Judge considers lifting  

gag order off federal jury 

Attorneys for EarthFirst! activists Darryl Cherney and the late Judi Bari said at a federal court hearing Friday they would consider dropping unresolved charges against the FBI and the Oakland Police Department to expedite the filing of a judgment in the case.  

On June 12 jurors awarded the two activists $4.4 million for violations of First and Fourth Amendment rights by members of the FBI and OPD relating to the investigation of a car bombing that injured Cherney and Bari in 1990. The judgment, however, has not been entered into the court because jurors were undecided on several charges. 

The issue of a gag order placed on the jury by federal Judge Claudia Wilken was not resolved on Friday, though Wilken says she will consider reforming the order.  

Attorneys for the activists plan to file a motion of dismissal without prejudice on Monday relating to charges of Cherney’s false arrest after the bombing in 1990. The motion would pave the way for the appeals process to start but would not eliminate the plaintiff’s ability to revive the false arrest charges at a later date. 

Appeals are expected from both sides in the case but cannot be filed until a judgment is entered into court.

The picture postcard became extremely popular during the first two decades of the 20th century and this era is often referred to as the “golden age of postcards.” Most postcards were published by companies that specialized in the printing of postcards and would usually depicted popular views of a town or important buildings. But during this period people also created their own postcards from a photograph of their home.  

The postcard pictured here shows the house at 1511 Edith St. shortly after it was completed in 1908. This area of north-central Berkeley was just being developed at that time and recently completed houses can be seen on the left-hand side of the card and in the background a house is under construction. 

The message on the back of the postcard is signed by L. T. Bailey and the number on the pillar of the front porch says 1511. From the 1908 Oakland-Berkeley Directory (available at the Berkeley History Museum) it was easy to discover that L.T. was Lottie T. Bailey, widow of Angelo, and that she lived in the house with Mark G., a student, Lloyd E. a train conductor, Edith C. a teacher, and Effie L. a nurse. Perhaps these were her children, but they may have been a combination of her children and relatives as it was common at the time for extended families to share a house together.  

The style of the house is a variation of the Colonial Revival, also known as Classic Box. The exterior treatment of the first floor is typical of a Classic Box with a recessed entry, window bay and narrow clapboard siding. However this house has an extremely tall and steeply-pitched gable roof which shelters a second story and is faced with unpainted brown shingles. In some examples the face of the gabled roof was treated with half-timbering as in a Tudor Revival. The style was quite popular between 1900 and 1910 in Berkeley and Oakland. 

These houses were most often built or adapted from house plans that could be ordered from companies such as Alladdin, Gordon-Van Tine, and Radford Homes. The 1910 Gordon-Van Tine catalogue proudly boasted that they “shipped wherever railroads go...we guarantee safe delivery and satisfaction...we save the home-builders of America over $1,000,000 a year.” 

Although popular styled houses such as 1511 Edith Street were not individually designed for a specific client or lot, they provided a comfortable and affordable house for the middle class. These types of vernacular structures, looked at from the prospective of cultural geography, social or economic history, contribute as physical artifacts to an understanding of how an average family lived almost one-hundred years ago. Today 1511 Edith Street remains standing proudly, little changed, and a type of home eagerly sought after by contemporary buyers.  

Susan Cerny is author of Berkeley Landmarks, and writes this in conjunction with the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.

To the Editor: 

It's been the biggest laugh of the year, watching the political yelping about “under God.” 

Of course the court ruling was right: Such a slogan does affirm we are a nation of monotheists. 

Well, probably a large majority of us are monotheists, even Judaeo-Christians. Does that mean all of us have to pledge loyalty to the Bible? Must we tie national loyalty to any religious belief, even one as general as monotheism? Most of us do not want to be a theocracy like some of the Islamic countries, but some of us do like the idea of being a “Christian nation,” for example. 

Maybe a compromise solution is to amend the Constitution to say we are mostly monotheists, so references to “God” are legal but make it clear that other forms of belief are freely tolerated. The label “in God we trust” doesn’t harm our money. There are times when I want to sing “God bless America.” 

I suppose I can skip “under God” when I say the pledge – unless the FBI (Federal Bureau of the Inquisition) starts monitoring me for national religious compliance. 

Steve Geller 

Berkeley

Both theaters to show special features to mark the events 

If someone poked his head into the California Theater in downtown Berkeley earlier this week to look at the building undergoing seismic renovation, that person would have had to pass through heavy machinery blocking Kitteridge Street traffic, step over torn-up concrete on the sidewalk and seen ripped carpeting and paint tarps strewn over everything. It did not look like a showcase theater due to open in four days. 

Theater manager Dale Sophiea sitting in his small cluttered office on the second floor did not seem concerned by the mess. His theater was going to open, as scheduled, on Friday and it was going to look grand. Even if it takes lots of late nights. Amid the hard-hatted contractors with power tools and welding equipment were Sophiea’s floor staff of ticket-takers and concessions sellers painting the trimming. 

Walking through the theaters, Sophiea explained the new green paint job is a vast improvement to the “awful” old brown coat (an improvement that might not be noticed by moviegoers seated in the dark). The new green-and-gold color scheme, he said, will be nicely complimented by the new green floral-patterned carpeting, carpeting which was yet to be laid down. 

The cosmetic overhaul is a subsequent improvement during the building’s structural retrofitting. Outside are the external I-beams holding the brick building in a seismically sound iron cage. The earthquake safety upgrade does not affect the size or shape of the auditorium inside, which at 650 seats will still be the largest movie house in Berkeley. 

Until last year, the California Theater was the second-largest house in Berkeley, behind the UC Theater on University Avenue. Both theaters, owned by Landmark Theater Corporation (who also own the nearby Shattuck and Act1&2 theaters) were in need of expensive seismic improvements. The California was upgraded and the UC abandoned. The reasons for the loss of the seminal repertory theater are manifold, involving feasibility and return-on-investment. The future of the UC Theater as a cinema and the structural integrity of its large, acoustically-designed auditorium are in dispute between community groups, the owners of the building, and the city of Berkeley, but the chance of it returning to its former glory – a large house screening a calendar of daily rotated movie programming which local buffs held in so high esteem – seem slim. 

The California opens this weekend with a new, longer version of “Cinema Paradiso,” the romantic, nostalgic Italian film about a director remembering the theater in the village of his boyhood where he learned to love movies. It was a monster hit in 1988 (it won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film) and now has 51 more minutes of rural movie magic.  

Landmark wanted to open the California with “Men In Black II” but Sophiea said he pushed for “Cinema Paradiso” because “I wanted to open with something more poetic.” The film about space monsters with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones opens at the California next Wednesday, and it will be business as usual. 

At the same time the California re-opens, a small but essential part of Berkeley cinema life is going away. A few blocks down Shattuck Avenue from the California is the independently owned Fine Arts Cinema, which for last four years has been screening bold programming of classics, rarities, art films, documentaries, shorts, and revived popular fare. This Sunday will be the last screening before it goes dark in anticipation of the building being razed and replaced. 

When it opened in 1998, the Fine Arts created the third point in the Berkeley film lover’s triangle, with the UC Theater and the Pacific Film Archive in the Berkeley Art Museum (since moved to campus near Bowditch Street). The UC screened new film-festival picks and older classics and the PFA tended toward serious international scholarship. The Fine Arts, rounding out the triptych, offered overlooked gems trolled from the tireless festival travels of co-owner Keith Arnold and inspired double-bills of the difficult and the fluffy: a Wisconsin love-in pairing “Straight Story,” David Lynch’s dark-edged pastoral story of a man and his lawnmower, with “American Movie” and its failure-proned savant Mark Borshardt; or the recent double-feature with Humphrey Bogart’s Nazi subversion in the ageless favorite “Casablanca” with a hypothetical Nazi defeat of England in the rarely seen “It Happened Here.”  

As the UC Theater proved, running a single-screen art-house theater is not easy. For four years the owners and operators of the Fine Arts Cinema – Keith Arnold, Emily Charles, and Josephine Scherer – worked their labor of love as programmers, projectionists, ticket sellers, janitors, popcorn-poppers and candy-bar stockers. Ticket sales were often so meager they would not cover the overhead.  

Even so, they are not giving up even as their theater is torn down. The landlord of the building to be built on the site, Patrick Kennedy (also owner of the new Gaia building downtown), has entered an agreement with the Fine Arts Cinema to include a 7,000 square foot theater in the new building, along with museum space for the Cinema Preservation Society, a non-profit organization tangentially associated with the Fine Arts Cinema. Like the financially troubled Roxie Theater in San Francisco, non-profit status may ease the difficulties of operating an independent art cinema. The new building is expected to be completed, and the theater re-opened, in 2004. In the meantime Arnold will be taking his movies on the road, screening at various pick-up locations in the Bay Area and abroad. 

For the next two years the East Bay’s discriminating moviegoers will have narrowed cinema options. Even as the Pacific Film Archive provides both challenging work (a series of Armenian documentaries this summer) and amusing classics (a month of Preston Sturges comedies in July) there will doubtless be a diaspora of die-hard film buffs toward the remaining rep-houses in San Francisco.  

For their final weekend, the Fine Arts Cinema is going out as they came in: with the beautifully animated 1926 silent film “The Adventures Of Prince Achmed” in which German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger uses wonderfully intricate paper cut-out silhouettes to tell a story of magic carpets and enchanted kingdoms. A new original score will be performed live by the Georges Lammam Ensemble. It’s the kind of cinema experience Berkeley has come to expect from the Fine Arts, and will be missed in their absence.  

Free Early Music Group 

Singers needed for small group of 15th and 16th century music every Friday 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK Way. 

Contact Ann at 665-8863 

Saturday, July 13 

Barbara Dane 75th Birthday Concert 

7:30 p.m. 

Frieght and Salvage coffee house, 1111 Addison St. 

Jazz, blues, American folk from around the world 

548-1761 for ticket information 

Sunday, July 14 

Hal Stein Quartet  

4:30 p.m.  

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison Street € Berkeley 

845-5373, www.jazzschool.com 

$6-12  

Troy Lampkins Group 

4:30 p.m.  

Jazzschool 2087 Addison Street € Berkeley 

Groove-filled, groove-intense music 

845-5373, swing@jazzschool.com 

$6-12  

Thursday, July 25 

Midsummer Motzart  

Festival Orchestra 

8 p.m. 

First Congregational Church 

2345 Channing Way 

Divertimento in D, Piano concerto #17, Symphony #38 “Prague” 

(415) 292-9624 for tickets 

$25-50 

Saturday, August 3 

Bata Ketu 

8 p.m.  

Alice Arts Center, 1428 Alice St. 

Oakland. 

Interplay of Cuban and Brazilian  

music and dance  

www.lapena.org 

$20 

“Red Rivers Run Through Us”  

Until Aug. 11,  

Wed. - Sun.  

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center,  

1275 Walnut St. 

Art and writing from Maxine Hong Kingston's veterans' writing group 

Reception, 2 to 4 p.m.  

644-6893 

From the Attic: Preserving  

and Sharing our Past 

Until July 26, Thur.-Sat. 1 to 4 p.m. 

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St. 

Exhibit shows the 'inside' of museum work 

848-0181 

Free 

The Creation of People’s Park 

Through Aug. 31, Mon.-Thur. 9 to 9 p.m., Fri. 9 to 5 p.m., Sat. 1 to 5 p.m. Sun. 3 to 7 p.m. 

The Free Movement Speech Cafe  

UC Berkeley campus 

A photo exhibition, curated  

by Harold Adler 

hjadler@yahoo.com 

Free 

Jan Wurm: Paintings and Drawings 

Mon. and Fri. 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tues.-Thurs. 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. 

Flora Hewlett Library at the Graduate Theological Union 

2400 Ridge Road 

649-1417 

Thursday, July 11 

“New Visions: Introductions 

'02” Reception 

Works from emerging Californian artists 

Reception, 6 to 8 p.m. Display up from July 3 to Aug. 10 

Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St. Oakland 

763-4361 

Free 

Saturday, July 20 

“First Anniversary  

Group Show”  

July 18 to Aug. 17 

Ardency Gallery, Aki Lot, 8th Street 

Reception, 5 to 8 p.m. 

13 local artists display work ranging from sculpture to mixed media 

836-0831 

Thursday, July 11 

“New Visions: Introductions  

‘02” Reception 

Works from emerging Californian artists 

Reception, 6 to 8 p.m. Display up from July 3 to Aug. 10 

Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St.  

Oakland 

763-4361 

Free 

Antony and Cleopatra 

Directed by Joy Meads 

June 15 to July 20,  

Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m. 

La Vals Subterranean Theater  

1834 Euclid 

234-6046 for reservations 

$14 general, $10 student 

Abingdon Square  

Previews 16,18,19 at 8 p.m. Runs June 21 to July 6, Thurs. to Sat. 8 p.m. Sundays 7 p.m.  

Julia Morgan Theater for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. 

The Shotgun Players,  

directed by Shana Cooper 

704-8210 www.shotgunplayers.org 

$18 regular, $12 students, previews and Mondays - pay what you can. Opening Night $25\ 

Grease 

July 5-Aug. 10, Sunday matinees  

July 14,21,28 Aug. 4 

Contra Costa Civic Theater,  

951 Pomona Ave. El Cerrito 

Directed by Andrew Gabel 

524-9132 for reservations 

$17 general, $10 for under 16 and under 

Midsummer Nights Dream 

Until June 29,  

Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. 

Magical Acts Ritual Theater, directed by Catherine Pennington 

The Black Box,  

1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland 

653-6637 for reservations 

$15 - $25 

Don Pasquale Opera 

July 13, 15, 17, 19 at 8 p.m.  

July 21 at 2 p.m. 

Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek 

From the Festival Opera  

Association, a comedy by  

Gaetano Donizetti about an arranged marriage 

www.festivalopera.com 

Benefactors 

July 18 to Aug. 18, Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m. Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. 

Previews: July 12-14 and 17 

Michael Frayn's comedy of two neighboring couple's interactions 

Aurora Theatre Company  

2081 Addison St. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org  

for reservations. $26 - $35  

The Shape of Things 

Sept. 13 to Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company,  

2081 Addison St. 

Neil LaBute's love story  

about two students 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 - $35  

The Heidi Chronicles 

July 12 to Aug. 10 Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. 

Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley present Wendy Wasserstein’s play about change. 

528-5620 

$10 

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights 

July 12 to Sept. 28, Fri.-Sun. 8 p.m. Sun. 4 p.m. 

Forest Meadows Outdoor Amphitheater, Grand Avenue at the Dominican University, San Raphael 

Marin Shakespeare Company’s presents this classic story with original Arabic music. 

(415) 499-4488 for tickets 

$12, youth; $20 senior; $22 general 

Alarms and Excursions 

Nov. 15 to Dec. 22 

Aurora Theatre Company,  

2081 Addison St. 

Michael Frayn's comedy about the irony of modern technology 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 - $35  

Poetry Diversified 

1st and 3rd Tuesdays,  

7:30 to 9 p.m. 

World Ground Cafe,  

3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., Oakland 

Open mic and featured readers 

Wednesday, July 3 

Ghetto Girl Blue Speaks  

the Unspeakable 

10 p.m.  

Kimball’s Carnival in Jack London Square  

A street walker recalls her turbulent and highly sexual past through poetry. 

www.ipunany.com or www.urbanevents.com 

Boas Writing Group 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Stefani Barber, Jean Lieske  

and many more 

845-7852 

$2 

Saturday, July 6 

Bay Area Arts Coalition  

Poetry Reading 

3 to 5 p.m. 

West Berkeley Branch Library  

1125 University Ave. 

527-99055 

Wednesday, July 10 

Carmen Gimenez-Rosello,  

Dawn Trook 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

845-7852 

$2 

Sunday, July 14 

M.L. Liebler and  

Country Joe McDonald 

Poetry and Music 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

845-7852 

$2 

Wednesday, July 17 

Hannah Stein and Kevin Clark 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Authors of “Earthlight and In the Evening of No Warning.” 

845-7852 

$2 

Open Mike and Featured Poet 

7 to 9 P.M. First Thursdays and second Wednesdays each month  

Albany Library 1247 Marin Ave 

Thursday, July 11: Poets Tenesha Smith-Douglas and Judith Annenbaum. 

Second Wednesdays are a monthly Poetry Writing Workshop, led by Alison Seevak.  

526-3720 Ext. 19 

Free 

Friday and Saturday, July 5 and 6 

Brainwash Movie Festival 

9 p.m. 

Alliance for West Oakland Development Parking Lot, 1357 5th St. Across from W. Oakland BART 

Weird and unique short films and video festival 

(415) 273-1545 

$10 

Friday, July 5 

“Remember the Night”  

and “The Good Fairy” 

7:30 p.m. and 9:25 p.m., respectively. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft  

Preston Sturges' classic films 

Saturday, July 6 

“The Great McGinty” and  

“Christmas in July” 

McGinty at 4:30 and 8:30 p.m.; Christmas at 7 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft  

Preston Sturges' classic films 

Saturday, June 29

Know Your Rights Training 

11 a.m.- 2 p.m. 

Copwatch Office 

2022 Blake St., Berkeley 

Learn what your rights are and how to observe the police effectively and safely; hosted by Copwatch. 

For more information: 548-0425 

Free 

Emergency Preparedness  

Classes in Berkeley 

9 a.m. to noon 

997 Cedar Street 

Disaster First Aid: Learn to apply  

basic first aid techniques. 

981-5605 

How to Travel with Children 

11 to noon 

East Bay's Premier Action Sports Store  

1440 San Pablo Ave. 

Lonely Planet's global travel editor, Don George will offer tips and advice. 

526-7529. 

Free 

Save the Bay's East Bay  

Shoreline Bike Ride 

Noon 

Ride with Save the Bay along this beautiful section of the 10-mile SF Bay Trail. 

452-9261 for info and reservations.  

Savebay@savesfbay.org 

Free 

Northern California Labor Conference on Democratic Rights 

9:30 to 4:00 p.m.  

Valley Life Science Building Room 2040 UC Berkeley 

One day conference is being organized to focus on the growing attack on labor rights since the "War On Terrorism" 

Free 

Garden Party for  

David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Two Strong Roots garden sites;  

on the corner of Sacramento and Woolsey, and Sacramento and  

Harmon 

Gardening for all ages,  

honey making,  

gardening workshops 

(415) 788-3666 

Free 

Meditation Seminar 

11 a.m. 

Rockridge Library,  

5366 College Ave.  

Oakland 

Thakar Singh's seminar 

(888) 297-1715 

Free 

David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at  

Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

Stanford Jazz Festival,  

June 29-August 10 

10:30 a.m. kids 7 & under, 11:30 a.m.  

Kids 8-12, Campbell Recital Hall  

Stanford Campus  

Early Bird jazz for kids and families  

with Jim Nadel & Friends. 

Free 

Maybeck High School  

30th anniversary  

6 p.m. to 10 p.m.  

Piedmont Community Hall  

711 Highland Ave. Piedmont 

Call 841-8489 for reservations 

Kids are Street Safe Campaign 

10 a.m. to noon 

Neighborhood House of North Richmond, 305 Chesley Ave, Richmond 

Police, Richmond mayor,  

superintendent, youth directors speak  

on how to keep kids safe. 

235-9780 

Free 

Sunday, June 30

Celebration of the California Least  

Tern Nesting Season 

11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Crab Cove Visiting Center, Alameda 

Craft-making, slide show, visual displays,  

and a visit to the nesting colony 

Bus tour recommended for ages 6 and up, needs reservations. 

Reservations for tour: 521-6887 

General: Free; Tour: $6-$8 

Monday, July 1

“Children of AIDS” film 

6:30 p.m.  

Mama Bears Bookstore and Coffee house, 6536 Telegraph Avenue  

Presented by the National Organization  

for Women  

549-2970, 287-8948  

Free 

What You Need to Know  

Before You Remodel 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 

Discussion by builder Glen Kitzenberger 

525-7610 

Free 

Tuesday, July 2

Adopt A Special Kid (AASK) 

7 to 9 p.m. 

7700 Edgewater Drive, Suite 320  

Oakland.A workshop for singles or couples, gay and lesbian, experienced or older parents, interested in adoption. 

533-1747, ext. 12. 

Saturday, July 6

Capoeira Batizado 

2 to 6 p.m.  

Capoeira Arts Cafe 

2026 Addison, Berkeley 

A celebration of Capoeira with  

performances by local arts organization. 

For information: 666-1255 

Free 

Saturday, July 6 - 

Sunday, July 21

Marin Classic Theatre 

presents "Born Yesterday" 

8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sunday matinee; 7 p.m. Sundays 

A bittersweet comedy by  

Garson Kanin. 

For information: 415-892-8551 or 

www.MCTheatre.com 

$18 evening performances,  

$15 matinee 

Thursday, July 11

Great Sierra Backpacking  

Destinations 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo  

Karen Najarian of Sierra Wilderness Seminars presents slides from her more that 20 years exploring the  

Sierra Backcountry. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Saturday, July 13

Peach / Stone Fruit Tasting 

Tasting & cooking  

demonstrations 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

15th Anniversary Derby Street  

Farmers Market 

Live music and & stone-fruit and peach tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Festival of New Versions  

of Classic Asian Games 

Noon to 5 p.m 

Dr Comics and Mr Games,  

4014 Piedmont Ave., Oakland  

Dr Comics and Mr Games Hosts Game a festival featuring two new versions of classic Asian board games 

601-7800 

Sunday, July 14

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m. to noon 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Learn from an REI bike technician  

basic bike repairs such as brake  

adjustments and fixing a flat. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Family Health Day 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

4th and University Ave. 

Explore health concerns in a family  

oriented environment 

Free 

Tuesday, July 16

Berkeley Camera Club Weekly Meeting 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church,  

941 The Alameda 

Share slides, prints with  

other photographers 

525-3565 

Free 

Introduction to Accessible  

Software and Hardware  

10:30 a.m. to noon 

Berkeley Public Library Electronic Classroom, 2090 Kittredge Street 

RSVP to 981-6121- Alan Bern, Special Services Coordinator 

Wedneday, July 17

Doctors Without Borders 

(Through July 18) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

UC Berkeley, Springer Gateway, West Entrance Crescent 

Interactive exhibit expalining medicines for people in developing countries; Film screenings 

www.doctorswithoutborders.org 

Thursday, July 18

Mystique of the Widerness 

7 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Phil Arnot presents slides from over 50 years of exploring such places as Alaska, New Zealand, the Sierra and the Rockies. 

For more information: (510) 527-4140 

Introduction to Accessible  

Software and Hardware  

3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library Electronic Classroom, 2090 Kittredge Street 

RSVP to 981-6121- Alan Bern,  

Special Services Coordinator 

Saturday, July 20

Emergency Preparedness  

Classes in Berkeley 

Earthquake Retrofitting: Learn how to strengthen your wood frame home. 

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

812 Page Street 

981-5605 

Free 

Thursday, July 25

California Landscapes:  

A Geologist's Perspective 

7 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

John Karachewski presents an educational slideshw on such amazing places as the Sierra Nevada, Coast Ranges the Great Valley and Cascades 

For more information: (510) 527- 4140. 

Free 

Saturday, July 27

Test Ride Kestrel Bicycles 

11 a.m.-1 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Preston Sandusky of Kestrel, a premier manufacturer of high-end, carbon-fiber road and mountain bikes, intrduces their latest design. 

For more information: (510) 527-4140 

Free 

"Neon: The Living Flame" 

7:00 p.m.  

Alameda Museum, 2324 Alameda Ave  

The Alameda Museum presents Michael Crowe, author, and neon artist Karl Hauser 

lecture by Michael Crowe 

748-0796 or 841-8489.  

Members free, non-members $5  

Sunday, July 28

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m.-12 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Learn from an REI bike techician basic repairs such as brake adjustments and fixing a flat. 

For more information: (510) 527-4140 

Free 

Wednesday, July 31

Mountain Adventure Seminars:  

Introduction to Rock Climbing 

7 p.m.-9 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

An introduction to rockclimbing including knot tieing, belaying and movement. 

For more information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

Saturday, August 3

Mountain Adventure Seminars: Introduction to Rock Climbing 

8 a.m.-3 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

An introduction to rockclimbing including knot tieing, belaying and movement. 

For more information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

Saturday, August 10

Tomato Tastings 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Tastings and cooking demonstrations  

Free 

Dynasty Basketball helps get players into the community 

It’s 3 p.m. in West Berkeley, and there are a dozen restless 4-year-olds at the Oceanview YMCA Head Start Program. They do their best to sit still and listen to the story being read to them, but their eyes and minds wander around the room as sunlight leaks in through a couple of windows. 

The storyteller isn’t your usual preschool teacher: He’s about 6-foot-5 and barely fits in his junior-sized chair. He’s also 17 years old and sports cornrows. But Berkeley High rising senior K.K. Alexander doesn’t mind the reading time, as long as he eventually gets to stretch his legs. 

When Alexander finishes the story (something about Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and a cannon), the preschoolers break out to the yard, complete with playstructure, foursquare court and picnic tables. But despite the playground equipment, the biggest attraction is Alexander and three of his fellow volunteers. The kids chase them, try to steal a basketball from their hands, and climb on them like jungle gyms. The young men are all exceptionally tall and athletic, and there’s a good reason for that: they’re the founding members of Dynasty Basketball. 

Started by El Cerrito High’s Jonathon Smith and his stepfather, Berkeley High graduate and Cal Hall of Famer Gene Ransom, Dynasty Basketball is an AAU summer team for promising high school ballers. They practice several times a week and have finished in the top two in all four tournaments they’ve entered this summer. Next month, they will jet off to Las Vegas for the Adidas Big Time Tournament, the most prestigious prep basketball event in the nation. At first glance, they’re just like most other AAU teams, a collection of some of the best players in the region who are hoping to make the leap to college ball. 

But Dynasty Basketball is about more than just basketball. Ransom, a former freshman coach at Berkeley High, made sure when he agreed to coach the team that the players would be committed to community service and hitting the books. Starting with Smith and boyhood friend Alexander, they recruited players from schools like St. Joseph, Kennedy, and Salesian to fill out the team.  

While the players may not be the kind of stars that recruiters gossip about, they all have a chance to move on to the next level, and Ransom wants to make sure they don’t miss out. 

“They asked me (to coach) because they knew I’m a coach that’s concerned with them as true student-athletes,” Ransom says. “My kids didn’t feel as if they were getting enough from their high schools. They know I’m about them, not about myself.” 

Ransom coached the freshman team at Berkeley High during the 2000-01 season, but decided to step away after his proposals for study programs and community service for the players fell on deaf ears. With the budget getting tighter every year at BHS, the support system for younger players can be lacking. In fact, with the newest set of budget cuts, the freshman team has been eliminated for the upcoming school year. 

So when Davis asked Ransom to help organize a team for him and his friends, Ransom jumped at the chance. While taking classes at the New College of California in San Francisco, he had written a proposal for a comprehensive program for high school athletes, complete with study sessions and community service as equal components with practice and games. Dynasty Basketball is the beginning stages of that vision. 

