. 

Norbert, who lives in San Francisco, is in police custody, charged with felony hit and run, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and fleeing police officers. Lopes said. Berkeley police are likely to push for vehicular manslaughter charges against him for Resnick’s death, Lopes said.  

Cal senior Sean Lampley continued to add to his pile of awards on Wednesday, picking up an Associated Press All-America Honorable Mention. The award comes on the heels of Lampley being named the Pac-10 Player of the Year on Monday. 

Lampley, who leads the Pac-10 in scoring with 19.7 ppg, was the fourth Golden Bear to receive the Pac-10 honor, joining Jason Kidd (1994), Shareef Abdur-Rahim (1996) and Ed Gray (1997).  

Also an All-Pac-10 selection in 2000, Lampley was a member of the Pac-10 All-Freshman team in 1998. In addition to his scoring average, he ranks seventh in the conference in rebounding (7.2 rpg) and 10th in field goal shooting (51.0%).  

Earlier this season, Lampley passed Lamond Murray to become the school’s all-time leading scorer, and he heads into the NCAA Tournament with 1,763 points. The Bears take on Fresno State on Friday. 

Other awards for Lampley include The Sporting News Pac-10 Player of the Year, NABC first team All-District and collegeinsider.com All-American.

SAN FRANCISCO – At 9 p.m. on a quiet night 20 to 30 people moved trance-like around the stage of a small park in the Potrero Hill neighborhood, waving their arms in large circles while weaving amongst each other. In each of their hands they carried a flaming torch.  

“When you’re working with fire you need to be completely in the moment,” said Jehanne Rogowski-Hale, who led the group. “You can’t be thinking about anything except the fire in your hands and the people around you.” 

Tuesday was the final night of a series of fire handling classes Rogowski-Hale teaches twice a month in her artist studio near the Ashby BART station. These classes are attracting crowds of students, drawn by the mystique of the art of handling fire. 

Thus far, Rogowski-Hale has taught 20 classes with between eight and 10 people per group. She teaches students to make their own long-lasting torches (with a 10 to 15 year life span), what lighter fluids to use and how to move safely while holding fire. Her protégés can be found lighting torches on Tuesday nights in the park or demonstrating their art at parties.  

“I saw fire-dancing at Burning Man” was a common refrain amongst the new devotees of the dance, who referred to the week-long art festival held in the Nevada desert, where art isn’t subject to the stricter rules of polite society. Most of them do not intend to perform publicly with fire; they took the class for the experience of working with fire – safely.  

Towards the end of this final lesson in the series, Rogowski-Hale passes out a box of matches to each of the graduates saying, “May you always have fire.”  

The concept is a first for many of the newly-trained fire handlers.  

Christina Garden of Berkeley wasn’t allowed to touch matches until she was 13; for her, dancing with lighted torches means delving into the forbidden. “It challenges me in what I’m most afraid of,” she said. “It’s just really exciting because of that.”  

Rogowski-Hale first worked with fire for the first time during a stage performance in 1992, and she fell in love with it. “The thing that surprised me and that I think is part of the allure is the sound,” she said.  

Berkeley resident Anca Mosiu agreed, describing what she hears when she grips the ends of two flaming torches. “It’s a big roar like a waterfall, only it’s fire,” she said. “It’s something that’s only slightly out of control but not really because it’s at the end of your hand.” 

As far as Rogowski-Hale can tell, she is the only one giving fire-handling lessons in the Bay Area. Some of the same skills are passed along through informal teaching, but in Rogowski-Hale’s experience many people tend to guard their knowledge. 

“That seems to be the way with circus skills, some people are protective,” she said. But Rogowski-Hale is not concerned about the growing number of fire-handlers coming out of her studio. “I don’t feel any worry about competition. You don’t not teach people about playing the piano.” 

At the end of the final choreographed dance, the handlers all brought their fire together to make a huge flaming torch that lit up the concrete stage they were dancing on. Afterwards, a few continued slowly moving the fire, twisting it around their bodies and through their legs in careful, precise motions. 

Fire dancing requires practice, said Jacob Corbin adding, “In that sense it’s very “martial arty.”  

“You need to practice a lot in order to be good,” he said. 

