Chanting “Yes to education, No to super-jails,” and carrying signs reading “No expansion of the Alameda County Jail,” demonstrators gathered at the County of Alameda Administration Building to protest plans for a new and expanded juvenile corrections facility in Dublin. 

Organizers and students associated with Youth Force Coalition, a group of youth organizations fighting against oppressive attacks on communities, marched, chanted and held signs during the protest. 

According to Nicole Lee, a member of Let’s Get Free, a community organization committed to juvenile justice, cultural activism, police accountability and in association with YFC, said the issue of youth incarceration is a critical issue. “I feel it’s one of the most paramount issues for youth in Alameda County,” said Lee. 

Opponents of the planned Dublin facility say it will be too big and too far away for many Alameda County families. Many are concerned that the size of the new building will produce an institutional or prison-like feeling . 

Lee said that currently many local parents must miss half a day of work to attend hearings at the present juvenile facility but would “miss up to a full day’s work traveling to Dublin which isn’t an option for a lot of working class families.” Without the support of parents, according to Lee, many juveniles fall through the cracks in many juvenile systems. 

See YOUTH/Page 14 

Alameda’s Board of Supervisors is split on its support for the facility. Supervisor Nate Miley from District 4 and Keith Carson from District 5 oppose plans for the new expanded facility, while supervisors Scott Haggerty, Gail Steele and Alice Lai-Bitker currently support the proposed project. 

Andrew Ele, a member of San Francisco’s Youth Making A Difference, attended the Oakland protest to support juvenile justice. Supports of the facility, according to Ele, “think that youth are always doing crimes and bad things. They don’t see no other resources other than locking people up.” 

See YOUTH/Page 14 

The new facility would increase the number of juvenile beds from 200 to between 520 and 530.  

Ele expressed YMAC’s proposal for increased counseling services, health and mental health resources as alternatives to the expansion the Alameda County juvenile facility.  

“I’m here because they’re expanding a hall that’s not close and that you don’t have access to,” said YMAC member Obby Toly. According to Toly, San Francisco’s Community Assistance Referral Center provides a great example for an alternative to the increasingly institutional feel of the juvenile system. “CARC uses a points system and if you pass your parents can pick you up and you don’t go into the system,” said Toly. 

Both Toly and Lee referred to the significant racial dimension of the current juvenile facility. Lee notes that “while 15 percent of the general population in Alameda County is of color, 60 percent of juvenile facility’s population is of color.” 

Members of Books Not Bars, a project launched in 2001 by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, also voiced their opinions at the Oakland demonstration. BNB members work to expose and end the over-incarceration of youth. They are one of the many groups working to build a “bottom-up” movement with the aim of changing the entire criminal justice system. 

According to BNB, there are a number of groups responsible for the increase in incarceration facilities. Among those groups BNB cites TV networks and newspapers for hyping sensational crimes, prison guard’s unions for pushing increasingly punitive laws and profiteering corporations for pushing tougher laws and longer sentences in order to gain from prison construction and prison labor. 

Youth Force Coalition members also expressed their concerns about a failing and poorly funded education system. Demonstrators said that every dollar spent on prisons is a dollar that could have been spent on books and education. 

According to BNB, California now ranks number one in the nation on prison spending - number 43 in spending on public education.

In a matchup of the ACCAL’s only undefeated teams, Berkeley High rode an 11-run third inning to a 12-4 victory over the Encinal Jets on Wednesday, taking over sole possession of first place with its 11th straight win. 

The first 12 Yellowjacket batters reached base in the remarkable half-inning, with 11 of them scoring. Berkeley (13-4 overall, 5-0 ACCAL) had 10 hits – all singles – during the rally, and the Jets helped out by making three errors.  

Encinal (6-9, 4-1 ACCAL) starter Tony Ellis faced the first four batters before giving way to Cory Dunlap. But Dunlap, Encinal’s ace, was unable to stop the bleeding, walking the first batter he faced before surrendering five straight singles. Berkeley had three hitters, DeAndre Miller, Kory Hong and Matt Toma, get two hits each in the inning, with Toma driving in two runs in his return to the lineup from a pulled hamstring two weeks ago. 

“We expected to see Dunlap sooner or later,” Berkeley head coach Tim Moellering said. “I think we were fortunate that he came in cold from first base, and we had a chance to get to him before he warmed up.” 

But the ’Jackets continued to hit Dunlop as he threw 46 pitches before getting out of the inning. Constantly pitching with men on base, Dunlap was ineffective from the stretch and didn’t have his usual command. 

“The main thing was creating situations to hit in,” Berkeley second baseman Lee Franklin said. “When we have men on and they pull their infield in, that’s a high-percentage situation.” 

The big inning more than erased an early 2-0 deficit for the ’Jackets, as Berkeley starter Sean Souders had a rough first inning. Encinal’s Nick Loy led off the game with a double to left, and Souders hit DeAndre Green with a pitch to put two runners on. Dunlap then ripped a double down the rightfield line to score both runners, but Souders settled down, striking out the next five Jets, including all three in the second inning on just 10 pitches. 

“For the first few batters I was leaving my pitches up and over the plate,” Souders said. “Once I made an adjustment and got the ball down I was more effective.” 

Souders would give up just two more runs on a homer by Dunlap in the fifth inning. Sophomore Matt Sylvester, called up from the junior varsity last week, pitched the seventh inning for Berkeley to finish the game. 

With Wednesday’s win, Berkeley is alone at the top of the ACCAL standings with games remaining against El Cerrito and De Anza in the first round of league play. The ’Jackets have pounded their way through the league, scoring in double figures in four of their five games, including a 16-2 whipping of preseason favorite Pinole Valley. They are also one of the few teams with two reliable starters, as senior lefty Cole Stipovich is the best No. 2 in the league. With hot bats and solid pitching, the ’Jackets should be able to count on a better finish than last season’s 0-3 collapse, which knocked them down to the eighth and final seed in the North Coast Section playoffs. 

“We’ve got a tough game Friday (against El Cerrito), but if we take care of business we’ll be in good shape,” Franklin said. “Hopefully we can just sit back and let the other teams beat each other up for a while.”

To the Editor: 

After the events of September 11, 2001, our nation’s priorities have shifted from issues of personal liberties (privacy) to national security concerns. For many of us -- minimal government intrusion advocates included —recent events provided a wake-up call for calls to safeguard our homeland from terrorism, while seeking proper governmental restraints to our liberties.  

Article IV of The Amendment to the Constitution states that, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated …" How does this play out in today’s world where rouge organizations are bent on inflicting great harm to our way of life. In the modern world we now face threats from biological, chemical, nuclear attack and as well as conventional weapons, things that our founding fathers could hardly imagine. In the context of our Constitution, what contingencies should be made available to our government if massive destruction can be inflicted on our democracy?  

These issues are now affecting us personally as never before. For many of us attitudes toward privacy have changed since the World Trade Center incident. I remember in years past that giving a thumb print at the Department of Motor Vehicles felt like an intrusion to personal privacy, being figure printed was for criminals! Today I am a little more understanding to these intrusions. 

Presently there are several security measures being put in place at our nation’s airports: explosive detection equipment, beefed up patrols, and limited carry on provisions. Last Christmas while traveling through Burbank Airport I was given a through body and bag search. It was not pleasant, who likes to have their body fondled like a tomato by a stranger, but at least I did not have to drop my pants like Michigan Congress John Dingell. If inconveniences help deter tragic events from happening then most of us are willing to agree they are necessary. The question remains, do these measures deter would be terrorists? 

Resent studies show that many security provisions are still judged as ineffective, as Sky Marshals from the ‘Red Team’ recently demonstrated for CBS News. In their tests, hazardous materials and weapons were successfully smuggled through security check points ten out of thirteen times at seven major airports. If enacted safety measures do not detect potential threats, then what other options do we have? An effective foreign policy with actions that stride to reduce terrorist threats is the most likely answer.  

One way to help to promote peace is for nations to work together for the common good. The United States should take the lead in this aspect, building coalitions where ever possible and learning to be humble in the process. Team building should not only be a concept used by corporations. 

Our nation should show the world that we disserve our leadership position not through militarily might --though it should be used as a deterrent to terrorists— or economic strength but through our principles to liberty, understanding in world affairs, and compassion to nations in need.  

One of the first steps that the United States Government can take in establishing the integrity needed to be an effective global leader is to be more culturally sensitive. In the first few weeks after the World Trade Center event, the Administration made quite a few errors that showed how out of touch our government can be. Our Administration pontificated this in calling our Afghanistan mission ‘Infinite Justice’ a ‘crusade’ – showing both our arrogance in reference to when European Christians set out to defeat the Muslims and that we believe ourselves to be the final judge in what is right. In another more benign fashion, the well intentioned government supplied the Afghan people with meals containing peanut butter, a foreign food they did not eat. At least the humanitarian aid was a step in the right direction. 

If we have learned anything from the last century it should be that in order to bring lasting stability to a region, each player must value the gain of cooperation over the potential loss of conflict. This was shown so poignantly after World Wars II with the United States’ roll in the Marshal Plan. If the ‘war’ on terrorism is going to be won, it will have to be done so in the marketplace, the schools, and polling places; and not on the battle field or through rhetoric.  

People of the world have basic needs; they want a safe place to: live, raise families, get a chance for an education, have an opportunity for a fulfilling job, and have freedom to worship. If national governments can fulfill these basic needs -- free from want, hunger and fear -- most citizens will resist forces that propose a counter way of life. It is the duty of our government and our citizens to work with other nations to foster actions that promote these ideals. 

For upon the principles of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ our founding fathers brought forth a Constitution that continues to guided the world for more than two and a quarter centuries, and why today it is still providing to be a foundation for democracy. 

- Bernt Wahl 

Berkeley 

Thursday, April 18

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club 

6:15-8:00 p.m. 

2515 Hillegass Ave. 

Berkeley Free, on-going meetings 1st & 3rd Thursdays, emphasizing metaphysical topics.  

848-6510. 

Building Bridges to Afghanistan 

A Fundraising Party for Global Exchange & San Francisco Friends of Afghanistan - building the Afghanistan to San Francisco/Bay Area Sister Cities Movement 

5:30 to 8:30 PM 

Cocktails, Hors D'Oeuvres, Music, Afghan Fashion Show 

IMG Home, 1830 Harrison St., San Francisco (parking available) 

$15 Donation at the door 

All of the proceeds of this event will immediately fund a Global Exchange coordinator of Sister Cities 

Walking in the Footsteps of John Muir 

7 p.m. 

REI 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Cherry Good gives a slide lecture sharing highlights from her journey to find out what she could about John Muir. 527-7470 

Home Remodeling Workshop 

7 - 8 p.m. 

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Free home remodeling workshop focusing on lowering utility bills and using building materials that are healthier for your family and the environment. 614-1699, www.stopwaste.org. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project 

5:30-7:30 p.m.  

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth Street. 

Berkeley 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project is sponsoring a series of Town Hall Meetings to present its annual update of their five year plan. 

For more information, call 548-8776 

Friday, April 19

City Commons Club 

12:30 p.m. 

2315 Durant Ave.  

“Whither U.S. - Japan Relations?” Steven Vogel, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley. $1. 848-3533. 

Hip-Hop for Vieques 

A night of Culture and Food: Prophets of Rage, DJ’s, Grupo Folklorico Raule Afro-Puerto Rican Drumming and Dancing 

8 p.m.- doors open and dinner begins 

1928 Telegraph (Between 19th and 20th- 19th Street BART) 

$6 before 10 p.m. 

510-389-5660 

Mandela Arts Freestyle Fridays 

Dancing, Hip-Hop, Breakdancing, Live DJ 

5-8:30 p.m. 

1357 5th Street (near West Oakland BART), Oakland 

Free 

Homebody/Kabul 

(Previews begin) 

Through June 23rd. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre 

2025 Addisons Street, Berkeley 

Previews, $38, Tue/Th (8 p.m.) $42, Wed (7 p.m.), Thu/Sat/Sun matinee (2 p.m.), Sun (7 p.m.) $44, Wed opening/Fri eve (8 p.m.) $47, Sat (8 p.m.) $54 

Discounts: 20 half price HotTix go on sale at noon Tues. - Fri., Student/Senior half-price Rush one half hour before curtain, $16 for under 30, with valid ID, some restrictions apply. 

510-647-2949 or 888 4BRTTix, www.berkeleyrep.org 

Marimba Pacifica 

The Bay Area’s Premiere Marimba ensemble, a unique mixture of joyous World Beat dance music along with first Bay Area appearance of Dijaly Kunda Kouyate, traditional Griot Music from West Africa.  

Doors 8:30 p.m., music 9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz 

San Pablo at Gilman 

$10 

510-525-5054 or band and CD info 510-532-3579 

Standup Comedy 

8 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

A special one night only East bay appearance by standup comedian Scott Capurro. $16.50. 925-798-1300, www.scottcapurro.com 

Saturday, April 20

Berkeley Alliance of  

Neighborhood Associations  

meeting 

9:30-11a.m. 

Live Oak Park 

1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley 

Hear the latest news for the city wide network and confab for neighbors and their groups.  

849-4619 

California State Parks  

Foundation’s Earth Day  

Clean-up.  

Forty Eight State and Community Parks throughout California host a variety of projects including recycling bin installation, planting of native trees and flowers, restoration of trails and wildlife habitats and an underwater cleanup along the coast. Volunteers of all ages needed  

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

For more information about volunteering for the 2002 Earth Day Restoration and Cleanup call 1-888-98-PARKS or visit the web site at www.calparks.org 

Eastshore State Park - Earth Day Project 

Clean-up Two beaches, removing debris and other materials that have washed up. 100 Volunteers needed, Bring gloves, sturdy shoes, water and sun-block. Supported by Starbucks of Alameda. 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Meet at Brickyard Beach, behind the Seabreeze Deli, go west off University Avenue from either direction on I-80. 

Further information: 510-544-2515 

Word Beat Reading Series 

7-9 p.m. 

458 Perkins at Grand, Oakland 

Entertainment of kinds come together for this free show, featuring readers “Vampyre” Mike Kassel and Eve Sutton. 

For more information: 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat 

Mumia’s Freedom in a 9-11 World 

7:30 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church 

1640 Addison 

Historian Howard Zinn and Pulitzer novelist Alice Walker will speak at a legal benefit for death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. $20. 415-695-7745. 

Annual California Native Plant Sale 

10 - 3 p.m. 

Tilden Park 

Regional Parks Botanical Garden 

South Park Drive and Wildcat Canyon Road 

For more information call 841-8732. 

2nd Annual Self-Care and Wellness Practices Fair 

9 - 3 p.m. 

Alta Bates Hospital 

2450 Ashby 

Self Care and Wellness Practices fair offers participatory workshops and a health fair featuring booths, free consultations, demonstrations, mini-classes and health information. 530-5611 

Community Music Day 

noon - 5 p.m. 

Crowden Music Center 

1475 Rose St. 

Free concerts, an instrument petting zoo, Tatsumaki Taido, and other family activities. 559-6910, www.thecrowdenschool.org.  

Friends of Albany Seniors White Elephant Sale 

10 am - 2 pm 

846 Masonic Ave. 

All proceeds to benefit the Albany Senior Center.  

Home-made crafts, jewelry and baked goods will also be for sale!  

Donations to sell are being eagerly accepted through Friday, April 19th 

Free Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health 

2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Educational puppet troupe, Kids on the Block, will include puppets from diverse cultures with such conditions as cerebal palsy, blindness, arthritis, Down syndrome, leukemia and spina bifida. Free. 549-1564, www.hallofhealth.org.  

Three Films to Honor Judi Bari/Benefit the Earth First! 

Lawsuit and Heritage Tree  

Initiative 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

1924 Cedar 

“Viva Judi Bari!”; “Timber Gap”; “Conquest of the Giants - Mankind’s Historic View of the World Challenged”; 655-4601.  

Building Education Center 

“Earthquake Retrofiting” seminar taught by Tony DeMascole and seismic contractor Jim Gillett. $75 

10 a.m- 5 p.m. 

812 Page  

525-7610 

Regional Conference and Convergence, World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL)  

10 a.m. until 6 p.m.  

Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, 1606 Bonita Ave. (at Cedar)  

Public Contact: ARDAC voicemail: 415.364.3053  

The conference will include experts and activists speaking on a variety of issues, including: debunking the myths of animal experimentation, the ABCs of anti-vivisection activism, and the campaign against HLS.  

FREE - Events for WWAIL , will run from Friday April 19th through Monday April 22nd.  

Animal Rights Direct Action Coalition 

740A 14th St. #177, San Francisco, CA 94114 

(415) 364 3053; www.ardac.org 

Low-Cost Hatha Yoga Class 

10 a.m. 

James Kenney Recreation Center 

1720 8th St. 

$6 per class. 981-6651. 

The Blessing of the Stained Glass Triptych designed by David Goines 

3 p.m. 

Saint Mary Magdalen Church, Reception Following 

2005 Berryman Street 

Live Afro-Latino Hip-Hop\Doors at 9 p.m. 

VooDoo Lounge 

2937 Mission St. 

San Francisco 

415-285-3369 

$8 

UC Davis Picnic Day 

Open House for the University of California, Davis. This hallmark event has been designed to showcase and celebrate the richness of campus life, the diverse achievements of UCD students, staff and faculty and to provide a day of education, information and entertainment for all who attend. There will be more than 150 events throughout campus, including the riotous band “The Blow Kings” who appear in Freeborn Hall from 3-4 p.m.  

http://picnicday.ucdavis.edu/ 

Saturday, April 20 and Sunday, April 21 

420 Hemp Festival 

Zigaboo Modeliste and the New Aahkesstra, Extra Action Marching Band, 20 bands and DJ’s, Hemp Bazaar, Special Guests and more! 

Doors: 4 p.m., show 4:20 p.m.- 4:20 a.m. 

Studio Z (formerly the Transmission Theater) secure parking at 11th and Harrison, Saturday $22, Sunday $20 

415-486-8083, Tickets: Cannabisaction.net 

Four males entered the Berkeley High School campus Wednesday afternoon and one assaulted a BHS student in the outdoor lunch area behind the “C” Building, according to school officials and students. 

Details of the attack were sketchy, district spokesperson Marian Magid said the attackers were not BHS students. 

Magid said one of the attackers struck the victim twice before the group of four fled the scene, and the victim suffered a cut next to his mouth. 

Magid said the assailants and victim “did appear to know each other.” She said there were not any indications that the attack is gang-related. 

The incident is the latest in a string of high-profile attacks at BHS this school year. In the fall, a group of students in ski masks carried out a number of assaults and in December, an attack on a sophomore, who has since transferred out of the district, left the victim with heavy dental bills, according to his father. 

The Wednesday attack took place around 2:40 p.m. just after sixth period ended, Magid said, and police arrived on the scene shortly thereafter.  

High school administrators told all the students who finished their school day after sixth period to leave campus, according to Magid, while those who had a seventh-period course remained at BHS. 

Laura Menard, a parent who is active on safety issues, arrived on campus shortly after the incident. She said the high school will have a difficult time dealing with these types of attacks next year because the Board of Education has voted to cut the high school security manager. 

“Next year, if someone isn’t here managing the connections, it’s not going to happen,” said Menard. 

See BHS/Page 9 

School board President Shirley Issel said she is confident that there will be “enhanced security” at BHS next year. Under the board’s plan, two discipline deans, put in place earlier this year, will take over supervision of the high school’s safety officers. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence has suggested that she will add more safety officers to the force next year as well. 

Issel said the district will respond swiftly to the Wednesday incident. 

“I know this is going to be looked at very closely to see what steps need to be taken to ensure that our students are safe,” she said. 

Students interviewed by the Daily Planet said they are not fearful for their safety at the school. 

High school administrators and security staff and the Berkeley Police Department did not return calls by the Daily Planet’s deadline.

To the Editor: 

Article II of the United Nations Convention on Genocide defines "genocide" to include any of the following acts "committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group": killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.  

As a former resident of Israel, it grieves me to state the obvious: at this very moment Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people.  

The United States has a clear moral and, as a signatory of the U.N. Convention, legal obligation to "prevent and punish" genocide. Our Government shirked these responsibilities in Europe in the 1940s, in Cambodia in the 1970s, in South Africa in the 1980s and in Rwanda in the 1990s.  

No more.  

American must take immediate action to stop the genocide in the Occupied Territories by, as a first step, halting all military and economic aid until Israel withdraws from the Territories. We owe this to the World Community, to ourselves and, most importantly, to the innocent children, men and women who are being victimized. 

- Joseph Stein 

Berkeley

The standoff between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students on the UC Berkeley campus continued Wednesday with a pair of dueling events on Israel Independence Day. 

Pro-Israeli students waved flags, danced and ate traditional foods on Sproul Plaza, celebrating the nation’s 54th anniversary. Activists from Students for Justice in Palestine, some twenty yards away, rolled out a fifty-foot scroll listing the 418 Palestinian villages they say were destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948. 

“We want to express that what happened in 1948 is not something to be celebrated, it is something to be mourned,” said Snehal Shingavi, a UC Berkeley graduate student and SJP leader. 

“It’s a celebration of freedom and peace,” replied Randy Barnes, a UC Berkeley senior and co-chair of the Israel Action Committee, a campus group. 

Barnes said the Independence Day event marked a stark contrast with the SJP takeover of Wheeler Hall last week that resulted in 79 arrests. 

“That’s not the path of peace,” said Barnes, arguing that SJP action and rhetoric promote “anger and hate.” 

“The bottom line is that Palestinians are being slaughtered right now and Randy Barnes and his friends are dancing on Sproul and celebrating the government that’s doing this,” responded SJP leader Will Youmans. 

Activists on both sides said the atmosphere on campus has been tense since last week’s protest, which drew hundreds of activists and swarms of reporters to campus. But neither side reported any violence or serious incidents. 

One student, Micki Weinberg, a UC Berkeley freshman who calls himself “an ardent Zionist,” is attempting to bridge the gap between activists on both sides. 

Weinberg approached Eyad Latif, a Palestinian-American student, and suggested that activists on both sides start a group that will focus, not on politics, but on students’ “common humanity.” 

“I want people who are diehard Zionists sitting in the same room with people who are diehard Palestinians,” he said. Weinberg said the students could focus art, music and cultural heritage. 

Latif, who said that he has lost an infant sister and a grandmother in the Palestinian territories because the Israeli Army has cut off access to medical care, was hopeful about Weinberg’s overture. He said SJP members are discussing the offer. 

But some are skeptical. 

“Micki Weinberg wants to forget about the oppression of the Palestinian people and mingle instead,” said Youmans. “What’s needed is an honest political dialogue.” 

Barnes, of the Israel Action Committee, said he had not heard of Weinberg’s overture. He added that recent efforts by the Office of Student Life to intervene fizzled with last week’s protest. 

Weinberg is a former member of the Action Committee who left because his views are “not in line with IAC.”

Urban density and the future development of Berkeley are not only key issues in the upcoming mayoral and City Council elections, but are being taken straight to the people with a new initiative to reduce the height limits of buildings and amend existing zoning ordinances. 

The measure specifically targets “out-of-scale” developments - buildings with greater height, size, and number of units than the density limits imposed by Berkeley’s 1977 Master Plan, and reinforced by the more recent, non-binding General Plan. 

The measure claims that oversized buildings are environmentally detrimental and threaten the health and safety of residents. The increase in population density due to these large units adds pressure to an 

already overburdened infrastructure, increasing electric power, water, and emergency services needs, as well as exceeding the capacity of the current sewage system and adding to burgeoning traffic congestion. Aesthetic and health concerns include the blocking off of existing views and the reduction of natural light necessary for radiant heating and solar power collection. 

“The height limits are just to control the out-of-scale developments,” said initiative sponsor Martha Nicoloff. “As you can see through current project developments, the city politicos have already exceeded the General Plan limits without public hearing.” 

A study by the Council of Neighborhood Associations (CNA) shows that developments approved over the last few years have consistently exceeded the guidelines suggested by the General Plan. At least 78 percent of the projects cited exceeded the limits through special permits, some by as much as four times the recommended units. 

“The rub is, the politicians have changed the plan to satisfy the public, but they don’t change the actual zoning ordinances to match the plan, still permitting height exceptions,” said Nicoloff. 

The measure would alter the zoning ordinance by lowering existing height limits, prohibiting the approval of variances to the limit, and outlawing the current practice of transferring development rights, which allows a developer to reduce the height of one project in exchange for increasing the height of another. 

A provision bound to satisfy hillside residents in danger of having their views blocked out, is one that requires any increase in building height over 28 feet to be subject to a public hearing before being approved by the Zoning Adjustments Board, rather than the current law which merely requires approval of the zoning officer. 

Even if the measure passes, it does not exclusively control height limits. A state law, which supercedes local zoning ordinances, grants developers a 25 percent size bonus to residential projects that have 20 percent of units designated as low income housing. 

If passed, the measure would remain in effect for 10 years, unless amended by a two-thirds vote of the city council.  

Berkeley is currently the third most congested city in Northern California, behind San Francisco and Daily City, with a density of 9,823 people per square mile. 

The measure, which has finally been approved by the city attorney after a series of drafts dating back to October, 2001, needs 3,000 signatures by June to make it on the November ballot. Volunteers will be gathering signatures at the BANA meeting on Sat., April 20 at Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck Ave., and through that afternoon at Berkeley’s Earth Day gathering.

Today is Thursday, April 18, the 108th day of 2002. There are 257 days left in the year. 

Highlight in History: 

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming. 

On this date: 

In 1906, a devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires. About 700 people died. 

In 1921, Junior Achievement, created to encourage business skills in young people, was incorporated. 

In 1942, an air squadron from the USS Hornet led by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle raided Tokyo and other Japanese cities. 

In 1942, the first World War II edition of Stars and Stripes was published as a weekly newspaper for U.S. troops in Northern Ireland. 

In 1945, famed American war correspondent Ernie Pyle, 44, was killed by Japanese gunfire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima, off Okinawa. 

In 1946, the League of Nations went out of business. 

In 1949, the Irish republic was proclaimed. 

In 1955, physicist Albert Einstein died in Princeton, N.J. 

In 1978, the U.S. Senate voted 68-to-32 to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on Dec. 31, 1999. 

In 1994, former President Nixon suffered a stroke at his home in Park Ridge, N.J.; he died four days later at a New York hospital. 

Ten years ago: 

Serbia issued a protest to the United States, accusing Washington of siding with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in the Yugoslav crisis. Democrat Jerry Brown met with black leaders in Philadelphia while front-runner Bill Clinton visited a Phillies-Pirates ballgame as the two courted Pennsylvania primary voters. 

Five years ago: 

President Clinton held a news conference in which he warned Republicans that a balanced-budget deal might not come quickly, while reassuring nervous Democrats that he would not abandon the party’s prized social programs. 

One year ago: 

U.S. and Chinese diplomats began two days of talks over the April 1 collision involving a U.S. spy plane after Beijing and Washington staked out opposing positions on who was to blame for the incident. 

Today’s Birthdays: 

Actress Barbara Hale is 81. Blues singer Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown is 78. Actor Clive Revill is 72. Actor James Drury is 68. Actor Robert Hooks is 65. Actress Hayley Mills is 56. Actor James Woods is 55. Actress-director Dorothy Lyman is 55. Actress Cindy Pickett is 55. Country musician Walt Richmond (The Tractors) is 55. Actor Rick Moranis is 48. Actress Melody Thomas Scott is 46. Actor Eric Roberts is 46. Actor John James is 46. Rock musician Les Pattinson (Echo and the Bunnymen) is 44. Talk show host Conan O’Brien is 39. Actress Jane Leeves is 39. Actor Eric McCormack is 39. Actress Maria Bello is 35. Rock musician Greg Eklund (Everclear) is 32. Rhythm-and-blues singer Trina (Trina and Tamara) is 28. Actress Melissa Joan Hart is 26. Actor Sean Maguire is 26. Actress Alia Shawkat is 13. 

Jurors in the Earth First! v. FBI case examined up-close the bomb-blasted car environmental activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were traveling in almost 12 years ago. 

The 1981 Subaru is a key piece of evidence for the plaintiffs in their attempt to prove that the FBI and Oakland Police Department mishandled the bombing investigation involving the two activists. 

Attorneys for the FBI and Oakland Police claim that Bari and Cherney knew the bomb was in the back seat of the car and that it was visible. 

Lead Counsel for Bari and Cherney, Dennis Cunningham, claims the bomb was planted under the front seat of the car, invisible to Bari and Cherney. 

In a press conference at the site of the damaged car, Cunningham pointed to the hole in the front driver side floorboards and the damage to the front driver side door. "The front door is smashed, destroyed. The back door is fine, it functioned perfectly well because the bomb wasn’t placed by that door. It was placed under the front seat, that’s our contention," says Cunningham. 

Jurors were able to examine all sides of the car and paid close attention to the details of the damage, crucial to the case of both Earth First! and the FBI. "They paid close attention as if they were in the court room even though they were outside here at the site of the car," says Cunningham. 

Bomb expert David Williams will testify Thursday regarding the damage caused by the explosion in the attempt to pinpoint the bomb’s exact location at the time it went off. 

Wednesday’s viewing of the car followed further testimony from Oakland Police officers. 

Attorney for the plaintiffs Robert Bloom questioned defendant Oakland Police Sgt. Robert Chenault about his involvement in the investigation of the bombing and his knowledge of the Earth First! environmental movement. 

Chenault testified that he considered Earth First! a violent terrorist organization. "Earth First! has a past of violence and sabotage. Judi and Darryl were leaders of Earth First!," explained Chenault. 

As the second assigned investigator at the bomb scene, Chenault was convinced shortly after the bombing that Bari and Cherney knew the bomb was in the back of their car and were planning to use it in their campaign against the timber industry. "It was my belief that they were transporting the bomb to Santa Cruz and that something was going to happen in Santa Cruz," says Chenault. 

Bloom also questioned Chenault about his involvement in drafting the initial warrant for the arrest of Bari and Cherney and his search of both Bari and Cherney’s homes in Northern California. 

Attorney for the current and former members of the Oakland Police, Maria Bee, asked Chenault if fellow activist Shannon Marr’s claims that Bari and Cherney had adopted a non-violent approach were significant. According to Chenault, "I listened to what Marr said about Bari and Cherney but also considered that she might be influenced by her friendship with the two activists." 

Sgt. Myron B. Hanson a former member of the Oakland Police arson bomb detail and not a defendant in the case also testified Wednesday. 

Attorney for Bari and Cherney Tony Serra questioned Hanson concerning his bomb training and experience reporting to bomb scenes. 

Hanson testified that at the time of the bombing he had had three weeks of bomb school but admitted he was "not an expert." 

Hanson also told the court that he had never seen a case like the bombing involving Bari and Cherney and that "the Oakland Police had no bomb specialist." 

Attorneys for the plaintiffs asked Hanson about a meeting between the FBI and Oakland Police to discuss the history of Earth First! shortly after the bombing. 

Attorney Serra asked why Hanson’s notes from his meeting with the FBI had not specified Bari or Cherney but rather Earth First! activities in Arizona and Santa Cruz. Hanson testified that the meeting was about Earth First! in general, not about the two activists involved in the bombing saying "My note-taking in kind of poor. I remember the FBI was doing most of the talking." 

See CAR/Page 12 

On Monday attorneys painted two very different pictures of defendant Sergeant Michael Sitterud and his handling of the 1990 car bombing that left environmental activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney injured. 

Bee asked Sitterud about his knowledge of the Earth First! movement and the philosophy of the activist group. "One of the things I had learned about Earth First! was that they believed it was their right to do things, to shut down the lumber companies, whether it was legal or illegal," says Sitterud. 

Sitterud testified that he was not convinced, after watching a video of Judi Bari, that the activist was committed to non-violent environmental action, saying the video showed Bari’s denial of violence to be "tongue-in-cheek." 

Bee questioned Sitterud revealing that the chief investigator belonged to at least six environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited. 

In response to how Sitterud and other Oakland Police officers decided Bari and Cherney were the main suspects, Sitterud responded that he had previously seen a similar bomb found in a conflict with a lumber company in Northern California. 

Bee also asked Sitterud about his work after the bombing to locate an alternate suspect other than Bari or Cherney. Sitterud testified that he had conducted several interviews up north hoping to develop more leads on the case and collecting evidence. 

Supporters of the Earth First! movement claim federal and police investigators have done little to find the actual bombing suspects after dropping charges against Bari and Cherney due to a lack of evidence. In response, the FBI and Oakland Police claim that Earth First! supporters have refused to speak with investigators, slowing their efforts to gather information on the case. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Groups representing disabled passengers sued San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday, accusing it of failing to provide adequate access to deaf and hard-of-hearing travelers. 

The suit, which seeks class-action status, accuses the airport of failing to inform deaf passengers when they are to board, wrongly bumping them from flights and failing to notify them of gate changes. 

The suit also notes the airport recently spent $840 million on an international terminal, but did not provide adequate services for the deaf. 

A spokeswoman for the airport, owned and operated by the city and county of San Francisco, was not immediately available for comment. The suit was brought by Disability Rights Advocates and the California Center for the Deaf. 

WASHINGTON — More Americans are commuting on buses, subways and trains, new statistics show. 

The American Public Transportation Association, the trade group for municipal transit agencies, reported Wednesday that mass transit systems carried 9.5 billion passengers last year, up 2 percent over the 9.3 billion trips reported a year ago. 

At the same time, motorists drove 2.78 trillion miles in 2001, up 1 percent over the 2.75 trillion miles driven in 2000, Federal Highway Administration statistics show. 

In California, the increase in transit use was nearly 6 percent. 

“Americans want choice and freedom, and in places where transit service is improving, they are often choosing the bus or the train over their own car,” said David Burwell, president of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a coalition of public interest and professional organizations that supports alternatives to building new roads. 

An official with The Road Information Program, a research group financed by the construction industry, noted that most travel is still by car. 

“The majority of surface transportation is taking place on our nation’s highways,” TRIP Executive Director William Wilkins said. “Both modes would be hurt if federal funding were cut.” 

President Bush’s proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 would cut federal highway funds by $8.6 billion. 

More people are riding the rails or traveling by bus now than at any time since 1959, when 9.6 billion trips were recorded. 

Transit officials said they are reaping the benefits of government investment in new routes and equipment. Los Angeles reported a 15 percent increase in ridership, while Denver had a 6.7 percent increase and the Washington area had an increase of 5.9 percent. 

Between 1995 and 2001, mass transit ridership grew 22 percent, from 7.8 billion trips, while highway travel grew by 16 percent, from 2.4 trillion miles. 

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has finished design of special screens to keep endangered fish out of the Klamath Reclamation Project’s primary canal intake and hopes to have the devices installed by next spring. 

The $15 million project is designed to prevent the deaths of endangered shortnosed suckers and Lost River suckers, and reduce the need to ever again shut off irrigation water to 1,400 farmers served by the irrigation system straddling the Oregon-California border. 

Studies have shown millions of juvenile and larval suckers each year can be drawn out of Upper Klamath Lake into the irrigation system’s A Canal, where they die when the canals go dry in the winter. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has identified the problem as a major factor in the decline of sucker populations, and has been calling on the bureau since 1992 to install screens on various water intakes. Last month a special task force appointed by President Bush to resolve the Klamath Basin’s water woes included the screens in a list of projects. 

To install the screens, the bureau will replace the 95-year-old headgates controlling flows into the A Canal, which were the scene of tense confrontations last summer between protesters and federal police over irrigation deliveries being shut off to protect fish. 

Work will be done between October and April to prevent interruptions in irrigation, said Dan Fritz of the bureau. 

LOS ANGELES — More than 30 sick and dying sea lions have swamped a San Pedro marine mammal recovery center, where workers are struggling to care for the apparent victims of a naturally occurring neurotoxin. 

Recovery workers at the Marine Mammal Care Center at Fort MacArthur have treated at least 33 sea lions, many pregnant, since March 17. The majority have responded to treatment, including medicine for seizures believed brought on by the toxin, called domoic acid. 

“I have been here nine years and I have never seen anything like this,” said Jackie Jaakola, the center’s director. 

Scientists suspect the sea lions became ill after eating anchovies and sardines that have dined on blooms of algae that contain the toxin. 

Domoic acid is believed to have killed dozens of common dolphins in recent weeks and has led the state to warn against eating sport-caught fish and shellfish from the Monterey Bay and Morro Bay areas. 

“I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but the animals keep coming in dead,” said Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Long Beach. 

In the last month, as many as 50 sea lions suffering from seizures have been found on beaches between Santa Barbara and San Diego counties, Cordaro estimated. 

Rescue workers are now performing triage on the sea lions, leaving all but the most ill where they are found for at least 48 hours before bringing them in for treatment.

RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. — Officials from California’s expanded Cal Grant scholarship program say they’ve worked out the bugs that led to a shortfall in the number of grants given out last year. 

Preliminary numbers show about 53,000 graduating high school students have already received money for college in the most recent application cycle, according to Carole Solov, spokeswoman for the California Student Aid Commission, which handles the Cal Grant program. 

That’s 4,500 more than the previous year, but it’s still about 30,000 short of projections made before the new program started. 

The Cal Grant program has been around since 1956. It aims to help every qualified high school student get a degree. Under the old program, any California student could apply, but only about 30,000 students received a grant. 

In 2000, the state bumped up funding for the program but implemented restrictions on who could apply. There are now an unlimited number of guaranteed grants available, but only recent high school graduates who meet certain financial requirements are eligible. For older students, a more competitive grant was established, but the number of grants was capped at 22,500 per year. 

The new program was criticized last year when the number of grants fell short of the target in its first year. Program officials estimated they would give out 95,000 guaranteed grants, but only gave out 48,500, meaning more than $90 million went unused and was returned to the state. 

The problem, according to Solov, was that more than 100,000 students applied for the competitive grants and not enough students qualified for the guaranteed grants. 

Legislatures tried to shift $35 million from the guaranteed to the competitive program, but the bill failed. 

Another problem was that many of the 188,000 applications that came in last year had incomplete information and were eliminated. This year, commission employees will call more than 24,000 students who incorrectly filled out the forms and let them reapply. More money is also being spent on public awareness to encourage more students to apply. 

NEW YORK — How would aggressive nudist Richard Hatch do against sweet-talking schemer Tina Wesson? Can you imagine Susan Hawk from the first “Survivor” dressing down would-be godfather Rob Mariano from the current show? 

Such what-ifs could happen. “Survivor” executive producer Mark Burnett said Tuesday that he’s planning an all-star edition matching memorable players from past editions of the game. He’d like to make the alumni game sometime next year. 

Burnett wouldn’t be limited just to the players who won. He would have free reign to match his favorite personalities, and said most would love to do it again. 

The current, fourth edition of “Survivor,” on the South Pacific island of Marquesas, has represented something of a critical comeback for the show. Burnett conceded that the third “Survivor,” in Africa, didn’t resonate quite as well with viewers. 

“I loved it, but clearly from a viewer’s point of view, it was a bit harsh, there wasn’t enough chemistry, and we could have used the water challenges,” he said. 

The current show, set on a lush island in the South Pacific, has proven a bigger hit with fans. Groups of contestants have morphed and merged rapidly, garnering peals of approval from family rooms across the country. 

Marquesas contestants have piqued viewers’ interest in unique ways. A middle-aged real estate agent, for example, has defied expectations and stayed in the game — to the delight of many. 

CBS plans to shoot the concluding episode of the current “Survivor” in New York City’s Central Park, if permission is granted. Contestants will not be asked to forage for nuts and berries there. 

Burnett recently received government approval from Thailand to shoot another “Survivor” edition on a tropical island there. He wouldn’t confirm that’s where “Survivor 5” will be, saying he’s also scouted locations in the Amazon. 

And he said he’s continuing to pursue a deal with Russian authorities to shoot a reality show in space. A previous agreement fell through, literally, when the Mir space station fell to Earth. 

Burnett’s other adventure game, “Eco-Challenge,” begins later this month on the USA cable network. 

WASHINGTON — Personal watercraft such as Jet Skis will be permanently banned at three national seashores and two national recreation areas beginning next week, the National Park Service said Tuesday. 

The decision to close the five sites to the motorized watercraft followed a lengthy review and extensive public comments, said Deputy Director Randy Jones. 

Eight other areas in the national park system will be temporarily closed to the watercraft Monday but could be reopened if the individual parks should adopt rules for their use. 

That leaves eight park system areas open to the high-speed motorized craft this summer, except for temporary closures beginning Sept. 15. 

Additionally, Jones said, sites where personal watercraft are allowed can restrict them to certain areas. 

The eight areas open to watercraft were granted extensions this summer under a court-approved settlement a year ago with Bluewater Network. The San Francisco-based environmental group sued to ban the watercraft throughout the federal parks system. Sixty-six water bodies overseen by the National Park Service earlier were declared off-limits to the watercraft. 

Personal watercraft are high-speed, gas-powered vessels, usually less than 16 feet in length, operated from a sitting, standing or kneeling position. They are commonly known as wet bikes or by their trademarks such as Jet Ski, Wave Runner or SeaDoo. 

Still open to personal watercraft this summer are Amistad National Recreation Area, Texas; Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado; Chickasaw National Recreation Area, Oklahoma; Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, Montana and Wyoming; Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada and Arizona; Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, Texas; Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah and Arizona; and Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, Washington. 

The five sites where personal watercraft are scheduled to banned permanently on Monday are Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts; Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Pennsylvania and New Jersey; Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana; Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia; and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, California. 

The eight being made off-limits temporarily are Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland and Virginia; Big Thicket National Park, Texas; Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan; Fire Island National Seashore, New York; Gateway National Recreation Area, New York and New Jersey; Gulf Islands National Seashore, Mississippi and Florida; Padre Island National Seashore, Texas; and Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina. 

But environmentalists said Tuesday they worried the Park Service might ease up at three national seashores — Gulf Islands, Padre Island and Cape Lookout — because it is now requiring superintendents in those three areas to reconsider their recommendations last year that watercraft should be banned. The areas had been on the list for permanent closures Monday. 

A hearing on a watercraft industry suit challenging the ban is scheduled for Wednesday before U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey in Victoria, Texas. The suit alleges the Park Service arbitrarily discriminated against a class of park users, personal watercraft users. 

Environmentalists have argued that personal watercraft damage the landscape and wildlife and create risks to public safety risk. 

The House Resources Committee approved a bill to postpone the prohibition until December 2004, but the Senate has not taken up the legislation. 

——— 

On the Net: National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov 

Personal Watercraft Industry Association: http://www.pwia.org 

Bluewater Network: http://www.bluewaternetwork.org 

SACRAMENTO — A bill that asks the University of California to stop using standardized tests as the sole criterion for graduate school admissions passed an Assembly committee Tuesday. 

Assembly Concurrent Resolution 178 was approved 6-1 by the Assembly Higher Education Committee, sending the bill to the Appropriations Committee. Assemblyman Phil Wyman, R-Tehachapi, voted no. 

During a press conference earlier Tuesday at the University of California, Davis, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante cited a dramatic decrease in the number of minorities enrolling in the University of California graduate and professional programs as reasons the bill was needed. 

The University of California needs to implement the same admission standards for students applying to graduate programs and professional schools that are now in place for undergraduate freshman students, said Bustamante, a Democrat. 

Lavonne Luquis, a UC spokeswoman, said each university uses different factors in determining admissions. Test scores are considered, but the universities also look at student accomplishments and leadership skills. 