“These kids were overlooked, and now they’re getting a chance to show how good they are,” Ransom says. “A lot of AAU teams want to stack up with known star players.” 

For Smith and the other players, basketball is admittedly the main focus. But they enjoy their time at Head Start, sporting huge grins as they show off fancy dribbling moves and hoist kids over their shoulders. 

“We probably practice just as much as any other AAU team, and that’s important to us,” Smith says. “But when we’re not playing, we’re doing something as a group. This lets us do something constructive with our off-time, instead of just hanging around.” 

It’s hard to say who has more fun during playtime, the little kids or the big kids. Head Start Director Pam Shaw says having the players come in is the highlight of the preschoolers’ week, especially since the Head Start staff trained the players on how to interact with them. 

“The kids look so forward to seeing them,” Shaw says. “It has really escalated basketball to new high among four-year-olds. It’s something you don’t really see in most programs.” 

The team visits Head Start once a week, and they recently finished painting the Oceanview YMCA building. Later this summer, they will volunteer at homeless shelters, which Ransom thinks will give them some perspective on the importance of education. 

“I feel this stuff makes these kids realize basketball can only go so far,” Ransom says. “When I finished school and got into coaching, I started to see how the system can take advantage of athletes. When someone is done with you, they can just throw you away. These young men have to be ready for when they aren’t playing anymore.” 

Paula Gerstenblatt, mother to Smith and wife to Ransom, encouraged the two to get the program going and has been instrumental in fundraising efforts. She knew Ransom wouldn’t let the players just work on basketball all summer. 

“The team gives them an opportunity to experience things that they might normally miss at this age,” Gerstenblatt says. “If you can prod them out of their little world of basketball into other things, it can only help.” 

Russell Murrey 

Gene Ransom 841-7835 205-3395 

Tried at Berkeley High to start afterschool program, but it never materialized. So I went independent, started own AAU team.  

There are kids out there with just as much talent, just lack being taught basketball skills. 

They are role models, more than just players. Came up had a lot of mentors, nowadays lacking in positive mentors, just giving back what people have given to me over the years. 

Resources are there, what I came to find out is that some programs are not really fro the kids as far as building character, teaching them about life as much as basketball. 

Grad 75. Cal 75-78.  

Paula Gerstenblatt 741-1272 

agreed to coach the kids, group of parents got together, really team formed because of lack of this kind of program at HS level. What we wanted to do for our kids was provide a more nurturing experience for academic, athletic, social skills. Based on proposal Gene New College of California, proposed at BHS, plan to have kids reading and doing comm service. Used that as springboard assign book to read, do comm service as part of team requirement. Began just trying to put together team with schedule. Not familiar with AAU circuit. Fumbled way through dark. Fundraising for a fraction of costs. Garage sale, EC Honda donated money. Pooled money, four tournaments so far, taken second in three and first in one. SNJ spring league. Going to Vegas Big Time Tournament, Elite 8 at Cal. 

Impetus came from how a lot of athletes are not offered a full development. 2.0 effort on court would not be tolerated. What’s blossomed has been camaraderie and friendships. 20 years from now look around and see friends that came from this. Other piece is that really fortunate to have Doug Murray SJSU HOF and Gene. 

Head Start connection, some kids done comm service in their communities. Natural linkage to Berk/Alb Head Start. Gives them opp to experience things that they might miss at this age. If can prod them out of their little world of basketball into other things.  

Pam Shaw Berkeley Head Start director 848-9092. 925-457-7308 cell 

Fun having kids there that aren’t little kids. Takes them away from just being basketball players. Had to train them more about how to play with the kids, how to read stories. The kids really look up to them, literally and figuratively. 

Mutual benefits are incredible, and kids get a chance to run wild. Our kids need everything we can give them. 

Birth to five, preschool, thorugh Berk/Alb YMCA. Funded to serve close to 500 kids, now have 9 centers in east bay. focuses on kids and families, low income. Get kids ready for school. 

office used to be gym, Gene played basketball here. Fond feelings, working on whole child, natural progression, inclination to do work within community. 

Did apply for grant Youth Involvement, federal government, to expand program to target high school athletes. October. Try to work with coaches in area to have more kids do community service with us. Interesting target, kids often don’t do much outside of school other than athletics.

Program for underprivileged kids may now be in jeopardy 

By Matt Liebowitz 

Special to the Daily Planet 

The Berkeley Boosters Police Activity League is desperate after 25 of its bicycles were stolen Thursday from a storage space under the old Lee Frank Jewelers on Shattuck Avenue at Allston Street. 

“We’re really grasping at straws,” said David Manson, executive director of the boosters league. “I went there at 1 p.m., (Thursday) and they were all gone.”  

For 19 years the Boosters have collaborated with the Berkeley Police Department to provide outdoor-oriented programs for low-income, at-risk kids.  

This summer’s program, a 120-mile bike ride from Berkeley to Coloma, followed by camping and whitewater rafting, is scheduled July 8 to July 26, but Manson is now unsure of the program’s status. 

“There’s a slim hope that we’ll recover these bicycles at all, let alone by July 8,” Manson said. “This is a phenomenal loss.”  

August Chemotti of Mike’s Bicycle Center on University Avenue said bike theft is a big problem. 

“Bike theft around here is huge,” Chemotti said. In the repair room in the back of the shop, Chemotti pointed out a bike recently brought in without a steering column.  

“We get something like this every single day,” Chemotti said. He then took the seat and back wheel off, leaving the bike stripped and the frame on the ground. “We get them like this too.”  

Miriam Hunting, a co-worker of Chemotti’s said, “You’ve got to wonder where all the stolen wheels go.”  

A missing wheel could cost the owner $75 to more than $100 to replace, Hunting said. 

“Someone is earning a lot of money off these stolen wheels,” he said. 

The staff at Mike’s said they don’t loan bikes but would be willing to offer the Boosters a deal on bikes to keep their program on schedule. 

The Berkeley Police Department could not be reached for comment. 

To the Editor: 

You can take “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance but you can't take yourself out from under god. Big Brother rules. 

He has deceived all the nations (Rev. 12:9), father of lies, god of this world. Orwell's “1984” should have been called“3990 BC - 2010 AD.” 

The last time a nation was under God with a capital "G" was Judah when the Jews returned from Babylon under Ezra and Zerubbabel. Israel, the 10 northern tribes which the US and Britain came from, hasn't been under God from the beginning of its existence after the death of King Solomon. We don't even keep the sabbath, one of the 10 Commandments. The greatest country on earth and we don't know who we are in the Bible. 

So you have freedom of religion?  

You can have any religion you want but you're all under the same god, the god of disinformation. I pledge my allegiance to God. He's going to send a special messenger with the truth – a prophet like Elijah who is going to turn hearts back to the real God. 

Harold Reimann 

Lucerne Valley 

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Most of them were born a decade or two after Elvis Presley died. But the kids watching Disney’s new “Lilo & Stitch” at a screening in Memphis got a chuckle when the small blue space alien Stitch did an Elvis impersonation in a white jumpsuit. 

And that made the folks from Graceland happy, too. 

“We’re going to have millions of young kids discovering Elvis and asking their parents if they’ve ever heard of this guy,” said Jack Soden, president of Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. 

It’s a big year for Graceland, the center of a multimillion-dollar business owned by Elvis’ sole heir, Lisa Marie Presley. Aug. 16 is the 25th anniversary of Presley’s death in 1977 at the Memphis mansion, and he is already getting new attention. 

This week, RCA Records released a version of his 1968 “A Little Less Conversation” to radio and commercial outlets. “Elvis vs. JXL — a Little Less Conversation,” remixed into a techno groove by Junkie XL, has already hit No. 1 in Britain. 

Also this week, RCA/BMG Heritage released a four-CD box set, “Elvis: Today, Tomorrow & Forever,” with 100 previously unreleased tracks, mostly alternate takes of lesser-known material. And an album of Elvis’ 30 No. 1 hits is due out in September. 

As for “Lilo & Stitch,” it was not planned to coincide with the Elvis anniversary. Disney came to Graceland more than two years ago with the idea of including Elvis music in the movie. 

“Then they began weaving Elvis more and more into the movie and it became a multi-tier series of permissions and licenses, and of course we were getting more excited by the minute,” Soden said. 

Presley’s music runs throughout the animated movie. Lilo is a lonely young girl in Hawaii who consoles herself with Elvis records that belonged to her deceased parents. She has no friends until she adopts Stitch, the mischievous alien she thinks is a dog. 

The movie opened Friday, and there was an invitation-only show the night before in Memphis, followed by an elaborate luau at Graceland put on by Disney. 

Hula dancers, Hawaiian torches and banquet tables with thatched roofs greeted the more than 600 guests, who included business associates of Graceland and Disney and their families. 

“The day we decided to use Elvis music in the movie we didn’t think we would be here celebrating at Graceland,” said Dean DeBlois, co-writer and director of the film. 

Eight Elvis songs are in the movie, and making Lilo an Elvis fan helped round out her character, DeBlois said. 

“It would make her a little different from other girls her age today who are listening to the latest pop bands,” he said. “We have one scene where Lilo is alone. She’s lonely and feeling kind of sorry for herself so we picked ’Heartbreak Hotel’ for that one.” 

Presley made three movies in Hawaii and staged two of his best-known concerts there: a benefit for the USS Arizona in 1961 and “Aloha From Hawaii” in 1973. 

DeBlois and his partner, Chris Sanders, got a private tour of Graceland. One long hallway is lined with Presley’s gold and platinum records. 

“I turned one time and I was right at ’Blue Hawaii.’ I couldn’t believe it,” Sanders said. “I walked a couple of feet and there was ’Rock-A-Hula.”’

Olivier moving on to Hercules High 

The St. Mary’s High administration will name a new boys’ head basketball coach on Monday, Athletic Director Jay Lawson confirmed Friday. 

Lawson declined to identify the new coach on Friday, as an official announcement won’t be released until after the weekend, but did say the hire is from outside the current staff and will also teach Spanish, the same position held by former coach Jose Caraballo. That eliminates former assistant coach Mark Olivier, who was one of the four finalists for the job. Olivier confirmed his plan to take over the head coaching job at Hercules High next season. 

Lawson also said Friday that the school’s staff had met with most of the returning players, and all affirmed their plan to stay at St. Mary’s.

Victim was apparently ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ police said 

Flowers and photographs marked the spot where Roysel Marshall-Darrow was stabbed to death Wednesday evening. Family and friends gathered at the site on Haste Street near Telegraph Avenue to remember the man they called a good father, son, husband and friend. They made a small, temporary memorial against the outside wall of Rochdale UC co-op, and told stories about the gregarious man they knew.  

All in attendance said Marshall-Darrow was a person unlikely to be involved in a violent altercation.  

A stranger stabbed Marshall-Darrow three times while he was putting money into a parking meter on the 2400 block of Haste Street, police and witnesses said. Police arrested a suspect, but say they don’t know whyMarshall-Darrow was murdered. 

“A motive hasn’t been determined,” said Berkeley police Lt. Ed McBride. “It appeared the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  

Lamar Mitchell, 23, of Pittsburgh is in police custody under suspicion of the stabbing. An arraignment originally set for Friday was rescheduled for Tuesday. 

Lt. McBride said the attacker approached Marshall-Darrow on the north side of Haste Street. Marshall-Darrow turned from the attacker before being stabbed repeatedly: once in the heart, once in the side and one time in the arm.  

Marshall-Darrow was taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland and pronounced dead upon arrival. He died as a result of stab wounds to his chest, said Supervising Coroner Frank Gentle of the Alameda County Coroner’s Office. 

Marshall-Darrow, 41, was born in Berkeley. Friend Gavin Housch said that he loved Telegraph Avenue and enjoyed getting coffee there periodically, including when he attended U.C. Berkeley twenty years ago. He lived in a home in Hamet in Southern California with his wife and three children and commuted to Northern California a couple of times a month to work. He was a trained electrician who worked as a power lineman for San Francisco Muni. A memorial is scheduled 3 p.m. Sunday at the Rose Garden in Berkeley.  

To the Editor: 

I’m sorry people are so offended by the desire of atheists and agnostics to be recognized as a legitimate and welcome part of the national fabric, as loyal citizens, and as worthy of the same respect that people of different faiths profess to pay each other.  

I’m sick of being assumed by many to lack ethics because I don't believe in God. I love and care for my family and friends. I respect and look out for my neighbors and fellow community members. I believe in democracy and I vote regularly. I work, volunteer, and practice random acts of kindness.  

Godless does not equal amoral. This ruling is long overdue. I don't undersand the controversey.  

Do we have separation of church and state or don't we? Are those of us who don't believe in God equal citizens or aren't we?  

Sonja Fitz 

Berkeley, CA

NEW YORK – The two surviving members of The Who decided Friday to resume their scheduled three-month U.S. tour despite the sudden death of bassist John Entwistle, their bandmate of nearly four decades. 

“The band decided to recommence the tour beginning at the Hollywood Bowl (a Monday night show),” according to a message posted on guitarist Pete Townshend’s Web site. 

The first show will serve as “a tribute to John Entwistle,” the band said in a separate statement. 

Pino Palladino, a British session player who has worked on Townshend’s solo projects, will fill in for Entwhistle, the Web site said. The band intends to complete the full tour, and will reschedule two dates postponed after the death. 

The band’s name will be the same, but it won’t be the same Who. 

Whenever the band took the stage, Roger Daltrey provided the sound and Townshend the fury. Off to the side, frozen except for the fingers flying across his fretboard, stood “The Ox” — Entwistle. 

Entwistle, a player of restraint in a band of excess, died Thursday of an apparent heart attack at a Las Vegas hotel. An autopsy was scheduled in Las Vegas to determine the exact cause of death, with the results of blood and lab tests expected to take two to 12 weeks, said Clark County Coroner Ron Flud. 

But Las Vegas authorities said there was no sign of trauma, no sign of violence and no drug paraphernalia in Entwistle’s hotel room. There was no word on funeral arrangements, and Entwistle’s family issued a call for privacy. 

Entwistle, who was on medication for a heart condition, was 57. Thirty-eight of those years were spent with The Who, which he co-founded as a London teen. 

Entwistle was “probably the most influential bassist in rock music,” said rock critic Bruce Eder of the All Music Guide. Total Guitar magazine named him as bassist of the millennium in 2000, selecting Entwistle over contemporaries Paul McCartney of the Beatles, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. 

“The quietest man in private but the loudest onstage,” Wyman said of his late friend. “He was unique and irreplaceable.” 

Entwistle’s death came one day before the band was scheduled to open its tour in Las Vegas. That show was postponed, along with a second show set for Saturday night in Irvine, Calif. 

Fans in Las Vegas turned out at The Joint, the 1,800-seat theater where The Who had been scheduled to perform. The Who movie “Quadrophenia” was playing instead.

YOKOHAMA, Japan – What a time and place for the first World Cup meeting between Brazil and Germany — in the final, for the trophy, with all the world watching. 

“We have been looking for this game for so many years in Brazil,” said Carlos Alberto Parreira, who coached his nation to the 1994 title. “I would say that the hierarchy has been restored by this Germany-Brazil final.” 

Brazil has won four World Cup titles and Germany three. Of the 12 World Cup finals since World War II, 11 have included one of those two nations, with Argentina’s 1978 victory over the Netherlands the only exception. 

But, strangely, they’ve avoided each other in soccer’s showcase. No Pele vs. Sepp Maier. No Franz Beckenbauer vs. Gylmar. 

“Both teams have a great tradition,” Brazilian forward Rivaldo said. “If Brazil wants to be champions, we have to respect Germany. Not fear them, respect them.” 

Germany won its semifinal, 1-0 over co-host South Korea on Tuesday in Seoul. Brazil did its part a night later, defeating Turkey 1-0 in Saitama to match the Germans of 1982, 1986 and 1990 as the only nation to make the final three straight times. 

“Brazil is the best you can get,” said Oliver Kahn, Germany’s brilliant goalkeeper. “Individually, they have world-class players at every position. But the sum of best individuals doesn’t necessarily make the best team and I think we can beat them. My gut feeling tells me that we are going to be the world champions, but I can’t explain why.” 

It’s an unlikely time for the teams’ first World Cup meeting. Both nations struggled in qualifying and were considered by some long shots even to reach the quarterfinals. 

Brazil was just 9-6-3 in qualifying — unheard of mediocrity in the land of samba soccer — getting in only with a victory over lowly Venezuela in its final game. Germany needed to beat Ukraine in a playoff to make it. 

“Nobody really expected us to even go to the round of 16,” Germany coach Rudi Voeller said. 

Brazil won the title in 1958, 1962, 1970 and 1994, earning praise much of the time for its stylish attacks. West Germany captured the championship in 1954, 1974 and 1990, sometimes criticized for its lack of imagination — and ability to flop in front of officials to gain unwarranted penalty kicks. 

There’s little doubt which style most fans prefer. At its best, Brazilian soccer is a painter’s palette. At its worst, German soccer is a wrecking ball, shattering opponents with brute strength and bland-but-effective relentlessness. 

“Despite the criticisms that were leveled at us because of the lack of style, lack of flair, in actual fact we implemented the coach’s instructions,” Germany’s Michael Ballack said after the semifinal win. 

Ballack, who scored the only goals in the quarterfinal against the United States and in the semifinal, will miss Sunday’s game while serving a suspension for getting two yellow cards. Brazil seems supremely confident going in. 

“It will be a match between the most attacking team and the most defensive team, who has only given away one goal,” Brazil’s Roberto Carlos said. “The game will focus on the defensive tactics.” 

In the past decade, the nations have met five times, with Brazil going 3-1-1. Brazil won 2-1 in a 1998 game in Germany, then routed an under-strength German team 4-0 in Mexico at the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Nutrition activist Joy Moore made it official this week: She will not run for the Board of Education. 

Moore, a community outreach worker, expressed strong interest in running earlier this year, but said this week she will not pursue office. 

“There’s enough people running,” she said, referring to the seven candidates who have declared for the three slots on the board up for election in November. 

When Moore publicly expressed interest in April, only four candidates had entered the race. 

The field now includes incumbents Shirley Issel and Terry Doran, parent activists Nancy Riddle, Derick Miller and Cynthia Papermaster, Berkeley High School discipline dean Robert McKnight and recent BHS graduate Sean Dugar. 

Moore, who serves on the Child Nutrition Advisory Committee, a parent group which advises the board, said she will actively support “a candidate or two” in the race. One of those candidates, she said, will be Doran. Moore has not decided on any others. 

In April, Moore, who is African-American, raised child nutrition and racial diversity on the board as key issues. This week she said the emergence of two African-American candidates, McKnight and Dugar, had allayed some of her concerns about an adequate minority presence on the board.  

But, Moore said she hopes some Latino candidates step forward. 

“I don’t think Latinos have representation on the board right now,” she said, in a swipe at board Vice-President Joaquin Rivera. 

“I’ve tried to do my best,” Rivera replied. 

Rivera’s seat is not up for election this year. School board member John Selawsky does not face re-election either. 

To the Editor: 

There is talk of installing Santa Rosa lights at Adeline and Fairview, because of the recent death there. But there is a much more effective alternative: Hawk lights. 

Hawk lights, used in Tucson, are similar to ordinary traffic lights. They are mounted on poles and masts, and when a pedestrian or bicyclist activates them, they turn yellow and then red, stopping traffic so people can cross. 

Santa Rosa lights are embedded in the crosswalk, where they are less visible, and they flash to warn cars that a pedestrian is crossing. 

It costs $40,000 to install Hawk lights at an intersection, a bit more than the $35,000 that it costs for Santa Rosa lights. 

But Hawk lights are much more effective than Santa Rosa lights. Virtually all drivers stop for Hawk lights, because they look like red traffic lights. 

Many drivers don't stop for Santa Rosa lights, because people do not know that flashing lights at ground level mean they should stop. 

Santa Rosa lights are particularly ineffective during the day, when they are less visible, so they probably would not have stopped the recent death at Adeline and Fairview. 

Charles Siegel 

Berkeley 

Convicted murderer chooses big house over home 

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A man who is under house arrest while awaiting sentencing in a murder case had had enough of his parents. So he volunteered to go to jail — early. 

Michael Kempker II, 20, contacted the Cole County sheriff’s department late Tuesday night and said he was having trouble at home. He said he wanted to leave before the situation escalated, Sheriff John Hemeyer said. 

The sheriff escorted Kempker back to jail, where he has been well-behaved, Hemeyer said. 

Kempker had been under house arrest since Dec. 31, after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the Nov. 11 beating death of Paul Thrasher, 20. As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors plan to recommend no more than 30 years in prison, as opposed to the maximum of life. 

Prosecutors say Thrasher was beaten to death and run over with his own vehicle. His body was found in a ditch near Russellville nearly two days later. 

Library police hunt young girl 

LITTLETON, Colo. — A 12-year-old girl must appear in court for failing to return one of four books she checked out for a research project on dolphins. 

Marisa Gohr had already returned three of the four books to the Bemis Public Library in Littleton when the summons arrived. She returned the last book a week after the summons. 

“I was kind of scared,” Gohr said about receiving her summons from the Littleton Municipal Court. “I was worried because I’ve never been to court before and I’m so young.” 

Officials at the library said a summons is sent out only after several weeks pass and repeated attempts are made to get the book back. 

After the summons came, the books were returned and $9 in fines was paid. 

When Marisa’s court date came Tuesday, her mother went for her because she didn’t want to take her daughter out of summer school. 

Not good enough, according to the court. The judge told Norma Gohr that her daughter, who is named on the summons, is the one who has to appear in court. A new hearing was set for July 9. 

Since she has already paid her $9, Marisa will need only to show the court her library receipt and pay a $15 court fee to have her case dismissed. 

Marisa said the experience has made her hesitant to check out anything from the library in the future. 

Lately, she said, “I just photocopy stuff from books.” 

A perfect eighteen years  

GLOVERSVILLE, N.Y. — Eric Samrov has never missed a day of school; in 13 years that’s roughly 2,340 school days in a row. 

He graduates from Gloversville High School Saturday with a perfect attendance record dating back to kindergarten — repeating a feat of perfection accomplished two years ago by his older brother, Adam Samrov. 

Besides minor colds, the brothers said they never got sick during school weeks. Neither had chicken pox, and the more severe illnesses seemed to come up during vacations and summer breaks. 

“It’s not that difficult. You just wake up every morning, hope not to be sick and go to school,” said 17-year-old Eric. 

The brothers said there was no competition between them. But having made it late into senior year without missing a day, Eric said his focus was set on making it through all 13 years without missing a day. 

“If I was dead, I wouldn’t come to school. If I was dying, I wouldn’t come to school,” he said. “That’s pretty much (it).”

To the Editor: 

Shana Levy (BDP 6/20/02) would like to turn the clock a few years back when liberals of her kind succeeded in preventing pro-Palestinian voices from sharing the progressive platform.  

In those times the code word was “ too controversial”. Now the code word is violence and/or terror. Ms. Levy is troubled by the Pro-Palestinian presence at the recent “Not in Our name” peace rally and equating the pro-palestinian with supporting violence only reveals her biases and significant blind spots. Her failure to recognize that the Palestinian movement wants justice and peace, which means freedom from Israeli occupation and Palestinian state along side Israel is significant. Her failure to speak of Israeli violence is inexcusable.  

Her refusing to join the rally she came to support is sad. This double standards and blind spots can coexist with progressive ideals only for a time before something will give way and or get exposed.  

The natural progression is that Ms. Levy will find herself increasingly comfortable watching FOX cable TV and agreeing with its right wing commentators' views of the Palestinians as violent terror loving people while being fed the rest of that channel’s crap. This transformation of a “progressive” has occurred many times before, and is exemplified by the neo-con magazines Commentary and the New Republic.  

In the mean time, the progressive, real peace loving communities and movement should resist cheap shots and blackmail from the pseudo-progressive types like Shana Levy. 

Aftim Saba MD 

Berkeley 

AC Transit revamps its faresZ 

A day after Bay Area commuters saw BART fares and Golden Gate Bridge tolls rise, AC Transit released the specifics of its bus fare and pass-price increases. All East Bay Bus riders will pay higher fares starting Sept. 1, except for youth who will see a considerable discount. 

Late Thursday, the AC Transit Board of directors voted 4-2 to pass an amended plan that will hike adult fairs from $1.35 to $1.50. Discount fairs including seniors and the disabled, will go up a dime from 65 cents to 75 cents. Youth prices are currently, $1.35 and will be reduced to 75 cents.  

Transbay bus riders will see a sharpest fare increase. Commuting across the Bay Bridge will now be $3 instead of $2.50.  

The 10-ride book will undergo a slight makeover in addition to its increase. Instead of a book it will now be a prepaid electronic pass with each ride deducted from a magnetic card. The price will increase from $11.50 to $13, and the discount rate will go up from $5.50 to $6.50. The 31-day pass for adults will increase just a dollar, from $49 to $50, while the same pass for seniors and the disabled will go up two dollars to $15.  

AC Transit also created a day pass, which is a new option for East Bay bus riders. The $5 pass is good for unlimited rides and transfers within a 24 hour period. The discount rate for the new pass is $3. 

The first price change to go into effect will be the sharp decrease in price for the youth pass. Beginning August first passengers between the age of 5 and 17 will only pay $15 for the 31-day pass, down $12 from its old rate. A yearly pass of $150 dollars for youth riders is still in the works. It should be ready in late August, in time for the new school year, said AC Transit representative Mike Mills. The same yearly pass will be free for children who qualify for food vouchers. The criteria for eligibility of this pass are still being determined, and the transit service is still looking for support to subsidize the plan.  

AC Transit said that the objective of all the proposals is to generate more fare revenue because of a slump in sales tax revenues. 

On Tuesday, the City Council approved a $552,000 facelift for Berkeley’s Live Oak Park and Recreation Center. 

The state-funded project is slated to begin construciton Aug. 28. Project designs began a year ago. 

The heavily-used north Berkeley park and recreation center were recently determined as not safe during an earthquake. The primary goal of the rebuilding venture is to provide a “seismic structural upgrade” that will improve safety for the community, said Lisa Caronna, director of Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront. 

“It’s deteriorated over the years due to deferred maintenance” Caronna said. “Our goal, first and foremost is to improve seismic safety,” she said, adding, “The park is desperately in need of a make-over.” 

Live Oak Park opened in 1916, and the Recreation Center in 1956. The park and Recreation center covers 5.5 acres off Shattuck Avenue and Berryman Street, and has a 200-capactiy social hall, two basketball courts, and lighted tennis and volleyball courts as well. It is one of three recreation centers in Berkeley, along with Frances Albrier Community Center and James Keeney Recreation Center. 

Dan Belson, associate civil engineer for the City of Berkeley is the project manager for the rebuilding project, officially called a “seismic retrofit.” 

“When dealing with an existing facility,” Belson said, “the first goal is to do work with the least amount of destruction to the building.” 

Belson outlined the architectural plans for the project, which involves modifying the existing walls, not tearing them down, to provide enough resistance for an earthquake. “We will strengthen the walls to act as one,” Belson said.  