Corbin compared fire-handling to another art form with resurgent popularity, partner dancing. “You have to feel another person when you’re partner dancing,” he said, “and you have to feel the torch’s momentum in order to work with it.” 

While students began to pack up, an advanced student did a fire-eating demonstration. A cloud of smoke swirled out of the woman’s open mouth and Rogowski-Hale applauded.  

Kids, don’t try this trick at home.  

Fire-handling, said Rogowski-Hale, requires careful attention to safety issues. Although fabrics won’t catch on fire if they get bumped by a flaming torch, polyester may melt against the skin causing burns. The biggest danger for fire-handlers is their very flammable hair, which is why all of Rogowski-Hale’s students wear hats. She also keeps a thick blanket near by to smother any accidental flames.  

Rogowski-Hale considers herself liable for any accident that does occur. Although she does have her students sign disclaimers, she doesn’t have a permit to practice fire-handling in public. After nine years of working with fire, however, she’s developed a strict policy for dealing with the fire department or police. Do what they say.  

In Vancouver, Rogowski-Hale’s past residence, she developed a relationship with the fire department after they came out on a fire call and found her group dancing with lit torches. She said she’s had no complaints so far in the Bay Area.  

At the end of the evening students put out their torches – homemade under Rogowski-Hale’s tutelage and then many of them headed out together for a beer.  

Garden says that part of what attracts her to fire-handling is the community of “dare devil free thinkers” who are drawn to the same dangerous, exciting, element – fire. Rogowski-Hale agrees that fire-handling as an important source of community; she teaches, in part, to create that special community of similar minded artists.  

“With fire either people want to do it or don’t want to do it. There’s no middle ground here,” she said. 

NEW YORK — The prospect of the economic slowdown spreading around the globe shook Wall Street Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones industrials below 10,000 and setting the blue chip index up for its worst week in more than 11 years. The drop followed a nosedive in prices overseas as investors simply had no reason to buy. 

The fears on U.S. markets matched those on exchanges in Europe and Asia – that slowing economies will continue to hurt corporate profits and, in turn, stock prices. 

“Anyway you put it, this is bad,” said Gary Kaltbaum, a technical analyst for First Union Securities. “You are in the vicious cycle now.” 

“It’s a combination of Japan and Europe getting slaughtered, and the ’throw in the towel’ mentality here,” Kaltbaum said. “I do not know where it ends.” 

While sellers have dominated the U.S. stock market recently, believing that poor earnings and the weakening economy in this country won’t recover in the near future, the prospect of economic crises in other countries, especially Japan, unnerved investors around the globe Wednesday. 

“You put all that together and this is more than the market (here) could take,” said Charles Pradilla, chief investment strategist at SG Cowen Securities. 

Wednesday’s session also brought a litany of other bad numbers for the stock market’s best-known barometer: 

• Already down about 6.3 percent this week, the Dow is poised to have its worst week in terms of a percentage decline since 1989, when it fell 7.76 percent the week ended Oct. 13. 

• So far this week, the Dow has lost 671.16, the second-largest weekly point drop. The most the Dow has ever lost in one week was nearly a year ago, when it fell 805.71 the week of April 14. 

Broader market indicators also skidded Wednesday. The Nasdaq composite fell 42.69 to 1,972.09, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 tumbled 30.95 to 1,166.71. 

It all added up to $270 billion loss in the total market value of New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq stocks on top of a staggering $554.5 billion beating Monday, according to Wilshire Associates of Santa Monica. 

Although Wednesday’s session was dismal for the Dow, analysts were quick to point out that blue chips have held up much better over the long term than other market indicators that include a greater number of riskier technology stocks. 

The Nasdaq composite index is about 61 percent off its record high of 5,048.62 set on March 10, 2000. Meanwhile, the Dow is down just 15 percent from its closing high, 11,722.98, recorded on Jan. 17, 2000. 

One reason for the Dow’s slide Wednesday was that it had nowhere to go but down; investors had recently bid blue chips higher while they bailed out of tech stocks. 

The Dow’s decline began as soon as the market opened. Investors, already struggling with a bleak outlook for U.S. corporate profits, were further shaken by news Japan’s admission Tuesday that the world’s second-biggest economy is in a state of deflation, an economic situation that can lead to recession. 