Despite California’s increasing diversity, the number of minority students being admitted to UC graduate programs and professional schools is down. For example, from the fall of 1994 to the fall of 2001, the number of Hispanics admitted to law schools at UC Davis, UC Berkeley and UCLA declined by 33 percent, according to the University of California. 

During the same period, the number of black students admitted to the same three law schools declined by 55 percent, while American Indians declined 65 percent. 

“The numbers are staggering,” said Assemblyman Manny Diaz, D-San Jose, the bill’s author. “We need to do more here in Sacramento to make sure all students can participate in our graduate programs.” 

His resolution asks the University of California to review its admissions process used in its graduate and professional schools by the end of the 2002-03 term. That would include considering a broader variety of academic and personal qualifications.

SACRAMENTO — The California Public Employees’ Retirement System dropped two of the four major health maintenance organizations offered to its 1.2 million members Wednesday while raising rates for next year by 25 percent. 

The decision by California’s largest purchaser of public employee health benefits will cost employees across the state hundreds of dollars more per year, CalPERS officials said. 

The announcement comes as part of a chain reaction in health care, as hospitals charge HMOs and insurers more, who then pass those costs to the people they cover. 

CalPERS dropped Pacificare and Health Net while keeping Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente along with three small, regional HMOs. 

Premiums will rise by 25.1 percent for HMOs, which serve three-quarters of CalPERS members, and up to about 22 percent for preferred provider insurance plans. The cost for the HMO rate increases alone, to be shared by the state and its employees and retirees, is $2.4 billion. 

How much CalPERS members will pay depends on their employers and insurance plan, but many retirees will not pay higher rates because the state pays their entire premium. 

Costs for employees will depend on which HMO they stay with, and if they are a single person compared to a family. A single person with Blue Shield in 2003 could pay from $34 to $58 more per month, while a family of four could pay $90 to $107 more per month. Benefits, however, will remain the same. 

“It’s going to be substantial for lower-income people,” said CalPERS president William Crist. 

CalPERS covers all state and local government employees, including retirees and public school employees who are not teachers. 

For years, CalPERS has relied on competition among HMOs to keep costs down, but this year all HMOs are raising prices. Nationwide, major insurers are raising premiums 10 to 30 percent, the largest increases in decades. 

In their negotiations with CalPERS, some HMOs proposed raises of up to 41 percent while reducing benefits and pulling out of some counties, which would have left many employees and retirees without an HMO option in their area. 

CalPERS officials wouldn’t specify the high bidders, but they did say that Pacificare and Health Net were among the highest. 

Crist said CalPERS is “trying to raise the visibility of this crisis.” 

Part of the current problems have been caused because hospitals must pay billions of dollars in uncompensated health care caused by so many uninsured Californians, said Jan Emerson, vice president of the California Healthcare Association. 

“Seven million people are uninsured but that doesn’t stop them from showing up at hospitals and requiring care,” she said, adding that two out of three California hospitals are losing money, with about 30 closing in the last six years. 

Emerson also points to recent state and federal laws that have required hospitals to retrofit for earthquake safety, which has cost $24 billion since 1994.

LOS ANGELES — Former mayor Richard Riordan said Wednesday he plans to start a new newspaper to offer an alternative voice to the Los Angeles Times. 

Riordan, 71, a multimillionaire who last month lost a bid to become the Republican candidate for governor, said he hopes to publish a broadsheet newspaper beginning this summer focusing on local news and features and columns about the media and the Internet. 

He said he hasn’t yet decided whether it would be a weekly, biweekly, or five-times-a-week daily, or what it would be called. He said he hasn’t decided whether to charge for it. 

The target audience would be 25- to 50-year-old homeowners. 

“I think a paper can make money and also can challenge the L.A. Times to be a better paper,” Riordan said. “I think this town needs a paper that’s going to put our city more into perspective and show more respect for the city.”

NEW YORK — Welcome to the new world of real estate ads: four-story brownstone, six fireplaces — and high-tech, armor-reinforced safe room. 

That describes the house in Jodie Foster’s hit movie “Panic Room.” In real life, safe rooms are still exceedingly rare, but offer cautious (and very wealthy) homeowners a safe haven from home invaders. 

“People who think these are like bomb shelters — that’s not what they’re for,” says Lou Palumbo, director of the Elite Group, a security firm that has designed safe rooms in New York and Los Angeles. “The concept is to insulate you and your family from intruders who are trying to rob or kidnap you.” 

The safe room can be as simple as a closet with a reinforced door and a phone inside. Typically, it’s a room separated from the rest of the house by reinforced walls and a hidden, magnetically locking door. Features include independent ventilation systems and phone lines — and, for longer stays, perhaps a toilet. 

For the ultra-security-conscious, options can include lining the room with armor or bullet-resistant Kevlar, setting up a closed-circuit TV network to watch the rest of the home, and installing a backup generator. 

Foster’s battle against intruders from within her secure walls earned more than $73 million at the box office in three weeks, creating a buzz about the little-known security technique. (Screenwriter David Koepp changed the name to “panic room” for a more compelling title.) 

The idea is simple, Palumbo explains. If an intruder enters your home, you flee to the safe room. Inside, using a phone line protected from the attackers, you summon the authorities. 

Industry experts won’t speculate about how many safe rooms there are, although a number are in Manhattan townhouses and Hollywood mansions. None come cheaply: A fully equipped room can cost up to $500,000. 

Jeff Schlanger, chief of security services for security firm Kroll Inc., says a safe room’s design is determined by a threat analysis: the buyer’s “station in life,” the home’s location and the potential threats the homeowner faces. 

William Bratton, ex-commissioner of the New York Police Department, says he sees little need for such a room in American homes. 

“It’s something that might be more applicable or more widely used in foreign countries,” Bratton said. “If you’ve got the money, that’s great. But what are the chances you’re ever going to use the darn thing?” 

And if you do, there’s no guarantee of success. In 1999, billionaire banker Edmund Safra was killed in his Monte Carlo penthouse after retreating to a reinforced bathroom because he feared intruders had entered the house and set it on fire. 

There were no intruders; the fire was set by Safra’s nurse, Ted Maher, who told authorities that he concocted the plan so he could save Safra’s life and earn a promotion. 

The concept of a room protected from the outside world is hardly new. In medieval times there was the castle keep; in the 1950s, bomb shelters. 

Reinforced rooms have been built for years in homes that could lie in the path of natural disasters such as hurricanes or tornados. 

In Snellville, Ga., an Atlanta suburb, a planned subdivision gives potential buyers the option of having a reinforced room built into the 7,500-square-foot, $1.2 million homes. 

“We live in a tornado-prone area, and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) has been recommending safe rooms in houses for several years now,” said John Miles, an architect involved in the construction. 

Safety from natural disasters comes more cheaply than protection from predators. Miles says the cost of a reinforced tornado room runs only around $2,000. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Kroll Inc.: http://www.krollworldwide.com 

FEMA: http://www.fema.gov/mit/saferoom/index.htm 

LOS ANGELES — The five brightest planets visible from Earth have lined up in plain sight to form a spectacular celestial array that won’t be seen again until 2040. 

Through the next four weeks, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn and Venus will appear tightly clustered in the western sky, forming a knot of planets that can be viewed in the evening despite the glow of light-soaked cities. 

“The five naked-eye planets are converging in one part of the sky and from now until mid-May you can see all five at one glance, which is pretty unusual,” said John Mosley, an astronomer at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. 

Each evening, the alignment will assume different shapes, as the five planets continue on the orbital paths that take them around the sun. The planets orbit in the same plane, like grooves in a phonograph record, only at different distances. 

Each planet also varies in the amount of time it takes to orbit the sun: Mercury zips around once every 88 days; Saturn takes more than 29 years; the others fall in between. At times the planets appear to cluster together. 

Similar bunchings occur every 20 years or so, although they are not always visible. The last they were this visible was in 1940. 

In May 2000, the five planets formed a tighter bunch, but were so close to the sun that they were washed out by its glare. 

In 2004, they will appear together again in the night sky, but will be spread over a much wider area, said J. Kelly Beatty, executive editor of Sky & Telescope magazine. They won’t be as easy to spy at a single glance again until 2040. 

“This is the nature of the clockwork of the solar system,” Beatty said. “We like to think of it as a way to remind people there is a simple beauty in the heavens that doesn’t require any special training to appreciate.” 

Astronomers stress there is no astronomical significance to the pileup. It is, Beatty said, just a “pretty coincidence.” 

That hasn’t stopped doomsayers in the past. In the months before the May 2000 lineup, some thought it foretold widespread catastrophe. 

To view the planetary alignment, find a dark area and look west as twilight ends. Binoculars or a telescope are not needed. 

The planets already are appearing together nightly, although they will be at their closest on May 14, when Jupiter will be high and bright in the sky. Below it, Venus will be paired with the crescent moon. Mars will lie below it, and Saturn below it. Farther down and to the right, Mercury will hug the horizon. 

On the Net: 

Sky & Telescope www.skypub.com 

Griffith Observatory http://www.griffithobs.org 

SACRAMENTO (AP) — State revenues have dipped more than $1 billion below expectations this year and officials are anxiously awaiting the results of April’s tax returns to gauge California’s fiscal health. 

The April figures will pave the way for the annual May budget revise that likely will include deep cuts if revenues continue to sag. 

Gov. Gray Davis warned earlier this week that for the first time he may not be able to meet the school funding level required by Proposition 98, the voter-approved measure that requires about 35 percent of the state’s general fund to go to public schools. 

Several lawmakers have proposed a variety of tax hikes to help boost the state’s treasury. 

But Davis, who faces re-election in November, said he has no plans to resort to tax increases to patch an ever-growing budget hole. 

“That is my expectation: that we can tighten our belt and get through a difficult year,” Davis said Wednesday after speaking to a group of business leaders in Sacramento. 

“That’s what individuals have to do, that’s what they expect their government to do and that’s what we’ll do,” he said. 

California already faces a budget shortfall of more than $14.5 billion, according to estimates by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. 

A monthly finance bulletin issued by the state Finance Department said there are signals that the economy is picking up, including the creation of 21,000 nonfarm jobs in California since November. 

But at the end of March, state revenues for the year were $1.14 billion lower than the $46 billion that was expected and sales, income and corporation tax receipts continued to sag, according to the report. The revenue shortfall could translate to an even larger-than-expected deficit. 

On May 14, Davis will submit his plan to revise the 2002-03 budget plan, based on revenue figures through April. The state receives its clearest fiscal picture of the year at the end of April, when the bulk of income tax receipts pour in. 

Davis Wednesday said his finance advisers have not yet determined how much, if any, he will need to trim from the $100 billion budget proposal he released in January. 

“We are just positioning ourselves for a whole variety of different scenarios,” Davis said.

SAN FRANCISCO — Authorities said Wednesday they are searching for a former executive at Cisco Systems Inc. accused of diverting about $10 million in Cisco-owned stock into personal accounts in the Bahamas. 

Robert Gordon, 42, of Palo Alto was indicted last year on two counts of wire fraud for the alleged multimillion-dollar scheme. He has pleaded innocent. 

Gordon was free on $5 million cash bond, with his $1.6 million home as collateral. Authorities said he failed to appear in federal court Tuesday for a routine status conference to discuss a possible guilty plea. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel declared Gordon a fugitive and issued an arrest warrant. 

Authorities said Gordon transferred 30,206 shares of stock in Internet Security Services Group, which since has been acquired by Cisco, into a Bahamian shell company he created called “Cisco Systems Inc. Bahamas.” 

Prosecutors said Gordon, a five-year employee who became a vice president of business development, transferred the stock without Cisco’s permission. 

Cisco Systems is the world’s leading maker of Internet equipment. The San Jose company has fired Gordon. 

About 150 teachers and supporters rallied on the steps of the Berkeley Unified School District’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Way headquarters Tuesday afternoon, protesting teacher layoffs scheduled to take effect next year. 

“It shouldn’t be the teachers,” said Jean Whittlesey, a science and health teacher at Berkeley Alternative High School who has received a layoff notice. “We are the foundation of education.” 

The district has issued layoff notices to 173 teachers as part of an effort to cut $5.4 million and balance next year’s budget. According to district figures, 82 of those teachers are “probationary,” meaning they are generally first- or second-year teachers with a preliminary or full credential. Ninety-one of the teachers are “temporary” teachers – generally new instructors who are often on an emergency credential.  

The administration has always planned to rescind many of the layoff notices as the budget picture clears up, and has taken back 38 in the past week, all for probationary teachers, according to Superintendent Michele Lawrence. 

Lawrence said she is “feeling more and more confident” that a “large group of probationary teachers” will retain their jobs. She said it is too early to determine whether any temporary instructors will return. 

Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers announced at the Tuesday rally that the district has agreed to offer retirement incentives to instructors. More retirements, he said, could mean less layoffs. 

Lawrence confirmed the offer. She said the district would likely offer a one-time lump sum, rather than an on-going payment. Lawrence added that the district could only offer the payment if enough teachers agree to take it, making it financially worthwhile for the district.  

Lawrence said she did not know, at this point, how much money the district would provide as an incentive. 

Teachers at the rally lamented the potential loss of young teachers and criticized previous administrators, including former Superintendent Jack McLaughlin, for wreaking havoc on district finances. 

“The people who got us into this mess are gone,” said Cheryl Marsh, a special education teacher at Cragmont. “It’s interesting that the teachers and children are left with the mess.” 

Several teachers suggested the Board of Education, which has approved $3.8 million in cuts thus far, should have trimmed elsewhere. But district officials and school board members have long contended that, with district money heavily invested in staff, significant layoffs are unavoidable. 

Many of the teachers who received notice will take part in layoff hearings with the district Thursday and Friday. The instructors will have the opportunity to challenge any inaccuracies in district records on their seniority and credentials. 

In the end, layoffs will be determined by seniority, with exceptions for less experienced teachers who hold specific types of credentials that no older teachers have.  

The Berkeley High swimming team continued their undefeated ACCAL run with a win over Encinal on Tuesday, making the ’Jackets 3-0 in league meets. 

Berkeley claimed victories in 20 of the 24 varsity races against the Jets, and four Berkeley swimmers won two events apiece. Nick Easterday won the 50- and 100-meter freestyles, while Ariel Nikzad took first place in the 500 freestyle and 100-meter breaststroke, and the two were also part of Berkeley’s winning 200-yard medley relay and 400-meter freestyle relay teams.  

The 400 free relay was the day’s most exciting race, with the ’Jackets falling behind on the first leg before Nikzad came back to take the lead in the third leg, handing anchor Dominic Cathey a 10-meter margin of error to bring it home. 

On the girls’ side, Amy Jagust won the 200 freestyle and 100-meter butterfly and Gretchen Arnason won the 50 and 500 freestyles. 

Tuesday’s meet was held under a foggy sky, with intermittent rain keeping the swimmers in the practice pool and spectators in the clubhouse. Berkeley head coach Keith Brooks said the weather put a damper on the ’Jackets’ performances. 

“It’s not so much the rain as the cold and wind,” Brooks said. “It’s a biting wind, and it makes it hard to loosen up.” 

Brooks’ team is in the middle of a grueling stretch of five meets in a little more than two weeks. But rather than worry about his swimmers getting tired, Brooks sees the constant competition as a motivator. 

“We haven’t had to worry about the fatigue factor in the past. I think the kids are pretty stoked up to swim so much,” he said. “The only issue is the scheduling problem. Other things in their lives tend to conflict with swimming.” 

With three league meets left, including a final date with a strong Alameda squad, and the ACCAL championship meet starting May 3, the ’Jackets are quickly rounding into their top form. But Brooks thinks his team’s best swimming is still ahead. 

“We’re still working towards our peak,” he said. “Hopefully that peak will come at the league championships.”

To the Editor: 

The man most missing today in Israel, Palestine, India and Pakistan is Mr. Gandhi. It is a great tragedy that his methods of overturning injustice are not taught and understood by oppressed and endangered people everywhere. 

There is no doubt but that the warring parties would long ago have secured safe and prosperous living arrangements had they embraced Mr. Gandhi’s methods. Those methods are successful in any dispute which is sensitive to world opinion and human sensibilities. 

Mr. Gandhi1s awesome technology for peace and justice involves five easy-to-learn but difficult to perform steps. The first is to clearly document the injustice, using outside observers and judges where possible. 

Establishing the truth of a situation is not easy, especially when one side views history by decades and the other by centuries. The truths of these present conflicts are not that difficult to establish, however. The first truth is that both sides of both disputes have legitimate claims to residency, security, religious freedom and economic prosperity. 

Perhaps a second truth is that these claims cannot be resolved at the group level, but only at the individual level. The greatest crime of the Twentieth Century came about in Europe when immoral leadership prompted one people to see millions of others as undifferentiated members of a racial-cultural group, rather than as individual human beings. Group-oriented approaches in the current conflicts have invited genocidal responses from both sides. When group affiliations get in the way of peace and justice, they must be dropped in favor of individual rights, enforced by a constitutional system of fairness. 

That is what keeps the political peace, imperfectly but surely, in America and other lands of diverse populations. Such systems must be agreed to by the parties, or imposed for a time by a more civilized--or at least calmer--world. 

The truths of the situation in the Middle East today must be understood by each side as best they can, using their long traditions of fair inquiry and scholarship to rise above the pain of their fresh losses. That is the first step toward peace. 

The second step is to take the truth to the door of the oppressor and ask for change. It may seem too late for such a step by either side, but it must yet be done, or done again, and respectfully so. The requests must be reasonable and the other side must be given an opportunity to consider the request and to respond. That is difficult when children are dying. In thepresent circumstance, it is nearly impossible to imagine this happening, but when a peace is finally achieved and historians retrace its path, they will see that this happened somehow. Clearly, it is an area where credible,non-partisan, outside peacemakers have an opportunity and a summons. 

The third step is to engage the thinking of the larger world in the issue. For Gandhi, that meant inviting reporters along on his reform protests, so that many people all over the world might understand and care about the issues, and then work for peace and justice. There is no shortage of international attention to the Middle East1s or the Asian Subcontinent's problems. That step toward peace is taken daily, as the world1s newspapers fill with photos of every side1s suffering. 

The forth step, necessary if the opposition does not agree to correct the proven injustice, is to put one1s self physically in the way of the injustice and suffer the personal consequences. This is done to demonstrate the depth of concern, and to crystallize the injustice in a way that it might be more quickly understood and resolved. Dr. King, on the Selma march, understood that he was marching into the raw violence of segregation, and he knew that, by suffering its batons that day instead of responding in kind, he would lose the battle but win the war. That is always the case when all Gandhi1s elements are in place and when the conscience of the world is engaged.  

The fifth step, always necessary when the other steps are properly taken, is to accept victory graciously. Victory always comes after a sufficient self sacrifice. Gandhi had an opportunity to obtain India1s independence during the Second World War, when Britain could not fight on yet another front. 

Gandhi, remarkably, ever confident of the ultimate success of his method, told his followers to cease all resistance until after the war. He said that India and Britain had gone down a long road together, and should part as friends. They did so immediately after the war. This attitude was difficult to maintain in a time when Indians were being killed and Gandhi himself was imprisoned. But his patience and his respect for the lives of all people, including his oppressors, created a victory for both sides--the natural result of his method. 

History cannot stand forever against a people who generously sacrifice their own safety in the cause of truth and justice. They must be brave and principled enough to do so with no harm to others, or else their moral position and their sure path to victory quickly erodes. It is a path that can yet be taken by those in the Middle East, and in India and Pakistan, and indeed anywhere where injustice turns us for a time against each other. 

- Doris Haddock

Wednesday, April 17th

A Judicial Attack on Environmentalism? 

7-8:30 p.m. 

UC Berkeley School of Journalism Library, located at Hearst and Euclid Intersection. 

Discussions on recent court rulings that attack environmental policies. Open to the public. Free. 

For more information contact David Slarskey at 415-989-1111 or e-mail at dslarskey@bridgehosing.com 

A Conversation with Michael Frayn 

4 - 5:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre 

2015 Addison St. 

Frayn will discuss the scientific and historical issues raised in his play “Copenhagen,” about a mysterious and fateful meeting in 1941 between German Physicist Werner Heisenberger and Niels Bohr. 

7-9:30 p.m. 

A Community Dialogue and  

Lecture on Buddhism 

7:30 p.m. 

Luthern Church of the Cross 

1744 University Ave. 

Jeff Greenwald (Journalist and author of “Shopping for Buddhas,” “The Size of the World” and “Scratching the Surface” - a new anthology.) 

Topic: Adventure Travel Writing: Myth & Reality 

A presentation followed by a question and answer period.  

For more information, call 848-1424.  

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project 

5:30-7:30 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project is sponsoring a series of Town Hall Meetings to present its annual update of their five year plan. 548-8776. 

The Low Vision Speaker, Jeff Carlson to speak about services of Lighthouse for the Blind 

1 p.m. 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

For more information, call 981-5190. 

Graduate Theological Union presents a public voice lecture on perspectives on terror and the War 

7 p.m. 

Bade Museum, Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave, Berkeley 

For more information, call 849-8244. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil 

6:30 p.m. vigil 

7 p.m. walk 

Downtown Berkeley BART  

For more information, call 528.921 or e-mail, vigil4peace@yahoo.com. 

Fling Ding! 

8 p.m. 

Ashkenaz  

1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Blue grass virtuosos Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, The Bluegrass Intentions and clogger Evie Ladin do individual sets, then join forces for a group jam session. 

$10, kids under 12 free 

For more information, call 525-5054. 

Thursday, April 18

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club 

6:15-8:00 p.m. 

2515 Hillegass Ave. 

Berkeley Free, on-going meetings emphasizing metaphysical topics.  

848-6510. 

Walking in the Footsteps of John Muir 

REI 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Cherry Good gives a slide lecture sharing highlights from her journey to find out what she could about John Muir. 527-7470 

Home Remodeling Workshop 

7 - 8 p.m. 

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Free home remodeling workshop focusing on lowering utility bills and using building materials that are healthier for your family and the environment. 614-1699, www.stopwaste.org. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project 

5:30-7:30 p.m.  

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth Street. 

Berkeley 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project is sponsoring a series of Town Hall Meetings to present its annual update of their five year plan. 

For more information, call 548-8776 

The Berkeley-based Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund filed suit against the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District in U.S. District Court in San Jose Tuesday, alleging that the bus service violates the civil rights of the visually-impaired by failing to call out stops and announce routes. 

But Santa Cruz Metro officials say the agency is commited to accessibility and taking steps to address activists concerns. By August 2003, said Santa Cruz Metro General Manager Leslie White, the entire bus fleet will have electronic announcement systems, ensuring compliance with the law. 

The Defense Fund, which works on disability issues nationally, joined with the Denver, Colo. law firm of Fox & Robertson to file suit on behalf of two Santa Cruz residents – Joshua Loya, who is blind, and Deborah Lane, who is visually-impaired as a result of multiple sclerosis.  

Loya and Lane, both students, said they have missed bus stops repeatedly because drivers fail to announce them. Lengthy walks and tardiness for work, classes and appointments have resulted, they said. 

“If you can’t get where you need to go, you can’t live your life,” said Loya. “What if somebody told you that you can drive your car, but you can’t see any of the off-ramps or street signs anymore?”  

Tim Fox, a partner at Fox & Robertson, said Santa Cruz Metro is in violation of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, among other federal and state laws. The act requires compliance with Federal Transit Administration regulations that call on bus drivers to announce major intersections, points of transfer to other lines and any stops requested by passengers, Fox said. 

Fox said Metro Accessible Services Transit Forum, an advisory group to Santa Cruz Metro, warned the bus service that drivers were not in compliance in 1989 and 1995, and a separate consultant raised the issue again in 1999. 

“They don’t take it seriously,” said Fox, arguing that the suit may prompt action. 

But White said Santa Cruz Metro is very serious about the issue. 

“There’s a commitment from the management team, the board and the staff to maximize accessibility,” said White, noting that the district just completed a three-month training with all bus drivers. 

Fox said in a Tuesday interview that the training was news to him and marked an improvement. He also said he was unaware that the Santa Cruz Metro Board of Directors had officially voted to equip the entire bus fleet with electronic announcement devices.  

But he said he still had concerns about which stops would be announced under the new system and whether drivers might disable the electronic announcers.  

Linda Kilb, an attorney with the Defense Fund, who argued that the problem is a national one, said Santa Cruz Metro must do a better job of pushing its drivers to announce stops. 

“If they’re not being provided a management culture that informs them of their obligations and facilitates their obligations, it’s not going to work,” she said. 

White said the agency has an ongoing monitoring system in place, with penalties ranging from sensitivity training to termination if a bus driver does not comply with the law. 

He also noted that a recent Santa Cruz Metro survey showed that over 70 percent of drivers are in compliance, though he acknowledged that full compliance would be 100 percent. 

“I would not call that a very impressive record,” said Fox, arguing that the public would not stand for an agency that discriminated against African-Americans 30 percent of the time. 

Just when things were starting to look up for the Berkeley High boys’ volleyball team, a freak injury may have thrown their season into chaos. 

Early in the opening game of Tuesday’s match against Alameda, Berkeley’s Ethan Ashley landed on a teammate’s foot and rolled his ankle. With just seven active players on the team, the ’Jackets were left with no substitutes and couldn’t give much resistance to the Hornets, falling 15-7, 15-12, 15-3. 

How serious Ashley’s injury turns out to be will likely decide the fate of the school’s first-year junior varsity program. If Ashley is out for any considerable amount of time, Berkeley head coach Justin Caraway is likely to forfeit the remaining JV games and pull all six players up to varsity. 

“There’s no way we can compete with only the six guys I’ve got left,” Caraway said. “We’re in serious trouble if Ethan’s gone for the rest of the year.” 

The ’Jackets admittedly won’t be going very far this year no matter what condition Ashley’s ankle is in. They have lost four straight matches and are just 1-4 in ACCAL play, with a group of unexperienced underclassmen unlikely to turn the season around. The abandonment of the JV schedule would be doubly painful for Caraway, who has worked hard for the past two seasons to establish the training ground for his younger players. 

Caraway admitted that pulling up the junior varsity would be a move born of desperation. 

“I don’t think our JV players are ready to compete at this level,” he said. “But I may not have a choice.” 

Although the ’Jackets didn’t win Tuesday, at least they weren’t fighting amongst themselves in the loss. The team ended last week with internal strife marring the picture, as star Robin Roach lost his temper after watching his teammates struggle to make plays for the past two seasons. Roach was smiling again Tuesday, patting his teammates on the back even when a mistake was made. 

“We were looking pretty good. We had a good practice yesterday, and we had high energy and were communicating on the court, Caraway said. “But this injury puts us in a tough position. I’m going to have to make a decision by tomorrow’s practice whether we’re going to have a JV for the rest of the year.”

The public hearing concerning TuneUp Masters and the possible revocation of the garage’s business license due to an ongoing nine-year dispute with neighbors who say the business is just not in tune with Berkeley had two distinctly different sides last night. 

At the beginning of the public hearing the lawyer for TuneUp Masters started off with a “spirited” argument against the city for not respecting the laws of due process. He also alleged that demands placed on TuneUp Masters by the city have put it at a competitive disadvantage and threatened livelihoods. 

“Berkeley is a wonderful place,” said Robert Zweben, legal counsel for TuneUp Masters. “But this process has been the most bizarre I’ve ever been through.” 

Zweben alleged that the city’s process has unfairly targeted the business due to a grudge held by Councilmember Dona Spring and the constant “nagging” of a few citizens, mentioning Michael Popso a neighbor of TuneUp Masters by name. 

At one point Zweben even stated that the city’s intention for the last several months has been to frame his client. 

“Due to the nagging of Mr. Popso you decided we’re not going to warn anyone. We’re not going to issue any citations, we’re going to build a case,” Zweben said. “You want them to respond to these that happened over a year ago, that’s just insane. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not constitutional and it’s un-American.” 

At one point Zweben even told the city that they did not have the jurisdiction to revoke the business license. 

At the March 21 city council meeting prior to the holding of a public hearing regarding the possible revocation of the business license Councilmember Dona Spring lashed out at the business stating that they city should just close them down.  

All councilmembers are legally required to enter into public hearings without bias, consequently Spring’s comments may have placed the city into a legally vulnerable situation. The out for the city, however, was for Spring to recuse herself from all arguments surrounding TuneUp Masters. 

See TUNEUP/Page 9 

Walline of TuneUp Masters said yesterday that the company would consider suing the city if need be, but that decision would be based upon what was being said at the public hearing.  

Prior to last night’s public hearing City Council met behind closed doors to discuss the issue. When asked whether or not the meeting was held to discuss any legal vulnerability for the city, Councilmember Kriss Worthington said he was not allowed to comment. 

“But I will say that even if all eight of us were to vote that you should recuse yourself, the responsibility to do so still lies on the individual,” Worthington said. “We, the rest of council, have no authority.” 

Asst. City Attorney Zach Cowan would also not comment on the closed session discussions. 

Spring, however, through her silence seemed to say the most. 

She declined to comment on discussions regarding the business revocation. Consequently untying the city’s hands and freeing them from the perception of their being a violation of due process. 

Her silence set a different tone for the second half of the meeting. 

Councilmember Linda Maio began with resurfacing several past offenses of TuneUp Masters and stating that she believed the business basically disregarded the rules until they realized the city was serious about closing them down. 

“And now you say we’ve made staffing changes and we’ve let that person go. But things only happen in the 11th hour,” Maio said. She also stated that the company should have disciplined employees who were failing to comply with restrictions placed on he business by the city independently of the city having to send out someone to monitor and report their violations.  

“You should have someone on-site making sure your employees are doing what they are supposed to do,” she added in reference to allegations from neighbors that the business is still operating after hours, that tainted water has been dumped down storm drains and that the business is generally a public nusance. 

Berkeley-resident L.A. Wood earlier in the evening seemed to address the similar issue. 

“The problem is that this is an out of town business with absentee management and they are not the kind of business that cares about Berkeley,” Wood said. 

But not everyone had bad things to say about the business. Despite this nine-year battle, several community members supported the business and stated they were indeed good neighbors. 

One citizen even alluded to the fat that he thought the city just wanted the business out so that affordable housing could be built on the site. 

No action was taken and the public hearing will be continued until next week.

Today is Wednesday, April 17, the 107th day of 2002. There are 258 days left in the year. 

Highlight in History: 

On April 17, 1961, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. 

On this date: 

In 1492, a contract was signed by Christopher Columbus and a representative of Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, giving Columbus a commission to seek a westward ocean passage to Asia. 

In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazano reached present-day New York harbor. 

In 1790, American statesman Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at age 84. 

In 1964, Ford Motor Co. unveiled its new Mustang. 

In 1964, Jerrie Mock of Columbus, Ohio, became the first woman to complete a solo airplane flight around the world. 

In 1969, a jury in Los Angeles convicted Sirhan Sirhan of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. 

In 1969, Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek was deposed. 

In 1970, the astronauts of Apollo 13 splashed down safely in the Pacific, four days after a ruptured oxygen tank crippled their spacecraft. 

Ten years ago: 

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the Senate Banking Committee the modest pace of economic expansion wasn’t adequate, a remark interpreted as a signal he might cut interest rates further. 

Five years ago: 

House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced he would borrow $300,000 from retired Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole to pay a sanction imposed for violation of House rules. Former Israeli president Chaim Herzog died in Tel Aviv at age 78. 

One year ago: 

By a nearly two-to-one margin, Mississippi residents voted to keep the Confederate emblem on their state flag. San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds became the 17th major leaguer ever to reach 500 career home runs. 

Today’s Birthdays: 

Composer-musician Jan Hammer is 54. Actress Olivia Hussey is 51. Rock singer-musician Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks) is 47. Singer Liz Phair is 35. Actress Jennifer Garner is 30. Singer Victoria Adams Beckham (Spice Girls) is 28. 

Just $100 to kick mayor’s butt 

GOSHEN, Ind. — The mayor of this northern Indiana city may let a critic who offered money to kick his posterior take her best shot. 

Mayor Allan Kauffman plans to turn his critic’s offhand comment into a benefit for the Goshen Boys & Girls Club later this month. 

The critic told a political volunteer for Kauffman that she would happily pay $100 to kick the mayor’s hind quarters, The Goshen News reported Saturday. 

Kauffman announced at a Kiwanis meeting on Friday that he would offer himself for the challenge. And the Boys & Girls Club will accept the mayor’s generosity, Kevin Deary, club president, said. 

Kauffman wrote a letter to his critic inviting her and three mayoral critics to the kicking event. The suggested bidding for one swift kick starts at $100. 

But the mayor said he was interested in establishing safety rules, such as limiting the kicker to the use of the side of the foot. 

Teens tape illegal exploits 

SHELTON, Conn. — A videotape made by a group of teen-agers in Shelton and Ansonia is getting rave reviews — from police. 

The teens taped themselves committing a series of burglaries, and commenting on the crimes, police said. 

“On the tape they identify each other by name and talk about what building they are going to rob next,” Detective Sgt. Michael Madden said Saturday. “They would be filming themselves driving to each location and saying, ’We are going to do our robbin’ here.”’ 

Police obtained the tape from an informant. It solves eight burglaries in Shelton and others in Ansonia, Madden said. 

William Stakum, 19, of Shelton, was arrested Friday night and charged with burglary, larceny, and criminal mischief in the first degree. 

He confessed, Madden said. 

“He really didn’t have much choice after seeing the film,” he said. 

More arrests are expected. 

Slumber party in jail 

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. — Wanted: A few law-abiding citizens for an overnight stay in jail. 

Responsible adults can help test the nearly finished jail by taking part in a “sleepover,” Sheriff Bill Brueggemann said. 

Members of Cass County civic groups, city councils and village boards have been invited to spend Friday night. They will wear orange jail jumpsuits and will be fed supper and breakfast. 

High school student councils and church youth groups are invited to send 15- to 18-year-olds and adult chaperones Saturday. 

The sleepover will help volunteers understand jail life and give staff a chance to practice procedures at the 96-bed jail, Brueggemann said. 

A more traditional open house also will be held during the weekend. 

Judge goes to jail 

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Judge Michael Conahan decided to cut time and transportation costs by sending himself to jail. 

Conahan on Friday held court in the county jail with about 47 inmates on the day’s schedule — and less-than-ideal conditions. 

Conahan worked at a small table inside the prison’s library, surrounded by clerks, a stenographer, court administrators and a sheriff’s deputy. Inmates were brought in groups of five. 

Still, Conahan plans to try the court-in-jail system again in two weeks. 

Sexually explicit material and its appropriateness at certain hours of the night are hot topics in Berkeley, especially for viewers of B-TV Channel 25. 

For this reason, Berkeley Community Media has set up two live televised discussions about public access programming, censorship and free speech. This “Viewer Discretion Advised” program will take place on April 22 and April 29 from 7 to 7:30 p.m., and seeks to address viewers’ questions and concerns about questionable content and restrictions on adult programming on Channel 25. 

According to Brian Scott, the executive director of BCM, a number of complaints about controversial or sexually-explicit material have come into the station. BCM directed these directed the complaints to the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates these things, or to the district attorney’s office. 

“There was a specific show, the Dr. Susan Block Show,” Scott said. “Two members of the community came into a Board meeting in February and complained about it.” 

Svetlana and Ray Couture were chiefly concerned because it was on very early and that its content was “unpredictable.” 

This type of programming went on the air beginning at 10 p.m. initially. After the complaints, the Board decided to move any material that involves two naked people having sex to the hours of 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. 

After 25 people showed up at the next Board meeting in protest, the it went back to 10 p.m. The arguments for freedom of speech and against censorship convinced the Board of a revote — with the stipulation of having a public forum to address these issues. 

A large part of the controversy surrounds the FCC’s rules governing indecency verses obscenity. The FCC does not protect obscenity, such as pornography. 

“It is very difficult pinning down what exactly the FCC means when it says obscene material,” Scott said.  

Material is deemed obscene if three conditions are met. The program taken as a whole has to appeal to the prurient interest of the average person applying contemporary community standards. It also has to display or describe in patently offensive ways sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law, and the material as a whole has to lack serious artistic, literary, political or scientific value, according to the FCC. Information about obscenity can be found at www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/obscene.html. 

Indecent programming, however, may be broadcast during certain hours of the night. Indecency is defined as language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities, according to the FCC. Indecent programming does not rise to the level of obscenity. 

This controversial and often confusing law will be addressed by opposing parties during the two forums. Joan Levinson, a producer at BCM, will moderate both discussions. Levinson said that she was asked to do this and did not choose the subject. 

“I usually ask the questions and then let people on all sides of the issue talk,” Levinson said. “If it gets too raucous, I step in. This is an attempt to educate the public with as much information on all sides as possible. It is a hot topic in the culture.” 

On April 22, BCM Board members Jill Martinucci and Allan Charles (Chuck) Miller will be on hand to answer questions, while Svetlana Couture and several sponsors of the B-TV program Unlimited Possibilities will debate on April 29. Berkeley residents may call in at (510) 848-5483 or 8939 to ask questions. For more information, call (510) 848-2288.

SACRAMENTO — A nearly 10-year-old California experiment with a once-radical substance treatment program has proven effective in cutting both crime and drug abuse, two groups with interests in the program said Tuesday. 

Chief Justice Ronald M. George, a Republican, said in releasing the report that the study shows “drug courts are helping the justice system and the public by decreasing drug use, improving lives, and protecting communities.” 

Arrests of drug court graduates dropped 85 percent for two years after they successfully completed treatment, compared to two years before they entered the program, according to a study of about 3,000 offenders who completed the program in 34 California counties. 

The California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs and the Judicial Council said their study’s participants often began with significant problems. 

About 70 percent reported using drugs for more than five years, and 40 percent for more than a decade. Little more than half had graduated from high school, and just 13 percent had attended college. A typical offender had been arrested twice and jailed once in the two years before joining the program. 

The study also found that: 

— While 64 percent of offenders were unemployed when they entered the program, 70 percent had jobs by the time they left. 

— 95 percent of babies born to mothers in the program were born drug-free, and 96 percent of drug tests were negative for participants during the program. 

— 28 percent of graduates retained or regained child custody, 7 percent gained visitation rights, and 8 percent caught up on child support payments. 

— The program saved state and local governments $42 million by diverting offenders who otherwise would have gone to prison or jail, though that was offset by the $14 million spent on the drug courts. 

The study ordered by state legislators collected data on offenders sent to drug courts in the 34 counties between January 2000 and September 2001. 

Drug courts began in Dade County, Fla., in 1989, during the height of the South Florida cocaine wars. They were first tried in Oakland in 1993 and have since spread across the nation and to 50 of California’s 58 counties. 

They were among the most tolerant of court-based drug treatment programs until November 2000, when California voters followed the lead of Arizona and required that first- and second-time nonviolent drug offenders be sent to treatment rather than jail. 

Still, Proposition 36 treatment programs that have worked best since the initiative took effect last July have been those that followed a drug court pattern, Butte County Judge Darrell W. Stevens, chair of Judicial Council Proposition 36 Implementation Committee, said last week. 

He and other advocates laud the courts’ reliance on cooperation between law enforcement and treatment providers, overseen by a judge who alternately threatens and cajoles offenders into getting help and staying drug-free. 

Proposition 36 courts work much the same way, but judges are generally barred from using the “flash incarcerations” many drug court judges used to instantly punish recalcitrant offenders with several days in jail.

SAN FRANCISCO - A veteran public policy researcher from Berkeley's renowned Public Health Institute has been named the new director of San Francisco State University's Public Research Institute (PRI). 

Richmond Annex resident James Wiley, vice president for research and evaluation at the Public Health Institute for the past three years, joins the faculty at S.F. State as both director of PRI and a professor in the department of sociology. 

S.F. State's Public Research Institute, which was established in 1984, provides policy research, data collection and analysis for businesses, government agencies and non-profit organizations throughout the Bay Area. 

"San Francisco State University is truly fortunate to have a leader such as James Wiley join its community. He is a leader who will make a huge difference in the research, teaching, learning and funding here in many different fields," said Joel J. Kassiola, dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at S.F. State. "I have been struck by Dr. Wiley's professionalism, energy, creativity and desire to come to our exciting multicultural campus. I consider it a real coup that we were able to recruit him and I look forward to Dr. Wiley's superlative accomplishments as director of PRI." 

Before becoming vice president at the Public Health Institute at Berkeley, Wiley was assistant director of the Survey Research Center at Berkeley for  

nearly 20 years. During that time, Wiley was co-principal investigator on the San Francisco Men's Health Study, a landmark study of the natural history of HIV infection in men who self-identified themselves as either gay or bisexual. 

Wiley, an expert in demography and social science research methods, has published widely on issues of method and statistics in social science research. He is also an expert on issues of substance abuse, aging, and social epidemiology of infectious and chronic diseases. He succeeds Michael Potepan, chair of economics, who had been acting director of PRI.

SACRAMENTO — Lawmakers may eliminate a state department this spring based on an audit Tuesday that found a faulty state computer contract could cost taxpayers millions of dollars. 

Three state departments improperly relied on a vendor’s presentation that the nearly $95 million software contact with Oracle Corp. would save the state $111 million in the long run, auditors said. 

Instead, the contract may cost the state $6 million to $41 million more than if there had been no contract at all, concluded State Auditor Elaine Howle. 

“If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that DOIT (the Department of Information Technology) has outlived whatever usefulness it may have had, this audit ought to put an end to it,” said Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who asked for the audit in September. 

“As the auditor found, DOIT didn’t lift a finger to do the very thing it was created to do,” Bowen said. “It didn’t set standards, it didn’t verify savings projections, and it ignored its own study showing the project wasn’t needed.” 

The audit immediately prompted the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to set a hearing for Thursday, while a lawmaker called for more legislative oversight if the DOIT is to survive. 

Created in 1995 to coordinate the state’s technology purchases, the department will close July 1 unless lawmakers act. Gov. Gray Davis is backing legislation by Assemblyman Manny Diaz, D-San Jose, that extends its life through next year but lets lawmakers terminate projects with substantial cost overruns. 

“DOIT welcomes reforms,” said department spokesman Kevin Terpstra. 

That’s too late, Bowen said, because “the problems with this agency are so deep, so fundamental” that blowing it up is the only way to reform it. 

The department has 76 employees and an $11 million budget. 

However, auditors said the contract passed muster with three state departments that relied on a vendor’s savings projections instead of doing their own calculations. The departments may not have been aware that the vendor, Logicon Inc., stood to make $28.5 million from the abnormally lengthy six-year Oracle deal, auditors found. 

DOIT sought the contract despite determining in advance there was a limited need for the software, the audit found. 

Indeed, no state departments had the software as of last month, more than 10 months after the contract was approved, in part because the Department of General Services had not issued instructions on how to get it. 

Nonetheless, the state will have paid $17 million in contract costs and interest fees by June “with little benefit to show for it,” Howle wrote in her report. 

The three departments — DOIT, General Services and Finance — approved the contract with Redwood Shores-based Oracle despite a recommendation from the Finance Department’s review team that it be postponed a year. 

All three departments now agree with the audit’s conclusions, though they say they’ve taken steps to improve both the contract and the contracting process. 

Herndon, Va.-based Logicon, a subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., declined comment. Oracle officials did not return a telephone message from the Associated Press. 

