There is a story that has been floating around the city’s Planning and Development Department for some time. 

One day, the department hired an eager young planner fresh out of college. He spent his first day at work getting acquainted with his colleagues and learning about the issues of the day. 

He was so excited about his new job that, on his own time, he decided to attend that night’s meeting of the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

He was never heard from again. 

If the young man ever really existed, his name and the date of his employment have been long forgotten. Carol Barrett, the director of planning and development, thinks the story is “probably apocryphal.” 

It persists nonetheless, and it may be enjoying something of a resurgence lately. In the last few months, four members of the planning staff have either moved on to jobs elsewhere or announced their intention to retire. At the same time, the department has been trying for months – unsuccessfully – to fill an open position for an entry-level planning position. 

“For the last eight years, this has been a fairly consistent theme in the Berkeley Planning Department,” said Mark Rhoades, director of current planning.  

Planners are charged with interpreting the city’s building and zoning codes as they apply to proposed projects. They also help the Planning Commission draft new policies – such as the General Plan – and enforce building regulations. 

Usually, they have advanced degrees in urban design or urban planning before they begin their career, and they must be conversant in a number of different fields – law, architecture, and design, among others. 

Barrett, a planner with a national reputation who came to Berkeley from Austin, Texas only four months ago, has inherited a department verging on chaos because of understaffing.  

On Wednesday, she said that a good deal of the problem was due to an adversarial relationship that local commissions – the ZAB, the Planning Commission, the Design Review Committee and the Landmarks Preservation Commission – and local citizens have with the department. 

On top of this, according to Rhoades, the city doesn’t pay its staff a competitive salary. 

“From what we’ve seen in other cities’ help-wanted ads, Berkeley seems to be on the low end of the planning pay scale,” he said. 

Currently, the cities of Dublin and Livermore are also looking for entry-level, “assistant” planners. They are offering $600 and $1,100 per month more than Berkeley, respectively. 

Barrett said that the disparity severely limits the city’s ability to recruit new planners. 

“If the salaries aren’t up there, people won’t even apply for the job,” she said. 

Rhoades said that in addition to being paid less, Berkeley planners are expected to do more. They must master a building and zoning code much more complex than those of other cities, and work in a much more politically charged atmosphere. 

Rhoades said he recently asked some of his senior staff members how long it takes an experienced planner to learn the details of Berkeley’s code. The consensus was that it would take a year. 

“It doesn’t take half that long in other cities,” he said. “The expectations for new planners are very high, compared to other jurisdictions.” 

But perhaps more importantly, Barrett said, staff members are forced to work in a “confrontational” political environment. Commissioners and citizens tend to very publicly accuse staff of bias or incompetence, she said – when, in fact, the department is one of the most competent she has worked with. 

“The salary issue is important, but if there are intrinsic rewards for doing a job, people will stay,” she said. “Unfortunately, we are more often viewed as obstacles to achieving what citizens think of as appropriate public policy.” 

She said that many members of local commissions seem to think that staff members have a hidden agenda, or a bias in favor of developers – a “completely unfair” opinion that they do not hesitate to make public at meetings. 

“Planners fully expect to work with boards and commissions, but they also expect respect,” she said. “We hire very talented, competent professionals who expect that the role they’ll be playing is one of collaboration with boards and commissions.” 

Instead, she said, frustration and disrespect drive planners out of the city.  

Given the low rate of pay and the difficulty of the work, the net effect is that Berkeley operates as a sort of “boot camp” for Bay Area planners, with people gaining a great deal of valuable experience here then moving on to more rewarding – or better compensated – jobs. 

“People from other cities have told me, ‘If you can work in Berkeley, you can work anywhere,’” Barrett said. 

Carrie Olson, who has served on all four planning-related city commissions in the past two years, yesterday allowed that “perhaps we all need to go to mediation.” 

She maintained, though, that the process was bound to be messier in Berkeley than in other cities, given the intensely democratic nature of the city’s development process. 

“Commissioners don’t get along with each other a lot of the time,” she said. “There’s a lot of snapping that goes on. It’s not for the faint of heart.” 

However, she said, she values very highly the knowledge that planners, as professionals, bring to the table. 

“I’ve always maintained a very friendly relationship with the Planning Department, because I need them,” she said. “We all, as citizens, need them.” 

“It shouldn’t be a contentious process, it should be a collaborative process.” 

Jeri Ram, director of the Northern California chapter of the American Planning Association, said on Wednesday that she was not surprised that Berkeley was having a hard time filling its staff. 

“It’s hard to find planners generally now,” she said. “It’s a seller’s market.” 

Ram said that Berkeley’s reputation in the planning community was not necessarily a good one, for many of the reasons cited by Barrett. 

“I’ve heard that a lot of people don’t want to work in Berkeley because it’s very difficult,” she said. “I’ve heard that citizens spit on you, and I’ve heard that it’s very difficult to get anything done.” 

“If you’re not paying people well, and if they’re not getting good feedback from people they’re working with, they look for a job somewhere else. There are just tons of jobs available in California right now.” 

Barrett said, though, that she was confident that a few simple, personal changes could make a big difference. 

“The city is under a number of financial challenges, so it’s more difficult to address the salary issue,” Barrett said. “But the issue of how we treat each other can be addressed overnight.” 

Rhoades said that the chronic shortages of staff made no sense in a city like Berkeley, which is famed for its history, culture and intellectual capital. 

“Berkeley deserves to have the best and brightest people working here,” he said.

Sitting atop a 14-point lead with less than seven minutes to play Wednesday night versus the University of San Francisco, it appeared as if the Cal women’s basketball team could relax and cruise to an easy victory. The problem is they tried to do just that, and the Dons had other plans. 

Sparked by second-half outbursts from senior guard Lindsay Huff and junior forward Lisa Whiteside, USF mounted a dramatic 19-2 rally to close the game and edge Cal by a final score of 55-52. 

“When you have a lead you need to put a team away,” Cal head coach Caren Horstmeyer said. “You can’t just count on winning the game. Our defense was very bad in the last five minutes.” 

After leading 24-19 at the half, Cal used a 10-point run to build a double-digit lead halfway through the second period. That lead was extended to 50-36 with 6:39 remaining before the 5-foot-9 Whiteside took matters into her own hands, scoring the next three baskets. She scored 8 of her 10 points in the second half. 

“We knew we had to pick it up,” Whiteside said. “It just clicked... we said that some way, somehow, we’re going to win this game.” 

Huff led the Dons with 11 points, scoring 8 in the second period. 

Cal wasted a big performance from center Ami Forney, who doubled all other scorers with 22 points on 9-of-11 shooting. 

“We got tentative,” Forney said. “Nobody wanted to shoot the ball.” 

Horstmeyer offered three keys to Cal’s second-half meltdown. 

“Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers,” she said. 

Forward Leigh Gregory and point guard Kristin Iwanaga each coughed the ball up 6 times en route to a season-high 30 team turnovers, five more than the 25 which contributed to their first loss of the season on Sunday against Georgia. 

“I definitely credit (USF’s) guard pressure,” Horstmeyer said. “I’m glad we saw this now, because we really struggled to run an offense.” 

Cal’s defense, leading the Pac-10 heading into the contest, surrendered 36 points in the second half after giving up only 19 points in the first. 

“USF flat-out outplayed us in the last five minutes,” Horstmeyer said. “They deserved the win.” 

Following last Sunday’s 72-to-68 victory over Washington, Wednesday’s comeback marked the first time USF has beaten two Pac-10 teams in the same season since 1993-94. 

“I’m not sure we win this game if we don’t beat Washington,” said USF head coach Mary Hile-Nepfel. 

Huff, who shot 4-for-8 from the floor with a pair of 3-pointers, echoed that sentiment, calling last Sunday’s victory “huge... big for our confidence.” 

After opening its season 0-3, USF has now won three straight games to even its record. 

“You’ll earn respect over time,” Hile-Nepfel said. “Right now I could care less what other people think... we are building confidence and coming together as a team.”

Thursday, Dec. 6

Lunch Poems Reading Series 

12:10 p.m. 

UC Berkeley 

Zellerbach Playhouse 

The series continues with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder. 642-0137, www.berkeley.edu/calendar/events/poems/.  

Berkeley Special Education  

Parents Group (BSPED)  

Meeting 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Ala Costa Center 

1300 Rose Street 

Case managers from the Regional Center of the East Bay will discuss their services, and will formulate the spring agenda for special education advocacy. 558-8933, sandstep@earthlink.net. 

Public Works Commission 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Consideration of temporary traffic control devices and methods. 981-6400, publicworks@ci.berkeley.ca.us. 

Community Environmental  

Advisory Commission 

7 p.m. 

Planning and Development Dept. 

First Floor Conference Room 

2118 Milvia St.  

Green Business and Green Building positions. 705-8150, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/. 

Housing Advisory  

Commission 

7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Public Hearing and discussion of the following proposals: 38 rental units for seniors at 2517 Sacramento St. (Outback Senior Homes); 27 rental units of senior housing at 2577 San Pablo Ave. (Jubilee Senior Homes). 981-5411. 

Bioterrorism, A Common  

SenseLook at Health Care  

Concerns 

6:30 - 8 p.m. 

Alta Bates Auditorium 

2450 Ashby Ave. 

A forum by clinical experts from Alta Bates and the Alameda County Health Dept. to answer the questions and concerns of local residents. Limited seating, reservations required. Free. 204-1463 x2. 

Avatar Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club 

7 - 8 p.m. 

2515 Hillegass Ave. 

Practice public speaking about metaphysics, guests welcome. 848-6510, www.metaphysicallyspeaking.org. 

Montessori Campus Design  

Competition Exhibit  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Montessori School 

1581 LeRoy Ave. 

BMS is designing a new elementary and middle school campus. View designs and give feedback for jury consideration in selecting the winner. 843-9374, sharline@well.com. 

Snowshoeing Basics 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

A slide presentation will be followed by a review of basic snowshoe fit and design, as well as pointers on technique and winter safety preparedness. 527-4140 

CLGS Lavender Lunch: The  

Practice of Buddhism in the  

San Francisco Gay  

Community 

12:30 - 1:30 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion 

Mudd 100 

1798 Scenic Ave. 

Richard Corless discusses Buddhism. Informal brown bag lunch. 849-8206, www.psr.edu. 

Friday, Dec. 7

PEN Oakland & Literature  

Without Borders Present  

“War & Peace” 

5:30 - 8 p.m. 

Pro Arts 

461 9th St., Oakland 

Issues of War and Peace through poetry, and prose from Bay Area authors. 525-3948, kimmac@pacbell.net. 

Lunchtime Lecture 

12 p.m. 

City Commons Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

UC Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian discusses U.S. relations in the Middle East. $1 admission with coffee, $11 - $12.25 admission with lunch. 

Dunsmuir Historic Estate  

Holiday Season 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland 

Volunteers have transformed the 50-acre estate and the 1899 mansion into a holiday event. 925-275-9595, www.dunsmuir.org. 

Burning out in the melting  

pot: Asian/American youth  

facing the golden dilemma 

12:15 - 1:30 p.m. 

PANA Institute Office 

Pacific School of Religion 

Holbrook 210 

1798 Scenic Ave. 

Prof. Martin Verhoeven, of the Institute for World Religions, will lead the discussion. Informal brown bag lunch. 849-8244, www.psr.edu. 

Civil Liberties Talk 

7 p.m. 

AK Press 

674-A 23rd St., Oakland 

A radical reading of civil liberties. Author Christian Parenti and filmmaker Jose Palafox speak about dissent, blowback, security, surveilance and policing. 208-1700, molly@akpress.org. 

Silent Auction to Break the 

Silence: Through the Eyes of  

the Judged 

6 - 10 p.m. 

Downtown Oakland YWCA 

1515 Webster St. 

A benefit for the Prison Activist Resource Center featuring speakers, music, food. $10-40, no one turned away for lack of funds. 893-4648 x108 

Saturday, Dec. 8

31st annual KPFA Community  

Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

The Concourse 

8th & Brannan Streets 

220 juried craftsmakers & artists show their best work in a mellow ambiance offering natural foods from many cultures, world music & dance performances & wise speakers. $7, Benefits KPFA Free Speech Radio. 848.6767 x609 www.kpfa.org 

Permaculture Class 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

An extensive introductory course in the fundamentals for creating sustainable human environments. $15 non-members, $10 members. 548-2220 x233 

Editor: 

I’m writing to encourage you to endorse Ecocity Builders’ Ecocity Amendment to the General Plan.  

There are some basic facts I believe we can all agree on: the environment is in danger – in large part due to our reliance on cars. Open space in the region is being consumed largely for suburban development. Housing is scarce and the population is growing. Lower income people are unable to find housing in Berkeley and our town is becoming more economically and racially homogenous. More jobs have been created in Berkeley in the past 15 years than housing for the people in those jobs. 

The Ecocity Amendment addresses the above issues in a way recognized by most urban planners as beneficial to both the community’s economic vitality and the environment. The “radical” element of the amendment is its attempt to create, rather than merely preserve, open space while at the same time increasing housing. The only way this can be achieved is to increase density in key “hub areas” such as downtown, San Pablo Avenue and University Avenue and the Ashby Avenue BART area.  

Replacing existing single-family homes with open space and daylighting creeks is a relatively novel idea in Berkeley (although it has been successfully done elsewhere). The key point is that it will be entirely voluntary, and people will sell their homes at market value to a “land bank” to be funded by developers of higher density developments at the hubs. The neighbors of the homes to be replaced by open space and creeks should be delighted because their property values will increase as “natural parks” replace the single-family homes next door. 

Equally important, new housing will be created in commercial areas that will provide additional customers for local businesses. Yes, Berkeley’s population will increase somewhat, but if designed in the manner suggested by Ecocity Builders it will create a more vibrant city, not one overrun by cars. Berkeley cannot continue to claim to be “a green city” and fail to address the genuine social need for additional housing - that’s isolationism, not preservation.  

Many Ecocity Amendment opponents claim they want to keep Berkeley as it always has been. They fail to acknowledge that Berkeley has changed greatly and that they have remained silent as African Americans and other lower income people have been forced out of south and west Berkeley. Worse, many of the current detractors of the Ecocity Amendment have been extremely vocal in their opposition to new housing that would serve these displaced communities. 

The Ecocity Amendment to the General Plan provides an opportunity to present a clear vision for the future of Berkeley that addresses housing and environmental needs. For that reason, I strongly encourage you to become articulate advocates for the Ecocity Amendment.  

Peter Lydon 

Berkeley 

924 Gilman Dec. 7: Har Mar Superstar, The Pattern, The Blast Rocks, Your Enemies’ Friends, Hate Mail Express; Dec. 8: Scurvy Dogs, Nigel Peppercock, Shut The Fuck Up, Offering To The Sun, Voetsek; Dec. 9: Poison The Well, Unearth, Sworn Enemy, Spark Lights The Friction; Dec. 14: Hot Water Music, American Steel, F-Minus, Trial By Fire; Dec. 15: Strung Out, Limp, The Frisk, The Deadlines, The Creeps; Dec. 16: 5 p.m., Good Riddance, Missing 23rd, Downway, Audio Crush; Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 6: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 11: Mad & Eddic Duran Jazz Duo; Dec. 13: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 15: Larry Stefl Jazz Quartet; Dec. 18: Panacea; Dec. 19: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series Dec. 9: 8 p.m., The Toids; $0 - $20, TUVA Space, 3192 Adeline. 649-8744, http://sfsound.org/acme.html. 

Anna’s Dec. 6: Graham Richards Jazz Quartet; Dec. 7: Anna and Ellen Hoffman on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 8: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory, Bill Bell at the piano; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 9: Choro Time; Dec. 10: Renegade Sidemen w/ Calvin Keyes; Dec. 11: Singers’ Open Mike #2; Dec. 12: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 13: Rev. Rabia, The Blueswoman; Dec. 14: Anna and Mark Little on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 15: Jazz Singers Vicki Burns and Felice York; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 16: The Jazz Fourtet; Dec. 17: Renegade Sidemen w/ Calvin Keyes; Dec. 18: Tangria Jazz Trio; Dec. 19: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 20: Jazz Singers’ Collective; Dec. 21: Anna and Percy Scott on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 22: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 23: Jazz Singer Ed Reed; All music starts 8 p.m. unless noted. 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Cal Performances Dec. 19: Berkeley Symphony, $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus, Bancroft Way at Telegraph, 642-0212 tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; Dec. 16: 3-8 p.m., Beverly Stovall Benefit, Jimmy McCracklin, JJ Malone, Jimi Mamou, Johnny Talbott. $10. 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Dec. 6: Ray Bonneville; Dec. 7 & 8: Rebecca Riots; Dec. 9: Patrick Landeza; Dec. 10: John Wesley Harding, David Lewis & Sheila Nichols; Dec. 12: Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart; Dec. 13: Kevin Burke; Dec. 14: Dale Miller; Dec. 15: Robin Flower & Libby McLaren; All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. Call 548-1761 for prices or see www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Jazzschool/La Note Dec. 9: 4:30 p.m., Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound, $6 - $12, reservations recommended. 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 www.jazzschool.com 

Julia Morgan Theatre Dec. 23: 7:30 p.m., an evening of Irish music and dance with Todd Denman and friends. $10, $5 children; Dec. 31: 8 p.m., New Year’s Eve Gala Concert, Program of classical favorites of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra; Jan. 12: 8:p.m., “Club Dance,” Teens come together to express their individual personalities and gifts as dancers. $10, Students and Seniors $6, Children ages 5 and under $6. Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Ave., 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Jupiter Dec. 6: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 7: AVI Bortnick Group; Dec. 8: Harvey Wainapel Quartet; Dec. 12: Mushroom; Dec. 13: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 14: Broun Fellini’s; Dec. 15: Norah Jones and Jim Campilongo; Dec. 19: Spectraphonic; Dec. 20: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 7: 8:30 p.m., John Calloway & Diaspora, $12; Dec. 8: 9:30 p.m., Dr. Loco’s Rocking Jalapeño Band, $10; Dec. 9: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; Dec. 9: 7:30 p.m., Trio Altamira Reunion Concert, $12-$14; Dec. 14: 8 p.m., Holly Near, $15-$17; Dec. 16: 5 p.m, Flamenca Community Juerga, Free; Dec. 16: 7 p.m, Modupue & UpSurge, $8; Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 8: Jonah Minton Quartet, Julie’s Healthy Cafe, 2562 Bancroft; Dec. 9: Hebro, Blakes, 2367 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 15: Thelonious On The Move, Bison Brewing, 2598 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 16: Howard Kadis, Musical Offering Cafe, 2430 Bancroft; Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

Rose Street House Dec. 14 & 15: 7:30 p.m., Benefit Concert and Birthday Party, Shelly Doty and grassroots community of women singers and song writers; Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; Jan.17: 7:30 p.m., Allette Brooks. 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687 

rosestreetmusic@yahoo.com. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley Dec. 15: 2 p.m., “All-Brahms piano recital,” Yu-Ting Chen performs. Free; Jan. 6: 3 p.m., Stephen Genz in his West Coast debut; 2345 Channing Way, 527-8175, www.geocities.com/mostlybrahms.  

“The Christmas Revels” Dec. 7: 8 p.m., Dec. 8: 1 & 5 p.m., Dec. 9: 1 & 5 p.m., Dec. 14: 8 p.m., Dec. 15: 1 & 5 p.m., Dec. 16: 1 & 5 p.m., celtic music, dance and storry telling. $15-$30. Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakland 893-9853 www.calrevels.org.  

“Guitar, Woodwinds, Drums” Dec. 8: 8 p.m., The Bill Horvitz Band, Ben Goldberg’s What Music. Tuva Space, 3192 Adeline St. 

“WAVE,” Women’s Antique Vocal Ensemble Dec.14: 7:30 p.m., concert of Christmas music. $10, Students $5. Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St., 848-9132. 

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

About 75 people celebrated the launching of the Eco Pass Program in Civic Center Wednesday. City officials hope the free AC Transit bus passes will lure some of Berkeley’s 1,600 employees from their cars and ease downtown parking and traffic problems. 

In June, the City Council approved the Eco Pass, modeled after a similar program in Santa Clara County, where large employers, such as IBM, Walmart and Hewlett Packard provide transportation passes for their employees. Berkeley is the first city to provide passes for city workers. 

The program, approved on a one-year trial basis, will cost between $97,000 and $130,000.  

“This is another step in untangling the city’s transportation and traffic problems,” City Manager Weldon Rucker told the celebrants, who were snacking on coffee and cake. “If we get more people to ride the bus to the downtown, it will be a tremendous relief to parking and traffic.” 

Among the city employees attending the celebration, which was moved inside the lobby of the Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center because of a heavy morning rain, were AC Transit and city officials including Mayor Shirley Dean and councilmembers Linda Maio, Miriam Hawley and Kriss Worthington. The four were able to combine two competing proposals last June, which allowed the speedy adoption of the Eco Pass Program .  

“By working together we were able to get this wonderful program approved,” Worthington said.  

Also in attendance were Planning Commission Chair Rob Wrenn, who first promoted the Eco Pass concept five years ago after reading a newspaper article about the Santa Clara County program.  

Mayor Shirley Dean reminded the attendees that the Eco Pass is largely modeled on the UC Berkeley transit program for students known as the Class Pass, which has been in operation for the last two years.  

“Our goal is to get an Eco Pass for everyone in Berkeley,” Dean said. “And if we get that done by next year we can come back and have an even bigger cake.” 

City officials said if the Eco Pass Program is successful, it will be used as a model for large local employers. 

“The next employer to ‘get on the bus’ should be the UC system,” said Wrenn, noting that UC Berkeley is the largest employer in the East Bay and if it provided passes for its employees the reduction in traffic and air pollution would be dramatic. “If the city of Berkeley can do it, UC certainly can.” 

AC Transit Board Member Greg Harper, who represents Ward 2 - portions of east and south Berkeley, Emeryville and parts of Oakland – noted that Berkeley, the first city government to adopt a public employee transportation program, is once again on the cutting edge. He said Berkeley broke new ground 20 years ago when it first proposed a smoking ban in restaurants and again when it banned Styrofoam cups because of the material’s negative impact on the environment.  

“People thought Berkeley was crazy but that thinking has entirely been reversed,” he said. “And here you are again reversing convention.” 

Rucker said the success of the program remains to be seen but he is hopeful the pass will increase employee ridership by 25 percent the first year.  

Maio asked the celebrants to raise their hands if they use public transportation – about five people did. She then asked how many among them will use the Eco Pass and about 40 people responded with raised hands. 

Housing Department employee Marianne Graham, with her newly issued Eco Pass dangling from a chain around her neck, said the pass will make it much easier to use AC Transit. 

“Just having the pass available at all times will make it easier to use,” she said. “There’s no waiting in line to buy a monthly pass or worrying about having the right change.” 

Graham added the savings on parking, which costs an average of $12 per day, will be a further incentive. 

City payroll employee Leo Reyes lives in Pinole and said he takes BART to work five days a week and uses AC Transit about three times a week to run errands.  

“I never bring my car to work because there is no parking and the gridlock on Interstate 80 is terrible,” he said. “Using public transportation helps me save money, time and the earth.” 

Hawley, who is a former AC Transit board member for Ward 1, said for the plan to be successful AC Transit will have to provide reliable service on the main transit corridors. “They will have to make sure there’s service where it’s needed,” she said.  

Hawley added that the city will have to do its part by making the streets bus-friendly. She said methods like signal prioritization, extra lanes for buses and eliminating double parking would help the bus service become frequent and reliable. 

Hawley said she is working to establish an official motto for the city’s Eco Pass Program based on a bumper sticker she once had on her car: “Ride the Damn Bus!”

Editor: 

President Bush doesn’t really want to bring Osama bin Laden to justice; he wants him to be lynched. That is what “Wanted - Dead or Alive” means. Why does Bush refuse to make public the evidence that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks of September 11? Maybe he doesn’t trust us? Or maybe there is no evidence? Meanwhile, in the poorest country on earth, bombs continue to fall and the inhabitants continue to die. And young people continue to volunteer, prepared to die for their faith or their country. How does the song go? “When will we ever learn?” Wouldn’t it be better if they and we would volunteer to build a saner world? This one isn’t very sane. 

Marion Syrek 

Oakland 

OAKLAND – Doctors, activists and politicians called for a wholesale reform of California’s child healthcare system at a state hearing Wednesday morning at Children’s Hospital, convened by Assemblymember Wilma Chan (D-Oakland) and Virginia Strom-Martin (D-Duncans Mills). 

Chan and Strom-Martin held the hearing as part of their work with the Select Committee on Children’s Readiness and Health. The legislative committee is examining the connection between children’s health and their ability to perform in school. 

The Oakland hearing was the last of four such meetings sponsored by the committee across the state. The other three hearings took place in Sacramento, Los Angeles and Salinas. 

The committee has already made a series of findings, according to a document distributed at the Oakland hearing. The committee has found, among other things, that a lack of access to proper health care is a leading cause of truancy and failure, that dental disease “has reached epidemic proportions among school children,” affecting their ability to concentrate and learn, and that many school districts are waiving school entry physicals for children.  

The committee hopes to present a comprehensive package of legislation – part of it in January 2002, and part in January 2003 – aimed at improving children’s health and ability to perform in school. 

In an interview after the hearing, Chan, who chairs the committee, said she will push for inexpensive reforms after the holidays, citing the political realities of the state’s current budgetary shortfall.  

“I think these things that are very costly will have a hard time passing,” she said. Chan added that she hopes to pass more expensive measures, like an expansion of children’s healthcare, in 2003, if the economy recovers. 

Speakers at Wednesday’s hearing suggested several relatively inexpensive measures endorsed by Chan and Strom-Martin. 

Dr. Lucy S. Crain, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco noted that many managed care companies, unlike their fee-for-service predecessors, do not pay for a pre-natal visit to a pediatrician. These visits used to cover valuable ground, she said, everything from simple safety measures like car seats, to larger issues like adults’ readiness for parenthood. 

“There may be opportunities for counseling for parents that, in the long range, prevent child abuse and child neglect,” Crain said. 

“I think it would be good to restore that,” Chan said. “HMOs may not be happy,” she said, acknowledging the cost for managed care companies, “but it wouldn’t cost the state anything.” 

Chan said that she would also like to expand the required physical for young children entering California school systems to include a dental screening and a test for far-sightedness. Currently, the state requires no dental screening, and when it comes to vision, only requires a test for near-sightedness. 

Strom-Martin, who also acknowledged the difficulties of passing big-ticket items in the current climate, endorsed pre-natal visits to pediatricians, and a call for greater coordination among healthcare providers. 

Several of the speakers at the Wednesday hearing discussed the need for better cooperation among health care professionals. Dr. Rene Wachtel, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital, said many health care organizations do not accept evaluations of children performed by other agencies, wasting time and resources. 

Wachtel called for a state task force that would identify the best ways to assess children and encourage cross-agency acceptance of evaluations. She also said there must be better mechanisms in place for cooperation between health care professionals and school staff. 

In addition to the long-term effort to improve children’s health care, Chan and Strom-Martin said they will fight to maintain health care and education funds that Gov. Gray Davis has suggested slashing to balance the budget. 

Strom-Martin focused, in particular, on a $38 million grant program, approved by the legislature last year, that would allow school systems statewide to increase community outreach on health care issues and provide health care at local schools.

Editor: 

The impeachment of Bill Clinton showed clearly that to impeach a president all that counts is having the majority of votes in the House, however irrelevant the charges brought. 

Unfortunately, at present the House majority is of the President’s own Republican party. 

Yet the looming peril to our civil liberties (an impeccable reason for impeachment) cries out for immediate action.  

We must have a representative in Congress with the courage to introduce a bill of impeachment charging George W. Bush with flagrant breach of his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” citing his executive order establishing drumhead military “justice” for his own selection of non-citizens - in contravention of Amendments Five and Six to the U.S. Constitution. 

Amendment Five includes a provision stating that “No person (meaning no one within U.S. borders) shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces.” Amendment Six states that “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury”. It further states that the accused has the right “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have assistance of counsel for his defense”. 

Even if introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee, who alone had the ethical courage to refuse to vote carte blanche to Bush for his try to make two wrongs make a right, a bill to impeach our rogue “president” will probably fail. But, I hope she or some other House member will give it a try. For, by initiating a discussion on the floor of the house, a saving awakening may happen there. With the damning facts repeated before them, many more members of the President’s party might well join the company of Republican Senator Arlen Spector, who, writing in the New York Times, decried Bush’s flouting of the Constitution and traditional legalities - in a dictatorial usurpation of power encouraged by the blind approbation of a frightened vengeful public that childishly iterates “but we have to do something!” yet does not recall that the something done hastily in anger often causes greater pain and danger than what provoked it. 

Judith Segard Hunt 

Berkeley 

Two Berkeley Police Department officers were injured early Wednesday morning when a suspect tried to evade a routine traffic stop, according to Lt. Cynthia Harris. 

At around 3:45 a.m., three officers were handling a traffic stop at Ninth Street and Bancroft Way when a van cruised by, slowly, Harris said. The driver of the van, whom one of the officers said he recognized from a previous case, stared at them. The officers ordered the driver to stop and approached the van. 

When one officer approached the driver, he allegedly attempted to roll up his window and made a sudden grab toward the passenger’s seat. The officer leaned into the window and grabbed the suspect. Another officer attempted to assist him. 

The driver then hit the accelerator, throwing one of the officers to the ground, Harris said. The other officer held on to the suspect for approximately 25 feet before being thrown. A high-speed chase, reaching speeds of 85 mph, ensued. The van was eventually stopped on E. 25th Street in Oakland, whereupon the driver and two previously unseen suspects in the back of the van fled on foot. 

One suspect, Deshawn Murphy of Richmond, was apprehended. The other two suspects, including the driver – who police believe is Montay Boseman of Berkeley – escaped. 

The officers were transported to Highland Hospital and treated for abrasions. Both were released by early Wednesday afternoon. 

Boseman is described as an African-American male, 21 years old, five feet seven inches tall, weighing 140 pounds. At the time, he was wearing a dark jacket with gold sleeves. 

Anyone with information on the suspect’s whereabouts is asked to call the Berkeley Police Department at 981-5733. 

A woman was robbed at gunpoint by four young men Tuesday night, according to Lt. Harris. 

The victim was walking near Shattuck Avenue and Haste Street at around 10 p.m. when she saw the men approaching. One suddenly pulled out a handgun and pointed it at her, while two others took her purse, Harris said. All four then fled on foot. The suspect with the gun is described as an African American man, 18-20 years old, around six feet two inches tall and about 200 pounds. He was wearing a black, puffy jacket and black pants. 

On Saturday, a man was hospitalized after trying to flee from the police, according to Lt. Harris. At around 12:15 p.m., officers were dispatched to 63rd and California streets after a report of drug activity in the neighborhood. Upon arriving, police spotted a man who matched the description of the suspect. After detaining him, they discovered the suspect had a number of traffic warrants outstanding. They placed him in handcuffs, at which point the suspect broke free, and, still handcuffed, attempted to flee. 

The officers gave chase, but given the wet weather, the suspect slipped and fell on the sidewalk. He suffered damage to his teeth, and was transported to Highland Hospital. 

Editor: 

Racial profiling needs to be stopped. Yesterday I heard two impassioned men discuss the pros and cons of racial profiling. The pro argument seemed to boil down to, if you know a certain ethnic group has committed a crime, it’s only right to stop other people from the same ethnic group and see if they know something about the crime or if they’ve committed a similar crime themselves. 

To me racial profiling is counter-productive. When law enforcement focuses their attention on one particular group, other groups can have a field day. Remember how we were sure the Oklahoma City bombers were not “Americans” and valuable time was wasted in that investigation? 

President Bush recently issued an executive order setting aside certain of our constitutional rights. Combine this with racial profiling and we may quickly surpass the wrongs we committed towards the Japanese during World War II. 

Anne Smith 

Berkeley

NEW YORK — Nearly 50 years after convicted Soviet spy Ethel Rosenberg was executed, her brother admits he lied under oath to save himself and says he’s unconcerned that his perjury may have sent her to the electric chair, along with her husband. 

“As a spy who turned his family in ... I don’t care,” David Greenglass says in a television interview being broadcast Wednesday. “I sleep very well.” 

The admission may shed new light on the case, one of the most infamous events of the Cold War. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in Sing Sing prison in June 1953, two years after a sensational trial on charges of conspiring to steal U.S. atomic secrets for the Soviet Union. 