The fear is that Japan’s economic problems will cut into demand in that country for U.S. goods and services and in turn lead to a further drop in American stock prices. 

“The reaction to word that Japan is in a pretty tough spot is perhaps the prevailing issue driving the market down today,” said Charles G. Crain, strategist for Spears, Benzak, Salomon & Farrell, a division of Key Asset Management in New York. 

U.S. financial stocks suffered after 19 Japanese banks were placed on “negative watch” by an international rating agency. Uncertain how exposed American banks are to Japan’s crisis, investors drove J.P. Morgan Chase down $3.65 to $43.75, and Citibank down $3.49 to $44.90. Both are Dow components. 

Some tech companies, which have suffered the most from the U.S. economic slowdown, already have said business has suffered declining demand abroad, particularly in Asia. 

Cisco Systems’ CEO John T. Chambers, for example, told investors at Tuesday’s Merrill Lynch Global Communications Conference in New York business is getting tougher in Asia. The world’s biggest supplier of Internet networking equipment, whose grim outlook issued late Friday helped spur Monday’s big selloff, tumbled $1.13 Wednesday to close at $20.25. 

Japan’s Nikkei stock average closed up 0.2 percent Wednesday after falling to a 16-year low Tuesday. Japan’s economic problems were significant enough to turn investors’ attention away from bleak profit outlooks for American companies, which have been propelling stocks downward since late last year. 

“The earnings worries are sort of institutionalized now,” Crain said. 

Stocks fell hard in Europe, plummeting to 16-month lows. The biggest losses came from technology and telecommunications stocks, which recoiled on the Nasdaq’s instability. 

Germany’s DAX index tumbled 2.8 percent, Britain’s FT-SE 100 dropped 1.7 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 1.4 percent. 

Reports of weaker economies abroad dashed Wall Street’s hopes that the market here had put in a bottom on Monday and that Tuesday’s made modest gains could be the start of a rebound or even a short-term rally. 

While the U.S. Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates twice this year and is widely expected to push rates lower again next week, the central bank’s actions are not being viewed as aggressive enough to lift the economy out of its slump. 

Investors, who had thought business would pick up in the second half of the year, are now afraid earnings and the economy will remain in a slump all year. 

“A lot of this reporting about being in a bear market has started to seep through,” said Pradilla, the strategist for SG Cowen. 

There was no safe haven in the Dow on Wednesday when Procter & Gamble dropped $1.54 to $66.60 and Merck fell $1 to $71.93. 

Tech losses were widespread, including Yahoo!, down 75 cents at $15.31, and Intel, off 31 cents at $29.06. The companies, along with Cisco, brought about the market’s recent major tumble after warning late last week of poor business conditions. 

Declining issues outnumbered advancers more than 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume was 1.62 billion, compared with 1.60 billion on Tuesday. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller company stocks, dropped 8.57 to 453.69. 

——— 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

Debate on a new bankruptcy law isn’t just about credit card abuses, as it sometimes seems, but over a much larger issue, that of the power of professional marketers over amateur consumers. 

Credit cards are the current focus their role in bankruptcies, their indiscriminate issuance, the questionable enticements offered, the targeting of the poor and student groups — but the issue is decades old. 

As old, at least, as the consumer revolt of the 1970s and the movement leading to the creation of consumer magazines, advocates, adult education courses, lobbying groups, research institutions and legislation. 

Issues then were rudimentary. With inflation raging, consumers felt exploited, and sought answers from grocery chains and others. Questions then spread to product quality, services, lending practices. Seeking to level the playing field, consumers demanded an education in marketing. 

They received it, and succeeded in shrinking the gap between them and the more sophisticated marketers. But gradually their zeal waned as living standards rose. All the same, the issue’s been there. And maybe growing. 

Critics find it difficult to argue against a strengthening of the personal bankruptcy law, which the credit card issuers seek, since clearly it is being misused by many consumers to avoid paying bills they incurred. 

But that’s just one side of the issue, the other being that many of these people were enticed into opening credit accounts by means of highly sophisticated marketing efforts that, some argue, bordered on deception. 

The intensity of the issuers’ effort, which reached a crescendo of as many as 3 billion solicitations a year, was unmatched by that of any other industry, except perhaps by magazine subscription sweepstakes. 