Belson specified three rooms of the recreation center – the Fireside room, Activity room, and Game room – as areas in which windows will be replaced by walls to be tied into the foundation, the existing walls, and the roof to provide more strength. 

“We use the 1906 earthquake as a model to determine the maximum probable force a building can withstand,” Belson said. He explained that seismic upgrade projects such as this one build around that model. 

Though earthquake-proofing is at the top of the construction agenda, the rebuilding will also improve handicapped accessibility to the recreation center on the Shattuck Avenue side. It will open a skylight in the corridor, improve the mechanical and electrical systems and provide internal repairs. Included in the plan are a more usable kitchen and basic renovations such as painting.  

Belson said the project will take six months to complete. An expansion is not part of the rebuilding project. 

Live Oak Park and Recreation Center houses a variety of year-round programs, everything from after-school programs and a Teen Club, to puppy training, swing dancing and Japanese Taiko drumming. It can also be reserved and rented out for special events. 

“It is great for North Berkeley to have this,” said Caronna. After the rebuilding, Caronna is confident about Live Oak’s role in Berkeley. 

“It will be a much more welcoming environment for the community,” she said. 

The contract has been awarded to Angotti and Reilly of San Francisco. The money for the project is coming from Prop. 12, a bond measure passed at the state level that granted $500,000 for the project. Funding also came from the city’s Capital Improvement Program, which pitched in $200,000.  

The Angotti and Reilly bid will leave the city with apprxoiamtely $148,000 left over from the original grant, approved by voters in 2000. 

SACRAMENTO — A federal judge ruled on Friday to stop the implementation of a law that would have required the nation’s biggest bankers to include credit card “warnings” in monthly customer statements. 

The ruling, handed out by U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell in Sacramento, comes three days before the law was set to go into effect. 

A group of high-powered financial corporations, including Chase Manhattan Bank USA, CitiBank and MNBA America Bank, filed the suit a month ago to stop the law that would require the companies to warn customers about how long it takes to pay off balances by just paying the minimum monthly payment. 

The ruling comes as a shock to many consumer advocate groups who worked on the bill, signed by Gov. Gray Davis last year, who say the credit card companies never raised any of these concerns before, even though they actively participated in designing the legislation. 

“We’re disappointed,” said Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, named as a co-defendant in the case with the state Department of Consumer Affairs. “A good consumer law is postponed as a result of the bankers waiting to file a 11th-hour lawsuit over a law they helped negotiate.” 

At least a dozen corporate lawyers appeared in court on Friday to argue the law would interfere with interstate banking, which is illegal under federal law. 

The new law would have required the companies to send the warnings only to customers who make just the minimum payment for six months in a row. Credit card companies that have monthly payments of 10 percent or more of the entire balance are exempt. 

Howard N. Cayne, an attorney for the Washington D.C.-based firm representing the banks, said that because adding the warnings would be costly, banks would have no other choice than to increase their minimum monthly payments. States are not allowed to pass laws that interfere with monthly payment schedules or interest. 

“National bank powers trump the state law,” Douglas Jordan, senior counsel for the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, told the judge. 

Although Damrell scolded the plaintiffs for waiting until the last minute to file the lawsuit, he said he had “serious concerns” about the law. 

He ordered both sides to research the issue and told the bankers to perform a cost-benefit analysis to prove the warnings would be burdensome. Both parties will turn in their reports in October and the case will be reheard on Nov. 8. 

SAN JOSE — Twice within the last two years, Apple Computer Inc. executives sold company stock worth millions of dollars just weeks before Apple warned of disappointing financial results. Each earnings warning sent shares tumbling. 

While the sales could have an innocent explanation, analysts consider them unusual because at no other point during the period did any other clusters of large sell-offs by Apple executives occur. 

Big stock sales among executives are common, especially in the high-tech sector, where stock options are often a major part of compensation. 

But insider-trading analysts consider the Apple executives’ sales unusual because the people involved, though they were mostly exercising stock options, tend to be less active stock sellers. 

“These sells seem to be well-timed,” said Lon Gerber, director of insider research at Thomson Financial, coming as they did on the eve of two of three Apple earnings warnings over a period that began in August 2000. 

“It’s always a bit suspicious” when executives sell before a warning, said Martin Friedman, director of research at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc. 

The Cupertino-based computer maker defended the sales, which were questioned in a column last week on a Web site for Mac enthusiasts called Resexcellence.com. 

Apple denied any notion of impropriety. 

“I can assure you that no executive would have exercised options had they believed we would not meet our original guidance for the quarter,” Fred Anderson, Apple’s chief financial officer, said in a written statement. 

Anderson, one of the executives who sold stock prior to the warnings, refused further comment. So did all the others after attempts by The Associated Press to reach each individually. 

The biggest flurry of sales — 1.9 million shares worth more than $49 million — occurred between April 22 and May 31, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and were executed by Anderson and five other executives: senior vice president of applications Sina Tamaddon; senior vice president and general counsel Nancy Heinen; senior vice president of software engineering Avie Tevanian; senior vice president of finance Peter Oppenheimer.

SPRINGVILLE, Utah — Nature’s Way Products is recalling four lots of an herbal allergy-relief dietary supplement, saying Friday that excessive amounts of lead were found in the product. 

The product, Nettle, is sold in 100-capsule white bottles that come with green lids. The tainted pills were distributed nationwide, mostly to health food retail outlets, from October to May. 

Affected lot numbers, which can be identified by numbers printed on the bottom of each bottle, are 131237, 131238, 140738 and 215229. 

People who ingest high levels of lead, especially children, can suffer serious damage to the central nervous system. 

Nature’s Way said in a statement the product was found to have “excessive amounts of lead,” but company spokesman Gordon Walker couldn’t elaborate. 

“It varies by lot,” he said. 

Walker said the company wasn’t aware of any consumer health problems related to the discovery. 

The problem was traced to a single batch of raw material used in manufacturing the four affected lots. Walker said the company was investigating with a supplier to determine how the lead reached the product. 

Nature’s Way learned of the problem through the California Attorney General’s Office, which discovered it through a random testing program “within the last few weeks,” Walker said. 

Baby Boomers aren’t getting any younger, and neither are their parents. 

Its a fact of life that many Boomers must shoulder the responsibility to care for the homes of their elderly parents. 

Yet according to the Lowe’s Home Safety Council, more than simple upkeep is involved. Because the elderly are more at risk for accidents, safety is a major consideration. 

With the elderly being targets of much-publicized home-improvement scam artists, Lowe’s recommends you first build a list of home-improvement specialists you trust. This removes your parents from high-pressure negotiation tactics and puts you in control. It’s not a bad idea to schedule a regular walk through the home with your home-improvement expert to review what work needs to be done — and for how much money. 

Next, pay close attention to the safety aspects of the home. 

In particular, the Lowe’s Home Safety Council identifies certain items you should red-flag for immediate action: 

n Are steps protected by hand railings and nonskid surfaces? 

n Are area rugs backed by rubber or two-sided tape to reduce slippage? 

n Do all interior light bulbs have enough wattage to illuminate portions of the home? 

n Are exterior portions of the home adequately lighted? This applies both to security and general lighting. 

n Install motion detectors to kick on exterior floodlights and lamps in some interior rooms. 

n Install railings in baths and showers. 

n Consider railings along hallway walls. 

n Are cracks and gaps in paving and sidewalks filled and smoothed? 

n Is there enough attic insulation and are all windows weatherproofed? 

n Adding storm doors is a good idea to protect parents from drafts. 

n Install both smoke- and carbon-dioxide detectors. Check the batteries regularly. Locate a fire extinguisher near the kitchen, and make sure your parents know how to use it properly. 

n Ask trusted neighbors to keep an eye on the house. Give them your phone and e-mail addresses. 

“When you help your parents take important safety measures in their home, you are not only ensuring the safety of your parents, but of everyone who comes into contact with the home, including visitors and grandchildren,” explains David Oliver, Lowe’s Home Safety Council Executive Director. “These steps lead to a more comfortable, convenient and secure living environment for the entire family.” 

Functional rooms like kitchens and baths typically are fitted with wall-hung cupboards and storage areas. 

Still, there’s plenty to be said for junking the wood-veneer boxes attached to your walls. The rewards of starting from scratch with a few attractive, functional dressers, tables and freestanding cabinets are worth it. 

Space you didn’t know you had is the most notable benefit of this design concept. According to British interior designer Johnny Grey, who focuses mainly on kitchen design, “An illusion of spaciousness (is) achieved by leaving space around each piece of furniture, rather than fitting cupboards from wall to wall.” This now-exposed wall area can host well-placed shelves and hooks for extra storage and display. Your room will be tailored to your specific needs and tastes in a way rooms full of factory-made storage spaces can’t. 

Home designers and those in the cabinet industry have gotten wise to this idea and have begun designing and manufacturing storage units that have the look of furniture and the ease of predesigned cabinets. The bath shown here features attractive vanity cupboards; dresser legs replace the flat-front toe space usually seen where the storage units meet the floors in baths and kitchens. Atop a matching set of drawers and cabinets is a tall, open-faced shelf secured to the wall, which reveals its contents — towels, photos and art — without shame.  

By Lee Reich 

The Associated Press 

Most people envision waterlilies daubed on large canvases when they think of the artist Monet’s flowers. Nasturtiums are another possibility, for Monet planted them in abundance. They spilled out of beds into paths, frothing like ocean water on a beach to soften his garden’s edges. 

Nasturtiums are good flowers even for beginning gardeners. The large seeds germinate reliably, and do not need starting indoors for early bloom. Press a few seeds into the ground even now and you will be rewarded with nonstop bloom in a few weeks. The round, slightly bluish leaves are distinctive, making it easy to distinguish seedlings from weedlings. And once nasturtiums take off, they blanket the ground thickly enough to crowd out weeds. 

Nasturtium flowers come in bright reds and oranges and yellows, toned down by masses of foliage so as never to be too glaring. Be careful not to give nasturtiums too rich a soil, or the foliage will overgrow and hide too many of the blossoms. Dwarf varieties, growing only a foot or so high, are good for small window boxes or in pots. There also are semi-trailing types, which sprawl outward a couple of feet or more. Nasturtium can cover a fence if you plant a climbing type, which typically grows about 7 feet tall and has single, fragrant flowers. Climbing nasturtiums grasp to support with their twining leaf stalks, just as clematis vines do. 

Bright flowers and lush masses of pretty, round leaves are enough to ask for from any plant, but nasturtiums offer even more. You can eat them. Nasturtium flowers liven up salads with their color and peppery flavor. That peppery flavor, incidentally, gives the plant its name, which means “nose twister.” It will make your nose respond the way it does to mustard or radishes. 

Nasturtium is one of those plants that could be called a “supermarket” plant, because it provides such a variety of foods. If you tire of eating the flowers, eat the leaves, in sandwiches, chopped directly into salads, or mixed into butter to make a spicy spread. Pickled, the large seeds or seed pods make savory substitutes for capers (which are pickled buds of an unrelated Mediterranean bush).

Functional rooms like kitchens and baths typically are fitted with wall-hung cupboards and storage areas. 

Still, there’s plenty to be said for junking the wood-veneer boxes attached to your walls. The rewards of starting from scratch with a few attractive, functional dressers, tables and freestanding cabinets are worth it. 

Space you didn’t know you had is the most notable benefit of this design concept. According to British interior designer Johnny Grey, who focuses mainly on kitchen design, “An illusion of spaciousness (is) achieved by leaving space around each piece of furniture, rather than fitting cupboards from wall to wall.” This now-exposed wall area can host well-placed shelves and hooks for extra storage and display. Your room will be tailored to your specific needs and tastes in a way rooms full of factory-made storage spaces can’t. 

Home designers and those in the cabinet industry have gotten wise to this idea and have begun designing and manufacturing storage units that have the look of furniture and the ease of predesigned cabinets. The bath shown here features attractive vanity cupboards; dresser legs replace the flat-front toe space usually seen where the storage units meet the floors in baths and kitchens. Atop a matching set of drawers and cabinets is a tall, open-faced shelf secured to the wall, which reveals its contents — towels, photos and art — without shame.  

Emmie Vida, an active leader in the Berkeley Jewish community died Monday of natural causes at the age of 93. Vida, who along with her husband Rabbi George Vida and their two children fled Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation of World War II, dedicated much of her life to helping and sharing history with others.  

After moving to Berkeley more than 20 years ago, Vida assumed a number of leadership roles at Congregation Beth El. She became a facilitator of the congregation’s popular Torah Study and also a member of the Sisterhood of the Synagogue. In addition, Vida was an active member of the local Jewish Community Center and helped support Hadassa, an international social service organization. 

Local community members describe Vida as a cheerful, welcoming and loving person. “She really was a saint to her community,” said Marian Magid, former president of Beth El. Vida always encouraged new members at the congregation and participated in a number of workshops and youth programs says Rabbi Ferenc Arj of Beth El. 

“She would always encourage people to speak up by saying that there were no silly questions only silly answers,” Arj said. 

With a love for history and learning, Vida became a short story writer and storyteller, chronicling the life of her family as survivors of the Holocaust. She was the subject of an interview for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Project, a series of videotaped testimonials from survivors of the Holocaust. 

According to Arj, Vida was a very studious individual and continued learning throughout her life. Arj also says that Vida participated in congregation activities up until the very end of her life. 

Vida is survived by her daughter, Ruth Meltsner of El Cerrito, her son, Henry Vida of Gum Spring, her brother Leo Koppel and sister Karola Loeb. She is also survived by five grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. 

Memorial contributions can be made to Hadassah or Congregation Beth El. Vida will be buried in Paramus, New Jersey with her husband, who died in 1989. A gathering to celebrate her life is scheduled for Sunday at 10 a.m. at Congregation Beth El. 

SACRAMENTO — A federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the implementation of a law that would require the nation’s biggest bankers to include credit card payment “warnings” in monthly customer statements. 

The ruling, handed down by U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell, came three days before the law was set to go into effect. 

A group of high-powered financial corporations, including Chase Manhattan Bank USA, CitiBank and MNBA America Bank, filed a lawsuit a month ago to stop the law, which would require the companies to warn customers about how long it takes to pay off credit card balances by just making the minimum monthly payment. 

The ruling came as a shock to many consumer advocate groups, which said the credit card companies never raised any concerns before, even though they actively participated in designing the legislation. 

“We’re disappointed,” said Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, named as a co-defendant in the case with the state Department of Consumer Affairs.

FRONTERA — A parole board refused Friday to grant freedom to former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten after an emotional hearing focusing on the cruelty of the cult killings that landed her in prison 33 years ago. 

The ruling came after a prosecutor and the family of victims Leno and Rosemary La Bianca urged the Board of Prison Terms never to grant parole to the now 52-year-old woman who was described as a model prisoner. 

“This was a cruel and calculated murder and a matter that demonstrates a disregard for human suffering,” said Sharon Lawin, the board commissioner who chaired the hearing. 

Earlier, Van Houten pleaded for her freedom, telling the board she will always bear the sorrow of the murders. 

“One of the hardest things in dealing with having contributed to murder is that there’s no restitution, there’s no making it right,” she said. 

Van Houten was in handcuffs and shackled around her waist. She wore a gray sweat shirt and sweat pants. 

Defense attorney Christie Webb said Van Houten was disappointed, frustrated and saddened by the ruling. 

“It’s very difficult to be a 52-year-old woman, a decent person and to be treated in that room like the 19-year-old cult victim she was,” Webb said. “It’s very difficult to hear someone say you should be dead.” 

Earlier in the hearing, Louis Smaldino, the nephew of Leno La Bianca, told the board that Van Houten should stay in prison for the rest of her life. 

“Miss Van Houten should already be dead for her part in these unprovoked murders,” he said. “Society has been very merciful.” 

Turning to Van Houten, he said, “There is no way to make it right. Serve your life sentence with acceptance of what you have done.” 

It was Van Houten’s 14th appearance before the parole board. She had been considered the most likely of the Manson followers to win parole after a judge ruled last month that the board had repeatedly failed to give her guidance on what she could do to make herself suitable for release. 

Nevertheless, Van Houten was denied parole for at least two more years after the board determined she had not fully expressed remorse. 

Lawin said the board was particularly swayed by the fact that the killings were part of a grand plan by Manson to start a race war. 

The board did commend Van Houten’s behavior in prison — from working as a chapel clerk to making audio tapes to help other inmates. 

“These positive aspects of her behavior, however, do not yet outweigh the factors of unsuitability,” Lawin said. 

Lawin recommended Van Houten for continued therapy to better understand the enormity of her crime and its impact. 

Van Houten was a 19-year-old disciple of Manson in the summer of 1969 when she participated in the stabbing deaths of the La Biancas in their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. 

They were among nine Los Angeles-area victims slain by the cult of drugged-out followers. Prosecutors said Manson was trying to incite a race war that he believed was prophesied in the Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter.” 

Van Houten was not present when followers of Manson killed actress Sharon Tate and four others at the actress’ Beverly Hills mansion. Manson was not at the home, either. 

Van Houten, Manson, his chief lieutenant Charles “Tex” Watson, and two other women, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkle, were convicted and sentenced to death for their part in the Tate-La Bianca murders. 

The sentences were later commuted to life when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in the 1970s. All five are still behind bars. 

During the hearing, Van Houten spoke quietly and directly as she recounted the horrifying facts of the murders that Manson directed. 

She recalled that Watson was in the living room killing Leno La Bianca and she was in the bedroom with Rosemary La Bianca. 

Asked if she had stabbed the woman, Van Houten said, “Yes I did in the lower torso approximately 14 to 16 times.” 

Earlier this month, Superior Court Judge Bob N. Krug admonished the parole board for flatly turning Van Houten down every time based solely on the crime. 

Such decisions, he said, ignore Van Houten’s accomplishments in prison and turn her life sentence into life without parole, in violation of the law. 

In addition, Krug said that Van Houten had successfully completed every rehabilitation program offered in prison and that her psychiatric evaluations indicate that she is not a present danger to society and should be found suitable for parole. 

LOS ANGELES — Electricity companies have issued a warning about the upcoming movie “Like Mike” because the plot involves a pair of sneakers a boy retrieves from a power line. 

The family comedy stars rapper Lil’ Bow Wow as a teenager who gains magical basketball-playing abilities after lightning strikes him while he is unsnagging the shoes. 

Instead of constricting his muscles, searing his flesh, burning his lungs and stopping his heart, the extreme electrical current gives the boy the ability to compete in the NBA. 

“We’re worried that kids are going to see this and get electrocuted,” said Jason Alderman, spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. “The reality is if you touch a power line like that you’ll be seriously injured at best, and at worst die.” 

Southern California Edison and Progress Energy Inc. have also issued warnings about the movie. 

Alderman said PG&E has asked the film’s studio, 20th Century Fox, to either change the scene or add a disclaimer, but most of the thousands of prints for the July 3 debut are already completed and shipped. 

“The scene is clearly not meant to be real or present behavior to be emulated by youngsters,” said Fox spokeswoman Flo Grace. “The film in no way advocates taking dangerous risks of any kind, including touching power lines.” 

LOS ANGELES — The state plans to hack $61 million from anti-smoking efforts and the first parts to go will be regional centers set up to work with cities, schools and other groups — a move advocates say can only hurt the children of California. 

Many of the anti-tobacco programs were doomed when California came up $23.6 billion short. Although the Legislature was still wrestling with the budget going into the weekend, workers at many of the 11 regional centers had already moved furniture out of their offices. 

The regional centers — the oldest was 14-years-old — employed advisers who helped cities, counties, schools and community groups with questions, campaigns, studies and other anti-tobacco campaigns. 

“This will drastically hurt our efforts to continue to reduce smoking,” said Paul Knepprath, vice president of government relations of the American Lung Association of California. “We have low smoking rates for kids, but it doesn’t stop tobacco companies from swooping in and getting youngsters addicted by fancy advertising.” 

Ken August, spokesman for the Department of Health Services, said he doesn’t expect the cuts to cause an increase in the number of California smokers. 

“I would agree that California success is based on three main parts, one of which is the great work done on the local level,” he said. “Although California is looking at budget belt-tightening, California has gone through fundamental change in smoking.” 

After the cuts, California will still be spending more on anti-tobacco efforts than any other state, August said. The state has been a leader when it comes to smoke-free restaurants, stadiums and workplaces, he added. 

There was $134.5 million set aside in the 2001-2002 budget for tobacco education and cessation, but only $88.3 million has been tentatively allotted for the coming fiscal year, August said. 

That drop is compounded by a decrease in money from 1988’s Proposition 99, which imposed a 25-cent tax on every pack of cigarettes, because fewer cigarettes are being sold. 

The state plans to continue programs that target young adults and smoking cessation such as the California Smokers’ Helpline, August said. 

Still, advocates fear that the cuts will push anti-tobacco efforts backwards. 

“We hope we don’t see an upswing in smoking,” said Patricia Etem, executive director of L.A. Link, one of the 11 regional centers. “Even the department knows that strong coalitions at the local levels are essential. If we weren’t here, there’s no impetus for the city to make sure the laws are enforced.” 

One of the most successful programs run through the centers involved students and youth campaigns.

SACRAMENTO — A Republican senator is hoping the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that school vouchers are constitutional will jump-start a movement to get vouchers passed in California. 

Following Thursday’s ruling, Sen. Ray Haynes, R-Riverside, introduced a bill that could pave the way for parents to start receiving publicly funded coupons that could be used to pay for private school tuition. 

In its 5-4 ruling upholding a tuition-subsidy program in Cleveland, the Supreme Court said vouchers are constitutional if parents retain a wide choice of where to send their children. 

Opponents had argued that since the overwhelming majority of private schools have religious affiliations, voucher programs result in state funding going to church schools. 

Haynes said in a statement that the Supreme Court’s decision “finally ends the debate over whether offering our families true choice is somehow a violation of the Constitution.” 

Haynes admitted that a bill introduced this late in the legislative session will have a difficult time making its way through both houses. 

But time is not all that is working against Hayne’s voucher bill. California voters have twice rejected school vouchers, including a 2000 ballot measure that would have authorized $4,000 vouchers to allow as many as 6.6 million California children to attend private schools. 

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said Thursday that she doesn’t think the ruling will affect California. 

“California is not a voucher state,” she said. “When you start giving money to private schools, you have to hold them to much higher standards. Some private schools don’t even want to be in that game.” 

But Haynes said he expects this bill, unlike his three previous attempts to get vouchers approved, will gain support from lawmakers.

SACRAMENTO — An Assembly committee killed a bill Friday that would have required food processors to disclose levels of artery-clogging trans fatty acids in processed foods. 

The bill, by Sen. Debra Bowen, would have taken effect in January 2005 and would have been nullified if the federal Food and Drug Administration created nationwide labeling requirements. 

The measure got only two votes in the Assembly Agriculture Committee, with five members voting against it and eight members abstaining. 

The labels would have included the amount of trans fatty acids — also known as trans fat — which is the product of hydrogenation. That’s the process of adding hydrogen to liquid oils to solidify them in order to add shelf life and flavor stability to food. 

Food processors opposed the labeling because it would create a California-only label and would be a distributing nightmare, said Jeff Boese, chief executive officer of the California League of Food Processors. 

“I haven’t heard any opposition to the idea, the problem has been separate labels,” Boese said. 

The FDA has been debating trans fat labeling for six years, but has yet to require food processors to disclose how much trans fat is in foods. 

“It’s death by delay there,” Bowen said, referring to the FDA’s lack of action. “And in the meantime, there’s actual harm being suffered by Californians not getting the information they need about what’s in their food.” 

Trans fat is found in small amounts in some meats, but more often is found in convenience and fast foods like doughnuts, french fries and chips, said Elisa Odabashian of Consumers Union, a supporter of the bill. 

Two kinds of fat contribute to high cholesterol — saturated fats and trans fat. Saturated fats are already included on food labels, but it takes a savvy consumer and a calculator to figure out the level of trans fats, she said. 

Trans fat is worse than saturated fat, Odabashian said, because while saturated fat increases cholesterol, trans fat increases bad cholesterol and at the same time it decreases good cholesterol. 

Many lowfat food products boast that they’re low in saturated fat, but they often have high levels of trans fat, she said 

“Californians shouldn’t hesitate to call the manufacturers of the products and ask them why they’re not disclosing this information voluntarily,” Bowen said. 

The bill was supported by the American Heart Association, the California Dietetic Association, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. 

It was opposed by the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, the California Grocers Association and the California League of Food Processors. 

The assaults were racially  

motivated, prosecutors say\ 

SAN DIEGO — A group of teenagers who attacked five Mexican farm workers were sentenced Friday to terms ranging from four months in a youth detention camp to time in adult prisons in a case that caused widespread outrage and became a test for a state juvenile justice initiative. 

Judge James Milliken rejected defense lawyers’ requests to sentence the teens as juveniles, citing the severity of the July 5, 2000, attack on the men in a San Diego canyon. 

“The fact that this behavior is possible is a sad commentary on the community,” Milliken said. “I, for one, feel we have to tell the community that we are not going to put up with it.” 

Four teens sentenced Friday were part of a group of eight who, according to prosecutors, hunted down and severely beat the farm workers in a racially motivated attack. They used clubs, steel rods and BB guns to assault and rob the men at their encampment near the nursery where they worked. 

The four pleaded no contest to charges that included assault with a deadly weapon with a special hate-crime allegation, robbery and elder abuse. The victims were in their 60s at the time. 

Three other teens who pleaded no contest to similar charges and one who pleaded guilty are scheduled to be sentenced July 23. 

The most lenient sentence handed down Friday, 120 days in a youth camp, went to Morgan Victor Manduley, 17, who the prosecutor called the “least culpable” in the attack. 

Manduley was the lead plaintiff in a challenge to Proposition 21, the 2000 state law that allows prosecutors to try juveniles as adults for violent offenses without a judge’s approval. 

In April, the state Supreme Court upheld the voter-approved initiative. Milliken said that even though he didn’t support the measure, he was obligated to abide by it during sentencing. 

Jason Wayne Beever, 16, was ordered to serve 180 days in a youth camp. Both Beever and Manduley were given five years of probation and ordered to attend a class on racial sensitivity and perform 200 hours of community service. 

Two other defendants who prosecutors said played more serious roles in the attack — Adam Mitchell Ketsdever, 18, and Bradly Hunter Davidofsky, 17 — were ordered to serve 90 days in an adult state prison. After that time, their cases will be reevaluated and Milliken could sentence them to as much as 15 years in prison. He could also send them to county jail or release them. 

Michael Anthony Rose, 17, was scheduled to be sentenced Friday, but his case was postponed until July 23 to enable lawyers to determine whether he is eligible to be sent to the California Youth Authority because he was younger than 16 at the time of the crime. 

During much of the proceeding, Manduley and Beever could be seen crying as they say in the jury box, accompanied by their lawyers. The three other defendants showed little emotion, other than to bow their heads occasionally. 

Two of the victims, Anastacio Irigoyen, 71, and Alfredo Sanchez, 64, were in court and listened to the proceeding through an interpreter. Facing the two men, Manduley said: “I would really like to apologize to all the men involved in this incident.” 