Last Friday night after a champagne gala the Berkeley Black Repertory Group premiered its "In Search of a Legend: A Tribute to Josephine Baker." Written and conceived by Johnny Land, directed and choreographed by Stephen Semien this musical revue exuberantly hits the highlights of Josephine’s life. Unfortunately, with an uneven cast and a thin script, this show never attains the heights of tribute it wishes to convey. 

The show begins with four Doo Wop singers – Sprandore Geford, Baraka Bey, F. Curtis Reed, Kenneth Brian Sullivan – recounting various exploits of Baker’s life: walking down the Champs Elysees with jaguars, singing into a rhinestone mic,, dancing above the Parisian crowd in a mirrored cage. They are full of awe and invite us to join them in a retrospective of Baker’s life.  

After the introduction we move to Baker’s childhood. "Li’l Josephine" is played with exuberance by Jade Johnston, who dances and sings well and fairly beams on stage. She is exhorted by the Doo-Wop men and the older "Chanteuse Josephine," played by Zorina London, to pursue her dreams and become a "queen."  

We then switch to Paris for the first act finale. Treated to a bevy of classic songs and a high-octane Charleston performance this number delivers all the spirit and energy you could hope for. Vickia Brinkley as Ethel Waters delivers a growling and fun "Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night" and Dawn Troupe as Josephine "Ingénue" leads the company in the spirited Charleston. 

The second act opens with a segment called "Legendary Josephine," and takes us from Josephine’s transformation from a scandalous ingénue to legendary chanteuse. Dawn Troupe shows off her dancing skills in an homage to the famous "Banana Dance" and Zorina London lets her diva loose in a number called "La Bakair," singing "Ma Vie en Rose."  

From there the show takes a documentary turn detailing the writer Johnny Land’s search to meet Josephine followed by a segment detailing Josephine’s persecuted yet ultimately triumphant return to America and her speech at Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington. The show closes with a re-creation of "La Bakair’s" last concerts at the Bobino.  

Because this is a revue, the script is hardly the most important element in the show. When using actual text from Josephine’s speeches the actors come to life and the words sing. But when the script switches to strained rhyming couplets for transitions and exposition, it suffers. Most of the performers’ voices are also assisted with wireless mics. However, one of the mic.’s on the Doo-Wop gentlemen refused to work throughout the show. Repeated attempts to bring up its level resulted in distortion and feedback several times. The performers’ voices ably filled the theatre’s hall which made me wonder why the mics were used at all. Ample credit should go to the costumer Jealousy, whose outfits for Josephine grow more spectacular as the night goes on, and Johnny Land for not only writing the show but with Aaron Bailey on drums, accompanying the performers throughout the night. 

Both Stephen Semien and Johnny Land write notes in the program detailing how much Josephine Baker has meant to them. I spoke with Mr. Land at intermission and he told me he hopes to continue working on this piece, to honor Josephine. With his dedication and this worthy beginning ultimately this show should do her justice.  

"In Search of a Legend" plays at the Berkeley Black Repertory Group’s home at 3201 Adeline St. in Berkeley, one block away from the Ashby BART station. Tickets can be purchased by calling 510-652-2120.

There is, as they say, no I in team. Neither is there an I in workhorse – and you can dig all you want but you’ll be hard pressed to find an I in Joe Storno. 

Storno, a senior southpaw for the St. Mary’s Panthers, is the last man standing on a Panther pitching staff that has seen two of its top three starters suffer season-ending shoulder injuries. The remainder of the staff can generously be described as “young” and/or “inexperienced” (freshman Scott Tully was called up Friday from the junior varsity to start against St. Patrick) and head coach Andy Shimabukuro, laughing, finds a more frank description for his makeshift staff: “shaky.” 

But where there should be a huge gap in the middle of the St. Mary’s rotation, you will now find the 6-foot-2, 225-pound Storno – who is suddenly the staff ace, bordering on one-man show - although you won’t hear Storno say that. 

“He’s kind of a quiet, laid-back kid,” Shimabukuro says, “and he’s not worried about his stats. He’s worried about winning.” 

Pitching every other game this season for St. Mary’s, usually going the full seven innings and throwing well over 100 pitches, Storno has become a rock amidst Shimabukuro’s unsteady sea of young arms. On Wednesday against then first-place Salesian, Storno threw a complete game three-hitter, walking none and striking out eight. Shimabukuro described Storno as being in “complete control” as he wrapped up his gem in only 88 pitches for a 4-2 victory that put the Panthers in control of the BSAL race. 

Asked about his performance so far this season, Storno is given a chance to toot his own horn - and here is how the young athlete chooses to answer: 

“Well, I’m not sure,” says Storno. “But the team is 3 and 0 in league.” 

Right. But we already knew that much. St. Mary’s is a perennial contender in the North Coast Section, cruising into the playoffs each of Storno’s first three years there, and this year has jumped out to an early lead in the BSAL. The question here is not about the team - it is about Joe Storno. How are you playing this year, personally? What is your record, for example? Your earned run average? 

“I don’t know,” says Storno, flatly. “I usually go the distance in our games though.” 

These are refreshing answers in a time when many young athletes can recite every personal stat in the book except for their team’s win-loss record. For an account of Storno’s personal achievements one must look elsewhere; Shimabukuro, for one, is effusive in his praise. 

“He’s the ace of our staff, and the only reliable pitcher we have right now,” Shimabukuro says. “He’s primarily responsible for our undefeated start in league.” 

In his last three outings Storno has pitched 21 innings, striking out 16, with a 2.57 earned run average. He has given up only 18 hits and six walks over that stretch.. 

“I know that every seventh day he’s going to take the ball and go with it,” says Shimabukuro, “and that’s a great feeling.” 

On days that he’s not pitching, Storno, the workhorse, doesn’t rest – he starts at first base for the Panthers. Storno is batting .280, with 10 RBIs and 13 runs scored. 

Shimabukuro attributes Storno’s durability to his off-season dedication to conditioning, describing Storno as a “team leader.” 

“A lot of the guys, the next day after they pitch they’re a little sore. He just goes through practice like he didn’t even pitch,” Shimabukuro says. “I think he really worked hard in the off-season - he was one of the guys that was there every day - and I think that will carry him through the end of the season.” 

Next year Storno will be a freshman at Florida State, home of one of the best baseball programs in the country. Some would say that Storno is stretching his skills a bit too far when he says that he intends to try to walk on there as a pitcher, but Storno’s decision to attend Florida State is based on their excellent Criminal Justice program, not on their baseball program. His favorite current class at St. Mary’s is Constitutional Law, and he talks of someday becoming an investigator with the FBI or DEA. 

As for Storno’s future on the mound, time will tell. Baseball is a game that rewards the consistent. Storno has stayed the distance several times this year – and there is no reason to believe that he’ll stop now.

To the editor, 

As a presidential candidate, George W. Bush promised that he would fight to see that "all Americans with disabilities have every chance to pursue the American dream." But President Bush's appointment of Gerald Reynolds last week as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education betrays his prior commitment. 

With Congress in recess, the president exercised a relatively obscure power the chief executive has to make a "recess appointment." Not only does this appointment sidestep the Senate's constitutional role, but it also leaves many Americans wondering whether "compassionate conservatism" - a term Bush has used to describe his philosophy - is heavy on conservatism, but light on compassion. 

The person who oversees OCR will bear a heavy responsibility. This office is responsible for ensuring that nearly 15,000 school districts and more than 3,600 colleges and universities across the nation comply with federal civil rights laws-including access for students with disabilities. 

OCR provides technical assistance to educational institutions to help them comply with federal laws, and it also investigates charges of discrimination. Roughly 60 percent of all discrimination complaints that OCR investigates involve students with disabilities. For this reason, the person who heads OCR must be ready to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and other federal laws that protect more than 6 million American students who have some kind of disability. 

But Reynolds is unlikely to be this kind of advocate. In the 1990s, he criticized the ADA, claiming it would "retard economic development in urban centers across the country." Reynolds also served as legal analyst for the Center for Equal Opportunity, a group that has repeatedly attacked the ADA and supported efforts to weaken this crucial law. 

Recently, a top official with the Center blasted the ADA as "one of the worst-drafted statutes" and urged Congress to "make the act narrower."  

Last year, the Center's president, Linda Chavez, complained that the ADA was "a haven for everyone from scam artists to disgruntled workers." 

These accusations are both hysterical and false. Research shows that employers face only minor costs in making a "reasonable accommodation” for a person with a disability. Research also reveals that Bush's appointee is way out of step with the public. In a 1999 Harris Poll, Americans were informed of the five major provisions of the ADA and then asked for their reactions. Each one of these five provisions was supported by at least 85 percent of Americans.  

Of course, every task requires the right tools, and this is no less true when it comes to ensuring fairness for our students. One key tool is the “disparate impact” standard -- an important measure that focuses on the discriminatory effect of laws and practices, rather than the motives behind them. The “disparate impact” standard has enabled federal officials through the years to identify and eliminate discriminatory education practices. 

Unfortunately, Reynolds firmly opposes this standard. His position would effectively deny justice to a large majority of discrimination victims, whether that discrimination is based on race, sex, national origin, or disability status. 

This is yet another reason why so many leaders and organizations representing the disability community have publicly urged the Senate to reject Reynolds' nomination. This includes Justin Dart, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and father of the ADA, the National Organization on Disability, National Disabled Student Union, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and the National Spinal Cord Injury Network. 

While testifying against one of President Clinton's nominees for the Department of Justice, Reynolds revealed his standards for judging executive branch appointments. He urged a Senate committee to “disqualify any candidate whose background indicates that his ideological beliefs will probably lead him to ignore the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.” 

Indeed, Reynolds not only failed President Bush's test - he also failed his own. 

- Jim Ward 

Local educators are sparring over controversial new state legislation that would expand the scope of negotiations between school districts and teachers’ unions. 

Under current law, unions have a right to negotiate wages, hours and conditions of employment. The new bill, authored by Assemblymember Jacki Goldberg, D-Los Angeles, would allow unions to bargain over the processes for selecting textbooks, developing curriculum and increasing parent participation, among other things. 

In many districts across the state, including the Berkeley Unified School District, teachers already play a role in these processes, serving on advisory committees and making recommendations to the school board about books and course development. 

The problem, say supporters of the Goldberg legislation, is that some districts do a good job of incorporating teacher input and others do not. 

“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” said David A. Sanchez, secretary-treasurer for the California Teachers Association.  

Sanchez argued that, if the processes are enshrined in teacher contracts, recalcitrant school boards will have a hard time dismissing the recommendations that emerge from those processes. 

Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, who supports the legislation, said the district often listens to teachers’ recommendations but in many instances does not. 

“The record is a bit mixed,” he said. Fike said the bill would give the federation “teeth” in negotiating teacher input, and prevent districts across the state from simply appointing young, inexperienced teachers to advisory committees. 

Ted Schultz, a member of the Board of Education, said Berkeley teachers are already heavily involved in picking books and developing curriculum, recalling a teacher-led effort two years ago to overhaul the middle school approach to math. 

Board President Shirley Issel argued that shifting curriculum and textbook issues to the often tense arena of collective bargaining would be a mistake. 

“Negotiations are adversarial,” Issel said. “Why introduce these issues to that environment?” 

But board member John Selawsky, who supports the legislation, said it would simply provide another venue for teachers to get involved on important issues. 

“My feeling is that giving teachers more influence and power in deciding these issues is positive,” added board member Terry Doran, a former teacher. 

Doran and Selawsky are at odds with the California School Boards Association, a state-wide body that staunchly opposes the bill. 

James Morante, association spokesman, argued that the bill is an attempt by unions to seize power from school boards. He said any shift in power should be accompanied by a shift in accountability. But school boards, he argued, elected by the public, will continue to be held accountable while teachers will not. 

Sanchez said teachers are held accountable every time test scores are released, and that they should have a say in what texts and curricula are used in the classroom.  

But Morante said the collective bargaining process could lead to unsavory trade-offs on items like books and curriculum that do not belong in negotiations. 

“I sincerely believe that our teachers are far more professional than what our school board members give them credit for,” responded Sanchez, skeptical that unions would use these processes as bargaining chips. 

Fike differed slightly, noting that the legislation could make a tense relationship between a district and a union worse by adding new items to the negotiations. 

But Fike said Berkeley Unified and the Berkeley Federation of Teachers have a healthy relationship, and he did not envision future negotiations stalling if the Goldberg legislation becomes law.  

Morante also raised concerns about debating the issues out of public view. 

“You’re putting all these discussions about curriculum and textbooks behind closed doors in secretive negotiations,” he said, arguing that parents and students would not have adequate opportunity for input. 

But, as supporters take pains to point out, the legislation guarantees parents representation in any process that emerges from collective bargaining. 

Legislative hearings on the bill, AB 2160, start this morning in the Assembly Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security Committee and will move to the education committee next week. 

Governor Gray Davis came out against the bill last week, arguing that collective bargaining is not the proper venue to discuss educational policy, and casting doubt on the prospects of the legislation. 

Sanchez said the California Teachers Association will continue to push the bill, calling on its 300,000 members statewide to write letters to Davis and their representatives. 

He said the association will view legislators’ votes on the bill an important litmus test as the November elections approach.

To the Editor,  

The letter by Justin Rosenthal (April 11) implying the rally for Palestinian freedom at U.C. Berkeley was anti-American and anti-Israel missed the point: U.S. foreign policy and Israeli occupation policies caused Palestinian resistance to the occupation. 

As a 55-year-old person and a 29-year resident of Berkely as well as a community member of Students for Justice in Palestine, I am disturbed by the shortsightedness of Rosenthal's viewpoint. One cannot make peace with Israel without seeing the inherent racism of Israel's terrorist actions in Palestine. 

SJP's rally showed there is room for Palestine on the high moral ground most often claimed by supporters of Israel. Fighterbombers kill indiscriminately, creating a chasm of distance needing to be filled before peace can be acheived. 

The Israeli Action Commitee is blind to the facts of the situation and sees anti-zionism as anti-semetic. This narrowmindedness only serves to stifle conflict resolution and disallow thoughtful dialogue between the groups. 

Palestine will be free one day, but only by a change in U.S. foreign policy 

- Russell Bates 

Berkeley

The Berkeley Federation of Teachers and the Berkeley Unified School District are locked in a battle over the move from a seven- to a six-period day at Berkeley High School, a shift approved by the Board of Education in February and scheduled to take place next year. 

The shift to a six-period day is one of several cuts approved by the board that, according to BFT, will affect the teacher contract. 

Changes in class size, the teacher review process and stipends for high school department chairs will also affect the contract. The district has agreed to negotiate on these other items, but refuses to negotiate on the six-period day. 

Fike said that refusal is unfair, and added that he plans to file a grievance with the district in the coming days. The district is expected to reject the grievance, sending the matter to a third-party mediator. 

“We’re arguing that the existing contract allows us to implement a six-period day,” Lawrence said. “There’s nothing to negotiate, because we’ll be fulfilling the contract. There’s no violation here.” 

Fike disagreed. Currently, he noted, high school teachers instruct for five periods, plan for one period and supervise the hall for one period. 

Under the district’s proposal, teachers would still supervise, but for 15 minutes, not a full, 47-minute class period. Fike said this reduction violates the contract, and that the district is obligated to negotiate a contract change as a result. 

He also argued that the reduction in the supervision period will have a real impact on work conditions, given that many teachers “multi-task” during hall supervision, going through the “gobs and gobs” of paperwork every instructor confronts.  

But Lawrence said contractual language referring to a “supervision period” does not necessarily imply a period of time equal to a full 47-minute class session. She said teachers could supervise for fifteen minutes and still be in accordance with the current contract. She pointed to the middle schools, where teachers supervise for a shorter period of time, as a precedent. 

But Fike said middle schools teachers have a different schedule overall, with different required teaching minutes, making the comparison invalid.  

“It’s apples and oranges,” he said. 

Fike said the union also has concerns that the reduction in teacher supervision will affect student safety. 

“I too recognize the issue of safety,” Lawrence said. “But it makes far more sense to me to put someone that doesn’t have a master’s or doctorate in the hall.” 

Lawrence said she plans to hire additional security officers, while tightening up procedures at the high school next year. 

WASHINGTON - Male frogs exposed to even very low doses of a common weed killer can develop multiple sex organs — sometimes both male and female — researchers at the University of California Berkeley have discovered. 

"I was very much surprised" at the impact of atrazine on developing frogs, said university scientist Tyrone B. Hayes. 

Atrazine is the most commonly used weed killer in North America, he said, and can be found in rainwater, snow runoff and ground water. 

"There is virtually no atrazine-free environment," Hayes said. 

The Environmental Protection Agency permits up to three parts per billion of atrazine in drinking water. 

But Hayes' team found it affected frogs at doses as small as 0.1 part per billion. As the amount of atrazine increased, as many as 20 percent of frogs exposed during their early development produced multiple sex organs or had both male and female organs. Many had small, feminized larnynxes. 

Hayes' research team concluded that the effect on the frogs results from atrazine causing cells to produce the enzyme aromatase, which is present in vertebrates and converts the male hormone testosterone to the female hormone estrogen. 

The effects on frogs in Hayes' study occurred at exposure levels more than 600 times lower than the dose that has been seen to induce aromatase production in human cells. 

Their research is reported in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 

Asked if atrazine might also be a threat to people at low levels, Hayes said he did not know, adding that, unlike frogs, "we're not in the water all the time." 

"I'm not saying it's safe for humans. I'm not saying its unsafe for humans. All I'm saying is it that it makes hermaphrodites of frogs," he said. 

Stanley I. Dodson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison called the work "the most important paper in environmental toxicology in decades. 

"It shows the effect of the most commonly used herbicide on amphibians in environmentally relevant concentrations," he said. 

Asked if people should be worried, he also said: "We don't know." 

"It's like a canary in the mine shaft sort of thing," Dodson said, referring to the former practice of miners of bringing canaries with them as warnings of dangerous gases. The birds are very sensitive to gases and would die before the concentration of the gas was enough to harm the miners. 

Dodson said that in his research he had found that low exposures atrazine changes the ratio of males to females among water fleas. 

In addition to its effects on developing frogs, the Berkeley researchers found that male frogs exposed to atrazine after reaching maturity had a decrease in testosterone to levels equivalent to that found in females.  

Madeleine Lacavoli was ready to hit the floor. All she needed was the siren’s signal. 

But at 10:30 a.m. she and the rest of her co-workers in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Clerk’s office did not leap to participate in the citywide duck, cover and hold earthquake drill. 

“We were waiting and nothing happened," Lacavoli said. 

The clerk’s office of the Board of Supervisors remained calm and empty. Several workers sat at desks, divided into cubicles, typing. Some insisted they were too old to duck under a desk, but agreed to participate. 

The clock on the wall read 10:35 a.m. Still no siren. 

An employee walked out the door with a coffee cup in her hand. A co-worker warned, "You’re going to miss it." 

"I can’t sit here and wait," she replied, then smiled at the rest of the office as she left. The others held their seats. 

At 10:40 a.m., Lacavoli got the news. They had failed to hear the sirens that kicked off California’s Earthquake Preparedness month at precisely 10:30 a.m. 

No matter said, Juliette Hayes, special assistant in the Mayor’s office of Emergency Services. The sirens are not meant to alert people to an earthquake--the earth moving does that-- but to alert people to turn on their radio for an emergency broadcast. 

"The siren won’t go off during an earthquake because there’s not enough time," Hayes said. "But people should know to turn their radios to an AM station to be linked to emergency information." 

Hayes said the main reason for the siren today was for people to practice the duck to the floor, take cover under a sturdy desk or table and hold onto that piece of furniture until it is safe to move earthquake drill, regardless of whether people heard the siren. 

"If there was a hazardous spill big enough, then (the board of supervisors office) probably would have heard about it through the mayor’s office," Hayes said. Maybe the clerk’s office failed to hear the outside siren because they were waiting for an internal siren. 

But Lacavoli wonders who else failed to hear the siren. 

"If you’re not hearing it in city hall, are you hearing it in other buildings?" she asked. 

Two security guards at the San Francisco Library, across the street from city hall also missed hearing the sirens. The two men, who declined to give their names, were standing near the door at 10:30 a.m. 

"What earthquake drill?" one asked. "If they’re going to have a drill then everyone should be able to hear it. What’s the point otherwise?" 

Lacavoli expressed the same sentiment. "If your windows are open you’d hear it," she said. "But we can’t keep them open because of the heating and air ventilation. Let’s face it, on a normal workday, most people are inside a building." 

East Los Angeles, the famed rough-and-tumble Mexican neighborhood, has been a continuing source of inspiration to one of its native sons, Luis Rodriguez, bringing out poetry, political commentary, a memoir and now short fiction. 

Best known for his unsparing memoir about life as an East L.A. gang member in "Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.", Rodriguez read last night at Cody’s Books on Telegraph Avenue from his new collection of short stories, "The Republic of East L.A." A frequent speaker at youth conferences and schools, Rodriguez also spoke at San Lorenzo High School during the day.  

With three works of poetry, two children’s books, and two non-fiction titles to his name, "The Republic of East L.A." represents Rodriguez’s first foray into adult fiction. The twelve stories in the collection chronicle different characters as they make their way around the boulevards and sidestreets of the author’s hometown.  

"They’re (the stories) based on real people, people I’ve known, experiences I’ve had, or stories I’ve heard," Rodriguez says about the tales, most of which were written over the last three years. Rodriguez wrote the final story, "Sometimes You Dance With the Watermelon," twenty years ago. It was from revisiting this story and others that "The Republic of East L.A." came to be.  

"I’ve put the gang situation in the background," Rodriguez says, hitting on the new stories’ relation to "Always Running." "Most of the stories are not about gangs. Even though that’s what East L.A. is known for, there’s really a lot more to it than that so I decided to focus on other aspects of East L.A. life and culture." 

Citing literary influences from fellow L.A. author T.C. Boyle ("I love T.C. Boyle" Rodriguez says), to Tobias Wolff, Robert Olen Butler, and Native American writer Sherman Alexie, Rodriguez aimed to be as original as he could in his adult fiction debut. 

"I am purposefully trying to have my own style," he says, "which I’m not sure how well I succeeded at. I really tried to not write like anybody - it at all possible - but the influences are there." 

As a seasoned political organizer and speaker to at-risk youth, Rodriguez is used to communicating his experiences directly and up front. Did he find the less linear and more subtle form of fiction hard to adjust to?  

"Some of the issues, social and political, these people are involved in are a part of the background of the story," he says. "But of course with fiction, you try and not make it an essay. You gotta try and make sure the characters and the situations they’re confronting makes it a story, and not impose the situation."  

Involved in gangs during his youth, Rodriguez has been speaking at schools and juvenile detention facilities for over twenty years. Discussing his talk in San Lorenzo, Rodriguez said he planned to speak about "the importance of everybody finding their particular art, their particular purpose, their passion. That’s the way I look at my writing, it’s a very innate passion that I have that keeps me going, that’s gotten me through a lot of hard times… I think it’s important to show why art and purpose is important to find in your life." 

SAN FRANCISCO — State regulators proposed a plan Monday they said would allow Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to emerge from bankruptcy by January, without raising customers’ electric rates. 

The plan filed by the California Public Utility Commission would have PG&E ratepayers contribute $4.7 billion while the company’s parent company PG&E Corp. forgoes $1.6 billion in profits. The utility would also sell common stock to raise an extra $1.75 billion. 

The utility’s only stockholder now is its parent company, but the PUC plan would make about 20 percent of the stock available on the open market. 

The PUC’s plan would also return the utility to a cost-of-service ratemaking process, giving PG&E a guaranteed rate of return on the electricity it sold. That and paying the utility’s debts in full and in cash, will restore the utility to an investment grade, said PUC general counsel Gary Cohen. 

“We expect PG&E to come out of bankruptcy in January with $3.6 billion in cash,” Cohen said. 

PG&E is also building a cash surplus, Cohen said, that should top $2.7 billion by January, because the utility has collected more in rates since March 2001 than it has spent buying power. 

Ratepayers will also pay $2 billion to refinance $3.86 billion in debts over ten years, Cohen said. 

Consumer advocate Doug Heller called the PUC’s plan a ”$4.7 billion ratepayer-funded bailout of PG&E.” 

“The only reason they can come up with the $4.7 billion is by illegally maintaining the artificially high electricity rates until January 2003,” said Heller, who works with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. 

PG&E filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2001, claiming more than $8 billion in debts. 

The utility’s own reorganization plan would have the company spin its power plants, electricity and natural gas distribution systems into separate companies that would be under the corporate umbrella of the federally regulated parent company. 

PG&E says federal regulators would let it charge market rates for the electricity it generates, boosting their value and allowing it borrow more than $4 billion against them to pay creditors. State regulators currently control how much PG&E can charge for its power. 

Critics, including the PUC, called the plan PG&E’s way to escape state oversight. 

Under the PUC’s plan, “PG&E will not be broken up. It will remain an integrated utility when it emerges,” Cohen said. 

Both plans provide for the utility’s creditors to be paid in full. The utility and the regulators each also say their plans would not increase consumers’ electric rates. The PUC plan could also allow for a rate decrease in January 2003, when the utility emerges from bankruptcy, but officials couldn’t say Monday how much a decrease would result. 

CLEVELAND (AP) — Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. increased its bid to acquire TRW Inc. to $6.7 billion, a month after the defense manufacturer’s board rejected an unsolicited offer of $5.9 billion. 

Kent Kresa, chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, said TRW is more valuable because of improving economic conditions. 

The new offer is valued at $53 a share, compared with an original offer of $47 a share. 

TRW late Sunday advised its shareholders to take no action and said its board would review the revised offer. 

Last month, TRW chairman Phillip Odeen told investors that $47 a share wasn’t indicative of TRW’s value. The TRW board also urged shareholders to reject the Northrop Grumman’s hostile tender offer. 

Shares of TRW were up 49 cents to close at $51.97 in trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. Northrop shares lost 57 cents to close at $118.31. 

“We strongly encourage TRW shareholders to send a strong message to their board of directors in favor of inviting us to conduct due diligence,” Kresa said in a news release Sunday. “If the TRW board continues to deny us access, this offer will not proceed.” 

In response to the takeover attempt, TRW said last month it plans to spin off its automotive parts business within nine months. 

TRW said it was in preliminary talks with others who have expressed interest in buying all or part of the automotive business and its aeronautical systems business.

The list of prospective challengers to Shirley Dean’s mayoral seat in this November’s election has diminished with the announcements by several potential candidates that they will not run against the two-term incumbent. Members of the progressive voting block of the city council, determined to unseat Dean, have seen their list of challengers shrink, and have responded to their lack of a candidate by organizing a convention for May 4 to determine who will run against the mayor. 

Berkeley councilmember Linda Maio, who was considering a run for mayor, has decided not to run against mayoral incumbent Shirley Dean in November’s election. “It’s really just not the right time for me,” says Maio. “For one thing, it is difficult to unseat an incumbent. It takes a lot of money, at least $200,000. I just don’t have access to the kind of funds [Mayor Dean] has, because she is tight with developers.”  

State assemblymember Dion Aroner , D-Berkeley,also flirted with running for mayor, but has instead decided to pursue the 9th district state senate seat in 2004, when Don Perata will be forced out of that seat due to term limits.  

This leaves Berkeley’s progressive group of politicians uncertain of who will represent them in the upcoming election, a determination they hope to make during the May 4th convention, the first of its kind held by the progressives in 20 years. Possible candidates range from progressive councilmembers Margaret Breland and Kriss Worthington to active politicos like Justice Commissioner Elliot Cohen, KPFA crusader Barbara Lubin and Planning Commission chairman Rob Wrenn. The convention may also be the first step in hammering out a platform for the mayor’s challenger, as neighborhood groups and activists are expected to appear and voice their issues and concerns. 

“I thought about attending the convention,” said Mayor Dean, “but I don’t think I’d be very welcome. I’m sure they’ll talk about me, and I’d like to hear what they have to say.” 

The mayor says she does not plan on altering her campaign due to convention results. “What I do is not going to be affected at all by what is happening now. I intend to run a hard campaign as I always do,” she says. 

Incumbent councilmembers may be reluctant to forfeit their seats to run for mayor, which will be required of those who declare themselves candidates. The progressives currently enjoy a narrow, 5-4 majority in the city council, that could be put at risk. “The possible loss of the majority on the council is certainly a concern,” said Maio. This may push the progressives to look for a candidate outside of council ranks.  

Another race to watch will be for the District 8 council seat, which is being relinquished by Polly Armstrong. “I’ve done this for eight years and I’ve done a good job,” says Armstrong, “but it’s important to know when to walk away from something.” Armstrong cites political infighting as one of her reasons for leaving. “There’s no joy left in the job due to the toxic atmosphere in council meetings among the councilmembers, so it’s time to go,” she says. “I am concerned that while it’s important to keep Berkeley as a city with room for all kinds of opinions and people, we are increasingly becoming a city of students and rich people, and that we’re going to lose our families and our working poor,” she adds. 

Armstrong has declared support for a successor to her seat and for the current mayor. “I am supporting Gordon Wosniak [for District 8], who’s running in my place,” she says. 

“And I think Shirley Dean will dominate the [mayoral] election regardless of who the progressives nominate. She’s done an excellent job and is the hardest working person who’s ever had the job.”  

Maio disagrees with her assessment of the mayor. “A change is important,” she says. “Dean is a person who works hard, but she’s out of step with what the city stands for and who we are.” 

While the mayor says it is too early to specify the exact content of her campaign, she does say that future development, affordable housing, education and transportation are all key issues. Dean says that another term is essential to “complete some of the things that I’ve started and been involved in that are really important. We’ve made good beginnings, but we need to bring them to fruition, and that’s why we need another term.” 

In addition to the mayoral seat, council seats for Districts 1, 4, 7, and 8 are all open for reelection. Candidates must declare by July. 

Monday, April 15

Respite Caregiver Volunteer Training 

9 a.m. - 12 p.m. 

Catholic Charities 

433 Jefferson St., Oakland 

Part one of a two day training for anyone interested in becoming a respite care volunteer. 768-3147, betty@cceb.org 

Parkinson’s Support Group 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst 

Berkeley,  

For more information, call 981-5190. 

Berkeley Society of Friends (Quakers) 

2151 Vine Street 

Berkeley, Ca 94709 

(510) 843-9725 

Building Education Center - Free Lecture 

“What You Need To Know Before You Build or Remodel” 

7-9 p.m. 

Preview of the Homeowner’s Essential Course, presented by builder Glen Kitzenberger - learn to solder pipe and more!  

812 Page 

525-7610 

Peace Builders 

9 a.m. 

2151 Vine St. 

The Berkeley Society of Friends is presenting talks from four inspiring peace builders in April and May, beginning with Melody Ermachild Chavis and Latifa Popal who have just returned from Afghanistan. 527-8475. 

Berkeley Partners for Parks Meeting 

7:30 - 9 p.m. 

City Corp. Yard  

1326 Allston Way 

Public invited to discuss and advocate for parks and open space in Berkeley. 649-9874. 

Tuesday, April 16

Respite Caregiver Volunteer Training 

9 a.m. - 12 p.m. 

Catholic Charities 

433 Jefferson St., Oakland 

Part two of a two day training for anyone interested in becoming a respite care volunteer. 768-3147, betty@cceb.org 

Farm Fresh Choice,  

Community Produce Stands 

Affordable, high-quality nutritious fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and apple juice. Organic and low residue produce. Support small independent African -American, Latino and Asian Farmers continue to farm in environmentally sound ways. 

4 to 6 p.m., every Tuesday 

Three Locations:  

The Young Adult Project at Oregon and Grant, Bahia on Eighth Street at James Kenny Park and The Berkeley Youth Alternative. 

Berkeley Camera Club 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church 

941 The Alameda 

Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 525-3565. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.  

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project is sponsoring a series of Town Hall Meetings to present its annual update of their five year plan. 548-8776 

Spring Travel Writer’s  

Seminar 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Packing Demonstration: how to pack for three weeks, two climates in one manageable carry-on bag. 843-3533 

Brown Bag Career Talk 

YWCA Turning Point Career Center 

2600 Bancroft Way 

noon - 1 p.m. 

Frank Vargas of Berkeley will speak on the process of gaining employment in the many aspects of city government. $3 

"Self-Built Eco-Homes and Communities in Britain and Temple of Human Unity." 

7 - 9 p.m.  

Ecology Center  

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Jeffrey Gale, British Eco-Architect, Permacultural Garden Designer will give a Slideshow presentation. 548-2220 x233. 

Low-Cost Hatha Yoga Class 

6:30 p.m. 

James Kenney Recreation Center 

1720 8th St. 

$6 per class. 981-6651. 

Wednesday, Apr. 17th

A Judicial Attack on  

Environmentalism? 

7-8:30 p.m. 

UCBerkeley School of Journalism Library 

Hearst and Euclid Intersection 

Discussions on recent court rulings that attack environmental policies. Open to the public. Free. 

For more information contact David Slarskey at 415-989-1111 or email at dslarskey@bridgehosing.com 

A Conversation with Michael Frayn 

4 - 5:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre 

2015 Addison St. 

Frayn will discuss the scientific and historical issues raised in his play “Copenhagen,” which seeks to explain what transpired at a mysterious and fateful meeting in 1941 between German Physicist Werner Heisenberger and Niels Bohr. 

7-9:30 p.m. 

A Community Dialogue and  

Lecture on Buddhism 

7:30 p.m. 

Luthern Church of the Cross 

1744 University Ave. 

Jeff Greenwald ( Author and journalist of Shopping for Buddha, The Size of the World, and Scratching the Surface, a new anthology) 

Topic: Adventure Travel Writing: Myth & Reality 

A presentation followed by a question and answer period. 848-1424.  

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project 

5:30-7:30 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project is sponsoring a series of Town Hall Meetings to present its annual update of their five year plan. 548-8776. 

The Low Vision Speaker Jeff Carlson to speak about  

services of Lighthouse for the Blind 

1 p.m. 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

For more information, call 981-5190. 

Graduate Theological Union Lecture 

7 p.m. 

Bade Museum, Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave, Berkeley 

A public voice lecture on Perspectives on terror and the War 

For more information, call 849-8244. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil 

6:30 p.m. vigil 

7 p.m. walk 

Downtown Berkeley BART  

528.9217, vigil4peace@yahoo.com. 

Thursday, April 18

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club 

6:15-8:00 p.m. 

2515 Hillegass Ave. 

Berkeley Free, on-going meetings 1st & 3rd Thursdays, emphasizing metaphysical topics.  

848-6510. 

Walking in the Footsteps of John Muir 

7 p.m. 

REI 

1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Cherry Good gives a slide lecture sharing highlights from her journey to find out what she could about John Muir. 527-7470 

Home Remodeling Workshop 

7 - 8 p.m. 

Building Education Center  

812 Page St. 

Free home remodeling workshop focusing on lowering utility bills and using building materials that are healthier for your family and the environment. 614-1699, www.stopwaste.org. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project 

5:30-7:30 p.m.  

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth Street. 

Berkeley 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project is sponsoring a series of Town Hall Meetings to present its annual update of their five year plan. 

For more information, call 548-8776 

Friday, April 19

City Commons Club 

12:30 p.m. 

2315 Durant Ave.  

“Whither U.S. - Japan Relations?” Steven Vogel, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley. $1. 848-3533. 

Homebody/Kabul 

(Previews begin through the 23rd), through June 23rd 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre 

2025 Addisons Street, Berkeley 

Previews, $38, Tue/Th (8 p.m.) $42, Wed (7 p.m.), Thu/Sat/Sun matinee (2 p.m.), Sun (7 p.m.) $44, Wed opening/Fri eve (8 p.m.) $47, Sat (8 p.m.) $54 

Discounts: 20 half price HotTix go on sale at noon Tues. - Fri., Student/Senior half-price Rush one half hour before curtain, $16 for under 30, with valid ID, some restrictions apply. 

510-647-2949 or 888 4BRTTix, www.berkeleyrep.org 

Marimba Pacifica 

The Bay Area’s Premiere Marimba ensemble, a unique mixture of joyous World Beat dance music along with first Bay Area appearance of Dijaly Kunda Kouyate, traditional Griot Music from West Africa.  

Doors 8:30 p.m., music 9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz 

San Pablo at Gilman 

$10 

510-525-5054 or band and CD info 510-532-3579 

Standup Comedy 

8 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

A special one night only East bay appearance by standup comedian Scott Capurro. $16.50. 925-798-1300, www.scottcapurro.com 

Saturday, April 20

Berkeley Alliance of  

Neighborhood Associations  

meeting 

9:30-11a.m. 

Live Oak Park 

1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley 

Hear the latest news for the city wide network and confab for neighbors and their groups.  

849-4619

The St. Mary’s High track & field program should be a contender for state honors this season, for both individual events and team score. So last weekend’s Arcadia Invitational, the first meet to host most of the state’s best teams, could be looked at as a preview of what’s to come for the Panthers. 

If that’s so, the St. Mary’s girls appear to be in pretty good shape, finishing in the top five in five different events and seventh in two others. Seniors Kamaiya Warren, Bridget Duffy and Danielle Stokes continued their impressive seasons at Arcadia, with each going head-to-head with a familiar rival. Warren finished second in the shotput and fourth in the discus with solid marks in both events, although she did come in behind rival Rachel Varner of Bakersfield High, who won the shotput and finished second in the discus. Duffy finished fifth in the mile in 4:56, two seconds ahead of Head Royce High’s Clara Horowitz, another episode in the four-year battle between the two runners. Stokes was fourth in the 100-meter intermediate hurdles, .05 of a second behind Talia Stewart of James Logan. The pair have faced off in three straight meets, with wins alternating from week to week and the margin never more than 1/10th of a second. 

The Lady Panthers finished second in the distance medley in 12:09, four seconds behind their state-best mark, set at the Stanford Invitational. Their previous mark held up as winner Esperanza High finished in 12:06. The team’s other relay, the 4x100, had another impressive showing, finishing seventh in a strong field. 

The lone disappointment on the girls side was that senior Tiffany Johnson. She didn’t compete in her two best events, the 100-meter dash and the long jump, and finished seventh in the triple jump and out of the top 10 in the 200-meter race. 

The St. Mary’s boys, on the other hand, had just one impressive performance: senior Solomon Welch won the triple jump with a leap of 48’01.25”. Welch was also ninth in the long jump, and Jason Bolden Anderson finished ninth in the 100-meter hurdles. The boys’ 4x100 relay team came in eighth with one of their stronger performances of the season, but the sprinters were unimpressive individually.

To the Editor: 

I have been observing the incidents in the Middle East develop and escalate with horror and disbelief over the last year. The continued atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict seem to me a testament to the innate humane capacity for self-destructiveness. But, at the end of the day, one clear and blazing fact sears through the murky nuances of the conflict and, sharpens the sting of each escalating retaliation; the fighting is occurring between one of the wealthiest and militarily powerful nations in the world and a small guerrilla movement conceived in the slums and refugee camps of an impoverished, occupied, and alienated people. 

The key word here is nation. A sovereign nation is on one side of the conflict, and a stateless group of people is on the other side. It disturbs and saddens me to hear of guerrilla militants blowing up innocent civilians in Jerusalem cafés, much as it does to hear of the horrific car-bombings in downtown Bogotá. But it outrages me to hear of a state government shooting at rock-throwing civilians, willfully and recklessly demolishing the houses of its people and assassinating militants without trial.  

It seems that no laws apply to or can protect the Palestinians under Israeli control. Ambulances are impeded from delivering service, water and electricity are cutoff for hundreds of thousands, journalists are shot and killed whole apartment complexes are occupied and purposefully trashed. Thousands of civilians, from teenage boys to old men, are stripped from their homes, rounded up and interrogated en masse . Accused terrorists and conspirators are tortured and confined without hearings or lawyers. The IDF forces operate, it seems, with both leeway and impunity in a residential civilian setting, a history-proven recipe for human rights atrocities. 

A nation’s government, especially in a self-proclaimed democracy, must be held to a higher standard of human and civil rights that that of an informally organized guerrilla movement. We cannot squeeze the leaders of Hamaz with diplomatic and economic pressure any more that we can the leaders of the Tupac Amaru, but we can and must pressure the Israeli government to change its policies, even if it means denying aid, boycotting Israeli products, and implementing economic sanctions. 

Alex Theberge 

Berkeley  

Two Berkeley residents will arrive in Israel this morning on a mission of peace. 

Tom Kelly, a grants developer for the California Department of Health Services, and attorney Cathy Orozco are among a delegation of fifteen peace activists from around the country who will travel through Israel and the Palestinian territories for 10 days, getting a firsthand glimpse at the conflict and meeting with local activists, peace leaders and ordinary citizens. 

Kelly said he hopes to return with greater insight on the Israeli-Palestinian fight, in part to heal local divisions over the Middle East conflict. In recent weeks, protesters on both sides of the issue have clashed on the Berkeley streets and the UC Berkeley campus. 

“This situation has implications way beyond the Middle east,” Kelly said. “Even here in Berkeley, the level of anger and reaction is pretty astounding.” 

Former state assemblyman Tom Bates and former councilmember Nancy Skinner have also reportedly declined to run against Dean. 

The Fellowship of Reconciliation, an 87 year-old peace group based in Nyack, New York has organized the trip, its seventh such journey to the region in the last two years. 

The Fellowship, which makes an effort to include Jews, Christians and Muslims committed to non-violence on every trip, offered the delegation a one-and-a-half-hour training in Nyack this weekend. 

Richard Deats, communications coordinator for the Fellowship, said the training includes role-playing in how to defuse potentially violent encounters with the military or armed civilians. 

Deats said safety will be a paramount concern for the delegation, but noted that there is a certain balancing act in play. 

“We don’t want to take any unnecessary risks,” he said. “At the same time, we try to get to areas where there has been conflict.” 

An firsthand view of the conflict, Deats said, is an important part of the delegation’s education. 

Orozco, in an interview Friday, said she has some concerns about safety. But that is not her only worry. 

“The other thing is fear of the unknown,” she said. “I’ve never been there.” 

Orozco said, when she returns, she hopes to work with Kelly and four other Bay Area delegates to spread the word about her experience. 

Deats said the Fellowship encourages participants to speak with local elected officials, newspaper editors and activist groups after their return, to share their experiences and spread a message of peace. 

Usually, he said, delegates are so moved by the trip that they do take local action. 

“It’s a life-changing situation,” he said. 

Contact reporter:  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

This letter is in response to the recent policy change allowing trained pharmacists to distribute Emergency Contraception, also known as E.C. or the “morning-after” pill, without a prescription to women who have had unprotected sex within 72 hours.  

I want to commend local papers for publishing articles about this new policy, and to urge further publication and discussion on this issue.  

Unfortunately, most people do not know about this policy, and think that they need to go to their medical provider in order to obtain Emergency Contraception.  

As a volunteer member of The Women’s Community Clinic (WCC) in San Francisco, which is the only free women’s health clinic in San Francisco, I have spoken with many women who were unable to get Emergency Contraception within 72 hours of unprotected sex.  

The WCC offers evening and occasional Saturday hours, times when most other clinics are closed,  

in order to meet the needs of women who work during the day. At the WCC, whenever women call for information about Emergency Contraception, we inform them of their option to either come to the clinic or to go to any Walgreen’s, where many pharmacists are already trained to give out EC.  

Hopefully, this topic will receive more press in the media, and we can spread the word throughout our community so that women have the information they need to make health decisions. Lets all make a concerted effort to inform our friends, acquaintances and peers about this new policy!  