So intense was the quest for new users that eventually the poorest were seen as a relatively untapped market. Individuals with little credit history were offered minimal credit amounts, and those amounts raised if they managed to pay on time. Small print sometimes disguised terms. 

Students with little income or marketplace experience were cultivated in hopes they’d remain bonded to a card later in life. Colleges sometimes cooperated for a price, lending their names, an imprimatur of sorts. 

Going the limit without exceeding it has become an art among marketing people, one that perhaps can be practiced without dire consequences on educated consumers. 

The question, however and always, is whether or not the recipient is an informed consumer. 

Thanks to the consumer movement, the mass of consumers are vastly more informed than those of the 1970s. But times have changed, and maybe consumers haven’t changed with the times, as professional marketers have. 

The marketers have continued to grow in knowledge of the consumer, who is analyzed as never before, but the consumer may not be as industrious in analyzing the marketers. 

When you join a food chain’s in-house club you may receive discounts, but your purchases may be analyzed and profiled. In using your personal computer, you may leave a trail of your buying habits and interests for the edification of marketing people. When you buy a direct mail product, your name and address may be sold to another merchandizer. 

The gap may have widened again. Consumers may have to make a renewed effort. 

John Cunniff is a business analyst for The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — Napster Inc. told a federal judge it is complying with her order to police its system for unauthorized songs, but the company gave the recording industry low marks for allegedly failing to share the workload and provide required information. 

Napster told U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in a document filed Monday that “critical disputes” have arisen as to what is required by an injunction  

and what has been requested by the recording industry. 

The Redwood City-based company says the record labels suing it have misconstrued the burdens the court placed on Napster, and have falsely interpreted the March 5 order to mean Napster must search for infringing content even prior to proper notification form copyright holders. 

More specifically, Napster says many of the submissions of copyright works from the recording industry have no associated file names for the company to block. 

“Where a file name is connected to the work in the notice, Napster will exclude them. Where no file name is connected to the work, Napster will not,” the company’s compliance report to the court read. 

Patel had ordered Napster to identify the steps it had taken to comply with the injunction within five business days of service of notice. 

The Recording Industry Association of America did not immediately return calls Wednesday, but a spokeswoman said Monday that Napster simply was trying to buy more time with the courts by wrangling over the intent of the injunction. 

“We believe the court’s intent is clear. Napster is required to stop infringing. Stall tactics are unacceptable,” RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said Monday. 

Napster also requested in Monday’s compliance report that the court convene a hearing at which the parties could address their differences in understanding the injunction handed down by Patel. 

Napster said the growing costs of implementing the new screening technology has interrupted other business plans. 

Napster claims it has spent $150,000 and more than 2,700 employee hours to develop and implement a screening technology to block access to unauthorized content. 

On Tuesday, Napster announced it had signed a deal with Gracenote, a Berkeley-based company that maintains a database of more than 12 million musical works cataloged by artist and title, including spelling variations that may have slipped through Napster’s system in the past. 

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On the Net: 

http://www.napster.com 

http://www.riaa.org 

http://www.gracenote.com 

NEW YORK — With corporate America unable to quiet its drumbeat of earnings and revenue warnings, economists and analysts say a dramatic rate cut by the Federal Reserve is needed to jolt sagging financial markets and restore investor confidence. 

Investors looking for indications that markets are healthy should wait for a string of solid days on Wall Street, analysts said. 

Worries of an international economic slowdown dragged down stocks Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 317 points, closing below the 10,000 level for the first time since October. 

While the Fed is expected to slash interest rates by one-half point next Tuesday, Wall Street is seeking a fatter rate cut to trigger a rebound. 

Stock market declines “usually end when investor frustration is at its highest level,” said Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. “What is historically an encouraging sign is a market recovery on big volume. We’ve had some rally attempts, but the sentiment is still very negative.” 

Ricky Harrington, an analyst at Wachovia Securities, said a market rebound will not occur until investor sentiment is downright “pessimistic.” 

The dominant feeling among investors “has moved from complacency to concern,” he said. 

While investors remain focused on pessimistic financial forecasts by some of the nation’s biggest companies, including Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc., earnings reports tend to be lagging indicators and not the best way to gauge the health of the U.S. economy, said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at Wells Fargo & Co. 