Ketsdever, whose actions prosecutor Hector Jimenez had called “sadistic,” also apologized, saying, “I am truly sorry for what I’ve done and I hope that some day I might make it up to you and your families.” 

Jimenez called Davidofsky the “most responsible” for the attack. “I think Mr. Davidofsky deserves to go to prison,” he said. 

The attack sparked strong reaction across San Diego. Latino organizations called for harsh punishment of the teenagers, who come from the relatively affluent neighborhood of Rancho Penasquitos. Manduley’s father is a Navy commander who is a Cuban immigrant. 

In reaction to the sentences, Luis Natividad of the Latino/Latina Unity Coalition of San Diego said: “We’re satisfied that they didn’t get off. ... They should do some time.” 

A civil lawsuit filed against the boys’ families ended in January with agreements to have about $1.4 million divided among the victims, who were legally employed at the nursery. 

Irigoyen, who now lives in La Paz, Mexico, said he feels lingering effects from the attack. “They left me there for dead,” he said. “They should be punished as adults.” 

In speaking to the court, Sanchez said he still has five BB pellets embedded in his body, including one below his right eye and two in his ear. “I want justice according to the law,” he said. 

When police found Sanchez after the beating, he was in a fetal position in his hut and unable to come out. “The defendants admitted they shot the hell of him,” Jimenez said. 

“It is completely upsetting that these young men could be so callous, that they could treat these men like animals,” he added. 

SAN FRANCISCO — The glossy passenger train that slid into this city’s Caltrain depot to the fanfare of a brass band Friday can’t hustle as quickly as the bullet trains of Japan and Europe. 

But its backers say the “baby bullet” trains will nearly halve the 90-minute commute between San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and could persuade up to 30,000 drivers to ride the rails rather than sit on congested highways. 

Politicians including Gov. Gray Davis and state Sen. Jackie Speier joined transportation planners to herald the new locomotives and cars, which won’t open to the public until late 2003. Upgrades to accommodate the new trains are the largest rail improvement project in Caltrain’s 139-year history. 

“We’re trying to get you to work faster and get you home quicker,” Davis said. 

Speier, a San Mateo Democrat who championed the project in the Legislature, said new transportation options are crucial as California’s population grows. 

Caltrain has drawn as many as 10 million passengers annually. The 77-mile system runs through Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo counties. 

The express trains will cost $55 million; it will cost an additional $110 million for new and upgraded track, new signals, a new station and other improvements, according to Caltrain estimates. 

The state’s Traffic Congestion Relief Program chipped in $127 million, said Jayme Maltbie, a spokeswoman for the rail system. Additional funding came from federal grants, passenger fares and money from government agencies along the route. 

The express trains will be able to dodge some stations along the way and pass slower trains on new tracks. Though they can reach 95 mph, the speed limit along the corridor is 79 mph, and the new trains typically will go around 70 mph. Current trains must stop too frequently to go 70 mph for an extended stretch. 

That speed pleased Alex Cano, a Caltrain instructor engineer who helped guide the train Friday on its voyage from San Jose. 

“It’s the difference between night and day,” he told reporters from his perch in the train’s nose.

LOS ANGELES — A seventh-grade teacher who suffocated a rabbit triggered a Superior Court lawsuit by a group seeking to force the Los Angeles Unified School District to change its policy on animal experimentation. 

The Animal Legal Defense Fund said it filed suit Thursday after failing to persuade the district to change its policy voluntarily. 

“Our concern isn’t to go back and punish anyone,” said attorney Mitchell Wagner. “The ALDF is not one of these radical interest groups. It wants the school district’s policies to comply with the law.” 

Godwin Collins Onunwah was a seventh-grade teacher at Gage Middle School in Huntington Park when he placed the rabbit in a plastic bag and tied the bag shut in front of his students in September 2000. 

When the animal didn’t die of asphyxiation, authorities said, Onunwah placed the bag in a cabinet and left it there over the weekend. When he returned to school on Monday the rabbit was dead. 

Jurors acquitted him of animal cruelty charges last year, ruling he didn’t act maliciously. The school district did not renew his teaching contract, however. 

School officials declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday, saying they had not seen the complaint. 

State law allows students to decline to participate in activities where an animal might be harmed. 

Wagner said the district sends parents a blanket disclaimer at the start of each school year, but he said the law also requires individual teachers to give notice to parents at the time of the specific activity. 

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court recently reinstated a defamation suit by Suzuki Motor Corp. against the publisher of Consumer Reports. 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling 2-1, said a jury should determine whether New York-based publisher Consumers Union of United States Inc. rigged its testing for a published report labeling the Suzuki Samurai “not acceptable.” The magazine first reported in 1988 that the Suzuki “rolls over too easily.” 

Two years ago, a Santa Ana federal judge dismissed the case, ruling that Suzuki had not sufficiently supported its claim that the magazine acted maliciously to damage the reputation of the sport utility vehicle. 

But the appeals court ruled that a jury should weigh for itself allegations the magazine rigged the driving test to reach a predetermined conclusion, and that it published its results with reckless disregard as to whether they were true, wrote Judge A. Wallace Tashima. 

Tashima also said a federal jury should consider whether the magazine’s motives were profit driven, given that it reprinted its original 1988 story in fund-raising solicitations while it was in “substantial debt.” 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Agency declined a petition to declare the vehicle defective and said the magazine’s test procedures for the Suzuki “do not have a scientific basis,” Tashima wrote. 

In dissent, Judge Warren J. Ferguson said there was not sufficient evidence for the case to proceed. Blocking a trial, Ferguson wrote, was “necessary to both avoid the inhibition of free speech by the media and to protect public safety and health.” 

The magazine is considering asking the court to reconsider, or may request the U.S. Supreme Court review the ruling. 

“The First Amendment guarantees the right to report our independent findings, even when our judgment differs from that of the government or the company in question,” said Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union. 

Suzuki attorney George Ball said the court’s decision means the magazine “will now have to answer in court for the false charges it has spread and continues to spread regarding the Suzuki Samurai sport utility vehicle.” 

Suzuki’s United States headquarters is in Brea. It no longer markets the Samurai vehicles in the United States. 

The case is Suzuki v. Consumers Union, 00-56043. 

STARKVILLE, Miss. — Across the country, a barely detectable Southern flavor spices local TV weather forecasts, up to a third of which are delivered by former students of Mississippi State University. 

Meteorologists are one part TV star, one part scientist, and Mississippi State takes pride in producing forecasters who can do both parts equally well. 

“That is our claim to fame — producing people who do TV weather and who are hopefully a little more prepared than Willard Scott,” says director Mark Binkley, the program’s director who says NBC’s semiretired weatherman is more a personality than a meteorologist. 

The American Meteorology Society, which gives out a seal of approval that’s often advertised on local news programs, says about 25 percent of forecasters it approves are MSU-educated. Keith Westerlage, director of on-camera meteorology at The Weather Channel, said up to a third of the nation’s forecasters have ties to Mississippi State — when you add in the people who study through its distance-learning program. 

Behind the university’s formula are two professors — one for the science, one for everything else. 

Wayne Verno is the everything-else guy: image consultant, voice coach, psychologist ... 

He may urge students to have more inflection in their voice, less movement in their eyebrows. And if asked, he might quietly advise weight loss to improve job chances. 

Beyond that, Verno says: “I have to let students develop their style. It’s not my place to say, ‘You’re going to be the serious weathercaster and you’re going to be the more comical weathercaster.”’ 

Verno’s partner, Mike Brown, handles the science. 

The two pride themselves on producing students who are technically sound. 

TV weather has evolved over the years, from a straight-laced presentation in the 1950s and 1960s, to a personality-driven approach in the 1970s. Since the 1980s, stations have pushed for forecasters with a solid meteorological background. 

The American Meteorology Society sets the national standards for broadcast meteorology. It judges both education and communication skills. 

“We’re really not supposed to be experts in on-air talent,” says the AMS’ Kelly Garvey. “We pretty much like to judge the scientific ability of the person, but because it’s so important for the broadcaster to relay the message to the public, we have the tape grading.” 

Garvey said the AMS awards about 80 seals each year. Mississippi State’s 25 percent take is not matched by any other school, she said. 

The university’s influence is so wide because of its video and Internet distance-learning program, which takes three years of study at 15 hours a week. About 1,400 students have graduated since 1987. 

It has helped some of the highest-profile forecasters in the country. About a quarter of The Weather Channel’s 30 on-air forecasters have a Mississippi State pedigree. The program is popular because it gives midcareer people a way to advance while continuing to work, Westerlage said. 

Bob Stokes, seen on The Weather Channel Saturday through Tuesday mornings, said the program was “wonderful.” 

“You had to study for this stuff. It’s not something you just walk in without cracking a book,” Stokes said. “Some of the more successful and outstanding broadcast meteorologists have gotten their education at MSU.” 

Many weather schools teach more hard-core science than Mississippi State and are more likely to fill private and government jobs, as with the National Weather Service. 

Fred Carr, director of the University of Oklahoma’s school of meteorology, says many schools offer a weather broadcasting emphasis, but not the intensive course Binkley and Mississippi State have. 

“Mark, I’ll have to give him credit, he’s put Mississippi State on the map with that program,” Carr said. 

Binkley says research shows TV audiences pick a news channel based on their weather coverage. 

“When it’s a high of 92 and a 30 percent chance of showers, they’re all going to say the same thing,” he said. “The days that there is severe weather is when you find out who your best person is. And the only way to be good in severe weather is to know your meteorology.” 

NEW YORK — The walls of Jonathan Safran Foer’s apartment are covered with everything from a framed piece of blank paper from Susan Sontag to random sketches made by his friends. There is even an enormous canvas of a huge hand that the author himself painted. 

“Pretty much everything up there is an accident — things I’ve picked up along long the way,” he says. 

So goes the story of Foer’s life: Things just sort of ... happen. 

A native of Washington, D.C., he found himself at Princeton University, where he majored in philosophy, and took some writing classes “for fun.” He wound up winning the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior Creative Writing awards. 

One summer, Foer hopped on a plane and headed out to the Ukraine for four days, in search of the woman who hid his grandmother from the Nazis during World War II. 

He did little research before his trip and never found the woman. So, he made up a lot of things and wrote a novel, “Everything Is Illuminated.” The book just happened to make the 25-year-old Foer the hottest young writer in publishing. 

Houghton Mifflin paid nearly $500,000 to acquire the manuscript and HarperCollins purchased the paperback for $925,000. Actor Leiv Schreiber is hoping to direct a film version of “Everything Is Illuminated,” which quickly made The New York Times’ best seller list in May. 

However, Foer (pronounced FOH-er) finds the attention somewhat disconcerting. 

“It becomes very frustrating when other people think that you are successful or happy,” he says. “It’s almost as if they don’t take me seriously. Because, if you really took me seriously you would know that the things that are important to me are a lot bigger than money or getting good reviews.” 

“Everything Is Illuminated” is a three-pronged novel. 

It begins with correspondence between Alex, a Ukrainian, and the main character, coincidentally named Jonathan Safran Foer. Alex is to be Foer’s guide as they search for his grandmother’s old shtetl. 

Then there’s the story of Alex and Jonathan as they travel through the Ukraine with Alex’s nearly blind grandfather and Alex’s dog, Sammy Davis Junior Junior. 

Foer then weaves in a historical narrative of life in the shtetl from 1791 until 1942. 

He is a slight man with a mop of dark, curly hair and soft black eyes. He speaks quietly but eloquently, choosing his words carefully as if savoring delicate morsels of food. 

“I can be very hard on myself,” he says. “I convince myself that I’m fooling people. Or, I convince myself that people like the book for the wrong reasons.” 

Others are eager to praise him. Houghton Mifflin editor Eric Chinski says that the book had an “amazing blend of energy and wisdom.” 

“It was that rare combination of being stylistically risky but the acrobatics served a purpose,” Chinski says.

NEW YORK — The masterpieces of the Museum of Modern Art are now in Queens. 

“The space here has a certain ‘rawness’ that makes the art come off the walls in a potent way,” museum director Glenn Lowry said Wednesday, as he inaugurated MoMA’s temporary move to a former Swingline staple factory. 

Pablo Picasso could not have imagined when he painted his groundbreaking “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” in 1907 that this icon of cubism would end up across the street from a Queens envelope warehouse and down the street from a Dominican diner. 

The museum, which first opened its doors 72 years ago, was forced to move from its midtown Manhattan address on West 53rd Street for a $650 million expansion project. The site will be closed through 2005. 

MoMAQNS — the name of the bright blue converted staple factory — officially opens to the public on Saturday. 

In this industrial Queens neighborhood, the museum’s stark white walls and 21-foot black ceiling frame cavernous, odd-shaped galleries, with a white metal ramp leading to the gift shop. 

It seems the perfect space for a green 1950s Jeep — part of an exhibit called “AUTObodies” that also includes a 1990 Formula 1 Ferrari. 

“Tempo,” featuring contemporary art from around the world, examines time in everything from clocks to watches and metronomes. A DVD creation shows a couple locked in a long, slow kiss that seems to defy time. 

But MoMA’s reputation rests on the truly timeless treasures of modern art, many of them now gracing a series of new galleries with a cracked concrete floor and the sign “To Be Looked At.” 

Museum officials want to make sure their famous works really do get seen — even at a location that would not normally draw Manhattanites or tourists. 

Last Sunday, one attention-grabber was a procession of reproductions of famous MoMA works from Manhattan across the Queensborough Bridge to MoMAQNS on 33rd Street in Queens. The art was enhanced with Peruvian music and brightly colored costumes. 

The real works are now in place — part of MoMAs collection of more than 100,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings. MoMA also owns about 14,000 films, and 140,000 books and periodicals. 

In Queens, Picasso’s “Demoiselles” hangs near Vincent van Gogh’s 1889 “Starry Night” and “Dance” — Matisse’s mammoth 1909 painting of five female nudes. 

MoMAQNS remains as audacious — and provocative — as its Manhattan parent. 

In a gallery close to the masterpieces, a man’s leg protrudes through a wall, in shoes and a pant leg. It seems all too real. This, too, is MoMA’s art, an untitled 1991 work by American Robert Gober, who made it with cotton, wood and steel — and real human hair on the wax “skin” just under the cuff. 

“There are relationships that normally occur in museums, where collections are organized well,” said Lowry, the director. “Here, it’s a little looser — and it works. In here, some of that shocking power of art gets refreshed.”

Animal shelter on list of
city improvements  

This week city leaders narrowed the list of new taxes they will seek from Berkeley residents to four. 

The proposed taxes will go toward a new animal shelter, pedestrian safety improvements, affordable housing and seismic retrofits at Old City Hall. They would cumulatively cost an average homeowner about $72 a year. 

Berkeley residents, like people in several Bay Area cities, have historically shown strong support for local funding initiatives, as compared to those living in other areas of California. Hence, takes are proportionately higher in the region. 

The average homeowner in Berkeley pays $1,080 in local taxes each year, not including property tax, according to a report issued earlier this month from the city manager’s office. 

Berkeley’s latest tax proposals come amid the approaching July deadline for putting measures on the November ballot. The new taxes will require a two-thirds vote to be enacted. 

“We’ve defeated most of the requested tax increases this year. We’ve had to. The economy is down, we simply can’t afford to do everything,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington.  

Proposals to finance street light repairs, retrofit the city’s Veteran’s Hall and increase stormwater drain fees have been dropped from city plans. In addition, a proposed bond to fund a therapeutic warm water pool has been withdrawn in hope of finding funding elsewhere. 

City Council approved the four tax initiatives in concept at their Tuesday night meeting, which means city staff members will begin writing the ballot measure wording, then re-submit the measures to council for final approval early next month. 

Councilmember Worthington said he will make a motion to drop the old City Hall initiative when it returns to council because four tax measures are too many right now. 

“I think in a down economy we should hold that one over,” he said. It’s also the most expensive, he added. 

The city hall measure would cost the average homeowner in Berkeley about $35 a year for 30 years, while the pedestrian safety initiative would cost $25 a year for the 30 years and the animal shelter initiative would cost $12 a year for an undetermined amount of time, according to the city manager’s office. 

The affordable housing initiative comes in the form of a transfer tax. People who sell their homes would be levied a 0.5 percent tax on the value of their homes, raised from the originally-proposed 0.25 percent. The revenue would go toward affordable housing projects in Berkeley as well as toward emergency shelters and residential seismic upgrades for people who can’t afford them. 

Homeowners whose homes are assessed a value of $350,000 or less would be exempt from the new tax. 

Already, Berkeley residents are taking positions on the proposed taxes. 

Citizens group Gray Panther wants to make sure the affordable housing tax will go to help the people who need it most. 

“If it goes for low income housing, not just affordable housing, we’ll support it,” said Gray Panther co-convener Margot Smith. 

So far the most vocal advocacy, calling themselves “Gimme Shelter,” is emerging in support of the animal shelter initiative. 

The group, which is already planning campaign posters, says the $7.2 million bond to fund a new animal shelter is long overdue. A lack of quarantine areas and overcrowding are their primary issues. 

The current shelter at 2013 Second St. was built in the 1940s, not to house animals, but to euthenize them, animal shelter officials said. 

“We’re always scrambling for kennel space,” said Marcie Burrell, an animal control officer. “We also have to lump new dogs in with the general population, and who knows what [diseases] they’re bringing in there.” 

Deputy City Manager Phil Kamlarz says that early campaigning is sure to make a difference in the November elections. 

“Anytime you have a citizen’s group behind a measure, it increases the chance of passage,” Kamlarz said. 

To the Editor: 

I am outraged that Paul Schwartz says in response to a strike vote “It's one of those things unions do...It is in some sense a part of the process.” Clericals have not struck in 30 years. We are not doing this for the “process” of it but because we are fed up and disgruntled to have to been kept waiting to see if bargaining offers would improve and not continue to be treated unfairly with a number of unfair labor practices. Now it is only getting worse. We want the whole community to support giving clericals decent treatment and stop wasting good taxpayers’ money. 

Zero percent pay raise and a 1.5 percent step merit ( for only about 50 percent of the unit) is much worse than last year and is indecent. Library assistants at Alameda County are paid 30 percent more than UC, Cal State pays them 18 percent more. We are being treated unfairly also at bargaining when they withhold information, intimidate workers. It is costing UC taxpayers and wasting a huge amount of the parents money who pay for their children to attend CAL. Turnover in the first year is 54 percent and the cost of recruitment and retention is more that the cost of our pay raises and our retroactive step merits (paid normally annually when you are evaluated as satisfactory or better). 

To support giving clericals a decent break we have a pledge to support our strike and hopefully we will make this obstinate cycle of bad faith unfair bargaining “process” end. Again, misinformation is being spread by UC who actually only offered us 1 percent as a part of last year's contract. In this year’s contract we are only being offered 1 percent (not 2 percent). All employees (including all administrators) are getting a 3 percent additional bonus for retirement. Many clericals do not yet qualify for retirement and this is not is the offer at the negotiating table. 

It is also a lie that UC must limit our wages based on a “lack of state funding.” Only 36 percent of our wages come from state funding. Unrestricted funding is not tied “in legal obligations” or it would not be unrestricted. It is possible to use the $2.3 billion in reserves for our pay raises. UC only needs about $63 million for 18,000 clericals across the state (3 percent of the reserves). These lies and neglect by UC is costing taxpayers and wasting a huge amount of the parents money who pay for their children to attend CAL. 

It is an outrage to the community to call this a "process" and a “thing unions do.” We won't strike unless our backs are to the wall and they are certainly at the wall now. Please ask to sign the pledge to support our strike. 

Norah R.J. Foster,  

Library Assistant, CUE member  

A visitor entering the Berkeley Art Center gallery during the new exhibit “Red Rivers Run Through Us” needs a little time to figure out what the show is all about. Mostly made up of mounted poems and essays from the Veterans Writing Group, this writing-as-art with visual elements added is like a room-size magazine. 

The Veterans Writing Group is just that – a group begun by Berkeley-based novelist and UC lecturer Maxine Hong Kingston that brings together Vietnam veterans to share their writing. It has since expanded beyond Vietnam veterans to include soldiers and widows and activists and nurses from all wars, including “gang war veterans.” The show expands past writing to Veterans who express their wars through art. The show runs through Aug. 11. 

The hodge-podge collection of poems, essays, newspaper journalism, photography, sculpture, video documentary, and painting is held together by a central need to explore memory, exorcize nightmares, and take an emotional barometer reading of the long-term aftereffects of war.  

The show’s centerpiece is a wall-sized, portable mural painting, “Nightwatch” (1999) by six Vietnam veterans who are not associated with the Veteran’s Writing Group. It’s a giant therapeutic experiment designed to diminish the men’s recurring nightmares. Project leader Susan Reid announced at the opening reception last Sunday afternoon that the mural was unsuccessful in ridding their nightmares. The different panels are amateurishly painted with jungle images and psychedelic abstractions of fear and isolation. Although it might also be unsuccessful as a piece of art it does not diminish the force of its intention, as it attempts to communicate wartime horror and honor a soldier’s anxiety. 

Reid said the artists, who were not present at the reception, were initially hesitant to begin painting. But once they started, the images poured out of them. She also said the veterans were reluctant to show the mural in Berkeley, once a hotbed of antiwar activism that gave them a hostile welcome upon their return from Vietnam. Betsie Miller-Hursz, co-director of the mural project, said, “it’s a point of reconciliation for this to be here.” 

A sense of atonement and support-group forgiveness pervades the show, best described in a moment of the documentary “Regret To Inform” (screening on a video monitor behind a partition in the back of the gallery) by Berkeley filmmaker Barbara Sonnenborg. The first-person documentary about Sonnenborg’s trip back to Vietnam to the death site of her first husband describes the surprise she discovered in her own attitude about the war. When her husband was drafted she knew he was in danger of being killed, but she hadn’t considered the fact that as a soldier he would probably do some of the killing. 

Fear of dying is only part of the horror of war that these veterans and their loved ones remind us. The ability to look squarely at the former enemy without hatred, and look inside oneself without fear, is fodder for much of the show. The name of the show comes from Lee Swenson’s poem “Red River’s Run Through Us,” which muses on the global connections of war-scarred people. Swenson, who grew up near the Red River in Minnesota, met with a former Communist adversary who grew up near the Red River in Vietnam. Ann Marks’ short essay “I Was Never Arrested” describes her surprise at her own feeling of sympathy for the North Vietnamese during a trip to Vietnam. There she saw a Chinese woman suffering from crippled feet, which per Chinese custom had been forcefully bound to remain small. 

Aside from the mural that dominates the middle of the room, the visual art on the walls shows a range of subjects, and even playfulness. Thirty nine miniature, mixed-media pictures by Tom Currie are scattered like buckshot along a wall. They are abstracts and portraits and sketches of war, Jesus, and rough interpretations of compositions vaguely remembered from classic paintings. Overheard, during the opening reception, Currie said he used “every technique imaginable.” 

The writing on the walls also runs a range of topics, some tangentially related to war, some not at all. “A World Without Latkes” is a short essay written for a food magazine in which author Robert Gollinger Jr. discovers a recipe for latkes through a stranger on an airplane who was also a fellow war survivor. Dennis Fritzinger’s “Charlie Don’t Surf” fashions the famous “Apocalypse Now” line into a story-poem about a supernatural surfing challenge, a la Charlie Daniels’ “Devil Went Down To Georgia” (“He said, ‘I’m Uncle Ho, and I’ve come to see/ If you Yank surfers are as good as me.’”). 

More serious poetry, in both tone and craft, comes in several pieces by Dorothy Langlois, who writes about being raised Catholic and wearing deep-pocket choir robes. She writes one poem about shuffling in a retirement home, and another about stirring up the courage to face the world as in “Keith’s Poem”:  

“Reality is acid rain you can’t hold 

When you inhabit a world 

Of strangers who blindly glance 

Through your weathered disguise.” 

“Poets are always happy,” said Maxine Hong Kingston during her presentation at the opening reception. The author of Chinese-American classics “Woman Warrior” and “China Men” read excerpts from her very thin forthcoming book “To Be The Poet.” It is a coy, ironic, whimsical manifesto of a long-form novelist who wants to write something quickly and simply. The crowd of mostly writers, and the friends who suffer them, chuckled at Kingston’s reverie into artistic innocence.  

Describing her brief foray into poetry, Kingston suggested that when words are difficult to find, try painting (as the members of the Veterans Writing Group did). To find a rhythm for your language, she said, try tap dancing: Her class of tap dancers was invited to stand for recognition. 

Finally, her poetic excursion led her to the Zen practice“ensos,” and to a possible explanation of her writing class’ motivation. Ensos is a point of sublime meditation in which a subject paints a black circle on white rice paper. If older than 60, the 61-year-old Kingston explained with glee, “everything you put down is right.” That truism can be applied to the exhibit: If you have lived enough, and you are honest enough, everything you do is right.

Free Early Music Group 

Singers needed for small group of 15th and 16th century music every Friday 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK Way. 

Contact Ann at 665-8863 

Friday, June 28 

La Peña Community Chorus  

En Busca del Corazon y el  

Espiritu de México 

8:00 p.m.  

La Peña Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave  

Benefit Concert to Support Mexico Tour 

849-2568 

Saturday, July 13 

Barbara Dane 75th Birthday Concert 

7:30 p.m. 

Frieght and Salvage coffee house, 1111 Addison St. 

Jazz, blues, American folk from around the world 

548-1761 for ticket information 

Sunday, July 14 

Hal Stein Quartet  

4:30 p.m.  

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison Street € Berkeley 

845-5373, www.jazzschool.com 

$6-12  

Troy Lampkins Group 

4:30 p.m.  

Jazzschool 2087 Addison Street € Berkeley 

Groove-filled, groove-intense music 

845-5373, swing@jazzschool.com 

$6-12  

July 25 

Midsummer Motzart  

Festival Orchestra 

8 p.m. 

First Congregational Church 

2345 Channing Way 

Divertimento in D, Piano concerto #17, Symphony #38 “Prague” 

(415) 292-9624 for tickets 

$25-50 

Saturday, August 3 

Bata Ketu 

8 p.m.  

Alice Arts Center, 1428 Alice St. 

Oakland. 

Interplay of Cuban and Brazilian  

music and dance  

www.lapena.org 

$20 

“Red Rivers Run Through Us”  

Until Aug. 11,  

Wed. - Sun.  

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center,  

1275 Walnut St. 

Art and writing from Maxine Hong Kingston's veterans' writing group 

Reception, 2 to 4 p.m.  

644-6893 

From the Attic: Preserving  

and Sharing our Past 

Until July 26, Thur.-Sat. 1 to 4 p.m. 

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St. 

Exhibit shows the 'inside' of museum work 

848-0181 

Free 

The Creation of People’s Park 

Through Aug. 31, Mon.-Thur. 9 to 9 p.m., Fri. 9 to 5 p.m., Sat. 1 to 5 p.m. Sun. 3 to 7 p.m. 