They were the only people ever executed in the United States for Cold War espionage, and their conviction helped give fuel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s communist-hunting crusade. 

Greenglass, now 79, makes the disclosure of false testimony in “The Brother,” a new book by veteran New York Times editor Sam Roberts, and in a taped interview being broadcast on CBS’s ”60 Minutes II.” 

Greenglass, Ethel’s younger brother, admits in the book that he, too, was a spy who gave the Soviets information about atomic research and a detonator invented by another scientist. 

When the Rosenbergs came to trial, Greenglass was also under indictment and worried that he and his wife, Ruth, would be convicted. He says Roy Cohn, an assistant prosecutor and later an aide to McCarthy, encouraged him to lie. 

In court, Greenglass delivered what would be the most incriminating testimony against Ethel Rosenberg — that she transcribed his spy notes destined for Moscow on a portable Remington typewriter. Greenglass’ wife supported his testimony. 

But now, Greenglass tells author Roberts that he based his account entirely on his wife’s recollection, not on his own. In the TV interview, he says, “I don’t know who typed it, frankly, and to this day I can’t remember that the typing took place. I had no memory of that at all — none whatsoever.” 

Roberts writes in his book, “Handwritten or typed, the notes contained little or nothing that was new. But from the prosecution’s perspective, the Remington was as good as a smoking gun in Ethel Rosenberg’s hands.” 

In the TV interview, Greenglass is asked why the Rosenbergs went to their deaths rather than admit espionage. 

“One word — stupidity,” Greenglass replies. Asked whether that makes Ethel responsible for her own death, he says, “Yeah.” 

Greenglass admits he is sometimes haunted by the Rosenberg case, but adds, “My wife says, ’Look, we’re still alive.”’ 

Should he ever encounter the pair’s two sons, Greenglass says, he would tell them he was “sorry that your parents are dead,” but would not apologize for his part in their execution. 

“I had no idea they would give them the death sentence,” he tells ”60 Minutes II.” 

In the book, subtitled “The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister Ethel Rosenberg to the Electric Chair,” Greenglass admits to further perjury in court and before a congressional committee — all aimed at gaining leniency for himself and keeping his wife out of prison. 

Sentenced to 15 years, Greenglass was released in 1960. He and his wife live in the New York area under assumed names. 

The Rosenberg case became a political cause celebre with anti-Semitic overtones. While some historians say evidence against Ethel Rosenberg was weak compared to that against her husband, the couple’s refusal to admit spying for Moscow added to public fears of a nuclear showdown with the Soviets. 

“This was a time when people were terrified,” Roberts said in an interview with The Associated Press. “There was no way the Russians could have obtained the atomic bomb without stealing it from us.” 

Roberts said the late William Rogers, a deputy U.S. attorney general in 1951 and later President Nixon’s secretary of state, told him the government had expected Ethel Rosenberg to save herself by providing incriminating evidence against Julius. 

In the end, “she called our bluff,” Rogers said. 

Some tidbits of Cold War espionage lore related by Roberts are almost comic. According to Roberts, Greenglass admitted sleeping through the first A-bomb test, using atomic implosion technology to make artificial diamonds, and being picked up while hitchhiking by Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the top-secret Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb.

A rumor that the National Endowment for the Arts has delayed a Berkeley Repertory Theatre grant request, possibly for political reasons, has sent a chill through the Bay Area arts community. 

The BRT made the grant application for $100,000 to produce “Homebody/Kabul,” by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner. The play is about a British woman who becomes fascinated by Afghanistan and her discovery of the country’s troubled history through an encounter with an Afghan man.  

Both the play and the grant request were written before the September 11 terrorist attacks. 

According to a New York Times story printed on Saturday, an undisclosed source within the NEA said the Berkeley Rep’s application, along with one other application, was delayed for further examination just weeks before the NEA was to announce grant recipients. 

“It will be very disappointing if we find the grant has been denied for political instead of artistic reasons,” said Berkeley Repertory Theatre Managing Director Susan Medak. “This is an important play by probably the most important living playwright.” 

NEA Director of Communications Mark Weinberg said he could not comment on the status of the application and that NEA policy prohibits discussing applications until the grants have been announced. During the late 1980s, the NEA was at the center of a much publicized battle over the financing of controversial photographer Robert Maplethorpe’s artwork. 

“There has not been a delay in anything,” Weinberg said. “As a matter of long-standing policy, the NEA does not comment on applications except in the third week of December when the grant recipients are announced.” 

But Mayor Shirley Dean said there are unconfirmed rumors that a representative from the Bush Administration asked acting NEA Chairman Robert S. Martin to pull the BRT’s grant request, along with a $42,000 grant application from the Maine College of Art for an exhibition of visual artist William Pope, whose artwork often reflects controversial stands on race. 

Medak would neither confirm nor deny the rumors but said a combination of three factors were probably responsible for the grant being pulled. “One, the play was written by Tony Kushner; two, it takes place in Afghanistan and three, the play is being staged in Berkeley,” she said. “It’s a lethal combination.” 

Kushner, who is also a gay activist, won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1992, two-part epic, “Angels in America.” The play, about the devastating impact of AIDS on New York, was critical of the Reagan Administration. 

Medak said that it will be difficult if the NEA application is denied but she would do her best to find a way to stage the play, which is scheduled to run from April 19 to June 9. 

Several city officials and the director of another local theater reacted strongly to the rumor that the play’s funding might be denied for political reasons. 

“I have offered to do anything I possibly can including calling the Community Affairs Office at the White House to lobby on behalf of the Rep,” Mayor Dean said. “This is a very serious issue, we’re talking about a matter of free speech.” 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington agreed. “We are not positive yet that censorship is the reason for delaying the application but it looks that way,” he said. “How many questions of artistic merit could they have about a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright?” 

Patrick Dooley, the founder and artistic director of the Shotgun Players, said if the funding is denied, the United States is taking a step toward becoming more like the Taliban, which dynamited two 1,700-year-old sandstone Buddha statues last March. The statues – one was 165-feet tall – were carved into a sandstone cliff in the Hindu Kush mountains in central Afghanistan. 

“If our government tries to silence an artistic voice of opposition, it’s a sign that our democracy is eroding and we’re becoming more like the governments this country likes to criticize,” he said.

The St. Mary’s Panthers were facing a five-point deficit at halftime of Tuesday’s game against Berkeley High, but there was no panic in the locker room, no doubting of whether they could come back to win the game. 

“My kids have been in that position a lot, and they never think they’re going to lose,” St. Mary’s head coach Jose Caraballo said. “We just played our game in the second half.” 

The Panthers came out and used their defensive pressure to key a 17-9 third quarter advantage, then extended the lead to nine points in the fourth quarter on the way to a 58-49 win over their cross-town rivals.  

St. Mary’s returns eight players from last season’s Division IV state champion team, while Berkeley has just three returning players, none of whom started last season. 

St. Mary’s guard John Sharper led all scorers with 17 points, including 10 in the second half, while getting used to running the team as a point guard. Starter DeShawn Freeman is out until January with an injury, so Sharper will slide over from his shooting guard spot until Freeman’s return. 

Sharper’s shooting was a bit off on Tuesday, as he was just 6-for-19 from the field, but the senior had 7 assists and 3 steals in the game. He also scored 8 points during the Panthers’ dominating third quarter. 

“I was rushing it a little in the first half,” Sharper said. “I just had to let the game come to me.” 

St. Mary’s also got a strong effort on the boards from 6-foot-10 center Simon Knight and forward Chase Moore. Knight pulled down 10 rebounds, while Moore had 7. Moore also scored 11 points and played some point guard to take the pressure off of Sharper. 

Berkeley countered St. Mary’s experience with athleticism and energy. The young ’Jackets are still learning head coach Mike Gragnani’s offensive and defensive systems, and several of them looked unsure of themselves in the second half. 

“They made us play the way they wanted us to play, instead of how we want to play,” Gragnani said of the second half. “We stopped attacking the basket and getting the ball inside.” 

On the inside is where Berkeley scored most of its points against St. Mary’s, as forward Damien Burns led the team with 14 points, hitting 6-of-7 from the field while pulling down 5 rebounds. Burns was the only ’Jacket to score in double figures, and Berkeley made just one 3-pointer in the game. Berkeley also failed to take advantage of a big advantage in trips to the free-throw line, making just 9-of-21 from the charity stripe. 

“We have 80 percent guys who have never played in a big game before,” Gragnani said. “It was a great experience for us playing in front of a big crowd, playing against a hometown rival. Hopefully we’ll take some good things away from it.” 

Gragnani plans to play a big rotation this season, with as many as 12 players seeing significant time on the floor, including four sophomores. With all five starters from last year gone, Gragnani knows the team is searching for a leader. 

“We have a lot of guys who can be successful, but it’s going to be a committee,” he said. “Last year we could depend on (departed point guard) Ryan Davis, but now we have to depend on the entire team.” 

Caraballo has the advantage of going to battle with familiar faces, but with Freeman watching in street clothes, St. Mary’s got some key contributions from players who didn’t have a big role last year. Guard Terrence Boyd scored 7 points and played excellent defense, while sophomore Fred Hives took advantage of some playing time with five points and a key steal. 

NOTES: Berkeley prevailed in the junior varsity game, 67-57... Sharper said he is getting interest from Portland State and Yale among others. He said his backup plan is to be a walk-on at Cal.

Wednesday, Dec. 5

Commission on Disability 

6:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Among other items is the commission proposal for COD co-sponsorship of a conference on transportation of seniors and persons with disabilities. 

dlbrown@ci.berkeley.ca.us, 981-6346. 

Timber Framing, Ancient and  

Modern 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Seminar by Timber Framers Guild member Dour Eaton. $35. 525-7610 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

Advisory Council 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Community members are welcome. 644-6343 

Free Feldenkrais Class for  

Seniors 

11:45 a.m. 

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut 

Gentle movement class for older adults.  

Lecture Series on Women  

Medieval Mystics 

7:30 - 9 p.m. 

All Souls Parish 

2220 Cedar St. 

Three Women Mystics: An Advent Lecture Series. Exploration of their spiritual quests designed to offer a new sense of spiritual possibilities in modern times. Free. Supervised childcare will be provided. 848-1755. 

Thursday, Dec. 6

Lunch Poems Reading Series 

12:10 p.m. 

UC Berkeley 

Zellerbach Playhouse 

The series continues with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder. 642-0137, www.berkeley.edu/calendar/events/poems/.  

Berkeley Special Education  

Parents Group (BSPED)  

Meeting 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Ala Costa Center 

1300 Rose Street 

Case managers from the Regional Center of the East Bay will discuss their services, and will formulate the spring agenda for special education advocacy. 558-8933, sandstep@earthlink.net. 

Community Environmental  

Advisory Commission 

7 p.m. 

Planning and Development Dept. 

First Floor Conference Room 

2118 Milvia St.  

Green Business and Green Building positions. 705-8150, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/. 

Bioterrorism, A Common  

SenseLook at Health Care  

Concerns 

6:30 - 8 p.m. 

Alta Bates Auditorium 

2450 Ashby Ave. 

A forum by clinical experts from Alta Bates and the Alameda County Health Dept. to answer the questions and concerns of local residents. Limited seating, reservations required. Free. 204-1463 x2. 

Avatar Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club 

7 - 8 p.m. 

2515 Hillegass Ave. 

Practice public speaking about metaphysics, guests welcome. 848-6510, www.metaphysicallyspeaking.org. 

Montessori Campus Design  

Competition Exhibit  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Montessori School 

1581 LeRoy Ave. 

BMS is designing a new elementary and middle school campus. View designs and give feedback for jury consideration in selecting the winner. 843-9374, sharline@well.com. 

Snowshoeing Basics 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

A slide presentation will be followed by a review of basic snowshoe fit and design, as well as pointers on technique and winter safety preparedness. 527-4140 

Friday, Dec. 7

PEN Oakland & Literature  

Without Borders Present  

“War & Peace” 

5:30 - 8 p.m. 

Pro Arts 

461 9th St., Oakland 

Issues of War and Peace through poetry, and prose from Bay Area authors. 525-3948, kimmac@pacbell.net. 

Lunchtime Lecture 

12 p.m. 

City Commons Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

UC Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian discusses U.S. relations in the Middle East. $1 admission with coffee, $11 - $12.25 admission with lunch. 

Dunsmuir Historic Estate  

Holiday Season 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland 

Volunteers have transformed the 50-acre estate and the 1899 mansion into a holiday event. 925-275-9595, www.dunsmuir.org. 

Civil Liberties Talk 

7 p.m. 

AK Press 

674-A 23rd St., Oakland 

A radical reading of civil liberties. Author Christian Parenti and filmmaker Jose Palafox speak about dissent, blowback, security, surveilance and policing. 208-1700, molly@akpress.org. 

Silent Auction to Break the 

Silence: Through the Eyes of  

the Judged 

6 - 10 p.m. 

Downtown Oakland YWCA 

1515 Webster St. 

A benefit for the Prison Activist Resource Center featuring speakers, music, food. $10-40, no one turned away for lack of funds. 893-4648 x108 

Saturday, Dec. 8

31st annual KPFA Community  

Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

The Concourse 

8th & Brannan Streets 

220 juried craftsmakers & artists show their best work in a mellow ambiance offering natural foods from many cultures, world music & dance performances & wise speakers. $7, Benefits KPFA Free Speech Radio. 848.6767 x609 www.kpfa.org 

Permaculture Class 

10 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

An extensive introductory course in the fundamentals for creating sustainable human environments. $15 non-members, $10 members. 548-2220 x233 

Women of Color Resource  

Center Presents A New Film  

from South Africa 

2:30 p.m. reception 

3:30 p.m. showing 

Health Education Center 

400 Hawthorne St., Oakland 

“Shouting Silent” by Xoliswa Sithole explores the South African HIV/AIDS epidemic as seen through the eyes of the filmmaker, an adult who lost her mother to HIV/AIDS in 1996. The film will be followed by a panel discussion. $5 -$10, 848-9272, www.coloredgirls.org. 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market  

Holiday Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

Martin Luther King, JR. Civic Center Park 

Fair will include organic produce, handcrafted gifts, live choral music, massages, and hot apple cider. 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org 

Santa's Solstice Bazaar 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Metaversal Lightcraft 

1708 University Ave. 

Come shop while kids visit with Santa for free. Fine arts, crafts, 

clothing and gift booths in a magical and colorful scene. 644-2032, www.lightcraft.org. 

Fourth Annual Wine Tasting 

Noon-3 p.m. 

Rosenblum Cellars 

2900 Main St., Alameda 

Tasting, buffet, live music, , wine auction, winery tour. Proceeds benefit Berkeley Youth Alternatives programs. $25-$30. 845-9010. kevin@byaonline.org 

Smart Growth in Action: 

Supporting Good  

Development in Your  

Backyard 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Niles Hall, Preservation Park 

Oakland 

This one-day workshop will provide you with the tools to evaluate 

development projects for sustainable features and explain how to get involved in local land use issues. 251-6330,  

www.urbanecology.org/cities/cities.workshop.html. 

Berkeley Artisans Holiday  

Open Studios 

A Self-Guided Tour 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Various locations 

100 artists & craftspeople open their studios to the public. For a map and locations, www.berkeleyartisans.com, or 845-2612. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers -- jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Ave. www.solanoave.org 

Editor: 

This is in response to your Associated Press story last week on the group of people calling themselves “Act Up/San Francisco “ and their threats on San Francisco Chronicle employees. Many Daily Planet readers have called us asking what is really going on. 

Your readers should know that “Act up/San Francisco” has been disavowed and disowned by the Act Up Network comprised of chapters in Philadelphia, NY, DC, Paris, East Bay, Cleveland, Boston, LA and Survive AIDS (formerly Act UP/Golden Gate). We work closely with Doctors Without Borders, the hunger group Oxfam, Consumer Project on Technology (a Nader offshoot), South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Group, and HealthGAP (Global Action Campaign), among others. 

We all believe that HIV is, at the very least, a major co-factor causing AIDS, and that AIDS is a global catastrophe. We also believe that all HIV infected individuals should have access to treatments currently available only in industrialized countries. 

“Act Up/SF” has usurped our name, damaged our credibility and hurt many HIV infected people with their messianic misinformation campaign, “HIV does not cause AIDS, AIDS is over.” Their sheer hypocrisy is demonstrated by their $1.6 million annual business of selling medical marijuana to people with a “harmless” virus. If they argue that this is alternative treatment, why did they campaign to stop Federal funding to other treatments such as acupuncture, vitamins, and Chinese herbs? 

Their radical pretense is undermined by the fact that conservative Republican venture capitalist, Robert Leppo, underwrote the purchase of its building. While many nonprofits are feeling the dot.com pinch, “Act Up/SF” thrives with its lucrative pot business and Republican backers. Even more than the flawed AIDS agencies they criticize, “Act Up/SFers” are lining their pockets on people’s suffering. Their behavior towards the media, health departments and other AIDS activists is reprehensible. 

It’s an easy route. If AIDS is over one need not campaign for needle exchange funding, condoms in schools, or better medical care. One need not challenge pharmaceutical companies’ profits and patents to make treatments available to all who want them. “Act Up/SF” would deny people in Africa the option of taking what they say are “toxic” treatments. 

Through the media and people they’ve come in contact with personally, “Act UP/SF” has been successful in portraying political activism as loony cartoon caricature. A CIA disinformation campaign couldn’t do a better job of alienating or disheartening people. 

Global catastrophes, such as the holocaust and AIDS, elicit different reactions from different people. Denial, guilt, misplaced anger, and sociopathic behavior are four reactions we see demonstrated by “Act UP/SF.” Check out www.healthgap.org, www.globaltreatmentaccess.org or Doctors Without Borders (www.msf.org) for truly credible responses to the global AIDS epidemic. 

ACT UP/ EAST BAY 

MUSIC 

924 Gilman St. Dec. 7: Har Mar Superstar, The Pattern, The Blast Rocks, Your Enemies’ Friends, Hate Mail Express; Dec. 8: Scurvy Dogs, Nigel Peppercock, Shut The Fuck Up, Offering To The Sun, Voetsek; Dec. 9: Poison The Well, Unearth, Sworn Enemy, Spark Lights The Friction; Dec. 14: Hot Water Music, American Steel, F-Minus, Trial By Fire; Dec. 15: Strung Out, Limp, The Frisk, The Deadlines, The Creeps; Dec. 16: 5 p.m., Good Riddance, Missing 23rd, Downway, Audio Crush; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 5: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 6: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 11: Mad & Eddic Duran Jazz Duo; Dec. 13: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 15: Larry Stefl Jazz Quartet; Dec. 18: Panacea; Dec. 19: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series Dec. 9: 8 p.m., The Toids; $0 - $20, TUVA Space, 3192 Adeline. 649-8744, http://sfsound.org/acme.html. 

Anna’s Dec. 5: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 6: Graham Richards Jazz Quartet; Dec. 7: Anna and Ellen Hoffman on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 8: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory, Bill Bell at the piano; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 9: Choro Time; Dec. 10: Renegade Sidemen w/ Calvin Keyes; Dec. 11: Singers’ Open Mike #2; Dec. 12: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 13: Rev. Rabia, The Blueswoman; Dec. 14: Anna and Mark Little on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 15: Jazz Singers Vicki Burns and Felice York; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 16: The Jazz Fourtet; Dec. 17: Renegade Sidemen w/ Calvin Keyes; Dec. 18: Tangria Jazz Trio; Dec. 19: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; All music starts 8 p.m. unless noted. 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Cal Performances Dec. 19: Berkeley Symphony, $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus, Bancroft Way at Telegraph, 642-0212 tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; 8 p.m. unless noted. 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Dec. 5: Avalon Blues: Peter Case, Dave Alvin and Bill Morrissey; Dec. 6: Ray Bonneville; Dec. 7 & 8: Rebecca Riots; All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. Call 548-1761 for prices or see www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Jazzschool/La Note Dec. 9: 4:30 p.m., Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound, $6 - $12, reservations recommended. 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 www.jazzschool.com 

Jupiter Dec. 5: J Dogs; Dec. 6: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 7: AVI Bortnick Group; Dec. 8: Harvey Wainapel Quartet; Dec. 12: Mushroom; Dec. 13: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 14: Broun Fellini’s; Dec. 15: Norah Jones and Jim Campilongo; Dec. 19: Spectraphonic; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 7: 8:30 p.m., John Calloway & Diaspora, $12; Dec. 8: 9:30 p.m., Dr. Loco’s Rocking Jalapeño Band, $10; Dec. 9: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; Dec. 9: 7:30 p.m., Trio Altamira Reunion Concert, $12-$14; Dec. 14: 8 p.m., Holly Near, $15-$17; Dec. 16: 5 p.m, Flamenca Community Juerga, Free; Dec. 16: 7 p.m, Modupue & UpSurge, $8; Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 8: Jonah Minton Quartet, Julie’s Healthy Cafe, 2562 Bancroft; Dec. 9: Hebro, Blakes, 2367 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 15: Thelonious On The Move, Bison Brewing, 2598 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 16: Howard Kadis, Musical Offering Cafe, 2430 Bancroft; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

Rose Street House Dec. 14 & 15: 7:30 p.m., Benefit Concert and Birthday Party, Shelly Doty and grassroots community of women singers and song writers; Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@yahoo.com. 

“Guitar, Woodwinds, Drums” Dec. 8: 8 p.m., The Bill Horvitz Band, Ben Goldberg’s What Music. Tuva Space, 3192 Adeline St. 

THEATER 

“Seventy Scenes of Halloween” Dec. 7: 8 p.m.; Dec. 8: 8 p.m., 10:30 p.m.; Dec. 9: 7 p.m.; BareStage Productions, UC Berkeley’s original student theater company, presents a macbre farce written by Jeffrey M. Jones and directed by Desdemona Chiang. $8. UC Berkeley, Choral Rehearsal Hall. 682-3880 

“Brave Brood” Through Dec. 16: Robert O’Hara directs Robert O’Hara’s searing tale of money, desperation, and the fight for survival. $20. Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. 883-0305 www.transparenttheater.org 

“Black Nativity” Dec. 7 through Dec. 16th: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2:30 p.m., 8 p.m., Sun. 5:30 p.m. The birth of Jesus unfolds in this drama written by Langston Hughes. Directed and produced by Betty Gadling. $15 adults, $8 seniors and students, $5 children over 5. Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland 569-9418 www.allen-temple.org 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

FILMS 

Pacific Film Archive Theater Dec. 6: 7 p.m., Bizarre, Bizarre; 8:50 p.m., The Green Man; Dec. 7: 7 p.m., Smiles of a Summer Night; 9:05 p.m., Cluny Brown; Bancroft Way, 642-1124 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

EXHIBITS 

“Furniture Art” Through Dec. 7: An exhibit of metal and wood furniture that revisits furniture not only as art but as craft. 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. The Current Gallery at the Crucible, 1036 Ashby Ave. 843-5511 www.thecrucible.org 

“Berkeley Creations” Dec. 8 & Dec. 15: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., A group exhibit. Artist-at-Play Studio and Gallery, 1649 Hopkins St., 528-0494. 

“The Paintings of Bethany Anne Ayers and Sculpture of Alexander Cheves” Through Dec. 15: Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Ardency Gallery, 709 roadway, Oakland. 836-0831 gallery709@aol.com 

“The Whole World’s Watching: Peace and Social Justice Movements of the 1960s and 1970s” Through Dec. 16: A documentary photo exhibition which examines the rich history of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Wed. - Sun., noon - 5 p.m. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., Live Oak Park. Free. 644-6893 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222

OAKLAND – About 20 activists, many from Berkeley, gathered outside the Federal Building Tuesday afternoon to protest an Oct. 9 ruling by the federal government’s Drug Enforcement Agency that declared all foods made with hemp illegal. 

The protest was part of a national “day of action,” with protests across the country, organized by Vote Hemp and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a pair of advocacy groups. 

Activists labeled the DEA ruling “ridiculous,” arguing that hemp, a portion of the cannabis plant that also produces marijuana, is safe, healthy, and contains only trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinols (THC), the psychoactive chemical in marijuana that creates the drug’s high. 

“It’s really healthy, it tastes good, and it doesn’t get you high,” said Rebecca Saltzman, 19, a UC Berkeley student and member of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. 

Activists said the ruling is crippling a growing, multi-million dollar hemp food industry that launched, in earnest, in 1998.  

Will Glaspy, spokesperson for the DEA, said the agency issued the ruling to clear up confusion around the legality of hemp food products. 

The misunderstanding is rooted in the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. On the one hand, the language exempts fibers, oils and cakes derived from cannabis – in other words, food products made from the “hemp” part of the plant – but on the other hand, the definition classifies, as a controlled substance, “any material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains any quantity of...THC.” 

In its ruling, the DEA argued that Congress exempted certain food products because it believed they did not contain any THC. Now, the agency says, it is clear that food products with hemp include some amount of THC, and that the language in the Controlled Substances Act declaring any product with THC a controlled substance should win the day. 

Patrick Goggin, lawyer for the Hemp Industries Association, an industry group that is filing for an emergency stay of the DEA ruling in the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, finds fault with the DEA’s logic. 

Goggin argues that the Controlled Substance Act makes very clear exemptions for the use of hemp in food products, and that the new regulation is arbitrary, since the federal government allows for trace amounts of opiates in the poppy seeds on bagels and other foods. 

Goggin said he expects the court to rule on the emergency stay in the next couple of weeks. If the stay is granted, the court would temporarily suspend the DEA rule while it decides on the rule’s legality. 

Yesterday, activists outside the Federal Building said the DEA ruling is simply a slap in the face of the larger movement to legalize marijuana. 

“Hemp is used in food products that have no drug content,” said Don Duncan of Berkeley Patients Group, a local dispenser of medical marijuana. “(The ruling) seems to be making a misguided, symbolic gesture by banning it.” 

John Roulac, president and founder of Nutiva, a Sonoma County hemp food company that produces health bars and tortilla chips, said the DEA ruling has scared off several retailers and customers, leading to a roughly 35 percent decline in Nutiva sales. 

“One day we were selling our products and the next day it was illegal,” said Roulac, who was in Washington, D.C. yesterday for a protest outside the DEA’s offices. 

Jolyn Warford, Regional Marketing Coordinator for Whole Foods, which maintains a natural foods store in Berkeley, said the company “will be complying with the regulations put forth by the Drug Enforcement Agency.”  

Whole Foods will sell the remaining hemp food nutrition bars on its shelves, Warford said, falling in line with a 120-day “grace period” for “disposing” of hemp food inventory allowed by the DEA. After that, she said, Whole Foods will stop stocking hemp food products. 

Officials at Wild Oats, another natural food chain with a store in Berkeley, could not be reached by the Daily Planet’s deadline. But, Larry Valle, grocery manager at the Berkeley Wild Oats, said he will continue stocking hemp food products until his home office tells him otherwise. 

Activists said hemp contains an optimum balance of essential fatty acids – a series of healthy fats – and is the second-highest source of vegetable protein on the market, trailing only soy. 

The DEA’s ruling does not effect hemp products like clothing and bird seed that are not consumed by humans. 

Editor: 

The media always likes to highlight Berkeley as an unusual place, even to the point of ridicule. Alas, the world would be a dull place without satire, caricature and humor. Unfortunately, in a climate of constriction of basic civil liberties our mayor’s fixation on caricaturing her enemies presents a danger to our city. Berkeley could become a place where neighbors turn in neighbors to the thought police – the new FBI role. I doubt that many people would like to see that happen. 

Innuendo? Not. The mayor is a big part of the reason the nation thinks our fire chief ordered flags off fire trucks when he only asked that they be scaled down in size. Shirley Dean went on to suggest that Berkeley was likely to undergo an economic boycott resulting from the council vote urging the government to try to end the bombing quickly to avoid civilian casualties. Various investigative reports have found no evidence of a boycott yet as late as Nov. 2, Mayor Shirley Dean was quoted by the BBC as saying that the (apparently non existent) boycott had hurt Berkeley businesses.  

Then Dean repeatedly misquoted Councilmember Dona Spring as saying that the United States is a terrorist nation, even after being corrected. These quotes wound up all over the national press. Whether or not such a statement has any factual validity Spring never said it so it’s terrible to put Berkeley on the hot seat like that. Dean’s behavior turned Dona Spring and the city into a target. While the council majority tries to find the fine line of responsible criticism and debate, Dean has acted like an agent provocateur making their dissent appear wild and inappropriate. 

I am concerned that Shirley Dean is not representing Berkeley well in the media or on the national level. We need to join others in opposition to the Bush-Ashcroft attacks on Constitutional rights. While some cities like Portland and Corvalis, Ore. have said they will not cooperate with the roundup of legal Arab and Muslim men not specifically suspected of crimes, Berkeley has not spoken. Dean should urge Willie and Jerry Brown and Ron Gonzales to join us and follow suit. If our mayor’s politics do not include the defense of civil liberties then we are in for serious problems. If they do, the mayor should speak out against unlawful detention, military tribunals and the death penalty. We need council/mayoral unity on these basic issues, not phony “wedge issue” politics.  

Marc Sapir, MD, Berkeley 

More and more Alameda County children are going hungry and more working people are unable to make ends meet, according to a report released Tuesday by the Alameda County Community Food Bank. 

According to the report – “Hunger: The Faces and the Facts” – 32 percent of the parents who receive Food Bank aid say that their children sometimes miss meals because they have no food or money. In 1997, only 9 percent of parents answered likewise. 

The sharp increase – over 240 percent in the last four years – could even be understated, according to Food Bank Executive Director Suzan Bateson. 

“We think that number may be low,” she said. “Parents may not admit that their children miss meals, because they might have a lot of shame about not being able to feed their children.” 

The number of working people who seek Food Bank aid has also risen since the 1997 study. In that year, 24 percent of food recipients came from a household in which at least one member had a job; this year, the figure was 37 percent. 

The new report, which was presented to the public at the Food Bank warehouse at the Oakland Army Base, is the result of months of effort by Food Bank staff and volunteers. Throughout the spring of 2001, researchers surveyed the 211 member agencies that receive Food Bank donations in bulk and distributes it to the needy. 

The researchers also directly interviewed 439 individuals who get Food Bank aid. 

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, Assemblymember Wilma Chan (D-Oakland), and representatives from the offices of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-San Francisco) and Representative Pete Stark (D-Fremont) attended the presentation. 

Artensia Barry, a Berkeley resident who helped conduct the survey, receives food assistance from the Berkeley Food Pantry, one of organizations affiliated with the Food Bank. 

“The report shows that there are a lot of things that we need to address, immediately,” she said on Friday. “Nobody in government is really talking about this issue – they're financing the war, and forgetting about their backyard.” 

But according to Second Harvest, a nationwide food aid advocacy group, Congress may soon address one of the report’s key recommendations. 

The report found that while 80 percent of Food Bank clients are eligible for food stamps, only 21 percent actually receive them. 

Bateson said on Tuesday that the food stamp program is underfunded and too difficult for many people, especially those with jobs, to use. Food stamp offices are only open between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., she said, and the program requires recipients to come to the office for monthly evaluations. 

“People can’t take time off from work to go do monthly reporting,” she said. “That’s just one of the serious accessibility barriers to Food Stamp clients.” 

In addition, Bateson said, the new report shows that the food stamp allotment only provides 2.2 weeks worth of food for the average Alameda County family. 

The report recommends that federal nutrition programs such as the food stamp program be strengthened, and barriers to receiving food stamps be lowered. 

“A strengthened food stamp program could really help programs like ours,” said Bateson. 

Eleanor Thompson, senior policy associate with Second Harvest, said on Tuesday that it looks like many of those concerns will be addressed in the new Farm Bill of 2001. 

Specifically, she said, the Senate committee currently working on the bill is looking to greatly expand funding for the food stamp program. Numbers are not yet final, but some powerful senators are proposing up to $12 billion dollars for food stamps over the next ten years – an increase of over $8 billion over the last 10. 

Still, according to Bateson, the coming months look like they will be lean ones for food assistance in Alameda County. The recession has hit the Bay Area harder than most places in the United States, and the failure of one particular business was a great blow to the Food Bank. 

“Before Webvan went out of business, they were giving us 1 million pounds of food a year,” she said. “That was about one-twelfth of our total food donations.” 

The increased demand for services, Bateson said, the Food Bank will have to struggle to keep people fed through the winter. 