Low unemployment and rising wages, Sohn argued, suggest the average American is in reasonable financial shape. The key, he added, is to restore consumer confidence, which fell for the fifth month in a row in February to its lowest level in more than four years. 

“The reality is not as bad as the perception,” Sohn said. 

Sohn said Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan needs to pleasantly surprise investors by cutting rates by three-quarters of a point or more. “That could not only stop the slide, but start a small rally,” Sohn said. 

But not all economists believe reversing Wall Street’s slide is as simple as a shift in monetary policy. 

William V. Sullivan Jr., a senior economist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, said evidence of a rebound in corporate profits is essential. And Steven Milunovich, the top strategist for technology investing at Merrill Lynch, believes the outlook for a near-term recovery in corporate profits remains grim. 

“We’re pretty much writing off 2001,” Milunovich said. “So you’re looking at 2002.” 

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge Tuesday allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Barnes & Noble Inc. and Borders Group Inc. filed by independent booksellers who allege the chains receive illegal preferential treatment from publishers for secret deals and steep discounts. 

U.S. District Judge William Orrick Jr. set an April 9 trial here in an antitrust suit brought by the New York-based American Bookseller Association, which represents small, independent bookstores nationwide. The suit alleges that the two major book chains, which urged Orrick to throw out the suit, use their weight illegally to demand major discounts from some of the nation’s largest publishers. That, in turn, undermines mom-and-pop bookstores that cannot acquire the same deals. It’s an allegation that the chains emphatically deny. 

Still, the judge said that while the 26 suing independent booksellers represented by the ABA could have their day in court, they cannot win damages if they prevail. Orrick said it would be impossible to determine how much the independents were harmed by alleged anticompetitive practices. 

“While we are disappointed regarding the judge’s ruling on damages, this suit was never about monetary damages,” the ABA said in a statement. “Rather, from the beginning, it has been a fight to ensure that all book retailers play by the same rules on a level playing field.” 

Mel Goldman, attorney for New York-based Barnes & Noble, did not return phone messages. 

As major bookstore chains have expanded to new territories in recent years, the number of independent bookstores has declined. From 1994 to 1997, the four largest bookstore chains – Barnes & Noble, Borders, Crown Books and Books-A-Million – expanded their collective market share from 35 percent to 45 percent, the ABA said. 

The association has about 3,000 members, down from its peak of 5,000 five years ago. Barnes & Noble and Borders operate 937 and 335 stores, respectively, and are expanding notably in California. 

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On the Net: 

American Booksellers Association, http://www.bookweb.org 

Borders, http://www.borders.com 

Barnes & Noble, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ 

NEW YORK — For people who’d turn blue were an errant wind to blow away a $20 bill, investors seem remarkably detached, even blase, about seeing more than $4 trillion in equity assets disappear into the air. 

Yes, the consumer surveys say that confidence has plunged, but the actions do not confirm it. People are buying houses and cars, relaxing on cruises, flocking to casinos and generally spending more than they earn. 

The “consumer schizophrenia,” as economist David A. Wyss describes it, is causing a great deal of confusion among those who are accustomed to relying on the surveys, and perhaps even concern at the Federal Reserve. 

It leaves the Fed, for example, with the dilemma of determining whether consumers have had enough punishment and are deserving of lower interest rates, or if they still are a somewhat irrationally exuberant. 

Attitudinal plunges reflected in consumer confidence surveys cannot be ignored; the recent declines, Wyss points out, bear similarities to the declines that preceded the most recent four recessions. But neither can consumer actions be discounted – not when consumers borrow to buy. 

A possible clue may be contained in the suggestion from the surveys themselves that while people are increasingly concerned about the future economy, they may not as yet have experienced the painful effects. Jobs remain plentiful, inflation is in check, mortgage rates low, a tax cut is coming. And the future is a long way off. 

Yes, and it’s hard not believe that after nine years or so of rather good economic times, recessions are mere abstractions to millions of people rather than something they must deal with personally and painfully. They may not as yet have read the quarterly reports from their 401(k) plans and their mutual funds, but soon they will, and most of the reports will make poor reading. 