Shelly Makleff 

Berkeley 

Led by a complete game from sophomore Matt Brown and home runs by Ben Conley and Justin Nelson, the Cal baseball team defeated visiting Arizona, 2-1, Sunday at Evans Diamond. The Bears improved to 23-18 overall and 6-6 in the Pac-10, while Arizona dropped to 24-15 and 5-7 in the conference. The Wildcats had won the first two game of the series, 8-4 on Friday and 18-9 Saturday.  

Brown, who is the Bears closer and the Pac-10 leader in saves with six, threw his first career complete game, improving his record to 4-1 while giving up just four hits, one run, only one walk and a career-high 10 strikeouts.  

Junior centerfielder Conley got Cal on the board first when he hit a lead-off home run in the bottom of the first inning off of Arizona starter Joe Little (5-4, 6 2/3 innings, two runs, one walk, five strikeouts). The Wildcats’ Brad Hassey tied the game with a lead-off homer in the top of the sixth. The winning run for the Bears came in the bottom of the seventh when freshman leftfielder Justin Nelson hit a one-out homer down the right field line off of Little.  

Cal will host Fresno State on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. at Evans Diamond. The Bears then travel to Arizona State for a three-game Pac-10 series, beginning Friday at 7 p.m. at Hohokam Park in Mesa, Ariz.

Reparations panelists say monetary is only beginning of America’s true atonement 

Legal experts, historians and advocates of social justice met Friday and Saturday to discuss the case for reparations for African Americans. The two-day symposium, entitled “Reparations for Slavery and Its Legacy,” was sponsored by the Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, Boalt Hall. 

The symposium provided a discussion of the case for reparations, a history of past reparation movements and future strategies for repairing disparities in health, income and status between blacks and whites due to the legacy of slavery. 

The first day of the symposium consisted of a speech and book signing by Raven Lecturer Randall Robinson, author of “The Debt – What America Owes to Blacks.”  

Saturday’s discussions included the case for reparations, reparations in congress and the courts, lessons from other reparation movements and future strategies. 

Panelists and organizers of the symposium expressed the desire to see a meaningful and genuine atonement on the part of the U.S. government for the damage caused to the African American population as a result of slavery. Speakers emphasized that a sincere apology and admission of culpability was more important than any amount of monetary compensation. 

“No amount of money is going to be sufficient unless an apology is involved. I want an apology. I want it to be meaningful,” expressed Roy Brooks, a Professor at the University of San Diego Law School. 

As a part of the future strategies discussion, UC Berkeley Professor of Sociology Troy Duster presented a two tier system of action. Duster proposed the need for both symbolic and substantial repair. He explained that symbols such as statues and plaques represent a constructed memory and serve as a selective history.  

“We need to reexamine our symbols. We need to rededicate and repair our history by putting up new statues and plaques next to the existing ones. Don’t pull down the old plaques. Put up statues of Nat Turner and other freedom fighters next to the old ones and create a conversation between the two,” says Duster. 

Duster asked the audience, “Where are the statues of the abolitionists? Where are the freedom fighters?” 

Duster concluded that “symbolic repair is a beginning.” He expressed that recognition must come first and pave the way for substantive repair. 

Panelists referenced the current HR-40 proposal for reparations in congress originally introduced by Congressman Conyers in 1989. The bill would allow for an investigation of slavery effects on the African American population and determine if reparations are necessary. 

Speakers also compared the movement for slavery reparations to the struggle and success of the Japanese American movement for redress for those forced into internment camps during World War II. 

The majority of the speakers, however, cautioned that a simple monetary settlement would undercut much of the movement for genuine redress.  

“Settlement clouds the black redress movement. If we pursue only the tort model we lose important support in our struggle,” says Brooks. 

Duster touched on the need for economic reform including change in the process of applying for housing loans and the Federal Housing Act. 

Director of the Center for Social Justice and organizer of the two-day symposium, Mary Louise Frampton expressed the need to bring the issue of reparations to the forefront of American society. “We can’t claim to be a land of freedom when we ignore the legacy of slavery. The general public is just beginning to understand this issue and Berkeley is a great place for this to begin,” says Frampton. 

Frampton and other organizers at the Center for Social Justice have been planning for the symposium since October and hope to organize future discussions on the issue. 

A set of concrete reparation demands were laid out by Leilani L. Donaldson, Chair of the Bay Area Organizing Committee or N’COBRA.  

Among the reparation demands expressed by Donaldson were the return of African cultural artifacts, the release of incarcerated members of the Black Panther Movement, $1 billion in aid for black farming companies and an end to the outstanding debts of African nations to the United States.  

Donaldson expressed that even with reparations more work needs to be done — that reparations are not an end in themselves. 

“We believe the struggle for reparations will ultimately be won by the work and energy of the masses of the African people,” says Donaldson.”We believe all of our demands will be met. We are not siphoning off demands because that would be defeatist,”  

Donaldson concluded her speech by asking the audience, “What is so scary about the truth? We need to live and act with the truth.” 

According to Alex Bagwell, an attendee of the symposium and member of N’COBRA, “The discussions gave a lot of focus to the work that a few of us have been doing. I was pleased with the breadth of the aspects of reparations and the future strategies,” says Bagwell. 

“My expectations for the symposium were to find out what other people think should happen involving reparations for slavery,” commented Harriet Bagwell, also a member of N’COBRA. “I found that people want not so much money as an apology like I feel too. I want an apology from the government,” says Bagwell. 

Included in the panel on future strategies for reparations were the comments of Vernellia Randall, Professor, University of Dayton School of Law. 

Randall’s speech focused on strategies for restoring black health care. Randall discussed the current status of black health, ways in which current black health relates to slavery and finally reparations in the United States. 

“Black people are sicker than white people,” says Randall, citing both adult and infant mortality rates for blacks internationally. 

Randall stressed that this issue is not just about the United States but concerns in disparities health between blacks and whites in Caribbean nations, Europe and Canada. 

According to Randall, the mortality rate for blacks internationally is twice that than for whites.  

Randall also stressed the connection between the current status of black health and the generational damage to black health carried over from slavery. “Blacks were made sick through the enslavement process, the breaking-in process,” says Randall. “It is clear that one’s health status is affected by previous generation’s health.” 

According to Randall the disparity between black and white health is not a new discovery though many dispute these connections. “There have been things written about this since slavery but now there are attempts to find some other explanation for the disparities between black and white health,” says Randall. 

“There’s been, dating back to the slave trade and through the 50’s, the 60’s, the 70’s a disparity in health,” says Randall. 

The reasons for disparity in health according to Randall are a lack of access to health care for blacks, underemployment at jobs providing health care, the high cost of health care. Randall also included a disparity in medical treatment between blacks and whites, a lack of data on different black populations and a lack of uniform data collection methods. 

Randall concluded by providing recommendations and strategies for improving black health.  

“This will require 50-80 years to repair our health and eliminate racial disparities in health care. We need to commit ourselves to this and find a way to say we’re taking this on and we’re taking it on for the long haul,” says Randall. 

“We need to reduce poverty We need to remove environmental hazards that affect our health. We need to locate health care facilities in black communities, diversity in the health care workforce, eliminate health care discrimination and an assertive civil rights health care agenda.” 

“Finally, we need to eliminate the institutional racism of the health care system,” says Randall. 

The daily filler titled "News of the Weird" represents at best a misjudgment of what will earn the respect and readership of Berkeley, but what's in it (Thursday, April 11th) is seriously offensive.  

What is weird about a man who is blind and deaf training as a gardener? This follows an earlier story where it was a man with no legs robbing a liquor store. At least in that case the behavior was reprehensible. But both stories' point is that a person with a disability engaged in a common activity is bizarre. 

God knows that's a common enough attitude, but in Berkeley, there are ample opportunities to learn better, and I sure wish whoever is deciding what padding to print would note that many people with disabilities read, and shop, and are thus a part of your target audience. And I am one of them who won't be saying anything nice about the Planet soon. 

Ann Sieck 

Berkeley 

Surging Cal golfers second at Barnard 

STANFORD – No. 18 California continued its rise on the national scene with a second-place finish at the Peg Barnard California Collegiate Sunday at the Stanford Golf Course. The Lady Golden Bears matched the best round of the day at 296 to finish six strokes back (599) of No. 19 Washington (593). The Huskies also carded a 296 to lead wire-to-wire and win the 14-team tournament.  

The Bears started the day in a tie for fourth with San Jose State.  

No. 14 USC placed third (600), followed by host No. 29 Stanford (607) and No. 8 Arizona State (610).  

Junior Vikki Laing and sophomore Sarah Huarte paced the Bears, finishing in a five-way tie for fourth with three-over-par 147. Laing shot a 72 Sunday, while Huarte finished with a 71. Cal junior Ria Quiazon also posted a top 20 finish, tying for 16th at 152 after a final round of 75.  

USC’s Mikaela Parmlid won the individual competition with a one-under-par 143. Stanford’s Kim Rowton was runner-up with a 145, and Washington’s Lindsay Morgan finished third at 146.  

Cal next competes at the Pac-10 Championships, April 22-24, in Walla Walla, Wash.  

Women’s tennis finishes home season with win 

The Cal women’s tennis team closed out its 2002 home slate with a win today, defeating Pac-10 rival Arizona 5-2 to claim its second conference win of the season. With the win, the Bears improved to 12-7 (2-3 Pac-10), while Arizona dropped to 8-12 (2-4 Pac-10). 

Cal was swept in doubles for the second consecutive match, with Christina Fusano and Jieun Jacobs rallying from a 4-0 deficit to lose in a tiebreaker 9-8 (8-6). The Bears got things back on track during singles, however, winning in straight sets on five of six courts.  

Sophomore Catherine Lynch got her first-ever win at the top spot, claiming a hard-fought 7-5, 6-2 victory over the higher-ranked Maja Mlakar. Fusano claimed yet another win, defeating Diane Hollands, 6-4, 6-1. Jacobs and Jody Schelt both dominated on their respective courts, with Jacobs winning in a pair of 6-1 sets, while Scheldt finished off Lorena Marino 6-3, 6-4. Freshman Carla Arguelles was in the midst of a comeback against Marie-Pier Pouliot, when the Wildcat was forced to withdraw due to injury.  

The Bears finish off their regular season this week in Los Angeles, challenging UCLA on Friday and USC on Saturday.  

Bears upset by ASU 

TEMPE, Ariz. - The Cal men’s tennis team was defeated by Arizona State, 5-2, Saturday afternoon at the Whiteman Tennis Center. With the loss, the Bears fell to 15-6 (3-2 Pac-10), while Arizona State improved to 9-9 (2-4).  

The Sun Devils clinched the doubles point by upending Cal’s duo of John Paul Fruttero and Robert Kowalczyk at the top court, in a 9-8 (11) tiebreak win. In singles, Fruttero’s aversion to tiebreaks continued, as he was defeated in a three-set match that was completed in a 7-6(6) near-deadlock. 2001 Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Balazs Veress got things back on track on the second court, winning in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1. Kowalcayk rebounded from a rough start to defeat Olivier Charroin, 0-6, 6-3, 6-2.  

Cal returns to Hellman Tennis Center this week for a three-match homestand, which will close out the 2002 regular season homeslate for the Bears. First up is Pepperdine, on Monday at 1:30 p.m.  

Water polo beats Spartans 

The Cal women’s water polo team (15-7) closed out its 2002 home slate Sunday, defeating Mountain Pacific Sports Federation rival San Jose State, 9-4, at Spieker Aquatics Complex. The Bears and the Spartans have already played their MPSF match this season, therefore Cal’s third win over SJSU does not count in conference standings.  

On senior day, team captain Brenna Fleener scored three goals in her last performance before the home crowd to lead the Bears. Former Olympian Ericka Lorenz added a pair, while freshman sensation Jodie Needles checked in with a score. For the Spartans, Christine Welsh led the team with a pair of scores.  

Cal goalie Lauren Dennis caught fire during the first period, notching three of her eight saves in the frame, while senior Julia Cesnik scored her final goal at Spieker to get things started. By the end of the first half, Cal held a comfortable 4-1 lead.  

The Spartans would rally, but would not come within two goals of the Bears. Lorenz had both of her goals in the second half, while Dennis dominated the Spartan attackers before giving way to freshman Christina Quintanilla in the fourth period. Quintanilla was ejected late in the game, allowing for a final SJSU score before time expired.

Jewish Community Federation march numbers 5,000 

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco police estimate more than 5,000 people sympathetic to the Israeli plight gathered in San Francisco this afternoon for a rally at Justin Herman Plaza. 

According to Yitzhak Santis, of the Jewish Community Relations Council, today's rally was the largest in the Bay Area in several years. More than 2,500 Russian Jews, who were already rallying in Golden Gate Park, along with 11 busloads of people from the Peninsula and two from Marin County joined thousands of others who had gathered earlier at the plaza. 

Hundreds of Israeli and American flags whipped in the brisk wind that blew along The Embarcadero, the site of the rally sponsored by the Jewish Community Federation, and a plane dragged a banner that said, “Israel We Support You.”Security was very tight with a heavy police presence, but there were no signs of conflict. 

Gina Waldman, whose Jewish family was run out of Libya, told the crowd that Palestinian leaders have not done enough to bring their own people out of poverty. As a mother, Waldman said she sympathizes with Palestinian women who want their children to grow up in prosperity but she decried them for condoning violence. 

“I would never send my children on a suicide mission,” she said. 

Many of the speakers condemned the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State University for not taking a more aggressive stance in favor of a Jewish state and the crowd responded with hearty boos. 

Still, there were very few outwardly harsh words for Palestinians or their leader Yasser Arafat. Instead, most people said they wanted peace for everyone living in the Middle East -- Palestinians, Jews and Arabs alike. 

Yossi Amrani, Consul General of Israel in San Francisco, said afterward that, as an Israeli citizen, he had not seen anything like this in the Bay Area. 

Tuesday 

Baseball – Cal vs. Fresno State, 2:30 p.m. at Evans Diamond 

Boys Tennis – Berkeley vs. El Cerrito, 3:30 p.m. at El Cerrito High 

Swimming – Berkeley vs. Encinal, 3:30 p.m. at Willard Pool 

Boys Lacrosse – Berkeley vs. Miramonte, 4 p.m. at Miramonte High 

Boys Volleyball – Berkeley vs. Alameda, 6 p.m. at Berkeley High 

Wednesday 

Baseball – Berkeley vs. Encinal, 3:30 p.m. at San Pablo Park 

Baseball – St. Mary’s vs. Kennedy, 3:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s College High 

Softball – Berkeley vs. Encinal, 3:30 p.m. at Old Grove Park 

Thursday 

Boys Tennis – Berkeley vs. Alameda, 3:30 p.m. at King Middle School 

Track & Field – St. Mary’s vs. BSAL, 3:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s College High 

Swimming – Berkeley vs. El Cerrito, 3:30 p.m. at Willard Pool 

Boys Volleyball – Berkeley vs. De Anza, 5 p.m. at Berkeley High 

Friday 

Baseball – Berkeley vs. El Cerrito, 3:30 p.m. at Cerrito Vista Park 

Baseball – St. Mary’s vs. John Swett, 3:30 p.m. at John Swett High 

Softball – Berkeley vs. El Cerrito, 3:30 p.m. at El Cerrito High 

Girls Lacrosse – Berkeley vs. Marin Catholic, 5:30 p.m. at Marin Catholic High

In the early hours of April 15, 1912, the British luxury liner Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland, less than three hours after striking an iceberg. About 1,500 people died. 

On this date: 

In 1850, the city of San Francisco was incorporated. 

In 1861, three days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called out Union troops. 

In 1865, President Lincoln died, several hours after he was shot at Ford’s Theater in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson became the nation’s 17th president. 

In 1892, General Electric Co., formed by the merger of the Edison Electric Light Co. and other firms, was incorporated in New York State. 

In 1945, during World War II, British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. 

In 1945, President Roosevelt, who had died April 12, was buried at the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park, N.Y. 

In 1947, Jackie Robinson, baseball’s first black major league player, made his official debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day. (The Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves, 5-3.) 

In 1959, Cuban leader Fidel Castro arrived in Washington to begin a goodwill tour of the United States. 

In 1989, 95 people died in a crush of soccer fans at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. 

In 1990, actress Greta Garbo died in New York at age 84. 

Ten years ago:  

Russia’s deeply divided Congress of People’s Deputies formally endorsed President Boris Yeltsin’s economic reforms. Countries barred Libyan jets from their airspace and ordered diplomats to go home because of Libya’s refusal to turn over suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Hotel magnate Leona Helmsley began serving a prison sentence for tax evasion (she was released from prison after 18 months). 

Five years ago:  

The Justice Department inspector general reported that FBI crime lab agents produced flawed scientific work or inaccurate testimony in major cases such as the Oklahoma City bombing. In Saudi Arabia, fire destroyed a tent city outside Mecca, killing at least 343 Muslim pilgrims. Jackie Robinson’s number 42 was retired 50 years after he became the first black player in major league baseball. 

One year ago:  

U.N. investigators arrested Bosnian Serb army officer Dragan Obrenovic in connection with the Serbian Army’s slaughter of as many as 7,000 Muslim men and boys. (Obrenovic, who has pleaded innocent, is expected to face trial this fall.) Punk rock icon Joey Ramone died in New York at age 49. 

Birthdays:  

Actor Michael Ansara is 80. Country singer Roy Clark is 69. Rock singer-guitarist Dave Edmunds is 58. Actress Lois Chiles is 55. TV producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason is 54. Actor Michael Tucci is 52. Actress Amy Wright is 52. Columnist Heloise is 51. Actress-screenwriter Emma Thompson is 43. Singer Samantha Fox is 36. Rock musician Ed O’Brien (Radiohead) is 34. Actor Flex is 32. Actress Emma Watson is 12. 

EL CERRITO — It was funny, just not the funniest. 

Tony and Jackie Astorganos of El Cerrito just missed the $10,000 grand prize on the “America’s Funniest Home Videos” television show. 

Their video of a gas station mishap won them $3,000, a trip to Los Angeles for the show’s taping and $300 spending money. 

The tape shows Jackie coming home in their 1966 red Mustang with the hose from a gas-station pump sticking out of the car. When Tony tells Jackie about it, she smiles and says, “I filled it up, though.” 

The ABC show, which began in 1990, airs snippets of home videotapes. The couple sent the tape to the show in 1998. It wasn’t until February 2002 that they were told they would be in the running for the show’s $10,000 grand prize.

OAKLAND — Alameda County officials face a $46.3 million budget shortfall, the largest gap in five years, just to maintain the current level of services. 

The county must close the deficit before adopting the spending plan for the new year, which begins July 1, because state law requires counties to pass balanced budgets. 

The gap, attributed to salary hikes, increased service demands and reduced funding, was disclosed Thursday by County Administrator Susan Muranishi at the first session of the county budget work group. The group, made up of county officials and representatives of labor and community groups, meets again Thursday. 

“We’re going to do everything we can to offer county services in an efficient and timely manner,” said Supervisor Keith Carson, chairman of the budget committee.  

SAN FRANCISCO — After complaints of brutality, San Francisco police are reaching out to residents of Bayview-Hunters Point, a predominantly black neighborhood. 

Two dozen residents and 12 officers held hands recently in the Milton Meyer Recreation Center community room.Neighbors and police bowed their heads as one participant, 25-year-old security guard Tenisha Bishop, asked God for help. “There is pain here,” Bishop said. “There is hate here. Remove it now in the name of Jesus.” The neighborhood has endured many gang-related killings of young black males in the past two years, and hand-holding with police was likely a first. 

IRS seeks to increase penalties for what they deem “frivolous arguments” 

\With tax day approaching, Susan Quinlan hasn’t filed her form 1040 yet and she doesn’t plan to. 

She’s been redirecting her taxes since 1983, when she watched defense spending rise under the Reagan administration. As an anti-war activist, volunteer teacher and single mother of two on a low income, Quinlan objects to paying taxes that fund the nation’s defense budget. 

Quinlan isn’t alone in fending off the Internal Revenue Service. War tax resistance groups exist in nearly every state including California, Missouri and New York. 

“We’re upset that our tax money is funding militarism,” said Larry Harper, a tax resister from Sebastopol. 

Most of the 10,000 or so conscientious tax resisters nationwide send letters to the IRS each year explaining that they are withholding their cash and putting the money into a fund, where it earns interest. Then they donate that interest to what they deem life-affirming, peaceful causes. 

“This is not tax evasion,” said Bill Ramsey of St. Louis, a spokesman for the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. “This is tax refusal and redirection. It’s a public act and an act of conscience.” 

Critics, however, say war tax resisters face no scrutiny to ensure they divert money to peaceful causes and they could take advantage of charity tax credits, already part of the tax system. They also say resisters are selfish because they benefit from government services funded by citizens who do pay taxes. 

“The vast majority of salaried employees file and pay voluntarily,” IRS spokesman Anthony Burke said. “Most Americans I think are law abiding and honest citizens.” 

Quinlan and Harper led a workshop on Friday in Berkeley to recruit new tax resisters. In this war room — or “anti-war room” — they dispensed brochures, information and support to 15 rookies. 

Quinlan said interest in war tax resistance has been piqued since the beginning of the year because of the War in Afghanistan and increased defense spending. The movement started after the Vietnam War and rose again during the Persian Gulf War. 

“I wondered after Sept. 11, if we’d be deluged with people,” Quinlan said. “We weren’t initially. But we are seeing more now.” 

Instead of putting a check in the mail Monday, Quinlan and other Northern California war resisters will have a party and present contributions to alternative charities with $10,000 from interest earned on their diverted tax endowment, which they call the People’s Life Fund. 

Ramsey and 50 resisters in St. Louis have purchased $10,000 in medical equipment to ship to Afghanistan. Outside the IRS office in St. Louis on Monday, they will present the equipment to nurses who will take the supplies to Afghanistan. 

Nearly 29 alternative funds across the country will use $100,000 in interest this year to make grants to battered women’s shelters, homeless programs and AIDS prevention. 

Some conscientious objectors live frugally, work part-time jobs and keep income below certain levels to avoid paying taxes completely. Some refuse to pay any federal taxes, while others send about half of what they owe, figuring that military spending for national defense and veterans benefits makes up half the federal budget. 

David R. Henderson, an economist and fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, says nearly 20 cents of every tax dollar, or 22 percent of the federal budget, goes to military spending. 

“Bless them for doing it,” Henderson says of the resisters. “I don’t do it because I don’t want to go to prison.” 

Like other Americans who refuse to pay taxes for other reasons, war tax resisters believe they are a wily opponent of the bureaucratic behemoth. 

“The IRS likes people to think they are omniscient and will come after you if you don’t pay,” Harper said. “The reality is they don’t.” 

Harper said the IRS took $1,200 from his bank account the first time he resisted in 1982 and has left him alone ever since. Others say the IRS regularly takes money out of their bank accounts and garnishees their wages. 

The IRS sees resisters as tax cheats. Resisters are subject to $500 fines for making “frivolous arguments,” with additional penalties between 25 and 50 percent on the taxes they owe. They can face property liens, garnisheed wages, ruined credit ratings and as much as $100,000 in fines and five years in jail. 

IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti is urging Congress to pass a measure that would increase the current “frivolous submission” fine from $500 to $5,000. 

.Scene of crime near residential neighborhood 

SAN JOSE — San Jose police found the body of a homeless man who had been beaten to death floating in Los Gatos Creek near downtown. 

The man was described as Latino and in his 30s. He had reportedly been living in the homeless encampment there. 

Police say there was a fight involving several weapons. Another man was also attacked, but he was fine, said San Jose police Sgt. Steve Dixon. 

A family called police Sunday around 4 a.m. after hearing someone banging on the side of their house. It turned out to be the second man who was attacked. He led police down to the dead man. 

Homicides are fairly rare in San Jose’s homeless encampments. The encampment where the man was found is near a neighborhood of warehouses and single-family homes. 

Local municipalities, real estate and building industries say “smart growth” depends too much on state control over how cities grow 

SACRAMENTO – Alarming California’s pro-growth establishment, Gov. Gray Davis is pushing a bill that would give state government significant new power within two years over how and where its cities grow. 

The bill would produce a model California zoning ordinance by January 2004, and reward cities and counties that incorporate a new state vision of land-use planning. Supporters call it the governor’s most significant move toward so-called “smart growth,” and a step toward reassuming California’s national leadership role in growth management. 

But local municipalities, as well as the real estate and building industries, view the bill as a loss of local control, one that would force cities and counties to bow to a powerful state bureaucracy. 

It’s also the first major land-use initiative in years by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR), California growth watchers say. 

To succeed, Davis will have to use all of his political capital to withstand the onslaught of opposition from builders and allies during an election year, said Bill Fulton, head of the Ventura-based Solimar Research Group. 

“I don’t see this bill being passed or successfully implemented unless Gov. Davis is willing to do that,” he says. 

While Davis studiously avoids the term “smart growth,” the advocates of the concept of more urban growth and less in suburbs are thrilled. 

“We’re very happy to see the governor entering this arena,” says Tim Frank, head of the Sierra Club’s national campaign against sprawl. “The smart growth movement has shown itself to be a mainstream movement with broad appeal, and I think the governor recognizes that.” 

The bill, SB1521 carried by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, aims to write a model growth blueprint that promotes more development in existing cities, more buildings that mix housing, offices and shops, more development near transit lines and a bigger range of housing options. The result in the nation’s fastest-growing and most car-clogged state could be less growth spreading onto vacant land. 

It will have its first hearing in the Senate Local Government Committee on April 24. 

Because California is “one of the fastest growing states in the country,” Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio says, “it makes sense to meet demands for housing and preserve open space.” 

Scott Farris, spokesman for OPR, says the bill stems from numerous forums the agency held last year with local planning officials and others interested in development. 

While many states have model ordinances to guide how their cities and counties grow, California would be the first to link state goals to financial rewards, says American Planning Association senior researcher Stuart Meck. Local governments that implement the state’s ideas of good growth would have a much improved chance of landing state grants for highways, transit, sewage plants, libraries and park land. 

The California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, part of the state’s Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency, already gives priority to infrastructure projects that help rebuild older neighborhoods and promote transit ridership. 

Maviglio acknowledges the opposition’s fear of losing control, saying, “There seems to be a sense it’s a mandate when it’s not. This is designed to encourage them to do it.” 

Such talk riles opponents, largely the state’s powerful growth-industry alliance. The California Association of Realtors contends that using state grants as zoning incentives puts local governments in a “hostage” situation. 

Because cities “are so desperate for money,” said League of California Cities legislative director Daniel Carrigg, municipalities will have to do the state’s bidding. 

“These competitive grant programs are really cutthroat right now,” Carrigg says. 

Carrigg and other opponents maintain that city council members and county supervisors are the best judges of how their regions grow. 

In California, local elected officials vote on where to locate shopping centers, decide the number of homes per acre in a subdivision and even the height of front-yard fences. They also craft 20-year “General Plans” that dictate whether a city will grow up or out, whether it will encourage apartments above stores, where to build schools and how much farmland it will put under pavement. 

In letters to Kuehl, their representatives state fears of making OPR a “superagency that micromanages local issues.” 

“OPR’s mission in statute is to provide localities with assistance and advice,” says Richard Lyon, senior legislative advocate for the California Building Industry Association. “It should not be in the business of micro-analyzing local development standards or zoning ordinances.” 

Opposing groups say the state’s control over housing gives them little confidence. Dictates from the state’s Housing and Community Development Department, telling cities and counties how much housing to build for 600,000 new California residents every year, have sowed fights, lawsuits and confusion. Legislation to address the issues is also bogged down in conflicts. 

Opponents hope, as the governor’s model zoning ordinance winds through the Legislature, to make it simply “advisory.” 

But Davis has history in his corner. States such as Maryland, Oregon and Washington have pushed topdown approaches to development. Oregon and Washington placed growth boundaries around their cities to force compact development and save farmland. Maryland refuses to pay for highways and sewers outside its designated urban growth areas. 

“California is a state in which there are really very few land-use directives that come from the state for local government,” says the APA’s Meck. The APA’s California chapter, consisting of 5,000 urban planners, citizens and government officials, is supporting the bill’s concept, calling it “an excellent first step.”

Plumas County officials say Lake Davis must be blasted to get rid of foriegn breed of northern pike 

SACRAMENTO – No one particularly likes the state’s plan to crisscross scenic, mountain-rimmed Lake Davis with explosives in order to save it. 

But officials in Plumas County say that’s a lot better than poisoning the Sierra Nevada reservoir, as the state Department of Fish and Game did a few years ago in a futile effort to eradicate voracious foreign northern pike that are eating the local trout. 

The department plans to lay 1,000 feet of detonation cord around an acre of the lake northeast of Sacramento April 24, weather permitting, then light the fuse. 

There won’t be fish flying through the air, said spokesman Steve Martarano, but “it’ll still have pretty good bang for the buck.” 

Pressure from the underwater explosion will kill nearby fish and amphibians of all kinds. If it works, the department wants to blow up 10 acres at a time, as many as 15 more times over the next two years, aiming for the shallows where little pike grow into big toothy pike. 

“We’re optimistic, in a strange sort of way,” said Portola Mayor Bill Powers. This, even though “rumors abound that the det cord itself will contaminate the entire drinking water supply or that it might even contaminate the air somehow.” 

State officials have been careful this time to publicly address those concerns. For instance, a government scientist told residents the pollutants in the thousand feet of clothesline-like explosive cord are about the same as if a 12-ounce beer can full of gasoline was poured into the more than 4,000-acre lake, Powers said. 

The test shot is to make sure there are no lasting environmental effects, said Martarano. Water and air samples will be taken, the dead fish will be counted and each dead trout quickly replaced with two catchable-size hatchery trout. 

The response has been far better than when the department dumped 50,000 pounds of the chemical rotenone into the lake in 1997, killing most animal life — but not the resilient pike population. 

For a time, signs in restaurants warned that Fish and Game employees weren’t welcome. Portola’s school children were bused into Sacramento to protest at the state Capitol. 

The poisoning cost $2 million, and residents and local governments won $9.2 million in reparations from the state. Nearby wells still are being monitored to make sure the chemical doesn’t show up in residents’ drinking water. 

State officials learned their lesson, said former county supervisor Fran Roudebush, who chairs the public Lake Davis Coalition as well as the Lake Davis Steering Committee made up of federal, state and local officials. 

The department opened an office in Portola and staffed it with four professionals, including Powers’ wife, Lori, a longtime resident. 

“They live among us, the children go to school here, they’re buying homes here,” said Roudebush. “It makes a huge difference.” 

Not to say there hasn’t been more controversy, particularly over the Plumas County Board of Supervisors’ secret proposal last fall to the state Department of Water Resources to drain the lake and sell the water. 

County Supervisor B.J. Pearson said the state will eventually have no choice but to drain down the lake, then poison the remaining water to eradicate the pike. The state can’t possibly detonate enough explosives fast enough to keep up with the burgeoning pike population, he said. 

“It won’t even slow the pike down,” Pearson said of the department’s efforts. “It’s a joke — Fish and Game’s just up here treading water.” 

But residents at a public hearing in February denounced Pearson’s proposal to drain the lake as both impractical and devastating to the region’s tourism economy. An assemblyman who had planned to offer the idea in legislation dropped it, and state officials quickly distanced themselves. 

“We’ve had some really wild ideas — like we’re going to channel lightning into the lake. We’re not sure if God was in on that plan,” said Powers. “Every scenario we’ve had has had some nightmares attached to it.” 

The pike were discovered illegally planted in the lake in 1994, and are California’s only population of the Midwestern fish. 

Since then, residents tried to fish out the pike, a lost cause given that they reproduce at what Martarano called “an amazing rate” — 10,000 eggs per pound of fish. Fish and Game hired nine seasonal employees and a commercial fishing boat last summer to catch the fish with electric probes and an assortment of nets. They snagged 6,358 pike. 

The state is spending more than $500,000 a year on pike control efforts, including an estimated $200,000 on the latest plan. 

The big fear is that the pike will escape downstream, devastating endangered salmon populations throughout the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its contributing watersheds across Northern California. 

Detonation cord was previously used in California to kill fish threatening salmon in the Eel River on the North Coast. But Fish and Game officials harbor no hope that it will be enough to kill every pike in Lake Davis. 

“Short of a magic bullet ... there’s nothing that’s going to wipe them all out,” said Martarano. “We’re really trying to control and contain and make sure they don’t get out of the lake.”

TULELAKE – Two men arguing about Little League wound up in the hospital after slugging each other with a baseball bat, and each now faces felony assault charges, police said Saturday. 

Gary Fensler, 39, of Tulelake and Bill Burrier, 37, of Newell will face charges of assault with a deadly weapon, and Fensler will face an additional battery charge, said Sgt. Craig Dilley of the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. 

The argument erupted after Fensler showed up at Burrier’s work Friday to protest the shifting of players to various Little League teams in the area so that all batters would hit the ball from pitchers instead of off tees, according to league leaders. 

Burrier was Tulelake’s Little League president, and both men have children who play baseball. 

Fensler allegedly punched Burrier in the face with his fist. Burrier then allegedly went to his pickup truck, grabbed a baseball bat and hit Fensler. The two struggled and Fensler eventually grabbed the bat and struck Burrier, witnesses told police. 

Both men were treated and released from Merle West Medical Center. Fensler suffered a broken jaw in the scuffle, said his mother, Frances Fensler. 

Both men quit Little League at a board of directors meeting Friday night. Burrier was replaced as president by Will Baley.

UC Berkeley venues among facilities under consideration; supporters claim Games would bring about $7.4 billion, new housing and better public transportation to region 

SAN FRANCISCO – Anne Cribbs has no trouble convincing people that hosting the 2012 Olympic Games would be a good thing for the San Francisco Bay Area. 

The games would bring about $7.4 billion to the Bay Area, not to mention new housing, improved public transportation and global recognition and tourism. 

And a recent poll found that 84 percent of Bay Area residents support the quest. 

But getting people to believe it’s a likely possibility — after the Atlanta Games in 1996 and Salt Lake City winter games this year — is another matter for Cribbs, the chief executive officer of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, the nonprofit organizer of San Francisco’s bid. 

Cribbs, who won a gold medal as a 15-year-old swimmer in the 400-meter medley at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, compared an Olympic bid to competitions where outcomes are determined by performance and spirit. 

“It’s kind of like a race,” she said. “You need to stay in the race and do your best because you can’t predict what will happen.” 

Four finalists remain in the campaign to win the U.S. Olympic Committee’s nomination as the U.S. bid city: Washington, New York, Houston and San Francisco. The committee will visit the four bid cities this summer and make a decision Nov. 2. 

Local supporters will host a news conference Wednesday with several Olympic athletes, including sprinter Michael Johnson, to unveil a new logo and financial details of its campaign. 

The local committee’s small staff works out of a simple office in Palo Alto and has spent three years building bridges between leaders of Bay Area cities, businesses and athletes. 

The committee also boasts 115 people on its board including numerous past and present Olympians, including swimmer Matt Biondi, runner Billy Mills and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi. 

Board members say nearly 400 past and present Olympians live in the Bay Area. Venue planners have consulted athletes to find out exactly what kind of facilities athletes want. 

Last week, the committee released a 300-page addendum to its 700-page bid, showing that 92 percent of the competition sites will be within 32 miles of the proposed Olympic village at Moffett Field near Mountain View. 

Most of the nearly 50 Olympic events would take place in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, Stanford, Oakland, Sacramento. Venues in Napa Valley, Monterey and Los Angeles also would host single events. 

Cribbs said 80 percent of the venues already exist, but would need to be refurbished. 

Although Washington and New York have better subway systems, local organizers said the planned expansions of Bay Area Rapid Transit lines to San Jose and to airports in Oakland and San Francisco will be in place by 2012. 

The group made a bid in 1987-1988 for the 1996 games, which eventually went to Atlanta. The Bay Area made it to the Olympic Committee’s final four that year but didn’t have widespread support, bid director Bob Stiles said. 

San Francisco also made a bid for the 1968 games that went to Mexico City. 

If San Francisco is chosen as the U.S. bid city, it would face competitors like Toronto, Rome and Paris in the next selection phase. The International Olympic Committee makes the next choice in 2005. 

Toronto could be a heavy favorite, since it narrowly missed being selected for the 2008 games, which will be held in Beijing. 

However, U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Mike Moran said it’s not out of the question for a U.S. city to land the games in 2012, especially given the stellar operations at Salt Lake City this year. 

“While Atlanta was a successful games, there was a worldwide perception that there was too much commercialism and other critiques involving technology and transportation,” Moran said. 

He described the Salt Lake City games as “flawless” and “impeccable” in operation, restoring a good reputation to the United States. 

With familiar icons like cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge, local leaders believe the city’s charm is their greatest asset. 

“We are a place the world truly loves to visit,” Stiles said. “We are a world city. We are a Paris city of the United States and we are the most Asian city and diverse city in the United States.”

LEWISTON, Idaho – The tribes along the route of Lewis and Clark’s expedition to the Pacific Ocean 200 years ago want the upcoming commemoration to be accurate, considerate and develop relationships that will last. 

“It’s not going to be easy,” said Bobbie Conner of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. “It’s going to be hard, but it’s worth doing because it’s the right thing to do.” 

She is western co-chairwoman of the circle of tribal advisers to the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, which held a planning workshop in Lewiston. 

More than 130 representatives of 58 tribes gathered in Lewiston for five days last week for a final planning conference for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration of 2003-2006. 

The tribes are joining in the planning, saying the whole story has not been told. 

Their views of the Lewis and Clark Expedition sees it as the beginning of the end of the freedom for thousands of Indians who lost their lands, independence and many of their traditions to the white men who followed. 

“I have always said, and my staff has always said, this is first and foremost an American Indian story,” said Gerard Baker, superintendent of the Lewis and Clark Trail with the National Park Service. 

“The one aspect that has been left out is the Indians telling their own story,” said Baker, a member of the Mandan-Hidatsa tribes. 

The tribes have sought and received assurances from the national council that their side of the story will be told and that potentially several million dollars will be made available to help them out. However most of the money for the commemoration has yet to be raised. 

The council selected the 15 signature events to highlight significant points in the Corps of Discovery’s trip. They will be held at places along the trail from 2003 to 2006. 

The council hopes to raise $250,000 for each event plus an additional $250,000 for the tribes in each region to tell their stories. 

Another goal will be preserving natural resources and sacred sites. Tribal members will not tolerate being a part of something that brings more harm to the environment, Conner said. 

Horace Axtell, a Nez Perce tribal elder, sang and prayed in a Friday ceremony to restore some of the sanctity of the Smoking Place. That site, which Lewis and Clark visited, is sacred to the Nez Perce as a meeting place. 

But last fall vandals tumbled three rock cairns over a cliff. 

If a tribe’s name is going to be mentioned in promotional materials, the tribe should be consulted when the documents are still in draft form, Conner said. Events need to begin with a prayer offered by the tribe that lives in the region. 

Relationships between the participants should last long past 2006 when the bicentennial ends, said Conner, who lives near Pendleton, Ore. “In most of our homelands we continue to experience racism.” 

Michelle Bussard, executive director of the council, said her group backs Conner’s message and will be monitoring the events to be sure they follow the “principles of involvement.” 

In an age when public efforts such as the 1992 quadricentennial celebration of Columbus brought accusations of conquest and cultural genocide, some were surprised at the tribes’ participation in the conference. 

“This is the result of four years of working with the tribes,” said Bussard, whose headquarters are at Portland’s Lewis and Clark College. 

Tim Mentz of the Standing Rock Sioux said he is worried that the bicentennial will accelerate a trend to vandalism and unauthorized digging. 

He is preservation officer for his reservation, which straddles North Dakota and South Dakota. He is the only person monitoring some 600 archaeological sites in the area. 

One Lewis and Clark campsite on the reservation already has been plundered, he said. 

“I’m not hearing how we are going to protect these sites,” Mentz said. “How are we going to push this to a national issue?’ He said the tribes need to make it clear “that we are not archaeological specimens.”

Already one of the largest, caucus’s membership is still growing fast 

WASHINGTON – Labels are everything when this group of lawmakers gets together. Not conservative and liberal, but cabernet, chardonnay and merlot. 

The Congressional Wine Caucus, which numbers 206 representatives and senators, is among the largest in the Capitol. Well-known wine-producing states such as California, New York, Oregon and Washington are, of course, well represented. But so are Michigan, Vermont and Alaska. 

Alaska? Sure. The 49th state produces wines from berries, rhubarb and vegetables. 

In fact, every state has at least one winery among the roughly 2,000 in the United States, says Bill Nelson, vice president of the American Vintners Association. 

But the lure of the caucus is often simpler than that. 

“How many people do you know that don’t like wine?” asked Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif, a vineyard owner who is caucus co-chairman. 

Every special interest group on Capitol Hill has its receptions and many feature educational trips to warm-weather spots. But in the Wine Caucus, tasting the subject matter evidently is the best way to get to know it. 

“Remember, anything in moderation,” advised Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., the other co-chairman whose Northern California district includes many vineyards. 

At a recent Wine Caucus event, the aphorisms and biblical quotes about wine were as plentiful as the product: Drink wine for what ails you. The waters of the world separate us, but the wines of the world bring us together. 

Radanovich and Thompson reconstituted the Wine Caucus in 1999 to lobby colleagues on wine-related issues — against limits on Internet and mail-order sales, for more money to fight diseases that attack vines and market U.S. wines abroad. 

An earlier, smaller version of the caucus existed in the 1980s, when it was led by then-Sen. Pete Wilson, R-Calif. But it faded away in the 1990s. 

Membership climbed quickly from 75 three years ago because of the proliferation of wineries across the country, Nelson said. 

The wine itself may be a friendly way to get someone’s attention, but the topic is serious business in California, where $33 billion a year and 145,000 jobs flow from wine production, according to the Wine Institute, the California wine industry’s advocacy organization. 

Radanovich and Thompson will travel next month to Brussels, Belgium, and London at taxpayer expense to meet with counterparts in the European Parliament and discuss the United States’ new wine-based alliance with Australia, Canada, Chile and New Zealand. 

But any reason will do to join the Wine Caucus, which receives no government money and also sponsors fund-raising dinners for the Children’s Hospital in Washington. 

Thompson is two states shy — Idaho and Nebraska — of his goal of having all 50 states in the caucus. He persuaded the most recent addition, Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., by emphasizing that Vermont has wine lovers and good restaurants that serve fine wines, even if wine production is not important to the state. 

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, belongs to the caucus because of his long-standing opposition to taxes on alcohol and tobacco, press secretary Amy Inaba said. 

Sampling a red wine from Croatia at a reception to mark U.S.-Croatian friendship, Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., described the rapid growth of winemaking in his state. 

“I don’t believe I have one in my district, but I have wineries in counties contiguous to my district and that’s why I joined,” Coble said. 

The Californians who run the Wine Caucus disagree more often than not in Congress, but their partisan differences end at the vineyard’s edge. 

At the Croatian wine tasting, Radanovich, son of Croatian immigrants, proposed recognizing Thompson as an honorary Croat. 

Said Thompson, “I’ll drink to that.”

Proposed legislation would require corporations to change auditing firms every four years 

SACRAMENTO – Corporations would be required to change auditing firms every four years, under legislation to be proposed Monday by key California lawmakers in response to the Enron and Arthur Andersen accounting scandals. 

The measures also would restrict consulting work by auditing firms. Critics say the firms’ dual role as consultants can create conflicts of interest for auditors who are supposed to maintain their objectivity. 