The Free Movement Speech Cafe  

UC Berkeley campus 

A photo exhibition, curated  

by Harold Adler 

hjadler@yahoo.com 

Free 

Jan Wurm: Paintings and Drawings 

Mon. and Fri. 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tues.-Thurs. 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. 

Flora Hewlett Library at the Graduate Theological Union 

2400 Ridge Road 

649-1417 

Thursday, June 27 

“New Work: Part 1, The 2001 Kala  

Fellowship Exhibition”  

Until July 31 

Kala Art Institute,  

1060 Heinz Ave. 

Featuring 8 Kala Fellowship winners, printmaking 

Reception, 

549-2977 

Thursday, July 11 

“New Visions: Introductions 

'02” Reception 

Works from emerging Californian artists 

Reception, 6 to 8 p.m. Display up from July 3 to Aug. 10 

Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St. Oakland 

763-4361 

Free 

Saturday, July 20 

“First Anniversary  

Group Show”  

July 18 to Aug. 17 

Ardency Gallery, Aki Lot, 8th Street 

Reception, 5 to 8 p.m. 

13 local artists display work ranging from sculpture to mixed media 

836-0831 

Thursday, July 11 

“New Visions: Introductions  

‘02” Reception 

Works from emerging Californian artists 

Reception, 6 to 8 p.m. Display up from July 3 to Aug. 10 

Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St.  

Oakland 

763-4361 

Free 

Antony and Cleopatra 

Directed by Joy Meads 

June 15 to July 20,  

Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m. 

La Vals Subterranean Theater  

1834 Euclid 

234-6046 for reservations 

$14 general, $10 student 

Abingdon Square  

Previews 16,18,19 at 8 p.m. Runs June 21 to July 6, Thurs. to Sat. 8 p.m. Sundays 7 p.m.  

Julia Morgan Theater for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. 

The Shotgun Players,  

directed by Shana Cooper 

704-8210 www.shotgunplayers.org 

$18 regular, $12 students, previews and Mondays - pay what you can. Opening Night $25\ 

Grease 

July 5-Aug. 10, Sunday matinees  

July 14,21,28 Aug. 4 

Contra Costa Civic Theater,  

951 Pomona Ave. El Cerrito 

Directed by Andrew Gabel 

524-9132 for reservations 

$17 general, $10 for under 16 and under 

Midsummer Nights Dream 

Until June 29,  

Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. 

Magical Acts Ritual Theater, directed by Catherine Pennington 

The Black Box,  

1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland 

653-6637 for reservations 

$15 - $25 

Don Pasquale Opera 

July 13, 15, 17, 19 at 8 p.m.  

July 21 at 2 p.m. 

Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek 

From the Festival Opera  

Association, a comedy by  

Gaetano Donizetti about an arranged marriage 

www.festivalopera.com 

Benefactors 

July 18 to Aug. 18, Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m. Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. 

Previews: July 12-14 and 17 

Michael Frayn's comedy of two neighboring couple's interactions 

Aurora Theatre Company  

2081 Addison St. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org  

for reservations. $26 - $35  

The Shape of Things 

Sept. 13 to Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company,  

2081 Addison St. 

Neil LaBute's love story  

about two students 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 - $35  

The Heidi Chronicles 

July 12 to Aug. 10 Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. 

Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley present Wendy Wasserstein’s play about change. 

528-5620 

$10 

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights 

July 12 to Sept. 28, Fri.-Sun. 8 p.m. Sun. 4 p.m. 

Forest Meadows Outdoor Amphitheater, Grand Avenue at the Dominican University, San Raphael 

Marin Shakespeare Company’s presents this classic story with original Arabic music. 

(415) 499-4488 for tickets 

$12, youth; $20 senior; $22 general 

Alarms and Excursions 

Nov. 15 to Dec. 22 

Aurora Theatre Company,  

2081 Addison St. 

Michael Frayn's comedy about the irony of modern technology 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 - $35  

Poetry Diversified 

1st and 3rd Tuesdays,  

7:30 to 9 p.m. 

World Ground Cafe,  

3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., Oakland 

Open mic and featured readers 

Wednesday, July 3 

Ghetto Girl Blue Speaks  

the Unspeakable 

10 p.m.  

Kimball’s Carnival in Jack London Square  

A street walker recalls her turbulent and highly sexual past through poetry. 

www.ipunany.com or www.urbanevents.com 

Boas Writing Group 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Stefani Barber, Jean Lieske  

and many more 

845-7852 

$2 

Saturday, July 6 

Bay Area Arts Coalition  

Poetry Reading 

3 to 5 p.m. 

West Berkeley Branch Library  

1125 University Ave. 

527-99055 

Wednesday, July 10 

Carmen Gimenez-Rosello,  

Dawn Trook 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

845-7852 

$2 

Sunday, July 14 

M.L. Liebler and  

Country Joe McDonald 

Poetry and Music 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

845-7852 

$2 

Wednesday, July 17 

Hannah Stein and Kevin Clark 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Authors of “Earthlight and In the Evening of No Warning.” 

845-7852 

$2 

Open Mike and Featured Poet 

7 to 9 P.M. First Thursdays and second Wednesdays each month  

Albany Library 1247 Marin Ave 

Thursday, July 11: Poets Tenesha Smith-Douglas and Judith Annenbaum. 

Second Wednesdays are a monthly Poetry Writing Workshop, led by Alison Seevak.  

526-3720 Ext. 19 

Free 

Friday and Saturday, July 5 and 6 

Brainwash Movie Festival 

9 p.m. 

Alliance for West Oakland Development Parking Lot, 1357 5th St. Across from W. Oakland BART 

Weird and unique short films and video festival 

(415) 273-1545 

$10 

Friday, July 5 

“Remember the Night”  

and “The Good Fairy” 

7:30 p.m. and 9:25 p.m., respectively. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft  

Preston Sturges' classic films 

Saturday, July 6 

“The Great McGinty” and  

“Christmas in July” 

McGinty at 4:30 and 8:30 p.m.; Christmas at 7 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft  

Preston Sturges' classic films 

Friday, June 28

Paramount Movie Classics 

The General (1927), starring  

Buster Keaton, a silent film with  

live Wurlitzer organ  

accompaniment by Jim Riggs,  

playing his original score. 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature Film 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

$5 

The Tao of Energy  

Medicine Workshop 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Upaya Center 478 Santa Clara Ave.  

Oakland 

www.upayacenter.org  

Free 

One Man's War Tour 

7 p.m.  

AK Press Warehouse 674-A 23rd St.-between MLK and San Pablo 

Oakland  

Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba celebrates the release of his new CD. May contain live violence and sex. 

594-2329, satanicapache@hotmail.com, www.satanicapache.com 

FREE 

Berkeley Women in Black 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

Telegraph and Bancroft 

A vigil for peace for Palestine and Israel 

548-6310, or www.wibberkeley.org 

Politics in Sacramento 

11:45 for lunch. Speaker begins 12:30 

Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 

Dion Aroner, Assemblywoman 

$11.00/$12.25, students free. 

"Really Rosie" Kids  

Theater Performances 

7:30 p.m.  

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins Street in North Berkeley 

"Kids On Stage" Stage Door Conservatory's " programs presents musical theater performances by kids, for kids 

527-5939 or StageDoorCamp@aol.com. 

Free 

Friday, June 28

Paramount Movie Classics 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature film. 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

The General (1927), starring Buster Keaton, a silent film with live Wurlitzer organ accompaniment by Jim Riggs, playing his original score. $5 

Berkeley Women in Black 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

Telegraph and Bancroft 

A vigil for peace for Palestine and Israel 

548-6310, or www.wibberkeley.org 

Politics in Sacramento 

11:45 for lunch. Speaker begins 12:30 

Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 

Dion Aroner, Assemblywoman 

$11.00/$12.25, students free. 

"Really Rosie" Kids  

Theater Performances 

7:30 p.m.  

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins Street in North Berkeley 

"Kids On Stage" Stage Door Conservatory's " programs presents musical theater performances by kids,  

for kids. 

527-5939 or StageDoorCamp@aol.com. 

Free 

Saturday, June 29

Know Your Rights Training 

11 a.m.- 2 p.m. 

Copwatch Office 

2022 Blake St., Berkeley 

Learn what your rights are and how to observe the police effectively and safely; hosted by Copwatch. 

For more information: 548-0425 

Free 

Emergency Preparedness  

Classes in Berkeley 

9 a.m. to noon 

997 Cedar Street 

Disaster First Aid: Learn to apply  

basic first aid techniques. 

981-5605 

How to Travel with Children 

11 to noon 

East Bay's Premier Action Sports Store  

1440 San Pablo Ave. 

Lonely Planet's global travel editor, Don George will offer tips and advice. 

526-7529. 

Free 

Save the Bay's East Bay  

Shoreline Bike Ride 

Noon 

Ride with Save the Bay along this beautiful section of the 10-mile SF Bay Trail. 

452-9261 for info and reservations.  

Savebay@savesfbay.org 

Free 

Northern California Labor Conference on Democratic Rights 

9:30 to 4:00 p.m.  

Valley Life Science Building Room 2040 UC Berkeley 

One day conference is being organized to focus on the growing attack on labor rights since the "War On Terrorism" 

Free 

Garden Party for David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Two Strong Roots garden sites;  

on the corner of Sacramento and Woolsey, and Sacramento and  

Harmon 

Gardening for all ages,  

honey making,  

gardening workshops 

(415) 788-3666 

Free 

Meditation Seminar 

11 a.m. 

Rockridge Library,  

5366 College Ave.  

Oakland 

Thakar Singh's seminar 

(888) 297-1715 

Free 

David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at  

Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

Stanford Jazz Festival,  

June 29-August 10 

10:30 a.m. kids 7 & under, 11:30 a.m.  

Kids 8-12, Campbell Recital Hall  

Stanford Campus  

Early Bird jazz for kids and families  

with Jim Nadel & Friends. 

Free 

Maybeck High School  

30th anniversary  

6 p.m. to 10 p.m.  

Piedmont Community Hall  

711 Highland Ave. Piedmont 

Call 841-8489 for reservations 

Kids are Street Safe Campaign 

10 a.m. to noon 

Neighborhood House of North Richmond, 305 Chesley Ave, Richmond 

Police, Richmond mayor,  

superintendent, youth directors speak  

on how to keep kids safe. 

235-9780 

Free 

Sunday, June 30

Celebration of the California Least  

Tern Nesting Season 

11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Crab Cove Visiting Center, Alameda 

Craft-making, slide show, visual displays,  

and a visit to the nesting colony 

Bus tour recommended for ages 6 and up, needs reservations. 

Reservations for tour: 521-6887 

General: Free; Tour: $6-$8 

Monday, July 1

“Children of AIDS” film 

6:30 p.m.  

Mama Bears Bookstore and Coffee house, 6536 Telegraph Avenue  

Presented by the National Organization  

for Women  

549-2970, 287-8948  

Free 

What You Need to Know  

Before You Remodel 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 

Discussion by builder Glen Kitzenberger 

525-7610 

Free 

Tuesday, July 2

Adopt A Special Kid (AASK) 

7 to 9 p.m. 

7700 Edgewater Drive, Suite 320  

Oakland.A workshop for singles or couples, gay and lesbian, experienced or older parents, interested in adoption. 

533-1747, ext. 12. 

Saturday, July 6

Capoeira Batizado 

2 to 6 p.m.  

Capoeira Arts Cafe 

2026 Addison, Berkeley 

A celebration of Capoeira with  

performances by local arts organization. 

For information: 666-1255 

Free 

Saturday, July 6 - 

Sunday, July 21

Marin Classic Theatre 

presents "Born Yesterday" 

8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sunday matinee; 7 p.m. Sundays 

A bittersweet comedy by  

Garson Kanin. 

For information: 415-892-8551 or 

www.MCTheatre.com 

$18 evening performances,  

$15 matinee 

Thursday, July 11

Great Sierra Backpacking  

Destinations 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo  

Karen Najarian of Sierra Wilderness Seminars presents slides from her more that 20 years exploring the  

Sierra Backcountry. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Saturday, July 13

Peach / Stone Fruit Tasting 

Tasting & cooking  

demonstrations 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

15th Anniversary Derby Street  

Farmers Market 

Live music and & stone-fruit and peach tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Festival of New Versions  

of Classic Asian Games 

Noon to 5 p.m 

Dr Comics and Mr Games,  

4014 Piedmont Ave., Oakland  

Dr Comics and Mr Games Hosts Game a festival featuring two new versions of classic Asian board games 

601-7800 

Sunday, July 14

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m. to noon 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Learn from an REI bike technician  

basic bike repairs such as brake  

adjustments and fixing a flat. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Family Health Day 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

4th and University Ave. 

Explore health concerns in a family  

oriented environment 

Free 

Tuesday, July 16

Berkeley Camera Club Weekly Meeting 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church,  

941 The Alameda 

Share slides, prints with  

other photographers 

525-3565 

Free 

Introduction to Accessible  

Software and Hardware  

10:30 a.m. to noon 

Berkeley Public Library Electronic Classroom, 2090 Kittredge Street 

RSVP to 981-6121- Alan Bern, Special Services Coordinator 

Wedneday, July 17

Doctors Without Borders 

(Through July 18) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

UC Berkeley, Springer Gateway, West Entrance Crescent 

Interactive exhibit expalining medicines for people in developing countries; Film screenings 

www.doctorswithoutborders.org

Tedford, players will pay for
previous regime’s lack of
discipline and respect 

While the sanctions handed down Wednesday by the NCAA concerning Cal football bring up a whole new set of questions for next season’s team, the transgressions brought to light certainly put an exclamation point on the disaster that was Tom Holmoe’s reign over the program. 

Not only did Holmoe manage to take the Bears from a bowl team to a squad that was lucky to get a last-gasp victory over hapless Rutgers to avoid a winless season in 2001. Not only did he leave the talent cupboard as bare as it gets in the Pac-10. Holmoe also had such a lack of control and respect from his players that cheating was apparently rampant under his watch. 

The grading scandal that resulted in two players leaving school and a professor resigning his post was bad enough, a black mark on both the program and the university. But two bad apples and some tremendously poor judgement by a faculty member weren’t necessarily Holmoe’s fault. After all, a head coach can’t be watching his players every minute, and there’s no indication of any pressure brought to bear by the coaching staff to change grades. 

But the new charges of 34 instances of extra benefits for players while staying in hotels before games are, while less scandalous, more indicative of the lack of respect Holmoe’s players had for him. That number of players doing things against the rules was likely common knowledge to the majority of the team. The fact that no one alerted Holmoe to the infractions is more than players covering for their friends; it amounts to the players thumbing their noses at the coaching staff. 

Holmoe was and is, by most accounts, a nice and well-meaning fellow. But a part of any coach’s influence over players is fear: fear of losing playing time, fear of losing a scholarship, or simply the fear of getting yelled at. That fear didn’t exist with Holmoe as head coach. Being nice and being successful quite often don’t go hand-in-hand, especially in the sports world. Bear Bryant didn’t go around asking about his players’ feelings, and chances are Vince Lombardi didn’t attend poetry readings. 

So now who will pay for the failures of Holmoe’s administration? The current players and coaches, that’s who. Jeff Tedford, through no fault of his own, has been handicapped as he tries to bring the Cal program back from the depths of a 1-10 season. He’ll have fewer scholarships to award in the coming years, and the probation can only hurt recruiting. Even worse, the possibility of a bowl game for this season’s seniors, none of whom has been to the postseason, has been taken away. 

How will Kyle Boller and his classmates react? They’ll be playing for pride and a shot at the NFL, maybe even to avenge the embarrassment of last season. Besides, hoping for the Bears to earn a bowl bid in 2002 would have been like voting for Ralph Nader for president: you feel good for staying loyal, but you don’t actually want to see the resulting carnage. 

There is a small bit of justice in the NCAA penalties. The Bears were forced to forfeit their 1999 win over Arizona State, since the two players involved in the grade scandal, wide receivers Ronnie Davenport and Michael Ainsworth, both played in the game. That drops Holmoe’s record at Cal to 15-40, fourth worst in the school’s history. 

All the blame can’t be placed on Holmoe. The players involved in the infractions clearly should have known better. Then-athletic director John Kasser reportedly brushed aside the fake academic credits as “an academic issue, not an athletic issue,” and stuck with Holmoe even after it was clear the BYU graduate and NFL All-Pro was in over his head. Don’t think it’s a coincidence that Kasser resigned last year, just before it really started to hit the fan. 

Quick hits: Yao Ming was the top pick in the NBA draft? A skinny, freakishly tall player who almost no one has seen play. Hmmm. Does the name Shawn Bradley ring a bell? No player over 7-foot-2 has ever had much of an impact on the NBA. And no, Warriors fans, Manute Bol doesn’t count... The Warriors made the safest choice with Mike Dunleavy with the third pick, although Caron Butler and Dajuan Wagner could turn out to be better players in a few seasons. Now the Warriors should resist the temptation to make headlines by hiring Dunleavy’s dad to be the coach. Who wants their father looking over their shoulder all the time at their first job?... Jamal Sampson left school after a year and was picked in the second round, ending up in Milwaukee without a guaranteed contract. Anyone think he made the right choice?... Some colleges have backed off of Oakland Tech High basketball star Leon Powe after he tore his ACL late in the spring, but Cal’s Ben Braun is still hot on the trail of the national top-five player. Powe’s recovery from the injury has been quicker than expected... Cal is also in the hunt for Oakland High’s Ayinde Ubaka, the top point guard on the West Coast, along with Arizona... Tedford reportedly offered Berkeley High wideout Sean Young a scholarship for 2003 earlier this month... St. Mary’s High basketball assistant Mark Olivier was headed for the head job at Hercules High, but Olivier may now be aiming to replace Jose Caraballo as the Panthers’ head man after Caraballo’s surprise resignation last week... Berkeley High forward K.K. Alexander had considered transferring back to Kennedy High, where he spent his freshman year, but has decided to stay with the Yellowjackets for his senior season.

Wednesday’s court ruling banning the Pledge of Allegiance in schools is stirring the nation’s political pot, drawing strong opposition from across the nation – from President George W. Bush in Washington D.C. to Gov. Gray Davis in California’s capital. 

East Bay residents have a lot to say about it, too. 

The local debate follows the 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that the phrase “one nation under God,” is a government endorsement of religion and unconstitutional.  

On Thursday, a federal appeals court judge blocked the court’s ruling from being enforced. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the U.S. Justice Department plans to seek a rehearing. Amanda Savage of Pleasant Hill says the court’s decision in the first place was unnecessary. 

“I don’t see the pledge as a religious thing,” Savage said on Thursday at Berkeley’s Civic Center Park. She said that Michael Newdow, the Sacramento atheist and father of a second-grader who brought the case to court, is “making a big deal” when he doesn’t need to. 

“I don’t think children think about that,” she said. Savage remembered saying the pledge growing up and said it didn’t bother her, nor did it force religion upon her. 

Some locals are not as quick to dismiss the case, however. 

“Now that it’s brought up, I could see modifying it,” said Janet Christensen of Oakland. “We’re becoming more and more a melting pot, and for some people, [‘Under God’] is limiting.” 

Many, like Christensen, expressed concern that the court’s decision will bring everything from presidential oaths to U.S currency under the same unconstitutional category as the pledge. 

“If we’re going to split hairs about ‘under God,’ we need to consider the phrase about ‘Liberty and justice for all,” Christensen said. “We all don’t have the same God, and we all don’t have the same justice.” 

Christensen added that Berkeley, more than other cities, might be a place that would attract support for the decision. 

Echoing Christensen’s sentiment, Berry Lee, a parent at Wilard Middle School in Berkeley, added, “This country is a melting pot, and it’s not right for Christians to force religion on other people.” 

Wednesday’s ruling, if passed, would remove the pledge from schools in nine states covered by the court. These states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. 

In a letter sent yesterday to county and district schools, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin wrote: “I personally believe the Pledge of Allegiance is an appropriate patriotic exercise for California’s school children.”  

The letter identified the current stance of California’s public schools as saying “Until a decision is final, the Department of Education will not direct California’s public schools to change their practices regarding the pledge.” 

Eastin added, “Frankly, if the 9th Circuit ruling were to be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, I would be surprised.” 

Marianne Magid, spokesperson for the Berkeley Unified School District, outlined the specifics of the Education Code of California. 

Magid explained that the code calls for “appropriate patriotic exercises.” The Pledge of Allegiance is one way to satisfy the code, but not the only way. 

With this case straddling politics and religion, the opinions of clergy are at the forefront of debate. 

“As a clergy person, I am against the removal of the phrase,” said Father Tim Godfrey of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Berkeley. 

Godfrey said he respects the opinion of the defendant but would ask him not to exclude the possibility of a God. Removing the controversial phrase would do that, Godfrey said. 

Pastor Ron Parker of Epworth United Methodist Church in north Berkeley has taken a different stance. 

“It’s a huge presumption to include that in the pledge,” he said. The Methodist Church, unlike the Catholic Church, supports the separation of church and state, Parker noted. 

Parker remembers that he was in middle school in Michigan in 1954 when the phrase “under God” was added to the pledge, and said that “even then, I knew people for whom it wouldn’t be true.” 

As a pastor in the diverse city of Berkeley, Parker still holds the same belief. 

“[In] places like Berkeley, there is more support for a pluralism of viewpoints, and more care and recognition for people whom this wouldn’t be something they would want to say.” 

While some say the Pledge of Allegiance is something children blindly recite every morning without paying much attention to it, Parker says otherwise. 

“I think that kids in Berkeley are aware of what they are saying,” he said. 

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

To the Editor: 

Berkeley has imposed a new Rental Housing Safety Inspection Program. It is heavy in paperwork and intrudes on tenant's privacy. It requires an annual inspection of every apartment in Berkeley for safety violations and requires that each gas heater have a mechanical contractor or PG&E service technician inspect each gas heater to make sure they are working properly every three years. What I am amazed at is that all city funded, non-profit housing and Section 8 housing is exempt! Why is it not important to inspect subsidized housing? Don't we want it to be safe too? 

The program's department says that city assisted housing is periodically inspected already, therefore it is exempt. Section-8 apartments are inspected only before tenants move in and not afterwards, even if they are there for ten years. If it is such a good program and safety is the goal for all of Berkeley's apartment dwellers then the city should not exempt non-profit housing, Section 8 housing or city assisted housing.  

Vicki Larrick  

Berkeley 

ZURICH Switzerland — The novel, purportedly written by a man named Emil Sinclair, immediately won a literary award when it was published in 1919. But the winner of the prize, reserved for first works, returned it since he was no newcomer to the literary scene. 

Only in the mid-1920s did the author of the self-exploring “Demian” reveal his true identity: Hermann Hesse. Half a century later, Hesse’s books became cult favorites for millions worldwide, above all young readers. 

Now, on the 125th anniversary of his birth, the life and work of Hesse, one of the most widely read German-speaking novelists and poets, are themes for numerous shows, conferences and other events throughout the world. 

Competing for special attention are Calw, the picturesque German Black Forest town where he was born July 2, 1877, and Zurich, in his adopted homeland, Switzerland, where all of his Nobel Prize-winning prose was written. 

The Zurich exhibition at the Swiss National Museum claims to be the largest presentation. Its title, “Hellish Journey Through Myself,” is excerpted from a resume Hesse wrote in 1924. It points to decades of struggle to overcome personal crises. 

On view are first editions of his books as well as paintings, texts, letters and memorabilia. The focus is on “Siddhartha” and “Steppenwolf,” two key novels by the prolific writer, whose works have been translated into almost 60 languages. 

Two revolvers stuck to the wall of one room recall Hesse’s flirtation with suicide, which began when he was a teen-ager. He bought his first handgun at age 15 in a mental clinic where his austerely Pietist parents had put their rebellious son after he escaped from a Protestant seminary. Next to the arms is a letter in which he accuses his father of having robbed him of “the zest of life.” In the letter, he addresses his father as Herr Hesse — Mr. Hesse. 

By then, he had already long decided that he wanted to “become a poet or nothing at all,” as he would remember in his resume. 

His first novel, “Peter Camenzind,” a back-to-nature call in response to growing industrialization published when he was 27, was already a success — as was the subsequent “Demian.” But through most of his career, he was intermittently haunted by fits of doubt and desperation. Two unhappy marriages contributed to his problems. 

Exhibits describe how he sought relief by psychotherapy in about 70 analytical sessions, mostly with a disciple of C.G. Jung, the early Swiss adherent of Sigmund Freud. The theories of Freud and Jung strongly affected Hesse’s works, generally judged to be autobiographical. 

“He makes his way through this hellish tunnel, ... writes about his crisis and thus copes with it at the same time,” biographer Eva Zimmermann writes in a 250-page textbook accompanying the show. Referring to a dreams diary his therapist once made him write, she points to Hesse’s hidden hopes for fame, his sexual inhibitions, his extreme thriftiness and other insights into his psyche. 

For almost a year, one of his worst crises blocked completion of “Siddhartha,” based on the early life of Buddha and reflecting Hesse’s studies of Indian and Chinese philosophy. It was only with “Steppenwolf,” his novel about a romantic antiestablishment loner, that Hesse found relative peace, according to Zimmermann. 

The publication of “Steppenwolf,” on his 50th birthday, can be considered as a symbolic end of the hellish journey, Zimmermann writes. Hesse has reached the highest degree of self-awareness and self-discovery possible to him.

SAN FRANCISCO – A rugby match lasts 80 minutes. No timeouts, few player substitutions, not a lot of time for coaching. It’s a rough contact sport that forces players to think and act under extreme pressure. 

Former Cal rugby player Mark Bingham may have demonstrated those hard-learned skills during his final moments on Sept. 11 aboard United Flight 93, the only one of the four hijacked planes that didn’t reach its target. 

This weekend, his San Francisco Fog teammates will honor that spirit by holding the Bingham Cup, an international gay rugby tournament, during the city’s annual pride celebration. 

“There’s something to be said for competitive sports,” said Alice Hoglan, Bingham’s mother. “His last game wasn’t on a grassy field. It was on a narrow 757.” 

Hoglan will present the trophy on Saturday to the winner that emerges from the eight rugby clubs. She also plans to march with some of the 200 players in Sunday’s Pride Parade, which draws about 1 million people each year. 

“It’s going to be everything Mark would love,” Fog forward Bryce Eberhart said. “It’s going to be a rockin’ party, people from different cultures getting to know each other and it’s going to be two days of rugby, rugby, rugby.” 

While the two teams from England will be tough to beat, Eberhart said the Fog (2-8 this year) will play with the same fierce determination Bingham brought to the scrum. Just before he died, Bingham’s team was accepted into a straight rugby league, prompting him to give his teammates a congratulatory pep talk. 

“We have the chance to be role models for other gay folks who wanted to play sports, but never felt good enough or strong enough,” he wrote. “This is a great opportunity to change a lot of people’s minds.” 

“Mark came in like a steam engine, just knocking the heck out of all of these guys and he brought an intensity to that practice that left a lot of guys saying, ’We don’t like this guy very much,”’ Eberhart said. 