So far, the popular rational for dealing with the unpleasant facts is to say, “Oh well, I’m in it for the long term.” But that response ignores the fact that all people live in a timeframe, and that timeframe, as for retirement, may not coincide with the long term. 

Inherent in the long-term view is that the future that will be better, no matter what the consumer confidence surveys suggest. Stocks have always come back, or so it is said, and they will again, or so it is believed. 

Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman, is still a hero to millions, and there is confidence he’ll not do anything further to hurt them. He may have created this thing, and he will see that the correction causes the least pain. 

Greenspan’s obligation, however, is not primarily to stocks but to the overall economy, and while the stock market is an important part of economy, so also are such matters as inflation, government spending and the trade deficit. Difficult as it might be to accept, small investors are on their own, as they’ll realize it when they face the realities and total their losses. Sadly, they tended to be invested in the stocks that took big falls. 

The five most popular stocks among investment clubs, according to the National Association of Investors Corp., are Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Cisco alone is held by 15,480 clubs. 

In trading Monday, Cisco was down about 76 percent from its 52-week high. Intel was off 66 percent, Lucent down 85 percent, Home Depot down 39 percent and Microsoft down 53 percent. 

The reality makes hard reading. 

John Cunniff is a business analyst for The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO – Several crooning Newark cops were rocking in their dress blues at Parkway Heights Middle School this week to promote the release of their new CD — all in the name of traffic safety education. 

“Nothing But Trouble Driving on Crank” and “Designated Driver Blues” are only two of the 13 songs on the “Cops on Patrol” CD released this month by several San Francisco Bay area law enforcement agencies in conjunction with the Chief Operator Teen Driver program. 

“It’s received great reviews. Kids go crazy for it,” Newark police officer Will Palmini said Friday. “This bridges this huge gap. It shows that police officers can have fun. It just makes you feel really good to help out on a different level.” 

The program was created by Palmini’s father, Albany police Lt. Bill Palmini, who has done Elvis impersonations for years as part of a “singing cops” effort to teach middle and high school students about safe driving. 

Bill Palmini’s group, Elvis and the Lawmen, has traveled to 15 states and Canada, releasing three CDs along the way. The group, whose latest CD is “Traffic Safety Gold,” was awarded an honorary gold record in 1996 by the Recording Industry of America. 

The Teen Driver program was able to expand this year after receiving a three-year, $1.1 million grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the U.S. Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, according to Tanya Chalupa, program coordinator. 

Will Palmini, 28, Shawnacy Nauroth, 27, and their boss, Lt. Lance Morrison, played a large part in the making of the CD. The three form the next generation of musical cops with their “alternative” sound. 

Morrison, who plays guitar, wrote most of the songs on the disc. Will Palmini on lead vocals and Nauroth on drums and vocals round out the group. 

Will Palmini likens the Newark group’s “rock and rock-rap” sound to that of Creed. 

The “Cops On Patrol” CD is handed out free at schools and teen centers. It features songs by several law enforcement agencies, including San Jose police with “Cell Your Phone,” Hollister police with “Don’t Take My Child” and other officers from San Francisco, Albany, Oakland, Daily City and Concord. 

The officers spend much of their off-duty time practicing and visiting schools. Will Palmini thinks it’s worth the effort. 

“The kids I’ve handed the CD out to say things like ’Hey, there are the cool cops.’ That helps. We (police officers) want people to talk to us,” he said. 

The Newark group may have future plans to expand its traffic safety message to tackle other teen issues such as drug and alcohol use, teen pregnancy and smoking. Some of the songs already touch on those topics, Will Palmini said. 

For example, “Nothing But Trouble Driving on Crank” is as much about not using drugs as it is about safe driving, he said. 

The Newark group, which Will Palmini said doesn’t have an official name yet, will perform in Crescent City next week and in Los Angeles in April. 

“This is a traffic safety program, but it’s more than that,” Will Palmini said. “It’s a way to reach out to kids in the community and recruit them to be safety ambassadors. They’re learning traffic safety in a positive, upbeat way — and it’s not boring.” 

One way the program reaches out to kids is through a popular student songwriting contest, which is judged by MTV and superior court officials. Any middle or high school student can enter. The song can be any genre of music, must be no more than three-and-a-half minutes long and must focus on traffic safety.