J.C. Orton, of Berkeley’s “Knight on the Street” program, said Tuesday that attendance at his group’s street soup kitchens is definitely up. 

“Last year, we had probably 100 people,” he said. “This year, it’s 150, easy – and we’re just in the first weeks.” 

Editor: 

While I have appreciated Ms. Alice LaPierre’s articles on solar power she failed to mention one extremely important change in PG&E regulations effective Jan. 1, 2001. From that point on net metering – the practice that allows consumer generators who supply power from solar panels, wind turbines or fuel cells to the grid to be compensated for the power they produce – has been compensated, not at the average price of electricity (12 cents per kWh), but at the rate determined by Time of Use.  

In PG&E’s territory power is sold at two different rates. The peak rate is charged between noon and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Other hours are charged at off-peak rates. In summer peak rates are 32 cents a kilowatt hour and off peak rates are 8.5 cents a kilowatt hour. In winter rates are 12 cents and 8.8 cents respectively.  

What this means for consumer generators using solar, or other renewable resource generated, power is that excess power generated at summer peak rates can be used to pay for power used at lower off peak and winter rates. This savings depends, not on the absolute value of the rates, but on the ratio between peak and off peak rates. This ratio is not likely to change since it is based on several hundred million years of human evolution which have made us a species adapted to daylight hours. (This despite the best efforts of Taylorite personnel managers.)  

The main problem with solar power (which I have installed on my own home using the Alice-in Wonderland mechanism of refinancing my mortgage) is the upfront cost. Even though over a 20 or 30 year period these systems will pay for themselves (and reduce the load on the environment) the individual home owner or apartment owner often cannot afford to take this long range view. There is also the complication that solar power in particular depends on arbitrary factors like which way your roof faces.  

The obvious solution is a collective one. Why doesn’t the Berkeley City Council or the Alameda Board of Supervisors consider the possibility of setting up a Coop or Municipal Utility District which, using funds raised by a bond measure, would buy the solar panels (or fuel cells, or wind turbines), contract to install them, and charge the property owners a pro-rated fee based on the average use of the participating members? This would get around the problem of the upfront costs since the public entity would still be around in 20 or 30 years even if the original participants were already pushing up daisies. It would also mean that individual home or apartment owners could participate even if the orientation of their roofs was not such as to make it economically feasible for the as individuals to install solar power.  

Ernie Haberkern,  

Berkeley  

Students at Berkeley High during World War II busied themselves setting up Morse code clubs and selling enough war bonds to purchase two P-39 fighter planes. Across the Bay, Palo Alto High School students raised funds for a bomber with their school’s “Li’l Viking” mascot painted on the fuselage. 

During today’s “war on terrorism,” students in K-12 classrooms from Washington, D.C., to Washington state are collecting donations for Afghan children or for the firefighters in New York City. But a researcher at the UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education predicts that, just as in World War II, the core curriculums in schools will see little change. 

“Schools are looking more to the long term,” said Charles Dorn, 34, a fellow in the Graduate School of Education’s Center for the Integrated Study of Teaching and Learning.  

He is examining how teachers and students fared during World War II in the public secondary schools of Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto and Richmond.  

“There are all sorts of changes to the peripheral programs, but in English class they’re still reading ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” Dorn said. “They’re not replacing literature with typing to prepare students for clerical work in defense industries. The schools themselves do not really alter their core programs in response to the war.” 

Richmond experienced dramatic wartime change as the Kaiser shipyards opened. School enrollment there swelled to 24,000 in 1945, the same population as the entire city just five years earlier. Richmond schools put into place four schedules every day in order to be able to educate all the students. One kindergarten class had 146 students. 

In Palo Alto, Dorn said, two vice principals were drafted. Oakland and Richmond faced an unprecedented influx of workers to shipyards and defense industries primarily from Oklahoma, Arkansas and the Deep South. 

The major pressures of the war forced some change in schools, such as a Cadet Corps at Berkeley High that replaced traditional physical education courses with military drills and marksmanship lessons. By October 1942, 60 percent of the secondary schools in California featured pre-flight aeronautics classes. 

Dorn has interviewed about a dozen people who were students and about six who were teachers during World War II. He acknowledged that many more oral histories are in order. Other resources he has tapped include statements about the war and about education at the time by educators, school commissioners, education schools and professors.  

Dorn said he also is interested in looking at how classes were taught locally in World War II and who taught them, considering the military build-up and flood of men into the military.  

There is some school district archival material, such as newsletters and school board minutes, to review, he said, but teachers tend around their retirement to clean out their garages, tossing out the accumulated material from their classroom days.  

School newspapers and yearbooks of the war days have been particularly helpful, Dorn said. “It’s fascinating to read what editorials students were writing at the time,” he said. 

Dorn said he believes that examining the influence of wartime events on public education during World War II “helps illuminate what’s occurring right now. We’re starting to see similar things happen in schools in response to the attacks on September 11 such as the New York City Board of Education requiring the Pledge of Allegiance in city schools.” 

Likewise, he said, today’s social studies teachers are likely to incorporate some lessons about war, terrorism and social change into their lesson plans. Dorn said the adjustments, however, “probably will be temporary, and teachers will resist permanent change.” 

Teachers and school administrators may often be viewed as impervious to change and reform, Dorn said, but educators in wartime seem to cling to the concept of school as a foundation for consistency, stability and democratic traditions. 

“During World War II, public schools seemed to demonstrate a significant commitment to previously articulated democratic purposes,” Dorn said. 

“Although Americans debated the new role public education should take in a these debates, maintaining a sturdy dedication to fundamental democratic principles never fully realized in American society.” 

This constancy can be a reassurance during our current conflict, he said.  

This article was written by the UC Berkeley media relations office.

As a public service, the Berkeley Daily Planet will list BERKELEY-BASED nonprofit agencies soliciting donations and/or volunteers. Please use the following format and e-mail by Dec. 7 to news@berkeleydailyplanet.net.  

(Name) Jane’s Nonprofit 

(address) 2333 Nonprofit Way, Berkeley, CA 9444444 

(phone) 111-1111 

(description - 15 words maximum) Jane’s Nonprofit remodels old houses for affordable housing. Needs cash donations and volunteers. 

(nonprofit number) xxii332

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government will decide in good time what to do with an American believed to have been fighting alongside the Taliban, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday. 

He declined to say whether he considered the man a traitor. 

“We found a person who says he’s an American with an AK-47 in a prison with a bunch of al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners,” Rumsfeld told a press conference. “You can be certain he will have all the rights he is due.” 

U.S. and allied Afghan forces are holding three former Taliban fighters who claim to be American citizens. One of them, an injured man who identified himself as John Walker, is receiving medical treatment from U.S. forces after emerging from a battle-scarred fortress in Mazar-e-Sharif. 

Walker, 20, who converted to Islam when he was 16, suffered grenade and bullet wounds, CNN reported. His parents identified him from video and photographs as John Philip Walker Lindh of Fairfax, Calif. 

Asked if he had considered what to do with the man, Rumsfeld said Walker is not the No. 1 priority right now. 

“We’ll get to that in good time,” Rumsfeld said. 

“I do know a bit about the various options and I have not landed on one at the moment,” he said. “I’ve got lots of things that are front and center that we’re dealing with at the time.” 

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said earlier that American officials have been talking with Walker. 

Walker’s father, Frank Lindh, said he has hired a lawyer and wants to visit his son, who had studied Arabic and Islam in Yemen and Pakistan. “We’re anxious to hear from the government,” he said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show. 

On CNN’s “Larry King Live” program Monday night, Lindh said it appeared his son had been a combatant with the Taliban. “He’s really not much more than a boy,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Clarke said the number of Marines at a base in southern Afghanistan has grown to 1,300. The troops have taken over an air base south of the last Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. 

Two other people who claim to be Americans are under the control of the northern alliance, a defense official said. The official knew few details about these two, whose identities have not been established and whose condition could not be determined. 

Asked about Walker, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, the deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could not say Monday whether Walker is considered a prisoner of war or whether he would be returned to the United States. 

“The only thing that I can say about this individual is that this is somebody who claims to be an American citizen,” he said. “That claim is being respected for the moment, until facts can be established.” 

The U.S. government could find it difficult to successfully bring charges against Americans fighting for the Taliban. 

A case against Walker “would be a tricky thing to prosecute because the Constitution requires two eyewitnesses to the act of treason,” University of North Carolina law professor Eric Muller said. “I would think somebody in the Justice Department will have to take a very careful look at this.” Also, President Bush’s military tribunals are limited to foreign nationals, not U.S. citizens. 

Another possible avenue would be to charge American Taliban fighters with seditious conspiracy, which has a lower standard of proof. That’s one of the charges that radical Islamic cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, who plotted to blow up New York City landmarks, was convicted on in 1995. One of Abdel-Rahman’s sons was captured while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

PHOENIX – Arizona avoided millions of dollars in prison costs through a voter-approved 1996 law that requires that some drug offenders be placed on probation and provided treatment rather than locked up, a new study concludes. 

The sponsors of a similar California law that took effect in July have applauded the results as a good example of what can be expected as the treatment initiative diverts thousands of drug offenders from the nation’s largest state prison system. 

“Arizona has the most experience with a law that grants a right to treatment instead of jail, and the state continues to have positive results,” said Dave Fratello, who managed the campaign for California’s Proposition 36, approved by voters in November 2000. 

Fratello’s Campaign for New Drug Policies is encouraging similar initiatives in other states if California’s effort succeeds. 

Arizona spent $1 million in 1999 to treat and supervise 390 inmates kept out of prison by the 1996 law, while it would have cost $7.7 million to imprison them, the study said. 

That called, called Proposition 102 on the November 2002 ballot, focused on diverting nonviolent drug offenders from the prison system into community treatment programs. 

The new study by the state Administrative Office of the Courts reviewed probation and treatment costs of 5,385 probationers who participated in the state-funded substance-use treatment program. 

Of them, 1,246, 23 percent, were sentenced to probation under Proposition 102. 

Only 390 of the 1,246 would have gone to prison without Proposition 102, because many violators already avoided prison sentences, the study showed. 

The study said 2,719 probationers had ended treatment as of June 30, 1999, 82 percent of whom complied with treatment requirements and 38 percent who did not. 

Passage of Proposition 102 meant the “valuable tool” of offering voluntary participation in treatment programs is not available to law enforcement officials trying to deal with offenders who refuse treatment, the report said. 

Proposition 102 requires treatment rather than time behind bars for those convicted for the first or second time of being under the influence of drugs or possessing drugs for personal use. The state Supreme Court recently ruled that the law also covers possession of drug paraphernalia for personal use. 

The initiative provides funding for treatment. Money not required for treatment of offenders sentenced under Proposition 102 is available for treatment of other offenders, and the study said the state spent $3.5 million for treatment on those offenders in 1999.

CARSON CITY, Nev. – A new Nevada law has enabled 57 people with serious illnesses to get licenses to use medical marijuana. Nine others have been licensed as caregivers. 

There was an initial flood of applications when the program started Oct. 1. But Cecile Crofoot of the Agriculture Department, which oversees the program, said applications have tapered off since then. 

Crofoot said she mails out about five information packets a day, adding that the program seems to be working smoothly. 

Her office has mailed out 687 packets to individuals, but only about 10 percent return applications. Crofoot thinks many drop the idea when they learn the program is controlled to prevent drug abusers from getting a card. 

“Most of the druggies give up,” she said. 

The Nevada law allows individuals suffering from specific chronic and debilitating diseases such as AIDS, cancer and glaucoma to register with the state. 

They get a registry card that exempts them from state prosecution for possession and use of small amounts of marijuana. Their names are confidential, as are the names of the doctors who signed letters qualifying them for the registry cards. 

There’s no guarantee the medical marijuana users won’t face federal prosecution, but Crofoot said federal drug agents have shown little interest in Nevada’s program thus far. 

Nevada law lets medical marijuana users grow their own plants, with assistance from licensed caregivers – typically spouses or partners. The program is modeled after one operating for several years in Oregon.

FAIRFAX – Word that a handful of Americans had fought alongside the Taliban came as a particular shock in Fairfax: One of them apparently spent his teen-age years in this wooded, hilly town north of San Francisco. 

John Phillip Walker Lindh, 20, – who gave his name in Afghanistan as Abdul Hamid – was in the custody of U.S. forces after being discovered among captured Taliban troops and al-Qaida fighters. He was being treated for undisclosed injuries. 

His father, Frank Lindh, said Monday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live” that he last spoke to his son in May. He told his father he would head for a cooler region of Pakistan for the summer. 

“I had no indication or reason to be concerned that he would put himself in danger like this by going to Afghanistan,” Frank Lindh said. 

“Until John disappeared on us, so to speak, on the first of May I had nothing to see there other than a kid, a boy really, who converted to a religion that I respect and seemed very healthy and good for him,” Lindh said Tuesday. 

Lindh said he was concerned about his son’s welfare and had hired a lawyer to represent him. 

Walker’s capture was made-to-order conversation Monday at the cafes in Fairfax. Neighbors wondered aloud whether Walker was an impressionable kid who lost his way or an ideologue who found it. 

“If he was pointing a gun at any of my soldier friends, put him on trial,” said Russell Decker, 51, a local guitarist. “If not, put him in a mental ward and bring him home.” 

Another local musician, Neil Lavin, saw Walker’s path to Afghanistan as a spiritual quest. 

“I can’t see him as being unpatriotic. This is where his journey led him,” said Lavin, 32. “I imagine he lost himself there. Or found himself.” 

Walker told Newsweek after his capture that he had entered Afghanistan to help the Taliban build a “pure Islamic state.” His parents said he had long been fascinated with Islam – he converted at 16 – and had a pacifist’s heart for social justice. 

There was no answer when a visitor knocked at Marilyn Walker’s house Monday. Neither Marilyn Walker nor Frank Lindh returned messages left by The Associated Press. Lindh said on CNN that they were separated and in the midst of an “amicable divorce.” 

Marilyn Walker told Newsweek her son was raised Catholic but converted several years after moving from Silver Spring, Md. 

Walker transferred from an area high school after his first semester to Tamiscal High, an alternative school in nearby Larkspur. 

Tamiscal principal Marcie Miller said teachers called Walker “a gifted writer of poetry.” As a freshman and sophomore, his curriculum had a world arts and culture theme, including studies of Islam and the Middle East. 

Walker took the proficiency test and graduated early in 1998, said Laurie Samera, an assistant to the Tamalpais Union High School District superintendent. She said he asked that the name on his diploma be changed to Suleyman Al-Lindh. 

Walker reportedly was drawn to Islam after reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” 

In 1997, he began to study at the Islamic Center and Mosque of Mill Valley, where he met Abdulla Nana, a 23-year-old fellow Muslim who described Walker as a close friend. 

“He is quiet and soft spoken and humble,” Nana told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I wouldn’t have expected him to go and fight there.” 

Nana said Walker became devout enough that he always wore a traditional Muslim cloak. 

“As a convert, he was an example of how to behave,” Nana said. “We looked up to him because of his dedication to Islam.” 

His parents then paid for him to travel to Yemen to study Arabic. They lost track of him after he moved on to Pakistan, where he studied the Quran at a religious school. 

Marilyn Walker told Newsweek she wondered whether her son had been brainwashed by the Taliban. Some of his neighbors who meet each morning at the Koffee Klatch diner surmised the same. 

“He’s just a kid. He don’t know what he’s doing,” said Lou Vaccaro, 70. 

Bill Jones, a friend and former housemate of Walker’s father, said Walker “had no politics on his mind, only religion.” 

“I think it’s wrong to call him the ’American Taliban’ – as far as I am concerned he is the American victim of the Taliban. He was just a good kid who ended up in the wrong hands,” Jones said. 

Bob Sharpe, 56, a Vietnam veteran and writer, said he expected a lot of legal handwringing over what to do with Walker. 

“I think he needs to be arrested and interrogated,” Sharpe said. “And I think a lot depends on his attitude.” 

Andrew Cleverdon, 19, grew up across the street from Walker in Virginia. He said Walker didn’t have any particular fascination with the military. 

“I would hate to be in his shoes right now,” Cleverdon said. “I was little shocked.” 

Walker’s family is concerned for his safety and wants to greet him with open arms, his father said. 

“We want to give him a big hug,” Lindh said, though he admonished his son for venturing into Afghanistan. “I would have not given him permission to go to Afghanistan.”

SAN FRANCISCO — A new $2.6 billion eastern span for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge received its last piece of financing Tuesday when the federal government provided $450 million, Gov. Gray Davis said. 

Construction of the new span, designed to withstand major earthquakes on the San Andreas and Hayward faults, will begin early next year. Caltrans plans to finish the modern single-tower suspension bridge in 2006. The current 65-year-old bridge will then be removed. 

Davis said the federal decision completes state funding for the bridge, which carries 280,000 vehicles a day. The $450 million is a loan to California from the U.S. Department of Transportation through its Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. 

The remaining $2.15 billion comes from state gasoline taxes, toll bridge fees and revenue bonds. The bridge’s eastern section was scheduled to be replaced after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

SAN FRANCISCO – Despite calls from some of its member doctors, the American Medical Association on Tuesday declined to endorse smallpox vaccinations for all Americans. 

Instead of vaccinating the entire nation, the 538 delegates attending the AMA’s annual winter meeting voted overwhelmingly to continue planning and studying the repercussions of such a mass inoculation. 

“We do not yet know that the bad guys have the smallpox virus,” said Dr. Ron Davis, a public health expert from Detroit and a member of the AMA’s 20-member board of trustees. “There are huge, complex issues involved and due deliberation is needed.” 

Among the biggest concerns is that the vaccine itself could kill as many as 300 people and sicken thousands more if the entire U.S. population of 280 million people was vaccinated — a risk that Salt Lake City obstetrician and AMA board member John C. Nelson said is unwarranted. 

“There is not a single reported case of smallpox anywhere in the world right now,” Nelson said. 

There’s even disagreement whether those already inoculated — nearly every American 32 or older — will need another vaccination to prevent a smallpox infection. 

“Immunity does last years,” Davis said. “But it does weaken over time.” 

Also, babies younger than 1 and people with weakened immune systems such as those with HIV — diagnosed and undiagnosed — couldn’t withstand smallpox vaccinations, doctors said. 

The action Tuesday was in response to a proposal by Florida doctors that the AMA back nationwide vaccines despite those risks. 

“We are at threat,” Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger of North Miami Beach, Fla., said during debate of the issue on Sunday. 

Others urged the AMA to endorse voluntary vaccinations that would be left to the discretion of prescribing doctors. 

But Davis pointed out Tuesday that the United States has only 15.4 million doses of vaccine currently available. The federal government did recently agree to pay a total of $428 million to Baxter International Inc. and Acambis Plc. for 155 million doses of smallpox vaccine. But those new doses won’t be available for at least a year. 

Until then, Dr. Joy Maxey of Atlanta advocated inoculating doctors such as herself to protect against contracting the disease from patients. 

“We should at least be offered that opportunity,” Maxey said Tuesday. The AMA sent Maxey’s proposal to vaccine so-called “front-line defenders” such as doctors and paramedics to a committee for study. 

Smallpox vaccination stopped in the United States in 1972, and the disease was eradicated worldwide by 1980. Two smallpox virus samples remain — one in the United States and the other in Russia. Concerns about security at the Russian lab have existed and been exacerbated by the proliferation of anthrax cases. 

A smallpox epidemic would be much worse than an anthrax outbreak because it is contagious and deadly. Roughly 30 percent of those who contract smallpox die. 

“I think the doctors are as scared as anyone else,” Nelson said. 

Still, Nelson said detailed scientific studies and more discussion among doctors and federal health officials need to occur before determining what should be done. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will discuss the smallpox issue on Dec. 12-13. Last week, the CDC issued a 300-page report called the “Interim Smallpox Response Plan and Guidelines,” which recommends waiting until an outbreak occurs before beginning vaccination. 

Even then, the CDC report said a technique called “ring vaccination,” where only healthy people around a smallpox victim receive the vaccine, has proven to be effective.

LOS ANGELES – California will climb out of the recession with the rest of the country next spring but the pain caused by the current downturn will linger well into the year, according to a new economic forecast. 

Even as the economy begins to grow again and incomes start to rise in the second quarter of 2002, state economists predict the job market will tighten further and there could be some large-scale corporate bankruptcies during the year. 

The projections are detailed in the UCLA Anderson Forecast, a widely watched look-a-head on the economy to be released Wednesday. 

The report says the state’s 5.7 percent unemployment rate will continue rising gradually and peak at 6.4 percent in early 2003. But the overall impact of this recession will be milder than its predecessor in the early 1990s, when the state unemployment rate hit nearly 10 percent. 

For Californians like Edwin Gomes, a 29-year-old resident of South Central Los Angeles looking for an apprentice plumber job, the forecast offers some hope that he’ll eventually land a stable job but not enough to spur his spending. 

“You still have to take care of your money because you don’t really know what’s going to happen,” he said. “You’re not able to spend money on that fancy new coat or other luxury things.” 

Meanwhile, the forecast calls for personal income in California to increase only slightly this year, by 2.1 percent, dramatically off last year’s 9.8 percent growth rate. 

Next year that figure could decline even further to 1.1 percent. But by 2003, when economists expect technology, tourism and international trade to be doing well again, personal income should grow by 5.6 percent. 

The September terrorist attacks have caused the most direct damage to the state’s economy so far, mostly in the hotel industry. 

Continuing cancellations and postponements of tourists’ visits from affluent countries, especially Japan, threaten further harm in the short-term, said Tom Lieser, senior economist and author of the Anderson Forecast for California. 

Long-term, however, the impact of terrorism should ease and tourism — worth $75 billion a year to the California economy — should rebound. 

“People get kind of hardened to it after a while,” Lieser said. 

Regionally, San Francisco and Silicon Valley will continue to bear the lion’s share of this recession, which officially began last March. The San Francisco Bay area has been stung by over-inflated real estate prices and the near collapse of spending in the high-tech sector, where orders and shipments remain depressed and jobs are still disappearing. 

“It’s premature to assume that Silicon Valley has hit bottom, but it might not be too far away,” said Lieser. 

An improvement in tech prospects is key to any lasting recovery throughout the West, said Rob Valletta, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. 

While the tech sector is showing some signs of stabilizing — including news from the Semiconductor Industry Association Monday that worldwide semiconductor sales rose 2.5 percent in October — strong growth of between 10 and 20 percent will be necessary before the sector becomes the economic driver it once was, Valletta said. 

That probably won’t occur until at least 2003, he said. 

Parts of Southern California, meanwhile, will likely escape the recession altogether due to their economic diversity. But as a whole, Southern California can expect things to get worse before they get better, economists warn. 

“It is not immune to the national slowdown anymore,” Valletta said. 

Although the recession is expected to be mild by previous standards, the return to economic health will be slower and less dramatic than usual. 

“There are a lot of things out there that are going to limit the strength of this recovery,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. 

Prominent among them are inflated residential and commercial real estate markets in San Francisco and San Jose, which are only just starting to deflate, and companies’ bloated inventories and excess investment in assets such as factories, he said. 

Over-investment and supply will likely cause several large-scale bankruptcies across the country in the next year, most likely in the retail and airline sectors, Kyser said. 

The state government’s worsening financial situation could also slow the rebound, as legislators are forced to make cuts to balance the budget. 

The failure of electricity deregulation is costing the government billions of dollars at a time when tax revenue has plummeted due to investors’ losses in the stock market and declining sales tax receipts. 

California is expected to end fiscal 2001-02 with a deficit of $4.5 billion, according to the California Legislative Analysts Office.

SACRAMENTO – California power officials refused last week to help Enron Corp. line up power for their customers, citing credit concerns. 

“We were worried about credit,” said Pete Garris, acting deputy director of the state’s Department of Water Resources, at a Capitol briefing Tuesday. 

The turnaround marks how far the state has come since a year ago, when generators refused to sell energy to California utilities for the same reason, said Power Authority Chairman S. David Freeman. 

State power officials are preparing to cover up to 1,200 megawatts of energy that Enron supplies within California. Among Enron’s direct access customers are the University of California and California State University systems. 

Enron, which had revenues of $100.8 billion in 2000, filed for bankruptcy Sunday after a dizzying fall triggered by revelations of questionable partnerships, four years of overstated profits and then a failed merger with rival Dynegy. 

If Enron defaults on its direct access customers, state power officials will find a way to provide seamless electrical service to its customers, Garris said. DWR is prepared to supply the 800 to 1,200 megawatts of direct-access service to Enron customers. 

An Enron spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. 

Enron sold some customers on thinking they would get cheaper power, Freeman said, and now may not deliver it. The company has sent letters “telling some customers they may not supply them.” 

In September, the Public Utilities Commission banned direct access, which lets customers bypass a utility and contract for power from an energy marketer, such as Enron. 

The PUC’s three-month delay in banning direct access let many customers defect from utilities and sign on with Enron and other providers. 

That meant fewer customers remained to pay off the debts the state built buying power at high wholesale rates and selling to customers, including those who later signed up for direct access, under capped rates. 

An Enron defaults, Freeman said, could send those customers back to the utilities, which would help the state pay that debt. 

UC spokesman Charles McFadden said the system was watching the Enron situation and officials were talking with the company “almost constantly.” 

“We have gotten a ’dear customer’ letter from Enron,” he said. “We’re not going to let the lights go out at UC.” 

Freeman said even increasing the CSU and UC price by one cent per kilowatt hour would add an additional $12 million to their bills each year. 

But McFadden said the universities had saved “tens of millions of dollars by having the direct-access contracts with Enron over past three plus years.” 

The state has been buying power for customers of three utilities since January. The utilities, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., had amassed billions in debts due to high wholesale costs they couldn’t pass on to customers. 

Some energy providers, fearful that they wouldn’t be paid, refused to sell to California, or added credit premiums to the price for electricity, driving prices even higher. 

Enron, which has no power plants in California, has been a good customer for the California Independent System Operator, which operates much of the state’s electrical grid, said spokesman Gregg Fishman.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Critics of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s plan for emerging from bankruptcy have filed about 70 complaints at federal bankruptcy court. 

Many have asked that California’s largest utility be more specific about its wishes to shift control of its power plants and transmission system from state to federal regulation, as well as plans to borrow against those assets to raise $13.2 billion to pay creditors. 

PG&E says its plan is the best method to pay its thousands of creditors, climb out of bankruptcy and buy its own electricity rather than rely on the state. 

But critics contend that losing state control of the utility’s hydropower facilities, nuclear power plant and natural gas and electric transmission systems could result in higher rates for customers, and less control over power prices for all Californians. 

Creditors, opponents and PG&E were set to meet in bankruptcy court Tuesday afternoon, and state officials were expected to ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali to hold a trial separate from the main proceeding on PG&E’s request that he override state law and let the utility transfer those assets. 

Both the state Public Utilities Commission and the Attorney General’s office have filed complaints against PG&E’s reorganization plan. They say state law bars PG&E from transferring or selling power plants to a federally regulated affiliate. 

Consumer advocates, such as The Utility Reform Network, worry such a transfer would mean the loss of relatively cheap electricity for the state, and that rates eventually could rise again. 

Under state control, PG&E must work with the PUC, and hence, the public, to set prices for power from its plants. State lawmakers stopped PG&E and other utilities from selling their power plants when the new out-of-state owners of those plants allowed prices to soar. 

Ron Low, a PG&E spokesman, said the utility opposes a separate trial on these issues because “the issues raised by the Attorney General and the PUC can be addressed through the normal confirmation process.” 

Low added that the issues raised by the PUC and AG’s office are not listed within the bankruptcy code as such that qualify for a so-called adversary proceeding. 

Calls to the PUC and the Attorney General’s office were not immediately returned. 

California’s largest utility has asked federal regulators for permission to use its assets to form three new power companies. 

On Friday, PG&E filed six applications totalling about 20,000 pages with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and one application at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

The utility, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection April 6, must wait for a judge to approve its plan of reorganization before it can emerge from bankruptcy, into which it slid after a state rate freeze left it unable for months to collect the full price of electricity from its customers.

Construction on the Harrison Skate Park is underway again more than a year after the project was abruptly halted when the carcinogen Chromium 6 was discovered in groundwater on the site. 

The city has approved a $385,000 contract with Altman Engineers to construct a series of concrete skate bowls, some as deep as eight feet, at the southeastern corner of Harrison Soccer Field at Fifth and Harrison streets.  

The city spent $235,000 to remove and treat toxins on the site and according to Parks and Waterfront Director Lisa Caronna the money was well spent.  

“We have been continually testing the water at the site and the results show the treatments have been successful,” Caronna said. “We’re really excited to be moving ahead with this project. Now it’s just a matter of the rains staying away.” 

Caronna said the 18,000-square-foot skate park, which will include a host of skateboard features such as four to five-foot-high ledges, rails and rolls, will be finished this summer in time to accommodate an increasing number of skateboarding enthusiasts.  

“The popularity of the sport is growing and I see more and more skateboarders on the street everyday,” she said. 

According to Kevin Thatcher, the publisher of the San Francisco-based skateboard industry magazine THRASHER, there are now 11 million skateboarders, mostly under 18 years old, nationwide who qualify as “skaters.”  

“’Skaters’ are the kids who skate three to five times a week and usually have a scar or two, to show for it,” he said. “If you want to talk about the kids who have a skateboard in their closet that they use once in a while, the number is more like 20 million.” 

Construction was halted last November when the former contractor, Morris Construction, struck groundwater while excavating the skate bowls. Secore International was hired to pump the contaminated water into 20,000 gallon holding tanks where it was treated and released into the sanitary sewer. 

In addition the groundwater below the site was treated with bisulfates, which changed the Chromium 6 into the non-carcinogen Chromium 3. Then the bowls were filled with crushed rocks and sealed off, according to city Hazardous Materials Supervisor Nabil Al-Hadithy. 

Al-Hadithy added that despite the discovery of Chromium 6 in the skate bowls last year, the health risk was very low because Chromium 6 is dangerous only when ingested or inhaled. “From the time the groundwater showed up in the bowls there was an extremely small chance of its being ingested by human beings,” he said. 

The project, including clean up costs, is now at about $620,000, which is about $235,000 more than the original estimates. Caronna said the city is looking at its option on recouping some of the clean-up funds from the original source of the Chromium 6, Western Roto Engravers Color Tech on Sixth Street, which is located two blocks away from the skate park on Sixth Street. 

Construction began again last week on a redesigned skate park but the project has already experienced a minor setback because of the three inches of rain that fell over the weekend. The stormy weather filled the skate bowls with two-feet of rain water. As a safety precaution, Caronna said the water will be pumped out, filtered and released into the sanitary sewer. 

According to Altman Engineering Superintendent George Johnson, once the rain stops and the water is removed from the excavated bowls, the project will be finished quickly. “If we get some good clear weather, we can roll on this thing and have it done by April,” he said. 

Harrison Field has been controversial since the city purchased the land from the university a few years ago. Opponents of the park claim it is located in an environmentally questionable area. The park is nestled among three industrial manufacturers, Interstate 80 and a waste transfer station.

Tuesday, Dec. 4

Ghosts of Kroeber Hall: Anthropology and Native America 

4 p.m. 

UC Berkeley 

Morrison Room, Doe Library 

A lecture by Orin Starn, commemorating the UC Berkeley anthropology department’s centennial. 643-5651, http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/ anth/centennial.html. 

Why Freedom Matters More Than Ever 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

The Independent Institute 

100 Swan Way, Oakland 

Hoover Fellow and Economist David Henderson touts importance of free markets and liberty during wartime and economic recession. $12. 632-1366, www.independent.org. 

East Bay Mystery Readers Group 

7 p.m. 

Dark Carnival Bookstore 

3086 Claremont Ave. 

Informal gathering to discuss mysteries the first Tuesday of every month. This month's books are: Maggie Shayne, The Gingerbread Man; Ruth Rendell, Road Rage; and Noreen Wald, Remembrance of Murders Past. You don't have to read the books to come. 654-7323 

Berkeley City Council Meeting 

7 p.m. 

City Council Chambers 

2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

General Plan discussion.  

705-8102. 

The Spirit of Christmas Class 

7 - 9 p.m. 

1250 Addison  

Studio 103 

Explore the metaphysics of the Christmas Story. 540-8844, patricia@ newthoughtunity.org. 

Feldenkrais Chair Class for Seniors 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Gentle movement class for older adults. Free. ellmor1@home.com 

Feldenkrais Floor Class for Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Gentle movement class for older adults.  