“Then, afterward at the pub he made his way to each person and pointed out something they’d done right that day and maybe even gave them a little tip. And by the end of that social, he was everybody’s best friend.” 

Bingham helped Cal’s rugby club win national titles in 1991 and 1993. At 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, he played the position of eight man, which requires leadership and poise to get the ball out of the scrum and into the runners’ hands. 

Cal rugby coach Jack Clark remembers Bingham fondly as a player who wasn’t a star but was always a dependable, fierce competitor. 

“Mark was one of the lads. He was right in the middle,” Clark said. “I don’t have much doubt that Mark would have been pleased to have his legacy in rugby remembered.” 

Clark also said he has no doubt Bingham was one of the passengers who took on the terrorists, forcing the plane down in a rural Pennsylvania field instead of into its unknown intended target. He credits rugby with helping to shape Bingham into a take-charge, fearless leader who didn’t hesitate under pressure. 

“I have no doubt he would have been brave enough to do whatever was needed,” Clark said. “In rugby, you have to deal with pressure of that moment. You can’t get off the mountain.”

Jay Vega would be the first
lesbian or Latina on board 

The electoral field for District 8 may soon get even deeper as Berkeley Housing Commissioner Jay Vega explores the idea of running. 

Vega, an openly gay Latina, says she wants to focus on issues such as housing, traffic and crime. 

“My focus will be on our housing needs and concerns, public safety, streets, storm drains and potholes as well as traffic issues and earthquake/fire preparedness,” Vega said. “The people of this district deserve to have strong representation on the council, and I’m determined they have it.” 

If Vega wins she would be the first lesbian or Latina to ever be elected to Berkeley City Council.  

She says she does not want her gender, sexual preference or ethnicity to play a part in the race but believes all of the above issues are likely to come up. 

“I’m an accumulation, like any human being, of my life experiences,” Vega said. “Hopefully people are going to focus on the issues. But it’s been my experience that they don’t. It’s been my experience that they are going to want to ask me about things that aren’t vital to the city of Berkeley — like my ethnic background, my gender, my sexuality — these things, they come up,” she added. 

Appointed onto the Berkeley Housing Commission by Councilmember Polly Armstrong, Vega will enter into the race with Planning Commissioner Gordon Wozniak, UC Berkeley student Andy Katz and Chair of the Peace and Justice Commission Anne Wagley. 

All of the candidates so far are avoiding wearing labels of progressive or moderate, but Wozniak is believed to have the strongest support from moderate voters in a district that has never had a progressive represent them. 

He is also believed by many to be an early front-runner in the race, with more than 150 endorsements, including that of outgoing District 8 Councilmember Armstrong.  

In fact, Wozniak said he is running at the request of Armstrong. 

“I wouldn’t run without her encouragement,” Wozniak said. “I hadn’t ever thought of that myself — running for political office.” 

Wozniak, a recently retried research scientist from UC Berkeley, refers to himself as a professional problem-solver and says those are the skills he will bring to council. 

“My feeling was that I could help the city,” Wozniak said. “The city has a lot of complex problems, and I like to the think that I have the ability to come up with solutions to complex problems. To help find creative solutions to solve problems and make our money go a little further than we thought it would.” 

Though Wozniak is being called the most conservative candidate to yet enter the race, he says his goal on council would be to bridge the gap between moderates and progressives, and that he considers himself somewhere in the middle of the two. 

“I think those labels (moderates and progressives) are a little out of date,” Wozniak said. “The majority of my support will be coming from moderate voters but I wouldn’t want to pigeon hole myself as a moderate candidate.” 

Vega too wanted to avoid the political labeling. 

“I’m entering the race as a Democrat, and I’ve been a liberal Democrat all my life,” Vega said. “Berkeley sometimes needs to look a little bit beyond what happens here within the confines of Berkeley and not worry so much about whether we are moderates or progressive. 

“I’m not going to define myself as a moderate or progressive, I’m not going to put myself in that box. I’m running as an independent and as a liberal.” 

But Rent Stabilization Board member Paul Hogarth, who is leaning toward supporting Katz, says the labels are important historically. 

“District 8 was created to be a moderate homeowner district,” Hogarth said. “And the only time a progressive ever got close to winning it was in ’96.” 

Hogarth, a progressive, said in his opinion Katz is more electable in the race than Wagley and that he knows very little about Vega.  

“In order for a progressive to win in that district you need the students,” Hogarth said. “Students are 40 percent of District 8. People who live south of Derby (largely homeowners) vote in much higher numbers then people who vote north of Derby (largely student housing). 

“But what’s important to remember is that students and renters make up majority of the district, the difference is voter turnout,” he added. 

To the Editor: 

Oh, the noise when the wheels of justice encounter the will of the people.  

On Monday, June 24th, at the Sacramento Federal Courthouse, the first Federal case involving a medical marijuana cooperative was due to begin. 

Forty-two prospective jurors were dismissed due to jury contamination. Allegedly, one of the reasons for contamination was a piece of literature handed to all passersby, regarding our rights as jurors to vote our conscience. 

In a trial by jury, the judge's job is to referee the event and provide neutral legal advice to the jury, beginning with a full explanation of a juror's rights and responsibilities. But judges only rarely ‘fully inform’ jurors of their rights, especially their right to judge the law itself and vote on the verdict according to conscience. In fact, they regularly assist the prosecution by dismissing any prospective juror who will admit knowing about this right. 

Trial by jury is part of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Juries can nullify or veto a law, or bring in a general verdict. However, a 1895 Supreme Court decision held that jurors need not be told their rights. 

Our government is ‘of, by and for the people.’ America's Founders realized that trials by juries of ordinary citizens, fully informed of their powers as jurors, would confine the government to its proper role as the servant, not the master, of the people. 

Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, put it like this: “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” 

John Adams, our second president, said about jurors: “It is not only his right, but his duty… to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.” 

For more information, you can contact the Fully Informed Jury Association, at www.FIJA.org. Inform yourself, learn everyday, and be the best citizen you can be. 

Carlyse North 

Paradise 

LOS ANGELES — Screenwriters for television shows and films whose works “enrich as well as entertain” were honored during a luncheon with the 2002 Humanitas Prize. 

In the feature film category, writers Richard Eyre and Charles Wood won a $25,000 prize on Tuesday for “Iris,” which recounts the life of writer Iris Murdoch and her husband’s devotion to her after she was afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. 

In the cable television category, writers for the HBO film “The Laramie Project” won $25,000 for their film documentary about Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who died in 1998 after he was beaten into a coma and tied to a fence. Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project wrote the screenplay. 

Kirk Ellis also won a $25,000 award for “Anne Frank,” a four-hour ABC miniseries that portrayed the girl from ages 9 to 15 and went beyond “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which ends with her arrest in 1944. 

Two shows tied for the $15,000 prize in the 60-minute category: an episode of ABC’s “The Practice” titled “Honor Code,” written by Lukas Reiter and David E. Kelley; and the season finale last year of NBC’s “The West Wing,” titled “Two Cathedrals,” by Aaron Sorkin. 

In the 30-minute category, Matt Tarses won the $10,000 prize for an episode of NBC’s “Scrubs” titled “My Old Lady.” 

Anna Sandor was given a $10,000 prize for “My Louisiana Sky” in the children’s live action category and Dev Ross won a $10,000 prize for “Wolf Quest” in the children’s animation category. 

In the Sundance Feature Film category, George LaVoo and Josefina Lopez won a $25,000 award for “Real Women Have Curves.” 

The group also honored journalist Bill Moyers with a new prize, the Kieser Award, in recognition of his 30-year career. The award is in memory of the late Rev. Ellwood “Bud” Kieser, the Emmy-winning Roman Catholic priest who created the Humanitas Prize in 1974. 

Frank Desiderio, president of the Humanitas Prize, also announced the establishment of the David and Lynn Angell Humanitas Fellowship in Comedy Writing. David Angell, co-creator of the NBC sitcom “Frasier,” and his wife were aboard one of the planes crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The fellowship, which is funded in part by a gift from Paramount Television, will be presented annually to someone who has finished a graduate-level writing program.

After debating through the morning and into the afternoon Thursday, BART officials increased fares for all BART trips by 5 percent starting Jan. 1. Despite objection, the East Bay’s bus agency A.C. Transit is likely to follow with an 11 percent increase on its adult fares.  

And, across the bay, the price of crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in a car jumped 67 percent – from $3 to $5. 

The rise in BART fares is part of a series of measures that BART directors implemented to make up for a $28 million budget deficit. A.C. Transit is raising its fares because it is faced with a financial deficit next year caused by a decline in sales tax revenues.  

It will require a transfer of $8.5 million from equity to maintain service at the existing level. 

The A.C. Transit Board heard objections from A.C. transit riders Thursday at hearings at 12:30 and 5:30 p.m. The board was scheduled to vote on the proposal either Thursday night or today.  

The proposal calls for adult fares to be raised from $1.35 to $1.50, and a ten cent increase for senior and youth fares.  

Transbay commuters are likely to see an increase from $2.50 to $3.00. The board can choose to approve the entire proposal or approve parts of it with modification. 

During Thursday’s hearings, most who testified agreed that prices are too high already.  

Hoang Banh was against the elimination of transfers.  

“Eliminating the transfer will make it prohibitively expensive to transfer,” said Banh who lives in the Diamond district in Oakland, and used A.C. transit while attending U.C. Berkeley.  

Other BART measures include the launching of a new parking policy that will set aside one-quarter of all spaces at BART parking lots for reserved use on weekdays. Under the program, those who wish to reserve parking will pay $63 a month to have a space reserved until 10 a.m. They chose instead to institute a program that will make one-fourth of all BART station parking spaces into reserved spaces, where those who want guaranteed weekday parking until 10 a.m. will be able to obtain it by paying $3 a day. 

Also discussed on Thursday, across the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway, and Transportation District’s finance committee recommended a toll hike to $5 to cross the Golden Gate. The 19-member board will vote today. The board will consider charging pedestrians and cyclists $1 to cross the bridge later in the year. Now, it’s free. 

The Associated Press and Daily Planet news services contributed to this story. 

Fifty seven years after the original United Nations charter was printed at Berkeley's UC press and sped across the Bay Bridge to the official UN signing ceremony in San Francisco, local residents remain committed to the peace keeping efforts of the international organization. 

For members of the East Bay chapter of the United Nations Association, one of 175 nationwide advocacy groups for the UN, Wednesday's local Charter Day anniversary signified a time to both rejoice and recommit to an important cause. 

“With things like terrorism, it's increasingly important to be aware of international issues,” said Bill Trampleasure, president of the East Bay chapter of the UNA. 

With the mission to educate, advocate and celebrate the work of the UN, the East Bay chapter of the United Nations Association attracts members interested in matters that have an impact both locally and abroad. Members hold conferences and provide input to UN leaders on issues ranging from human rights, to the global impact of private businesses to terrorism. 

While most citizens have at best a hazy idea of what the UN actually does, UNA members say the time is now to inform the public. Members contend that global issues will continue to have a strong impact on the lives of citizens across the United States. 

“We have a saying at our chapter, ‘The American public needs to go from uninformed to UN informed,’ ” Trampleasure said. 

Members of the UNA say more needs to be done to include information about the UN in school curriculum. “Educational materials don't deal with the UN right now. We're not saying that they have to promote the UN as something that is going to save the world but the curriculum should provide basic information on how the UN works,” said Steven Dimoff, Vice President of the Washington DC UNA. 

Dimoff, who along with other chapter leaders from around the nation met Wednesday night at the local Charter Day Banquet in San Francisco, says informing today's youth about the UN is critical.  

Of the current UN staff, approximately 40 percent will retire in the next five years. These retirements will leave many vacancies, according to Dimoff, who also spoke to a group of students at a Peace and Conflicts class at UC Berkeley on Wednesday. 

Support for the United Nations in Berkeley is not limited to the local UNA chapter. The city has flown a UN flag near City Hall, in Civic Center park for at least 19 years, said city worker Vernon Scott.  

Though many local residents were not aware of Wednesday's anniversary, at least one Berkeleyan thought the connection between the UN and the city was appropriate. 

“It seems like something people would associate with Berkeley. Overall I think the UN is a pretty positive thing,” said Houston Gilbert who said he believes international issues are important. “I just finished working with a bunch of EU representatives from a few German scientific organizations. We've been working on the global picture of biotech,” he said. 

Local chapters of the UNA organize forums nationwide in connection with over 5,000 non-governmental agencies, paralleling conferences held by the UN itself.  

According to Trampleasure, the UNA and its chapters have attended an increasing number of conferences recently on topics dealing with atomic weapons, women's rights, AIDS and world health. 

Though UNA members do not generally speak at official UN meetings, the forums they hold do make a difference. “Our physical presence at marches and rallies, sometimes that's the most important thing,” Trampleasure said. “We all try to make the UN visible to people in the community.” 

The East Bay Chapter recently recognized boona cheema, the director of the Berkeley nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency, with a leadership award for her work with the homeless community. 

The chapter is currently planning events for next week's “National Advocacy Week.” Members are encouraging citizens to meet with their local elected representatives during the week of congressional recess to continue support for a number of key international issues. 

In addition, a 38th anniversary celebration of the East Bay's chapter is scheduled for Aug. 1. The 4th annual UNA Run For Peace is in September. 

According to Mary Lee Trampleasure, Center Director of the local UNA, there has been an increase in interest and membership at the chapter during the last few months. There are currently 330 members at the East Bay chapter.  

After Sept. 11 many local residents bought UN flags from the East Bay chapter instead of purchasing US flags. “They were coming to buy the UN flags until we ran out and the manufacturer ran out too,” she said. 

Berkeley police today are investigating the stabbing death of 41-year-old man on Haste Street west of Telegraph Avenue Wednesday evening. 

Lt. Cynthia Harris says officers have arrested Pittsburg resident Lamar Mitchell, 23, in connection with the slaying of Roysel Marshall-Darrow of Berkeley. 

Harris said a witness flagged down a patrol officer on Haste Street at about 5:20 p.m. Wednesday to report a fight and point out a fleeing Mitchell. The officer broadcast the information over the police radio and the suspect was soon apprehended. 

Police found Marshall-Darrow lying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. He was taken to the hospital, but died from stab wounds shortly thereafter. 

OAKLAND — Roadside emergency phones will become fewer and farther between along Bay Area highways under a plan approved Wednesday by the region’s transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency. 

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which maintains the phones, voted to remove about 1,350 emergency call boxes from roadsides at the advice of the agency’s freeway and expressway service panel. The first phones could be disconnected as soon as July, leaving behind 2,150 and saving the agency about $4.7 million over five years. 

Fewer motorists are using the phones, since more drivers are using cell phones to reach a tow truck or 911, the panel told the commission last month. In 1996, more than 200,000 people called from the solar-powered phone boxes. Last year, half as many did, according to the agency. 

The transportation commission will survey the 1,100 miles of roadway where phones are placed to determine just which boxes should remain to allow drivers the most convenient access possible. 

An annual $1 surcharge on car registration fees funds the phones, as well as roving tow trucks that tug stranded drivers out of traffic to relieve congestion. 

LOS ANGELES — Errors by the pilots and air traffic controllers caused a Southwest Airlines jet to skid off a runway and onto a street during a botched landing at Burbank Airport two years ago, federal officials said. 

The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that the twin-engine Boeing 737 arriving from Las Vegas was going too fast and descended at a steep angle when it landed on March 5, 2000. 

The plane overshot the runway, crashed through a concrete barrier and came to a stop on a busy street. Two of the 137 passengers were seriously injured and the captain and 41 passengers suffered minor injuries. 

NTSB investigators said air traffic controllers directed Flight 1455 onto a path that was too high as the jetliner approached the airport. Investigators said the jetliner was traveling about 200 mph as it landed, about 50 mph faster than normal. The plane also was at a six-degree angle, about twice as steep as usual. 

“That was way too fast, and that meant trouble,” Barry Schiff, a retired Trans World Airlines pilot and air crash consultant said. 

NTSB investigators also said the pilots did not apply the wheel brakes with full force, which led to the plane crashing through the barrier at the end of the 6,032-foot runway. 

“Had the accident flight crew applied maximum manual brakes immediately upon touchdown, the airplane would likely have stopped before impacting the blast fence,” the final NTSB report said. 

The plane’s captain, Howard Peterson, a veteran with 11,000 hours of flight time, exclaimed, “My fault! My fault!” as the jetliner skidded through the fence, according to a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder. 

Peterson then told his co-pilot, Jerry Erwin, “Well, there goes my career.” 

Both pilots were fired a few weeks later. Erwin won reinstatement after his union filed a grievance. Peterson had his release overturned and was allowed to retire. 

More than two dozen lawsuits were filed against Southwest in connection with the accident. The nation’s seventh-largest air carrier said it was willing to concede that pilot negligence was to blame. 

SAN FRANCISCO — A trial date has been set in federal court for the 116 civil suits filed against four former Oakland police officers known as “The Riders.” 

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson on Wednesday selected Jan. 14 as the date where a representative sample of five to 20 cases will be presented, said attorney Jim Chanin, who’s representing many of the plaintiffs 

He said he had hoped to avoid court by reaching a settlement, but he is not optimistic that will happen. A final effort between both sides will be attempted Monday. 

“There’s a stated desire to settle, but when it actually comes down to the nitty gritty of negotiations, it doesn’t look like it,” Chanin said. 

Jury selection for the criminal trial already is underway in Alameda County Superior Court. 

Clarence “Chuck” Mabanag, Jude Siapno and Matthew Hornung allegedly beat suspects, filed false police reports and obstructed justice. All were fired after a rookie, Mabanag’s trainee, turned them in. A fourth officer and the alleged ringleader of the group, Frank Vazquez, is believed to have fled to Mexico.

LOS ANGELES — Which of the following are real and which are science fiction? 

n An ATM that gives you access to your accounts by scanning your retinas. 

n A supermarket checkout counter that lets you pay for groceries with the touch of your thumb. 

n Holographic billboards that call out to you by name as you walk by. 

n Electronic magazines that deliver news instantly over a wireless network. 

The first two exist today; the others are images from the year 2054 as depicted in Steven Spielberg’s new movie, “Minority Report.” 

Indeed, many of the film’s futuristic visions, including a holographic greeter at the Gap and animated cereal boxes, could become real using technology being developed today. 

Already, personal video recorders, such as those made by TiVo and SONICBlue, can collect information on individual households’ viewing habits, allowing advertisers to more precisely target their messages. 

And the next generation of cell phones will have position detection capability, allowing retailers, such as Starbucks, to ring customers as they approach a store and offer time-sensitive discounts. 

In 1999, Spielberg convened a three-day think tank to pick the brains of 23 futurists about likely changes technology would bring during the next 50 years. 

“The futurists that I assembled around that table didn’t agree with each other on every point, but one of the several things they did unanimously agree on was that the entire advertising industry is going to recognize us as individuals, and they’re going to spot-sell to us,” Spielberg said. “They will sell directly to you.” 

With inventions such as personal video recorders enabling consumers to tune out “dumb” ads, today’s pitchmen are anxiously searching for personalized approaches that depend on an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of customer habits and desires. 

From Amazon.com, which uses “cookies” planted on your hard drive to track purchases, to supermarket loyalty cards that deliver coupons based on past buys, people are already sacrificing some privacy in exchange for convenience. 

“It’s a question of how much do we want to sacrifice our ability to hide and how much do we want to be uniquely served — that’s one of the trade-offs we are making,” said Peter Schwartz, chairman of Global Business Network and the head of Spielberg’s “think tank.” 

In one key scene in “Minority Report,” detective John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, is fleeing agents of the Pre-Crime police unit chasing him for a murder he is foretold to commit. As he runs down a street, electronic billboards scan his retinas and hurl personalized pitches his way. 

“John Anderton, you could use a Guinness about now!” one billboard shouts. 

In another scene, Cruise enters a Gap, where his eyes are again scanned, triggering a holographic version of the Gap’s greeter who asks if he was satisfied with his last purchase. 

In the future, it seems, the eyes are the window to the wallet. 

Much of the technology portrayed in the movie is already being developed and tested, including flexible computer screens thinner than a business card that can receive images over a wireless network. 

“The ability to have billboard-size displays, newspapers that are updating themselves, packaging able to animate, these are all quite possible within 10 to 15 years,” said Russ Wilcox, general manager of E Ink Corp., a Cambridge, Mass.-based company developing so-called digital paper.

LOS ANGELES — Which of the following are real and which are science fiction? 

n An ATM that gives you access to your accounts by scanning your retinas. 

n A supermarket checkout counter that lets you pay for groceries with the touch of your thumb. 

n Holographic billboards that call out to you by name as you walk by. 

n Electronic magazines that deliver news instantly over a wireless network. 

The first two exist today; the others are images from the year 2054 as depicted in Steven Spielberg’s new movie, “Minority Report.” 

Indeed, many of the film’s futuristic visions, including a holographic greeter at the Gap and animated cereal boxes, could become real using technology being developed today. 

Already, personal video recorders, such as those made by TiVo and SONICBlue, can collect information on individual households’ viewing habits, allowing advertisers to more precisely target their messages. 

And the next generation of cell phones will have position detection capability, allowing retailers, such as Starbucks, to ring customers as they approach a store and offer time-sensitive discounts. 

In 1999, Spielberg convened a three-day think tank to pick the brains of 23 futurists about likely changes technology would bring during the next 50 years. 

“The futurists that I assembled around that table didn’t agree with each other on every point, but one of the several things they did unanimously agree on was that the entire advertising industry is going to recognize us as individuals, and they’re going to spot-sell to us,” Spielberg said. “They will sell directly to you.” 

With inventions such as personal video recorders enabling consumers to tune out “dumb” ads, today’s pitchmen are anxiously searching for personalized approaches that depend on an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of customer habits and desires. 

From Amazon.com, which uses “cookies” planted on your hard drive to track purchases, to supermarket loyalty cards that deliver coupons based on past buys, people are already sacrificing some privacy in exchange for convenience. 

“It’s a question of how much do we want to sacrifice our ability to hide and how much do we want to be uniquely served — that’s one of the trade-offs we are making,” said Peter Schwartz, chairman of Global Business Network and the head of Spielberg’s “think tank.” 

In one key scene in “Minority Report,” detective John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, is fleeing agents of the Pre-Crime police unit chasing him for a murder he is foretold to commit. As he runs down a street, electronic billboards scan his retinas and hurl personalized pitches his way. 

“John Anderton, you could use a Guinness about now!” one billboard shouts. 

In another scene, Cruise enters a Gap, where his eyes are again scanned, triggering a holographic version of the Gap’s greeter who asks if he was satisfied with his last purchase. 

In the future, it seems, the eyes are the window to the wallet. 

Much of the technology portrayed in the movie is already being developed and tested, including flexible computer screens thinner than a business card that can receive images over a wireless network. 

“The ability to have billboard-size displays, newspapers that are updating themselves, packaging able to animate, these are all quite possible within 10 to 15 years,” said Russ Wilcox, general manager of E Ink Corp., a Cambridge, Mass.-based company developing so-called digital paper.

CNet announces plans to lay off
about 10 percent of workforce 

SAN FRANCISCO — Online technology news provider CNet Networks Inc. on Thursday said it will shed about 10 percent of its work force, or nearly 200 employees, as part of its latest effort to survive the high-tech meltdown that has dominated its coverage for nearly two years. 

The San Francisco-based company’s third major layoff in 16 months will pare its payroll to about 1,700 workers, still well above the nearly 700 people that CNet employed at the end of 1999. 

Like many Internet companies, CNet expanded rapidly to capitalize on the dot-com craze that helped make its site one of the most widely read on the Web. 

CNet remains a popular destination, attracting 23.2 million unique visitors in May to make it the 11th most traffic on the Web, according to comScore Media Metrix. But the company hasn’t been able to make money since investors stopped pouring money into high-tech businesses that used to advertise heavily on the site. 

After cashing in on some of its own dot-com investments to post a $417 million profit in 1999, CNet lost $2.5 billion during the past two years. 

Salon warns it needs
to raise more money to survive 

SAN FRANCISCO — Online magazine publisher Salon Media Group Inc. faces the prospect of going out of business if it can’t raise more money this summer, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

As of March 31, San Francisco-based Salon said it was down to its last $1.5 million in cash — enough to keep its business running for three or four months, according to the company’s annual report to shareholders. 

Salon’s precarious position prompted the company’s auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to conclude there is “substantial doubt” about its prospects for survival. 

The auditor’s warning threatens to make it even more difficult for Salon to raise money, the company said. 

Intuit agrees to buy
Connecticut software maker for
$85 million 

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Intuit Inc. announced plans Thursday to buy small business software maker Eclipse Inc. for $85 million in cash, the latest in flurry of acquisitions. 

Mountain View-based Intuit, the maker of the popular Quicken and TurboTax software, expects the addition of Eclipse to add at least $40 million to its revenue during its fiscal year ending July 2003. Intuit expects to retain virtually all of Shelton, Conn.-based Eclipse’s 220 employees. Eclipse also has offices in Boulder, Colo. and West Yarmouth, Mass. 

With Eclipse’s contribution, Intuit expects its fiscal 2003 revenue to reach as high as $1.75 billion, up from management’s previous projection of $1.73 billion. Intuit also said its earnings, excluding special charges, could be a penny higher than previous projections of $1.25 to $1.31 per share. 

Intuit’s shares rose 29 cents to close at $47.44 Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. 

Peregrine Systems notified
of Nasdaq intent to delist 

SAN DIEGO — Peregrine Systems Inc., a software company under SEC investigation for possible accounting fraud, said Thursday it received notification that the Nasdaq Stock Market intends to delist its stock on July 5. 

Peregrine is in violation a Nasdaq rule after auditor Arthur Andersen LLP said the company’s financial statements for 2000, 2001, and the first three quarters of fiscal 2002 should not be relied upon. 

San Diego-based Peregrine fired Arthur Andersen as its auditor April 2 and fired its replacement auditor, KPMG, at the end of May. KPMG sent the SEC a letter alleging possible fraud at the company. 

KPMG had found that, beginning in 2000, Peregrine apparently overstated revenue by about $100 million.

Comparing oil and latex paint 

Few home improvement projects are as instantly gratifying as is a fresh coat of paint. It can, in a matter of hours, transform a dark and dingy space into a bright and cheerful one. 

There are other benefits. A fresh coat of high-quality paint is more washable and, thus, easier to keep clean. And, in the case of an exterior job, high-quality paint acts to protect siding, trim and other painted finishes from weather damage. 

Painting can be one of most user-friendly of do-it-yourself projects. Armed with high-quality paint, the proper applicators, ample time and a bit of practice, you’ll get impressive results. As are many home improvement projects, painting can be therapeutic and enjoyable. Yet, a painting project could become a nightmare. There are steps that that will ensure success. 

An important part of a good paint job is preparation — making sure that the surface is clean and free of chipped and flaking paint. Damaged areas should be patched, sanded and primed. Masking and protection is another factor that can yield professional results. Use blue painter’s tape and plastic or canvas drop cloths to prevent paint from making contact with areas not intended to be painted. 