Lawmakers touted their bills as consumer protection legislation needed to restore investor confidence. They said California investors need better information and protections to make wise decisions. 

“Our goal is very simple: re-establish credibility to the auditing process,” said Assemblyman Lou Correa, D-Anaheim, chairman of the Business and Professions Committee. “We’re talking about the credibility of our financial system.” 

There’s no doubt the profession’s credibility is in question, agreed Mike Ueltzen, past president of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. But Ueltzen, who chairs CalCPA’s government affairs committee, said corporations, stock analysts and regulators also are to blame. 

Most of the proposed bills are unnecessary or should be handled nationally instead of creating piecemeal regulations in 50 states, Ueltzen said. 

Correa said California can be a national leader while state and federal regulators spend their time “pointing fingers everywhere as to where the problem lies.” It’s not uncommon for businesses to face both state and federal rules, he said. 

“We can’t count on the federal government to do anything,” said Dan Jacobson, legislative advocate for CalPIRG, the California Public Interest Research Group. CalPIRG backed the legislation with eight pages of recommendations, concluding that “the lack of auditor independence can lead to catastrophic consequences for investors and the markets.” 

Correa and Senate Business and Professions Committee Chair Liz Figueroa, D-Fremont, are among lawmakers who plan to introduce the legislative package Monday, Tax Day. 

Figueroa’s bill would also give the state’s Board of Accountancy new monitoring and enforcement powers. “We have to make sure we don’t have accountants who take advantage of us,” she said, though she said that appears to be rare. 

Accountants support peer review to prevent abuses, said Ueltzen. They oppose the four-year limit and consulting bans as unnecessary because auditors don’t uniformly have conflicts of interest. Accounting firms, should, however, be barred from auditing their own consulting work, he said. 

Enron employed many former Andersen accountants, CalPIRG noted, and paid Andersen more for its consulting services than it did for its audits. 

Other proposed legislation would require accountants to keep audit working papers for seven years, and bar accountants from taking jobs with former clients for two years after leaving their accounting firms. The restrictions would apply only to auditors registered in California, which Ueltzen said creates jurisdictional problems. 

Enron filed for bankruptcy in December amid an accounting scandal that undermined stockholder confidence. Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen, face myriad lawsuits and investigations that endanger the companies’ futures.

SAN JOSE – In a state that touts itself as a national model in resources in legal protections for death penalty defendants, seven death sentences are set aside for every one carried out, according to a newspaper’s review. 

Death sentences imposed in California end up getting overturned for a variety of reasons including prosecutorial misconduct and judicial error, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sunday. 

Also, the state Supreme Court, one of the nation’s most pro-death penalty high courts, applies a different standard than federal courts, resulting in reversals at the much-later federal level, decades after the crime. 

The newspaper’s review of hundreds of cases found that in cases involving the murder of children, police officers, college students and the elderly, appeal courts reviewing death sentences are repeatedly finding incompetent lawyers, prosecutorial misconduct and judicial errors. 

The Mercury News examined 72 cases reversed by state and federal courts since 1987 and 150 appeals now pending in the federal courts. It excluded 64 death sentences overturned by the state Supreme Court under Chief Justice Rose Bird from 1978 to 1986, a period in which just four death sentences were affirmed and no executions took place. 

The review also found: 

— California typically spends much more money on capital cases than most states, but the dozens of death sentences reversed since 1987 involved trials marred by the same types of problems found in states known for spending less on capital cases. 

— California hasn’t taken corrective actions that other states have. For example, it hasn’t set minimum statewide standards for the qualifications of defense lawyers appointed to death-penalty trials. The result has been an inconsistent county-by-county system of appointing lawyers. 

— The main issue in reversals is whether a defendant deserves to be put to death, rather than guilt or innocence. About two-thirds of reversals overturn only the death sentence, not the conviction. The review of 150 cases pending before federal courts found only a few in which inmates contend they were wrongfully convicted. 

— California’s Supreme Court is in greater conflict with federal courts than any other state’s. The state court, one of the most conservative in the nation, reverses 10 percent of death sentences, one of the lowest rates in the country. But federal courts have reversed 62 percent of the sentences affirmed by the California court, the highest rate nationally. 

The high rate of reversal has profound consequences for the future of the death penalty in California, which has more than 600 inmates on death row, by far the most in the country. 

With the state carrying out only 10 executions since voters restored the death penalty in 1978, even some long-time capital punishment supporters are asking whether it should be abandoned. 

“The whole thing is a mess,” said former state Supreme Court Justice Edward Panelli, a conservative who voted to affirm most death sentences he reviewed. “It wouldn’t hurt me at all if they just changed the law.” 

Prosecutors, groups that back capital punishment and many judges, including California’s chief justice, defend the system, saying the reversal rate simply reflects the close scrutiny given to the state’s death judgments.

Researchers trying to grow human organs 

SAN FRANCISCO – Steven Potter is attempting to grow kidneys in his laboratory in hopes of someday saving the lives of patients who now die awaiting organ transplants. 

He’s a long way from achieving his goal. But dime-sized pieces of glass infused with a million human DNA fragments are helping him get there faster than he ever could have imagined. 

They’re called DNA chips and an increasing number of researchers couldn’t do without them in their work developing new drugs and improving on disease diagnosis and prediction. 

Even agricultural scientists use them in their research with plants and animals. 

“It’s been a major technological breakthrough in biology,” said Potter, a pediatrics professor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “I think ’revolutionized’ is the proper word.” 

Potter is attempting to understand how humans develop from a single cell and is studying genes that control how and where organs and other body parts develop. 

Until DNA chips came into vogue about five years ago, genetic scientists slogged slowly through their research, often investigating one gene at a time. Now they can analyze thousands of genes simultaneously. 

The most popular chip is made by Santa Clara-based Affymetrix, which sells about 80 percent of commercially available chips. 

The company uses the human genome available free on the Internet as a blueprint for its chips, which are technically known as microarrays. 

Employing semiconductor manufacturing technology, workers “print” genes one layer, or molecule, at a time onto the glass until they stand up like microscopic skyscrapers, each about 25 molecules high. 

Researchers then drop fluorescently tagged RNA, which serves as the go-between between DNA blueprints and a cell’s protein-making machinery, onto the chips. 

The portion of a chip on which genes interact with the RNA will be fluorescent, enabling computers to easily isolate it for scientists. 

Scientists believe many diseases are caused by genes “turning on” when they shouldn’t. Knowing this, researchers can design drugs to attack suspect genes. This drug discovery is the primary use for the chips today. 

The chips are also giving researchers insight into how illnesses such as cancer develop. What researchers are finding is that diseases affect people in different ways. 

Researchers are finding increasing proof that cancer is an individualized disease, with many different subtypes, identifiable only by their molecular fingerprints. 

This will ultimately lead to more sophisticated treatments for cancer and other diseases, said Dietrich Stephan, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington D.C. 

That is expected to foster less reliance on chemotherapy as less harmful, more targeted therapies are developed. 

Some envision a day when a doctor, armed with a handheld computer, will be able to make an instant disease diagnosis. But for now, analyzing DNA chips takes at least several hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment and software. 

DNA chips are daily getting smaller, cheaper and more powerful — as are the machines and software used to decipher them. 

Four years ago, chip makers could fit about 5,000 genes onto a chip for a cost about $3,000 each. Today, chips costs about $400 each and accommodate three times the genes. 

Affymetrix recently began shipping a two-chip combination that contains the entire human genome. Last year, the company shipped 280,000 chips, and with only one major competitor — Agilent Technologies — analysts expect Affymetrix to ship even more chips this year. 

Analysts at Frost & Sullivan predict the market for DNA chips will grow from $874 million last year to $2.6 billion by 2004. 

But as the technology gets better and the market for the chips grow, so do ethical questions. 

Because the chips can to screen adults for predisposition to certain genetic diseases, such questions loom large. 

There are concerns insurance companies and employers might use the information they provide to discriminate against people found to possess certain genetic defects or predilections. 

DNA chips also raise the specter of aborting embryos deemed to have unwanted traits by the parents. 

The concern is that someday soon parents will be able to test embryos for genetic traits that will appear after birth ranging from proclivities to develop certain diseases to intelligence quotients to eye color — and make birth decisions based on results derived from gene chips. 

“This adds fuel to the whole abortion debate,” said Erin Williams, executive director of the Foundation for Genetic Medicine, in Manassas, Va., a think tank that deals with ethical issues. 

“We’re not there yet,” Williams said. “But we’re getting closer everyday. It’s a very powerful tool.”

SAN JOSE – The Silicon Valley’s biggest companies lost more money last year than they earned in the previous eight years combined, according to a newspaper report. 

“There’s not a sector, at least in recent memory, that has collapsed like this,” said Donald Strazsheim, former chief economist at Merrill Lynch. 

The San Jose Mercury News’ annual survey of the 150 largest publicly held companies in the Silicon Valley shed new light on the worst year in the area’s recent history. 

The companies lost a combined $89.8 billion in 2001. Sales plummeted by $55 billion, the first time revenues failed to grow since the survey began in 1985, and 96 of the companies lost money. 

As orders for computers, software and Internet equipment vanished, companies canceled long-term projects, laid off employees and left millions of square feet of office space idle. 

The year’s winners were non-tech companies — especially real-estate companies, who reported the highest operating profit margins. 

Economists and accountants are now trying to figure out how much of the reported losses stem from weak business conditions and how much they reflect temporary but costly mistakes of the 1999-2000 technology bubble. 

Last year’s losses are stuffed with write-offs, restructurings and charges connected with errors such as paying too much for an acquisition. 

To sort out bad economic conditions from bad business decisions, the Mercury News examined the past 10-year history of the area’s top 150 companies from two points of view: net profits and profits from ongoing business operations alone. 

The comparison shows that tech companies were financially stronger last year than the reported losses suggest: Despite the huge collective loss, the top companies earned $8.3 billion in operating profits in 2001. 

The survey also shows that pressure on tech profits and a slowing growth rate had been squeezing companies throughout the late 1990s, well before the sharp drop

SAN FRANCISCO – The Cliff House, a roadside restaurant that has long been one of the West Coast’s top tourist attractions, is about to get a major and long-needed facelift. 

Resolving a decade-long battle between architects, historic preservationists, federal bureaucrats and neighborhood groups, the blueprints have been finalized and construction begins this September. 

The $13.2 million redesign upholds a historic sense of place, while adding a modern aesthetic appeal to the complex, which will be smaller — 26,000 square feet to the current 40,000 — and nestled into the cliff. 

“We’re tucking the building into the hillside and pushing it down so it is somewhat understated,” said project architect Mark Hulbert. “Combining the old and the new is really, in a nutshell, what we are doing.” 

About 1.5 million diners visit the restaurant annually, generating gross revenue of $10.8 million last year for the Cliff House, one of the nation’s top 50 grossing restaurants. But the food is often a mere distraction; diners come mainly to drink in the dramatic ocean sky and gaze at Ocean Beach and the jagged Seal Rocks below. 

“When the waves hit the rocks on a stormy day it is so powerful and so daunting. I think people feel fortunate they have access to something like that,” said Carrie Strahan, Cliff House project manager for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 

Unfortunately, the existing building has never been considered a beauty — it was labeled a “concrete shoebox” soon after it was rebuilt in 1909 using material salvaged from the 1906 earthquake’s destruction. 

It was a drab replacement for the soaring Victorian hotels that had claimed the city’s northwestern corner since 1863. 

It’s also seriously in need of repair. As architects wrangled for years over the renovation plans, ocean saltwater ate away at the walls. 

Paint is peeling. The plumbing leaks. Carpets are stained and worn. 

“It’s an eyesore,” said Ralph Burgin, the restaurant manager, while looking at parts of the building. 

When it comes to access for the disabled, four waiters are summoned to hoist wheelchair-bound visitors up and down stairwells. 

For a while, National Park Service planners tried to get the building recognized on the register of historic places, believing the building warranted a rigid historic rendering, not a contemporary update. 

Local architects and neighborhood groups thought otherwise. 

“We saw the Cliff House as a living and dynamic institution that has, over its history, had several buildings and has adapted to changing times,” said Cheryl Arnold, president of the Coalition to Save Ocean Beach. 

After public criticism, park planners backed off the strict 1909 version and allowed for what local architect Bruce Bonacker calls “a more imaginative design.” 

“We did have to compromise and that’s OK,” Haller said. “We still retain much of the 1909 structure.” 

With $3.5 million in federal funding and $10 million from the restaurant’s owners, construction will begin in September, and last about two years. 

Crews will strip the gift shop and an upstairs dining room, ramshackle additions built in the 1950s. But the biggest change will be to the main dining room, which will lose seating space but gain a soaring, arched ceiling and other details reminiscent of the Sutro Baths, the ruins of which remain just north of the Cliff House. Walls of windows will open up the view of the Marin headlands on the northern side of the Golden Gate. 

“We are trying to make it blend, to rehabilitate the structure and reuse it in a way that is sensitive to its historic values but also allows for modern ongoing use,” said Steve Haller, an architectural historian with the GGNRA, the building’s landlord. 

The restaurant will remain open during renovations, which also include adding an elevator and handicapped access. 

Although some shops and the beloved Musee Mecanique arcade will move from the site, a giant, quirky camera machine called the Camera Obscura will remain where it stands on a concrete ledge beneath the restaurant. 

“Its vociferous fans felt it needed to stay there,” Haller said. 

When completed, the Cliff House will be a scaled-down 21st century update on a building that has changed with catastrophes and culture over time. The dramatic view will remain unchanged, of a place where land ends and the Pacific Ocean begins. 

Regulars like Jeff and Jane Allen are a little worried that the old-school, clubby atmosphere of one of their favorite restaurants will be lost. 

“I hope they always keep this,” Jeff Allen said, drinking in the view of the setting sun while sipping a scotch.

Attorneys for Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney questioned witnesses in the opening week of their case against the FBI and Oakland Police, hoping to establish a timeline of events in the case.  

Lead counsel for Bari and Cherney, Dennis Cunningham, questioned Seeds of Peace activist Shannon Marr and Earth First! organizer Karen Pickett in an attempt to pinpoint the exact times and order of events immediately following the car bombing which left Bari severely injured nearly12 years ago.  

Establishing a timeline is crucial to determining how Oakland police and the FBI decided Bari and Cherney were the bombing suspects.  

“We need to establish that the police did arrest Bari and Cherney when we said they did and that they did it in an inappropriate fashion; that there wasn’t enough information to arrest them,” said Alicia Littletree, member of the Bari and Cherney legal team and Earth First! activist. 

According to Littletree, the first week of the trial has been a success though the larger success may be that the case has finally made it to court. “I’m astounded that we are in court at all. This is only the second time that a grass-roots group has been able to take the FBI to court,” said Littletree. 

Attorneys for Bari and Cherney originally filed a lawsuit against the FBI in 1991.  

Bari, who died of cancer in 1997, and Cherney were organizing Redwood Summer, a series of demonstrations set for the summer of 1990, on the day of the bombing.  

Shannon Marr, a Seeds of Peace activist, and Karen Pickett, an Earth First! organizer, testified this week they were taken into custody and questioned for their association with Bari and for trying to visit Bari in the hospital. Marr, who was driving the car ahead of Bari’s on the day of the bombing, testified that police both questioned her and accused her of planting the bomb.  

“For me, seeing Shannon Marr testify in front of the defendants was really satisfying. She went through so much and was the first one to help Judi after the bombing. I was really pleased with her testimony,” said Littletree. 

According to Earth First!, The Seeds of Peace house, where Bari and Cherney had spent the night before the bombing, was ransacked during a warrantless search following the bombing. 

Attorneys for the FBI, led by Joseph Sher, have focused most of their attention on establishing the credibility of the FBI agents accused of misconduct in the case. In Sher’s opening statements he described the agents as dedicated public servants acting within the limits of the law. 

Sher also described accused FBI Special Agent John Reikes as a dedicated environmentalist, concerned with endangered species. Sher added that while Reikes may disagree with some tactics of Earth First! activists, he had no motivation to frame Bari or Cherney. 

Assistant City Attorney Maria, lead counsel for the accused officers of the Oakland Police Department, emphasized that the officers acted on their best knowledge and evidence available, relying on the expertise of the FBI in matters dealing with explosives and terrorism. 

Both Joseph Sher and Maria Bee were contacted for comment regarding the first week of the trial but did not respond. 

Lead attorney for Bari and Cherney, Dennis Cunningham, was also contacted regarding comment on the first week of trial but did not respond. 

According to Earth First!, Oakland Police Department Officer Paul Slivinski testified that he understood he was “guarding a prisoner,” as he escorted Darryl Cherney out of the hospital at 5 pm on the day of the bombing. Cherney was later questioned and booked at Oakland Police headquarters before being released due to a lack of evidence. 

Alameda County Bomb Squad responder T. J. Roumph’s conclusion that the bomb was placed under the car seat, not in the back floorboard as FBI Special Agent Frank Doyle has maintained, contradicts the FBI’s claim that Bari and Cherney planted the bomb in their car. 

Pictures of the bombed car will be exhibited next week in the attempt to determine the location of the bomb within the car. 

Testimony from defendant Sgt. Sitterud of the FBI will continue Monday along with testimony and the examination of defendant OPD member Sgt. Robert Chenault, OPD Bomb Squad member Myron Hanson, and OPD Sgt. Del Kraft.  

The trial will continue until approximately May 24, 2002, in the Oakland Federal Courthouse, 1301 Clay St., Judge Claudia Wilken’s courtroom (fourth floor). Hearings take place Monday through Thursday, 8:30 am to 1:30 pm. The proceedings are open to the public.

A tool used by historians to trace the history of a city is a special map, called a Sanborn Insurance Map. The maps were published for insurance agents to assess the risks of insuring a particular piece of property and were first published in 1867.  

Sanborn Maps are filled with information. They are large-scale maps drawn 50 feet to an inch. A Sanborn map is printed on heavy rag paper and bound in huge books that are about 2x3 feet. Each page contains about 4 or 5 blocks.  

If a city is large, the map is divided between several volumes. Berkeley, for example, is now divided into four volumes and each volume contains about 100 pages. The earliest Sanborn map of Berkeley dates from 1894 and was only one volume with 14 pages. It only covers the blocks around the downtown train station, the area south of the university and along Shattuck to Rose Street. The other areas of Berkeley were so sparsely populated that there was no need to map it. By 1911 Berkeley had grown so large that the map was revised and divided into two volumes. The next revision occurred in 1929 and was divided into 3 volumes.  

The most important aspect of Sanborn Maps for a historian is that they show the outline of properties and the footprints of buildings and these are fairly accurate. Addresses are also shown. The footprints of structures show porches, turrets and window bays providing clues to the age of a building.  

The maps were color-coded and had symbols for different types of structures. If a building is wood-framed it is indicated in yellow, brick in red. A windmill and water pump is indicated by a circle within a square, and a stable has an "x" through it. If a building was a dwelling it would be indicated by a "D". Fire hydrants and water pipes, including their size, were shown.  

The maps were kept up-to-date by the Sanborn Company who provided changes that their customers (insurance agents and city planning departments) could paste into their maps. When changes and annexations had become extensive, the company issued a new map. By using different editions of these maps the historian can see how an entire city or particular piece of property changed over time.  

The latest Sanborn Map for Berkeley can be viewed at the Building Permit Department on Milvia Street. Older ones are available on-line. 

Susan Cerny is author of Berkeley Landmarks and writes this in conjunction with the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.  

The to Editor: 

On February 19, 2002, the Berkeley City Council voted by strong majority (7-1-1) to change the zoning on the north side of the 1100 block of Hearst Avenue from R3 to R2A. On November 28, 2001, the Berkeley Planning Commission voted unanimously for this zoning change.  

A recent letter to the Planet from the League of Women Voters was sharply critical of these actions, claiming that the Council was responding to neighborhood "nay-sayers". We, the Hearst-Curtis-Delaware Neighbors, would like to refute the League’s mischaracterization of the zoning change, and clarify the facts. 

Our new zoning designation, R2A, allows an additional 22 units of new housing to be added to this small, ten parcel area, which is only one side of one block. That is a 50% increase over what’s there currently.  

This neighborhood is not anti-development. Over the last ten or so years, 10 units of new housing have been added to these parcels, and many more have been added across the street.  

We have welcomed many new neighbors, and will continue to do so. The League’s letter states they favor a moderate expansion of housing. Is a 50% increase not moderate, even more than moderate? 

R3 zoning, which accommodates projects as large as hospitals, was a zoning anomaly and inappropriate for our narrow, local, residential street. This anomaly is very apparent when one looks at the City zoning map. Other areas of the City zoned R3 are areas on major transit corridors (portions of Ashby, College, Alcatraz, Oxford, and Sacramento) and in the immediate north and south campus areas. 

This anomalous zoning designation left us prey to the very kind of inappropriate development that the General Plan seeks to prevent. There are no more empty lots on this block. The more intense development encouraged by R3 zoning promotes the demolition of existing, inhabited, rent-controlled housing. Tenants could be displaced, and long-time rent-controlled units with lower rents could be lost.  

This change in zoning has almost universal support in the neighborhood. Property owners asked that our own properties be rezoned, limiting our own rights to development, in order to protect our neighborhood’s character and quality of life. 

Our neighborhood strongly supports the development and maintenance of affordable housing. Some of us live in it ourselves! The affordable housing complex owned by Resources for Community Development (RCD), which is in the rezoned area, is an anchor in our neighborhood and integral in setting both the social and physical character of the neighborhood. We would not have pursued rezoning if it had jeopardized the RCD complex. 

The University Avenue Area Plan, formally adopted as part of the new General Plan, directs denser development to the Avenue and clearly states "Protect and enhance the lower density character of surrounding neighborhoods."  

Our neighborhood deserves this protection as much as any other.  

Changing a zoning designation in Berkeley was not easy. It required months of time and hours and hours of work on the part of residents, City staff, Commissioners, and elected officials. This change was made carefully and thoughtfully. We are not afraid of change – we worked very hard to effect a positive change for our neighborhood.  

Are we "nay-sayers" or Nimbys? No! We are teachers in the Berkeley Unified School District, nurses, chefs, gardeners, musicians, office workers, and retirees, to name but a few of our professions and jobs. We are students at UC, community colleges, Berkeley High School and Berkeley grade schools. We are young, old, gay, straight, long-time residents and newcomers, renters, homeowners, Black, white, Mexican-American, Japanese-American, Spanish, Ecuadorian, French, and Middle-Eastern-American. We are the very people that the League of Women Voters wants to attract to and keep in Berkeley! We are united in our commitment to keeping our neighborhood a pleasant, safe, healthy, clean place to live and grow.  

We would have expected the League of Women Voters, who have been known for fairness and deliberation of the facts before acting, to have done a little bit more research before issuing their statement. Fortunately, the Planning Commission and the City Council did take the time to analyze the facts. Thanks to their forward-thinking actions, our neighborhood will be better able to retain its essential, attractive, Berkeley character and provide a day-to-day quality of life that keeps us living and working in Berkeley.  

The Hearst-Curtis-Delaware Neighbors 

Rare blend of rural and urban music reaches out to prison population 

WHITESBURG, Ky. — Some call the unusual blend of rural and urban music hillbilly hip-hop. Others call it hick-hop. 

The collaboration of banjos, fiddles and drums set to a beat that would leave a rapper out of breath was created to reach inmates from big cities who are in rural Appalachian prisons. 

Nick Szuberla, director of an eastern Kentucky radio show that caters to those inmates, brought bluegrass and hip-hop musicians together in Whitesburg earlier this month for a live performance on WMMT-FM. Dirk Powell, a banjo picker from Oberlin, Ohio, and Danja Mowf, a hip-hop artist from Richmond, Va., created music that lends itself to both clogging and break dancing. 

“This is the first instance I know of where traditional mountain musicians and hip-hop artists joined forces,” said Rich Kirby, head of June Appal Recordings in Whitesburg. “Both musics have deep roots in tradition, and if you go back far enough you will find the same roots.” 

The mix of genres is meant to show that urban and rural cultures need not clash, said Szuberla, whose hip-hop program “From the Holler to the Hood” airs weekly. 

That message is important in central Appalachia, he said, where urban and rural cultures meet daily in prison. 

“In the past 10 years, prisons have been popping up in rural communities across Appalachia,” he said. “You have inmates from urban areas in the Northeast being shipped 15 hours away from home to these rural communities. What has happened is a cultural clash.” 

For many inmates from cities, even listening to the radio has changed: Country music rules the airwaves in central Appalachia, allowing room only for the occasional rock or oldies stations. 

Szuberla said his station tries to supplement bluegrass and traditional music with hip-hop, punk, heavy metal, jazz, R&B, reggae and, now, the odd new musical blend. 

Appalshop, a media arts center in Whitesburg, is producing a TV documentary about the growth of prisons in Appalachia. The mixture of music will be used as a soundtrack. The radio station and June Appal Recordings also are part of Appalshop. 

Appalshop has tried to preserve and present traditional mountain music as an important part of rural life in Appalachia. In the same way, Szuberla said, hip-hop has become an important part of life for many of the region’s inmates. 

“This collaboration presents a chance to bring artists together who would normally not cross paths, while at the same time bridging communities often viewed in opposition,” he said. 

Emergency Preparedness Class 

9 a.m. - 1 a.m. 

Emergency Operations Center 

997 Cedar St. 

A class disaster mental health. 981-5605 

10th Annual Chinese Masters in Martial Arts Series 

8:30 a.m. 

UC Berkeley 

Haas Pavilion  

Day-long event will include competition in contemporary, traditional and internal styles of wushu. The Masters demonstration will begin at 8:00 p.m. 841-1486.  

Rescheduled BPWA Path Walk 

"Boundary Walk" 

10 a.m.- noon, rain or shine 

Join naturalist, Paul Grunland, as he leads an exploration of the Berkeley 

Paths on the Berkeley Kensington Boundary. Meet at Grizzly Peak/Spruce, the reservoir. 

Building Education Center- Free Lecture 

“What You Need To Know Before You Build or Remodel” 

10 a.m.- noon 

Preview of the Homeowner’s Essential Course, presented by builder Glen Kitzenberger - learn to solder pipe and more!  

812 Page 

525-7610 

Make Your Own Book 

2 - 4 p.m. 

Albany Library  

1247 Marin Ave. 

In a free hands-on workshop budding authors and artists of all ages can create origami books, "wheel books," photo albums and other types of books. 526-3720. 

Party For Your Health 

10:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Corner of M.L.K. and Center St. 

A free community health fair for all ages. Health screenings (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.), information and games, alternative health services, organic and vegetarian food, poetry slam and music. 665-6833, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/publichealth/. 

Gala Tribute to Ali Akbar Khan, in honor of his 80th birthday 

1-5 p.m. 

The Ali Akbar College of Music Orchestra, The AACM Tabla Ensemble (Composed and conducted by Swapan Chaudhuri) and Chitresh Das presents his Chhandam Dancers 

7 p.m. 

Solo Performances by: Lakshmi Shankar, GS Sachdev, Sisirkana Chowdhury, Shittresh Das, Zakir Hussain, Swapan Chaudhuri and performing a duet Alam Khan and Aahish Khan 

Marin Vetran’s Auditorium, Marin Center, San Rafael  

For additional information call: 415-454-6264 or www.aacm.org 

For tickets call the Marin Center box Office 415-472-3500 or Ticketmaster 

Got Lyrics? 

Lyrics Slam Contest 

Cash prize, 1st Place $100, Second place $75, 3rd place $50. 

Bring your poetry, books, note pads, freestyles, your abstract thoughts and your love for the spoken word. 

12:30 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Park (across from Berkeley High) 

Sunday, April 14

Non-religous Meditation Group 

5 p.m. 

Fig Tree Gallery 

2599 8th St. 

428-9466. 

Mike Ruppert on Truth & Lies of 9/11 

6 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall 

1924 Cedar 

Video showing followed by audience discussion. Free. 528-5403. 

Preserving Photographs 

3 p.m. 

Veterans Memorial Building 

Berkeley History Center 

1931 Center St. 

Sunday, April 14, 

Drew Johnson, Oakland Museum photo curator, will talk on "Preserving  

Photographs.” Part of a five lecture series connected with the exhibit "From the Attic: How to Preserve and Share our Past." 848-0181, http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/. 

Animals in Politics 

noon 

Fellowship of Humanity 

411 28th St. 

California Coordinator for the Fund for Animals, Virginia Handley, tells about the legislative process in California, the latest news on all the animal bills, and how animal advocates can help pass humane legislation. 451-5818, HumanistHall@yahoo.com. 

Choosing to Add On: The Pros and Cons  

of Building an Addition 

noon - 2 p.m. 

812 Page  

Building Education Center- Free Lecture by Skip Wenz. 525-7610. 

Monday, April 15

Respite Caregiver Volunteer Training 

9 a.m. - 12 p.m. 

Catholic Charities 

433 Jefferson St., Oakland 

Part one of a two day training for anyone interested in becoming a respite care volunteer. 768-3147, betty@cceb.org 

Parkinson’s Support Group 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst 

Berkeley,  

For more information, call 981-5190. 

Berkeley Society of Friends (Quakers) 

2151 Vine Street 

Berkeley, Ca 94709 

(510) 843-9725 

Building Education Center- Free Lecture 

“What You Need To Know Before You Build or Remodel” 

7-9 p.m. 

Preview of the Homeowner’s Essential Course, presented by builder Glen Kitzenberger - learn to solder pipe and more!  

812 Page 

525-7610 

Peace Builders 

9 a.m. 

2151 Vine St. 

The Berkeley Society of Friends is presenting talks from four inspiring peace builders in April and May, beginning with Melody Ermachild Chavis and Latifa Popal who have just returned from Afghanistan. 527-8475. 

Berkeley Partners for Parks Meeting 

7:30 - 9 p.m. 

City Corp. Yard  

1326 Allston Way 

Public invited to discuss and advocate for parks and open space in Berkeley. 649-9874. 

Tuesday, April 16

Respite Caregiver Volunteer Training 

9 a.m. - 12 p.m. 

Catholic Charities 

433 Jefferson St., Oakland 

Part two of a two day training for anyone interested in becoming a respite care volunteer. 768-3147, betty@cceb.org 

Farm Fresh Choice, Community Produce Stands 

Affordable, high-quality nutritious fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and apple juice. Organic and low residue produce. Support small independent African -American, Latino and Asian Farmers continue to farm in environmentally sound ways. 

4 to 6 p.m., every Tuesday 

Three Locations:  

The Young Adult Project at Oregon and Grant, Bahia on Eighth Street at James Kenny Park and The Berkeley Youth Alternative. 

Hard-hitting Berkeley takes over first place in Shoreline League 

Staunch defense and penalty killing keyed a huge win for the Berkeley High boys’ lacrosse team on Friday, as the ’Jackets took a big step towards a league title with a 6-2 defeat of Bishop O’Dowd in Berkeley. 

After giving up the only goal of the first quarter, Berkeley (8-2 overall, 2-0 SLL) shut down the high-powered O’Dowd offense for 31 minutes, scoring a variety of goals to go up 6-1. The Dragons’ two top scorers, Pat Bird and Nick Stratton, were nearly shut out, with Bird getting a lone assist on his team’s second goal with the game already in Berkeley’s clutches. 

“Our defense just played great today,” Berkeley head coach Jon Rubin said. “Our philosophy was to make them beat us with tough passes, and we just didn’t let them get near the goal.” 

Rubin awarded the game ball to defenseman Demetrius Sommers, whose frenetic play changed the pace of the game every time the ball found an O’Dowd (1-1 SLL) stick. Sommers created at least 10 turnovers all by himself, and his man-marking of Stratton kept the league’s second-leading scorer completely off the board. The Dragons got just six shots on goal in the game. 

“We knew that they really had two good players on offense, and we needed to shut them down,” Sommers said. “Their other players are mediocre on offense, so we just took (Bird and Stratton) out of the game.” 

Sommers, who was moved to defense last season because of his non-stop motor and hard-hitting ways, seemed to be everywhere against the Dragons, leaving Stratton to lay several huge hits on O’Dowd midfielders in transition. 

“Having Demetrius is like having three extra players out there,” Rubin said. “He plays like a college player, and he’s just a junior.” 

The ’Jackets’ offense sputtered through the first quarter, but Berkeley’s athleticism gave them their first goal. An O’Dowd turnover quickly turned into a Berkeley fast break, with Calvin Gaskin finding Noah Flessell in front of the goal for an easy score to tie the game. After Berkeley won the ensuing faceoff, Nick Schooler added to his league-leading point total with a long shot for a 2-1 lead. 

Berkeley’s next goal came off of and O’Dowd turnover as well. Already a man down on a penalty, the Dragons gave the ball up to Berkeley’s Sam Gellar, who sprinted the length of the field before denting the net. When Jesse Cohen scored off of a spin move with 45 seconds left in the second quarter, Berkeley took a 4-1 lead into halftime. 

Neither team scored in the third quarter, but Berkeley was dealt a serious blow when midfielder Cameran Sampson was penalized for an illegal stick between periods. The penalty put the ’Jackets down a man for the first three minutes of the final quarter, but two careless turnovers by the Dragons and Berkeley’s quick rotation on defense kept O’Dowd from even getting a shot off during Sampson’s penance. Berkeley killed four penalties in the game. 

“Everything’s rosy, and then we get nailed with an equipment penalty,” Rubin said. “But the defense really stepped up and got it done.” 

When Dan Vilar scored on yet another Berkeley fast break with eight minutes left in the game, O’Dowd’s chance at a comeback was dead. Gellar scored again, this time on a long shot, a minute later for a 6-1 lead and a claim on first place in the Shoreline Lacrosse League. 

With the league’s other two teams, College Prep and Piedmont, fielding brand-new programs, the SLL title will most likely come down to the Berkeley-O’Dowd rematch on May 2 in Oakland. Sommers thinks the ’Jackets’ convincing win on Friday gives them a leg up for that game. 

“I think we’ve got it over them mentally now,” he said. “They know they’ll have to step up their game to play with us.”

Ding! Ding! 

It’s round two in the fight to oust Local 1, the Martinez-based union that represents the Berkeley Unified School District’s classified employees, and both sides are swinging. 

Last year Local 39, an AFL-CIO affiliate with offices in San Francisco, attempted to pry away Local 1’s operations and support unit, which represents maintenance workers, food service workers and bus drivers among others. But the effort stalled in a squabble over the expiration date for the current contract. 

This year Local 39 is back, hoping to win representation of the operations unit. A second union, the Council of Classified Employees, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, is attempting to take control of Local 1’s other Berkeley units – the paraprofessional and clerical outfits. 

Local 39 and CCE have both collected enough signatures from Local 1 members to force elections. The Public Employment Relations Board, an independent state body, will send out ballots to union members in the operations unit Monday, and will count the votes May 7.  

Jerilyn Gelt, labor relations specialist for the board, said she expects elections for the other two units to be complete by the end of the school year in June. 

Dissatisfied workers and union organizers for Local 39 and CCE say Local 1 has not provided adequate service. Phone calls go unreturned, they say, and grievances go unfiled. 

“Local 1 has taken people’s dues money and not provided them what they’re supposed to provide – service and representation,” said Stephanie Allan, business representative for Local 39. 

Pat Robertson, a district storekeeper and president of the operations unit, acknowledges that it often takes a few days for “overworked” business agents in the Local 1 Martinez office to return calls.  

Still Robertson, who works in the district and provides day-to-day support for union members, said he is very responsive. 

“I return any call,” he said, noting that he provides union members with his home phone number and pager. 

But Allan said the Local 1 structure, which gives heavy responsibility to full-time district employees like Robertson, limits the quality of representation. If the operations employees choose Local 39, Allan said, she will serve as a full-time, effective representative. 

But Roberston said he spends three to four hours on union business every night and argued that he has been very effective, winning tens of thousands of dollars in back pay for employees. 

Rick Spaid, acting president of the clerical unit, argued that the current crop of Local 1 union leaders have significant experience and are better qualified to represent union members. 

“These people are going to be really new, and not know anything about the district,” Spaid said, referring to CCE, which is attempting to wrest control of his unit. 

But Frank Oppedisano, who is organizing the CCE campaign, said the American Federation of Teachers and AFL-CIO, who back the CCE, bring a wide range of experience, expertise and political clout to the table that will serve union members well. 

Walter Mitchell, an instructional aide at Berkeley High School who participated in an American Federation training in Washington, D.C. last week, said he has been impressed by the group’s professionalism and political strength. 

But Spaid is not convinced. He said the AFL-CIO’s top leadership will be distant and unresponsive, and argued that CCE and Local 39 should not be targeting workers who are already organized. 

“I’m kind of appalled by these other unions,” he said. “They should really being going out trying to organize new workers.” 

“We go after people who need to be represented,” Oppedisano replied. “We were called in here by classified employees.” 

Several employees interviewed by the Planet said they are ready to make the switch to CCE or Local 39. 

“I do not feel represented by Local 1,” said Samuel Scott, a general maintenance worker for the district, who added that training programs offered by Local 39 make that union an attractive alternative to Local 1. 

But Robertson said the battle for control of the operations unit is a toss-up at this point. Maintenance workers are in the Local 39 camp, Robertson acknowledged, and Local 1 will need the bus drivers and food service workers if it is to win. Custodians, he said, may be the swing vote. 

Safety officers, who almost uniformly support Local 39, are currently in the operations unit and will have an opportunity to vote in the coming weeks. But a Local 1 claim that the officers actually belong in the paraprofessional unit may lead to a challenge of the election, complicating the situation. 

Oppedisano and Spaid both say they are confident of victory in the battle for the paraprofessional and clerical units.  

A letter printed in yesterday’s edition regarding the League of Women Voters was written by Zelda Bronstein, the Chair of the Planning Commission. Below her name the Hearst-Curtis Neighborhood Association was placed inadvertantly. It has come to our attention that Bronstein has no affiliation with the Hearst-Curtis Neighborhood Association. The Daily Planet apologizes for the mistake.

NEW YORK — The third time was the charm for Metropolitan Opera audiences who have been waiting for a chance to hear Vesselina Kasarova. 

The Bulgarian mezzo-soprano, who had canceled two previously scheduled debuts, lived up to her reputation Thursday night as an artist to be reckoned with. Stepping into the Met’s well-worn John Cox production of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville,” Kasarova managed to bring something fresh and memorable to the familiar role of the heroine, Rosina. 

As the perky young ward who defies her guardian by marrying Count Almaviva, Kasarova was all sparkling merriment on the surface — but she clearly conveyed the “whim of iron” that lies beneath. 

It helps that she is blessed with a distinctive voice that sounds dusky in the lower register, velvety in the mid-range and still has plenty of power for the high C’s. And her ease in coloratura passages is so great that one never has the sense she is working hard to get through the intricate trills and runs. To the contrary, she uses the ornamentation to convey a sense of Rosina’s playfulness. 

As the amorous Count, Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez repeated the show-stopping performance with which he debuted earlier in the year. He is a true Rossini tenor, with all that implies, both good and bad: a slightly nasal, constricted tone, but an awesome dexterity throughout a wide range. 

Baritone Earle Patriarco made a genial figure as the resourceful go-between, Figaro, and bass Paul Plishka savored every moment as the pompous guardian, Dr. Bartolo. Conductor Yves Abel kept the orchestra bubbling along. 

When going up against a baseball team from a brand-new high school, it’s hard to know what to expect. But even the most cynical observer couldn’t have expected the Bad News Bears to show up. 

Hercules High has no seniors, and apparently none of the talented juniors in the area felt like starting over at a new school. The Titans were a mess, plain and simple, on Friday against Berkeley High, committing eight errors in just four innings on the way to a 13-2 drubbing by the ACCAL league leaders. 

Thanks to the Titans’ ineptitude, Berkeley scored their 13 runs on just five hits. Hercules starting pitcher James Allen issued six walks without getting out of the second inning, allowing the ’Jackets to stroll around the bases at their leisure. Of course, Allen wasn’t exactly getting a lot of help, as his teammates made four errors in the second inning alone. 

The box score for Berkeley second inning went as follows: walk, walk, error, strikeout, walk, single, error, groundout, walk, error, single and error, triple and groundout. It was all the Berkeley players could do to keep from laughing on the bench as they scored nine runs despite hitting just two balls out of the infield. 

After two tough games on Wednesday and Thursday, Friday’s blowout was a relief for Berkeley. They sent junior varsity pitcher Matt Sylvester to the mound, and he threw the entire five innings, giving up seven hits and two runs. He cruised through the first three innings, giving up a lone single.  

“I felt pretty relaxed out there to start the game, which is wierd because I usually struggle early,” Sylvester said. 

The sophomore lefty got into a jam in the fourth inning, giving up a single and double to start, but the solid Berkeley defense bailed him out. Third baseman Chris Wilson threw out Peter Asuelo at home plate on a chopper, and catcher Jeremy Riesenfeld gunned down Allen at second base when he strayed too far off after a single. 

“It’s nice to have a great defense behind you,” Sylvester said. “It makes a hell of a difference.” 

Sylvester may have been off his rhythm as the game progressed by the long stretches on the bench while his team circled the bases. He gave up two runs in the fifth inning, but by then the ’Jackets were ahead by enough that it didn’t make a big difference. 

“Matt proved he can do the job today,” Berkeley head coach Tim Moellering said. “We were hoping to get a complete game from him. It’s a luxury to have guys come up from JV and pitch some innings for us.”

Scrapbooks, stories, videos, food and memories will be shared next Saturday at the Harmon House Reunion as the members of one of Berkeley’s eclectic communal houses say good-bye to their former South Berkeley residence. The house, a communal living space in Berkeley for working adults, students and graduate students since 1978, has been sold and will be renovated later this year. 

Saturday’s event will reunite former residents of the house, including Sharon Seidenstein, founder of the Berkeley Farmer’s Market, for a final visit to the house that produced stories, marriages and inspiration.  

“There were so many experiences there. I met my husband there, others met their spouses there,” said Laura Menard, former resident of the Harmon House.  

Organizers of the day have asked former members to bring pieces of memorabilia from their time at the house and also plan to bury a time capsule in the yard. Butcher paper will be taped to the side of the house for former and current residents to fill in a timeline of events through the co-op’s 24 year history. 

The house is a large, rustic Victorian dating back to the late 1800s, built in part with redwood lumber. Stalks of bamboo grow to one side of the six and a half bedroom house.  

“There’s so much history to it. There’s a personality to it. I don’t know when we will all be able to get together again. I hope we can capture some of the history with this event,” said current resident Dianne Osborne. 

Osborne says the day will be an interactive one with former and current members encouraged to mingle and reflect on a piece of their lives and a piece of history. Osborne adds that founding member Kathy Thomas will also be attending the afternoon festivities. 

Also planned for the day are a video taping of the event, a large group photo and the passing out of T-shirts to commemorate the final reunion. 

According to Menard, former residents of the Harmon House include a number of working professionals throughout the Bay Area including architects, photographers, lawyers, scholars and massage therapists. Currently, there are seven remaining residents in the house. The Victorian modeled house will be renovated later this year. 

“The great thing about the house was the group shopping and cooking.We had family meals and were introduced to different kinds of cooking by residents from France, Israel and England,” said Menard.“Thanksgiving was always a great time because of cooking and because the the members of the house were like a family.” 

Menard expects a large number of former residents to turn out for the event and an even larger number of memories.Former residents from as far away as Oregon and Iowa are expected to attend the Harmon House’s final reunion. 