Free. ellmor1@home.com 

Wednesday, Dec. 5

Commission on Disability 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Community members are welcome. dlbrown@ci. berkeley.ca.us, 981-6346. 

Timber Framing, Ancient and Modern 

7 - 10 p.m. 

Building Education Center 

812 Page St. 

Seminar by Timber Framers Guild member Dour Eaton. $35. 525-7610 

Advisory Council 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Community members are welcome. 644-6343 

Free Feldenkrais Class for Seniors 

11:45 a.m. 

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St. 

Gentle movement class for older adults.  

Lecture Series on Women Medieval Mystics 

7:30 - 9 p.m. 

All Souls Parish 

2220 Cedar St. 

Three Women Mystics: An Advent Lecture Series. Exploration of their spiritual quests designed to offer a new sense of spiritual possibilities in modern times. Free. Supervised childcare will be provided. 848-1755. 

Thursday, Dec. 6

Lunch Poems Reading Series 

12:10 p.m. 

UC Berkeley 

Zellerbach Playhouse 

The series continues with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder. 642-0137, www.berkeley.edu/calendar/events/poems/.  

Berkeley Special Education Parents Group (BSPED) Meeting 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Ala Costa Center 

1300 Rose St. 

Case managers from the Regional Center of the East Bay will discuss their services, and will formulate the spring agenda for special education advocacy. 558-8933, sandstep@ earthlink.net. 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission 

7 p.m. 

Planning and Development Dept. 

First Floor Conference Room 

2118 Milvia St.  

Green Business and Green Building positions. 705-8150, www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/. 

Bioterrorism, A Common Sense Look at Health Care Concerns 

6:30 - 8 p.m. 

Alta Bates Auditorium 

2450 Ashby Ave. 

Clinical experts from Alta Bates and the Alameda County Health Dept. are holding a neighborhood forum to answer the questions and concerns of local residents. Limited seating, reservations are required. Free. 204-1463 x2. 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club 

7 - 8 p.m. 

2515 Hillegass Ave. 

Practice public speaking about metaphysics, guests welcome! 848-6510, www.metaphysicallyspeaking.org. 

Montessori Campus Design  

Competition Exhibit  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Montessori School 

1581 LeRoy Ave. 

BMS is designing a new Elementary and Middle School campus, see the designs and give your feedback for jury consideration in selecting the winner. 843-9374, sharline@well.com. 

Snowshoeing Basics 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

A slide presentation will be followed by a review of basic snowshoe fit and design, as well as pointers on technique and winter safety preparedness. 527-4140 

Friday, Dec. 7

PEN Oakland & Literature  

Without Borders:“War & Peace” 

5:30 - 8 p.m. 

Pro Arts 

461 9th St., Oakland 

Issues of War and Peace through poetry, and prose from Bay Area authors. 525-3948, kimmac@pacbell.net. 

Lunchtime Lecture 

12 p.m. 

City Commons Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

UC Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian discusses US relations in the Middle East. $1 admission with coffee, $11 - $12.25 admission with lunch. 

Dunsmuir Historic Estate  

Holiday Season 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland 

Volunteers have transformed the 50-acre estate and the 1899 mansion into a holiday event. 925-275-9595, www.dunsmuir.org. 

Civil Liberties Talk 

7 p.m. 

AK Press 

674-A 23rd St., Oakland 

A radical reading of civil liberties. Author Christian Parenti and filmmaker Jose Palafox speak about dissent, blowback, security, surveilance and policing. 208-1700, molly@akpress.org. 

Silent Auction to Break the 

Silence: Through the Eyes of  

the Judged 

6 - 10 p.m. 

Downtown Oakland YWCA 

1515 Webster St. 

A benefit for the Prison Activist Resource Center featuring speakers, music, food. $10-40, no one turned away for lack of funds. 893-4648 x108 

Saturday, Dec. 8

31st annual KPFA Community  

Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

The Concourse 

8th & Brannan streets 

220 juried craftsmakers & artists show their best work in a mellow ambiance offering natural foods from many cultures, world music & dance performances & wise speakers. $7, Benefits KPFA Free Speech Radio. 848.6767 x609 www.kpfa.org 

Editor: 

John Geluardi had an article on hepatitis in the 11/30 issue which had several important errors. He quoted Jessie Wofsy, an HIV Prevention Coordinator, as saying that there is no cure for Hepatitis C. The fact is that current anti-viral treatments can clear virus from the system in 1/4 of those with type (genome) 1 and 2/3 get clearance of virus as well as normalization of liver enzyme tests with types 2 and 3 (see R Zetterman's address to the 65th annual American College of Gastroenterology proceedings, reported at Medscape.com). Followup of these patients is for probably less than five years, but this is a far cry from “no cure.” 

The importance of a person with Hep C getting evaluated is that he/she can be offered treatment, if that is indicated (people with normal liver tests don't get treatment). Over time, if cirrhosis becomes an issue, they can be referred on to one of the groups doing treatment for advanced liver disease, which may include liver transplantation. The Liver Dept from Calif Pacific has an East Bay clinic for this purpose in Oakland (called East Bay Liver Clinic, I think).  

Secondly, Ms. Wofsy stated that Hepatitis A and B...can be treated with vaccines. Wrong again – vaccines prevent disease, they cannot alter the course of an infection once it has gotten hold. Hep A vaccine is commonly recommended for travelers to areas with questionable food or water supplies. Hep B is given to people who will have exposure to blood or body fluids.  

Robert Winshall, MD, MPH 

Berkeley 

Music 

924 Gilman St. Dec. 7: Har Mar Superstar, The Pattern, The Blast Rocks, Your Enemies’ Friends, Hate Mail Express; Dec. 8: Scurvy Dogs, Nigel Peppercock, Shut The Fuck Up, Offering To The Sun, Voetsek; Dec. 9: Poison The Well, Unearth, Sworn Enemy, Spark Lights The Friction; Dec. 14: Hot Water Music, American Steel, F-Minus, Trial By Fire; Dec. 15: Strung Out, Limp, The Frisk, The Deadlines, The Creeps; Dec. 16: 5 p.m., Good Riddance, Missing 23rd, Downway, Audio Crush; Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; Dec. 22: The Lab Rats, Onetime Angels, A great Divide, Last Great Liar, Gabriel’s Ratchet; Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Over My Dead Body, Panic, Breaker Breaker, Some Still Believe; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 4: Panacea; Dec. 5: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 6: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 11: Mad & Eddic Duran Jazz Duo; Dec. 13: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 15: Larry Stefl Jazz Quartet; Dec. 18: Panacea; Dec. 19: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series Dec. 9: 8 p.m., The Toids; $0 - $20, TUVA Space, 3192 Adeline. 649-8744, http://sfsound.org/acme.html. 

Anna’s Dec. 4: Singers’ Open Mike #1; Dec. 5: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 6: Graham Richards Jazz Quartet; Dec. 7: Anna and Ellen Hoffman on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 8: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory, Bill Bell at the piano; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 9: Choro Time; Dec. 10: Renegade Sidemen w/ Calvin Keyes; Dec. 11: Singers’ Open Mike #2; Dec. 12: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 13: Rev. Rabia, The Blueswoman; Dec. 14: Anna and Mark Little on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 15: Jazz Singers Vicki Burns and Felice York; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 16: The Jazz Fourtet; Dec. 17: Renegade Sidemen w/ Calvin Keyes; Dec. 18: Tangria Jazz Trio; Dec. 19: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 20: Jazz Singers’ Collective; Dec. 21: Anna and Percy Scott on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 22: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 23: Jazz Singer Ed Reed; All music starts 8 p.m. unless noted. 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Cal Performances Dec. 19: Berkeley Symphony, $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus, Bancroft Way at Telegraph, 642-0212 tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; 8 p.m. unless noted. 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Dec. 5: Avalon Blues: Peter Case, Dave Alvin and Bill Morrissey; Dec. 6: Ray Bonneville; Dec. 7 & 8: Rebecca Riots; All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. Call 548-1761 for prices or see www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Jazzschool/La Note Dec. 9: 4:30 p.m., Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound, $6 - $12, reservations recommended. 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 www.jazzschool.com 

Jupiter Dec. 5: J Dogs; Dec. 6: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 7: AVI Bortnick Group; Dec. 8: Harvey Wainapel Quartet; Dec. 12: Mushroom; Dec. 13: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 14: Broun Fellini’s; Dec. 15: Norah Jones and Jim Campilongo; Dec. 19: Spectraphonic; Dec. 20: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 29: Berkeley Jazz School Presents: Kirk Tamura Trio; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 7: 8:30 p.m., John Calloway & Diaspora, $12; Dec. 8: 9:30 p.m., Dr. Loco’s Rocking Jalapeño Band, $10; Dec. 9: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; Dec. 9: 7:30 p.m., Trio Altamira Reunion Concert, $12-$14; Dec. 14: 8 p.m., Holly Near, $15-$17; Dec. 16: 5 p.m, Flamenca Community Juerga, Free; Dec. 16: 7 p.m, Modupue & UpSurge, $8; Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 8: Jonah Minton Quartet, Julie’s Healthy Cafe, 2562 Bancroft; Dec. 9: Hebro, Blakes, 2367 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 15: Thelonious On The Move, Bison Brewing, 2598 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 16: Howard Kadis, Musical Offering Cafe, 2430 Bancroft; Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

Rose Street House Dec. 14 & 15: 7:30 p.m., Benefit Concert and Birthday Party, Shelly Doty and grassroots community of women singers and song writers; Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@yahoo.com. 

“Guitar, Woodwinds, Drums” Dec. 8: 8 p.m., The Bill Horvitz Band, Ben Goldberg’s What Music. Tuva Space, 3192 Adeline St. 

Theater 

“Seventy Scenes of Halloween” Dec. 7: 8 p.m.; Dec. 8: 8 p.m., 10:30 p.m.; Dec. 9: 7 p.m.; BareStage Productions, UC Berkeley’s original student theater company, presents a macbre farce written by Jeffrey M. Jones and directed by Desdemona Chiang. $8. UC Berkeley, Choral Rehearsal Hall. 682-3880, barestage@ucchoral. berkeley.edu. 

“Brave Brood” Through Dec. 16: Robert O’Hara directs Robert O’Hara’s searing tale of money, desperation, and the fight for survival. $20. Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. 883-0305 www.transparenttheater.org 

“Black Nativity” Dec. 7 through Dec. 16th: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2:30 p.m., 8 p.m., Sun. 5:30 p.m. The birth of Jesus unfolds in this drama written by Langston Hughes. Directed and produced by Betty Gadling. $15 adults, $8 seniors and students, $5 children over 5. Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland 569-9418 www.allen-temple.org 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

Films 

Pacific Film Archive Theater Dec. 6: 7 p.m., Bizarre, Bizarre; 8:50 p.m., The Green Man; Dec. 7: 7 p.m., Smiles of a Summer Night; 9:05 p.m., Cluny Brown; Bancroft Way, 642-1124 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Exhibits 

“Furniture Art” Through Dec. 7: An exhibit of metal and wood furniture that revisits furniture not only as art but as craft. 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. The Current Gallery at the Crucible, 1036 Ashby Ave. 843-5511 www.thecrucible.org 

“Berkeley Creations,” Dec. 8 & Dec. 15: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., A group exhibit. Artist-at-Play Studio and Gallery, 1649 Hopkins St., 528-0494. 

“The Paintings of Bethany Anne Ayers and Sculpture of Alexander Cheves” Through Dec. 15: Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Ardency Gallery, 709 roadway, Oakland. 836-0831 gallery709@aol.com 

“The Whole World’s Watching: Peace and Social Justice Movements of the 1960s and 1970s” Through Dec. 16: A documentary photo exhibition which examines the rich history of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Wed. - Sun., noon - 5 p.m. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., Live Oak Park. Free. 644-6893 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222 

“The Art History Museum of Berkeley” 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 Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9 2028 Ninth St. 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

Readings 

Coffee With A Beat - Word Beat reading series: Dec. 8: Jeanne Powell, Kelly Kraatz; Dec. 15: Norm Milstein, Barbara Minton; Dec. 22: Debra Grace Khattab, Jesy Goldhammer; Dec. 29: Steve Arntson, Michelle Erickson, Clare Lewis; All readings are free and begin at 7 p.m., 458 Perkins, Oakland, 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat. 

The Humanist Fellowship Hall Dec. 5: 7 p.m., “Our Wings Are Pregnant Seesaws” a play by H. D. Moe. A reading performance by the theatre workshop. 390 27th St., Oakland, 528-8713 

“Rhythm & Muse Open Mic” Dec. 15: 7 p.m., Featuring poets Lara Dale and Mary-Marcia Casoly. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 527-9753 

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Fridays 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. or by appointment. Call ahead to make reservations. Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

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 Sun., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sun., noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

Museums 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins; $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Mon. and Wed., 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tues. and Fri., 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thur., 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Oakland Museum of California Dec. 8 & 9: 32nd Annual Bay Area Fungus Fair, the world of the mushroom will be explored in exhibits, lectures, slide shows, cooking demos, etc.. Through Jan. 13: Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff, featuring paintings and works on paper that trace the evolution of Bischoff’s career. $6 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. Wed. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. noon - 5 p.m., 10th St., Oakland, 888-625-6873/ www.museumca.org 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 foot 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. Mon. through Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will close its exhibition galleries for renovation. It will reopen in early 2002.  

University of California Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive has reopened after its summerlong seismic retrofit. “Martin Puryear: Sculpture of the 1990s” through Jan. 13; “The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 - 1982)” through Dec. 16; “Face of Buddha: Sculpture from India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia” ongoing rotation through 2003; “Matrix 194: Jessica Bronson, Heaps, layers, and curls” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; “Matrix 192: Ceal Floyer 37’4”” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way; Museum Galleries 2626 Bancroft Way; 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Lawrence Hall of Science Through Jan. 26: Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters; “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. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. 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  

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

It’s the underwear, stupid! 

That’s how you gauge the health of a city’s economy. 

And Berkeley’s not doing so well, if you ask Mayor Shirley Dean. 

In fact, as she told some 60 Chamber of Commerce folk at a $30-a-pop lunch at the Radisson Thursday: “When you want to buy underwear, you have to drive to Walnut Creek.” 

“I don’t want Berkeley to become another Walnut Creek,” moaned the diminutive mayor peeking out from behind her bully pulpit. 

Walnut Creek, like Emeryville, Oakland and El Cerrito are not beautiful, she said. Berkeley is. Or would be without those ugly weeds in the overgrown median strip running down University Avenue. People would shop in Berkeley if it was beautiful – and if there were the things here that people needed – like underwear, for starters. 

And why does the city lack undies for sale? 

The answer’s transparent.  

It’s the renown ANTI-business climate, promoted by the council majority – Spring, Worthington, Shirek, Breland, Maio, all part of the mayor’s foe faction generally called “progressive” (which the Hearst Chronicle has more recently taken to calling “leftist.”) 

Dean reminded the crowd – which had one eye on her and one on a tantalizing sundae-looking cholesterol-packed dessert – about when Eddie Bauer’s was under construction and city planners were out daily, tape measures in hand, making sure the remodel didn’t push its boundaries beyond what the codes allowed.  

“This battle is what it’s like to bring new businesses to the city,” she said. “We need to remember history so we don’t forget it.” 

The mayor’s example of planning department overzealousness exemplifies the foundation of a Bad Business Climate in Berkeley. 

Another anti-business measure Dean cited is the likelihood that the council majority will vote to keep new office space out of West Berkeley in favor of saving the space for manufacturing, light industry and artisans. 

Still another example is the fight against the addition of parking downtown. And the mayor says she can’t find one group in the city to support her call for underground parking at civic center – Chamber Prez Reid Edwards says his group is yet to take a position on it. 

“Berkeley seems on the brink of sending a message, ‘Don’t come here,’” Dean said. 

And why’s the mayor so bent on drumming up local business? It’s the senseless way our cities are supported. Our legislative fathers and mothers in Sacramento (and the “wisdom” of Prop. 13 voters) have made the local sales-tax base a critical element in fueling city economies. The more Berkeley’s business thrives, the more money flows to city coffers.  

In Berkeley, sales tax makes up about 14 percent of the city’s general fund, which pays police, firefighters, parks, much of public works and more. 

So if you have to drive to Walnut Creek to buy your socks, you’re depriving the city of services. And if someone from Walnut Creek buys his boxers in Berkeley, he’s supporting our city’s economy as well.  

Which is, of course, why some folks might ask why the Berkeley Chamber held a “mixer” in Richmond last week…. 

(Edwards explains that people outside the city belong to the Berkeley Chamber - such as businesses that do business with Berkeley business...) 

Still, not everyone has a problem finding undies this side of the Caldecott. One public official I chatted with (admittedly in my COSTCO-bought briefs) in the locker room at the Y on Sunday said she can sometimes find underwear at Ross Dress for Less. But you can’t count on it, she said, unless you don’t mind tiny orange pumpkins on your underpants, and pink socks. She finds shorts for her husband at the above-mentioned Eddie Bauer, while Chamber Prez Reid Edwards gets his at Ross’ as does Toxics Division Manager Nabil Al-Hadithy and Dave Fogarty, who works in economic development. Dave’s boss, Bill Lambert, who lives in Oakland, however, gets his underwear near where he lives – at Sears or Long’s, he says. 

And Mayoral Nemesis Kriss Worthington – also at the chamber event – (he complains they actually made him stand just outside the door since he just wanted to hear the speech and hadn’t paid for lunch) – swears people can find reasonably-priced underwear at Bancroft Clothing Company on Bancroft Way and some fancier men’s boxer’s at Bill’s Men’s Shop on Telegraph. 

“Yes, there might be some people who go to Walnut Creek (to buy underwear),” Worthington said. But it’s a myth “to say you can’t buy here and that you have to go far away.” 

Worthington called Dean’s focus “suburban mall envy,” and pointed to Blockbuster Video and Barnes & Noble as businesses that don’t deserve city support. They came in and built one-story businesses, rather than building up and providing housing, he said. 

The former interim executive director of the Telegraph Avenue Area Association, Worthington says that he’s asked the chamber president for equal time for the council progressives to address the body – but not at a lunchtime meeting. Edwards said he’s open to it. 

The real question to ask, when Worthington and his buddies come before the chamber to talk economics, is not whether more parking should be built or whether parking meters should be abolished – the key will be whether, underneath it all, Worthington will be sporting Berkeley bought briefs. 

Stay tuned to this space… 

Tuesday, Dec. 4 

• 4 p.m. 

Institute of Industrial Relations 

2521 Channing Way 

Support Immigrant Rights in the Wake of Sept. 11 

The tragedy of Sept. 11 changed the lives of millions, but none more so than the community of undocumented workers and other immigrants. Before Sept. 11, this nation, from grassroots activists to DC politicians, was involved in a far-reaching debate on legalization of undocumented workers. The call for a general amnesty for 10 million workers extended from the halls of congress to President Vicente Fox of Mexico. There was hope for an amnesty program that would change the lives of millions of the hardest working but poorest residents of the US. Now racism threatens the progress made. The new USA Patriot anti-terrorism bill is now law and puts all immigrants at risk for arbitrary arrest, detention, and deportation. 

Micah Clatterbough 

841-0690, enigmicah@ altavista.com 

Wednesday, Dec. 5 

• 12:15 p.m. at the Reflecting Pond (near Memorial Glade) on the UC Berkeley campus. All members of any (or no) religious tradition are welcome to join with other people of faith and good will in praying for lasting peace. It is expected that the service will take about 15 minutes. Each service will reflect the religious tradition of the group sponsoring it that month. December's prayers will be prepared by the Unitarian/Universalist group on campus.  

For more information, call the Rev. Gary Brower at 510-845-5838.  

Friday, Dec. 7 

• 7 p.m. 

Peace through peaceful means: althernatives to the spiral of violence 

Video and talk by Dr. Johan Galtung, of the International Peace Reasearch Institute, Oslo, Norway. Discussion follows, led by Vietnam war resister Leonard McNeil. $5 - $10 sliding scale. Call 841-4824. 

Gerta Farber of Oakland (11/29) muses how easily Osama bin Laden could sneak anywhere under a burka. Maybe that's why everyone's keeping an eye out for a 6-foot 5-inch Pashtun woman...... 

Janet Foldvary 

Berkeley 

The holidays are rapidly approaching and Harry Potter toys are disappearing like magic. But all hope is not lost. Stevanne Auerbach, PhD., better known as “Dr. Toy,” can recommend 100 safe, creative and educational alternatives. 

Auerbach, a Berkeley-based, nationally recognized expert on the power of play, posts a comprehensive list of toys in eight categories – from “audio/visual,” to “creative,” to “socially-responsible” – on her web site, www.drtoy.com. 

Several of the toys she is recommending this year are made by local manufacturers. Woodkins, a series of simple, wooden, dress-up dolls are made by Pamela Drake, Inc. of Berkeley. 

“My First Puppets” soft book, produced by Folkmanis of Emeryville, is a “first book” for toddlers, which includes hand puppets for adults and finger puppets for toddlers on its pages – allowing for parent-child play. 

“Imagination Desk,” for 3- to 7- year-olds, is a small desk made by LeapFrog of Emeryville. It is an interactive toy, which, among other things, includes letters of the alphabet and sounds them out when pressed by children. 

Auerbach says this feature is useful because parents and teachers often do not have the time, or patience, to repeatedly sound out every letter of the alphabet for their children. 

This nugget of advice is just one among many that Auerbach has picked up during a lifetime of study, which began with a degree in education and psychology at Queen’s College in New York City in 1960, included a stint at the U.S. Department of Education in the Johnson and Nixon administrations, and continues today at the Institute for Childhood Resources, a Berkeley non–profit founded by Auerbach in 1975 that maintains the Dr. Toy web site and provides workshops on toys and play for local institutions. 

Auerbach, who received her doctorate in child development and child psychology at Union Institute, the graduate division of Antioch College in Ohio, says that play is vital to a young person’s development. 

“The best learning happens when a child is at play,” she said. “When we force a child to sit still and we stuff her with information, she is not learning very much.” 

Auerbach emphasized that children often engage in the most creative, productive play when they make use of simple toys that allow for the broad use of imagination. 

For instance, a child can turn a simple box into a playroom, she said, filling it with homemade furniture and decorations, and forming doors and windows on the walls. Likewise, a can of Play–Doh can turn into bread or cake during housekeeping play. 

Auerbach said that parents should try to integrate toys, and play in general, into a child’s larger education about the world. If a kid forms a loaf of bread with play dough one day, she said, a parent would do well to take the child to the grocery store and teach that youngster about the price and uses of flour and yeast. 

Dorothy Hewes, Professor Emeritus of Child and Family Development at San Diego State said that Auerbach has made important contributions to the study of play, and has provided a valuable public service by highlighting simple educational toys that do not cost too much money. 

“I think parents and children are being horribly exploited by commercialism,” said Hewes. “Dr. Toy is able to cut through that and see the true value of new toys for children.” 

But Auerbach says that toys are not just for children. She urges adults to use play in their own lives. 

“As we get older, we should not forget how important toys are,” she said. Use a jump rope or a hula hoop to relieve stress, she tells adults. “Even hugging a teddy bear when you’re lonely can be helpful,” she said.  

The Daily Planet received a copy of the following letter written to the mayor and council: 

I’m writing in support of Policy T-35 and exploration of the many alternatives to creating more parking in Berkeley’s congested areas. I have lived here a long time and the evidence that inviting more cars in makes for any improvement in the quality of this town’s public life is exactly zero. 

We already have more traffic much of the time than our streets can safely handle, a problem which compounds itself as people are afraid to bike or let their kids bike or walk. Is the example of downtown San Francisco our rationale for trying to shoehorn more cars onto our streets? 

If we build more garages, increased traffic could even force those of us who bike or walk in Berkeley back into our cars as the streets become more dangerous. And since most shoppers have to be pedestrians for at least a block or two, the craziness of our crosswalks will come back to bite us when people notice that the city’s charm has gotten the worst of it in a collision with a few thousand automobiles.  

If the game is “How Emeryville can you be?” we’ll lose. Emeryville will get our business, and our soul will have wandered off to some quiet neighborhood with a cute café and two or three funky specialty shops, the next Fourth Street waiting to be discovered. 

Please, let’s just try to keep Berkeley clean and inviting, with traffic laws enforced so humans are safe here, and public transit and bikes given priority. 

And to get more shoppers downtown, let’s do all we can to provide and/or facilitate car-free ways for them to get there. 

Ann Sieck 

Berkeley  

You’ve read up on how solar panels work, and now you’re considering installing them on your building to reduce your monthly electrical bill, or perhaps to have power during an emergency. But what do you do first? 

Without a doubt, conservation and efficiency is the very first step in calculating your energy use for sizing a solar system. Without doing this step first, you will be paying for a system that is much larger than your actual needs. Conservation measures can save you thousands of dollars on an oversized solar electric system. 

Since solar systems only work when the sun is out, and are still rather expensive for the average homeowner to have installed, it makes sense to stop wasting energy first, and reduce the amount of energy you use. Compact fluorescent bulbs, EnergyStar appliances (especially refrigerators), using daylight instead of electric light, turning off lights and appliances when not in use, and using power strips with “kill” switches to turn off appliances completely will all help reduce your energy consumption. If you haven’t done these things yet, you are wasting energy and more money than any solar system could ever save you. 

Once your energy bill has been reduced through conservation measures, you are nearly ready for a solar electric installation. There are still several things left to do: 1) make certain that your rooftop or installation location has sufficient access to sunlight at all times of the year; 2) calculate the size of the system that you require; 3) contact your local utility to begin the paperwork for a Net Metering agreement, and submit an application for a rebate (more about that at the end of this column); 4) contact a licensed solar installer or qualified electrician and get at least three quotes; 5) secure electrical and other related permits. 

How do you calculate the size of your system? Begin by collecting the past year’s worth of your electric bills. Each bill indicates the number of kilowatt hours (kWh) used per month, and per day. A watt is an instantaneous measurement of electrical power, and must be measured over time to gauge usage; generally we use hours to measure use. Measured over time, 1,000 watts per hour is a kilowatt hour. An average household might use 240 kilowatt hours (kWh) in a month, with an average of 8 kWh a day.  

A 100-watt panel will generate 100 watts of electricity per hour in full sunlight. Berkeley is calculated to have an average of 5.5 hours of usable sunlight per day on average throughout the year (about 10 hours in summer, less than three in winter). A single 100-watt panel will generate 550 watts of power in a 5.5 hour period of peak sunlight (Berkeley’s yearly average). If the home uses 8 kilowatt hours of energy per day, it will take 14 or 15 panels to supply enough power on average year round: more than enough to generate excess power in the summer to retrieve for later use in winter under a Net Metering agreement. Calculate: 14 panels multiplied times 100 watts, multiplied times 5.5 hours equals 7,700 watts per hour, or 7.7 kilowatt hours.  

Here is where energy conservation will pay off. Panels cost from $300 to $700 each depending on efficiency and watts, so the fewer panels you need, the less expensive your entire system will be. You will still need an inverter and controller. Batteries are optional, since they are only needed for back-up power during the rare times that your utility power is unavailable. 

What do you do if you need more panels than you have room for? If your roof will not accommodate the 15 or 20 panels your building needs, or your site is shaded by adjacent buildings or trees, you may not be able to “zero out” at the end of a year under your Net Metering agreement. You should consider installing only those panels that will receive the maximum amount of sunlight year round; or, you may want to invest in a tracking system so that your panels receive the maximum amount of sunlight daily. If the extra costs make your payback period more than the expected life of your panels, or the extra weight means that you have to invest in reinforcing your roof, a tracking system may not be your best option. 

One other type of solar panel is available for limited applications. These are called “plug-in” panels, and have built-in inverters and controllers. They do not require licensed installers, although you will still need to have a Net Metering agreement with your utility. The advantage of these panels is that they do not require lots of complicated equipment, and can save much of the cost of installation. The disadvantage is the cost of the panels: for a 150-watt system, about $3,000, which generates less than a single kilowatt hour per day on average. 

Plug-in panels can be used with batteries, and can provide limited power in the event of a power loss, but in general their cost is too great for most homeowner applications. They are great for RV’s and boats, or for renters who would want to take the panel with them when they move.  

Once you have calculated roughly the amount of watts and number of panels you will need, verified that you have enough suitable (south-facing and unshaded) roof space, and have contacted your utility for a Net Metering agreement, you should contact three licensed, experienced installers to give you an estimate of cost for parts and labor. A qualified contractor can design the most efficient system for you. 

Rebates are available from the California Energy Commission. As of this writing, rebates are $4.50 per watt for all sizes of systems or 50 percent of the cost of equipment and installation by a licensed contractor, whichever is less, up to a maximum of $50,000. The amount of the rebate will depend on the costs of the inverter and controller equipment. To reserve your rebate, you must first fill out and send in the application forms. The system must be installed within nine months or receipt of the application. Contact the CEC at 1-800-555-7794, or go to www.consumerenergycenter.org/buydown/program.html for complete details.  

The California Energy Commission also provides a free online guide to solar energy at www.energy.ca.gov/reports/2001-09-04_500-01-020.PDF. This is a basic guide to PV system design and installation, and provides detailed information on equipment wiring, voltage drop calculations and much more. Installing PV systems is complicated and should only be done by a qualified, licensed installer. Other rebate information can be obtained at www.consumerenergycenter.org. 

After your system has been designed and drawn up, you are ready to apply for permits from the city’s Permit Service Center. For information on permitting processes, contact the Permit Service Center, 2120 Milvia Street, Berkeley.  

For other information on solar systems, net metering, and energy conservation, contact Berkeley’s Energy Office website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ENERGY, or 981-5435.  

Editor: 

Friends of Strawberry Creek is a community group founded about a year ago to protect and restore Strawberry Creek throughout its watershed. We are among more than 100 community groups that have voted to endorse the Ecocity Amendment to Berkeley’s General Plan, which may be finalized in coming weeks. In addition to promoting the health of the creek and improving water quality, an important part of the Friends of Strawberry Creek mission is to promote the daylighting of Strawberry Creek downtown and elsewhere along its route from the Strawberry Canyon to the San Francisco Bay. 

We think the Ecocity Amendment and related Heart of the City project would help to jump-start the process of opening up Strawberry Creek downtown, a proposal that has been kicking around for years. Ecocity policy No. 3 specifically incorporates natural elements such as Strawberry Creek into downtown redevelopment. 

As a Berkeley resident and creekside property owner, and speaking for myself and not Friends of Strawberry Creek, I think the Ecocity Amendment would help to create the kind of city that I want to live in. I want a pedestrian-friendly city with higher-density housing downtown and in designated centers, and ecologically designed projects. 

Some residents and business owners have cited parking downtown as a reason for not building more intensively downtown. I have lived in Berkeley for five years without a car. Personally, I’m not opposed to additional parking downtown, but I would like to see replacement parking only. The main transportation problem in Berkeley is that we don’t have enough housing for all the people who work here, so there are more cars on the street as people drive in from outside the city.  

The Ecocity Amendment would help to rectify this situation by codifying the city’s support for additional housing near public transportation. Indeed, the Gaia Building, one-half block from BART, has not even filled the parking spots it was required to provide. Living in Berkeley without a car has not been a problem for me, but conditions can certainly be much improved for car-free residents. The Ecocity Amendment, which encourages an exciting, pedestrian friendly urban environment, deserves strong support and adoption by the city council into the General Plan. 

Janet Byron 

Founder, Friends of  

Strawberry Creek 

Berkeley 

Police in Berkeley say that a domestic disturbance led to the arrest of two people on suspicion of assault in what is being considered a minor standoff situation. 

Police Lt. Cynthia Harris said that officers responded to the 2300 block of Ninth Street at about 5:30 a.m. Monday to investigate reports of an argument between a man and a woman.  

When officers arrived the man barricaded himself inside the house, Harris said. 

A neighbor told police that the suspect had several firearms inside the house, but the suspect did not threaten to shoot anyone, Harris said. 

The 52-year-old suspect surrendered to police at about 6:45 without incident. He and the woman, who is 48, were taken into custody and booked on assault charges, Harris said.

Editor: 

Without a doubt we all would like to return to the days of a smaller student population. Realistically, the fact is that the city, as well as the university, needs to start planning now for the coming increase in students. 

This increase will also require additional faculty and staff. 