What most influences the quality of a paint job is the quality of the paint, the type of paint, and the applicators — brushes, rollers, etc. 

There are two basic types of paint that can be used for interior and exterior house-painting — oil-base (alkyd) and water-base (latex). All paint, oil or water, consists of three basic ingredients that greatly influence its quality and use. They are pigments and fillers, liquids or “carriers,” and binders. 

Pigment and fillers are for hiding and color. According to chemists, they consist of organic colors, inorganic colors and extenders such as clay. This is really where the “rubber meets the road” when it comes to paint quality. Fillers typically consist of titanium dioxide or clay. Better-quality paints contain more titanium dioxide and less clay. Titanium dioxide gives the paint better “hide.” Titanium dioxide also is a substantially more costly ingredient than clay. Thus, if you’re looking for one-coat coverage, look for paint that contains more titanium dioxide and less clay. 

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to determine quality by the label. There are, however, three means to determine quality — name brand, price and touch. Start by selecting a respected name brand and plan to spend about $20 to $25 per gallon. A trick to determine paint quality is the touch test. Have a gallon of the paint mechanically shaken. Have the paint salesperson remove the lid. Stick your thumb and index finger into the paint and rub them together. If the paint feels smooth and silky it is good quality. If it feels gritty, it has high clay content and you can count on more than one-coat coverage. 

The second ingredient in paint is the liquid or solvent. It gives the paint proper consistency and acts as a “carrier” for the binders and pigments. Its purpose has been fully served once it has completely evaporated. In oil-base paints the solvent is mineral spirits. Water is the solvent in latex or water-base paints. Most do-it-yourselfers prefer water-base latex paints because they are particularly easy to work with and offer soap and water cleanup. 

Mineral spirits must be used for cleanup when using oil-base paint. 

Binders are the final ingredient in paint. Binders are used for adhesion and film bond. Linseed oil, tung oil or alkyd resins are the primary binders for oil-base paints. One-hundred percent acrylic or vinyl acrylic are the binders for water-base paint. Better quality paints also contain mildew inhibitors and ingredients that minimize running and splattering. 

Now that you know to look for high-quality paint, should you use oil or latex? It might be appropriate for you to use both, depending upon what’s being painted. We recommend oil-base primers and finish coats for interior doors and trim (windows, doors, crown, base) because it offers a hard abrasion-resistant surface that easily can be cleaned. Oil is also an excellent primer for raw metal rain gutters, ornamental iron fencing and furniture and bare wood. Use a paintbrush made of natural bristles for the best results when using oil-base paint. 

Latex is the best choice for interior walls and ceilings and exterior siding and trim (wood or stucco). Most do-it-yourselfers prefer water-base paints because they are easy to use, and cleanup can be done with soap and water. In addition, latex paints dry quicker than oils and don’t have the pungent odor that is common with oil-base paints. 

Whereas in the past we have exclusively recommended an oil-base primer and finish coat for “wet” areas such as kitchens, baths and laundries, today’s high-quality, 100-percent acrylic latex paints — especially those with higher sheen or gloss — are exceptional at resisting moisture, dirt and stains. And they stand up, even after repeated washing or scrubbing. 

Thanks to advances in latex technology, latex paints go on smoother; brush and roller marks are barely noticeable. According to paint experts, the latest top-quality acrylic latex paints also have a longer “wet-edge time” than do older counterparts. This tendency to dry more slowly makes it easier to blend one section of paint into another, which can be especially important when working over a large and-or complex area. 

Tip: If your painting project will take more than a day, wrap your roller cover or paint brush in plastic food wrap and place it in the fridge overnight. Remove it the next morning, remove the plastic wrap, let it reach room temperature and continue where you left off. 

For more home improvement tips and information visit our Web site at www.onthehouse.com.

As the Earth shook, Mara Cantelo ran from her home in time to see her white pickup truck bounce clear of the ground and the branches of a nearby Joshua tree sway more violently than they ever had in the Mojave Desert wind. 

Nearby, a gash 53 miles long opened up on the desert floor, as an earthquake tumbled buildings, snapped pipes and ruptured asphalt roads. 

The June 28, 1992, magnitude-7.3 earthquake was the largest to hit the contiguous United States in 40 years. It was felt across the West and is thought to have triggered other earthquakes as far away as Yellowstone National Park. 

Just three hours after the major earthquake, a violent aftershock hit. That quake, a magnitude-6.5, struck just 30 miles to the west, high in the San Bernardino Mountains. 

“It was unbelievable, I was standing in the living room holding the TV up, trying to find my wife and dog. We spent the entire day in the front yard,” said Jay Tunnell, advertising manager at KBHR-FM in Big Bear Lake. 

The quakes killed one person — a 3-year-old boy caught in the collapse of a masonry chimney — and injured 400. About 4,000 buildings and businesses were damaged and another 100 destroyed. Estimates pegged the toll of the earthquakes at nearly $100 million. 

“We never expected anything like that, really. You prepare for it, you talk about being prepared, but you never expect it to happen to you,” said Cantelo, who as a volunteer with the American Red Cross helped serve 68,000 meals over the next month to victims of the earthquakes. 

Both quakes struck in the morning — the first at 4:57 a.m. near Landers, about 110 miles east-northeast of Los Angeles. It was the largest in the 48 continental states since the magnitude-7.7 Tehachapi quake near Bakersfield on July 21, 1952. 

The aftershock followed at 8:05 a.m., five miles southeast of Big Bear Lake. 

Thomas Henyey, emeritus director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, said the Landers earthquake changed the way seismologists thought faults behaved. 

“Our feeling had been that earthquakes broke individual fault segments,” Henyey said. Instead, the Landers quake ruptured five or more adjacent faults, he said. 

“It was a real surprise to us. What it said was no longer do ruptures stop at these junction points, but they can jump and grow into much larger events,” he said. 

Landers also triggered quakes hundreds of miles away: seismic areas near Mount Lassen, the Napa Valley and Mammoth Lakes rumbled for days and weeks after Landers. 

“It was really the first earthquake that convinced the scientific community that you get triggered earthquakes at great distances,” said Susan Hough, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist. “There had always been the question whether these things were just a coincidence.” 

Today, a decade after the one-two punch of the Landers and Big Bear earthquakes, the scars are mostly healed. 

The photos that showed the partial collapse of a Yucca Valley bowling alley were removed by its new owner just a few weeks ago. 

Major California earthquakes during past 50 years 

n Kern County, near Bakersfield, July 21, 1952, magnitude-7.5. 

n Borrego Mountain, April 9, 1968, magnitude-6.5. 

n Sylmar, Feb. 9, 1971, magnitude-6.6. 

n Imperial Valley, Oct. 5, 1979, magnitude-6.4. 

n Superstition Hills, near Salton Sea, Nov. 24, 1987, magnitude-6.2 

n Loma Prieta, San Francisco Bay area, Oct, 17, 1989, magnitude-7. 

n Landers, June 28, 1992, magnitude-7.3. 

n Northridge, Jan. 17, 1994, magnitude-6.7. 

n Hector Mine, near Joshua Tree, Oct. 16, 1999, magnitude-7.1. 

Source: U.S. Geological Survey 

SAN FRANCISCO — Californians don’t think there’s been much progress in solving environmental problems in the last two decades, and they’re pessimistic about any progress being made, according to a recent survey. 

The nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California study released Thursday shows about 78 percent of Californians believe there has been “some” or “hardly any” progress since the 1980s. And 79 percent have “some” or “hardly any” optimism that environmental problems will be under control in the next 20 years. 

Most residents say they’re satisfied with environmental quality in their region, but 51 percent believe it’s getting worse, while 27 percent believe it’s improving. 

“I think the most important finding is that environmental concern and interest among Californians continues to be very strong despite the downturn in the economy and the state’s budget crisis,” said Mark Baldassare, a senior fellow at the institute and survey director. 

The study also shows that respondents did not have much confidence in President Bush or Gov. Gray Davis working to improve the environment. Only 39 percent of Californians approved of the president’s handling of environmental issues and fewer — 35 percent — approved of the job Davis was doing. 

But Davis spokesman David Chai defended the governor’s record on the environment. 

“Under his watch, the fact is that our water is purer and our air is cleaner and our land is certainly better protected,” Chai said. “He’s done more for the environment than any other governor in the last 20 years in the state of California.” 

About 34 percent of respondents said air pollution was the most important concern they had, followed by 13 percent citing growth and development. Water, ocean and beach pollution ranked third at 12 percent and 9 percent of respondents said water supply was the most important issue facing the state. 

The survey also shows that 53 percent of state residents say they know they must make lifestyle changes to solve environmental problems. Sixty-four percent say stricter environmental laws are necessary despite any effect on the economy, but 31 percent say the cost in jobs and the toll on the economy would be too high. 

Also, about 58 percent of respondents said that poorer neighborhoods are more likely to be polluted by toxic waste and to house polluting facilities. 

The institute polled 2,029 adult residents of California by telephone between May 28 and June 4, in English and Spanish. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.ppic.org 

SACRAMENTO — A bill to raise the minimum smoking age from 18 to 21 was approved by a Senate committee Wednesday. 

Assemblyman Paul Koretz, the bill’s author, said the measure would reduce smoking among teen-agers by making it more difficult for them to buy tobacco products. 

“This bill will make California the strictest state in the nation when it comes to allowing people to smoke,” said Koretz, D-West Hollywood. “Once again, California can lead the way in preventing young people from becoming addicted.” 

The tighter age restrictions will make it more difficult for 12- to 17-year-olds to buy tobacco, he said, because they’ll have to pass for age 21. 

“And they won’t be able to easily bum cigarettes from their 18-year-old friends,” Koretz said. 

Most smokers are hooked by age 20, he said, and this would reduce the number of lifelong smokers by encouraging young people to wait before taking up the habit. 

The bill was sponsored by the California Medical Association and supported by the American Lung Association of California and the California Nurses Association, among others. 

If approved, those between 18 and 21 when the bill took effect would still be able to buy tobacco. 

The bill would have an unknown fiscal impact on state programs that depend on a 50-cent-per-pack tax on tobacco products. But that loss could be offset by long-term savings if less people seek health care for smoking-related illnesses. 

Dennis Hiller, a representative of the National Youth Rights Association, was the sole opponent to testify at the Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing. 

“My brother is 13. I don’t want to see him smoke,” Hiller said. “This is an admirable goal ... but this bill isn’t the means to accomplish it.” 

People who have reached the age of 18 can sign contracts and serve in the armed forces and should have the responsibility to make their own decisions about smoking, Hiller said. 

“Prohibition won’t stop young people from smoking, education will,” he said.

SAN FRANCISCO — With a contract deadline looming, negotiations aren’t going well between shippers and dock workers who move billions of dollars of goods each year through West Coast ports, a union official said Wednesday. 

The pessimistic comments are the first public word on the talks, which began May 13, since a self-imposed news blackout. The contract expires Monday. 

A strike, or a lockout of employees, could have deep repercussions for the world economy. 

“This is definitely unsettling. This is not what you want to hear,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. 

International Longshore and Warehouse Union spokesman Steve Stallone said in an interview that an agreement before the July 1 deadline was possible, but negotiators have yet to delve into pivotal issues, including technological changes that shippers want to increase efficiency. 

“We’ve got a ways to go,” Stallone said. 

The association that represents shippers wants to cut health care coverage and freeze wages for three years, Stallone said. Shippers disputed those points. 

The contract between the Pacific Maritime Association and 10,500 West Coast longshoremen controls the flow of goods through all America’s 29 major Pacific ports. Last year, that trade amounted to $260 billion in cargo. 

Outside observers thought the major sticking point would be how to bring new technology to ports that are less efficient than rivals in Asia and Europe. Instead, both sides said they haven’t yet reached the key issue of modernization. 

With the ports handling goods that reach every state in the union, the implications for American businesses and consumers could be grim. 

“A contentious shutdown of the West Coast docks carries the very real risk of triggering a sudden crisis in international financial markets,” wrote Stephen S. Cohen, a regional planning professor at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Jack Suite said the union was mischaracterizing the talks and chided its members for breaking the news blackout. 

The association “has no interest in reducing benefits, but has made proposals which are designed to provide benefits in a more efficient and cost-effective manner and other proposals that increase the level of benefits,” Suite said. 

Stallone said the union doesn’t object to reducing employers’ health care costs — so long as that doesn’t mean a cut in benefits that the union first won at the bargaining table in the early 1960s.

SAN FRANCISCO — A day after he shocked the nation by declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, a federal appeals court judge Thursday blocked his ruling from being enforced. Meanwhile, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the Justice Department plans to seek a rehearing. 

Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, who authored the 2-1 opinion that the phrase “under God” crossed the line between church and state, stayed his decision — preventing it from taking effect until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides whether it wants to alter course. 

The appeals court can rehear the case with the same three judges, or an 11-judge panel. It has often overturned controversial three-judge opinions. Goodwin’s latest action has no immediate impact, since the ruling already was on hold by court rules for 45 days to allow for any challenges. 

Goodwin’s latest ruling does not overturn the decision, but places it in a permanent state of suspended animation until the court decides otherwise. 

Ashcroft said Thursday the Justice Department will request a hearing by an 11-judge panel. As of Thursday afternoon, court clerk Cathy Catterson said no petitions for rehearing had been submitted. 

Vikram Amar, a Hastings College of the Law scholar who closely follows the appeals court, said the latest ruling means that, for now, Wednesday’s opinion finding the pledge unconstitutional “has no legal force or effect.” 

“They’re acknowledging the likelihood that the whole 9th Circuit may take a look at this,” Amar said. 

Goodwin’s original ruling sparked outrage across the political spectrum by ruling it is unconstitutional for schoolchildren to recite — or even be forced to listen to — the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Legal scholars immediately said the ruling likely would be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, if not reversed beforehand by the 9th Circuit. 

“I would bet an awful lot on that,” said Harvard University scholar Laurence Tribe. 

Wednesday’s ruling was in response to a California atheist’s bid to keep his second-grade daughter from being exposed to religion in school. 

Goodwin said leading schoolchildren in a pledge that says the United States is “one nation under God” is as objectionable as making them say “we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion.” 

The decision was met with widespread criticism. 

President Bush found the ruling “ridiculous,” saying Thursday it was “out of step with the traditions and history of America” as he promised to appoint “commonsense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God.”

SACRAMENTO — The state Assembly overwhelmingly approved a “Protect Our Pledge” resolution Thursday to protest the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. 

Written by Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater, the resolution calls first for the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate the ruling. If that doesn’t happen, the resolution calls for Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to authorize recitation of the pledge in any public facility. 

“The most overturned circuit court in our country, the 9th Circuit, needs to be reminded that their job is to uphold the Constitution and to protect the Constitution, and not to undermine the Constitution,” Cardoza said. 

Although the 110-year-old pledge has been changed several times, a constitutional amendment would preserve it in its current form and would require another constitutional convention to change it. 

The Assembly resolution passed 69-0. 

A similar resolution was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, calling on California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to join the U.S. Department of Justice in supporting the constitutionality of the pledge. That resolution is expected to reach the Senate floor on Friday. 

HOW TO SOUND LIKE A PRO
IN FRONT OF YOUR FRIENDS 

I'm a cardiology fellow at the University of Virginia. A graduate-student friend of mine has a 1995 Ford F150 that he loves more than a child. He also listens to his truck with deep intensity. Because I am a loyal fan of your column and because he thinks you are a couple of pedantic car quacks, I've decided to get your advice on his car to prove your skills. In the past month, he has noticed a hissing sound near the intake manifold during the peak of hard acceleration. It's there when the engine is cold, and it gets louder when he releases the gas pedal. He thinks it is a manifold gasket, but I don't know what that is. Could you please give me some advice that I can give to him and that would make a layperson sound intelligent? – Adam 

RAY: Of course we can, Adam. The first thing you have to do is establish that you "speak the language." You can do this by "clarifying" a few of the facts you already know. 

TOM: It would sound something like this: "It's an F150, huh? And the noise gets louder when you take your foot off the gas?" You're establishing here that A) you know a great many types of cars; and 2) you know that when a hissing noise gets louder at idle (when the engine is producing the most vacuum), it's a textbook case of a vacuum leak. 

RAY: Then you want to break a little new ground. So you ask, "Is it a 4.6?" That's a reference to the size of the engine in liters. No matter what he says back to you, you just nod your head in knowing recognition, as if that answer has significant meaning for you, too, and is leading you unwaveringly toward the answer. 

TOM: Then you take your swing: "I think it's a vacuum leak, but I don't think it's the manifold gasket. I think it's the gasket between the throttle body and the intake manifold." 

RAY: He'll probably say something like "Think so?" 

TOM: You say, "Well, you've checked the vacuum hoses that come off the manifold, right? I mean, I assume you've checked for cracked hoses already." 

RAY: And he'll probably say, "Oh yeah," whether he has or not, while making a mental note to check the hoses for cracks. And then, before you can get yourself in any more trouble, turn and walk off with the line "Let me know what you find." 

TOM: And if it turns out that you're right, send him a bill for $300 for the diagnosis ... just like cardiology, Adam.  

Car theft by the numbers 

This year's list of the top stolen cars has come out. However, the list seems to correspond to the most-sold cars. Is there a list of stolen cars that is weighted to the number of each model on the road? Toyota Camrys are more likely to be stolen because there are more Camrys on the road, right? But wouldn't my Lamborghini be more likely to be stolen than my Toyota Camry? – Jon 

TOM: Yes. When you look at it on a weighted basis (thefts per the number of those cars on the road), I suspect that a higher percentage of Lamborghinis are stolen than Camrys. And they're stolen for different reasons. 

RAY: There are two basic reasons why thieves steal cars. One is for illegal export. Let's say a guy in Bogota, Columbia, wants a fancy sports car. A theft ring in the United States might go out and steal one for him, and then sneak it out of the country and sell it to this guy. That's the scenario under which your Lamborghini would be stolen. 

TOM: The other reason for stealing a car is to strip it and sell the parts at a huge markup. In this case, you need a huge demand for parts. And the most popular cars on the road are the ones for which there is the greatest demand for parts. That's the scenario under which your Camry would be stolen. 

RAY: While we don't have actual numbers for Lamborghini, we did get numbers for some other models from the Highway Loss Data Institute for 1998-2000. 

TOM: Looking at the limited list it provided, the rate of theft claims (that is, the number of cars stolen per 1,000 vehicles) for so-called "fancy cars" is higher than average. The average theft rate for all cars is 2.6 per thousand. The Chevy Corvette, for example, has 3.3 theft claims per 1,000 cars registered. The Cadillac Escalade, a currently desirable luxury sport utility vehicle, had 6.5 per 1,000. There's also the inexplicable chart-topping Acura Integra, which had 20.6 per 1,000. 

RAY: By comparison, Camrys are stolen at a rate of 1.83 per thousand, which is below average. That's still a lot of cars, though, because there are lots of Camrys out there. But the chances of YOUR Camry being stolen are lower than the chances of your Lamborghini being stolen. 

TOM: Of course, the chances of your Lamborghini getting stolen just got higher, now that you've written to us and told us you have a one in your driveway ... and included your return address in the letter, Jon.

NEW YORK — David Letterman was looking for a bright side to the Martha Stewart scandal: Though shares of her company have recently been plummeting in value, Dave joked that the stock certificates make lovely place mats. 

Letterman isn’t the only one taking pleasure in Martha’s pain. I, too, count myself among those savoring the rich stew she never meant to be simmering in. 

I admit it. Martha Stewart bugs me. She always has. 

Not because I already know how to press pansies, craft a bird bath or bake blueberry crumbcake, which I don’t (at least, not up to Martha’s rigorous standards). But if I wanted to learn, I would consult Martha. 

And yet ... I just can’t bring myself to. Watching her on TV, I find that, despite her tidy, step-by-step presentation, I am incapable of paying attention to what she says. 

Instead, I’m distracted by thoughts of the voracious drive required to plant her in the ranks of the nation’s wealthiest, most powerful media magnates. For me, Stewart’s “Type A” spirit mocks her placid on-camera style as she stitches an apron or prepares chicken tacos that are “carefree, easy and ultra-delicious.” 

Watching her, I can never relax. Nor am I able to believe that, underneath the surface, she can either. After all, she is the sleep-deprived driving force in so many books and magazines, the radio show, her newspaper column, her product lines and direct sales, plus TV programs on cable’s Food Network and HGTV channels as well as her daily syndicated hour. 

“Every year I’m ama-a-zed at how luxurious this particular rhododendron becomes,” Stewart chirped on a recent broadcast from her yard on Lily Pond Lane as she prepared to pick “some of the wonderful full-headed blooms so that I can make a small flower arrangement for my table.” 

Sure, that’s a good thing. But as the reigning asset of her media empire, she is hard pressed to convince me that — in real life, when the cameras are off — she ever has a moment to stop and smell the flowers she tells us how to enjoy. 

In short, I can never get beyond my suspicion that the gracious, do-it-yourself philosophy Stewart advances is lost on her in her push for more success. Not that her success isn’t deserved. I just don’t buy the act with which she courts it. 

I’m not alone. In his recent book, “Martha Inc.,” Christopher Byron cited “the widening disconnect between the public image of Martha Stewart, and the private reality of the person who bore the name.”

Archaeologists unearth
130
year-old bottle
 

of Tabasco sauce 

RENO, Nev. — Archaeologists digging at the site of a black-owned saloon in the historic Old West mining town of Virginia City have unearthed a 130-year-old bottle of Tabasco brand hot sauce. 

The bottle, the oldest style of Tabasco bottle known to exist, was reconstructed from 21 shards of glass excavated from beneath the site of the Boston Saloon, which was owned by a black man from Massachusetts and catered to blacks and whites alike from 1864-75. 

“The Tabasco bottle is particularly intriguing because of what it implies about African-American cuisine and the development of the West,” said Kelly Dixon, the administrator of the Comstock Archaeology Center who is supervising the dig in Virginia City about 20 miles southeast of Reno. 

“This was an exotic product and Comstock African-Americans were apparently the ones breaking this new ground,” Dixon said. 

Edmund McIlhenny, a New Orleans banker, began blending aged red peppers, salt and vinegar to create the Tabasco brand pepper sauce in 1868 on Avery Island, La. Officials for the sauce maker, McIlhenny Co., said he first used discarded cologne bottles to hold his sauce but soon was making his own bottles specifically for his product. 

“This discovery helps us fill the earliest chapter of our company’s history,” said Shane K. Bernard, a Tabasco sauce historian and curator of McIlhenny Co. archives at Avery Island. 

The bottle was displayed for news photographers Thursday in Carson City. 

“Having this innovative product associated with an African-American business dramatically underscores the fact that diversity played an important role in building Virginia City into an internationally famous mining district,” said Ron James, Nevada’s historic preservation officer. 

“The discovery of this bottle is a perfect example of the importance of the Comstock Mining District and also of how historical archaeology can be a powerful tool in reconstructing the past,” he said. 

The district was one of the richest sources of gold and silver ever discovered. 

The Boston Saloon site is behind the Bucket of Blood Saloon, which was established in 1876 and still stands at the corner of D and Union streets. Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, got his start a block away at the local newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. 

An excavation two summers ago yielded roughly 30,000 artifacts in an effort to learn more about the estimated 100 blacks who lived in the bustling mining town of 20,000 in the 1870s. 

The owner, William A. G. Brown, was believed to have been born as a free black in 1833. He arrived in Virginia City in 1862. 

“In general, a mining camp like that may be perceived as a white phenomenon,” James said. “But there were a lot of (black) business owners who were well known and much respected. One ran for mayor. Another fellow was a doctor practicing for well over 10 years.” 

Dixon said they earlier determined that customers at the Boston Saloon ate more lamb and essence of ginger than at other Virginia City saloons. 

The bottle itself appears to be a “Type 1a bottle ... one of the earliest forms of Tabasco bottles, distinctive because of its embossment and sharp shoulders,” said Ashley Dumas, a graduate student at the University of Alabama who directed excavations at the original Tabasco factory in southwest Louisiana. 

Dumas said McIlhenny found the bottles would break easily at the sharp shoulder so soon switched to the round-shouldered bottle known today with the red and white label. 

“Because this bottle dates to about 1870, it may be a form of bottle even earlier than the classic Type 1a,” she said. 

ATLANTA — More teenagers are using cocaine and regularly smoking and drinking, but an increasing number are also wearing seat belts and refusing to ride with a driver who’s been drinking, according to a survey released Thursday. 

The annual survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in schools across the country, examined the behavior of 13,600 high school students. 

The survey found injury and violence-related behaviors have fallen, but kids still regularly smoke and drink — nearly half said they’d consumed more than one alcoholic beverage more than once in the month before the survey. 

The number of teenagers who said they had tried cocaine within the past 30 days rose to 9.4 percent, up from 5.9 percent in 1991. About 4.2 percent of students said they had used cocaine in the past 30 days, a 59 percent increase from 1991.

NEW YORK — Heeding calls that the SAT should measure what students learn in class, College Board trustees voted Thursday to add an essay to the nation’s most widely used college entrance exam, toughen its math section and eliminate analogy questions. 

The head of the 170,000-student University of California system had at one point suggested dropping the SAT as an admissions requirement, arguing it failed to test student knowledge. But Richard Atkinson, president of the UC system, said he was delighted with the makeover and called it “a major event in the history of standardized testing.” 

College Board President Gaston Caperton said the new test, to be introduced in March 2005, “will be more aligned with curriculum and more aligned with state standards. I want you to think of this as a test of basic success skills, of reading, writing and math, connected with reasoning.” 

This is the second major revision in less than a decade for the exam, taken at least once by 1.3 million of last year’s high school graduates. The last reform also was aimed at better reflecting students’ mastery of classroom subjects. 

College Board officials said that some of the latest revisions had been proposed but not adopted in that 1994 revamping.NEW YORK — Heeding calls that the SAT should measure what students learn in class, College Board trustees voted Thursday to add an essay to the nation’s most widely used college entrance exam, toughen its math section and eliminate analogy questions. 

The head of the 170,000-student University of California system had at one point suggested dropping the SAT as an admissions requirement, arguing it failed to test student knowledge. But Richard Atkinson, president of the UC system, said he was delighted with the makeover and called it “a major event in the history of standardized testing.” 

College Board President Gaston Caperton said the new test, to be introduced in March 2005, “will be more aligned with curriculum and more aligned with state standards. I want you to think of this as a test of basic success skills, of reading, writing and math, connected with reasoning.” 

This is the second major revision in less than a decade for the exam, taken at least once by 1.3 million of last year’s high school graduates. The last reform also was aimed at better reflecting students’ mastery of classroom subjects. 

College Board officials said that some of the latest revisions had been proposed but not adopted in that 1994 revamping.

The son of notorious real estate tycoon Lakireddy Bali Reddy will likely face two years of prison time for his involvement in a family sex smuggling ring in Berkeley. 

Vijay Lakireddy, 32, reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors Wednesday that dismissed charges of importing teenage girls from India for “immoral purposes” in turn for a guilty plea to one count of immigration fraud. Charges of sexual misconduct against Lakireddy were dropped last year after testimony was mishandled by language interpreters. 