LOS ANGELES — At the downtown headquarters of Chicana Service Action Center, soon-to-be released U.S. Census Bureau statistics represent more than numbers. 

Sophia Esparza, the nonprofit agency’s executive director, said the data reflects the people who depend on the agency’s domestic violence shelters, youth job training services and welfare-to-work programs offered primarily to the region’s poor Hispanics.  

The Census Bureau itself estimates there was a net national undercount in the 2000 Census of about 1.2 percent of the population, or 3.3 million people, down from 1.6 percent or 4 million people in 1990. 

There historically has been a higher undercount of the nation’s poor, infants and minorities. 

which is known as a “differential undercount.” The trend appears to be continuing, with surveys following the 2000 Census estimating a net undercount for Hispanics of about 3 percent. 

The undercount issue is acute in California, where an estimated 900,000 people, or 2.73 percent, were not counted in the 1990 Census. 

A Commerce Department decision to use raw numbers instead of adjusted figures has been challenged by Los Angeles and other cities and counties that have banded together in a lawsuit against the federal agency, which oversees the decennial count. In recently filed court documents, city attorneys called the government’s refusal to adjust the numbers through statistical sampling techniques “the civil rights issue of the decade.” 

“The Census Bureau by its own admission missed counting 3.3 million Americans,” City Attorney Jim Hahn said. “That is a totally unacceptable situation. In Los Angeles, vital political representation and an estimated $325 million in federal and state funding allocated on the basis of population is at stake, and we will take every legal action we can to assure the most accurate count of city residents.” 

The Chicana Service Action Center, which has been offering services since 1972, relies on Census demographics when applying for its share of the $185 billion in federal funding doled out each year. 

The group recently received a $1.3 million grant for a welfare-to-work program in Huntington Park, a heavily Hispanic area about 10 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. 

“We got that funded by looking at statistics,” she said. “We had to find out where the employers are, the number of welfare mothers and children. Census data gives us key indicators of demographics, which is needed when you’re looking at siting services.” 

The impact an undercount will have on funding will be felt throughout the state, officials said. 

California lost out on $2.2 billion worth of federal funding due to the 1990 Census undercount, said Linda Gage, chief of the demographic research unit for the state Department of Finance. An independent study has estimated the state could lose $5 billion over the next 10 years if unadjusted data is used for funding, Gage said. 

Census officials said no decision has been made yet on whether to release adjusted data in the future. A 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that raw numbers must be used to apportion Congressional seats, but did not block the use of sampled data for in-state redistricting and the allocation of federal funds. 

The bureau’s own statisticians in early March recommended releasing raw data for redistricting purposes after concluding that discrepancies with other demographic surveys could not be resolved by April 1, the legal deadline for releasing redistricting data to the states. 

At the Chicana Service Action Center, officials hope the city will prevail in its lawsuit and force the release of adjusted data. 

“If they don’t release adjusted numbers we will not be able to implement our programs strategically,” Esparza said. “The demand will not go away just because people were not counted by the Census Bureau.” 

——— 

On the net: U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/ 

SAN FRANCISCO — City officials may soon boot advertisements portraying healthy, attractive models popping AIDS drugs, saying the message is unrealistic and promotes unsafe sex contributing to increased infection rates. 

City buses and commuter train stations are plastered with antiviral drug ads showing young, buff men enjoying outdoor activities such as mountain climbing, hiking and sailing. One headline reads: “Going the distance.” 

Some say the ads are misleading or downright false images of what it’s like to live with the disease. 

“The diarrhea is continuous. You’re not going mountain climbing unless there is a toilet,” said Jeff Getty, an activist from Survive AIDS who’s been taking the drugs since 1995. “They are selling us the disease along with the drugs.” 

The campaign comes in the wake of a report that found the rate of HIV infection has more than doubled among San Francisco’s gay men the last four years. 

A public hearing will be held next month before the city’s Public Health and Environment Committee. If a compromise cannot be reached with drug companies, such as New Jersey-based Merck & Co., Inc., Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano said the ads will be banned from all city-owned property as was done with outdoor tobacco ads before the industry stopped producing them. 

“There are serious, serious side effects to the medicine and they’ve cosmeticized that,” Ammiano said Thursday. “These pharmaceutical companies make millions. They need to exercise responsibility.” 