Appropriately designed and sited housing and commercial development can enhance the downtown and, in so doing, can complement and make possible the restoration of the creeks and greenways connecting the hills, campus and downtown to the Eastshore State Park. 

With permitted and encouraged creative planning, the coming increase in population will benefit Berkeley's revitalized downtown and at the same time the city can become an urban, environmental model. 

I enthusiastically endorse this Amendment and urge the Council to vote its adoption. 

Sylvia McLaughlin 

Berkeley 

MENLO PARK — Ten years ago, a Stanford University physicist created the first U.S. Web site — three lines of text, with one link to e-mail and another link to a huge scientific database. 

Paul Kunz’s basic Web site, which first appeared Dec. 12, 1991, was the first U.S. site on the World Wide Web, which was then just a year old. 

In celebration, a two-day symposium at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center titled “The Once and Future Web” is bringing together some of those involved in creating the Web to discuss its future. The symposium began Monday. 

Kunz decided to build his site after visiting the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva and meeting with British programmer Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee and his colleagues had set up the first Web server and created a site. 

“I don’t think, 10 years ago, anyone foresaw it would grow this fast,” Kunz said. “There’s a whole generation of people growing up who think the Web’s always existed. 

The Web has developed considerably, with graphics, motion and sound, and even an industry that has built up around it. 

The anniversary comes after a collapse in that industry, but Mark Pesce, the author of “The Playful World: How Technology is Transforming our Imagination,” still sees the Web as an integrated part of people’s lives with access becoming available on even more appliances. 

“It’s that kind of world we’re evolving into,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s not just sitting at a computer.” 

SAN JOSE — Bankrupt Excite@Home reached a tentative deal to keep its fast Internet service up and running for many of its subscribers but not those with AT&T Broadband, which scrambled Monday to restore access for 520,000 accounts. 

Excite@Home and some cable companies signed a nonbinding letter Sunday that ensured a service extension, at least temporarily. Talks on a definitive agreement continued Monday. 

Those negotiations had begun even before Friday, when a federal bankruptcy judge let Excite@Home cancel “clearly burdensome” contracts with cable companies. ExciteAtHome said the deals were costing the company up to $6 million per week. 

Excite@Home, whose Internet access service had 3.7 million subscribers in North America, severed connections for more than 850,000 AT&T Broadband customers Saturday after the two companies failed to reached agreement. 

By Monday, AT&T said it had moved about 330,000 of those subscribers, mainly in Oregon, Washington and the Dallas area, to its own network and restored their Internet access. 

Next in line were more than 300,000 customers in Illinois and the San Francisco Bay area. 

After losing her Web access Saturday, Rita Cherry, 76, of Livermore, awoke Monday to see the telltale green lights had returned to her cable modem. Her first check of the Internet featured a welcome message from AT&T about its new network. 

“I felt something was going to happen pretty quick because otherwise, too many people are going to lose money,” said Cherry, who finds her high-speed Web access essential to her work as a tax preparer. 

Steve Lindemann, 45, of Redmond, Wash., was switched to the new network Sunday and noticed no difference in its performance. 

However, he and his wife, Allyn, noticed that e-mails sent to their old “@Home” address were not being forwarded to their new AT&T-supplied e-mail account. 

Customers in Denver and Salt Lake City were due to be plugged into AT&T’s new network Wednesday; people in Hartford, Conn., Pittsburgh, Sacramento and Rocky Mountain cities on Thursday; Michigan on Friday. 

AT&T asked customers to remain patient, saying its employees were “working literally around the clock.” Once service is restored, AT&T said, customers will get two free days of Internet access for every day they were down. 

Service to other cable companies that sell Internet access through Excite@Home’s network were not cut off. 

One of the largest, Cox Communications Inc., was part of the group that reached a tentative deal Sunday with Excite@Home. That arrangement is considered a stopgap measure until Cox can begin moving its 550,000 Excite@Home subscribers to its own high-speed network this month, spokeswoman Laura Oberhelman said Monday. 

Similarly, St. Louis-based Charter Communications Inc. had been using Excite@Home to provide cable Internet access to 145,000 subscribers, but in hopes of assuring stability in the service, it is moving 90 percent of them onto a Charter-run network. 

The remaining 14,000 Charter customers on the Excite@Home service are in the Pacific Northwest. Charter was not part of the group that struck Sunday’s deal, but was continuing to negotiate with Excite@Home, Charter spokeswoman Deb Seidel said. 

Excite@Home spokeswoman Estela Mendoza declined to comment Monday. 

The Redwood City-based company has sought to exact higher payments from cable companies to connect to its network. Excite@Home and its bondholders hope to prove the network is worth substantially more than the $307 million AT&T has offered for it. 

AT&T, which owns 23 percent of Excite@Home, surrendered its majority representation on the company’s board in October, hoping to avoid criticism it had engineered the company’s bankruptcy so it could buy the cable access network at a steep discount. 

The latest developments appeared to make it unlikely that AT&T would maintain its bid for the network. An AT&T Broadband spokeswoman declined to comment. 

——— 

On The Net: 

http://www.home.net 

http://www.attbroadband.com 

http://www.cox.com 

http://www.charter.com 

RODEO — Children living in a public housing project near a refinery in this Bay Area community suffer from a high rate of asthma and allergies, and an environmental group says the plant may be to blame. 

At least one child has asthma or allergies in half the families in the Bayo Vista housing project south of the Phillips 66 refinery, according to a survey released Monday by Communities for a Better Environment, a pollution watchdog group. 

“The numbers people are reporting should raise questions and prompt further investigation,” said Rachel Morello Frosch, a San Francisco State public health researcher who helped design the survey. “It indicates valid community concern about the health effects of refinery emissions and air pollution in Bayo Vista.” 

The watchdog group found 62 percent of the families surveyed connected their children’s health problems to community environmental conditions. Forty percent had a child taking asthma medication. 

Bayo Vista project residents ages 12 to 17 went door-to-door to conduct the survey last year. They were members of a Communities for a Better Environment youth group. 

Nearly 80 of the 242 households in Bayo Vista answered the survey. 

Many factors can trigger asthma, including dust, mold and air pollution. Children living in low-income areas typically experience a higher rate of asthma cases, health officials said. 

“Asthma can’t be blamed on one source,” said Phillips 66 spokeswoman Mary Jen Beach, noting that the survey does not prove the refinery caused asthma, allergies or rashes. “It could be the combination of several things.”

SAN FRANCISCO — MedImmune Inc. said Monday it will pay more than $1 billion in stock to acquire Aviron, the maker of a promising nasal-spray flu vaccine now awaiting government approval. 

If consummated, the deal would be one of the largest such biotechnology deals yet. 

“I expect to see more deals of similar size,” said Bill Tanner, an analyst with S.G. Cowen Securities Inc., adding that larger biotech companies such as Gaithersburg, Md.-based MedImmune need to quickly add new products to continue to grow. 

Buying smaller rivals with products on the market or close to federal approval is the quickest way to add revenues, Tanner said. 

Mountain View-based Aviron has developed FluMist, a vaccine that is sprayed into the nose instead of injected by needle, the current vaccination method. Aviron hopes the Food and Drug Administration will approve FluMist next year in time for flu season. 

Many doctors say the pain-free method would encourage more people to get vaccinated for the flu, a virus that still kills 20,000 Americans each year and hospitalizes 100,000. 

Aviron had hoped to be selling the vaccine by now, but an FDA committee said in July it was concerned that FluMist uses live influenza virus and could pose a risk to children. The committee asked for more data, which will be provided by the end of the year, MedImmune CEO David Mott said Monday in a conference call. 

The FDA committee did say the vaccine is effective and eventually could be made safe for Americans to use, prompting expectations of approval. 

Once approved, Mott said he expects the vaccination to generate $1 billion in annual sales. Mott predicts FluMist will push MedImmune’s revenues to $2.1 billion in 2006. The company earned $326 million in the first nine months of 2001, mostly on sales of Synagis, which is used to prevent respiratory infections in infants. 

The deal calls for MedImmune to exchange 1.075 of its shares for each Aviron share. Based on MedImmune’s stock closing price of $44.10 on Friday, the acquisition values Aviron at $47.41 a share, or about $1.5 billion. 

In afternoon trading Monday, MedImmune’s stock fell $5.40 to $38.70 while shares of Aviron traded up $4.10 at $41.15. 

Nonetheless, analysts remained bullish on the deal’s long-term prospects. 

“For MedImmune, it gets them a late-stage product with great sales potential, and for Aviron it gives them a strong partner working in the same area,” said Dennis R. Harp of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown. 

Government regulators must approve the acquisition, and the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2002. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.aviron.com 

http://www.medimmune.com 

http://www.fda.gov 

OAKLAND — Oakland police have arrested the estranged husband of a San Jose Mercury News photographer found dead on Nov. 25. 

Raymond Houston, 38, turned himself in Monday, police department spokesman George Phillips said. 

Luci S. Houston was found shot to death in the back seat of her company car near a cemetery, about a mile from her home. Her body was covered with a tarp. 

Phillips said police had enough evidence to connect Raymond Houston with the killing. According to police, Luci Houston died of multiple gunshot wounds. 

Phillips said Raymond Houston showed up at the police station with his lawyer about a week ago, but refused to give a statement. The couple was planning to divorce, Phillips said. 

Family members and friends had not seen or heard from Luci Houston since Nov. 20. 

The Washington, D.C., native worked as a staff photographer at the Mercury News since 1993, and had previously been a staff photographer for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. 

Fifty-seven of Berkeley’s public school teachers, or 9.5 percent of the 599 on staff, are not fully credentialed, according to preliminary school district figures obtained by the Daily Planet. 

The highest concentrations of teachers without full credentials are at Berkeley High School, Longfellow Arts & Technology Magnet Middle School and King Middle School. 

However, the figures for the school district as a whole have improved since the 2000-2001 school year, when 79 of the system’s 582 teachers, or 13.5 percent, were not fully credentialed. 

Particularly striking is the decline in the number of emergency credentialed teachers — those who, in many cases, have the least training and experience — from 8.8 percent of the public school faculty last year to 4.2 percent this year. 

School administrators said that even the 4.2 percent figure is misleading, because several teachers officially operating under an “emergency credential” are veteran instructors with out-of-state credentials. 

Administrators said that enhanced teacher recruitment, better support systems for new teachers, and the pull of Berkeley, as a community and a school district, allowed the system to attract and retain more certified teachers this year. 

“We’re a high demand district,” said David Gomez, assistant superintendent for administrative services. “People want to work here.” 

Berkeley’s numbers compare favorably to those of neighboring, comparable districts for which statistics are available. In the San Lorenzo district, 10.5 percent of teachers do not have full credentials. In the Newark district, the number is higher at 18.8 percent.  

Berkeley parents had mixed reactions to the news. Several responded positively, saying they were pleased with the increased number of fully credentialed teachers in the system. They also argued that even young and relatively inexperienced instructors can be talented. 

“It turns out that it’s more about the quality of the individual than the credentialing,” said Sarah Cowan, mother of two children at Washington School, noting that a third-year teacher at Washington, Shawna Suzuki, who only just received her full credentials, is one of the best instructors her children have ever had.  

“In fact, our [childrens’] worst teacher was fully credentialed,” she said.But other parents, like Joanne Groce, mother of an eighth-grader at Longfellow, said they are concerned about new teachers’ lack of experience and inability to maintain order in the classroom. 

Teachers throughout the system said that parents’ concerns about classroom discipline are often justified. Matthew Fishencord, a kindergarten teacher at Washington School, said many new teachers have difficulty walking the line between friend and authority figure, leading to a lack of control in the classroom. 

“You can see parents cringe when they find out they’re getting a first-year teacher,” Fishencord said. “Parents have a right to be concerned.” 

Other parents focused on the issue of retention. They argued that young teachers in Berkeley are overworked, do not receive proper support and are forced to leave the profession. That creates high turnover and requires the recruitment of less qualified teachers. 

“At Longfellow, new teachers have not gotten the administrative support, and they’ve left after a semester,” said Kathy Burroughs, mother of a student at Longfellow Middle School. 

But school administrators — and several teachers — said that retention has improved in recent years. Rosalind Sarah, New Teacher Programs supervisor for the Berkeley schools, said that recently developed, system-wide support programs for new teachers have led to a decline of roughly 25 percent in the number of first- and second-year teachers leaving the profession. 

One recent innovation is the four year-old Beginning Teachers Support and Assessment (BTSA) program, which provides new teachers with professional development and an opportunity to meet regularly and support each other. 

“I think, psychologically, BTSA was fantastic,” said Scott Willson, a second-year math teacher at BHS who taught at a small school in Alaska before coming to Berkeley. “I’d just come from a school where that didn’t happen. There was a lot of in-fighting and backbiting. I felt like I’d gotten thrown to the wolves.” 

Young teachers said that veteran instructors, serving as mentors, or “support providers” have been even more helpful — providing important, timely pointers. 

Still, several teachers, including Willson, argued that even the best support system cannot keep every teacher on board. 

“Everybody has a tough first year,” Willson said. “All the support in the world doesn’t prevent that from happening.” 

Part of the problem, new teachers say, is the difficulty of balancing classroom responsibilities with the ongoing professional development required of teachers without full credentials. 

Patricia Sanders, 43, who transitioned from real estate to teaching four years ago on an emergency credential, is now an “intern,” taking night courses at a state university as she seeks a full credential. 

“It’s very, very stressful,” Sanders said. 

Sanders has a schedule that includes two nights a week at the university, one night a week in a staff meeting, another night of professional development and three nights staying up as late as 4 a.m. to grade papers. 

“It means having to be very good with time management,” she said. “And it means I don’t have a personal life right now,” she added, with a chuckle. 

Teachers say this type of schedule is simply too much for many new instructors, leading some to leave the profession early and creating a vacuum to be filled by new, inexperienced teachers. 

The Berkeley figures on the credentialed status of teachers, now preliminary, should become official shortly when the district sends them, electronically, to the California Department of Education, school officials said. Administrators do not expect any changes in the figures before then. 

Monday, Dec. 3

The Hidden Wars of Desert  

Storm: Ten Years of 

bombs, blockades, and mass murder by the US. 

7 p.m.  

Fellowship of Humanity  

390 27th St.  

Meeting of the East Bay Coalition Against the War. View a video on Iraq, learn more about US policy in the Middle East, and help organize against the war. 496-3470, eastbaycoalition@yahoo.com. 

Friends of Five Creeks  

Monthly Meeting 

7 p.m. 

Albany Community Center 

1249 Marin 

Creeks, Art, and Community Dancer and storyteller Patricia Bullitt and community artist Jeff Norman will speak and show slides on the intersections between art, creeks, the environment, and community. 848-9358, www.fivecreeks.org. 

Montessori Campus Design  

Competition Exhibit  

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Montessori School 

1581 LeRoy Ave. 

BMS is designing a new Elementary and Middle School campus, see the designs and give your feedback for jury consideration in selecting the winner. 843-9374, sharline@well.com. 

Landmarks Preservation  

Commission 

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Public Hearing to consider Proposed Landmark Designation of 2008 University Ave. 

Tuesday, Dec. 4

Why Freedom Matters More  

Than Ever 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

The Independent Institute 

100 Swan Way, Oakland 

Hoover Fellow and Economist David Henderson touts importance of free markets and liberty during wartime and economic recession. $12. 632-1366, www.independent.org. 

East Bay Mystery Readers  

Group 

7 p.m. 

Dark Carnival Bookstore 

3086 Claremont Ave. 

Informal gathering to discuss mysteries the first Tuesday of every month. This month's books are: Maggie Shayne, The Gingerbread Man; Ruth Rendell, Road Rage; and Noreen Wald, Remembrance of Murders Past. You don't have to read the books to come. 654-7323 

The Spirit of Christmas Class 

7 - 9 p.m. 

1250 Addison  

Studio 103 

Explore the metaphysics of the Christmas Story. 540-8844, patricia@newthoughtunity.org. 

Feldenkrais Chair Class for  

Seniors 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Free. ellmor1@home.com 

Feldenkrais Floor Class for  

Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Free. ellmor1@home.com 

Wednesday, Dec. 5

Advisory Council 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Community members are welcome. 644-6343 

Free Feldenkrais Class for  

Seniors 

11:45 a.m. 

JCC 

Walnut between Rose and Vine 

Thursday, Dec. 6

Montessori Campus Design  

Competition Exhibit  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Montessori School 

1581 LeRoy Ave. 

BMS is designing a new Elementary and Middle School campus, see the designs and give your feedback for jury consideration in selecting the winner. 843-9374, sharline@well.com. 

Snowshoeing Basics 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

A slide presentation will be followed by a review of basic snowshoe fit and design, as well as pointers on technique and winter safety preparedness. 527-4140 

Friday, Dec. 7

PEN Oakland & Literature  

Without Borders 

Present “War & Peace” 

5:30 - 8 p.m. 

Pro Arts 

461 9th St., Oakland 

Issues of War and Peace through poetry, and prose from Bay Area authors. 525-3948, kimmac@pacbell.net. 

Lunchtime Lecture 

12 p.m. 

City Commons Club 

2315 Durant Ave. 

UC Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian discusses US relations in the Middle East. $1 admission with coffee, $11 - $12.25 admission with lunch. 

Dunsmuir Historic Estate  

Holiday Season 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland 

Volunteers have transformed the 50-acre estate and the 1899 mansion into a holiday event. 925-275-9595, www.dunsmuir.org. 

Civil Liberties Talk 

7 p.m. 

AK Press 

674-A 23rd St., Oakland 

A radical reading of civil liberties. Author Christian Parenti and filmmaker Jose Palafox speak about dissent, blowback, security, surveilance and policing. 208-1700, molly@akpress.org. 

Silent Auction to Break the 

Silence: Through the Eyes of  

the Judged 

6 - 10 p.m. 

Downtown Oakland YWCA 

1515 Webster St. 

A benefit for the Prison Activist Resource Center featuring speakers, music, food. $10-40, no one turned away for lack of funds. 893-4648 x108 

Saturday, Dec. 8

31st annual KPFA Community  

Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

The Concourse 

8th & Brannan Streets 

220 juried craftsmakers & artists show their best work in a mellow ambiance offering natural foods from many cultures, world music & dance performances & wise speakers. $7, Benefits KPFA Free Speech Radio. 848.6767 x609 www.kpfa.org 

Holiday Choral Concert 

8 p.m. 

First Congregational Church 

1912 Central Ave., Alameda 

The Oakland East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus presents their holiday concert, a mix of reverent and not-so-reverent classical and contemporary choral music. $12 - $15, 239-2239 x2576 www.oebgmc.org 

Compiled by Guy Poole

Editor:  

The “war mentality” currently sweeping the nation is insane, but hardly surprising. We’ve been through this many times before. Whenever we’re faced with a serious problem, we become fearful, angry and then issue a declaration of war. Whether it is the war on drugs (where we’re willing to destroy lives), the war on cancer (where we create a battlefield on the human body), or the war on terrorism (where we are all potential targets); one thing remains constant: We as individuals and as a nation have become masters in avoiding any personal responsibility whatsoever for what happens to us in this life. In short, we’ve got a bad case of victim mentality, unwilling to accept that it is we and no one else who is responsibile for our continued deteriorating conditions. 

Michael Bauce 

Berkeley  

924 Gilman St. Dec. 7: Har Mar Superstar, The Pattern, The Blast Rocks, Your Enemies’ Friends, Hate Mail Express; Dec. 8: Scurvy Dogs, Nigel Peppercock, Shut The Fuck Up, Offering To The Sun, Voetsek; Dec. 9: Poison The Well, Unearth, Sworn Enemy, Spark Lights The Friction; Dec. 14: Hot Water Music, American Steel, F-Minus, Trial By Fire; Dec. 15: Strung Out, Limp, The Frisk, The Deadlines, The Creeps; Dec. 16: 5 p.m., Good Riddance, Missing 23rd, Downway, Audio Crush; Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; Dec. 22: The Lab Rats, Onetime Angels, A great Divide, Last Great Liar, Gabriel’s Ratchet; Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Over My Dead Body, Panic, Breaker Breaker, Some Still Believe; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 4: Panacea; Dec. 5: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 6: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 11: Mad & Eddic Duran Jazz Duo; Dec. 13: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 15: Larry Stefl Jazz Quartet; Dec. 18: Panacea; Dec. 19: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

Cal Performances Dec. 19: Berkeley Symphony, $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus, Bancroft Way at Telegraph, 642-0212 tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; Doors open at 8 p.m. unless noted. 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Dec. 5: Avalon Blues: Peter Case, Dave Alvin and Bill Morrissey; Dec. 6: Ray Bonneville; Dec. 7 & 8: Rebecca Riots; All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. Call 548-1761 for prices or see www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Jazzschool/La Note Dec. 9: 4:30 p.m., Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound, $6 - $12, reservations recommended. 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 www.jazzschool.com 

Jupiter Dec. 5: J Dogs; Dec. 6: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 7: AVI Bortnick Group; Dec. 8: Harvey Wainapel Quartet; Dec. 12: Mushroom; Dec. 13: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 14: Broun Fellini’s; Dec. 15: Norah Jones and Jim Campilongo; Dec. 19: Spectraphonic; Dec. 20: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 29: Berkeley Jazz School Presents: Kirk Tamura Trio; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 7: 8:30 p.m., John Calloway & Diaspora, $12; Dec. 8: 9:30 p.m., Dr. Loco’s Rocking Jalapeño Band, $10; Dec. 9: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; Dec. 9: 7:30 p.m., Trio Altamira Reunion Concert, $12-$14; Dec. 14: 8 p.m., Holly Near, $15-$17; Dec. 16: 5 p.m, Flamenca Community Juerga, Free; Dec. 16: 7 p.m, Modupue & UpSurge, $8; Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 8: Jonah Minton Quartet, Julie’s Healthy Cafe, 2562 Bancroft; Dec. 9: Hebro, Blakes, 2367 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 15: Thelonious On The Move, Bison Brewing, 2598 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 16: Howard Kadis, Musical Offering Cafe, 2430 Bancroft; Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

Rose Street House Dec. 14 & 15: 7:30 p.m., Benefit Concert and Birthday Party, Shelly Doty and grassroots community of women singers and song writers; Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@yahoo.com. 

“Guitar, Woodwinds, Drums” Dec. 8: 8 p.m., The Bill Horvitz Band, Ben Goldberg’s What Music. Tuva Space, 3192 Adeline St. 

“Seventy Scenes of Halloween” Dec. 7: 8 p.m.; Dec. 8: 8 p.m., 10:30 p.m.; Dec. 9: 7 p.m.; BareStage Productions, UC Berkeley’s original student theater company, presents a macbre farce written by Jeffrey M. Jones and directed by Desdemona Chiang. $8. UC Berkeley, Choral Rehearsal Hall. 682-3880, barestage@ucchoral.berkeley.edu. 

“Brave Brood” Through Dec. 16: Robert O’Hara directs Robert O’Hara’s searing tale of money, desperation, and the fight for survival. $20. Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. 883-0305 www.transparenttheater.org 

“Black Nativity” Dec. 7 through Dec. 16th: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2:30 p.m., 8 p.m., Sun. 5:30 p.m. The birth of Jesus unfolds in this drama written by Langston Hughes. Directed and produced by Betty Gadling. $15 adults, $8 seniors and students, $5 children over 5. Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland 569-9418 www.allen-temple.org 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

Pacific Film Archive Theater Dec. 6: 7 p.m., Bizarre, Bizarre; 8:50 p.m., The Green Man; Dec. 7: 7 p.m., Smiles of a Summer Night; 9:05 p.m., Cluny Brown; Bancroft Way, 642-1124 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Furniture Art” Through Dec. 7: An exhibit of metal and wood furniture that revisits furniture not only as art but as craft. 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. The Current Gallery at the Crucible, 1036 Ashby Ave. 843-5511 www.thecrucible.org 

“The Paintings of Bethany Anne Ayers and Sculpture of Alexander Cheves” Through Dec. 15: Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Ardency Gallery, 709 roadway, Oakland. 836-0831 gallery709@aol.com 

“The Whole World’s Watching: Peace and Social Justice Movements of the 1960s and 1970s” Through Dec. 16: A documentary photo exhibition which examines the rich history of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Wed. - Sun., noon - 5 p.m. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., Live Oak Park. Free. 644-6893 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222 

“The Art History Museum of Berkeley” 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 Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9 2028 Ninth St. 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

Coffee With A Beat - Word Beat reading series: Dec. 8: Jeanne Powell, Kelly Kraatz; Dec. 15: Norm Milstein, Barbara Minton; Dec. 22: Debra Grace Khattab, Jesy Goldhammer; Dec. 29: Steve Arntson, Michelle Erickson, Clare Lewis; All readings are free and begin at 7 p.m., 458 Perkins, Oakland, 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat. 

The Humanist Fellowship Hall Dec. 5: 7 p.m., “Our Wings Are Pregnant Seesaws” a play by H. D. Moe. A reading performance by the theatre workshop. 390 27th St., Oakland, 528-8713 

“Rhythm & Muse Open Mic” Dec. 15: 7 p.m., Featuring poets Lara Dale and Mary-Marcia Casoly. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 527-9753 

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Fridays 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. or by appointment. Call ahead to make reservations. Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

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 Sun., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sun., noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

Museums 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins; $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Mon. and Wed., 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tues. and Fri., 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thur., 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Oakland Museum of California Dec. 8 & 9: 32nd Annual Bay Area Fungus Fair, the world of the mushroom will be explored in exhibits, lectures, slide shows, cooking demos, etc.. Through Jan. 13: Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff, featuring paintings and works on paper that trace the evolution of Bischoff’s career. $6 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. Wed. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. noon - 5 p.m., 10th St., Oakland, 888-625-6873/ www.museumca.org 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 foot 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. Mon. through Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will close its exhibition galleries for renovation. It will reopen in early 2002.  

University of California Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive has reopened after its summerlong seismic retrofit. “Martin Puryear: Sculpture of the 1990s” through Jan. 13; “The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 - 1982)” through Dec. 16; “Face of Buddha: Sculpture from India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia” ongoing rotation through 2003; “Matrix 194: Jessica Bronson, Heaps, layers, and curls” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; “Matrix 192: Ceal Floyer 37’4”” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way; Museum Galleries 2626 Bancroft Way; 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Lawrence Hall of Science Through Jan. 26: Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters; “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. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. 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  

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

When a team commits 32 turnovers and shoots 17 fewer free throws than its opponent, one wouldn’t expect a victory. But that’s just what the Georgia Bulldogs got on Sunday against Cal in the championship game of the Oakland Tribune Classic at Haas Pavilion. 

Georgia forward Tawana McDonald was the lone bright spot for the Bulldogs, and her 19-point, 13-rebound, 6 block effort was enough to carry her team to a 54-48 win in one of the ugliest games in recent memory. 

The Bears lost a big game that was in their grasp. They held the No. 13 Bulldogs scoreless for the first eight-and-a-half minutes of the game and grabbed 25 offensive rebounds, but were done in by a horrendous shooting night, both from the floor and the free-throw line. Other than forward Ami Forney’s 9-for-18 effort, the Bears shot just 13 percent from the field, and were a miserable 17-for-35 from the charity stripe.  

“Ami Forney went out and played great against a tough, big team,” Cal head coach Caren Horstmeyer said. “But sometimes (shooting poorly) is going to happen.” 

Forney’s 22-point effort went in vain as Georgia pulled ahead in the second half behind the gigantic front line of McDonald, forward Kara Braxton and center Christi Thomas, who combined for all 14 Georgia blocks and 26 rebounds. 

The Bears were all over the court on defense to start the game, and the Georgia players looked bewildered by the pressure, committing 12 turnovers in the first eight minutes on their way to an astounding 20 in the opening half. They also missed their first five shots while falling behind 12-0 before point guard Camille Murphy hit a short jumper to break the drought. 

“I thought we came out and played with an incredible defensive intensity,” Horstmeyer said. “We played with all our heart in the first half.” 

The Bulldogs slowly ate away at the Cal lead, with McDonald bulling her way inside for eight points down the stretch. Cal had six-point lead at halftime, but it should have been a bigger edge as forward Amber White missed four straight free throws in the final minute of the half. White finished the game just 5-of-12 from the line, along with a blank in seven tries from the field. 

Cal had its own scoring problems around halftime, as the Bears went nearly eight minutes without a basket. Forney, playing the game with a sublexed shoulder suffered in the first round of the tournament on Saturday, hit a layup to put her team up 24-21, but McDonald sent Forney to the bench with her third foul soon after, and the Bears started to look lost without their senior leader. Georgia immediately went on a 12-point run as Whitney Law and Tina Taylor hit 3-pointers, and suddenly the Bears were looking at a 38-28 deficit. 

“The first half we looked like something you would want to pack up and send to your worst enemy, then we come out and play like something you would put in a basketball clinic,” Georgia head coach Andy Landers said of his team’s uneven play. “It’s impressive that we can recover like that, but it’s not something I’m enamored of at this point.” 

Forney came back in and hit for a three-point play, and Cal point guard Kristin Iwanaga hit the Bears only 3-pointer of the game to pull within five. When guard LaTasha O’Keith grabbed loose ball and put it in the basket minutes later, Cal had pulled to within 42-41.  

But McDonald made her presence felt again, making a turnaround jumper and then driving past Forney, who had four fouls and couldn’t press on defense, to give Georgia a 48-42 lead. The Bulldogs made their free throws in the final minute of the game to take home the tournament trophy. 

Forney, who pulled down 10 rebounds, including 7 on the offensive glass, impressed her more-heralded opponents. 

“She’s just real strong down low, and we got in foul trouble trying to defend her,” said McDonald, who fouled out of the game in the final minute. 

But for Forney, Cal’s only returning starter this season, the game wasn’t a chance for personal glory. She saw it as a chance to establish the team as a contender for the post-season by playing a national power to the end. 

“I think we’ll gain a lot of respect from this game,” she said. “I just hope we can learn from our mistakes. Hopefully we’ll be out there practicing free throws all this week.”

By Hank Sims 

Daily Planet Staff 

Saturday’s storm may have greatly diminished the attendance of a community rally in support of the “small schools” movement for Berkeley High School, but organizers scrambled to make sure that the weather did not hamper the rally’s impact. 

“There are many empty seats here, but they are empty of bodies, not of spirits,” said Alex Papillon, president of the Berkeley chapter of the NAACP.  

Papillon said that when community rallies are disrupted by poor weather, attendees shouldn’t lose heart — they should mentally multiply their numbers by ten. 

About 200 people came to the BHS’ Community Theater for the rally, which had been intended to introduce the Coalition for Small School’s platform to the public. Organizers had hoped to draw at least 1,000 people. 

The winds and the rain, though, did not change the message of the rally. The Coalition for Small Schools hopes to persuade the Berkeley Unified School District board, the City Council, local educators and a good portion of Berkeley citizens that BHS should be dramatically reorganized into a number of small “learning communities.” 

The change is needed, they say, because of the long-standing “learning gap” between white students and those of African and Latino descent. 

Melela Willis-Starbuck and Tara Singh, two students in the Communications, Arts and Sciences learning community at BHS, spoke in support of the proposal. The CAS program is one of the few “small learning communities” already at BHS. 

Willis-Starbuck, who has been in the CAS program for there years, said that the program fosters a sense of belonging in the school, which motivates students to work harder. 

“I still take some non-CAS classes,” she said. “I still don’t know the names of some of the students in my Spanish class, and they don’t know mine.” 

“How can we expect to create a learning community when you don’t even know everyone’s name?” 

Singh said that because of the intimacy of the CAS program — the same students are in the same classes together, year after year — the students are able to have “college-level” discussions of material. 

“I feel that CAS has made my high school experience 100 times better than it would have been at normal Berkeley High,” she said.  

Councilmember Linda Maio told the crowd that she was a strong supporter of the movement, and that something dramatic had to be done to address the problems at BHS. 

“In order to have a healthy neighborhood, every child must succeed,” she said. “We’ve made a lot of tries to stop kids from falling through the cracks, but they haven’t been quite right.” 

“With small schools, you can get your arms all the way around the schools, and around all the children.” 

The relatively small attendance at Saturday’s rally is not the most serious challenge facing supporters of the small schools proposal. 

The Coalition for Small Schools had hoped to get the approval of the school board before Dec. 31. The U.S. Department of Education has offered substantial grants for schools who wish to transition to small learning communities, and the application deadline for that grant is the end of the year. 

However, it appears that the proposal will not be approved at the school board by that date, as several members have recently expressed their opposition. 