The reunion and potluck are planned for Saturday, April 20 at 2 p.m.at 1612 Harmon St. (near California Street) in South Berkeley.

When the 45th San Francisco International Film Festival comes to the Pacific Film Archive on Friday, April 19, the “international” of the title proves itself. For two weeks the PFA will screen 34 films and 15 shorts from all points of the globe – from Berkeley to France to Senegal to Israel to China, and ports in between. 

East Bay filmmaker Johnny Symon’s “Daddy & Papa” recently was shown in competition at the most recent Sundance film festival. The documentary about gay fathers is a social and personal look at adoption and family values follows a handful of gay couples raising families, one of which is the filmmakers’ own. It screens at the PFA on Friday, April 26. 

Also on the local front is UC Berkeley graduate student Brett Simon’s “Counterfeit Film,” a short film screening as part of a program of shorts called “Memory Arcade” (Tues, April 30) assembled by those champions of film art, the San Francisco Cinematheque. Simon’s hyper-speed meditation on money, film, and Xerox machines ponders the essence of currency and copywrite in an age of video imagery and Kinko’s.  

Most of PFA’s offerings during the SFIFF look abroad, as Martin Scorcese does in “My Voyage To Italy” ((Sun. April 21), an epic 4-hour tour of Marty’s favorite Italian films which promises to be both a love letter and a history lesson from a man who helped change the course of American film history in the 1970’s. Another man who proved himself of giant of film politics and aesthetics, Jean-Luc Godard, has completed a new work, “In Praise Of Love,” which will screen at the PFA on Friday, April 26. The legendary New Wave auteur whom many people think is retired – or dead – returns musing on the past within the present with a story about a film director auditioning an actress he thinks he has met before. 

Opening weekend of the SFIFF at the PFA begins with a carjacking. A Chilean cab driver is accosted by two men with knives and a proposition: “steer or trunk.” The impoverished cabbie in Orlando Lubbert’s tragicomic “Taxi For Three” (Fri. April 19) chooses to drive the petty thieves from felony to felony, allowing his rectitude to be swayed by the lure of easy money in a country where nothing comes easy. After the wise-cracking thug and his illiterate partner move in with the cab driver’s family and get religion, the cabbie demonstrates the depth of his cruel, ingrained desperation. 

Later Friday night following “Taxi For Three” is Taiwanese master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsian’s “Millennium Mambo,” opening with a tracking shot behind young woman walking a fluorescent-lit pedestrian walkway, the slow-motion tracks every bounce of her long black hair. Her story at the end of the millennium is a poem of cigarettes and nightclubs, violently jealousy and everyday banalities. A far cry from the sullen disaffected-youth indie films of America, Hou Hsiao-Hsian continues his aesthetic re-thinking of narrative film with nuanced camerawork and slow editing patiently drawing out the pace of one young woman’s elations and defeats. Determined to end her destructive relationship when her bank account runs out, the young woman moves through a glacial character arc which the film elicits through seemingly inconsequential events. 

No stranger to slow-paced filmmaking, Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda began his feature film career with the interminably paced “Maborosi” (1995) and followed with the comparably bouncy “After Life” (1998) about a country resort between the world of the living and the afterlife where guests must choose one memory to preserve before their spirit becomes a part of the Eternal. In his newest film “Distance” (Sat. April 20) Kore-eda again focuses on questions of spiritual resolution and doubt as a group of people mourn the death of their loved ones three years after an extremist, suicidal religious cult staged a mass killing. 

Earnest but distracted by their busy lives, the small group reluctantly stays the night in the rural cabin where the cult had once resided, recalling the moment their husbands, wives, brothers, etc joined the cult to seek fulfillment and respite from the emptiness of modern living. Trapped in the same place where the killing was incubated, and inevitably drawn to a kind of wilderness soul-searching, the small group eventually faces the enormity of their loved ones’ spiritual convictions and what could have compelled them to an act of horrendous inhumanity. 

The award for It Doesn’t Have To Look Good To Be A Poignant Film would have to go to “Inner Tour” (Sun. April 21), a documentary about a three-day bus tour shot on shaky, hand-held video that earns its place in the festival by being set in Israel. In 2000, Palestinians from West Bank could not go into Israel without jumping through a very difficult set of hoops to get appropriate papers, but they could sign up for an Israeli bus tour and travel through their former homeland as tourists. 

Shooting before the current escalation of violence in Israel, director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, who called himself a “concerned Israeli with leftist leanings,” has created a film sympathetic to Palestinians who find themselves natives in a strange land. These former land- and business-owners begin their bus ride as foreign visitors doing time-honored tourist activities: with cameras and camcorders they take pictures of each other, visit local museums, and hit on pretty Italian women sightseeing at the beach. But many of these people who live about an hour away have never seen the ocean, and the local museum tells the story of how the Jewish kibbutzes vanquished the Arabs in the 1930’s. When we see a man throw a package of photos over a barbed wire fence to his mother on the other side, as she does to him, and when an elderly man stumbles off into the night crying “I don’t want to see, I don’t want to see,” the film achieves its sad irony of displaced people visiting their own past as restricted tourists. 

Following “Inner Tour” the PFA will show another demonstration of shaky, hand-held camera – but this time as an aesthetic decision – in the realistic fiction from China “Go For Broke.” Using non-actors and a 12-day, “one-take” shooting schedule, director Wang Guangi tells the story of a group of recently laid-off employees who strike out on their own with a remodeling business. The lottery figure largely among these people caught in financial turbulence when Chinese fatalism, luck, and their socialist tradition move into a capitalist system.  

The amateur cast (speaking in brief interviews during the end credit scroll) had all had first-hand experience with being laid off, which Guangi wanted to take advantage of to get closer to truth. Their at times stilted performances are peppered with fortune cookie maxims like “Fortune comes to those who work hard,” and ‘Money lost [to gambling] is spent in vain, money won doesn’t bring happiness.” Nevertheless, the lottery becomes a pivotal device in their fortunes, and their success in business becomes dependant on luck with the numbers. 

Screenings of films from the SFIFF continue at the PFA until Thursday, May 2. Complete screening information can be found at www.sfiff.org or at the PFA website www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.  

Cal hoops signs big man Benson 

Cal basketball coach Ben Braun added some height to offset a rash of defections from his team on Friday, as forward Rod Benson signed a letter of intent to play for the Bears next season. 

Benson, a 6-foot-9, 200-pound power forward who propelled San Diego’s Torrey Pines High School to a 25-4 record and CIF sectional semifinal playoff appearance last season, signed on the dotted line after a late recruiting push by Braun. Braun has lost freshman forward Jamal Sampson to the NBA Draft and sophomore center Gabriel Hughes to a transfer since the end of the season. 

Benson, named first team All-Palomar League and second team All-CIF San Diego Section, averaged 14 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.8 blocks as a senior at Torrey Pines. Recruited by such national programs as UCLA, Stanford, Oregon, Villanova and Pepperdine, the 17-year-old big man was rated as the No. 3 center on the West Coast by TheInsiders.com.  

“We are really excited about Rod’s potential,” said Braun. “He has got some great intangibles-he is athletic, quick and very well coached-and brings a lot of positive qualities to our program. “Rod should have an excellent opportunity to contribute next year. He is also a very fine student.”  

In other recruiting news, Braun also announced today that Alabama’s 6-foot-7 forward Kennedy Winston would not attend Al. Citing family health reasons, the coach said that Cal has granted Winston’s request to release him from his signed national letter-of-intent.  

“It was important to respect the wishes of Kennedy and his family,” said Braun. “We wish him well and hope that he enjoys his college experience wherever he enrolls.”  

Golden Bears fall to Arizona 

The Cal baseball team lost to visiting Arizona, 8-4, Friday at Evans Diamond. The Bears fall to 22-17 and 5-5 in the conference. Arizona improves to 23-14 and 4-6 in the Pac-10.  

Cal struggled pretty much the entire game, falling behind 3-0 and only getting one hit through the first five innings. The Wildcats scored three runs off of Bear starter Trevor Hutchinson (7-4, eight hits, three runs, two walks, four strikeouts), a run off of reliever Travis Talbott in the eighth inning and four unearned runs off of reliever Jesse Ingram in the top of the ninth inning.  

However, Cal had a golden opportunity to get back into the game after scoring two runs in the seventh inning on back-to-back RBI doubles by junior catcher John Baker and freshman third baseman David Nicholson to make the score 4-2. In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Bears had the bases loaded with no outs against Arizona reliever Wes Zlotoff. Zlotoff was able to get David Weiner to pop-up to first base, before center fielder Brian Anderson came in to pitch to Cal’s top hitter, Conor Jackson. With a full count, Anderson almost hit Jackson, and Jackson accidentally dribble to ball down the first base line for a pitcher to catcher to first double play to end the inning.  

Down 8-2 going into the bottom of the ninth, the Bears got within 8-4 on a two-run double by Brian Horwitz.  

Arizona’s winning pitcher was starter Sean Rierson (6-2, 7.0 innings, five hits, two runs, no walks, three strikeouts) and Anderson picked up his third save of the season (1.7 innings, four hits, two runs, two strikeouts).  

Anderson, John Hardy, Ken Riley and Justyn St. Clair had two hits apiece for the Wildcats, whose 13 hits on the day were all singles. Ben Conley, Carson White, Baker, Nicholson and Jeff Dragicevich had two hits apiece for the Bears.  

Cal will face Arizona in the second game of the three-game conference series Saturday at 1 p.m. at Evans Diamond.  

Women’s tennis drops another match  

The Cal women’s tennis team dropped its third Pac-10 match in four tries Friday, losing a 4-3 heartbreaker to the higher-ranked Arizona State squad at Hellman Tennis Center in Berkeley. With the loss, the 15th-ranked Bears drop to 11-7 (1-3 Pac-10), while the No. 9 Sun Devils improve to 13-5 (3-2).  

After being swept in doubles, Cal gave Arizona State a run for its money in the latter half of the afternoon. No. 73 Catherine Lynch got her first crack at the top singles court this afternoon, challenging the nation’s 20th-ranked Adria Engel. 

Engel ultimately got the best of Lynch, however, losing 6-3, 2-6, 6-4.  

Jieun Jacobs scored the first point for the Bears in her return from illness, sweeping Cindy Sureephong off of court four, 6-1, 6-3. Jody Scheldt followed with an impressive 7-6, 6-3 win over Lauren Colallio. After the Sun Devils wrapped up their match-clinching fourth point, team captain Christina Fusano hunkered down to put an end to Mhairi Brown’s rally at the third spot, taking a 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 win.  

Cal completes its 2002 regular season home slate at noon Saturday at Hellman, taking on the visiting Arizona Wildcat squad.  

Cal’s Joyce wins hammer at Brutus  

Cal senior Jennifer Joyce threw a season-best 206-0 to win the hammer competition on the first of two days of the Brutus Hamilton Memorial Invitational Friday at Edwards Stadium.  

Joyce’s best throw of the day came on her final throw of the afternoon and was only three inches shy of her school record of 206-3. She has now won the hammer in five of Cal’s six meets this season and posted a second-place finish at the Stanford Invitational. Stanford’s Jessica Pluth was Joyce’s nearest challenger at 182-6. Also for the Cal women, junior Sheni Russell took fifth with a mark of 172-2, and Tammy d’Artenay placed seventh with a PR of 154-9.

Today is Saturday, April 13, the 103rd day of 2002. There are 262 days left in the year. 

Today’s Highlight in History: 

On April 13, 1970, Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst. (The astronauts managed to return safely.) 

On this date: 

In 1598, King Henry IV of France endorsed the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to the Protestant Huguenots. (The edict was abrogated in 1685 by King Louis XIV, who declared France entirely Catholic again.) 

In 1742, Handel’s “Messiah” was first performed publicly, in Dublin, Ireland. 

In 1743, the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born. 

In 1870, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in New York. 

In 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial. 

In 1958, Van Cliburn became the first American to win the Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow. 

In 1964, Sidney Poitier became the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award, for “Lilies of the Field.” 

In 1965, 16-year-old Lawrence Wallace Bradford Jr. was appointed by New York Republican Jacob Javits to be the first black page of the U.S. Senate. 

In 1986, Pope John Paul II visited a Rome synagogue in the first recorded papal visit of its kind. 

In 1981, Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke received a Pulitzer Prize for her feature about an eight-year-old heroin addict named “Jimmy”; however, Cooke relinquished the prize two days later, admitting she’d fabricated the story. 

Ten years ago: 

The Great Chicago Flood took place as the city’s century-old tunnel system and adjacent basements filled with water from the Chicago River. 

Five years ago: With tanks, sharpshooters and thousands of police deployed to protect him, Pope John Paul II preached forgiveness during a mass in Sarajevo. Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament and the first player of partly African heritage to claim a major golf title. 

One year ago: 

With the crew of a U.S. spy plane safely back in the United States, American officials gave their detailed version of what happened when the plane collided with a Chinese fighter on April 1; the United States said its plane was struck by the jet. (China maintained that the U.S. plane rammed the fighter.) 

Today’s Birthdays: 

Actor Howard Keel is 83. Actor Don Adams is 76. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., is 69. Actor Edward Fox is 65. Playwright Lanford Wilson is 65. Actor Paul Sorvino is 63. Movie and TV composer Bill Conti is 60. Actor Tony Dow is 57. Bluegrass singer-musician Sam Bush is 50. Rock musician Joey Mazzola (Sponge) is 41. Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is 39. Rock musician Lisa Umbarger (Toadies) is 37. Actor Rick Schroder is 32  

LOS ANGELES — MGM has agreed to allow New Line Cinema to parody its James Bond film “Goldfinger” in the title of the new “Austin Powers” sequel. 

In January, MGM successfully petitioned the Motion Picture Association of America to ban the suggestive name of the summer comedy “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” saying it infringed on the title of its 1964 Bond thriller. Both studios reached an agreement Thursday to allow the title. 

Part of the deal stipulated that “any future titles that may be construed as parodies of James Bond titles will be subject to MGM’s approval,” according to a joint statement from the studios. 

New Line’s 1999 sequel “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” was a parody of the 1977 Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me.” 

The Hollywood trade publication Variety reported Tuesday that MGM was negotiating to place an ad for the upcoming Bond adventure “Die Another Day” before the “Austin Powers” film and New Line’s “Lord of the Rings” film. Both studios, however, refused to confirm whether that was part of the final agreement. 

“Austin Powers in Goldmember” debuts July 26. It stars Mike Myers as a toothy, flower-child secret agent and co-stars Destiny’s Child singer Beyonce Knowles as his lover, Foxy Cleopatra. Myers also plays several bad guys, including hairless schemer Dr. Evil and the new villain, Goldmember. 

Baseball – St. Mary’s 9, St. Patrick 8 

The Panthers score three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to stay undefeated (4-0) in BSAL play. Pete McGuinness doubles home Manny Mejia for the game-winner as Marcus Johnson picks up the win in relief.

Geek Prom Debuts 

DULUTH, Minn. — If you play lots of video games and are frequently taunted as a “spaz,” a new prom may be just for you. 

The inaugural Geek Prom is planned for Saturday at Duluth’s NorShor Theater. 

“We’re not covering anything up,” organizer Paul Lundgren said. “It’s spastic fits of clumsy dancing.” 

The theme of the Geek Prom is “We are through being cool.” 

“No matter how much of a geek you are, there will be someone there who is a bigger geek than you,” he said. “Unless you end up being King or Queen Geek. And to be the best at anything, that can’t be bad, can it?” 

The night is being promoted as a party for adults who don’t fit in to have some fun with their own kind. And Lundgren said it’s not a slam against geeks. Everyone’s a geek in some way, he said, including himself. 

The evening will include video games where geeks can square off against each other. And Promoter Scott Lunt said the bar will serve drinks named after geek icons, like pocket protectors and Leonard Nimoy. 

Skunk Deters Getaway 

LEWISTON, Maine — Police who were chasing a man after a traffic stop got an unlikely assist from a skunk, who sprayed the suspect in the face. 

Kenneth Rideout, 32, was nailed after he ran into the woods Tuesday night. He was wanted for violating release conditions stemming from a domestic assault. 

The skunk didn’t stop Rideout but it slowed him down enough that police officers were able to catch up with him. 

“It was powerful enough to pretty much incapacitate him,” said police Lt. Tom Avery. 

Officer Eric Syphers arrested the smelly suspect. The squad car reeked by the time the prisoner arrived at the police station. 

“Sometimes we get help from where we don’t expect it,” Avery said. “We’re calling this skunk Officer Pepe LePew.” 

——— 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — There’s a moose on the loose, and Federal Express workers are being told to keep their distance. 

The company ordered its employees at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to stop feeding an orphaned moose calf that had been hanging around the company’s hub. 

While there is some risk the young moose could starve to death, feeding the animal causes an even greater risk, said biologist Rick Sinnott of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 

“If it gets aggressive, the only solution we have is to destroy the moose,” he said. 

Sinnott said as long as the calf doesn’t stick around long enough to become dangerous to people, it will eventually find grass and other food to eat elsewhere. 

“It is perfectly capable of moving out on its own,” he said. 

Sinnott said many people are unaware of how dangerous moose can be. They don’t realize that the animals, who can kick their sharp hooves with blazing speed, have killed people in the city, he said. 

“It’s those big brown eyes and the long lashes, and they look so cute,” he said. “I blame it all on Walt Disney and Bambi.” 

Trunks full of art draw admirers to Berkeley Art Museum 

How can one distinguish the subtle differences between the elephants Seng Wong and Arum? It’s all in their brush strokes. 

The pachyderms’ paintings, along with those of 14 other Asian elephant artists, premiered before a local audience at a benefit auction Thursday evening at the Berkeley Art Museum, and will remain on display through July 14. 

For those in attendance, the nearly 50 abstract expressionist paintings evoked reactions as diverse as the paintings themselves. 

But for the elephants this remains a straightforward endeavor. They are painting for survival. 

In Thailand, most domesticated elephants had worked for the past 150 years hauling cut trees from the country’s forests. But deforestation became so rampant that in 1990 the Thai government prohibited all logging. This may save what’s left of Thai forests, but it put approximately 3,000 elephants and their trainers (“mahouts”) out of work. 

The mahouts struggled to subsist. Some sold their elephants to circuses while others eked out an existence by teaching their elephants to do tricks for tourists. 

Little did they know how gifted some of their best log haulers were. In U.S. zoos elephants had been painting for two decades; Ruby, an elephant at the Phoenix Zoo had generated as much $100,000 a year from the sale of her paintings. 

Russian-born, New York-based conceptual artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid saw the untapped elephant art market as a potential solution to the plight of Asian elephants and mahouts. 

After learning how to train elephants to paint at an American zoo in 1995, they traveled to Thailand to teach domesticated elephants how to paint and the mahouts how to instruct new elephants in the craft. 

In order to paint, elephants hold a specially designed paintbrush in their trunk, explained Komar. The end of the trunk has a finger-like structure that can grasp the brush and allow the elephants to make strong, controlled stokes. The elephants are given an array of non-toxic water color paints from which to use. It takes an elephant about a half hour to complete a painting. 

Their initial effort in Thailand was so successful, that Komar and Melamid founded the Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project. Today, the AEACP supports four elephant art academies in Thailand, as well as one each in India and Indonesia. Most of the paintings are sold to local tourists. Thursday’s auction was AEACP’s third, the proceeds from which are donated to both painting and non-painting elephants in need. 

Komar insists that this is more than simply good charity - it is good art. “There are 15,000 muscles in an elephant’s trunk,” said Komar. “It is a far more sophisticated tool than any human hand.” 

Most elephants do not like to paint, according to Komar, but the approximately three dozen who have mastered the art are a breath of fresh air to the abstract art scene. “Elephants are innocent,” said Komar, contrasting them to human painters who he says paint what the art market encourages. “Elephants paint because they enjoy it, and their brush strokes are more exciting.” 

Komar doesn’t have to convince Maxi Lilley of the art’s merit. A self-described “animal rights person,” she placed a winning bid of $851 on a painting by Add, a Thai elephant. “I honestly believe that this is a beautiful work of art, and the context that an elephant made this makes it more exciting,” said Lilley. 

What struck most observers was how each elephant seemed to have a unique style. Some painted with well-defined organized strokes, while others painted more haphazardly, but each painter seemed to have a distinct technique.  

Arin Fishkin, a graphic designer from San Francisco, was more impressed with the disciplined painters.  

“Some paintings seem random, but in others conscious decisions are being made,” said Fishkin. 

Not everyone at the auction was impressed. “I think it’s rubbish,” said Rikke Jorgenson of San Francisco, who commented that the most frightening thing about the exhibit was that the pictures on the wall looked just like the works of respected artists. 

The art provoked as many questions as it did reactions. Those who were ready to concede that the paintings were, in fact, art, could not help but consider how this conclusion would affect not only how they viewed art, but also how they perceived elephants. 

“When you realize how differently the elephants paint, you realize that there is a personality there,” said Berkeley resident Greg Niemeyer.  

This sentiment is not lost on Komar, who while training elephants and mahouts in Thailand observed that when the mahouts understood that elephants could paint they started to respect them more. “They stopped punishing them because they could see their individuality,” said Komar. 

Painting has proven to be a lucrative business for elephants - officials estimate that Thursday’s auction raised about $15,000. But if their work can continue to affect the attitudes of those who care for them and those who experience their art, the elephants may obtain something even more precious than an income.

LAS VEGAS — Nevada is challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing rule for making Yucca Mountain the nation’s nuclear waste dump. 

The state attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Thursday against the regulatory commission’s November ruling. That ruling established health and safety regulations for storing 77,000 tons of the nation’s high-level nuclear waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

“The Yucca Mountain project will not achieve the geological isolation required by the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa in a statement. 

The commission could issue a license for the proposed nuclear waste repository even though it’s fundamentally unsafe from a long-term geologic perspective, said Joe Egan, Nevada’s lead nuclear attorney and a former nuclear engineer. 

“This violates the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and departs radically from the recommendations of the global scientific community,” he said. 

Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington could not immediately be reached for comment. 

Energy Department officials have said the site is scientifically sound and have expressed confidence that it can store the radioactive waste safely. 

The commission’s licensing rule for the proposed dump requires the federal Energy Department to demonstrate that radioactive emissions will meet the EPA’s emission standards for 10,000 years. 

Egan argued, however, that the radiation emissions are projected to increase steadily after that because of geologic deficiencies discovered by the Department of Energy in the late 1990s. 

Yucca Mountain is no longer expected to isolate radioactive waste if the manmade packages it’s stored in fail after 10,000 years, Egan said. 

The state also is challenging the Energy Department’s use of water, radiation standards, siting guidelines and the site recommendations by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and President Bush. 

The state has shut off water to Yucca Mountain, but the department switched to a newly built 1-million gallon tank and one small well. 

Gov. Kenny Guinn on Monday vetoed President Bush’s approval of the project, but Congress can override that veto with a majority vote. 

WASHINGTON — Several dozen Air Force cargo planes will be stationed at three California bases, providing hope the installations will remain open in the event of future base closures. 

Twelve C-17s will be stationed at Travis Air Force Base, eight C-17s and eight KC-130Rs at March Air Reserve Base and eight C-130Js at Channel Islands Air Force base. 

“This is great news for California, which has suffered perhaps more than any other state as a result of base closings,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a written statement. 

There have been four rounds of closings since 1988, with California losing more bases than any other state. 

“Because the decision will help ensure that operations at Travis, March and Channel Islands remain viable for years to come, it will also mean a great deal to the local economies and to the people who work and live around these bases,” Feinstein said. 

The new assignments will also mean additional funding for personnel and infrastructure improvements. Feinstein estimated that Travis Air Force Base could receive more than $150 million, while March Air Force Base could see more than $50 million. 

Highlights of Nevada’s volcanic past: 

AGE: Ninety-five percent of Nevada’s volcanism occurred more than 10 million years ago, UNLV geologist Eugene Smith estimated. 

THREAT: The U.S. Geological Survey lists potentially active volcanoes in California, Oregon and Washington, but none in Nevada. Nevada has been far less volcanically active than other Western states in recent geologic time, and its eruptions have been gentler, geologists agree. 

VOLCANIC HOT SPOTS: Lunar Crater and Yucca Mountain have been Nevada’s two most active volcanic fields over the last 6 million years, according to Smith’s studies. At least 14 eruptions have occurred in the Lunar Crater area in the last 1 million years. Eight cinder cones have erupted in the Yucca Mountain field in the last 1 million years, the last about 77,300 years ago. 

YOUNGEST VOLCANOES: Nevada’s only known younger volcanoes are at the Soda Lakes near Fallon, about 60 miles east of Reno, geologists say. An explosive eruption created two craters sometime between 1,500 and 10,000 years ago, said Jonathan Price, director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology. The craters have since filled with water. 

BACK COUNTRY BYWAY: A Bureau of Land Management Back Country Byway slices through the heart of the 100-square-mile Lunar Crater field, 75 miles east of Tonopah. Regarded by geologists as Nevada’s premier volcanic area, it features more than 200 cinder cones, a relatively young 1,900-acre lava field and its namesake: a massive 430-foot-deep crater formed by an explosive eruption sometime within the last 400,000 years. 

LOS ANGELES — Two Greenpeace activists were sentenced to a year’s probation Friday for taking part in a protest intended to stop the launch of an unarmed test missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base last year. 

Mathias Pendzialek, 35, and Tom Knappe, 35, both of Germany, had pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor conspiracy charge of knowingly entering a military property without authorization 

Initially, the group faced felony charges because they entered the “safety zone” at Vandenberg, located along the Central California coast, during a missile launch connected to the development of a national missile defense system. 

Federal prosecutors agreed to drop the felony charges as part of a deal that required Greenpeace USA to agree to refrain until 2007 from breaking the law at U.S. installations involved in missile-defense work. If the group does, it faces a $500,000 penalty. 

On July 14, 2001, a group of 17 people sailed from San Luis Bay in four boats to an area off Vandenberg where they entered a Coast Guard-declared “safety zone“in hopes of halting the launch of the Minuteman II. 

Greenpeace contends the protest delayed the launch by 40 minutes, but the government said it was only two minutes. ’ 

Before he was sentenced, Pendzialek told U.S. District Judge Margaret Morrow that he had a responsibility to peacefully protest to “say no when it is apparent that international laws are being broken.” 

Knappe said, “It was a protest against one of the most ... hazardous projects in the history of mankind.” 

The defense program is intended to develop the capability of intercepting and destroying incoming missiles while they are in space. 

Nine other activists pleaded guilty and received the same sentences earlier. Six others were to be sentenced Monday. 

SACRAMENTO — Authorities arrested a former employee and three others Friday who allegedly stole $1.3 million from the state Employment Development Department by issuing and cashing fraudulent disability insurance checks. 

Maria G. Sandoval, of Lynwood, a former state disability insurance program representative, and three others were charged in connection with several counts of mail fraud, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release Friday. 

Sandoval, 25, allegedly authorized payments to herself and three others using various birthdays and social security numbers. The checks then were deposited into several bank accounts, including those belonging to the defendants, the release said. Also arrested were: Aleajandro Gutierrez, 23, of Norwalk, and Michael Sandoval, 25, and Maria Majia Velasco, 55, both of Lynwood. The defendants were indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Sacramento.

SACRAMENTO — The California Department of Toxic Substances Control issued emergency regulations Friday designed to make sure hazardous waste isn’t used by terrorists. 

The new regulations increase reporting requirements whenever there is a discrepancy on shipping manifests for explosive or poisonous wastes. 

The measures apply to hazardous waste facilities that receive shipments of explosive or poisonous wastes from other locations. 

The facilities must report the discrepancies to the department within 24 hours by calling a toll-free number. They have five days to follow with a written report. 

SANTA ROSA — A Sonoma County jury has cleared James Kunstek of elder neglect in the death of an 89-year-old Monte Rio woman. 

Jurors said after the decision was announced Thursday — his 65th birthday — that they felt Kunstek had done all he could to help longtime friend Ruby Griggs, and that she had chosen not to seek other care. 

Kunstek had faced up to nine years in prison. “I’m just happy it’s over. I’ve gone through two years of hell,” Kunstek said. Prosecutor Spencer Brady said he was disappointed, but acknowledged it was a tough case. 

“The photographs were shocking, but the issues were complex,” he said. Kunstek was arrested in March 2000 at the home left to him by Griggs.

TONOPAH, Nev. — At one time, they spewed ash and lava. Now, they slumber in the southern Nevada desert where President Bush wants to build the nation’s nuclear waste dump. 

Eight cinder cones have erupted within 30 miles of the proposed Yucca Mountain site over the past 1 million years, and the desert is dotted with more than a dozen older volcanoes. 

The last eruption was about 77,300 years ago at the Lathrop Wells cinder cone nine miles south of Yucca Mountain, itself a much older volcanic ridge. 

Although federal scientists downplay the volcanic threat to the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, a new state-funded study questions the wisdom of entombing 77,000 tons of radioactive waste in what geologists consider a dormant volcanic field. 

“There’s a good likelihood there will be another eruption. It could be tomorrow or it could be sometime in the future,” said Eugene Smith, a University of Nevada-Las Vegas geology professor who headed the study under contract with the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency. 

The repository is strongly opposed by top Nevada elected officials, who have accused the federal government of ignoring safety concerns. The agency is a branch of the Nevada governor’s office. 

Energy Department scientists insist there’s only a 1-in-70 million chance of volcanic activity at Yucca Mountain during the 10,000 years that the radioactive waste must be contained. 

But in an article in the current edition of the Geological Society of America’s journal GSA Today, Smith suggests the Energy Department might be underestimating the volcanic risk. 

Citing rock chemistry as well as recent geochemical and geophysical studies by other scientists, Smith contends the Yucca Mountain area is linked by a belt of abnormally hot mantle to the more active Lunar Crater volcanic field 60 miles to the northeast. 

At least 14 volcanic eruptions have occurred in the Lunar Crater area in the past 1 million years, with the last two forming lava fields about 38,100 years ago. 

Lunar Crater and Yucca Mountain have been Nevada’s most active volcanic fields over the past 6 million years, according to Smith’s studies. 

If the two fields share a common area of hot mantle, Smith argues, volcanic recurrence rates of 11 to 15 events per million years in the Lunar Crater field are possible at Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department now sets volcanism probability at 3.7 to 12 events per million years at Yucca. 

Smith acknowledges his findings about hot mantle will generate considerable controversy among volcanologists. 

“This is the first time someone has proposed linking the two volcanic fields and it will be debated for a while by scientists,” Smith said. If accepted, however, scientists would view a volcanic eruption at Yucca Mountain as more likely. 

Energy Department scientists dispute Smith’s findings, saying they interpret the information differently and view Yucca Mountain and Lunar Crater as two distinct fields. 

Even if Lunar Crater’s higher rate of volcanism is factored into probability models, the chance of volcanic activity at Yucca Mountain still would be unlikely, they said. 

“We believe the two volcanic fields come from different source zones and operate independently of each other,” said DOE geologist Eric Smistad, who heads a federal team studying volcanism at Yucca Mountain. 

“We think we’ve got to the point in our volcanism studies that we’re on solid ground. ... We’re confident that volcanism won’t jeopardize the long-term safety of the repository.” 

But Bruce Crowe, the Energy Department’s top volcanic investigator at Yucca Mountain from 1980 to 1995, said Smith is a credible researcher whose findings should not be ignored. Crowe’s own studies concluded Lunar Crater and Yucca Mountain are separate fields. 

“Obviously, some scientists will say Gene is bringing some bias into the study,” Crowe said. “But I respect Gene for maintaining neutrality and fairness, even though he was under contract with the state of Nevada. I think he falls under the realm of sound science.” 

Smith’s findings will stir controversy partly because volcanic data are notoriously difficult to interpret, Crowe said. But that difficulty also allows conclusions to vary widely while still being considered credible interpretations. 

“I consider Gene’s speculations to be credible,” Crowe said. “They should be looked at carefully.” 

Duane Champion, a U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist in Menlo Park, Calif., said a link between the Yucca Mountain and Lunar Crater fields is possible. 

Another researcher found that volcanic eruptions in the Great Basin have occurred at the same time in places separated by up to 100 miles, he said. The Great Basin is a vast expanse that covers nearly all of Nevada. 

Smith’s findings “lead me ... to be curious about the chemistry arguments he’s bringing to bear,” Champion said. “It’s just a theory now. But I’m quite intrigued he could have merit to the argument.” 

Smith’s study also found that volcanism in the Yucca Mountain-Lunar Crater zone has been episodic, with three peaks of volcanism over the past 9.5 million years and quiet periods in between lasting 1 million to 2 million years. 

Smith said it’s been nearly 1 million years since the last peak of activity, but it’s unclear whether the zone now is at the beginning, middle or end of the current period of low activity. There have been three eruptions in the past 77,300 years. 

“Speculatively, these observations may indicate the end of the current period of low activity and an increase in the rate of eruption in the near future,” he wrote. 

But Smistad said the Department of Energy already has factored the area’s history into its probability models and doesn’t view it as a threat. The department has conducted volcanism studies at Yucca Mountain for more than two decades. 

“Gene is trying to suggest that volcanism is waxing and becoming more active in the Great Basin,” Smistad said. “But our 10 experts took all that into consideration and concluded that volcanism in the Great Basin is waning and dissipating.” 

Both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a federal technical oversight panel will take a position on Smith’s findings after hearing from both sides. 

“It’s surely something we would expect DOE to address,” said Bill Reamer, deputy director of the NRC’s waste management division. “Volcanism and the probability of volcanism is a key issue.” 

SANTA ROSA — A jury broke from deliberations with no verdict Friday in the rape and molestation case against a Santa Rosa priest. 

The prosecutor told jurors not to let the Rev. Don Kimball, 58, walk free from charges he raped and molested two teen-age girls more than 20 years ago. 

“Until this defendant is held responsible for these actions, he remains a danger to society,” prosecutor Gary Medvigy told the jury of nine men and three women. 

Kimball has denied the charges, though he has admitted to having sex with adult women. 

“I’m not here to apologize for him,” said Kimball’s lawyer Chris Andrian. “My job is to present evidence that casts some doubt.” 

The alleged rape victim, Mary Agbayani, who is now 38 and is allowing The Associated Press to use her name, sobbed Friday as Medvigy presented his final statement. After leaving the courtroom, she said she was too upset to talk. 

“I’ve got a lot of emotions right now,” Agbayani said. 

Her mother, Maureen Holden, said she hoped some good would result from the trial. 

“The church is changing. Eyes are beginning to open among the hierarchy,” she said. “One day, families will trust the church again.” 

Kimball’s trial is part of a nationwide purge of decades-old abuse by priests, leading to a renewed debate about celibacy. He is one of about a dozen Catholic clergymen who worked or lived in the Santa Rosa diocese who have been accused of sexual misconduct since 1989. 

Holden still attends Kimball’s former church, where a support group was formed three years ago for abuse victims and their families. 

“The Catholic Church is a business organization,” Holden said. “The Catholic faith is something inside you.” 

Kimball is accused of raping Agbayani on the floor near the altar of the Santa Rosa church in 1977, when she was 14. She claims Kimball arranged an abortion when the priest got her pregnant. He’s also accused of molesting a 13-year-old girl in 1981 in Healdsburg. If convicted, he could face more than eight years in prison. 

The prosecutor reminded jurors Friday that Kimball admitted to former Santa Rosa Bishop John Steinbock in 1990 that he had inappropriate sexual contact with six girls under 18. 

“The best evidence in this case ... was the defendant’s own admissions,” Medvigy said. 

On Thursday, Kimball’s lawyer said the victims embellished their stories. 

“How do we know today where the truth began and where it ended?” he asked. 

Andrian focused on Agbayani’s story. 

“This is a witness who told you she hasn’t always been truthful,” he said. “She wants you to believe that she was molested so all her fabrications and all her lies are going to be excused.” 

Kimball has insisted that the women falsely accused him because they wanted more money from the church — they each have already received about $120,000. 

Medvigy disputed that in court Friday. 

“They’re trying to make a difference, not just get money for themselves,” he said. “They want the Don Kimballs eliminated from the church.” 

The diocese says it has spent $7.4 million on settlements, counseling and attorneys’ fees on sex abuse cases. That includes $1.6 million to settle a 2000 civil suit against Kimball. 

Medvigy tried to show a pattern of abuse by recounting the testimony of six other women who claimed the priest inappropriately touched them during private counseling sessions that often took place in his bedroom. Kimball faces no charges in the alleged incidents involving those six women. 

Kimball was a popular youth minister in the 1970s, a disc jockey who used rock ’n’ roll to impart a religious message. 

Medvigy said young parishioners trusted Kimball. When they came to him in need of help, the prosecutor said, Kimball betrayed them. 

Kimball also faces an April 23 arraignment for allegedly shoving a San Francisco Chronicle photographer’s camera into her face, cutting her cheek and breaking her glasses. He was jailed Tuesday following the alleged assault and released hours later after posting $30,000 bail. 

SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County this week agreed to a settlement in the suit involving a San Jose youth whose 1998 attempted suicide left him unable to speak and confined to a hospital bed. 

Shane VanZerr tried to hang himself with a bed sheet when he was 14 while being held at the county Juvenile Hall for burglary and vandalism charges. When a guard discovered him, he had stopped breathing and suffered severe brain damage. 

After years of negotiations, the county agreed to pay his family $3.5 million. 

Shane’s mother, Shelly VanZerr-Terry, alleged in her lawsuit that the authorities failed to treat her son’s diagnosed mental illness adequately. She also claims that her son, who was on suicide watch at the facility, begged a counselor for help and threatened to kill himself the day he made his suicide attempt. 

SAN FRANCISCO — The woman convicted of second-degree murder in the dog mauling death of her neighbor has a new set of defense attorneys and a chance to convince a San Francisco judge she deserves a new trial. 

Superior Court Judge James Warren acknowledged the prosecution’s request for a speedy resolution but granted Marjorie Knoller’s requests Friday because of the case’s “unprecedented” nature. He delayed her sentencing date from May 10 to June 7. 

Knoller was convicted in the January 2001 mauling death of Diane Whipple, a college lacrosse coach who lived next door to Knoller in a San Francisco apartment building. Knoller faces 15 years to life in prison after becoming the first Californian convicted of second-degree murder in such as case. 

The same Los Angeles jury also convicted Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel, of manslaughter. He faces up to four years in prison. 

On Friday, Warren also granted Noel’s request to argue for a new trial. 

Warren said by June 7 he will either sentence the two, or grant them a new trial. San Francisco attorney Dennis Riordan, who with two other lawyers will replace Nedra Ruiz as Knoller’s defense team, said the evidence against Knoller was insufficient. 

Ruiz said Friday she was “totally on board” with Riordan taking over. 

During the trial, Ruiz’s dramatic style got her into trouble with the judge. Legal experts questioned her courtroom antics — at one point she got on her hands and knees to imitate a dog. 

“If I made mistakes I’m happy to admit them,” Ruiz told reporters. “I look forward to having Marjorie have a new and fair trial.” 

Prosecutor Jim Hammer said the conviction will stand because the jury carefully considered its decision. “It’s unfortunate Ms. Ruiz attacked the jury and their verdict,” he said. 

SACRAMENTO — Sheriff’s and FBI officials here are investigating a possible hate crime after a Jewish man said he was beaten by two attackers, one who claimed to support Palestine, officials said. 

Erech Olsen, 23, was walking his dog at a Sacramento park about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday when he noticed a man wearing a headdress, or kaffiyeh, following him. Olsen, who was wearing a yarmulke, stopped and asked the man what he wanted. 

Olsen said the man asked him if he supported Israel and he told him yes. The man then replied that he supported Palestine and pulled out an electric stun gun, Olsen told authorities. 

The two men struggled over the weapon, which Olsen said he threw to the ground and broke with his foot. A second man then joined the struggle and both beat Olsen, he said, and yelled at him about innocent Palestinian children being killed. 

Resident Maureen Ferguson said she told the men to stop and said the men took the yarmulke from Olsen’s head and threw it on the ground. 

After more yelling, the two men got in a blue van and drove off, Ferguson said. Olsen suffered bruises and a sprained elbow in the attack, Sgt. James Lewis said, adding that deputies did not find the stun gun. 

Olsen said he had been verbally attacked before. 

“There’s a lot of politically and religiously motivated crime here,” he told The Sacramento Bee. “It’s really disgusting that people can use their political beliefs, and twist it, use it for their own purpose and harm innocent people. It makes me sick in my stomach.” 

KATMANDU, Nepal — A bomb exploded near a school in northwestern Nepal on Saturday, killing three children and injuring four others, police said. 

The powerful explosion followed attacks Thursday night by Maoist guerrillas on four towns in western Nepal that left at least 54 people dead. 

The blast occurred in the town of Laltin Bazaar, about 370 miles northwest of the capital, Katmandu, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity. 

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but suspicion fell on Maoist rebels who have been fighting for the last six years to replace the Himalayan kingdom’s constitutional monarchy with communist rule. More than 3,000 people have been killed in the fighting. 

The rebels have been accused by some human rights groups of indiscriminately attacking security forces and civilians. Rights groups also accuse police of targeting civilians in their crackdown on the rebels. 

Government officials said the rebels killed 48 police officers and six civilians during raids on a police station, the house of Nepal’s security minister, two banks and bus in fighting that ended Friday morning. Security officials patrolling the Nepal-India border, however, told The Associated Press that nearly 100 police officers and civilians were killed in the attacks. 

SAN JOSE, Calif. — It’s the talk of Silicon Valley: How did someone break into the voice mail of Hewlett-Packard Co.’s chief financial officer, snag a sensitive message from his boss, Carly Fiorina, and leak it to the local newspaper? 

HP executives were shocked. But experts in phone systems and computer security say they’re not surprised — largely because voice mail is digital and is stored on computers. 

“If you don’t want it publicized, don’t say it digitally,” said Bruce Schneier, founder of Counterpane Internet Security Inc. “Don’t put it in e-mail, don’t record it in a voice mail, don’t put it in a Power Point presentation. Basically, all of this stuff is vulnerable.” 

The issue arose Wednesday, when the San Jose Mercury News reported that a March 17 message Fiorina left for CFO Robert Wayman had been anonymously forwarded to one of its reporters. 

The newspaper printed a transcript of the message and made the audio clip available online. 

In the message, left two nights before shareholders voted on HP’s $19 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp., Fiorina told Wayman she was worried that Deutsche Bank Asset Management and Northern Trust Global Investments would reject the deal. 

“We may have to do something extraordinary for those two to bring them over the line here,” Fiorina told him. 

The message was particularly timely because HP is being sued over allegations it improperly coerced Deutsche Bank to support the deal. In fact, the lawsuit threatens the entire deal. 

So how could such a sensitive message get out? 

HP executives won’t publicly discuss any theories, and have threatened legal action against the thief if he or she is caught. 

Several scenarios are rather low-tech: Someone close enough to Wayman to know his voice mail password doesn’t like the Compaq deal, found the message and sent it to the Mercury News. Or Wayman wasn’t careful with his password and wrote it somewhere in his office, where someone untrustworthy found it. Or Wayman forwarded the message and it was in turn passed along to a fervent opponent of the merger. 

There are more complicated, more technical possibilities that include such voice mail features as back-door entries for administrators, who can cover their tracks, and on some networked systems, the potential to capture a user’s password. 

As many a geek at Hewlett-Packard well knows, voice mail messages generally are converted into chunks of data that get stored on computer hard disks. 