These drug “cocktails,” introduced in the mid-90s to prolong the lives of HIV victims, also have produced liver and heart problems along with other damaging side effects, health officials said. 

In an effort to prove the effects of the ads, the city Department of Public Health has surveyed 262 straight and gay men visiting its clinics. Of those, 62 percent said the glossy ads covering billboards, magazine pages, bus shelters and other venues lead to unsafe sex. 

The agency plans to survey 1,000 people in an attempt to get the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recommend the ads be toned down. It cannot regulate the ads unless information presented is found to be inaccurate. 

Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, city health department director of sexually transmitted diseases, is leading the fight to revise the ads. He wrote a letter expressing his concerns to Merck last November, but company officials responded by saying there was no proven link between the ads and increased risky behavior or HIV infection rates, he said. 

Merck officials did not return messages Thursday. 

Klausner said several other drug companies, including Dupont, Glaxo Wellcome and Bristol-Myers Squibb offer antiviral drugs through similar advertising. 

“They create a sense of treatment optimism,” Klausner said. “If people look extremely healthy and climb mountains, it reduces the general public’s concern for HIV prevention.” 

In addition, Klausner said the advertising is misleading because the drugs generally are not prescribed until the disease has progressed five to 10 years. 

Klausner said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have written articles about the potential effects of this type of advertising. 

Calls to the FDA and CDC were not immediately returned Thursday. 

———— 

On the Net: 

San Francisco Department of Public Health — http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/ 

WASHINGTON — Meeting with a group of pivotal Senate moderates Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill stressed the importance that President Bush is giving across-the-board income tax cuts as a tonic for the flagging economy. 

After meeting with seven Republican and six Democratic members of the Centrist Coalition, O’Neill told reporters the group talked about “everything you can imagine” involving how to get President Bush’s tax cut through the Senate, divided evenly between the GOP and Democrats. 

“It’s great to have this kind of opportunity to talk to people of good will who are working hard to figure out how we can do something that represents the best interests of the American people,” O’Neill said. 

Participants said O’Neill was particularly insistent that the Senate follow the House lead in passing as quickly as possible the 10-year, $958 billion cut in marginal income tax rates, indirectly suggesting that other parts of Bush’s $1.6 trillion plan were of lesser urgency as an economic stimulus. 

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, framed the administration message this way: “Given the fact that we are in a dropping economy ... this may give a measure of confidence that we are moving expeditiously with one significant aspect of the package.” 

Many of the moderates support a “trigger” concept that would permit tax cuts to go forward in a given year only if projected surplus revenues actually materialize.  

O’Neill signaled a willingness to consider the idea, which the Bush administration had rejected out of hand previously. 

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the meeting produced no “magic bullet” to bring aboard a group that has many problems about the tax cuts, including its size and the relatively high level of relief that goes to upper-income people.  

Several participants said, however, that O’Neill recognized that moderates could hold the key to passing the plan. 

“If our centrist coalition could agree as a group, it would be weighed very seriously by the White House,” Specter said. 

Earlier Wednesday, conservative House Republicans rallied around a broad plan that would raise the ante on Bush’s tax cuts to $2.2 trillion over 10 years. 

The group, which includes Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, both from Texas, said passing the president’s plan remains their first priority.  

But they said ample room remains for greater tax relief within the projected $5.6 trillion surplus over the next 10 years. 

“Our first responsibility will be to move the president’s package,” Armey said. “Let’s start the debate about what we can do in addition to that.” 

The 65 conservative members of the Republican Study Committee have lined up behind a proposal by Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would enact deeper across-the-board income tax cuts than under the Bush plan and phase them in more quickly. 

It also would eliminate the tax marriage penalty paid by millions of two-income couples, and give tax relief to other one-income couples who don’t pay a penalty, while Bush’s plan only partly eases the penalty by giving couples a limited deduction for one spouse’s income. 

The conservatives also want to cut capital-gains taxes on investments by 25 percent, phase out the estate tax more quickly than does Bush, increase contribution limits for Individual Retirement Accounts, repeal the century-old telephone excise tax and increase the business meal deduction.  

On the Net: Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov 

Republican Study Committee: http://www.house.gov/burton/RSC