Michael Miller, a member of the coalition, said on Saturday that the end-of-the-year deadline may not be as solid as had previously been presumed. 

“The federal government deadline seems to be moving, so we don’t know exactly what the date is,” he said.  

In addition, the coalition hopes to secure a grant from the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES), which recently received $15 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the “small schools” concept in the Bay Area. 

Though there is no hard deadline for the BayCES grant, Victor Cary, director of the Community Partnership Academy at BayCES, has said that the entire community — the City Council, churches and community groups as well as the school board — would need to demonstrate their approval of the small schools proposal before the money could be awarded.

Editor: 

I’m writing in regard to the article in the Friday, November 30, Daily Planet about the proposed housing development at Carleton and Telegraph. 

As a long-time resident of the LeConte neighborhood and as a Board member of the Telegraph Area Association, I’ve attended many of the meetings at which this development has been discussed. 

Developer and property owner Joe Kelly and architect Jim Novosel have been forthcoming and direct about their economic and design thinking, and have repeatedly adapted the design in response to neighborhood comments. The neighborhood groups they’ve met with have been equally reasonable, specific, and helpful in their comments. 

As a result, a non-descript, non-historic, one-story commercial building will be replaced with a four story structure providing good “infill” housing where it’s needed. The wide, boulevard character of a street like Telegraph is suited to mid-rise buildings of this sort, on the many sites that don’t affect historic structures or open space. 

This relatively calm and reasoned process is quite unlike the situation in some other neighborhoods in Berkeley where any development proposal over one or two stories on a main business street seems to devolve into overblown rhetoric and opposition. 

That said, I do have one disagreement with some of my LeConte neighbors about this development. I’m against their proposal to deny residential permit parking to residents of the new building. 

Ultimately, as with rent control and post-Proposition 13 property taxes, this will set up two classes of neighborhood residents, only one especially privileged because they were lucky enough to live in certain buildings in Berkeley before a particular date. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board should ask itself what public policy objective is served by having differential classes of street parking access for residential units and residents that are otherwise largely indistinguishable? 

Ironically, in a flatlands neighborhood like mine where a majority of the dwellings are single-family homes, most buildings — three quarters to four fifths, by my estimate — have long driveways and/or off-street garages. 

In the words of the late, lamented Berkeley flatland neighborhood activist Henry Pancoast, if we truly thought we had a parking problem in our neighborhoods we’d all clean out our garages and put our cars there. 

Steven Finacom 

Berkeley 

South Florida’s two stars - forward B.B. Waldon and guard Altron Jackson - combined for 41 points and 25 rebounds, leading the Bulls to a 79-59 rout of Cal Saturday night.  

The Bears, who dropped to 4-1 on the year, shot just 34.4 percent from the field and made only 7-of-26 from three-point range. USF (6-0) won the battle on the boards, 50-35, getting 20 of its caroms on the offensive end.  

“You can’t get down like we did. A lot of it was on hustle plays,” Cal head coach Ben Braun said. “You’re not going to beat anybody giving up 20 offensive rebounds.”  

Cal entered the game leading the nation in defense by giving up only 51.3 points per game. But the Bulls had 51 points with 17:24 left and never let the Bears back into the contest.  

Cal took its only lead at 3-2 on a Shantay Legans three-pointer. USF then reeled off six straight points before the Bears battled back to trail, 11-10. The Bulls responded with a 16-3 run to take a 27-13 lead with 5:03 remaining in the first half. Cal did not get within 10 points the rest of the way.  

In the opening period, the Bears committed 11 turnovers and connected on only seven field goals against USF’s pressure 1-3-1 defense to fall behind 40-23 at the break.  

“I was disappointed in our effort,” Braun said. “We did not have intensity for 40 minutes, but maybe 8-10 minutes. We thought coming in we needed to be aggressive and we weren’t.”  

In the second half, South Florida scored the first 11 points and maintained a 20-point advantage most of the rest of the game. Cal did make a mini-run in the closing two minutes and trailed, 72-57, with 55 second to go.  

Joe Shipp was 4-for-15 from the field, but led Cal with 15 points and six rebounds. Ryan Forehan-Kelly came off the bench for 14 points, while Dennis Gates added 11. Cal’s inside duo of forward Jamal Sampson and center Solomon Hughes managed six points and nine rebounds together.  

Jackson paced all scorers with 23 points, with Waldon chipping in 18 and guard Reggie Kohn scoring 10.

The City’s energy officer presented the City Council with an overview of a developing plan that will initiate dramatic changes in the city’s energy sources, building materials and energy education programs. 

The presentation was in part designed to give the council information before approving $500,000 for energy programs that have been developed as a result of the energy crisis earlier this year. The funding will come from a $1.7 million windfall the city received from the Utility Users Tax during the energy crisis, which saw a sharp increase in gas and electricity prices. The council is scheduled to approve the funding on Dec. 11.  

While gas and electricity prices have leveled out, the council is still anxious to implement a variety of new energy programs that will make the city less vulnerable to an unpredictable and volatile energy market. 

City Energy Officer Neil De Snoo was assisted in the presentation by representatives from the Energy Commission, the Berkeley Energy Technical Advisory Group and a private energy consulting agency, all of which have participated in the development of the proposed plan. 

“Much of the presentation was a little dry because it’s tech stuff but that’s where the rubber hits the road,” De Snoo said. 

De Snoo said many of the programs that will be included in the final energy plan have already been funded and are underway. The funding that the council is expected to be approved on Dec. 11 will go to nine different programs including low-income services, a green building program and municipal energy conversion projects. 

The largest chunk of the budget — $291,000 — will go to the conversion of some public buildings to solar-generated electricity as well as other energy-efficient measures.  

According to a report that was presented to council on Tuesday, Several city buildings have been proposed for conversion to energy produced by solar photovolotaic cells, which are capable of converting the sun’s energy into electricity.  

The sites proposed for conversion include the north and south senior centers, Civic Center and the Central Library, which is currently being renovated. 

The city has already installed photovoltaic lighting at Cragmont Park largely because there are no electrical power lines nearby to service the site and because the park does not require lighting at night. 

The city is also developing a Green Building Program, which will receive $183,000. The city has already created the Green Building Resource Center at the Permit Center as well as publishing the Green Building Reference Guide. The additional funds will go to hiring a program coordinator, staff training and additional publications.  

GBRC gives developers and architects advice on the latest energy efficient technologies, designs suggestions that enhance the use of natural light and environmentally safe building materials. 

According to the report, GBRC has already provided consulting on 25 projects that represent over 270,00 square feet of new construction.  

The council is also considering assigning $87,000 for a low-income program that will help seniors and low-income families pay PG&E bills, assist in insulating their homes and other weatherization services. The funding amount was reduced from $190,000 because of an increase in state and federal funding for similar low-income programs. 

Some of the other programs that are being considered for funding include a Bulk Purchasing Program that will continue to make energy efficient products available to Berkeley residents at wholesale prices, the Small Business Program that has already improved the lighting efficiency of 1,000 businesses in Berkeley and Oakland and the Youth Energy Program that trains high school students to weatherize and install compact fluorescent lighting. The students have so far serviced 289 homes and four homeless shelters. 

Regardless of what direction the state’s energy market goes in the coming years, Energy Commission Chair Devra Bachrach said funding for the Community Energy Plan is money well spent.  

“There’s always an advantage to using less energy,” she said. “In addition to reducing your energy bill and having less impact on the environment which benefits residents, the city will have more control over it’s energy sources.” 

Editor: 

The Ecocity Amendment makes it possible to create housing in the quantity identified by the city1s Draft General Plan while bringing creeks back into the city and creating bicycle/pedestrian paths. These future paths, such as the one currently being proposed to link Downtown and UC Campus with the Bay and Bayshore Trail, constitute a healthy, pleasurable and very effective form of alternative transportation that saves energy andgenerates enjoyment like none other. These paths also reduce automobile dependence, fuel addiction, air pollution, vehicle accidents.... Very, very good! 

Opponents to the Ecocity Amendment, however, including my own council representative Dona Spring, who claims to be green and does support creek restoration in some ways, are now arguing for down-zoning in the transit corridors of the city. To placate a few very aggressive neighborhood conservatives who want to keep people from moving into town, some City Council members, including Spring, are compromising their espoused values and objectives. When Norine Smith stands up and states to the Council that she wants to keep Berkeley almost exactly as it is now so that people who move here can enjoy this wonderful place, she could hardly be less sincere: she and the others who are opposed to practically all new housing in Berkeley are not offering to move out to make room for anyone. No way! 

What the Norine Smiths support – reducing density and height limits on transit corridors – makes it impossible for these new people who need housing to be here at all – unless they commute in daily, stuffing our streets with cars.  

It’s time to be honest in Berkeley about housing and the environmental crisis. We need to support transit and housing in significant quantity including low income housing. People like Spring and Smith who are promoting less density on transit corridors are no friend to those needing housing, nor to the environment. To say that the tiny amount of housing that we do allow to be built must have a fair percentage for low income people is not good enough. A percentage of a tiny amount is a very tiny amount. That’s why we need more rather than less. 

It’s time for progressives to get real about strategies to actually deliver housing and environmental policy instead of simply claiming that they are progressives and environmentalists. Their actions in supporting or opposing the truly progressive and environmentally responsible Ecocity Amendment which does make room for people and nature by encouraging buildings three or four stories taller than the present limits in downtown, and if built on green guidelines, defines who they really are. Among the offerings to the General Plan, this policy and only this policy provides the room for people and financing mechanisms to build the housing they need. And we, in the sense of all of us concerned with the future for our children and the health of their world, need to face the realities of a planet in rapid ecological decline. That decline starts with us in our own cities. 

We can build cities to shelter and serve people and nature at the same time. 

That’s what the so-called progressives and environmentalists should embrace. 

If they don’t, know them by their deeds and not their words. 

Let’s get beyond “government by the badgerers,” as my friend Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia calls the form we have in Berkeley. Appeasing the badgerers is a hell of a form of government. Let’s pay attention to the more than 100 organizations and businesses that have deliberated thoughtfully on the Ecocity Amendment and decided to support it. Let’s move on to real cooperation between factions, between human beings and the natural world we are part of. We can build our city as if we understood what that means.  

Get with it, so-called progressives and environmentalists. Be progressives and environmentalists; support the Ecocity Amendment. 

Richard Register  

Berkeley

Coughlin sets NCAA mark in 100 backstroke 

AUSTIN, Texas - Both the No. 6 ranked Cal men’s and women’s swim teams continued to do well during the second day of the Texas Invitational in Austin, Texas. The Bears’ Natalie Coughlin continued her domination of the meet as she won the 100 back in a time of 50.90, breaking the NCAA and Cal school record of 51.23 she had set last season at the NCAA Championships. Coughlin also won the 200 free in a school record time of 1:43.77, breaking her own record of 1:45.65 set last season.  

On the men’s side, sophomore Alex Lim won the 100 back with a time of 47.52, the second-best all-time Cal mark and an NCAA automatic standard.  

Other top performances for the Bears was Cal’s women’s 200 medley relay (Coughlin, Staciana Stitts, Alice Henriques, Danielle Becks) placing second with an NCAA automatic time of 1:40.04. The Bears men’s 800 free relay (Joe Bruckart, Mattias Ohlin, Sean Gruver, Bayani Flores) placed third with a time of 6:31.36.  

Another top relay finish for Cal was the men’s 200 medley relay (Lim, Ohlin, Daniel Kim, Duje Draganja) placing fifth with a time of 1:28.93 and the women’s 800 free relay (Kristen Sissener, Ashley Whitney, Micha Burden, Lauren Medina) placing fifth with a time of 7:26.13.  

In the 100 breaststroke events, junior Staciana Stitts was fourth with an NCAA automatic time of 1:01.10. Junior Daniel Kim placed fifth in the 100 breast with a time of 55.71 and senior Bayani Flores was ninth with a time of 55.71.  

In the diving competition, junior Nic Bartolotta placed 10th, freshman Nathaniel Dean 11th and sophomore Robbie Quinn 12th in the one-meter competition. On the women’s side, junior Christina Flynn was 15th in the three-meter competition. On Friday, Quinn placed seventh, Bartolotta ninth and Dean 13th in the men’s three-meter competition.

The city of Berkeley and AC Transit officials have announced that Berkeley will become the first East Bay city to launch a bus pass program for its employees. 

Beginning in December, Berkeley employees have started testing the “Eco Pass,” AC Transit's first employer-based bus pass program, for a one-year demonstration period. 

The Eco-Pass, which will be free to all benefited city employees, allows for unlimited bus rides on all lines. The city hopes that the free rides will give city employees a reason to choose public transportation as their preferred mode of travel. 

The Eco-Pass program will be officially launched on Dec. 5 during a morning Civic Center ceremony. At that event, qualifying city employees will be able to pick up their passes. 

The California Highway Patrol reported a collision between two trucks that left loaves of bread strewn across the freeway in Berkeley early Saturday morning.  

At 4:45 a.m. a bread truck and a garbage truck struck each other on westbound Interstate Highway 80 just west of the Gilman exit, leaving the garbage truck overturned and the contents of the bread truck lying on the asphalt, according to the CHP. 

The highway patrol said the drivers of the vehicles suffered only minor injuries. Officers cleared the road of the bread before normal traffic resumed.  

SAN FRANCISCO – As the nation’s need for organ transplants continues to outstrip supply, the American Medical Association on Sunday grappled with a possible solution once thought taboo: paying dying would-be donors and their families for vital organs. 

Such financial incentives are illegal, banned by Congress in 1984. So people needing organ transplants must rely strictly on volunteers, a system that is clearly not working. Only 25 percent of 78,000 organ transplants currently needed will occur in time to save a life, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit agency the U.S. government pays to oversee the nation’s organ donor network. The agency says 15 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant. 

Most donation decisions are made by families of people who have died suddenly and unexpectedly — like in a car crash. Most families in those situations decline to offer up their dead relatives for donations. 

“We have a nationwide crisis and altruism doesn’t seem to be hacking it right now,” said Dr. Frank Riddick Jr., chairman of the AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs. So Riddick’s council is urging the AMA to begin scientific studies on what effect financial incentives will have on organ donations. The full AMA will decide later this week if it will adopt the council’s recommendation. 

If the AMA does agree with testing financial incentives, Congress will have to change current law to allow for any study. One such program passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in 1999, which would have the state pay $300 toward the funeral of every donor, has never been implemented because of the federal ban. 

At the time Congress enacted the ban, most in the organ donor field found financial incentives unethical and abhorrent. Only two professionals spoke out in favor of incentives at the time, including a defrocked doctor who shocked the medical community by going into business as a for-profit kidney broker. 

Even today, many in the organ donation field find financial incentives distasteful. 

“Most donor families we talked to are quite offended at the thought that financial incentives would have made a difference,” said Phyllis Weber, executive director of the California Transplant Donor Network, which collects about 700 organs a year in Northern California. “In fact, financial incentives could backfire.” 

The United Network, too, remains skeptical of financial incentives. 

“There’s a thought that to offer financial incentives will open up a Pandora’s Box,” said agency spokesman Joel Newman. 

A Congressional bill introduced in May dubbed the Gift of Life Tax Credit Act would allow a donor family a $10,000 tax credit in exchange for donated organs. 

Blood and reproductive material can be sold. 

“There seems to be no compelling reason why viable solid organs should be treated differently from less complex tissues on moral grounds,” the council report states. “Moreover, donation itself implies a property right in organs.”

Study: Hispanics segregated from rest of the city 

OAKLAND – With a population that is about 36 percent black, 24 percent white, 22 percent Hispanic and 16 percent Asian, Oakland is one of the nation’s most diverse cities. 

Yet it is also America’s most segregated for Hispanics, according to an Associated Press review of census data. Working-class Hispanics live in what residents dub the city’s “flats,” while affluent whites, along with some Asians and blacks, live in the hills. 

“We may be diverse, but in many ways we’re very separate,” said Terry Alderete, chief of operations at The Unity Council, a community development group in Fruitvale. 

Blacks, the city’s largest group, are more evenly distributed with whites in Oakland than are Hispanics, according to the AP’s review. Blacks live throughout the city and are concentrated in neighborhoods such as West Oakland. 

Asians in Oakland are more evenly distributed with whites than either Hispanics or blacks, the AP’s review also found. 

Fruitvale, in the flats, is named after the orchards that prospered there in the 1800s. In the 1950s, Mexican and Central American immigrants began moving into the neighborhood. Today, many come from the same small villages in Jalisco and Michoacan. 

“They bring their relatives, they help them to find their way,” said Hector Medina, director of the Diocese of Oakland’s Latino Ministry. “That’s why a lot of people come, because it’s like our own country.” 

Pastel pinatas dangle from the ceilings of corner stores, day laborers wait on street corners for work and Spanish-language rock and pop tunes fill the air. Women wheel strollers past laundromats, taquerias and carts selling fried pork rinds and fresh watermelon. 

Antonio Soltero first came to the United States to nurture lettuce seedlings and pick cucumbers and tomatoes in California’s Central Valley. 

Like many Mexican immigrants, Soltero made his way to Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, where he settled into the home he’s lived in for 21 years. He watched as other Hispanics moved in, eventually becoming the neighborhood’s majority. 

Soltero said he rarely sees whites from the hills. 

“They’re up there and don’t come down,” said the 67-year-old retired mechanical engineer. Most of the Hispanic faces in the hills are those of house cleaners, gardeners and restaurant workers, he said. 

With their pine trees and curvy roads, the hills feel like a mountain resort. In Montclair Village, residents chat in cafes and juice bars, survey real estate listings and browse in antique shops and art galleries. 

In October, the average selling price of a home in the Montclair area was $508,000 according to First American Real Estate Solutions. 

The area is mostly white, agreed Michael Reed, president of the Montclair Elementary School PTA, but “everybody’s welcome. Some people just exclude themselves,” he said. “They’re not able to put that much of their income toward the mortgage.” 

Ignacio De La Fuente, the city’s sole Hispanic council member and himself a Mexican immigrant, predicts the separation will ease as successive generations move up the economic ladder. 

“In two or three years, you’ll see more people moving in other areas,” he said, “more Latinos, more Asians pushing their way up into the hills.”

SAN FRANCISCO – Long before Sept. 11 brought terrorism to the top of every federal prosecutor’s agenda, U.S. attorneys and FBI agents in California were going after terrorists at one of the highest rates in the country. 

In the San Francisco area, FBI agents referred 80 cases of domestic terrorism to prosecutors during the past five years, far above the national average of about 11 during the same period, according to newly released Justice Department records. 

Only five districts in the country had more than 40 referrals of domestic terrorism during that time, and Atlanta followed San Francisco with 51. 

When it came to international terrorism, Los Angeles was one of the top six areas in the country for referrals, with 26 cases between 1997 and September, 2001. During that time, the U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia reported 67 referrals, but most districts had fewer than ten. 

U.S. attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek in Los Angeles said his office set up a terrorism task force in the mid-80s, well ahead of most federal districts which have only recently established the groups. 

“We have prosecutors who have trained in terror cases and have been dealing with this stuff for some time,” he said. 

However, Mrozek said their large number of cases is, in part, simply a reflection of the size of their community. 

“We are the largest office in the country. We have 250 lawyers and 17 to 18 million residents in our district. We commonly have the highest case load in any particular area,” he said. 

The Justice Department data, collected and compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, showed that all of the nation’s investigative agencies together asked for the prosecution of only 463 individuals identified as being involved in either international or domestic terrorism by assistant U.S. attorneys. 

Prosecutors in California said some of the terrorism cases they’ve been chasing for the past five years didn’t make headlines at the time, even though similar cases dominate the news lately. 

For example, on Nov. 1, a jury in U.S. District Court in Oakland convicted Charles Redden of Livermore of threatening to contaminate a federal building with anthrax — a year and a half before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 

A jury found that Redden called the clerk’s office for the U.S. District Court in Oakland in January 1999, saying anthrax had been released into the building’s air conditioning system. The threat was a hoax. 

The 33-year-old faces a maximum life term when sentenced Jan. 18. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Jacobs in San Francisco said many domestic terrorism cases involved people who made threats over the Internet. The San Francisco area has a concentration of Internet service providers, so when a threat is made, a search warrant has to be served at the provider’s headquarters even if the suspect lives in another state. 

In Southern California, a recent high profile international terrorism prosecution involved a San Fernando Valley man who pleaded guilty for his involvement in an immigration fraud ring that provided fake visa and asylum documents to people associated with the Iran-based Mujahedin-E-Khalq, which is on the State Department’s foreign terrorist list. 

In that case, on October, 1999, Bahram Tabatabai pleaded guilty to two federal charges — conspiracy to make false statements to the State Department and Immigration and Naturalization service and to possess false identification documents, and providing material to assist a designated foreign terrorist group. 

Mrozek said there is no connection between Tabatabai and the Sept. 11 attacks or Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization.

LOS ANGELES – Last year, hundreds of immigrant janitors marched through the streets with raised fists chanting “si se puede!” – yes, it can be done – after winning raises from employers. 

Today, those workers and members of other unions are fighting to hang on to their recent gains, particularly in the low-paying tourism and hospitality sectors hit so hard by the terrorist attacks. 

Meanwhile, the unions themselves are struggling to sustain a nationwide organizing effort as they lose dues and potential members to the tough economic times. 

“There’s no doubt this has had a serious impact on our resources,” said Maria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International union. 

Durazo said her union has reacted by cutting support staff, trimming travel budgets and eliminating raises in order to keep organizing. 

Despite strong regional gains made by unions in 2000, especially among immigrant workers, organized labor across the country had a net loss of about 200,000 members during the year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

That loss is likely to be repeated in 2001 after mass layoffs in the airline and tourism industries sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks. 

“When workers need unions the most, they have the most concerns about moving toward them,” said Gary Chaison, a professor of Industrial Relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. 

Nationally, the membership of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International has been among the hardest hit. Since Sept. 11, the union has lost more than one-third of its 300,000 members in the United States and Canada to layoffs. 

Things were much different just 18 months ago. Los Angeles unions were celebrating newfound national clout in the wake of the “Justice for Janitors” campaign that served as a model for similar campaigns throughout the country. The high-profile strike by the Service Employees International Union lasted three weeks. 

Today, the picket lines have been replaced by lines of laid-off workers waiting for free groceries from unions and help applying for unemployment benefits and food stamps. 

“The hotel workers’ union has been aggressively organizing in Los Angeles,” said Miguel Contreras, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “Now they’re having to turn inward and see how to help these members survive day to day.” 

Of the 12,000 members of two hotel and restaurant union locals in the Los Angeles area, about 3,000 are now out of work or logging reduced hours, union officials said. Many workers at hotels, theme parks and airports were let go, only to be hired back at lower wages. 

Rhina Gonzalez and her husband, Cesar Perez, both lost their jobs as housekeepers in area hotels after Sept. 11. 

“This is very scary for me,” she said. “I have to bring Christmas to my kids.” 

While struggling to recruit new members, unions have also turned their attention to lobbying the government to extend unemployment benefits and offer other help to displaced members. 

The California Labor Federation, which represents more than 2 million unionized workers in the state, recently endorsed Gov. Gray Davis for re-election . 

Before giving its endorsement, the group received several commitments from Davis, including a promise to speed up unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs as a result of the terrorist attacks. 

Meanwhile, Durazo and the presidents of other union locals continue to push their national agenda. They will soon travel to Boston in support of a contract dispute involving 3,000 workers at nine hotels in the city. 

“Hotels are under an enormous amount of pressure, but that’s no reason to take advantage of workers,” Durazo said. 

Durazo said it is important that unions stay aggressive and not worry about their public image if workers strike. 

“We’re taking the offensive as far as trying to secure greater rights for our members even at the time this is going on,” she said. 

It’s possible that unions may garner even greater public support because of the crisis. 

Workers standing in unemployment lines – the economic victims of terrorism – could be seen in a more sympathetic light than defiant workers on a picket line. 

“The silver lining is this is a test for organized labor to become united, responding to a crisis in solidarity with each other,” Contreras said. “Labor gave a voice to janitors last year. Labor is giving a voice this year to these workers who are affected by layoffs.”

SAN FRANCISCO – At least 16 percent of customers on ExciteAtHome’s high-speed Internet service were without access Sunday, after the bankrupt company cut off service to AT&T Broadband subscribers. 

AT&T had restored service to more than a third of its customers – about 226,000 subscribers – and moved them to its own network. The company said it could take as long as 10 days to restore service to its 640,000 other subscribers across the United States. AT&T transferred most of its customers in the Northwest Saturday and moved customers in Texas Sunday. The company hopes to move the rest next week. 

Deanna Bruggemann, an AT&T Broadband customer who lives in Livermore, about 45 miles southeast of San Francisco, has been without Internet access since 12:01 a.m. Saturday. She said she appreciated the call from AT&T telling her what was happening with her service. 

“That kind of made me feel better, because the first thing you think is your computer crashed,” she said. 

Bruggemann, an insurance agent, said the computers in her office have DSL, so they’re not affected. 

“I miss my Internet,” she said. “When you’re so used to not having dial-up, the thought of having to go back – no way! They better figure out something.” 

Service to other cable companies that sold Internet access through ExciteAtHome’s network, including Cox Communications and Rogers, had not been cut off. ExciteAtHome has more than 4 million subscribers. 

John Tory, president and chief executive of Rogers Communications, said the company’s 425,000 customers using ExciteAtHome had not lost service. A message on Comcast’s consumer hot line said Sunday that the company had not lost service. 

Calls to ExciteAtHome were not immediately returned Sunday. 

Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson gave Redwood City-based ExciteAtHome permission to cancel existing contracts with cable companies after concluding they had become “clearly burdensome” to the company. ExciteAtHome executives said they were costing the company up to $6 million per week. 

ExciteAtHome wanted the cable companies to pay substantially higher fees to connect to its network. Until ExciteAtHome’s bankruptcy, the cable companies had been paying a monthly fee of $12 per subscriber.

SAN FRANCISCO – When San Francisco Examiner Publisher Ted Fang was fired by his own mother just before Halloween, it punctuated a year of humbling setbacks in a local newspaper industry that once mirrored the Silicon Valley’s exuberance. 

Little about the past year has panned out as expected by San Francisco Bay area publishers, who are trimming staffs and lowering expectations to make up for millions of advertising dollars that evaporated in the high-tech meltdown. 

“It’s like they were on top of Mount Olympus one day and then sitting in the valley of the shadow of death the next,” said David Cole, an industry consultant in Pacifica. 

All of the Bay Area’s metropolitan papers are licking their wounds. 

Fang had pledged to build the new Examiner into a scrappy morning rival to Northern California’s largest newspaper, making most of the $66 million subsidy the Hearst Corp., promised to avoid antitrust trouble as it merged the old Examiner’s staff with the San Francisco Chronicle’s. 

Instead he’s been reduced to threatening to sue his mother to get his job back, and she has been saddled with a lawsuit by seven construction companies alleging that the Examiner hadn’t paid $1.4 million in bills. Fang declined to comment for this story, through his attorney Robert Wallach. 

Hearst, which made improving news coverage one of its top priorities last year when it bought the Chronicle for $660 million, is pruning 220 workers from its payroll. 

The San Jose Mercury News has backtracked, too. Besides abandoning a much-heralded San Francisco edition launched during last year’s boom, the Mercury News eliminated nearly 10 percent of its staff in a wave of corporate-mandated budget cuts that provoked Publisher Jay Harris to resign in protest. 

Large suburban papers in the region also have been hurt by the downturn. The Walnut Creek-based Contra Costa Times — owned, like the Mercury News, by Knight Ridder — also jettisoned about 10 percent of its work force earlier this year. 

Difficult times aren’t new in the famously cyclical newspaper industry. But the severity of this slowdown caught Bay Area publishers off guard. 

“It’s been rough year for newspapers all over the country, but it’s just been a disaster in San Francisco,” said newspaper industry analyst John Morton. “Things are worse in San Francisco than just about any other place, expect maybe downtown New York.” 

Bay Area publishers insist the problems of the past year haven’t hurt their papers’ quality. They say they’re confident that their papers will continue to improve despite the cutbacks. 

“I’m still optimistic,” said Chronicle Publisher John Oppedahl, who described this year’s ad slump as the worst he has seen in 40 years. “I believe we can get where we need to be, although it may require some changes that we didn’t anticipate.” 

Mercury News Publisher Joseph Natoli, hired to replace Harris, said the San Jose paper remains committed to investing in improvements. He said the Mercury News’ decision to expand its sports coverage, including the recent hiring of respected columnist Skip Bayless, underscored the paper’s commitment. 

“At the end of the day, we still have to grow and that means we have to spend money in the right spots,” Natoli said. 

But this year’s sharp drop in revenue means the Mercury News can’t afford to spend money as freely as it did during the past few years of prosperity powered by the Silicon Valley’s Internet-driven economic boom. 

In 2000, the Mercury News generated $341 million in revenue, an increase of $35 million, or 11 percent, from 1999. Knight Ridder hasn’t provided specifics about how far revenues have fallen at the Mercury News this year, but the San Jose paper’s total advertising inches had dropped by 13 percent through October. 

Looking to offset a 20 percent decline in advertising revenue this year, the Chronicle had been cutting corners even before last week’s announcement of an 8.5 percent reduction of its work force. The previous concessions included curtailing travel and switching the paper’s Sunday magazine to every other week. 

The Chronicle’s financial hardships haven’t hurt its readership yet. The paper’s unaudited weekday circulation stood at 512,042 as of Sept. 30, an increase of about 12 percent from the previous year. 

The recently announced staff cuts may make it more difficult for the paper in the future, said Carl Hall, a Chronicle reporter and president of the Northern California Media Workers Guild, which represents most of the paper’s newsroom workers. 

“I think a lot of the internal debate is going to be centered on whether we will be able to continue to improve the editorial product,” Hall said. “This is bound to hurt.” 

Each round of cutbacks if making it more difficult for unemployed journalists to find work in the Bay Area. This, too, is a painful about-face from recent years when a proliferation of dot-com businesses in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley turned reporters and editors into hot commodities. 

Rick Radin, an 18-year industry veteran, remembers having his pick of attractive job offers last year before deciding to go to work in September 2000 as a copy editor for the Examiner, at the time still owned by Hearst. Radin said he accepted the Examiner offer largely because of assurances his job would be secure after Hearst merged the paper’s staff with the Chronicle in November 2000. 

The Chronicle laid off Radin, 51, last week. With a hefty home mortgage that he took on during the good times, Radin is now wondering if he will be able to find another job that will pay him anything close to his $55,000 annual salary at the Chronicle. 

“I’m anxious,” Radin said. “It’s a bad time to lose a job in this industry.”

About 100 activists gathered in West Berkeley Friday to condemn the economic policies of the pharmaceutical industry and to demand a new system for the manufacturing and distribution of essential medicines. 

Specifically, they said, the industry should acknowledge that the only way to deal with the catastrophic AIDS epidemic in Africa, Asia and other parts of the Third World is to allow those areas to manufacture generic versions of AIDS medications. 

Joan Claybrook, president of the consumer activist group Public Citizen, was the keynote speaker at the rally. She said the pharmaceutical industry – which she said spent $185 million last year in lobbying and campaign contributions – exerts too much influence in Washington. 

She said the industry’s power was apparent last month, when Tommy Thompson, secretary of Health and Human Services, threatened to cancel the patent on one of Bayer’s products during a nationwide anthrax panic. 

“If the government can threaten to take away patent protection for Cipro, as Thompson did, why can’t it do the same for AIDS drugs and other critically needed medicines?” she asked. 

A number of protesters affiliated with Hemophilia Justice also brought attention to the 10,000 hemophiliacs who were infected with AIDS through Bayer Pharmaceuticals hemophilia drugs produced in Berkeley. 

The rally, which was in conjunction with World AIDS Day events around the globe, began at the Berkeley offices of Roche, a manufacturer of several HIV-fighting retroviral drugs, at the corner of Seventh Street and Ashby Avenue. Protesters later marched down Seventh Street to the Bayer Pharmaceuticals plant at 800 Dwight Way. 

At least 15 members of the Berkeley Police Department were on hand to provide crowd control or to issue “symbolic arrests” if needed. The crowd never became unruly, though, and no one wished to be arrested. 

Mark Hunter, a UC Berkeley doctoral student who is researching AIDS prevention in South Africa, said that affordable medicines would not only treat people who are currently HIV-positive, but would play a major role in preventing new cases of the disease. 