However, messages do not show up in most systems as discernible files, and are converted back into their original, audible form only when someone enters the mailbox’s password, said Marty Parker, a vice president with Avaya Inc., a New Jersey-based maker of voice and data systems. 

“So even a technician would have to change the password to play a message, and the user would know a password had been changed,” Parker said. And even if a company archives deleted voice mails, “it would take quite a bit of skill and knowledge to abuse the backup system.” 

The breach was a hot topic this week among the engineering and technical minds of Palo Alto-based HP, where employees tend to communicate internally through voice mail more than by e-mail. 

“I’ll guarantee that HP didn’t do everything possible to make their voice mail secure,” Schneier said. Most companies “think about network security — they don’t think about voice. Maybe now they’ll start.”

SACRAMENTO — The state could monitor power plants’ maintenance and operation to make sure plants aren’t being deliberately pulled off-line, under legislation sent to Gov. Gray Davis Thursday. 

Often a third of the state’s plants were down for scheduled or unscheduled maintenance during last year’s power crisis, said the author, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco. 

“Much of it, we believe, was off ...(because) if you can decrease the supply you can increase the demand,” Burton said. 

Several studies and whistle-blowers accused power companies of choking supply to raise prices, helping spark a series of rolling blackouts a year ago. 

Such manipulation cost Californians $6 billion in overcharges the last two years, alleged a report by the California Independent System Operator, which manages the state’s power grid. Attorney General Bill Lockyer has filed eight lawsuits accusing power companies of overcharges. 

Power companies deny deliberate shutdowns. The Independent Energy Producers, a trade group, said plants ran at an unprecedented rate to keep up with soaring demand, often forcing shutdowns for unscheduled repairs. 

An opponent of the bill, state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Northridge, said the problem was more a result of the state’s year’s long failure to approve sufficient power plants to keep up with demand. 

The bill is contingent on passage of a companion Assembly bill creating a new state program to assure reliable power will in the future be available from California-based plants. 

The Assembly-approved measure was approved by senators on a 23-13 vote. 

It authorizes the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to establish and enforce maintenance and operation standards for power plants to ensure their reliable operation. 

The PUC already has some such powers, which power companies said is sufficient. But proponents said their bill is needed to clarify and enhance that authority in conjunction with the Independent System Operator.

OAKLEY — A government water-protection agency has denied funding to a coalition of environmental groups that hope to turn farm land into a tidal marsh. 

Groups including the Natural Heritage Institute and the Coastal Conservancy must now revamp their proposal if they want to get a $32.5 million grant for the Dutch Slough preservation plan in eastern Contra Costa County. 

CalFed, the combined state and federal agency, will award $150 million annually for the next three years to projects that protect or rehabilitate watersheds. 

On Thursday, CalFed recommended full funding to 55 of 257 applicants, including one from Richmond. 

“I was expecting them to fund the project outright,” said John Cain, a restoration ecologist for the Heritage Institute. “But it shows good judgment on CalFed’s part if they want to better understand exactly what we’re doing. This allows for more discussion, which will ultimately make a better project.” 

Although the Dutch Slough plan didn’t get immediate funding, the coalition has until the summer to develop the plan further and resubmit the proposal. 

The Oakley city council has opposed the project and threatened legal action. The city designated the dairy farmland for housing and already has big plans for how to spend the fees it would generate. 

Overgrown shrubs may land senior in jail 

PALO ALTO — A 61-year-old woman is facing criminal charges for letting her shrubs grow too high, making her the first person to be prosecuted under a city public-nuisance law. 

The law prohibits any shrub more than 2 feet high in the strip of dirt between a street and a sidewalk. Police and the city attorney say it’s a safety issue, but software engineer Kay Leibrand says she just wants to have a barrier between her house and the busy street. 

She faces a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to six months in jail for the misdemeanor charge. Leibrand will be arraigned next month. 

“This is about protecting kids who are too small to be seen from being hit by cars,” City Attorney Ariel Carlonne said. 

Carlonne said Leibrand had every opportunity to trim the shrubs. But Leibrand says she won’t do it as a matter of principle. 

Leibrand, who has lived in her house since 1966, said the six-feet shrubs give her some privacy and shield the stone patio where she reads and gardens. 

Oakland diocese speaks out about alleged sexual misconduct of priest 

FREMONT — The Oakland diocese said it barred a priest recently accused of molesting a teen-age parishioner in 1979 from working with children after two boys complained he sexually abused them in 1985. 

The church did not report the abuse to the police, but instead performed their own investigation and sent Rev. Robert Freitas to counseling, diocese chancellor Sister Barbara Flannery said Thursday. He returned to the church with limited duties and was not allowed to have contact with children since 1985. 

Flannery said the diocese only learned of the alleged 1979 abuse last month when the former parishioner, now 37 years old, came forward. This time, the diocese immediately notified police before stripping Freitas, 56, of all ministerial duties. 

Alameda County authorities charged Freitas on Tuesday with one count of committing a lewd act upon a child and one count of oral copulation with a child. He pleaded innocent to the charges earlier this week. 

Police are investigating the possibility that there are as many as four more victims. 

Presidio shaves its staff to save some cash 

SAN FRANCISCO — The organization in charge of running the Presidio has eliminated 62 positions, a company spokesman said Friday. 

Through a hiring freeze, voluntary exits and layoffs, the Presidio Trust cut 13 percent of its 458 employees, said spokesman Ron Sonenshine. 

Congress created the trust in 1996, requiring it to become financially self sufficient by 2013. The staff cut will help the organization drop its yearly operations budget by more than $6 million, to $44.6 million next year, Sonenshine said. 

Roughly $21 million comes from the federal government, with the rest coming from the rents on the 1,100 homes on the property. 

Employees received a severance package equal to six weeks pay. 

LOS ANGELES — Driven by declines in manufacturing, construction and real estate jobs, California’s unemployment rate rose slightly in March to 6.4 percent, according to preliminary figures released Friday. 

The figure marked an increase from the revised 6.2 percent in February, the Employment Development Department said. 

A year ago, the state’s jobless rate was 4.8 percent. 

Despite improvement in the overall economy, a mere 200 jobs were added to nonfarm payrolls in March. 

“In the early stages of a recovery, employers, rather than hiring new workers, will increase the hours of their existing staff,” said Tom Lieser, senior economist for the UCLA Anderson Forecast. “It takes a while to produce a reduction in unemployment.” 

Overall, economists said the latest employment numbers did not provide many clues as to the direction of the state’s economy. 

But trends seemed to confirm that the economy is on a slow upswing and on track to recover more aggressively in the second half of the year. 

“Declines in manufacturing employment, which had been falling rather sharply, appear to be subsiding,” said Brad Williams, senior economist at the state Legislative Analysts Office. 

Williams said he could not tell if the loss of manufacturing jobs had reached bottom. 

“That’s the hope here,” he said. “We had been predicting the manufacturing sector would stabilize by the middle of the year.” 

March brought job gains in the services sector, including 12,100 positions in the motion picture industry. Economists said the gains were likely seasonal or part of a surge in production after new contracts were reached with actors and writers last year. 

The largest losses came in the transportation and public utilities sector, which shed a total of 6,900 jobs. Manufacturing lost 2,000 jobs. 

In a year-to-year comparison, government jobs, primarily in education, showed the strongest growth, increasing by 88,100 positions. 

Manufacturing showed the largest decline, shedding a total of 120,300 jobs in the past year. 

NEW YORK — The New York premiere of “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,” will raise money for the city’s underprivileged kids and children of the victims of Sept. 11, festival organizers said Wednesday. 

“As a father and filmmaker, it’s my pleasure to offer the film in support of the children of New York City,” said “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. 

The premiere, scheduled for May 12 during the Tribeca Film Festival, will benefit The Children’s Aid Society, which helps the city’s disadvantaged children and has provided millions of dollars in aid to those affected by the terrorist attacks. 

Two private screenings of the latest “Star Wars” prequel will take place that morning for children and their families; the premiere that afternoon will be the fund-raiser to benefit The Children’s Aid Society. Natalie Portman, one of the movie’s co-stars, is expected to attend, as well as Frances McDormand, Karen Allen, Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon. 

Tickets are $500 for the pre-party and screening and $1,000 for the pre-party, screening and VIP seating. 

Premieres of the film will take place in 11 North American cities on May 12, with seats in each theater set aside for underprivileged children. 

“Attack of the Clones,” the second chapter of Lucas’ six-part “Star Wars” saga, also stars Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson. It opens nationwide on May 16. 

The inaugural Tribeca Film Festival (May 8-12) aims to help reinvigorate the Tribeca section of lower Manhattan, one of the hardest hit on Sept. 11. Robert De Niro, co-founder of the festival, based his Tribeca Productions in the neighborhood in 1988. 

On the Net: 

Tribeca Film Festival: http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/ 

Children’s Aid Society: http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/ 

“Star Wars” Web site: http://www.starwars.com/episode-ii/ 

While I was walking around the 2002 Photo Marketing Association Convention in Orlando, Fla., I felt like a kid in a candy store. Dozens of new digital darkroom tools were introduced and shown. 

Here’s a quick look. You can learn more about them by doing a Web search. Simply type the name of the company in the search window. 

ACD Systems showed its ACDSee 4.0, a program designed for amateur picture-makers who want to do basic image-enhancing and correcting. The program also lets you easily find, rename and organize digital files (which is becoming increasingly important as you store more and more digital images). 

Adobe demonstrated its latest version of Photoshop, Photoshop 7.0. The new professional program, while featuring many of the image-correcting and enhancing tools that have made Photoshop the standard imaging program for professionals, now offers a Healing Brush, for easily removing wrinkles and other imperfections on a person’s face; a File Browser, so you find an image before you open it; and an improved system for creating Web pages. 

Apple was not an exhibitor, but the company’s flat panel displays were attracting attention at several booths. With a resolution of 1600x1024 pixels, the 22-inch Apple Cinema Display is two times sharper and has three times the contrast of most standard displays — making it a useful tool for serious digital photographers. 

Canon was proud of its new S9000 bubble jet printer, which uses six individual ink cartridges to achieve accurate and full color. The printer uses inkjet paper up to 13 x 19 inches. 

Espon had a new printer, too. The Epson Stylus Photo 820 uses Epson’s new Image Matching Technology, designed to produce consistent color from a compatible digital camera to the final print. 

Jasc Software released a program called After Shot, which helps users organize, fix and share pictures from a digital camera. After Shot also offers an automatic stitching feature — for stitching (or splicing) several pictures together for a panoramic image. Slide shows are possible, too. 

Nikmultimedia demonstrated software, nikColorEfex!, that can mimic traditional lens filters, including polarizing, graduated, warming — to name but a few. The company’s nikSharpener Pro! also drew the attention of digital darkroom artists who want to get the sharpest print. 

Ulead announced its DVD PictureShow Imaging Suite — the first complete slideshow-generating software that lets users share digital photos on television. With the program, slideshow projects can be saved onto CDs and DVDs that play on most home DVD players. 

WACOM showed an interactive tablet-flat screen display called the Cintiq that lets photographers work (with a special, pressure-sensitive pen) and see their results directly on a flat screen, much like an artist paints directly on a canvas. The device offers more precise control than a standard tablet — and much more control than a mouse on a mouse pad. 

A closing thought. With all the digital tools and toys that are readily available, some photographers I’ve met recently are more concerned with what happens after a picture is taken, than when a picture is taken. They feel they can fix it up and save it in the digital darkroom. My advice is to start with the very best original possible — and then take it from there! 

Rick Sammon is the host of the Digital Photography Workshop on the Do It Yourself (DIY) cable and satellite network.

Yesterday morning a woman drenched in blood locked herself to the entrance of City Hall demanding that city officials draft a resolution condemning the killing of “babies in Babylon.” 

Susan B. Rodriguez, a local anarchist, said she and three friends drew their own blood and stained her clothes with it, to “shock and educate America’s desensitized society” about the increasing violence in the Middle East.  

“I did it because it needs to be announced to the world that we condemn the whole thing, especially when it comes to children — it’s sad that our children even have to see this blood,” Rodriguez said. “And we all have blood on our hands if we stand still for it. 

“What I said was it’s a ‘Sad day in Babylon when children are blowing themselves up to stop a war. Shame, shame on you, you bastards,” she added, speaking specifically of recent youthful suicide bombers.  

In February, the Israel Security Agency, in cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces, arrested a 17-year-old boy allegedly on his way to carry out a suicide attack against IDF soldiers in Gaza. The boy, Anwar Ahmed Abd al Halak Hamed, was a member of the Abu Rish faction of the PLO's Fatah and admitted that he had intended to attack a motor convoy on the coasttal road.  

On March 30th, an 18-year-old Palestinian girl named Ayat al-Akhras carried a bomb into a supermarket and successfully ignited it killing herself and 17-year-old Rachel Levy.  

Rodriguez said the blood was necessary to remind people here at home what it looked like. 

She made two demands, before giving up the City Hall entrance way. She demanded to speak with Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean and demanded a proclamation condemning the war. 

Rodrgiquez said she felt victorious in the end because both her demands were met and she “held City Hall” for an hour and a half. 

Rodriquez arrived at City Hall at approximately 8:00 a.m. and remained there until 9:30 a.m., stopping city workers from entering through the east doors. But city workers did enter city hall through the other side of the building and the workday was not disrupted due to the demonstration. 

When Dean arrived on the scene, Rodriguez was reportedly calm and cooperative. 

“Other than her appearance there was nothing very alarming. She spoke quite calm and i told her I could certainly agree to a letter and to a proclamation condemning the war, but that I could not agree on any specific wording,” Dean said. 

Dean said she will work on some language for such a proclamation and bring the issue up at the next convenient council meeting. 

“I figure everybody in the city is for peace so we can find some language to express those sentiments,” Dean said. 

But Dean did tell Rodriguez that she would prefer to have future conversations in the office and not out on the steps.  

Berkeley has received national attention at times in the past for choosing to cast votes on international issues that they have no jurisdiction over.  

But Rodriguez said she feels it is Berkeley’s responsibility to do so.  

“It’s our birthright as Berkeleyans. We were the first to speak out on many of the issues that people have in life today,” Rodriguez said. “And in the least, this will keep the platform.”

To the Editor: 

My daughter is on the novice women's crew team at BHS. I think it is absurd to even CONSIDER not giving P.E. credit for this sport. These girls get up at 4:30 am every weekday to go to Lake Merritt and practice for two hours. 

They get themselves back to school on time for class. This sport is intense and the practices are year-round and grueling! Crew is very well-organized, well-coached and very educational. Being on the team requires conditioning, nutrition awareness, self-discipline, teamwork and extreme dedication.  

I can't imagine any PE class requiring this degree of effort or imparting this degree of education.  

The team is diverse. Scholarships are available. No one is excluded and a great deal of effort goes into recruiting from the public middle schools. I am extremely proud of my daughter, the whole team, and the organization. Not only are they out there representing Berkeley High School throughout the state, and being excellent ambassadors for our high school and community, they are terrific examples of what can be accomplished at the high school level by women athletes. 

When something works this well it makes sense to nurture it — not to do it harm.  

Cynthia Papermaster 

Berkeley 

NEW YORK — The owners of several Times Square buildings have filed a lawsuit against the makers of the upcoming “Spider-Man” movie for digitally altering a sign appearing in the motion picture. 

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, the owners of 2 Times Square allege that Columbia Pictures digitally replaced a Samsung advertisement on the side of the building with one for USA Today. The sign appears three times in the film, according to court papers. 

Samsung is a competitor of Sony, which owns Columbia Pictures. 

“We think it’s inappropriate to substitute your own image for the one that exists,” Anthony Costantini, a lawyer for building owners Sherwood 48 Associates, told the Daily News in Thursday’s editions. 

Heidi Henderson, a spokeswoman for USA Today, said the paper was not paid for having its name appear in the movie; she said the filmmakers simply picked the newspaper’s logo to place on the building. 

A call to Sony was not immediately returned Thursday. 

The Samsung advertisement also was changed in some television commercials promoting the movie with an ad for a wireless telephone company. 

The movie, starring Tobey Maguire as the Marvel Comics superhero, is scheduled to be released May 3. 

Music 

924 Gilman Apr. 5: The Frisk, The Tantrums, Last Great Liar, Intrepid A.A.F., I Decline; Apr. 6: All Bets Off, Time in Malta, Animosity, Breath In, For the Crown; Apr. 12: Missing 23rd, Himsa, Bleeding Through, Belvedere; Apr. 13: Labrats, Damage Done; Apr. 19: Ludicra, Sbitch, Watch Them Die, Beware, Hate Mail Killer; Apr. 20: The Sick, All Bets Off, Vitamin X, Sharp Knife, Dead in the End; Apr. 21: Harum Scarum; Fleshies, Iowaska, Disobedience; Apr. 26: The Lawrence Arms, Taking Back Sunday, Before The Fall; Apr. 27: Pitch Black, Fall Silent, The Cause, The 86ers, As I; All shows begin a 8 p.m., most cost $5. 924 Gillman St., 525-9926 

The Albatross Apr. 4: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Apr. 9: Mad & Eddie Duran; Apr. 10: Farms in Berkeley; Apr. 13: 9:30 p.m., The Fourtet Jazz Group; Apr. 16: Carla Kaufman & Larry Scala; All shows begin at 9 p.m. unless noted. 822 San Pablo Ave., 843-2473, albatrosspub@mindspring.com. 

Anna’s Bistro Apr. 4: Graham Richards Jazz Quartet; Apr. 5: Anna de Leon & Ellen Hoffman, 10 p.m., Hideo Date; Apr. 6: Renegade Sidemen; Apr. 7: Danubius; Apr. 8: Renegade Sidemen; Apr: 9: Singers open mic; Apr. 10: Jimmy Ryan Jazz Quartet; Apr. 11: Hanif and The Sound Voagers; Apr. 12: Anna de Leon, 10 p.m., Hideo Date; Apr. 13: Ed Reed, 10 p.m., Ducksan Distones Jazz Sextet; Apr. 14: Choro Time; Apr. 15: Renegade Sidemen; Music starts at 8 p.m. unless noted, 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Ashkenaz Music and Dance Community Center Apr. 3: Creole Belles, $8; Apr. 4: Grateful Dead DJ Night w/ Digital Dave, $5; Apr. 5: Steve Lucky & The Rhumba Bums, $11; Apr. 6: Kotoja, $12; Apr. 7: Wadi Gad, Sister I-Live & The Songbirds w/ the 48th Street Band, $10; Apr. 9: Tim Rigney w/ Flambeau, $8; Apr. 10: Red Archibald & The Internationals, $8; Apr. 11: Alan Winston & The Mosoco Ceilidh Band, $8; Apr. 12: Drums of Passion, $15; Apr. 13: Gator Beat, $11; Check venue for showtimes, 1317 San Pablo Ave., 548-0425. 

Blake’s Apr. 4: Electronica w/ Ascension, $5; Apr. 5: Orixa, American Rebus, $7; Apr. 6: Felonious, Psychokinetics; Apr. 7: Forcing Bloom, $3; Apr. 8: The Steve Gannon Band & Mz. Dee; $4; Apr. 9: Filibuster, Mr. Q, $3; Apr. 10: Hebro, free; Apr. 11: Electronica w/ Ascension, $5; Apr. 12: Kofy Brown, Subterraneanz, $7; Stonecutters, $5, Apr. 14: Ted Ekman; Apr. 15: Steve Gannon Band & Mz. Dee, $4; 2367 Telegraph Ave., 877-488-6533. 

Cafe Eclectica Mar. 22: 8 p.m., The Teethe, The Natural Dreamers, Yasi, $3; Mar. 23: 8 p.m., Guest DJs and MCs, $5; 1309 Solano Ave., Albany, 527-2344, Shows are All Ages.  

Cal Performances Apr. 7: 3 p.m., Murray Perahia, classical pianist, $28 - $48; Apr. 28: 3 p.m., The Silk Road Esemble presents music from China and Central Asia, $34; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, 642-9988 

Cato’s Ale House Apr. 7: Mo’ Fone; Apr. 10: Irish Session; Apr. 14: Stiff Dead Cat; Apr. 17: Go Van Gogh; Apr. 21: The Backyard Party Band; Apr. 24: Vince Wallace Trio; Apr. 28: The Lost Trio; All shows 6 - 9 p.m., free. 3891 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, 655-3349, www.mrcato.com. 

Dotha’s Juke Joint at Everett and Jones Barbeque Apr. 5, 12, 19, 26: Gwen Avery and The Blues Sistahs, $12, 8 and 10 p.m., 126 Broadway, Oakland, 663-7668. 

Downtown Apr. 5: Danny Caron; Apr. 6: Michael Bluestein Trio; Apr. 7: Gary Rowe; Apr. 9: Aaron Greenblatt; Apr. 10: Dave Mathews; Apr. 12: The Hot Club of San Francisco; Apr. 13: Walter Earl; Apr. 14: Gary Rowe; Apr. 16: Mimi Fox; Apr. 17: Dred Scott; Apr. 19 and 20: Rhonda Benin and Soulful Strut; Apr. 21: Gary Rowe; Apr. 23: Aaron Greenblatt; Apr. 24: Dave Mathews; Apr. 26: Joshi Marshall; Apr. 27: Danny Caron; Apr. 30: The Ned Boynton Combo; 2102 Shattuck Ave., 649-3810. 

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

Fellowship Cafe Apr. 19: 7:30 p.m., open mic, $5-$10. Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar, 540-0898. 

Freight & Salvage Apr. 3: Jimmy Bruno, Bob Reid; Apr. 4: Mighty Mo Rodgers; Apr. 5: Peter Kessler & Gail Fratar, Rick Shea & Brantley Kearns, Apr. 6: Greg Brown; Apr. 7: Dervish; Apr. 10: Martin Carthy; Apr. 11: Bryan Bowers; Apr. 12: Fiddlers 4, Michael Doucet, Darol Anger, Bruce Molsky & Rushad Eggleston; Apr. 13: Scheryl Wheeler; Apr. 14: John Gorka; Apr. 15: Bob Paisley & The Southern Grass; $15.50 - $19.50, 1111 Addison St., 548-1761, folk@freightandsalvage.org 

The Starry Plough Apr. 4: 9:30 p.m., Clumsy Lovers, Missin’ Cousins, Yard Sale, $6; Apr. 5: 9:30 p.m., Dave Gleason’s Wasted Days, Bellyahcers, The Mother Truckers, $6; Apr. 6: 9:30 p.m., 86, Warm Wires, Sonny Smith, $5; Apr. 7: 8 p.m., The Starry Irish Music Session; Apr. 8: 7 p.m., Dance Class and Ceili (traditional Irish music), free; Apr. 9: 9 p.m., Bonnie Price Billy, RainYwood, $12; Apr. 10: 8:30 p.m., Poetry Slam, $7; Apr. 11: Jessica Lurie Ensemble, Will Bernard Trio, $6; Apr. 14: 8 p.m., The Starry Irish Music Session; Apr. 15: 7 p.m., Dance Class and Ceili (traditional Irish music), free; Apr. 16: open mic, free; Apr. 17: 8:30 p.m., Poetry Slam, $7; Apr. 18: 9:30 p.m., Dallas Wayne, Amy Rigby, $6; Apr. 19: 9:30 p.m., Tempest, Brazen Hussey, $10; 3101 Shattuck Ave., 841-2082. 

Borealis Wind Quintet Apr. 13: 7:30 p.m., $25 - $35, Scottish Rite Auditorium, Oakland, 451-0775, www.ticketweb.com. 

The Texas Twisters Blues Band Apr. 20: 9 p.m., Rountree’s, 2618 San Pablo Ave., 663-0440. 

Dance 

“Compania Espanola De Antonio Marquez” Mar. 13 & 14: 8 p.m., Artistic Director Antonio Marquez showcases his dazzling and dynamic program of flamenco. $24 - $36. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Campus, 642-9988 

Theater 

“A Fairy’s Tail” through Apr. 7: 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., 5 p.m. Sun., The Shotgun Players present Adam Bock’s story of a girl and her odyssey of revenge and personal transformation after a giant smashes her house with her family inside. Directed by Patrick Dooley. $10 - $25. Mar. 16 - 31:Thrust Stage at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St.; Apr. 4 - 7: UC Theatre on University Ave.; 704-8210, www.shotgunplayers.org. 

“Merrily We Roll Along” Apr. 5 through Apr. 21: Fri. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. or 7 p.m., BareStage Productions presents a musical comedy told in reverse tracing a famous songwriter and film producer back though his career to his youthful beginnings as a struggling artist. $8 - $10. UC Berkeley. 

Friday, April 12

City Commons Club 

12:30 p.m. 

2315 Durant Ave.  

“Myths About Aging,” Susan V. Mullen, D.C. Chiropractor. $1. 848-3533. 

“Alfred Kroeber and his Legacy” 

Friday, 4-6:15 p.m.; Saturday, 8:30-11:30 a.m., 1:30-3:30 and 4-4:30 

UCBerkeley, Friday Doe Library’s Morrison Room. Saturday Vally Life Sciences Building Room 2040 

Distinguished alumni from UCBerkeley anthropology department explore historical highlights from their department with a course taught by Alfred Kroeber. Free. 

Berkeley Women in Black 

noon - 1 p.m. 

Bancroft and Telegraph Ave. 

Stand in solidarity with Israeli and Palestinian women to urge an end  

to the occupation, which will give greater hope for an end to the  

violence. 548-6310, wibberkeley.org. 

Still Stronger Women 

Greta Garbo's life, plus movie 

1:15 - 3:15 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave 

Free. (510) 232-1351 

Saturday, April 13

Emergency Preparedness Class 

9 a.m. - 1 a.m. 

Emergency Operations Center 

997 Cedar St. 

A class disaster mental health. 981-5605 

10th Annual Chinese Masters in Martial Arts Series 

8:30 a.m. 

UC Berkeley 

Haas Pavilion  

Day-long event will include competition in contemporary, traditional and internal styles of wushu. The Masters demonstration will begin at 8:00 p.m. 841-1486.  

Rescheduled BPWA Path Walk 

"Boundary Walk" 

10 a.m.- noon, rain or shine 

Join naturalist, Paul Grunland, as he leads an exploration of the Berkeley 

Paths on the Berkeley Kensington Boundary. Meet at Grizzly Peak/Spruce, the reservoir. 

Building Education Center- Free Lecture 

“What You Need To Know Before You Build or Remodel” 

10 a.m.- noon 

Preview of the Homeowner’s Essential Course, presented by builder Glen Kitzenberger - learn to solder pipe and more!  

812 Page 

525-7610 

Make Your Own Book 

2 - 4 p.m. 

Albany Library  

1247 Marin Ave. 

In a free hands-on workshop budding authors and artists of all ages can create origami books, "wheel books," photo albums and other types of books. 526-3720. 

Party For Your Health 

10:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Corner of M.L.K. and Center St. 

A free community health fair for all ages. Health screenings (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.), information and games, alternative health services, organic and vegetarian food, poetry slam and music. 665-6833, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/publichealth/. 

Sunday, April 14

Non-religous Meditation Group 

5 p.m. 

Fig Tree Gallery 

2599 8th St. 

428-9466. 

Mike Ruppert on Truth & Lies of 9/11 

6 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall 

1924 Cedar 

Video showing followed by audience discussion. Free. 528-5403. 

Preserving Photographs 

3 p.m. 

Veterans Memorial Building 

Berkeley History Center 

1931 Center St. 

Sunday, April 14, 

Drew Johnson, Oakland Museum photo curator, will talk on "Preserving  

Photographs.” Part of a five lecture series connected with the exhibit "From the Attic: How to Preserve and Share our Past." 848-0181, http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/. 

Animals in Politics 

noon 

Fellowship of Humanity 

411 28th St. 

California Coordinator for the Fund for Animals, Virginia Handley, tells about the legislative process in California, the latest news on all the animal bills, and how animal advocates can help pass humane legislation. 451-5818, HumanistHall@yahoo.com. 

Choosing to Add On: The Pros and Cons  

of Building an Addition 

noon - 2 p.m. 

812 Page  

Building Education Center- Free Lecture by Skip Wenz. 525-7610. 

Monday, April 15

Respite Caregiver Volunteer Training 

9 a.m. - 12 p.m. 

Catholic Charities 

433 Jefferson St., Oakland 

Part one of a two day training for anyone interested in becoming a respite care volunteer. 768-3147, betty@cceb.org 

Parkinson’s Support Group 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst 

Berkeley,  

For more information, call 981-5190. 

Berkeley Society of Friends (Quakers) 

2151 Vine Street 

Berkeley, Ca 94709 

(510) 843-9725 

Building Education Center- Free Lecture 

“What You Need To Know Before You Build or Remodel” 

7-9 p.m. 

Preview of the Homeowner’s Essential Course, presented by builder Glen Kitzenberger - learn to solder pipe and more!  

812 Page 

525-7610 

Peace Builders 

9 a.m. 

2151 Vine St. 

The Berkeley Society of Friends is presenting talks from four inspiring peace builders in April and May, beginning with Melody Ermachild Chavis and Latifa Popal who have just returned from Afghanistan. 527-8475. 

Berkeley Partners for Parks Meeting 

7:30 - 9 p.m. 

City Corp. Yard  

1326 Allston Way 

Public invited to discuss and advocate for parks and open space in Berkeley. 649-9874. 

Tuesday, April 16

Respite Caregiver Volunteer Training 

9 a.m. - 12 p.m. 

Catholic Charities 

433 Jefferson St., Oakland 

Part two of a two day training for anyone interested in becoming a respite care volunteer. 768-3147, betty@cceb.org 

Berkeley Camera Club 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church 

941 The Alameda 

Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 525-3565. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m.  

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Affordable Housing Advocacy Project is sponsoring a series of Town Hall Meetings to present its annual update of their five year plan. 548-8776 

Spring Travel Writer’s Seminar 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Packing Demonstration: how to pack for three weeks, two climates in one manageable carry-on bag. 843-3533 

Brown Bag Career Talk 

YWCA Turning POINT CAREER CENTER 

2600 BANCROFT WAY 

noon - 1 p.m. 

Frank Vargas of Berkeley will speak on the process of gaining employment in the many aspects of city government. $3 

"Self-Built Eco-Homes and Communities in  

Britain and Temple of Human Unity." 

7 - 9 p.m.  

Ecology Center  

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Jeffrey Gale, British Eco-Architect, Permacultural Garden Designer will give a Slideshow presentation. 548-2220 x233. 

Low-Cost Hatha Yoga Class 

6:30 p.m. 

James Kenney Recreation Center 

1720 8th St. 

$6 per class. 981-6651. 

Alameda wins ACCAL track & field meet 

Berkeley High dominated the sprints and Alex Enscoe won the mile and two-mile events on Thursday, but that wasn’t enough to beat the massive Alameda squad as the Hornets won both the boys’ and girls’ sides of an ACCAL double-dual track & field meet on Thursday. 

Enscoe, the ACCAL cross-country champion last fall, won both distance events going away against Alameda, the only other ACCAL school with a strong cross-country program. But only two other Berkeley boys won events, with Germaine Baird winning the 200-meter dash and Sean Young blowing away the field in the 100-meter dash. Young also finished second in the 200 and Baird third in the 400, with both contributing to the Berkeley’s win in the 4x100-meter relay. 

Alameda, on the other hand, swept the top three spots in three events, including both hurdles races, and simply outmanned the competition, scoring 114 points to Berkeley’s 69. Both Richmond and Encinal finished with 15 points. 

The Hornets were even more dominant on the girls’ side, taking 153 points to Berkeley’s 46. Rebekah Payne, Gabrielle Ward and Joy Broussard were responsible for 32 of Berkeley’s points, with Payne winning the 110-meter hurdles and the 200 and Ward winning the 100 while finishing just behind Payne in the 200. Broussard was second in the 100 and third in the 200. 

Berkeley High’s team has been turned upside-down this season, with just two male sprinters (Baird and Young) and the trio of girls representing what has traditionally been a dominating area for the ’Jackets. The distance program, on the other hand, has enjoyed a resurgence with Enscoe leading the way. Head coach Darrell Hampton said that while his short-track events may be coming up short right now, there is hope for the future with a group of younger sprinters. 

“We’ve just got some young numbers right now,” Hampton said. “For the last couple of years we’ve had a real solid sprint corps, but most of them have graduated and we’re depleted at the top level. But we’ve got a few more coming up.”

When Berkeley resident Rob Lipton answered his cell phone on April 1, the voice on the other end made him feel a helplessness known to so many of the Palestinian refugees with whom he was staying 

“Rob, they’re shooting us up,” cried a fellow peace activist.Lipton’s cohorts had situated themselves approximately 15 meters from an Israeli armored division in the West Bank city of Beit Jala. The tense stand off ended violently when an Israeli soldier fired shots in their direction. 

According to Lipton, five peace demonstrators, two Palestinian cameramen and an Italian video photographer were hit when the bullets ricocheted off their intended targets. One demonstrator, an Australian woman was hit directly in the stomach. The protestors retreated from the Israeli front lines and were able to get their wounded medical attention.  

Lipton had originally intended to join his comrades in the daytime march, but decided against it after he was unable to sleep in the face of constant Israeli fire throughout his first night at the Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. 

Upon receiving the call, Lipton knew there was little he could do for the injured protestors. 

He contacted the U.S. Embassy for assistance and waited to hear from the field, stoically aware that the difference between finding himself on the receiving end of Israeli fire and his friend’s telephone call was one sleepless night. 

Such was a day in the life of a Berkeley peace activist who had taken his politics to the middle of a war zone. 

It wasn’t supposed to be quite so difficult for Lipton, a 43-year old public health researcher, who had previously worked at refugee camps in Hong Kong and the Cambodia – Thailand border, “I had never been to the region and it seemed like a good opportunity to see what was happening,” said Lipton. 

He and his fellow protestors from the International Solidarity Movement, a one-year old grass roots organization advocating civil disobedience in opposition to the Israeli occupation, had planned a two-week itinerary to provide support for Palestinians. 

“Our original mission was to rebuild demolished houses, harvest olives (from olive groves that were placed off limits to Palestinians), and tear down Israeli blockades,” said Lipton. 

The plan was foiled as Lipton was just setting off for Israel. That night, March 27th, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated an explosive at a Netanya hotel where Israelis had congregated for a Passover seder. Twenty Israelis were killed; it was the deadliest suicide bombing in the conflict’s bloody history.  

When Lipton arrived in Tel Aviv on March 29th, he acted as if nothing had changed. A chartered taxi was waiting for him. He took it to a border crossing, and then had no difficulty hailing a second taxi to Bethlehem’s Star Hotel, where he met up with other ISM activists.  

At the hotel, the activists gauged the severity of the situation, and decided to change their mission. With Israeli troops surrounding Bethlehem and blocking major transport roads as part of their new incursion into the occupied West Bank, ISM shifted its attention from performing acts of civil disobedience throughout the West Bank to trying to protect the local Palestinians from the invading Israeli forces. 

The plan was that if the Israelis knew that there were international protesters in the Palestinian refugee camps they would be more hesitant to attack. The activists were to become human shields for the Palestinians. 

Lipton agreed with the change in tactics, and drew strength from the size and diversity of the ISM contingent. “There were between 70 and 100 activists from the North America, Europe, and Japan,” said Lipton who was surprised to meet grandparents, single mothers and Republican lawyers among the ISM activists. 

On March 31st, Lipton joined a group of ISM marchers to confront an Israeli division in Beit Jala, a city adjacent to Bethlehem. Unlike the march that would end violently the following day, the protesters were only met with stun grenades, which according to Lipton made a loud noise but did no harm. 

While they were face to face with Israeli soldiers, Lipton and several other activists tried to engage them in a conversation about the war. Some troops expressed exasperation with the situation, asking rhetorically what they were supposed to in under such circumstances. Other soldiers were more strident. One soldier told Lipton, “Palestinians kill people because they want to, when we do it, it is by accident.” 

On the evening of March 31st Lipton along with several other ISM activists were assigned to reside at the Aida Refugee Camp. During his two-day stay, Lipton toured the camp, which he compared to a crowded condominium community with narrow streets. The camp was remarkably clean, he observed, but there were holes in some roads from rounds shot out of Apachee helicopters, and several homes were damaged from a March 8th Israeli invasion against alleged snipers. 

Lipton’s arrival proved to be an eye opening experience for everyone involved. At about 6’5” with curly brown hair, his presence could not help but raise a few eyebrows among the camp’s 2,500 inhabitants. When those who talked to him learned that he is an American Jew, they expressed even greater surprise. 

This revelation did not change the warm welcome Lipton found at the camp. “The Palestinians I met made a clear distinction between Israelis and Jews”, said Lipton, who claimed that he did not encounter any racism from the Palestinians he met. 

Lipton was encouraged by most of what he saw at the camp. Although some residents had kalishnikov rifles and expressed rigid opinions, the bulk of the Palestinians he spoke to seemed more interested in ultimately achieving a middle class lifestyle than in seeking revenge against the Israelis. “They didn’t show a lot of rancor towards the Israelis. They just wanted to run their own lives,” said Lipton. 

Home for Lipton in Aida was a children’s center attached to the home of Abu Sroar, a Palestinian who was born in the camp, earned a doctorate in Biology at a French University, but then returned to build the children’s center and a theater. 

“He was a friendly and warm man living in crowded but clean house,” said Lipton who slept on a mat with his host’s elderly parents. 

Nightime at Aida were difficult. Israeli gunfire could be heard throughout both nights and occasionally the shots were directed at the camp as a warning, according to Lipton, who said that he was fortified by how the Palestinians dealt with the constant threat. “The Palestinians are amazing, they are not just surviving, but they are living…they got you by with their grace and kindness,” said Lipton. 

Lipton spent the night of April 2nd back at the Star Hotel, but that did not mean he was free from danger. “Israeli troops were everywhere, said Lipton, who said that one time when he was leaving the hotel, he saw a laser light on his chest. This was a targeting laser from an Israeli soldier who had Lipton in full view. 

On April 3rd, the U.S. embassy was able to provide the evacuation cars that Lipton had requested after he had learned of the violence in Beit Jala two days earlier. While approximately 20 – 30 ISM activists stayed on as shields in local camps, 

Lipton decided to board a car to Jerusalem where he devoted his time to supplying the residents of the Aida Camp with much needed medical supplies. 

Working with the Union of Palestinian Relief Committees, Lipton knitted together a group of people who acquired medical supplies. He then maneuvered his way around Israeli checkpoints, and hand delivered the supplies to the hospital in Beit Jala, from where they were to be sent to the Aida camp.  

Lipton is now en route to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, where he says the mood is equally tense. “There are guards at every bank and every restaurant,” said Lipton. On Saturday, he will fly back to the Bay Area, where he will continue his role as a co-ordinator for Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization calling for the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. 

Lipton will return home having witnessed ghastly suffering and violence, but his experience in Aida gives him reason for optimism. “I think the Palestinians want good relations.” “If the Israelis end the occupation in a just way, the region will normalize.”

To the Editor: 

The League of Women Voters is a venerable organization noted for its commitment to fair and candid dialogue about public affairs. It was thus disappointing to read the letter from the officers of the League's local chapter that appeared in the Planet's Easter weekend edition.  

That letter accuses the City Council, the Planning Commission and the Hearst-Curtis-Delaware Neighborhood Association of succumbing to “fear of change,” manifest in the recent downzoning of the 1100 block of Hearst Avenue from R-3 to R-2A. 

The downzoning, the LWV contends, betrays the principles of the Housing and Land Use Elements of the city's newly updated General Plan, approved first by the Commission and then by the Council in the latter part of 2001.  

According to the League, “Those policies and those documents are meaningless, and all those years of study and public input are wasted, if they can be set aside so soon after their adoption.” 

In fact, the downzoning of the 1100 block of Hearst is in keeping with both the letter and the spirit of the revised General Plan. As the League observes, the Plan calls for increased housing to be built along transit corridors. 

But the League then goes on to contend that “Surely, the concept of increasing apartment development along transportation corridors also includes encouraging or at least permitting such development in appropriately zoned areas very close to transit corridors.”  

On the contrary: the new General Plan nowhere encourages or permits new construction on areas “very close to transit corridors” [italics added]. As even a brief visit to the area makes clear, there is a marked difference between San Pablo Avenue and the adjacent 1100 block of Hearst Avenue. The Plan formally recognizes that difference by designating San Pablo as a Major Street and the 1100 block of Hearst Avenue as a Local Street. 

The League also fails to note that the first goal of the Land Use Element is “to maintain the character of Berkeley.” Policy LU-3, dealing with in-fill development, states: “Encourage sensitively designed, thoughtfully planned in-fill development that is compatible with neighboring land uses and architectural design and scale.”  

Policy LU-7, treating neighborhood quality of life, reads: “Preserve and protect the quality of life in Berkeley's residential areas through careful land use decisions.”  

And the first goal of the entire General Plan is to “preserve Berkeley’s unique character and quality of life.” 

The League seems to think that the policies informing the General Plan are perfectly consistent with one another. That is not the case. The goal of increasing housing--especially affordable housing--is in tension with the goal of preserving and protecting the special character of Berkeley, and the distinctive quality of residential neighborhoods in particular. 

In our dense, built-out city, this tension is not going to disappear; it can only be carefully negotiated, project by project, site by site, through the city's discretionary zoning process.  

When it approved the Planning Commission's unanimous recommendation to downzone the 1100 block of Hearst, the City Council successfully conducted just such a negotiation. It balanced the competing goals of new housing construction and neighborhood preservation. 

The League would have us believe that the newly applied R-2A category forecloses any further development on this block. But the R-2A zoning actually permits an additional 22 housing units to be added to the 45 existing units, for a total of 67 units--an increase of about 50 percent. 

In other words, it allows for a moderate amount of change that will respect the medium-density character of the neighborhood. 

A final note: it has become commonplace for advocates of “the sky's the limit” development to accuse their critics of fearing change. What a simplistic charge! Are we really expected to believe that all change is for the better?  

The new General Plan provides a conceptual framework for judicious decision-making that evaluates proposals for development in accordance with the complex, nuanced character of Berkeley's settlement and life. 

Zelda Bronstein, Chair Planning Commission 

Hearst-Curtis-Delaware Neighborhood Association 

In the opening scene of “Human Nature” a new comedy from “Being John Malkovich” screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, a pair of country mice use their rodent wiles to outwit a hawk. 

In the film’s sad final image, the furry white critters stand at the edge of a road, trying to leave the wild behind and hitchhike to what they see as the easy life in the Big Apple. 

“Human Nature” is a film about country mice and city mice made by people who clearly have a city mouse sensibility. 

They seem to have a real nostalgia for the great outdoors, but their urbane sense of irony and deadened emotional range prevent them from making a strong endorsement of eschewing civilization for the wild. 

What we get instead is a movie that urges us to be true to our instincts, even if we continue to dwell somewhere far from nature. The film makes its point stylishly, but the point has been made many, many times before, even if people keep forgetting it. 

It’s too bad “Human Nature” isn’t more bold in its criticisms of so-called civilized life, because more flashes of passion from Kaufman could have made this a great movie instead of just a funny one. 

Patricia Arquette stars as Lila, a wilderness writer who has abandoned the big city because of a hormonal disorder that causes her to grow thick hair all over her face and body. But she eventually returns to city life because she wants a man. She finds one, though a very flawed one, in Nathan (Tim Robbins), a behaviorist obsessed with teaching table manners to rodents. 

