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Berkeley Lite’s an occasional column of commentary, illuminating those who’d like to shine us on.  

You’ve seen these commercials on TV. 

Oh, come on, even YOU turn the tube on sometimes. 

There’s this woman from Philip Morris grinning in a helicopter (not a hair out of place, dare I say) as she delivers supplies to (well-dressed) war-ravaged refugees - some smokes, too, I’d wager. Think the ad’ll make us forget loved ones lost to lung cancer?  

Good deeds. There’s the wealthy landlord Reddy, importer of underage girls for his (and allegedly his sons’) sexual greed. The judge took the man’s good works – seems he had a school built in his home town in India – into account when handing down the sentence.  

Charity. Also makes me think of that check-cashing company purchase of 100 dictionaries for Franklin Microsociety School in west Berkeley, an area from which most real banks have long-since fled. Hope the microcity school teaches the young’uns to calculate the interest these places charge. 

Another grammar school lesson: When you put scrawny trees out in the street, some SUV’s gonna clobber them. 

Doesn’t take a scientific genius to figure that out. Well, surprise, a couple of the ah, immature trees – red sunset maples (which will grow up in a quarter of a century) stuck out in the street on University Ave. got knocked over. Our Measure S dollars at work – right?  

All that work building little islands for trees that will be run over and still, the nearby intersection at Shattuck and University avenues remains un-reengineered and dangerous as ever. 

On the brighter side of lite. 

That judge in the Reddy case who knocked time off for “charitable” behavior, also added jail time for the severity of the man’s misdeeds. This part of the ruling actually gave me faith (me of little of that stuff) to see a Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong stand up to the prosecution and defense, which had suddenly become a team- imagine the Giants holding hands with the Dodgers. The guys had struck a deal, a plea bargain in lawyer-babble. The judge, however, said the prosecution-defense agreement failed to take full account the girls’ trauma and Reddy’s attempt to shut witnesses up. Would a male judge have done the same? Hope so. 

In another justice story, remember the local cops who were giving out lattes to people who – mon dieu – obeyed the speed laws. 

Well, I’ve got a better one. How ’bout us simple citizens giving lattes or something to Berkeley’s finest who do 25 in the 25-mile zones posted on our main streets. Ever seen a cop doing 25 on Dwight Way, Ashby or Sacramento? Give him (or her) a latte.  

Or a voucher to the City Hall Cafe. 

That’s the now-empty room on the left when you walk into the newly renovated Civic Center Building. 

More of our tax dollars at work. The powers that be thought someone would want to open a cafe there but, according to Deputy City Manager Phil Kamlarz, cafe owners don’t think they can make a big enough profit from the city hall crowd. Now the city’s looking for someone with a coffee cart - or something. 

Meanwhile, they seem to keep the lights burning bright in the to-be-cafe room.  

I guess it’s just in case some coffee-cart person wants to check it out. 

Or something.