He said that HIV-positive people who are able to afford the retroviral “drug cocktail” treatment – which has proven to be the most effective way of preventing the onset of AIDS – are, in many cases, less likely to pass the virus on to their partners. 

More importantly, he said, many people in South Africa refuse to get tested for HIV, because if the test comes back positive, it is “nothing but a death sentence.” 

However, he said, the price of these drugs is far more than the average person can afford.  

Phillip Machingura, a Zimbabwean activist currently working in the United States, agreed that low-cost drugs helped the prevention effort in poor countries. 

“I have friends (in Zimbabwe) who suspect they might be HIV-positive but will not get tested because they fear the result,” he said. “These people are the walking dead. They have no hope.” 

Machingura said that his cousin recently died of an AIDS-related illness because she could not afford the medication. 

“She’s the fourth person in my family to die from HIV/AIDS in the past two years,” he said. 

“People are dying within reach of hospitals, doctors and clinics who have their hands tied behind their backs because they don’t have medication to give them.” 

The solution, as Machingura and many of the other activists present see it, is for the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture AIDS medicines to relinquish – or at least not actively defend – their patents on the drugs. 

The patents allow the holders – usually, those who invented the medicine – exclusive rights to manufacture the product. They then have an almost unlimited ability to determine the product’s price. 

Berkeley Vice-Mayor Maudelle Shirek condemned the patent process insofar as it pertained to life-and-death issues, and called it a peculiarity of capitalism. 

“The very system that extols competition as a way of life makes it illegal to have competition that could save lives,” she said. 

“From America to Africa, from anthrax to AIDS to cancer, we demand affordable medications for all illnesses – now.” 

Pharmaceutical companies routinely defend the patent system by saying that it allows them to recoup the costs of developing new drugs. Different studies show that the cost of developing each new drug brought to market is between $110 and $500 million. 

A written statement handed out by a consultant for Roche underscored this point. 

“Roche believes that protection of intellectual property through patents promotes public health by encouraging the discovery and development of medicines vital to patients around the world,” it read. 

The statement went on to say that Roche would not seek a profit on HIV medicines sold in the poorest countries in Africa. 

Jackie Cottrell, a spokesperson for GlaxoSmithKline, another major drug manufacturer, said on Friday that allowing generic versions of drugs would not necessarily help combat the African AIDS crisis. 

“One of our bigger arguments is that it’s not necessarily an issue of generic versus name-brand medicines,” she said. “Most generic drugs are still not available in Third World countries, either.” 

Hunter called this argument a “red herring.” 

“Price, without doubt, is still the major handicap,” he said. “To use infrastructure as an excuse not to give out these drugs is ridiculous.” 

Members of Hemophilia Justice marched with their faces painted red. They carried signs reminding people of the estimated 10,000 people who contracted AIDS through tainted hemophilia medication. 

The members of the group charge that Bayer and two other drug companies collected blood from prisons and other questionable sources years after HIV was diagnosed as the cause of AIDS. The blood was later processed and made into clotting drugs for people who suffer from the bleeding disorder, passing HIV from donor to recipient. 

Beatrice Vieux-Brieux carried a poster of her son, Laurent, who died three years ago after contracting HIV from a Bayer hemophilia drug. She wept as she spoke of his death. 

“I was working three jobs to buy the drugs that killed him,” she said. “They knowingly infected my son and 10,000 other hemophiliacs.” 

“I will be here every year until justice is done.” 

In 1997, the Bayer Corporation settled a class-action lawsuit brought by hemophiliacs who had contracted AIDS from their drugs. Each plaintiff in the case was awarded $100,000. 

Bayer Pharmaceuticals could not be reached for comment. 

Saturday, Dec. 1

Changing Berkeley High 

noon - 3 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park 

Community Action to demonstrate community support for transforming Berkeley High School into new, autonomous, small schools. We are hoping to have enough people that we will be able to hold hands around the entire Berkeley High School campus and “hug” our school. 527-7779, http://berkeleysmallschools.org. 

Waterfront Walk 

10 a.m. 

Sea Breeze Market 

University Ave. & Frontage Rd. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers’ Association leads a walk in the new Eastshore State Park. 848-9358, f5creeks@aol.com. 

Day Without Art 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Museum 

Pacific Film Archive 

2625 Durant Ave. 

In remembrance of people who have died from AIDS, the Museum will drape in black a prominent work from its collection. $6. 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. 

Women’s Night at the Movies 

7:30 - 10 p.m.  

2712 Telegraph Ave. 

“Out of Season”, a drama about a lesbian who is caring for a dying uncle and finds romance with the owner of a local diner. Open to all women. Food and drinks provided. $5-$10. 548-8283 X231, lawrance@pacificcenter.org 

Berkeley Community Chorus  

and Orchestra Concert 

8 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church 

1640 Addison 

Franz Schubert, Mass in A-flat major, with solo voices; Handel, Messiah Hallelujah Chorus. Free. 964-0665. www.bcco.org. 

Small Press Distribution  

Open House 

noon - 4 p.m. 

SPD Warehouse 

1341 7th St. 

Join hundreds of book lovers at the country’s only exclusively literary book distributor, shop for discounted books, and eat free food and drink. Readings begin at 2 p.m., Beat Poet Joanne Kyger featured guest. Free. 524-1668 x305, www.spdbooks.org. 

UC Botanical Garden Holiday  

Plant Sale:  

10 a.m. - 2 p.m.  

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Dr., Strawberry Canyon 

Choose from orchids, tillandsias, cacti, ferns, bromeliads, and carnivorous plants as well as unique gifts and books. 643-2755. 

Montessori Campus Design  

Competition Exhibit  

1 - 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Montessori School 

1581 LeRoy Ave. 

BMS is designing a new Elementary and Middle School campus, see the designs and give your feedback for jury consideration in selecting the winner. 843-9374, sharline@well.com. 

Mural Dedication Celebration 

3 - 5 p.m. 

The Crucible 

1036 Ashby Ave. 

843-5511, www.thecrucible.org. 

Dunsmuir Historic Estate Holiday Season 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland 

Volunteers have transformed the 50-acre estate and the 1899 mansion into a holiday event. 925-275-9595, www.dunsmuir.org. 

“Peace on Earth” 

8 p.m. 

First Presbyterian Church 

27th and Broadway, Oakland 

Maestro Morales presents the 120 voice Cantare Chorale with organ and full orchestra. $22. 655-5117, www.cantareconvivo.org. 

The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir 16th Annual Christmas Concert 

7:30 p.m. 

Paramount Theatre 

2025 Broadway, Oakland 

Under the direction of Terrance Kelly. $20. 839-4361, www.oigc.org 

Central Library's Wild About Books 

10:30 a.m. 

Temporary Central Library  

2121 Allston Way 

The Berkeley Public Library presents Muriel Johnson of Abiyomi Storytelling in a family program, introducing children ages 3-7 and their families to the world of language and the discovery of good books. 649-3943, elo1@ci.berkeley.ca.us. 

Giant Garage Sale 

9 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Albany YMCA 

921 Kains Ave. 

The Albany YMCA is holding its 10th Annual Giant Garage Sale. All proceeds from the event will be used to provide financial assistance for families, youth and seniors so they can participate in YMCA programs. Accepting donations - unwanted household items - at the Albany YMCA. 549-4524 

Santa's Solstice Bazaar 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Metaversal Lightcraft 

1708 University Ave. 

Come shop while kids visit with Santa for free. Fine arts, crafts, 

clothing and gift booths in a magical and colorful scene. 644-2032, www.lightcraft.org. 

Workshop for Shopping in  

Health Food Stores 

1 - 3 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

An informative workshop to help participants gain a practical understanding of the products in today’s health food stores. $15 non-members, $10 members548-2220 x233 

Sunday, Dec. 2

KPFA Radio: Its Past and its  

Uncertain Future 

7 p.m. 

International House Auditorium 

Bancroft at Piedmont Ave. 

A showing of the award-winning documentary, “KPFA On The Air,” narrated by Alice Walker, followed by a panel discussion about current threats to KPFA's free speech tradition. $10-20, no one turned away for lack of funds.  

Buddy Club Children Show 

1 - 2 p.m. 

The Berkeley JCC Theater 

1414 Walnut St. 

EarthCapades, a juggling tandem, that tosses pins, knives, bowling balls, and rubber chickens will join with, Colibri, a musical duo performing music from the Americas $7, 236-SHOW, www.TheBuddyClub.com 

Macrobiotics: The Way to  

Personal Health and Peace 

noon 

The Fellowship of Humanity 

411 28th Street, Oakland 

Robert Mattson, publisher of the International Macrobiotic Directory, 

presents a Macrobiotic health program whose main component is common sense. 451-5818, HumanistHall@yahoo.com. 

Advent Graces 

4 p.m. 

St. Augustine Church 

400 Alcatraz 

Janet Sullivan Whitaker and friends share an afternoon of her inspiring music, scripture and prayer. 653-8631 

Berkeley Community Chorus  

and Orchestra Concert 

4 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church 

1640 Addison 

Franz Schubert, Mass in A-flat major, with solo voices; Handel, Messiah Hallelujah Chorus. Free. 964-0665. www.bcco.org.  

Kick-Off Event for the 2002  

Elections 

noon - lunch, 1 p.m. - program 

La Peña Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

The People's Electoral Project (PEP) invites you to the Kick-Off Event for the 2002 Elections: Wilson Riles, Jr. candidate for mayor of Oakland; Peter Camejo, candidate for governor of California; also The Labor Heritage Rockin' Solidarity Chorus. $15 - $25. 415-789-8497, banjo@california.com 

Interfaith Forum on Racism 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Buddhist Temple 

2121 Channing 

Panelists will include Ameena Jandali of the Islamic Networks Group, Chiori Santiago - social activist, Lewis Woods of the Berkeley Zen Center. Free. 841-1356 

Compiled by Guy Poole

Nestled above the south bank of Strawberry Creek, and somewhat hidden behind Barrows Hall on the UC Berkeley campus, is a small, one-story residentially scaled building with a bronze sculpture of a Pelican standing in front. Two readers have recently inquired about this quiet, but intriguing building. 

Anthony Hall was completed in 1957 for the UC student humor magazine “The California Pelican” founded in 1903 by Earl C. Anthony. Typical of Pelican humor, the magazine described itself in the 1908 Blue and Gold year book: “The Pelican continues to flap her wings ... and plunged into the sea of personalities to bring up unfortunate individuals for the college public to snatch from her pouch and devour.” The magazine was published until the mid-’60s.  

After graduating from UC Berkeley in 1903, Anthony (1881-1961) opened a Packard dealership in Los Angeles and others later in San Francisco and Oakland. To fuel the cars, he opened a string of gas stations, said to be the first to have neon-lit signage.  

Anthony was also a communications pioneer, establishing early radio station KFI and later a television station.  

Architect Bernard Maybeck designed Packard showrooms for Anthony in Oakland (1928, destroyed 1974), San Francisco (1926) and assisted with a 1928 showroom in Los Angeles. Maybeck also designed a large, residential estate for Anthony in Los Angeles between 1924 and 1928. Maybeck and Anthony were fellow members of the Bohemian Club. 

Around 1954 Anthony offered to donate a campus building for the Pelican magazine and wanted Maybeck to design it. But Maybeck, now in his 80s, had been retired for many years and offered to be a consultant. Ultimately the task of designing the building in the spirit of Maybeck went to Joseph Esherick.  

Like Maybeck’s 1910 First Church of Christ Science, the light and airy Pelican building has floor-to-ceiling industrial steel frame windows. Dark wood post and beam structural members are exposed and the posts are capped with cast-concrete capitals of a stylized pelican design. The walls are earth-toned stucco and the roof is tile. This beautifully scaled and thoughtful building is now used by the Graduate Assembly.  

Susan Cerny is author of “Berkeley Landmarks”and writes this series in conjunction with the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.

Editor: 

I add my 77 year old voice to that of Harry Siitonen (Nov. 3-4) concerning the ability of men and women over 45 to bicycle around Berkeley. I gave up my car 12 years ago, for economic reasons and as an environmental, health, and political statement. I was writing the book “Rebuilding Community in America:...,” persuading the reader to live in Cohousing and Cooperative Communities that are car independent, energy resourceful, and socially harmonious. I now “walk my talk.” 

In the Bay Area, even with its imperfect transit system, but better than lots of places, I get around via bus, bike, and BART and carpooling, and I love it: good exercise, no insurance and fossil fuel costs, and no parking hassle, especially at Berkeley Bowl and in Downtown Berkeley. I bet that I run my 4 to 7 errand circuit around Berkeley in less time than a car driver takes considering their parking and walking time. I pedal up to every destination and on to the next without having to tug a 2000 pound pollution machine around. 

Now a word of caution! Yes bicycling builds muscles, stamina, and better health. But before venturing out on this courageous new era in your life, you must first build muscle, stamina, and confidence. I mean, go into training, work on the muscle groups that help propel a bike, but also are used for control to eliminate the “beginner wobble.” The leg, arm, and shoulder muscles are used in a similar way as when riding a horse, but this is a two wheeled version. It takes some coordinated muscle pressure in all directions to assist in the balancing and steering, it is not like a power steered car. 

So gather you environmental resolve and quest for healthy living, and walk or take the bus to the Berkeley “Y”, or invent your own home version of bike training. Try out bicycling on your sidewalk, then a vacant parking lot, then the Ohlone Bike Path. Build your control muscles and confidence and you can join us 75, 77, and older Geezers. 

Ken Norwood 

Berkeley 

Though he was part of pop music’s most storied group, George Harrison formed significant and memorable partnerships with other musicians, including Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. 

In fact, Shankar, whom Harrison helped make famous during the Beatle’s visits to India in the 1960s, was present during Harrison’s final hours in California. Harrison succumbed to cancer Thursday at the home of a friend. 

“We spent the day before with him, and even then he looked so peaceful, surrounded by love,” Shankar said in a statement Friday. “George has left so many precious memories and moments in all our lives which will remain with us forever.” 

Harrison collaborated with fellow guitarist Clapton on various projects. The two remained friends for years, even after Harrison’s wife, Patti Boyd, left him for Clapton in the early ’70s (the triangle was the basis of Clapton’s tortured love song “Layla”). 

Clapton traded guitar licks with Harrison on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and was the former Beatle’s guitarist during a tour of Japan in 1992. Clapton declined to comment on Harrison’s death. 

Together with Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne, Harrison created the band The Traveling Wilburys in 1988, complete with fictional names and characters for each member. The group scored a hit album with “Traveling Wilburys: Volume One.” 

Other stars recalled Harrison’s legacy as a musician and friend. 

“He wrote some of the greatest Beatles’ songs, but more than that, he had a gentleness and spirituality that made spending time with him a great pleasure,” said Paul Simon in a statement. “I have been dreading this loss, and I will really miss him.” 

Keith Richards, whose Rolling Stones were rivals to the Beatles in the 1960s, said he felt a connection to Harrison. 

“We both felt we held similar positions in our respective bands, which formed a special knowing bond between us,” said Richards. “Let’s hope he’s jamming with John.” 

Richards’ bandmate, Mick Jagger, said: “He was a very complex character, both quiet and funny with a very sweet nature, but he also could be rather combative at times. He was the first musician I knew who developed a truly spiritual side, and he was generous with his time to both charity and to friends.” 

Many who did not have a close relationship with Harrison were touched by his death. 

“While we were not personal friends, I think that just like everybody in the world, I have always considered all the Beatles to be my friends,” said Brian Wilson, whose Beach Boys were considered an American rival to the Beatles. 

“Their arrival in America in 1964 was electrifying, one of the most exciting things that ever happened in my life, and their music has always and will always mean so much to me.” 

Harrison organized the 1971 “Concert for Bangladesh,” one of the first rock ’n’ roll benefits, and Bob Geldof, who put together the Live Aid concert in 1985, said Harrison was generous with advice. 

“During that, he would fax me and ring me. He kept telling me not to make the mistakes they made with all the lawyers in the Bangladeshi concert,” Geldof said. “So I remember him with a profound sense of gratitude.” 

21 Grand Dec. 1: 9 p.m., Toychestra, Rosin Coven, Darling Freakhead, $6; All ages. 21 Grand Ave., Oakland. 444-7263 

924 Gilman St. Dec. 1: Yaphet Kotto, Cattle Decapitation, Creation Is Crucifixion, Kalibas, A Death Between Seasons, Lo-Fi Neissans; Dec. 2: 5 p.m., Dead and Gone, Venus Bleeding, Suptonix, Geoff (spoken word), East Bay Chasers, Lesser Of Two; Dec. 7: Har Mar Superstar, The Pattern, The Blast Rocks, Your Enemies’ Friends, Hate Mail Express; Dec. 8: Scurvy Dogs, Nigel Peppercock, Shut The Fuck Up, Offering To The Sun, Voetsek; Dec. 9: Poison The Well, Unearth, Sworn Enemy, Spark Lights The Friction; Dec. 14: Hot Water Music, American Steel, F-Minus, Trial By Fire; Dec. 15: Strung Out, Limp, The Frisk, The Deadlines, The Creeps; Dec. 16: 5 p.m., Good Riddance, Missing 23rd, Downway, Audio Crush; Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; Dec. 22: The Lab Rats, Onetime Angels, A great Divide, Last Great Liar, Gabriel’s Ratchet; Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Over My Dead Body, Panic, Breaker Breaker, Some Still Believe; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 4: Panacea; Dec. 5: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 6: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 11: Mad & Eddic Duran Jazz Duo; Dec. 13: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 15: Larry Stefl Jazz Quartet; Dec. 18: Panacea; Dec. 19: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

Ashkenaz Dec. 1: 8 p.m., 2nd Annual Musical Night in Africa w/ Kotoja, West African Highlife Band, Kasumai Bare, Nigerian Brothers, $13; Dec. 2: 6 p.m., Danny Torres and Nova Trova, $8; 1317 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054 www.ashkenaz.com 

Cal Performances Dec. 19: Berkeley Symphony, $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus, Bancroft Way at Telegraph, 642-0212 tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Club Muse Dec. 1: 9:30 p.m., Naked Barbies, Penelope Houston, $8; All ages. 856 San Pablo Ave., Albany, 528-2878. 

Eli’s Mile High Club Dec. 1: J.J. Malone; Doors open at 8 p.m. unless noted. 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Dec. 1: Geoff Muldaur w/ Fritz Richmond; Dec. 2: Kaila Flexer’s Fieldharmonik; Dec. 5: Avalon Blues: Peter Case, Dave Alvin and Bill Morrissey; Dec. 6: Ray Bonneville; Dec. 7 & 8: Rebecca Riots; All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. Call 548-1761 for prices or see www.freightandsalvage.org.  

The Minnow Dec. 1: Replicator, Fluke Starbucker, Baby Carrot, The Len Brown Society; All shows $6. 1700 Clement Ave., Alameda. 

iMusicast Dec. 1: 6 - 11 p.m., One Time Angels, The Influents, The Frisk, Fetish, The Locals, $8; All ages. 5429 Telegraph Ave. 601-1024, www.imusicast.com. 

Chilean dance ensemble Araucaria, Andean music troupe Viento, Venezuelan Music Project; . La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, http:/www.lapena.org. 

Jazzschool/La Note Dec. 9: 4:30 p.m., Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound, $6 - $12, reservations recommended. 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 www.jazzschool.com 

Jupiter Dec. 1: Will Bernard Trio; Dec. 5: J Dogs; Dec. 6: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 7: AVI Bortnick Group; Dec. 8: Harvey Wainapel Quartet; Dec. 12: Mushroom; Dec. 13: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 14: Broun Fellini’s; Dec. 15: Norah Jones and Jim Campilongo; Dec. 19: Spectraphonic; Dec. 20: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 29: Berkeley Jazz School Presents: Kirk Tamura Trio; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 1: 8 p.m., ¡Viva el Carnival! $12-$14; Dec. 7: 8:30 p.m., John Calloway & Diaspora, $12; Dec. 8: 9:30 p.m., Dr. Loco’s Rocking Jalapeño Band, $10; Dec. 9: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; Dec. 9: 7:30 p.m., Trio Altamira Reunion Concert, $12-$14; Dec. 14: 8 p.m., Holly Near, $15-$17; Dec. 16: 5 p.m, Flamenca Community Juerga, Free; Dec. 16: 7 p.m, Modupue & UpSurge, $8; Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 1: Scrambled Samba Trio, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 2: Paul and Jill Janoff, Musical Offering, 2430 Bancroft; Dec. 8: Jonah Minton Quartet, Julie’s Healthy Cafe, 2562 Bancroft; Dec. 9: Hebro, Blakes, 2367 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 15: Thelonious On The Move, Bison Brewing, 2598 Telegraph Ave.; Dec. 16: Howard Kadis, Musical Offering Cafe, 2430 Bancroft; Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

Rose Street House Dec. 1: 8 p.m., Acapella Night - Making Waves, Solstice, Out on a Clef, $5 - $20; Dec. 14 & 15: 7:30 p.m., Benefit Concert and Birthday Party, Shelly Doty and grassroots community of women singers and song writers; Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@yahoo.com. 

Starry Plough Dec. 1: 9:30 p.m., Mark Growden’s Electric Pinata, Ramona the Pest, Film School; 3101 Shattuck Ave.  

Stork Club Dec. 1: 10 p.m., Anticon, Kevin Blechdom, Bevin Blectum, The Silents, $10; Dec. 2: 8 p.m., Corsciana, The Mass, Modular Set, Spore Attic, $5; 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series Dec. 2: 8 p.m., Lesli Dalaba , Aaron Bennett, $0 - $20; Tuva Space, 3192 Adeline St., http://sfsound.org/ acme.html. 

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra presents “Bach’s Mass in B Minor” Dec. 1, 8 p.m., Dec. 2, 7:30 p.m., First Congregational Church, Dana and Durant. Guest conductor Andrew Parrott. $34 - $50. 415-392-4400, www.philharmonia.org. 

Mike Vax Jazz Orchestra with Lennie Niehaus Dec. 2: 2 p.m., $18. Longfellow School of the Arts, 1500 Derby St. 420-4560, www.bigbandjazz.net 

“Guitar, Woodwinds, Drums” Dec. 8: 8 p.m., The Bill Horvitz Band, Ben Goldberg’s What Music. Tuva Space, 3192 Adeline St. 

Theater 

“Uncle Vanya” Nov. 23 through Nov. 29: Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. Nov. 25, 7 p.m. Subterranean Shakespeare’s production of Jean-Claude van Italie’s humorous translation of Anton Chekhov’s romantic masterpiece. Directed by Diane Jackson. Benefits the Forests Forever Foundation. $8-$14. La Val’s Subterranean Theatre, 1834 Euclid. 234-6046, www.subshakes.com 

“Goddesses” Nov. 30 through Dec. 1: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 7 p.m. A sensuous and humorous drama concerning one mortal woman’s struggle to control the six extraordinary goddesses in her psyche. Written by Dorotea Reyna. $10. Mils College, Lisser Hall, 5900 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland 883-0536, rlcouture@earthlink.net 

“Saint Joan” Through Dec. 2: Wed. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun 2 p.m., 7 p.m. George Bernard Shaw’s epic of a young girl determined to drive the English out of France with only her faith to support her. Directed by Barbara Oliver. $26-35. Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St. 843-4822 www.auroratheatre.org 

“Seventy Scenes of Halloween” Nov. 30 & Dec. 7: 8 p.m.; Dec. 1 & 8: 8 p.m., 10:30 p.m.; Dec. 2 & 9: 7 p.m.; BareStage Productions, UC Berkeley’s original student theater company, presents a macbre farce written by Jeffrey M. Jones and directed by Desdemona Chiang. $8. UC Berkeley, Choral Rehearsal Hall. 682-3880, barestage@ucchoral.berkeley.edu. 

“Brave Brood” Through Dec. 16: Robert O’Hara directs Robert O’Hara’s searing tale of money, desperation, and the fight for survival. $20. Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. 883-0305 www.transparenttheater.org 

“Black Nativity” Dec. 7 through Dec. 16th: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2:30 p.m., 8 p.m., Sun. 5:30 p.m. The birth of Jesus unfolds in this drama written by Langston Hughes. Directed and produced by Betty Gadling. $15 adults, $8 seniors and students, $5 children over 5. Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland 569-9418 www.allen-temple.org 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

Films 

Pacific Film Archive Theater Nov. 30: 7:30 p.m., Werckmeister Harmonies; Dec. 6: 7 p.m., Bizarre, Bizarre; 8:50 p.m., The Green Man; Dec. 7: 7 p.m., Smiles of a Summer Night; 9:05 p.m., Cluny Brown; Bancroft Way, 642-1124 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Exhibits  

“2001 James D. Phelan Art Awards in Printmaking” Honorees: Bridget Henry, David Kelso, and Margaret Van Patten. Through Nov. 30 Tues. - Fri. noon - 5 p.m., other times by appointment. Kala Art Institue, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977 www.kala.org 

“Furniture Art” Through Dec. 7: An exhibit of metal and wood furniture that revisits furniture not only as art but as craft. 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. The Current Gallery at the Crucible, 1036 Ashby Ave. 843-5511 www.thecrucible.org 

“The Paintings of Bethany Anne Ayers and Sculpture of Alexander Cheves” Nov. 15 through Dec. 15: Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Ardency Gallery, 709 roadway, Oakland. 836-0831 gallery709@aol.com 

“The Whole World’s Watching: Peace and Social Justice Movements of the 1960s and 1970s” Through Dec. 16: A documentary photo exhibition which examines the rich history of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Wed. - Sun., noon - 5 p.m. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., Live Oak Park. Free. 644-6893 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222 

“The Art History Museum of Berkeley” 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 Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9 2028 Ninth St. 841-4210 or visit www.atelier9.com 

Readings 

Cody’s on Telegraph Ave. Nov. 28: 7:30 p.m. David Meltzer and contributors read from his newly revised and re-released collection of interviews with Bay Area Beat Poets; 2454 Telegraph Ave. 845-7852 

Coffee With A Beat - Word Beat reading series: Dec. 1: Adam David Miller, Dennis Richards; Dec. 8: Jeanne Powell, Kelly Kraatz; Dec. 15: Norm Milstein, Barbara Minton; Dec. 22: Debra Grace Khattab, Jesy Goldhammer; Dec. 29: Steve Arntson, Michelle Erickson, Clare Lewis; All readings are free and begin at 7 p.m., 458 Perkins, Oakland, 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat. 

The Humanist Fellowship Hall Dec. 5: 7 p.m., “Our Wings Are Pregnant Seesaws” a play by H. D. Moe. A reading performance by the theatre workshop. 390 27th St., Oakland, 528-8713 

“Rhythm & Muse Open Mic” Dec. 15: 7 p.m., Featuring poets Lara Dale and Mary-Marcia Casoly. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 527-9753 

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Fridays 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. or by appointment. Call ahead to make reservations. Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

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 Sun., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sun., noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

Museums 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins; Nov. 3: Tales from the Enchanted Forest, 11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.; Nov. 9: Living with the Earth; Nov. 17: Recycle that Stuff; $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Mon. and Wed., 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tues. and Fri., 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thur., 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Oakland Museum of California Through Nov. 25: Pasajes y Encuentros: Ofrendas for the Days of the Dead, highlights three thematic “passageways” that connect the dead with the living: tradition, humor and spirit; Dec. 8 & 9: 32nd Annual Bay Area Fungus Fair, the world of the mushroom will be explored in exhibits, lectures, slide shows, cooking demos, etc.. Through Jan. 13: Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff, featuring paintings and works on paper that trace the evolution of Bischoff’s career. $6 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. Wed. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. noon - 5 p.m., 10th St., Oakland, 888-625-6873/ www.museumca.org 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 foot 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. Mon. through Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will close its exhibition galleries for renovation. It will reopen in early 2002.  

University of California Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive has reopened after its summerlong seismic retrofit. “Martin Puryear: Sculpture of the 1990s” through Jan. 13; “The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 - 1982)” through Dec. 16; “Face of Buddha: Sculpture from India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia” ongoing rotation through 2003; “Matrix 194: Jessica Bronson, Heaps, layers, and curls” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; “Matrix 192: Ceal Floyer 37’4”” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way; Museum Galleries 2626 Bancroft Way; 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Lawrence Hall of Science Through Jan. 26: Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters; “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. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza. 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  

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

Three games into the season, the Berkeley High girls’ soccer team scored its first goal of the year on Friday against Livermore, then proceeded to score three more on its way to a 4-1 victory. 

The suddenly ferocious Berkeley attack got goals from four different players against the Cowboys after going scoreless against both Arroyo and Amador Valley, both losses. Although the ’Jackets only had a slight advantage in shots on Friday, they created much better scoring opportunities than Livermore, which took most of its shots from outside the penalty box. 

Berkeley (1-2) had the advantage early thanks to some deft passing by forwards Annie Borton and Maura Fitzgerald and midfielder Veronica Searles. With the rangy forwards causing havoc up front with diagonal runs, Searles was often open in the middle for shots. She just missed on a cross from Fitzgerald in the opening minutes as Berkeley kept possession for much of the start. The three hooked up again a minute later, using a one-touch triangle to get Fitzgerald open, but her final touch was a bit too strong and Livermore goalkeeper Marisa Dayton smothered it. 

Searles finally broke the scoring drought when Borton forced a bad pass by a Livermore defender, putting her one-on-one with Dayton. Searles took two dribbles, then slid the ball into the left corner of the goal for a 1-0 Berkeley lead. 

Livermore (2-1) fought back, keeping the ball in the Berkeley half of the field for the next few minutes, but was unable to create a good scoring chance as ’Jacket sweeper Mei-Lin Ha repeatedly cleared balls out of the back. 

Fitzgerald got another assist late in the half, making a long run down the left side before finding Borton open in the middle. Borton lofted a shot over Dayton, who had come off of her line, and into the net for the second Berkeley goal. 

It didn’t take long for the ’Jackets to strike again. A moment after the ensuing kickoff, midfielder Rocio Guerrero crossed the ball from the right side, and Borton re-directed it to freshman midfielder Dea Wallach, who dribbled past Dayton and scored on the open net for her first career goal. 

“It was encouraging that we got support from the midfield into our attack today,” Berkeley coach Suzanne Sillett said. “We’ve been working on that in practice.” 

Livermore had a chance to get one back just before halftime, as Casie Towers got open inside the box, but her shot was right at Berkeley goalie Sara Corrigan-Gibbs, and Berkeley held on to the 3-0 lead into halftime. 

The ’Jackets came out firing in the second half, as Fitzgerald just missed a cross from Zoe Murphy. Fitzgerald then stole the ball from a Livermore defender, but put her shot right at Dayton, who batted it away. The rebound fell to Searles, but she put her shot over the crossbar. 

The Cowboys finally got their offense going later in the half, putting an extra attacker up front. Before Berkeley reacted to the extra forward, Dayton hit a long ball to the front that nearly resulted in a breakaway. Livermore earned a corner kick from the play, and Towers’ corner deflected to Michelle Allen. Taking the ball with her back to the goal, Allen hit an almost-bicycle kick that eluded Corrigan-Gibbs for a goal that cut the Berkeley lead to 3-1. 

Fitzgerald nearly created a goal for her team from a corner kick shortly afterward. Her first cross rebounded right back to her, and her second service was right to Guerrero’s head. But Dayton got a hand on the ball to slow it down, and a Cowboy cleared the ball off of the goal line. 

But Guerrero returned the favor seconds later, hitting a precise cross to Fitzgerald’s head, and this time there were no heroics for Livermore as the shot dented the net for the final goal of the game. 

Livermore nearly clawed one back, as Allen hit a free kick just over the bar, and Laura King blew a breakaway chance as Corrigan-Gibbs came off her line to palm the ball aside. 

The win should be a boost for the young Berkeley team, which returns just three starters from last year’s team. Sillett said she intentionally set up a tough pre-league schedule, which consists of solely of high-level competition. 

“I’d rather play tough teams and lose than play easy games and win,” she said. “Besides, the pre-season schedule is everything when it comes to making the (North Coast Section) playoffs.”

Leaders of the Berkeley Small Schools movement looked to middle school parents and teachers to help strengthen their base of support during a meeting at Longfellow Middle School Thursday where they geared up for a possible political battle with the Board of Education. 

Movement leaders, who are calling for the division of Berkeley High School into a series of small, relatively autonomous schools with different themes, will present the board with findings from their research. 