Nathan’s obsession makes for some of the biggest laughs in the movie. He’s an absurdly stuffy character who uses words like “ergo” on his first date with Lila. 

But the character’s silliness nullifies any hope that the movie will offer a serious critique of modern life. Nathan is such a strawman that there’s no real contest between the civilization he represents and Lila’s great outdoors. 

Fortunately, before we have much time to dwell on this, the plot shifts with the introduction of a feral man who thinks he’s an ape (Rhys Ifans, best known for “Notting Hill”). 

Nathan and his seductive assistant, Gabrielle (Miranda Otto), name him Puff and set out to make him civilized through a series of conditioning experiments that seem straight out of “Clockwork Orange.” 

Puff develops good elocution, proper table manners, and enthusiasm for reading “Moby Dick” in the belief that this will persuade women to have sex with him. But because the terminally repressed Nathan equates sex with savagery, Puff isn’t allowed to act on his impulses. 

“Whenever in doubt,” Nathan explains, “don’t ever do what you really want to do.” 

The rest of the film chronicles Puff’s orientation into civilized life and eventual return to the wild. The conclusion is anything but optimistic — remember those sad little mice? — suggesting that Kaufman and first-time director Michel Gondry aspired to make some grand statement, not just some good jokes. 

If they intended to make a broad point about modern society’s disconnection from nature, they fail. The film is so absurdist that the filmmakers can plausibly deny having such high intentions. But it’s just emotional and stylish enough that they can claim credit for such a statement if anyone happens to pick up on it. 

“Human Nature,” a Fine Line Features release, is rated R for sexuality/nudity and language. Running time: 96 minutes. Three stars (out of four). 

The Berkeley High boys’ volleyball team came close to taking another step forward on Thursday, but instead the ’Jackets may have taken a step in the wrong direction. 

After a thorough beating by league leader El Cerrito on Tuesday, Berkeley came back with a strong effort in the first two games against a team more their speed, Encinal. But although they were within striking distance of the first two games, the ’Jackets dropped both, then collapsed in the final game, winning just three points. 

Even worse, Berkeley’s star player, junior Robin Roach, may have reached the end of his proverbial rope during the loss. He played most of the third game with less than maximum effort, clearly frustrated with his teammates’ errors as well as his own. Head coach Justin Caraway called a timeout to calm his star down, taking him aside for a private conversation, and held a team meeting after the match to deal with the problem. 

“There’s some frustration over a lack of help for our strongest player,” Caraway said. “I’ve seen some internal strife coming, but I thought I’d have another match or two before it finally set in.” 

Roach’s frustration isn’t exactly shocking. After winning a total of one game last season, the ’Jackets are again a young, inexperienced team. Although they won their season opener against De Anza, they have reverted back to their form of old since then, dropping three straight matches to ACCAL opponents. While they had no realistic chance to beat El Cerrito, the league’s two-time defending champion, Berkeley could have come out with wins against Richmond or the Jets, teams that aren’t much more talented than the ’Jackets. 

Berkeley led for most of the first game on Thursday, going up by scores of 5-0, 11-7 and 12-10. But the Jets refused to go away, tying the game each time. With the score knotted at 12-12, the teams traded 10 side-outs before three straight Encinal aces gave them the game. 

“The first ace was my fault for changing the return pattern, and it was a solid topspin serve right on the line,” Caraway said. “But the last two were a player just not being ready for the ball.” 

Encinal jumped out to a 10-4 lead in the second game, but the ’Jackets came back with a five-point run to get within a point. But Berkeley would score just four more points in the entire match, falling 15-10 in the second game before falling apart in the final game. 

“We were pretty competitive in the first two games,” Caraway said. “We just made a couple of little mistakes at the end. It’s mental more than anything else.” 

With just one reserve, Caraway doesn’t have a lot of moves he can make when things start to go bad. Thursday’s match was actually one of the better days for Roach’s supporting cast, as Sam Fuller had five kills and seven digs and Ethan Ashley had four blocks. Roach had a subpar game with nine kills, eight digs and two blocks, but he is so clearly the team’s best player that the opposition keys on him, throwing two or three blockers at him every time he gets near the net. 

“It’s tough when you have to lean on one guy to carry the load,” Caraway said. “Hopefully we can resolve some issues in our meeting and be a better team for it.”

Believe it or not, traffic hasn’t always been a problem in Berkeley.  

That is one of many lessons that David Cohen, executive director, teacher and guitar player for the Bay Area Sustainable Transportation Education Project, or BAYSTEP, imparts to schoolchildren in the Bay Area. 

Cohen, who founded Berkeley bike messenger service Pedal Express in 1994 and started BAYSTEP six months ago, teaches kids about the history of transportation and development in the East Bay, the effects of road construction and automobile pollution on the environment, and the wonders of bicycle transportation. 

Cohen said he sees his work as one step in the development of a larger bicycle culture in the United States. 

“In this country, we’re so obsessed with the automobile, we really haven’t been able to develop an adequate bicycling culture and bicycling infrastructure,” Cohen said.  

At a Thursday morning appearance at Rosa Parks Elementary School, Cohen showed a group of about 60 kindergartners and first-graders a slide show on bicycle use around the world and the history of transportation in Berkeley. 

“Imagine what Berkeley was like a long time ago, when there were no cars,” he said. 

Cohen proceeded to tell the story of a family of mice, living in the forest, who to decide to buy a car from a shady used car salesman named Ziggy the Piggy. The purchase sets off a chain reaction of heavy automobile purchases and road building, ruining the forest. 

In the end, the family moves to a new forest and decides to preserve it. The lesson, Cohen said, is clear. 

“There are places around here that are so important,” he said. “We have to restore them and protect them.” 

At the end of the presentation Cohen showed students a fold-up bicycle, ideal for commuters, and a Christiania Trike. The Trike, made and widely-used in Denmark, is a large tricycle with a container that can carry everything from tools to children. 

Kathy Freeburg, curriculum coordinator at Rosa Parks, said Cohen teaches important lessons about alternatives to automobile transportation – lessons that kids might spread. 

“They can bring the message home to their families,” Freeburg said. 

David Ceaser, gardening teacher at Rosa Parks, said the presentation fits in with his larger effort to encourage a bicycle culture at the school. Ceaser said he hands out trinkets on National Bike-to-Work Day, encourages bicycle use when he discusses fitness and nutrition and sells children low-cost helmets. 

Cohen, who helped start a recycling education program in the Berkeley Unified School District in the early-1990s, made his first BUSD appearance as a transportation educator Tuesday. He said he hopes to expand his work in the district.

The San Francisco Film Society has announced that “Minute Matrimony”by Berkeley filmmaker Yoav Potash is the winner of a Golden Gate Award, given to recognize outstanding film production in the San Francisco Bay Area.  

The film will premiere at the 45th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival, the largest and oldest film festival in Northern California.  

“Minute Matrimony” will screen during the San Francisco International Film Festival on: Saturday, April 20 at 1:30 PM and Thursday, April 25 at 7:15 PM at AMC’s Kabuki Theater, 1881 Post St. at Fillmore, San Francisco. 

The outlandish film centers on a simple premise: What would it be like if instead of hamburgers and shakes -the local drive-thru served up weddings and divorces? “Minute Matrimony” dishes up this scenario with plenty of super-sized laughs. 

To officiate such favorites as the Minute Matrimony Value-Pak and the Hassle Free Divorce, a visor-wearing teenage preacher (15 year-old Alex Barker of Moraga) pops out of the drive-up altar/window like a jack-in-the-box. For an extra buck or two, a couple can spice up their ceremony with Jewish, African-American, or gay flavors. Enter dancing rabbis stage left, gospel choir stage right. 

Friday 

Baseball – Berkeley vs. Hercules, 3:30 p.m. at San Pablo Park 

Baseball – St. Mary’s vs. St. Patrick, 3:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s College High 

Softball – Berkeley vs. Hercules, 3:30 p.m. at Old Grove Park 

Swimming – Berkeley vs ACCAL, 3:30 p.m. at Contra Costa College 

Boys Lacrosse – Berkeley vs. Bishop O’Dowd, 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley High 

Saturday 

Girls Lacrosse – Berkeley at Stanford Invitational, all day at Stanford University 

Boys Volleyball – Berkeley High Tournament, all day at Berkeley High 

Swimming – Berkeley at Antioch Relays, 9 a.m. at Antioch High 

Softball – Berkeley vs. Mission San Jose, 1 p.m. at Mission San Jose High

The Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday night to restructure the district’s music program, but left the door open for future revisions. 

Under the new plan, next year the district would: 

• cut 1.7 of 11.5 full-time music teacher positions, for an estimated savings of $82,560 

• increase fourth- and fifth-grade class sizes from an average of 10 to a range of 18-25 

• assign two to three teachers to each elementary school, rather than the current four to five 

• expand music instruction, which runs from grades four through 12, to the third grade 

• in the fourth and fifth grades, combine winds, brass and percussion courses into a band class, continue to offer strings under the title of “orchestra,” and possibly replace a “music exploratory” course, featuring singing and recorder lessons among other things, with chorus 

Board members suggested that the staffing reductions, class size increases, assignment of two to three teachers per elementary school, and expansion to third grade are solid changes that will remain in place. But they said the program details for the third-, fourth- and fifth-grade programs are still open to discussion. 

Starting next year, third-graders are slated to take an introductory music course once a week, listening to tunes for pitch and rhythm, learning some basic fingering on the recorder and taking a look at various instruments they might pick up in the fourth grade. 

Board member John Selawsky suggested Wednesday night that the district add some basic voice training to the third grade program to lay the foundation for the proposed fourth-grade chorus program. 

“Voice is the primary and fundamental musical instrument,” Selawsky said, arguing for the change.  

But the fourth- and fifth-grade chorus offering is still up for debate. 

Currently, fourth- and fifth-graders who do not take an instrumental course are in the “music exploratory” class. Board members and administrators say the course is not what it could be. 

“It’s been seen as a dumping ground,” said Suzanne McCulloch, visual and performing arts coordinator for the district, noting that students who drop an instrument, or do not want to play one, gravitate to the course. 

McCulloch, who coordinates the music program, said music teachers have written a curriculum for the class, but have not yet implemented it. 

McCulloch said the district needs to tighten up and adapt the “exploratory” curriculum for the proposed chorus class, and actually implement that curriculum, if the new course is to be successful. 

Board members say they will seek further input from teachers and a board advisory group, the Music Curriculum Committee, before approving the final music restructuring details. 

First reading of new board policy 

Later in the evening, board member Terry Doran objected to Superintendent Michele Lawrence’s plan to dump the board’s jumbled policy manual, which is disorganized and out-of-date, and replace it with a new one that includes the basic policies the district must have on file to be in compliance with state law. 

Lawrence said the new manual is a bare bones document that the board could shape to its liking over the next two years. 

But Doran, the only board member who had read the thick manual thoroughly before Wednesday night, pointed to a series of policies he found objectionable. Doran said they could not possibly be required by state law. 

The policies he cited focused on carbonated beverage contracts, advertising in the schools and metal detectors. “Not on my watch,” Doran said. 

Lawrence was surprised by some of the policies Doran dug up, and thanked him for his thorough reading. Board members plan to read through the document in the coming weeks and suggest revisions before approving the new policy manual. 

Today is Friday, April 12, the 102nd day of 2002. There are 263 days left in the year. 

Highlight in History: 

On April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began as Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. 

On this date: 

In 1606, England adopted as its flag the original version of the Union Jack. 

In 1862, Union volunteers led by James J. Andrews stole a Confederate train near Marietta, Ga., but were later caught. (This episode inspired the Buster Keaton comedy “The General.”) 

In 1934, “Tender Is the Night,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published. 

In 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63; he was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman. 

In 1955, the Salk vaccine against polio was declared safe and effective. 

In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, orbiting the earth once before making a safe landing. 

In 1981, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight. 

In 1985, Sen. Jake Garn of Utah became the first senator to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off. 

In 1989, radical activist Abbie Hoffman was found dead at his home in New Hope, Pa., at age 52. 

Ten years ago: 

After five years in the making, Euro Disneyland, a theme park costing $4 billion, opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France, amid controversy as French intellectuals bemoaned the invasion of American pop culture. 

Five years ago: 

Undaunted by a cache of explosives found on his travel route, Pope John Paul II plunged into a peace mission to Sarajevo, wading into crowds and declaring, “Never again war.” 

One year ago: 

The 24 crew members of a U.S. spy plane arrived in Hawaii after being held for 11 days in China. Cincinnati Mayor Charles Luken declared a state of emergency amid the worst outbreak of racial violence in the city since the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. The Philippine military rescued U.S. hostage Jeffrey Schilling from Muslim rebels who had threatened to behead him. 

Today’s Birthdays: 

Actress-dancer Ann Miller is 79. Opera singer Montserrat Caballe is 69. Jazz musician Herbie Hancock is 62. Actor Frank Bank (“Leave It to Beaver”) is 60. Rock singer John Kay (Steppenwolf) is 58. Actor Ed O’Neill is 56. Actor Dan Lauria is 55. Talk show host David Letterman is 55. Author Scott Turow is 53. Singer David Cassidy is 52. Actor Andy Garcia is 46. Country singer Vince Gill is 45. Rock musician Will Sergeant (Echo & the Bunnymen) is 44. Rock singer Art Alexakis (Everclear) is 40. Folk-pop singer Amy Ray (Indigo Girls) is 38. Figure skater Elaine Zayak is 37. Actor Nicholas Brendon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) is 31. Actress Shannen Doherty is 31. Actress Claire Danes is 23.

Richards helped establish Ohlone Dog Park, and helped Finland get started  

Sixteen years ago, no one had ever heard of a dog park. 

The concept had yet to be discovered — mainly because there were then fewer restrictions as to where dog owners could roam with their four-legged friends. It was Berkeley’s own Doris Richards who helped found the first dog park in the nation, and according to several community members it was also she who first started to get many neighborhood members active and involved in attending City Council meetings. 

This year, Richards relinquished the reins as president of the Ohlone Dog Park Association. The city will install a pre-World War I fire hydrant in the park this spring in her honor. 

“This is Berkeley, we are often first in a lot of stuff,” said Tim McGraw, member of the Ohlone Dog Park Association. “There are more Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners here than any place in the world — other than maybe Stanford. 

“And Doris Richards was the first to create a dog park. She faced the city when they decided there were other uses for that parcel of land. She’s the one that got people out and attending City Council meetings. She created the dog park.” 

McGraw went on to say there had been a few unofficial dog runs or areas where dog owners would frequently allow their dogs to run freely but there had never been a park specifically set aside for dogs and their owners and organized by a group of people to maintain. 

Richards, for the last 16 years, has been president of the Ohlone Dog Park Association and has only recently retired. But says that even in retirement she has a difficulty separating herself from the park. 

“It doesn’t really seem like I’ve retired — they’re always calling up and asking me about things. I guess it’s just hard after having been the one for so long, not to be,” she added. 

Her memory of the early days made the founding of the dog park sound like a spontaneous idea sparked by many, and perhaps organized mostly by Richards herself. At the time, she had two Huskies in need of real outdoors space to exercise and the Bay Area Rapid Transit had just completed construction in Berkeley. This gave the city a parcel of land — unsuitable for housing, incorrectly zoned for development — and the City Council at the time was thinking of how it would utilize the land. It was then that Richards recalls some people saying, “Hey, why not have a dog park?” 

McGraw says that Richards’ real work for the dog park came soon after. 

“She’s someone who does not like the attention, but when I think about the amount of time she has put in to keep the dog park going it just boggles the mind,” McGraw said. “Doris has a history of pushing her agenda only behind the scenes where it matters.”  

McGraw said that dog owners around the world are indebted to Richards even though most of them will never know it. 

The Ohlone Dog Park is located near the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Way and Hearst Avenue, and members of the association boast that it is not only the first of its kind in the United States, but also in the world. 

Initially dubbed an “experiment” by the Berkeley City Council, in its early years it was besieged from all sides, according to McGraw. “Neighbors, the city threatening to shut it down, etc. Doris was always there, organizing responsible dog owners to take a stand anytime the Ohlone Dog Park was threatened.” 

As the popularity of the idea caught on, Richards stayed involved, consulting others on how to start their own dog parks. Under her direction the Ohlone Dog Park Association helped the dog park at Point Isabel get started. She also advised the founders of the Three Dog Parks in Finland on how to go about establishing a public dog park.

Passage could have a $10 million annual impact on the timber industry 

Berkeley may become the first city in the state to support a ballot initiative that would ban the cutting of old trees on lands that are not federally owned, including timber lands and private property. The supporters of the Citizens' Campaign for Old-Growth Preservation have until April 22 to collect nearly half a million signatures to get their initiative on the November ballot, or until May to qualify for the March 2004 election. 

The so-called “Old Growth Preservation Initiative” prohibits the cutting or harming of old trees that were planted in or before 1850, the year that California became a state. 

At a news conference this afternoon, Berkeley Councilwoman Dona Spring said she would present a resolution at the April 16 council meeting that, if approved, would go on the record as saying that the City of Berkeley supports the initiative. 

Spring, who said the world is losing its connection to nature, predicted that the resolution would pass without opposition. 

The issue was trumpeted by the city's Peace and Justice Commission, a rare step given that such an initiative would usually be determined as an environmental concern, not as a social justice issue. 

According to commission member Elliot Cohen, the preservation of trees is an question of social justice because the logging of ancient species is detrimental to the well-being of all Californians. 

“This issue is not just an environmental issue,” Cohen said. “It impacts us all.” 

According to the proponents of the initiative, its passing could have an impact up to $10 million annually by reducing the amount of timber harvesting, as well as costing the state $500,000 a year to ensure compliance. 

There is also the possibility of major state costs to pay for any compensation claims by property owners who may sue the government if their land loses property value because of the regulations. 

According to Redwood Mary, a spokeswoman for the campaign, the percentage of timber that would be placed off limits by the initiative is small. With alternatives easily available, she added, there's no need to cut down the older trees. 

“There's no reason to use old growth as a building material anymore,” she said. “We have an option.” 

California voters turned down the Forests Forever Initiative, Proposition 130, a forest reform initiative in November 1990. The timber industry opposed it, Redwood Mary said, and she expects that this initiative will be opposed as well. Already, she added, the lumber industry filed a legal challenge against the initiative in a Sacramento state court, alleging that the language the proposal used was misleading. The challenge did not hold up in court. 

OAKLAND — A public transportation system that carries thousands of people around the San Francisco Bay area is facing budget problems, which could mean job cuts, service cuts or fare hikes. 

The Bay Area Rapid Transit system’s budget shortfall is nearly $30 million, $10 million more than estimated in January. And it could grow to $61 million next year, BART budget director Rob Umbreit said. 

BART’s board heard the news Thursday, and staff members will draft a plan with options to balance the budget. The reasons for the gap include drops in fares and sales taxes. 

Ridership in March decreased 10 percent compared to the same month last year, and sales taxes fell 13 percent compared to last year’s first quarter. 

BART directors said they would consider fare hikes as a last resort. They also discussed a number of cost-cutting options, such as layoffs, fewer operating hours, running shorter trains, not cleaning as often, reassigning employees to lower paying jobs and leaving vacant jobs unfilled. Directors also will consider whether to charge a $2 fee to park in its lots. 

BART has already done some of those things this year, cutting jobs, eliminating shifts and overtime and shortening trains. 

The BART board must adopt a budget in mid-June. 

SANTA ROSA — The defense spent the bulk of closing arguments picking apart the credibility of two alleged victims of a Roman Catholic priest accused of raping and molesting them. 

Each side made a closing argument Thursday and the prosecution gets the last word Friday in the trial of the Rev. Don Kimball, 58, who is accused of raping the woman behind the altar of a Santa Rosa church in 1977 when she was 14. Kimball also is on trial for allegedly molesting a 13-year-old girl in 1981 in Healdsburg. 

If convicted, Kimball could face more than eight years in prison. 

The alleged rape victim, now 38, sat through the arguments and said the attack on her credibility did not rattle her. Kimball’s defense attorney Chris Andrian said the victims overstated, embellished and exaggerated their stories. 

The woman, who claims she was raped 25 years ago by Kimball, says she doesn’t care about the verdict in his trial. All she wants is an apology. 

Outside the courtroom she said that “I can live with the verdict.” 

SAN JOSE — A federal judged has ordered control of eight Monterey County water companies to be taken away from the companies, citing violations of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. 

The federal Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice sued Salinas-based Alisal Water Corp., accusing it of failing to monitor water quality, including monitoring for lead and copper levels. 

Running the day-to-day operations of the eight companies will fall to a “receiver,” who also must report to the court with findings about the feasibility of selling the companies. 

The eight companies are Toro Water System, Moss Landing Harbor District Water, Normco Water system, Blackie Road Water System No. 18, San Jerardo Water System, Vierra Canyon Water System No. 30 Langley/Valle Pacifico Water System and Buena Vista Water System. 

Affiliates traded more than 10 million megwatt hours of electricity amongst themselves 

WASHINGTON — Companies controlled by Enron Corp. deliberately drove up the price of power during California’s energy crisis by selling each other large amounts of electricity, according to the head of the state Public Utilities Commission. 

“These were sham transactions, causing the price to rise with each supposed sale,” PUC President Loretta Lynch told a congressional committee on Thursday. “The same individuals were managing these companies. They had the same employees, trading with themselves.” 

In all, she said, five Enron affiliates traded more than 10 million megawatt hours of electricity among themselves in the last three months of 2000, the same time that power prices in California were spiraling out of control. 

Lynch’s testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee was the latest allegation that Enron manipulated California’s electricity crisis in late 2000 and early 2001. 

No Enron officials appeared at the hearing, called at the request of Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and largely sympathetic to the proposition that now-bankrupt Enron was heavily involved in the meteoric rise in power prices. 

“Enron played a key role in what happened to the people of California,” Boxer said. 

One cautionary note came from Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., who said he was “skeptical ... as to whether Enron had any effect on California’s energy crisis.” 

But five witnesses, who also included state Sen. Joseph Dunn, D-Santa Ana, and California Power Authority Chairman S. David Freeman, told the committee that Enron initially sought the deregulation of the electricity market in California by falsely promising that consumers’ electric bills would go down, then leaned heavily on federal energy regulators not to step in when power prices began to climb in the newly deregulated market. 

Dunn is leading a Senate investigation into the energy crisis, in which wholesale power rates jumped tenfold, three investor-owned utilities faced financial ruin and Californians experienced rolling power blackouts. 

“The deregulation, led by Enron, has become perhaps the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American consumer,” Dunn said. 

Witnesses told the panel that California and other states will again see soaring power prices if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lifts the caps it imposed last year on wholesale power purchases throughout the West. The caps, credited with helping bring down prices, will expire Sept. 30 unless FERC extends them. 

PASADENA — AT&T Corp. is not renewing its contract as presenting sponsor of the annual Rose Bowl game, company spokesman John Heath said Thursday. The decision leaves the nation’s oldest bowl game without a major corporate backer. 

AT&T’s four-year contract expired after the Jan. 3 Rose Bowl, which this year also was the Bowl Championship Series title match between Nebraska and Miami. 

ABC Sports owns the right to choose who sponsors the annual Rose Bowl. 

“The game is not until next New Year’s, so there’s no real urgency. There won’t be any problems,” Mark Mandel, vice president of ABC Sports media relations, said Thursday. 

The pullout leaves the Rose Bowl as the only game in the four-team Bowl Championship Series without a sponsor. The Fiesta Bowl is sponsored by Tostitos; the Orange Bowl is sponsored by Federal Express, and the Sugar Bowl is sponsored by Nokia. 

The BCS national title game alternates each year between the four bowls. 

The Tournament of Roses Association, which stages the game in Pasadena, does not participate in sponsor negotiations, but does have a final say in the sponsorship. 

Under the deal signed in 1998, ABC paid $19 million each year to the Tournament of Roses to broadcast the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Rose Bowl games, and $20.5 million to broadcast the 2002 game. 

SAN JOSE — Troubled music-swapping service Napster Inc. laid off 30 employees in the third round of job cuts since October, the company said Thursday. 

In a statement, Napster chief executive Konrad Hilbers said the company remains committed to launching a revenue-generating, membership-based service but needs to further streamline its operations. 

“We have full confidence that our remaining team can provide the strategic know-how and technical guidance to effectively prepare for the launch of the new service,” he said. 

No date has been set for the launch, which originally was scheduled for last summer. The company is battling copyright infringement lawsuits and trying to reach licensing agreements with major record labels. 

It’s not clear how many employees remain at the private company. Last month, 10 percent of the work force was cut. In October, 16 employees were let go.  

Napster’s free online trading service, which allowed users to trade digital music files, has been offline since July. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Consumer advocates sued state power regulators in the California Supreme Court on Thursday in hopes of ensuring the public has a say in how much utilities charge for power and gas. 

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights wants to block the Public Utilities Commission from using billions of dollars of ratepayer money to pay the debts of the state’s largest utility — bankrupt Pacific Gas and Electric Co. 

The Santa Monica-based foundation said the commission’s plans for PG&E are just another example of how regulators are negotiating illegal ways to spend ratepayer fees — a charge the PUC flatly denies. 

“The PUC is out of control,” foundation president Harvey Rosenfield said at a news conference outside PUC headquarters. “It has been wheeling and dealing in secret.” 

Last fall, the PUC secretly negotiated a $3.3 billion settlement with Southern California Edison. That settlement allowed Edison to continue charging record-high electric rates through 2003 to help pay debts it accumulated during the state’s power crisis. 

The suit Thursday is the latest in a series in which energy sellers, power plant operators and federal and state energy regulators all are being blamed for California’s energy crisis. The past two years saw power prices soar to record heights, forcing major utilities into debt and plunging the state into rolling blackouts. 

The suit argues that, under state law, it’s illegal to use ratepayer money to pay the utilities’ debts — although that’s what the PUC did with the October settlement. It also points out that record rate increases the PUC approved last spring were earmarked for future power debts. 

Millions of Californians still are paying among the country’s highest power rates even as power prices have plummeted nationally. The state is using the ratepayer money to recoup the $10 billion it spent buying electricity after state utilities lost their creditworthiness. 

The PUC is preparing to file a plan in federal bankruptcy court Monday that would use ratepayer money from PG&E to pay much of the $13.2 billion debt the utility claims. If the state supreme court agrees that the PUC crafted that plan illegally, it would derail the state’s efforts to block PG&E from escaping state oversight — and could stall PG&E’s emergence from bankruptcy. 

NEW YORK — To get their children to eat a nutritious meal, some parents hide vegetables in desserts, mask meats in sauces or even dye foods their children’s favorite colors. 

Why not just ask them what they’d like to eat? And while you’re at it, why don’t you ask the kids to help prepare the food, too? 

That’s what Emeril Lagasse did for his newest cookbook, “There’s a Chef in My Soup: Recipes for the Kid in Everyone” (HarperCollins). 

Lagasse says he organized several “cookie parties” for children — toddlers to teens — to find out what tempts them to the table. Then he surveyed their skills. 

Those ingredients were combined to develop the recipes for My-Oh-My Spaghetti Pie, Junior’s Jambalaya and Make-You-Strong Spinach, among others. 

The food, however, isn’t kid stuff. They’re recipes for the whole family to enjoy, Lagasse says, but he’s included some child-friendly incentives such as adding maple syrup to carrots and covering chicken nuggets with cornflakes. 

“Until now, kids haven’t been involved in the cooking decisions or the cooking process so food hasn’t been fun for kids,” says the New Orleans-based chef and host of two Food Network shows. 

But hand a kid some ingredients, a wooden spoon and a mixing bowl and — bam! — you have a chef in the making. Or at least someone who will probably eat whatever it is that he helped cook. 

“In cooking, the end result is always a prize.” 

In his “research,” Lagasse, the father of two 20-something daughters, also noticed a few quirky eating habits, including an apparent aversion to sausage casings. (Acknowledging that he never gave casings much thought before, Lagasse did include instructions in the new book on how to remove them.) 

Adapting “adult” recipes for this book was a gratifying challenge for Lagasse. “I had to be simple and descriptive because of the kids, but it has inspired me to do more simple recipes. We tend to take something simple and delicious, and complicate them unnecessarily,” he says. 

There also are some cooking tasks that kids seem to enjoy more than others, including cracking eggs and zesting fruit. And included on each recipe page is a “caution list,” alerting parents and pint-size chefs to potential hazards such as knives or a hot oven. 

Lagasse says he’s tried to anticipate some kid-type questions and offer some answers: 

—“Why are soft peaks called soft peaks?” Because when beaters are pulled out of well-mixed egg whites, soft mounds form. 

—“Why do dry ingredients need to be sifted?” To make sure there are no lumps. 

The recipes consider that a child’s taste buds often evolve over time, he explains. When he gives the formula for scrambled eggs, he suggests some added chopped ham or bacon “when the kids are ready.” 

But a family’s culinary adventures probably still will come from the head of the house, Lagasse says. “Seventy-five percent of kids will say they hate veggies but sometimes they haven’t even tried the veggies. It’s their parents who hate the veggies.” 

The chef hopes his Oh-Yeah-Baby Glazed Carrots will win over some converts but he’s also realistic: “The vegetables will probably be the least stained pages of the book.” 

Bringing kids into the kitchen is a win-win-win situation: The kids are learning a life skill, parents are gaining helping hands, and the whole family will make some happy memories in the process. 

Make-You-Strong Spinach 

2 10-ounce packages frozen spinach, thawed according to package directions 

3 tablespoons unsalted butter 

1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion 

1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic 

1 teaspoon Baby Bam (recipe follows) 

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 

2 cups heavy cream 

Working over a mixing bowl or the sink, squeeze the spinach in your hands to release any excess liquid. (If your hands are really small, you may have to do this in batches.) Set aside. 

Melt the butter in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring until soft, about 4 minutes. 

Add the garlic, Baby Bam, thyme and salt, and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 2 minutes. 

Add the spinach to the saucepan and stir to mix well. Sprinkle the flour over the spinach and stir well to combine. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. 

Add the cream, stir well, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Using an oven mitt or pot holder, remove from the heat and serve immediately. 

Makes 4 to 6 servings. 

Baby Bam seasoning 

3 tablespoons paprika 

2 tablespoons salt 

2 tablespoons dried parsley 

2 teaspoons onion powder 

2 teaspoons garlic powder 

1 teaspoon ground black pepper 

1 teaspoon dried oregano 

1 teaspoon dried basil 

1 teaspoon dried thyme 

1/2 teaspoon celery salt 

Place all the ingredients in a mixing bow. 

Stir well to combine, using a wooden spoon. 

Store in an airtight container for up to three months. 

Makes about 3/4 cup. 

On the Net: 

http://www.emerils.com/ 

A truly ripe peach is one that makes you jut your head forward with each bite to keep yourself from being showered with juice. You rarely can buy such a fruit, but you can grow it. Get it off to a good start with correct planting. 

Peach trees usually are sold bare-root; that is, they are dug when dormant, and shipped without soil. Unwrap the roots, then soak them in water for a few hours. 

Your tree needs pruning before planting. Trim back frayed or excessively long roots. If your tree is branched, select three or four robust branches to become permanent limbs — the lowest 2 feet from the ground and successive ones a few inches apart and arranged in a spiral up the trunk. Cut away all other branches and the trunk just above the top branch. Shorten saved branches to a few inches in length. If your tree is not branched, cut the trunk back to 3 feet and select permanent branches as the tree grows. 

If a soil test indicates a need for lime or phosphorus, mix these materials into the ground where you’ll dig the planting hole. Farther out, sprinkle these materials on top of the soil to work their way downward by the time roots spread. 

Dig a cone-shaped planting hole two times the spread of the roots and just deep enough to get the roots in the ground. Rough up the soil at the sides of the hole to help roots penetrate the surrounding soil. 

Put enough soil back in the hole to create a mound on which to set the spread-out roots. While holding the trunk, push soil back into the hole, working it in among the roots with your fingers. Once the tree is self-supporting, shovel in additional soil, tamping it gently with your fingers or a stick as you work. 

After you have filled the hole, create a catch basin for water by building up a low dike of soil around the base of your tree 2 feet out from the trunk. Spread compost, then straw, wood chips or leaves as mulch over the ground. Slowly pour enough water into the catch basin to thoroughly drench the soil and settle the tree in place. 

Don’t turn your back on your tree and forget about it. Keep weeds at bay and water regularly the first season, and you should taste your first peaches within a couple of years. 

LOS ANGELES — A 17-year-old Air Force ROTC student with an Arabic name has received an apology from the military after allegedly being handcuffed and interrogated by recruiters on campus. 

KCAL-TV reported Wednesday night that Hassan Ali Bahar, a student at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles, was detained by recruiters visiting the campus. 

He told the television station that flight simulators were brought to the school Friday and he wrote the words “Hassan Ali Bahar can’t be stopped” while he and another cadet were playing with the equipment. 

Two recruiters ordered him to put his hands behind his back, handcuffed him and took him outside for questioning, Hassan said, adding the recruiters told him what he wrote was like saying, “Osama bin Laden can’t be stopped.” 

Hassan said another cadet wrote the same words and he believes the recruiters singled him out because of his Arabic name. 

The Air Force in a statement said that it was aware of the incident and it was under investigation. 

KCAL-TV reported that the Air Force sent a representative to apologize to Hassan. The station also reported that the school has banned the Air Force from campus. 

“I was scared, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what anybody could do about it, what anybody could say,” said Hassan, a cadet captain who has been involved with ROTC since ninth grade. 

His mother, Tasha Holt, of Inglewood, was angered by her son’s treatment. 

“I feel like he was discriminated against and his civil rights were violated because of his name,” Holt said. “You can look at him and can tell he is African-American. He’s not of Arab descent or anything like that, I chose to give him an Arabic name because all of my children have Arabic names.” 

The Berkeley Police Department has released a sketch of a man who assaulted two Jewish men who were walking on Claremont Avenue earlier this month. 

Although the victims were dressed in orthodox Jewish clothing and the assault was mentioned in media reports that also referred to anti-Semitic scrawls found at a nearby temple, police say there's nothing to indicate that  

race played a factor in the assault. 

“We do not in any way classify this as a hate crime, based on the description that the victims provided to us,” said Sgt. Kay Lantow. “There was never any reference to race.” 

The incident happened early April 4. The victims were walking along the 2700 block of Claremont Avenue when the suspect approached and asked for a cigarette, Lantow said. 

As one of the men complied with the request, the suspect began punching him in the face. The other man tried to intervene, only to become the target of the attacker's punches. 

While the suspect continued to pummel his second victim, the first managed to get away and run for help. Meanwhile, the suspect continued to beat the second victim, demanding his belongings. 

After the attack, the suspect fled on foot with a man who had been waiting in the shadows. 

According to Lantow, the details of the beating and the circumstances in the case are similar to another post-midnight robbery that happened on the 3000 block of Shattuck Avenue on March 29, and police are looking into whether the assaults are related. 

The suspect is described a black man in his 20s, about 5 feet 8 inches and 160 pounds with a muscular build. At the time of the April 4 assault he was wearing a light-colored hooded jacket -- possibly tan or gray -- and his hair was cut short and styled in twists. 

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Berkeley Police Department's robbery unit at (510) 981-5742

Today is Tuesday, April 16, the 106th day of 2002. There are 259 days left in the year. 

Highlight in History  

On April 16, 1947, the French ship Grandcamp blew up at the harbor in Texas City, Texas; another ship, the Highflyer, exploded the following day. The blasts and resulting fires killed 576 people. 

On this date: 

In 1789, President-elect Washington left Mount Vernon, Va., for his inauguration in New York. 

In 1862, a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia became law. 

In 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel. 

In 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia after exile. 

In 1935, the radio comedy “Fibber McGee and Molly” premiered on the NBC Blue Network. 

In 1945, in his first speech to Congress, President Truman pledged to carry out the war and peace policies of his late predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

In 1945, U.S. troops reached Nuremberg, Germany, during the World War II. 

In 1947, financier and presidential confidant Bernard M. Baruch said in a speech at the South Carolina statehouse: “Let us not be deceived — we are today in the midst of a cold war.” 

In 1962, Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.” 

In 1972, Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon. 

Ten years ago: 

The House ethics committee listed 303 current and former lawmakers who had overdrawn their House bank accounts. 

Five years ago: Police in Israel recommended indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for breach of trust in an influence-trading scandal. (Prosecutors later decided not to pursue charges against Netanyahu, citing a lack of proof.) 

One year ago: 

Israel launched an air strike against a strategic Syrian radar station in Lebanon, killing three Syrian soldiers. The Oregonian of Portland won two Pulitzer Prizes, including public service for its examination of widespread abuses by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In breaking news reporting, The Miami Herald won for its coverage of the pre-dawn raid by federal agents who took custody of Elian Gonzalez; the story also produced the breaking news photography award for Alan Diaz of The Associated Press. Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”; David Auburn won for his play “Proof.” Lee Bong-ju of South Korea won the 105th Boston Marathon. Catherine Ndereba of Kenya won the women’s race for the second consecutive year. 

Today’s Birthdays:  

Actor Les Tremayne is 89. Actor Barry Nelson is 82. Actor-director-author Peter Ustinov is 81. Actor Peter Mark Richman is 75. Actress-singer Edie Adams is 73. Jazz musician Herbie Mann is 72. Singer Bobby Vinton is 67. Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II is 62. Basketball Hall-of-Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 55. Singer Gerry Rafferty is 55. Actress Ellen Barkin is 48. Singer Jimmy Osmond is 39. Rock singer David Pirner (Soul Asylum) is 38. Actor-comedian Martin Lawrence is 37. Actor Jon Cryer is 37. Rock musician Dan Rieser is 36. Actor Peter Billingsley is 30. Actor Lukas Haas is 26. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Anne Cribbs has no trouble convincing people that hosting the 2012 Olympic Games would be a good thing for the San Francisco Bay area. 

The games would bring about $7.4 billion to the Bay Area, not to mention new housing, improved public transportation and global recognition and tourism. 

And a recent poll found that 84 percent of Bay Area residents support the quest. 

But getting people to believe it’s a likely possibility — after the Atlanta Games in 1996 and Salt Lake City winter games this year — is another matter for Cribbs, the chief executive officer of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, the nonprofit organizer of San Francisco’s bid. 

Cribbs, who won a gold medal as a 15-year-old swimmer in the 400-meter medley at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, compared an Olympic bid to competitions where outcomes are determined by performance and spirit. 

“It’s kind of like a race,” she said. “You need to stay in the race and do your best because you can’t predict what will happen.” 

Four finalists remain in the campaign to win the U.S. Olympic Committee’s nomination as the U.S. bid city: Washington, New York, Houston and San Francisco. The committee will visit the four bid cities this summer and make a decision Nov. 2. 

Local supporters will host a news conference Wednesday with several Olympic athletes, including sprinter Michael Johnson, to unveil a new logo and financial details of its campaign. 

The local committee’s small staff works out of a simple office in Palo Alto and has spent three years building bridges between leaders of Bay Area cities, businesses and athletes. 

The committee also boasts 115 people on its board including numerous past and present Olympians, including swimmer Matt Biondi, runner Billy Mills and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi. 

Board members say nearly 400 past and present Olympians live in the Bay Area. Venue planners have consulted athletes to find out exactly what kind of facilities athletes want. 

Last week, the committee released a 300-page addendum to its 700-page bid, showing that 92 percent of the competition sites will be within 32 miles of the proposed Olympic village at Moffett Field near Mountain View. 

If art is born from struggle, life has offered a master painter’s environment to Palestinian children growing up during the Middle East conflict. 

Nine-year-olds who participated in a famous art therapy project in the 1980s depicted shootouts between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants and drew scenes as stark as their titles: “Soldiers Chaining and Blindfolding Everyone in Jazalon School Yard,” one is titled; “Beating One Child and Shooting Another” a second is named. 

In “Confrontation on the Road Between Qaiqilya:” 11-year-old Valentina Afif showed a helicopter, a tank and Israeli troops converge and fire on a group of Palestinians, their arms high in surrender. 

“Eighty to 90 percent of these kids have lived in violence all their lives,” said Mona Halaby, one of the women who is bringing some of the drawings to Nexus Gallery at 2701 Eithth St. for a May 18 fundraiser for relief efforts. “It is very important for us to stop them from leading violent lives as adults.” 

Halaby, a third-grade teacher at Park Day School in Oakland and two of her friends from the school, Jaleh Bisharat and Cathy Shields are trying to do just that by raising $50,000 to help the Middle East Children’s Alliance build a secular kindergarten in Gaza Strip and to help Doctors Without Borders support a medical clinic for Palestinian women in a Bethlehem refugee camp. 

Halaby asked Bisharat and Shields to help her after attending a fundraising dinner for the local Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association at which 30 – 35 women gave $20,000. “I couldn’t believe the success of that,” Halaby said. “I had never seen women get together and do something so powerful.”  

The three women formed Joining Hands and kicked off their efforts with a March dinner at Halaby’s house. So far they have rasied $20,000 from some 70 friends.  

Though Joining Hands focuses on providing humanitarian relief to Palestinians, its founders stand for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied land and the just resettlement of Palestinian refugees. 

“There will be peace if the occupation ends,” said Halaby, who grew up in Egypt and whose mother and husband are Palestinian.  

“What they want is peace as long as there is land to be peaceful in,” said Bisharat whose husband is Palestinian and who in 1985 and 1999 spent extended periods of time there.  

Some 780,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes during and after Israel and Palestine’s 1967 war and three times more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed since the most recent uprising began in September 2000, Bisharat said. “Their day to day life resembles apartheid,” she said. “I can tell you there’s no hope.” 

Several of the drawings to be displayed next month poignantly reflect these issues. Two are simply called “Home” and another, by six-year-old Uns Duwalk, is called “Occupation.”  

Children from four to 14 years of age did the drawings in the late 1980s, as part of a project organized by Palestinian artist Kamal Boullata. The drawings first hung at the United Nations in 1988, and were then published in the 1990 book Faithful Witnesses, which is no longer in print.  

The Berkeley-based Middle East Children’s Alliance, an advocacy and relief group helping Palestinian children in Israel and children in Lebanon and Iraq, purchased some of the United Nations’ collection and now houses it at its 905 Parker Street office. 

The art was the backdrop of the first dinner at Halaby’s house and, the women hope, will attract more donors to the Nexus Gallery on May 18. Admission is $10, but larger donations will be accepted.  

The women said that $25 buys books and toys for a child who would otherwise go to a school run by Hamas, the Palestinian organization that claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing during last week’s Passover celebration that killed 19. The bombing and several more since then has touched off Israeli incursions into Palestinian-controlled territory in which many more Palestinians have been killed. 

“What we’re trying to address is to prevent there being a generation of traumatized children,” said Bisharat.  

“They don’t want their children brainwashed at the age of five and becoming a suicide bomber by the age of 16,” Halaby said. 

Doctors Without Borders, an international organization providing free healthcare in war torn areas, reported that since the most recent uprising began, a hospital providing care to Palestinians has been shelled, ambulances have been denied entrance to many road-blocked areas and medical personnel have been targeted by Israeli troops.  

“So many women are widowed or their husbands captured or in prison,” Halaby said. “They need a safe place to meet (the new clinic), a safe place to give birth.” 

Shields, who does fundraising for Park Day School, said the reaction to Joining Hands has been “heartwarming.” “It really doesn’t take heavy political analysis to get behind this,” she said. “I think it really touched a chord.”