The activists said they hope to present a sample policy detailing a broad vision of their plan on Dec. 19.  

Movement leaders said they will seek an official vote on that policy early next year and hope to implement their Small Schools plan in 2003. 

But the board stands 4-1 against a rapid, wholesale reorganization of BHS, according to Board President Terry Doran, who supports the Small Schools policy, and Vice President Shirley Issel, who opposes it. 

In a Nov. 14 workshop, over Doran’s objections, the board endorsed an alternative draft policy, which would maintain the current comprehensive high school, strengthen the handful of schools-within-a-school already in place at BHS and create a set of criteria for gradually bringing more schools-within-a-school on-line, Issel said. 

These new Small Schools would be different from the proposed mini-schools, Issel said, because they would not be autonomous, and they would not replace the larger high school. Instead, they would function within the framework of the existing, comprehensive BHS. 

Issel said a gradual, schools-within-a-school approach is necessary because BHS is struggling with attendance, discipline, professional development and other issues, and is simply not prepared for a complete makeover. 

“I think you need to have a higher level of functionality to implement a plan like this,” Issel said. “If you can’t take attendance and don’t have a discipline policy, you don’t have the administrative capacity to implement this.” 

“I’m not prepared to wipe out the whole high school and start all over,” added Board member John Selawsky. He said he could envision the gradual emergence of a high school composed entirely of schools-within-a-school, but only if that’s what the parents and students of Berkeley truly want. Selawsky said that, at present, there are many people who do not want to abandon the comprehensive high school. 

Issel suggested that Small Schools leaders should work with the School Board on its alternative, gradual, schools-within-a-school approach, rather than put their own policy up for a vote. 

“I don’t know whether they’re actually going to put their policy on the board’s agenda,” she said. “But it will almost certainly be voted down.” 

Friday afternoon, Doran said Small Schools would like to work out a compromise policy that everyone finds agreeable, and avoid an up or down vote on the group’s plan. But in the end, he said, he would not accept a compromise that shut down the possibility of establishing autonomous small schools at BHS.  

Any compromise, Doran said, must include criteria for the establishment of small schools, giving proponents an opportunity to actually set up small schools at BHS if they can meet the criteria.  

No matter what the political odds, Small Schools leaders, on Thursday, were optimistic about the power of their idea and its chances for success. 

“We can grab these kids and get them passionate about something,” said Rick Ayers, a teacher at Berkeley High School’s Communications Arts and Science, one of the schools-within-a-school already in place. “You know that point when they stay up all night to finish a paper? We can get to that point at the high school.” 

Ayers added that Small Schools is the most powerful education movement he has encountered during his time in Berkeley. 

“This is the most thorough reform movement I’ve seen,” he said, citing broad support from parents, teachers, students, the mayor, the head of the teachers’ union and the School Board president.  

“But we still have a real hard row to hoe,” Ayers acknowledged, referring to the hesitancy of the superintendent and the majority of the School Board. 

Middle school parents and teachers in attendance Thursday night reacted to the small schools presentation with a mix of optimism, skepticism and simple curiosity. 

George Rose, a teacher at Willard Middle School said the idea was interesting and appeared to have community support, but he wondered about its political viability. 

Joanne Groce, mother of an eighth-grader at Longfellow put it plainly. “I think it’s a good idea if it works,” she said. 

Today, Small Schools will attempt to turn out 1,000 people to surround the high school in a human chain in support of its movement. The event will also include music, poetry, dance and speakers. Attendees will meet at noon in the Civic Center Park adjacent to the high school, or in the Community Theatre building in the event of rain.  

Editor: 

Downtown Berkeley needs more parking. I drive to the downtown YMCA every day to exercise for a half hour on a stationary bicycle. Some days, I have to park three or four blocks away, and I have to walk before exercising. 

Some environmentalists might claim that, if I can use the stationery bicycle, I can also bicycle to downtown. But bicycling to downtown would take me an extra 15 minutes each way. I’m very busy, and I can’t spare that extra half hour getting to downtown in addition to the half hour I spend exercising. 

Environmentalists don’t seem to realize that people need cars. Just the other day, I saw an elderly woman with two disabled children and six bags of Christmas presents driving through downtown. Do you expect her to take the bus? 

Those environmentalists make some pretty wild claims. 

They say that there are thousands of healthy people who drive to downtown one-to-the-car, and that if we used alternative transportation, there would be plenty of parking for people who really need to drive. 

They say that there are proven ways of shifting people to alternatives that Berkeley has not tried, such as employee parking cash-outs. They say that Americans drive four times as much as western Europeans and nine times as much as Japanese. 

They even say that we don’t have a moral right to drive as much as we do. 

World petroleum production will peak soon, dislocating the world economy and causing real pain to the world’s poor, because Americans demand the luxury of driving everywhere they go. Global warming has already begun, and we are leaving future generations a less livable planet, because we demand to drive everywhere we go. 

I have one answer for people who talk about the welfare of future generations. To quote a recent letter to the Daily Planet from someone who lives within easy walking distance of downtown, “Berkeley should be a town where residents can drive their cars, and enjoy shopping and a movie.” 

I do care about the environment. If the automobile manufacturers would just produce a fuel-efficient vehicle that has as much cargo room as my Ford Explorer, I would buy one. In fact, I care so much about the environment that I would buy two or three. 

Charles Siegel 

Berkeley

• Feb. 25, 1943 – Harrison is born in Liverpool, England, to Harold and Louise Harrison. 

• August 1958 – He joins the Quarrymen, a group that includes schoolmate Paul McCartney and John Lennon. 

• 1959 – He joins McCartney, Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe in a band called the Silver Beatles. 

• August 1960 – The band, now called the Beatles, goes to Germany, quickly becoming a popular local act. 

• May 9, 1962 – Producer George Martin, of EMI subsidiary Parlophone, signs Beatles to first record contract. 

• October 1962 – Beatles’ first single, “Love Me Do,” becomes a top-20 hit in Britain. 

• February 1963 – “Please Please Me” becomes the Beatles’ first chart-topping song in Britain. The band’s first album, also called “Please Please Me,” is released the following month. 

• Dec. 23, 1963 – “I Want to Hold Your Hand” becomes the band’s first U.S. release; weeks later, it is their first song to top the Billboard charts. 

• February 1964 – Beatles appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and immediately become the biggest band in America. 

• Jan. 21, 1966 – Harrison marries model Patti Boyd. 

• Aug. 29, 1966 – Beatles play last live show, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. 

• November 1968 – Harrison releases “Wonderwall Music,” an experimental, all-instrumental film score, his first solo recording and first LP for Beatles’ Apple label. 

• 1969 – Harrison’s song “Something” is No. 1 hit in United States for the Beatles. 

• April 10, 1970 – McCartney announces he is leaving the Beatles, prompting the band to split up. 

• 1970 – Harrison releases solo album “All Things Must Pass.” 

• Aug. 1, 1971 – Concert for Bangladesh is held at Madison Square Garden with friends including Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan and Ravi Shankar. Three-LP live recording produced. 

• Nov. 2, 1974 – Harrison becomes first Beatle to stage solo world tour. 

• June 9, 1977 – Harrison divorces Boyd, who later marries Eric Clapton. 

• Aug. 1, 1978 – His son Dhani born. 

• Sept. 2, 1978 – Harrison marries Dhani’s mother, Olivia Arias. 

• 1979 – He establishes Handmade Films to produce Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” 

• June 1998 – Harrison discloses that he has been treated for throat cancer. 

• Dec. 30, 1999 – He suffers a collapsed lung as he is stabbed several times by deranged man who breaks into his home near London. 

• July 9, 2001 – He confirms that he had radiation treatment in Switzerland for a tumor. 

• Nov. 29, 2001 – Harrison dies of cancer.

At its last meeting the City Council postponed a decision on whether to approve the Draft General Plan before or after its Christmas break. 

It will set up an approval schedule at a special meeting Dec. 4. 

While some councilmembers say the plan has been studied to death and they’re ready for the vote – it’s been discussed by 12 commissions, local businesses, nonprofit organizations and hundreds of individuals – others want to delay adoption and study it more thoroughly. 

The Planning Commission and staff have spent two and one-half years developing the plan, which will govern the city’s development, transportation and environmental management for 20 years. 

The council has held two public hearings on the plan and is scheduled to discuss it during its next three meetings, but that could change Tuesday. 

State law only requires the adoption of the housing element by Dec. 31. There are no deadlines mandated for the plan’s seven other elements, so the council can legally delay adoption. 

Some councilmembers and planning commissioners say there is ample time to review the draft plan and approve it by the last council meeting of the year on Dec. 13. Others want more time to thoroughly review its details before approving it.  

“There are huge implications here,” Councilmember Polly Armstrong said. “The Planning Commission has been dealing with this for (more than two) years, what’s the rush all of a sudden?” 

Armstrong added that recent events have made it difficult for councilmembers to properly review the plan. It was submitted to council on Sept. 11, but since then, Armstrong said the council has been preoccupied with local responses to the terrorist attacks, the Afghanistan resolution and the referendum on a controversial redistricting plan. 

Councilmember Dona Spring disagreed, saying the draft plan has become a “moving glacier” and it would be unfair to commissioners and citizens who helped develop the plan to drag its approval out. 

“The Planning Commission has been working on this for nearly three years and some of the commissioners feel very offended the plan they’ve worked so hard on may be stalled,” she said. “We have three meetings to discuss the plan and we should make a good faith effort to approve it in that time.” 

Spring added that several remaining issues that councilmembers have raised to the city’s planning staff, such as a moratorium on any downtown public parking studies in the next two years and downtown building heights, can be worked out easily in the next three weeks. 

Planning commissioners are equally divided on the draft plan’s schedule for approval. 

Commissioner Susan Wengraf said there is a great deal of information in the plan, much of which is very subtle. “There’s so much detail in the plan,” she said, “I think the council should take their time with it, especially since so much of their time has been diverted with recent events.” 

Commissioner Zelda Bronstein took a position similar to Spring. The council has had the plan for three months and there’s no point in dragging out the process, she said. “They’ve been apprised about the plan all along, they’ve submitted questions to staff now is the time to take action,” Bronstein said. “If they put their minds to it they can do it in three weeks.” 

She noted that, except for two policies, the Planning Commission approved the plan by a unanimous vote, which should be evidence that the plan has been thoroughly thought through. The two policies the Planning Commission couldn’t agree on were the parking moratorium and a policy supporting the appeal of California’s Costa Hawkins vacancy decontrol law. 

Mayor Shirley Dean said she saw no reason to rush. “The fact of the matter is the City Council has final approval of the plan and we have to be comfortable with it,” she said. “We are the ones who will be held responsible for the next 20 years so I want to know what I’m voting for.” 

The council will hold a special meeting on the Draft General Plan Dec. 4 in the City Council Chambers at 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way at 7 p.m. The meeting will also be broadcast live on the KPFA Radio, 89.3 and Cable B-TV, Channel 25.

Editor: 

All of us have been deeply touched by the incalculable loss of life and human suffering as a result of the brutal attacks of September 11. To experience such a loss so close to home is something new to many of us in the United States, for we are accustomed to thinking ourselves invulnerable. With that loss so deeply engraved upon our hearts, we must never again look casually on the idea of bombing another nation. We cannot ignore the fact that more than 1.7 million people in Iraq have died as a direct result of US government bombs and sanctions.  

Countless thousands have died in our own hemisphere as a result of US-orchestrated coups and so-called “low-intensity” wars. And millions more lives are threatened by the US/World Bank/IMF policy of “structural adjustment,” which deprives basic social services to poor nations in exchange for usury and economic plunder.  

While President Bush said that the perpetrators of this act were jealous and hate what America stands for, we should consider the words of Robert Bowman, who flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam: “We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism and in the future, nuclear terrorism.” The arrogance which has led our government to dismiss the judgments of the World Court when found guilty of mining the harbors of Nicaragua; to ignore the United Nations’ General Assembly condemnation of the US economic blockade against Cuba; to disregard established international treaties concerning arms and the environment; to walk out of the UN Conference Against Racism, has all contributed to resentment for the United States within the international community.  

When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked on September 11, the post of US Ambassador to the United Nations had not yet been filled. Now it appears the Senate will rush to confirm the controversial John Negroponte to fill the post. Negroponte was the ambassador to Honduras during the height of the US’ brutal assault on Nicaragua. Under his supervision, US operatives were trained in Honduras to plant bombs in Nicaraguan schools and clinics, to destabilize and ‘disappear’ and kill innocent civilians. Was this not also terrorism?  

Terrorism or military action are sometimes the same thing, it’s just a matter of semantics.  

David Hall 

Las Cruces, New Mexico

NEW YORK — It’s a touching tale of hope and goodwill, of believing in something overwhelmingly good. It takes place in New York 54 years ago, but it’s as meaningful today as it was then. 

Now “Miracle on 34th Street” has been reproduced in a handsome facsimile of the original 1947 book by Harcourt Inc. The small, hardcover edition, measuring 7 3/4 inches by 5 inches, has been faithfully copied down to the original typeface — positioning and spacing of all the words re-created line for line. 

“Miracle on 34th Street” is the classic Christmas story of Kris Kringle, a gentle, white-bearded gentleman hired by Macy’s as its store Santa. He convinces a doubting 6-year-old, Susan Walker, and a New York court that he is the real Santa Claus. 

The book enchanted a postwar America, as did the movie, starring Edmund Gwenn as Santa and a young Natalie Wood as the little girl he helps. 

Anna Burgard, director of product development at Harcourt, decided to re-create the original book because, she said, “I realized how relevant the story still was. 

“It takes place in the 1940s, but Kris Kringle talks about his disappointment over the commercialism of Christmas. It’s about a single mother raising a child in her own trust system, which was not believing ... in fairy tales, being practical and sensible to the extreme, of not playing, having no imagination. 

“All that is part of OUR world,” Burgard said. “The book, while nostalgic, is modern.” 

And after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Burgard said she felt the simple tale could be “healing in a non-preachy way. 

“The thread of the story is that one person’s goodwill can still make a tremendous impact,” she said. 

Written originally as a screenplay by Valentine Davies, the book and film by the same name were released simultaneously in 1947. The book was an instant best seller and the movie won three Academy Awards for Davies, Gwenn and director George Seaton. 

The reproduction of the book was painstakingly detailed. Custom inks were made to match the original jacket colors of red, green and brown, and the paper was selected to match the stock of the original. The hot-metal typeface was matched with digital versions, and a number of characters that could not be found in modern fonts were custom created. 

Even minor inconsistencies, grammatical errors and other nuances found in the 1947 version were left unchanged in the new edition. 

One minor alteration was added. Davies was never happy with the typeface used in the first printing of the book for Susan’s handwriting in a letter to Santa Claus. He felt the script was too mature for a young child, and a new typeface was created for the second printing of the first edition. That version is used in the new reproduction. 

The facsimile also includes some features not found in the original: a historical note describing the development of the book and film, and a photograph and brief biography of Davies. 

The book retails for $12.95. 

Editor: 

To those people who are opposed to the bombing in Afghanistan: I would LOVE to hear your ideas on how we should go about capturing Osama bin Laden and members of the Al Qaeda network. Do you think our military personnel will be able to just walk up to him in his cave, and ask him politely to please accompany them back to the U.S., so that he may receive a fair trial?  

The Taliban have been harboring him and his cronies for years now, enabling them to perpetrate the attacks of Sept. 11, along with the American Embassy bombings, and the attack on the USS Cole. President Bush and his administration are now doing what should have been done years ago, when Bill Clinton turned the other way when attacks were done to our country. This is just another example of a Republican president cleaning up the mess left by a liberal, Democratic president. (See: Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan). 

Christopher Louis

MIAMI — John Knowles leaves behind a legacy that included nearly a half-century of writings and nine novels, but none matched the success of “A Separate Peace” — considered an enduring study of an adolescent’s inner conflict. 

Knowles died Thursday after a short illness at a convalescent home in a Fort Lauderdale suburb. He was 75. 

Written in 1959 and read by millions of students, “A Separate Peace” is considered an American literary classic. 

The book recounts hero Gene Forrester’s allegiance to two fellow students: Brinker Hadley, a buttoned-down student leader who personifies New England conservatism, and Phineas, a natural athlete and eccentric who wears a bright pink shirt. 

Forrester causes Phineas to break his leg in a fall from a tree and later is the putative cause of Phineas’ second, fatal fall down a flight of stairs. Before Phineas’ death, the two teen-agers reconcile, offering some help in assuaging Forrester’s guilt. 

Knowles’ death leaves unanswered the main debate by the millions who have read the famous book: Did Forrester intentionally cause the accident that crippled Phineas? 

“John used to say he would never answer that question,” Bob Maxwell, Knowles’ brother-in-law, said in announcing the author’s death. “He took that one with him.” 

The book was voted the 67th best English-language novel in a 1998 Radcliffe College student poll. Millions of copies have been sold, and “A Separate Peace” was made into a movie in 1972. 

According to the book, “Contemporary Novelists,” published this year: “Knowles is intelligent, highly literate, a skilled and sensitive craftsman and stylist. He is knowledgeable of the world, tolerant, a connoisseur of many cultures.” 

Knowles failed, however, to match the success of “A Separate Peace” in any of his eight later novels. 

Knowles’ later works had no plausible characters, according to “Contemporary Novelists.” Only Forrester and Phineas in his first work “stay in our memory,” the reference book says. 

Knowles was born Sept. 16, 1926, in Fairmont, W. Va., and was sent at 15 to the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he graduated in 1945. 

The school became the model for Devon, the school in “A Separate Peace.” 

”(Exeter) picked me up out of the hills of West Virginia, forced me to learn to study, tossed me into Yale and inspired me to write a book, my novel ’A Separate Peace,’ which, eschewing false modesty, made me quite famous and financially secure,” Knowles wrote in the school magazine in 1995. 

After Exeter, Knowles qualified as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps, then enrolled at Yale University before working as a reporter and drama critic at the Hartford Courant from 1950-52. 

After touring Europe, he returned to New York in 1955, where he became an associate editor at the magazine “Holiday,” a job he quit after “A Separate Peace” was published. 

In the 1960s, he served was writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina and at Princeton. Since moving to Fort Lauderdale 15 years ago, Knowles taught creative writing at Florida Atlantic University. 

He is survived by sisters Dorothy Maxwell of Arizona and Marjorie Johnson of Texas, and a brother, James Knowles of San Francisco. Funeral services are private.

Q. Cindy asks: Could you please tell me what is the best way to get cat urine stains out of a wooden floor? 

A. Chlorine bleach kills the bacteria associated with pet urine, as do other disinfectants. Unfortunately, sometimes the urine and its associated bacteria make it to the area beneath the hardwood — the subfloor. When this happens, it might require removal of the hardwood to get to the bacteria with a disinfectant. If the hardwood flooring is tongue-and-groove, the help of a flooring contractor might be in order. However, if the flooring is square-edged (the most common type in older homes), it probably is a job that you can do yourself. Sanding out the black stains won’t get rid of the smell if the urine made it to the area beneath the hardwood. 

Q. Anne asks: We added a garage to our house two years ago. The concrete floor of the garage is slanted slightly so that when we pull our cars in during snow season or during the rainy season the water that drips off the car pools in one spot. Unfortunately, the place where it pools is right up against a horizontal piece of the wood framing for an inside wall. The framing board is sitting directly on the concrete, and it is sheet-rocked. I am very fearful of this board rotting and subsequently having to be replaced. I’m feeling if I deal with the problem now, I will minimize any future disaster. My question is, should I drill a channel for the water to run out? I don’t know how it would drain onto our new driveway effectively, without creating a whole new problem. 

A. You are correct. Continued exposure to moisture and water eventually will rot the wood in the wall and the wallboard. The fix we suggest might do the trick. However, it should be noted that replacement of the portion of the floor that slopes improperly is the correct solution.  

First, trim the wallboard an inch or so away from the floor so that it cannot get wet from the puddling. Next, drill quarter-inch holes every few inches between the floor and the mudsill (the horizontal bottom piece of wood at the bottom of the wall), so that water can drain through it. Spray inside the holes with a product that contains copper napthanate. Such a product is a pesticide and a wood preservative. 

It might also be a good idea to add ventilation to your garage. Air can help to evaporate the moisture in the summer. If the holes don’t clog with dirt or ice you should be OK. Also, don’t drill the holes if the outside perimeter is not somewhat lower than the inside. 

For more home improvement tips and information, visit our Web site at www.onthehouse.com. 

“Texas Rangers” isn’t exactly storming into theaters with guns blazing. 

You probably haven’t even heard of it, despite its huge cast of young stars — James Van Der Beek, Ashton Kutcher, Rachael Leigh Cook and Usher Raymond — alongside veterans Dylan McDermott, Alfred Molina, Tom Skerritt and Robert Patrick. 

The movie originally was scheduled to open in April 2000, then August 2000, then May of this year. It finally reaches theaters without critics seeing it ahead of opening day, and with nary a penny being spent on publicity. 

You’ve seen no slick commercials for “Texas Rangers,” no posters featuring Van Der Beek standing before a cluster of co-stars, his gun in the air pointing to the movie’s nondescript tag line, “Count your bullets.” 

Van Der Beek and Kutcher didn’t even visit MTV’s “Total Request Live,” which is de rigueur for hot new actors promoting insipid new movies. 

“Texas Rangers” should have been put out to straight-to-video pasture, especially since another, (barely) superior Western with up-and-coming stars already came out this year – “American Outlaws,” co-starring Colin Farrell, Scott Caan and Ali Larter. 

This time around, it’s 1875, and Mexican bandits led by the devious John King Fisher (Molina) have crossed the Rio Grande to raid farms and ranches across South Texas. 

The governor has asked the Texas Rangers to restore order, with former preacher Leander McNelly (McDermott) – who’s dying of a mysterious disease – as their leader. Patrick plays his second-in-command and country singer Randy Travis plays a gunslinger. 

(Maybe Travis should have picked up a guitar instead and started singing – it couldn’t have made the movie any worse.) 

Among the sundry group of recruits: Lincoln Rogers Dunnison (Van Der Beek), an educated Philadelphian who watched the bandits murder his parents; George Durham (Kutcher), who fantasizes about fighting after his father is killed; and Randolph Douglas Scipio (R&B singer Usher), who’s also been orphaned and worries he’ll have to serve as a scout because he’s black. 

Skerritt plays a wealthy ranch owner who helps the Rangers, and Cook plays his daughter, who flirts with Lincoln and George, but is mostly an afterthought. 

All these characters have back stories they can sum up in a sentence, just to establish who they are, and they’re never developed further. 

The plot consists of what must be a dozen shootouts, each more noisy and tedious than the last, with bits of cliche Western dialogue that screenwriters Scott Busby and Martin Copeland have wedged in between: 

— “Ain’t no outlaw stands a fightin’ chance.” 

— “A gun’s no good unless you got sparks in it.” 

— “You keep shootin’ ’til you taste that outlaw’s blood.” 

McNelly says something along the lines of, “We’re Rangers, men. We’ve got right on our side,” so many times, it should be a drinking game. 

And director Steve Miner — whose credits include the second and third “Friday the 13th” movies and the Gerard Depardieu disaster “My Father the Hero” — stages the shootouts so erratically, it’s impossible to tell who’s shooting who. They’re all just a whirlwind of swirling dust and flying horse tails. 

A documentary on baseball’s Texas Rangers and their last-place season would have been more interesting. 

“Texas Rangers,” a Dimension Films release, is rated PG-13 for Western violence. Running time: 90 minutes. 

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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions: 

G — General audiences. All ages admitted. 

PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children. 

PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children. 

R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. 

NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted. 

Got a door that was trimmed off and rehung without getting repainted? Wood doors must be painted on all six sides (front, back, top, bottom and on both edges) because unpainted tops and bottoms – especially on exterior doors – allow moisture to be absorbed, which causes cracking, warping and paint failure. Bottom edges commonly are left exposed when new carpeting is installed or when a new threshold is put in place, and the door is trimmed for greater clearance.  

If the bottom wasn’t painted before the door was rehung, you might be able to paint it while it’s in place. First cover the floor with a plastic drop cloth. Even a large plastic trash bag will do. Swing the door open over the plastic and use a slim roller or a small foam brush to paint the bottom of the door. You also can check the paint coverage by holding a small mirror beneath the door. Cleanup for this method is faster and easier than if you were to remove, paint and replace the door.

SACRAMENTO — Californians these days are seeing dreamy, romantic TV commercials inviting them to visit ... California. 

The ad campaign, with the theme “California: Find yourself here,” marks the first time state tourism officials have run a promotion aimed at encouraging Californians to enjoy their own state. 

The goal is to make up for the drop-off in international and out-of-state tourism attributed to the recession and the terrorist attacks. 

Across the country, state and local officials are trying revive their tourism industries as travelers postpone or cancel travel plans. 

New York has launched a star-studded campaign featuring Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and other natives such as Barbara Walters, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen and Robert DeNiro. And the nation’s capital is appealing to Americans’ patriotism with a campaign with the theme “Be Inspired.” 

The first ad in the $5 million California campaign features images of couples walking on the beach at sunset and picnicking in the Napa Valley under the words “Find yourself ... laughing.” 

“I love it. It’s so much of what we sell,” said Daniel Howard, executive director of the Napa Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau. California’s wine region is usually a must-see site, but like the rest of the state, it is experiencing a drop in travelers since Sept. 11. 

Immediately after the attacks, California saw a 50 percent drop in tourism. The numbers have climbed back somewhat since then but are still 10 percent lower than last year, said Norman Williams, assistant secretary of marketing for the California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency. 

“It’s primarily in hotel reservations and attractions. A lot of it has to do with a fear of travel,” Williams said. 

The state had no breakdown on overseas, out-of-state and in-state tourists. 

The first ad in the California campaign, featuring couples, debuted during Thanksgiving week and is expected to reach 90 percent of the state’s residents. 

“All of our ads up until this point have been trying to attract people into California,” Williams said. 

The ads are “reassuring, comforting, which is what we need now. It sends the message that it’s comforting to travel together,” Howard said. 

The tourism industry is California’s third largest-employer, with more than 1.1 million workers, and brings in about $75.4 billion annually. 

The city of San Francisco saw a drop in hotel occupancy rates of nearly 40 percent over the previous year, said Laurie Armstrong, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. In response, the city has started its own ad campaign to lure Northern California visitors. 

Similarly, Leslie Goodman, senior vice president of strategic communications at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, said the theme park is promoting deals for Southern Californians to make up for a loss in distant visitors. 

“People aren’t canceling their vacations, they’re deferring them,” Goodman said. “They’re saying, ‘Hey, we can have a great time right here at home.”’ 

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On the Net: 

The California Division of Tourism: http://www.gocalif.ca.gov 

SAN FRANCISCO — A judge cleared the way for bankrupt ExciteAtHome to turn off its high-speed Internet cable network as early as Friday night, which could affect more than 4 million subscribers around the country. 

The cable companies that connect their customers to the AtHome network said they planned to appeal the decision to U.S. District Court in San Francisco as soon as possible. 

In the mean time, ExciteAtHome and the cable companies intended to negotiate through the day and night to reach an agreement that would keep the service running. 

Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson said Redwood City-based ExciteAt Home could reject its existing contracts with the cable companies as early as midnight Friday PST. 

The judge was unmoved by the argument that he shouldn’t close down the network because it would affect consumers. 

“The end users may be affected by these proceedings, but they are not parties to these proceedings,” Carlson said. “Bankruptcy typically causes much disruption all the time, leading to loss of jobs and services to communities.” 

The ruling affects many of the nation’s largest cable companies, including AT&T, Comcast and Rogers, that sell Internet access through AtHome’s network. 

Carlson gave ExciteAtHome the leeway to end the contracts after concluding they had become “clearly burdensome” to the company. Under the contracts, ExciteAtHome executives said the company was losing up to $6 million per week. 

ExciteAtHome wants the cable companies to pay a substantially higher connection fee to use its network. Until ExciteAtHome’s bankruptcy, the cable companies had been paying a monthly fee of $12 per subscriber. Last month, the cable companies agreed to increase the monthly fee to $20 per subscriber. 

The cable companies typically charge their customers $40 to $50 per month to use the AtHome network. 

By forcing the cable companies to pay even more to use the high-speed Internet service, ExciteAtHome and the company’s bondholders hope to prove the network is worth substantially more than the $307 million that AT&T has bid for it. 

The bondholders have accused AT&T of using its controlling position on ExciteAtHome’s board to steer the company into bankruptcy as part of a scheme to buy one of the nation’s biggest high-speed Internet networks at a bargain price. AT&T has denied the allegations. 

Comcast, Cox Communications and Insight Communications had put together an offer to outbid AT&T, but withdrew the proposal when Carlson refused to delay Friday’s hearing, said Charles Cohler, an attorney for Comcast. Cohler didn’t provide details of the offer. 

The bid wasn’t substantially higher that AT&T’s, said Don Morgan, managing director of Mackay Shields, one of ExciteAtHome’s largest bondholders. 

The uncertain fate of ExciteAtHome’s network could be resolved quickly if the cable companies agreed to share more of the revenue generated by customer subscriptions, Morgan said. 

“There is a simple solution to this problem. Money makes this problem go away. Subscribers need to realize that they are paying $50 a month for this service, but (ExciteAtHome) is seeing very little of that,” he said. 

Lawyers for the cable companies have equated ExciteAtHome’s tactics to blackmail. 

The bondholders “seek to play a ’game of chicken’ in which the threat of a blackout is used to extort the (cable companies) into paying yet more for AtHome’s services,” AT&T said in a brief leading up to Friday’s hearing. 

If ExciteAtHome pulls the plug on its service, the high-speed network will become even less valuable, cable company lawyers contended in Friday’s hearing. 

“This will kill its value as a going concern,” said Cohler, who likened the possible shutdown to a “murder-suicide.” 

The cable companies have been warning customers during the past few days that the high-speed service might be disrupted, but their contingency plans remain sketchy. Some are offering access to dial-up Internet service — an unacceptable option for many customers accustomed to high-speed access. 

“If they shut down, I will start looking for another service as soon as possible,” said AtHome subscriber Todd Ambur of Fremont. “I need Internet service all the time and there is no way I am going back to dial-up modems.” 

Lauren Adair of Philadelphia said her home business would suffer if she loses AtHome’s high-speed service. 

“My work would suffer if I had to dial-up every 15 minutes to check my e-mail, and downloading files would take forever,” she said. 

In a letter to Carlson before the hearing, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell urged the court to provide for an “orderly transition” in the event it decided to discontinue service, “rather than a precipitous shutdown.” 

Carlson expressed confidence his ruling would force the cable companies and ExciteAtHome to settle on new terms before the network was disconnected. 

“It is obvious the cable companies are vitally interested in keeping the service alive,” Carlson said. “It is reasonable to assume these sophisticated parties will find a way to share the value of (AtHome’s) continued operations.” 

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On The Net: 

http://www.excite.com 

Ugly wheel weights are necessary Dear Tom and Ray: 

My fiancee and I don't always see eye to eye, especially when it comes to automobiles. Most recently, our disagreement was on the subject of wheel balancing. As we were watching the technician go about his business, clamping numerous weights around the rims of my wheels, my dearest remarked that she always tells them to put the weights on the back sides of the wheels so she won't have to look at those ugly wheel weights. I replied that you couldn't get a proper balance unless you use both sides. Otherwise, why wouldn't they always hide the weights? Please tell me -- am I right? Or have I been needlessly scarring up my beautiful aluminum wheels? – Ken 

RAY: You're right, Ken. In order to balance a wheel properly, the weights have to be placed on both sides. 

TOM: We have a machine in the shop that spins the wheel and then uses arrows to show us exactly where a weight should go. And it will point to one side or the other, depending on where a weight is required. 

RAY: There are some wheels that absolutely will not accept weights on one side, due to the wheel's specific design. Those are usually high-priced alloy wheels of some kind. And in those cases, we just have to put weights as close to the center as possible on the back side of the wheel (sometimes gluing them on). That usually gets us a close approximation, but it's not ideal. 

TOM: But since you're just getting married, don't be crude and rub her nose in the fact that she was wrong, Ken. This is a delicate point in your burgeoning relationship. So be kind and gentle when you explain things to her. Offer her something in return. Tell her if she stops obsessing about putting the weights on the back side, you'll promise to ignore any weight she puts on her backside. 

RAY: Oh! We're going to get some nasty mail on that one!