Lakireddy’s plea comes one year after his father was sentenced to eight years in prison for smuggling Indian teenagers into Berkeley restaurants and apartments for sex and cheap labor.  

Two additional family members have also received lesser sentences for their roles in the operation, and Lakireddy’s brother is scheduled to go to court in January. 

Prosecutor Stephen Corrigan, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, refused to comment on Tuesday’s plea bargain. The plea comes six months before Lakireddy’s scheduled trial date. 

Lakireddy, during his brief appearance in front of U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, described the negotiations he had taken up with federal prosecutors only as “long.” 

He left the courtroom, accompanied by his wife and attorney, looking mostly relieved and refusing to comment on the plea agreement. When questioned, Lakireddy said only, “I love my friends, I love my family and I love my country.” 

In the plea bargain, Lakireddy admits to falsifying an immigration visa for an Indian man, Venkateswara Vemireddy, who posed as the father of two Indian girls living illegally in the United States. 

The crime carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, though attorneys on both sides are requesting two years of prison time. A federal judge is scheduled to issue a sentence Sept. 30. 

Outside the federal courthouse in Oakland, a small gathering of woman who have consistently urged stiff penalties for the Berkeley family, expressed disappointment with Tuesday’s events. 

“So many charges were dropped that should have been held against him,” said Oakland resident Carol DeWitt. “This family has exploited people for money and children for sexual purposes for 15 years... . Now they’re only getting a slap on the wrist.” 

Mills College Professor of Sociology Diana Russell echoed the sentiment. 

“What happened to the sexual slavery bit?” Russell said. “Trafficking girls for sex and for labor is a real escalating international problem. To ignore it is appalling.” 

The family’s illegal exploits surfaced in November 1999 when a 17-year-old Indian girl died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a downtown Berkeley apartment owned by Reddy. 

The girl’s 15-year-old sister, who was also living in the apartment, survived the deadly poisoning that was blamed on improper ventilation and later told police she was brought to the country and forced to have sex. 

Next month, Reddy’s brother Jayaprakash Lakireddy begins serving a one-year sentence in a halfway house for conspiring to commit immigration fraud. Reddy’s sister-in-law Annapurna Lakireddy was sentenced to six months of home detention in April for the same offense. 

Prasad Lakireddy, Reddy’s son and brother of Vijay Lakireddy, has so far refused to enter a plea bargain like his brother and remains scheduled for a January trial. 

Borders books to sell booze 

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — A glass of wine with that book? A sip of specialty liquor-laced coffee with that CD? 

Borders bookstore patrons will soon offer those options after the city council unanimously approved a request to permit the transfer of a liquor license to a restaurant inside a Borders store, The Detroit News reported in a Wednesday story. 

Alcohol consumption will not be allowed inside the bookstore section and the restaurant where the liquor will be served will have its own separate entrance, said Dana Whinnery, Farmington Hills’ assistant city manager. 

Cosi, the New York-based company behind the restaurant, started the concept in Paris and Manhattan. 

Liquor licenses are still being sought, said attorney Kelly Allen, who represents the company in Michigan. The license still must be approved by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. 

This ‘Banana’ among  

nation’s sexiest 

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — He’s 87 years old and still wears his trademark yellow swimsuit, but water skier “Banana” George Blair is still among the ranks of the nation’s sexiest men. 

Blair is the oldest of the more than 80 athletes featured in Sports Illustrated Women’s 2002 swimsuit issue, which hit the stands Tuesday. 

“There must be quite a few people out there who think I’m sexy. I’m elated. I’m just elated!” Blair said. “This is one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever received.” 

Blair learned to water ski at age 40 and began barefoot skiing six years later. 

At age 81, he drove a race car for the first time, then learned to skydive the next year. Blair surfed for the first time when he was 83 and learned to bull ride at age 85. 

Flying mammals 

driving man batty 

BRADENTON, Fla. — Grant Griffin’s one-bedroom apartment isn’t big enough for him, and more importantly, bats have turned up in his shower, sink and sheets. So he is moving. 

Exterminators aren’t allowed to kill the bats, which are considered native wildlife and can’t be trapped or poisoned, said University of Florida assistant professor Mark Hostetler. They can only be killed if they are rabid, which county health officials are testing for after Griffin and his girlfriend discovered bite marks. 

“I’m freaked out. I’m about as freaked out as I can get,” said Griffin, 49. “I feel like there are things crawling all over me.” 

Bats can be locked out of houses by closing up the holes — as small as half an inch — where they enter. 

But now, in the peak of the three-month bat birthing season, that would prevent mother bats from returning to their babies inside the house. The babies would die and the stench would be unbearable, said Hostetler.

To the Editor 

Geller (“Opposition to Lawrence Lab is laughable,” 5/27/02) is clueless about the laws of probability. The only way the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste (CMTW) can dominate the City Council comment period is by chance. CMTW was lucky at the council meeting Geller refers to. However, several of the speakers supporting CMTW's issue of concern: the Lab burning tritium/hazardous waste next to the Lawrence Hall of Science, were not and are not CMTW members. Furthermore,none of the “smirking” (as well as non-smirking) faces on the front page photo in Wed., May 27 Daily Planet are those of CMTW members, but rather supporters protesting the Berkeley Labs’ (LBNL’s) combustion of radioactive/hazardous waste.  

While Lawrence Berkeley Lab PR folks are feeding the public the line that tritium emissions are safe, their U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) counterparts at the Nevada Test Site have switched their concern from plutonium to tritium, because tritium, unlike plutonium, dissolves in water. “Tritium is considered the most dangerous of the materials left over from the nuclear blasts because it dissolves easily in ground water and poses a threat to public health for more than 100 years. The risk from plutonium in ground water is small because the particles that get into the water don't move very far.” (Tritium stirs concern at 

Test Site”, Las Vegas Sun, Jan. 24, 1999, ,

lasvegassun.com>) Geller, it seems, blindly trusts DOE, unlike Dr. John Gofman, Professor Emeritus UCB Dept. of Molecular and Cell Biology, formerly with the Manhattan Project at Berkeley's Radiation Lab (now LBNL) and Director of the Biomedical Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Gofman states: ‘Credible assurance’ can not be obtained from anyone with a conflict of interest – like the Lab itself or DOE. It would be ridiculous for the Lab to tell the public and its state and local officials, ‘Just trust us’, and it would be the purest arrogance to tell the public 'it's none of your business’. The public always has a huge stake in the proper handling of hazardous wastes, both radioactive and non-radioactive. People who operate facilities with the potential to pollute need the humility and goodwill to recognize that the public has every right to impose pre-emptive measures for self-defense against such poisons before they escape. 

This is especially unarguable when the potential pollutant is radioactive, since it is clear that there is NO threshold dose-level (no safe dose, so risk-free dose) of ionizing radiation. Thus, nuclear pollution, in the aggregate, causes premeditated random murder.” 

Lets' not forget that while the Lawrence Berkeley Lab hides under the aura of UC. management, it is, after all, owned by the U.S. D.O.E. 

Without benefit of public notification, or an environmental report subjected to public review and comment, the DOE's LBNL, as an afterthought, on June 18 e-mailed Berkeley City Council members (hauling had already begun) that up to eight truckloads per day of radioactive concrete and metallic waste from the Bevatron deconstruction are being hauled through City of Berkeley streets, destined (if not recycled into consumer goods, or buried in Richmond or Livermore landfill) for burial at the Nevada test-site. 

Gene Bernardi  

Committee to Minimize  

Toxic Waste  

Thursday, June 27

The Lost Spacecraft:  

Liberty Bell 7 Recovered 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Chabot Space and Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd. Oakland 

Preview new exhibit of resurrected 1961 spacecraft 

RSVP June 20, (415) 864-6397 or news@davidperry.com 

Speak Out Against  

Police Repression 

7 p.m.  

Defremery Park, 1651 Adeline St. West Oakland 

Jerald Smith from COPWATCH, Angela Rowen and Roger White from East Bay Uprising. Sponsored by East Bay Uprising 415-364-1870 or email ebuprising@yahoo.com 

Freedom From Tobacco 

A quit smoking class 

5:30-7:30 Thursday Evenings,  

June 6-July 18 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St., 981-5330 

QuitNow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Celebrate Queer Pride  

with fabulous FolkDivas 

8 p.m. 

Temescal Arts Center,  

511 48th St, Oakland  

Performers include: Helen Chaya, Eileen Hazel, and Marca Cassity.  

All Ages 

798-5456  

$6-10 sliding scale 

Friday, June 28

Paramount Movie Classics 

The General (1927), starring  

Buster Keaton, a silent film with  

live Wurlitzer organ  

accompaniment by Jim Riggs,  

playing his original score. 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature Film 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

$5 

The Tao of Energy  

Medicine Workshop 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Upaya Center 478 Santa Clara Ave.  

Oakland 

www.upayacenter.org  

Free 

One Man's War Tour 

7 p.m.  

AK Press Warehouse 674-A 23rd St.-between MLK and San Pablo 

Oakland  

Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba celebrates the release of his new CD. May contain live violence and sex. 

594-2329, satanicapache@hotmail.com, www.satanicapache.com 

FREE 

Berkeley Women in Black 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

Telegraph and Bancroft 

A vigil for peace for Palestine and Israel 

548-6310, or www.wibberkeley.org 

Politics in Sacramento 

11:45 for lunch. Speaker begins 12:30 

Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 

Dion Aroner, Assemblywoman 

$11.00/$12.25, students free. 

"Really Rosie" Kids  

Theater Performances 

7:30 p.m.  

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins Street in North Berkeley 

"Kids On Stage" Stage Door Conservatory's " programs presents musical theater performances by kids, for kids 

527-5939 or StageDoorCamp@aol.com. 

Free 

Paramount Movie Classics 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature film. 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

The General (1927), starring Buster Keaton, a silent film with live Wurlitzer organ accompaniment by Jim Riggs, playing his original score. $5 

Berkeley Women in Black 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

Telegraph and Bancroft 

A vigil for peace for Palestine and Israel 

548-6310, or www.wibberkeley.org 

Politics in Sacramento 

11:45 for lunch. Speaker begins 12:30 

Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 

Dion Aroner, Assemblywoman 

$11.00/$12.25, students free. 

"Really Rosie" Kids  

Theater Performances 

7:30 p.m.  

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins Street in North Berkeley 

"Kids On Stage" Stage Door Conservatory's " programs presents musical theater performances by kids, for kids. 

527-5939 or StageDoorCamp@aol.com. 

Free 

Saturday, June 29

Know Your Rights Training 

11 a.m.- 2 p.m. 

Copwatch Office 

2022 Blake St., Berkeley 

Learn what your rights are and how to observe the police effectively and safely; hosted by Copwatch. 

For more information: 548-0425 

Free 

Emergency Preparedness  

Classes in Berkeley 

9 a.m. to noon 

997 Cedar Street 

Disaster First Aid: Learn to apply  

basic first aid techniques. 

981-5605 

How to Travel with Children 

11 to noon 

East Bay's Premier Action Sports Store  

1440 San Pablo Ave. 

Lonely Planet's global travel editor, Don George will offer tips and advice. 

526-7529. 

Free 

Save the Bay's East Bay  

Shoreline Bike Ride 

Noon 

Ride with Save the Bay along this beautiful section of the 10-mile SF Bay Trail. 

452-9261 for info and reservations.  

Savebay@savesfbay.org 

Free 

Northern California Labor Conference on Democratic Rights 

9:30 to 4:00 p.m.  

Valley Life Science Building Room 2040 UC Berkeley 

One day conference is being organized to focus on the growing attack on labor rights since the "War On Terrorism" 

Free 

Garden Party for David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Two Strong Roots garden sites;  

on the corner of Sacramento and Woolsey, and Sacramento and Harmon 

Gardening for all ages, honey making,  

gardening workshops 

(415) 788-3666 

Free 

Meditation Seminar 

11 a.m. 

Rockridge Library,  

5366 College Ave.  

Oakland 

Thakar Singh's seminar 

(888) 297-1715 

Free 

David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at  

Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

Stanford Jazz Festival,  

June 29-August 10 

10:30 a.m. kids 7 & under, 11:30 a.m.  

Kids 8-12, Campbell Recital Hall  

Stanford Campus  

Early Bird jazz for kids and families  

with Jim Nadel & Friends. 

Free 

Maybeck High School  

30th anniversary  

6 p.m. to 10 p.m.  

Piedmont Community Hall  

711 Highland Ave. Piedmont 

Call 841-8489 for reservations 

Kids are Street Safe Campaign 

10 a.m. to noon 

Neighborhood House of North Richmond, 305 Chesley Ave, Richmond 

Police, Richmond mayor,  

superintendent, youth directors speak  

on how to keep kids safe. 

235-9780 

Free 

Sunday, June 30

Celebration of the California Least  

Tern Nesting Season 

11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Crab Cove Visiting Center, Alameda 

Craft-making, slide show, visual displays,  

and a visit to the nesting colony 

Bus tour recommended for ages 6 and up, needs reservations. 

Reservations for tour: 521-6887 

General: Free; Tour: $6-$8 

Monday, July 1

“Children of AIDS” film 

6:30 p.m.  

Mama Bears Bookstore and Coffee house, 6536 Telegraph Avenue  

Presented by the National Organization  

for Women  

549-2970, 287-8948  

Free 

What You Need to Know Before you Remodel 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 

Discussion by builder Glen Kitzenberger 

525-7610 

Free 

Tuesday, July 2

Adopt A Special Kid (AASK) 

7 to 9 p.m. 

7700 Edgewater Drive, Suite 320  

Oakland.A workshop for singles or couples, gay and lesbian, experienced or older parents, interested in adoption. 

533-1747, ext. 12. 

Saturday, July 6

Capoeira Batizado 

2 to 6 p.m.  

Capoeira Arts Cafe 

2026 Addison, Berkeley 

A celebration of Capoeira with  

performances by local arts organization. 

For information: 666-1255 

Free 

Saturday, July 6 - 

Sunday, July 21

Marin Classic Theatre 

presents "Born Yesterday" 

8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sunday matinee; 7 p.m. Sundays 

A bittersweet comedy by  

Garson Kanin. 

For information: 415-892-8551 or 

www.MCTheatre.com 

$18 evening performances, $15 matinee 

Thursday, July 11

Great Sierra Backpacking Destinations 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo  

Karen Najarian of Sierra Wilderness Seminars presents slides from her more that 20 years exploring the Sierra Backcountry. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Saturday, July 13

Peach / Stone Fruit Tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

15th Anniversary Derby Street  

Farmers Market 

Live music and & stone-fruit and peach tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Festival of New Versions  

of Classic Asian Games 

Noon to 5 p.m 

Dr Comics and Mr Games,  

4014 Piedmont Ave., Oakland  

Dr Comics and Mr Games Hosts Game a festival featuring two new versions of classic Asian board games 

601-7800 

Sunday, July 14

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m. to noon 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Learn from an REI bike technician  

basic bike repairs such as brake  

adjustments and fixing a flat. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Family Health Day 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

4th and University Ave. 

Explore health concerns in a family  

oriented environment 

Free 

Tuesday, July 16 

Berkeley Camera Club Weekly Meeting 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church,  

941 The Alameda 

Share slides, prints with  

other photographers 

525-3565 

Free 

OAKLAND – The Golden State Warriors added Mike Dunleavy, Jiri Welsch and Steve Logan to their impressive array of young talent on Wednesday. 

Now if only the Warriors could decide who’s going to coach that talent. 

For the second straight year, the Warriors left the NBA draft with three players to rebuild a franchise that’s been through three straight 60-loss seasons and a league-worst eight-year playoff drought. 

Dunleavy, a 6-foot-9 forward considered one of the best shooters in college basketball last season at Duke, was the third overall pick. 

Near the close of the first round, the Warriors acquired the rights to Czech swing guard Welsch, the 16th overall pick by Philadelphia who played in Slovenia last season. With the first pick of the second round, the Warriors chose Logan, a 5-foot-10 scorer from Cincinnati. 

“Once again, I think we’ve helped our team a great deal,” Warriors general manager Garry St. Jean said. “We got three guys that interested us and that we think will make us better.” 

The selection of Dunleavy was no surprise, because his decision to remain in the draft was predicated on his excitement about joining the Warriors. Dunleavy is expected to become Golden State’s starting small forward, with Antawn Jamison moving to power forward and Danny Fortson leaving town. 

But the Warriors kept mum about the possibility that his father, Mike, will become the team’s new coach. Mike Dunleavy previously coached Portland, Milwaukee and the Los Angeles Lakers. 

St. Jean again declined comment, saying the coaching search was “ongoing.” Interim coach Brian Winters still hasn’t been told whether he’ll be back next season. 

The younger Mike Dunleavy told reporters that he understood his father was at least a part of a long list of candidates for the job, though he downplayed the notion. 

“We’ll let the chips fall where they do,” he said. “Maybe I’m biased, but I think he does a great job. I know we’ll have a great coach in there no matter what happens.” 

Dunleavy is the Warriors’ latest foundation player — another building block on which St. Jean will attempt to rebuild. 

“I’ve known this young man since he was an infant, and I’ve watched him grow,” said St. Jean, who coached Dunleavy’s father in Milwaukee during the 1980s. “He has touch. He has feel, and a real court presence. He’s a great decision-maker, and he’s very versatile.” 

Dunleavy’s arrival probably signals the departure of one previous building block. Fortson, the NBA’s fourth-leading rebounder last season, won’t be happy in a reserve role. 

Dunleavy expected to return to school as recently as two weeks ago, but as his draft stock kept rising, Dunleavy leaned toward the NBA. St. Jean and Jamison apparently sold Dunleavy on the Warriors’ potential during a meeting earlier this month. 

“I realized it was just too big of an opportunity to pass up,” Dunleavy said. “I was always high on the Warriors. It was a situation that I was really looking forward to. I kind of knew all along that No. 3 was where I was going.” 

Dunleavy averaged 17.3 points and 7.2 rebounds last season for the Blue Devils. His outside shooting and basketball sense have been praised, but there were worries about his relatively slight build, which could hinder his defense. 

Welsch is only 22, but he has played five professional seasons in Europe. A 6-foot-7 guard with strong ball-handling abilities and an impressive shooting touch — he shot 65 percent from the field last season. 

Welsch could play three positions, and the Warriors won’t force him into one spot. 

“He’s really one of the most promising guards in Europe,” assistant GM Gary Fitzsimmons said. “We were ecstatic to do a deal and have him be available at 16.” 

In the deal, Golden State returned the first-round pick it got from Philadelphia last season in a trade that sent Vonteego Cummings to the Sixers. Unless Golden State finishes with one of the NBA’s top three records next season, Philadelphia also will get the Warriors’ second-round pick in 2004. 

Logan will face tough competition for a roster spot in the Warriors’ summer programs, but the first-team All-American hasn’t failed much in his career. A four-year starter for the Bearcats, he averaged 22 points and 5.3 assists in his senior season.

Superintendent Michele Lawrence acknowledged major shortcomings in the district’s food services program, including a $775,000 deficit in the cafeteria fund and meals that do not live up to the district’s ambitious food policy, at a community meeting Tuesday. 

But Lawrence defended the leadership of food services director Karen Candito, arguing that the problems began before she took office this year, and said better times are ahead. 

“I believe that there is a way for us to provide healthy food for kids in a cost-effective way,” she said, acknowledging that she did not yet know how to reach that goal. 

Lawrence, who spoke at a meeting of the Child Nutrition Advisory Committee, a citizen group that advises the Board of Education, presented the committee with a list of 26 factors contributing to the cafeteria fund deficit.  

The list included the loss of a $240,000 annual food service contract with the Emery Unified School District, the purchase of a $188,000 mobile cafeteria at Berkeley High that has gone unused, a $33,000 vacation payoff to the previous food services director, and unsatisfactory ordering and tracking procedures in some areas. 

Associate Superintendent of Business Jerry Kurr said the district purchased the mobile cafeteria because it anticipated requiring freshmen to remain on campus during lunch this year. That policy has not gone into effect and Kurr said the district is considering selling the unit next year. 

In order to make up this year’s cafeteria fund deficit, the district has to make a $166,000 contribution from the general fund and virtually wipe out the fund’s $847,000 reserve. 

The district plans to make up next year’s deficit, in part, with a $350,000 contribution from the general fund, which will contribute to the district’s overall deficit of $2.8 million. The district also plans to reduce worker hours for a savings of over $160,000. 

Stephanie Allan, a business representative for Local 39, which represents food service workers, said the reduction in hours will hinder the district’s efforts to improve food quality. 

“I don’t know how you’re going to serve healthier food with less people to prepare and serve it,” she said. 

The quality of district food was a hot topic at the meeting, with committee members complaining about corn dogs, sweetened cereals and other high sugar and sodium foods. 

“I don’t understand what healthy means to food services,” said committee member Yolanda Huang, who has raised the issue several times at recent Board of Education meetings. 

Jeanette James, field operations supervisor for food services, said the district is working to make improvements – negotiating for chocolate milk with lower sugar content and including an organic produce company in the bid for next year’s produce contract, among other measures. 

Lawrence said she agreed with the committee about the need for better food. 

“I’m outraged that we have Frosted Flakes and sweetened cereals,” she said. “That has to be fixed.” 

Eric Weaver, committee chairman, said the group has tried to help with long-term planning but has faced continual roadblocks from food services. 

“We have been totally stymied in the efforts to try to plan,” he said, noting that the group has resorted to using figures from the nearby Davis school district to develop a generic, long-term vision. 

Lawrence said the district has had difficulty planning, not only in food services but in many other areas, because its data system is so faulty. 

“We’ve had some serious problems in this organization,” she said. 

The district is scheduled to convert to a new data system early next month.

Today’s Highlight in History: 

On June 27, 1950, President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict following a call from the U.N. Security Council for member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North. 

On this date: 

In 1893, the New York stock market crashed. 

In 1957, more than 500 people were killed when Hurricane Audrey slammed through coastal Louisiana and Texas. 

In 1969, patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, clashed with police in an incident considered the birth of the gay rights movement. 

In 1973, former White House counsel John W. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee about an “enemies list” kept by the Nixon White House. 

In 1980, President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration. 

Ten years ago: Authorities found the body of kidnapped Exxon executive Sidney J. Reso buried in a makeshift grave in Bass River State Park in New Jersey. (The couple who kidnapped and killed Reso, Arthur and Irene Seale, were later convicted and sentenced to prison.) 

Five years ago: The Supreme Court threw out a key part of the Brady gun-control law, saying the federal government could not make local police decide whether people are fit to buy handguns. However, the court left intact the five-day waiting period for gun purchases. 

One year ago: The United Nations concluded a three-day summit on HIV/AIDS after adopting a blueprint which set tough targets for reducing infection rates and called for protecting the rights of infected people. Actor Jack Lemmon died in Los Angeles at age 76. 

Today’s Birthdays: “Captain Kangaroo,” Bob Keeshan, is 75. Business executive Ross Perot is 72. Gospel singer Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer) is 26. Actress Madylin Sweeten is 11.

To the Editor:  

We must all act now or much of this year's state budget shortfall may disproportionately affect the most vulnerable Californians - children, seniors and low-income wage earners. To protect crucial public services we have to look for new revenue sources.  

Governor Davis has proposed reducing programs for low-income families by $2.6 billion. When lost federal funds are taken into account, this amount swells to $4.3 billion. Over 400,000 Californians would lose their medical coverage and over a million would be affected by such proposals as the elimination of some benefits which are not federally required, a reduction in the rates paid to health care providers, and cuts to safety-net hospitals. 

The League of Women Voters together with a number of other groups believes that the best way to balance income and spending is to raise the rates for higher-income taxpayers. SB 1255(Burton) would raise the state's top personal income tax rate to 10 percent for joint filers with taxable incomes greater than $260,000; 11 percent, if greater than $520,000. These 2.4 percent of California's taxpayers are the same people who benefitted the most from the recent federal tax cuts. And once the director of finance certifies that the state has regained a prudent reserve, the tax increase would be repealed. 

We urge you to join us in writing, calling or sending an e-mail to your representatives in the State Assembly and State Senate and to Governor Davis, to let them know that you prefer SB1255 rather than cutting funds for the most needy. The budget will probably not be passed until late June or early July, and significant changes may be made until it is signed by the Governor. There is not much time, but still enough for you to be heard.  

Please call the League of Women Voters for further information or help at 843-8824 and leave word for one of us to call you back. 

Nancy Bickel, President 

Lois Brubeck, Action VP  

Cal freshman Jamal Sampson was drafted by the Utah Jazz in the second round of Wednesday’s NBA Draft. 

Utah chose Sampson with the 47th overall pick. He was the third Pac-10 player in a row to be drafted, with Sam Clancy of USC going to the the Philadelphia 76ers with the 45th pick and UCLA’s Matt Barnes chosen by the Memphis Grizzlies with the 46th selection. 

Sampson, a 6-foot-11, 235-pound forward/center, will not receive a guaranteed contract as a second-round selection. He left Cal after just one season, earning All-Freshman Pac-10 honors.

The Cal football team was banned from postseason play for the upcoming season and placed on five years of probation Wednesday by the NCAA for academic fraud and recruiting and eligibility violations. 

Cal will also lose nine scholarships over four seasons as part of the punishment for infractions that included two ineligible players taking part in a game and extra benefits during hotel stays. 

The NCAA ruling alleges that Cal violated ethical conduct bylaws governing academic fraud, academic eligibility, obligation to withhold ineligible student-athletes from competition, extra benefits, recruiting, and institutional control. 

The NCAA sanctions follow penalties issued by the Pac-10 Conference that placed the team on conference probation for a year, ordered the program to adopt a compliance oversight plan and forced Cal to forfeit a 1999 victory against Arizona State University. 

Cal Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl said in a prepared statement that the school plans to appeal the NCAA ruling. Berdahl said while the school accepted the conference sanctions, the new penalties are too harsh. 

“In the case of the additional infractions, the NCAA-imposed penalties appear unduly excessive and that is why we have decided to appeal,” he said. 

The NCAA infractions committee took the case seriously because it indicated a systematic breakdown of the proper practices to follow regarding infractions, said committee chair Tom Yeager. 

The committee also considers Cal a repeat offender because the alleged violations occurred within five years of a previous major infractions case. Cal received the five-year probation because of its repeat-offender status. 

Cal’s academic improprieties occurred in 1999 when a university professor awarded false academic credits to wide receivers Michael Ainsworth and Ronnie Davenport. The two players proceeded to play in the fall of 1999 without properly completing the minimum number of credits to remain eligible. The professor, Alex Saragoza, stepped down in 2001 when the violations became public, and the school and conference agreed to penalize the team four scholarships, along with the forfeit and a year of probation. 

Additional violations were submitted by the school last year. Cal informed the NCAA of 34 players who received extra benefits while staying at hotels before games, ranging from 75 cents to more than $300. In addition, four football recruits on campus visits were found to have incurred hotel charges in violation with NCAA recruiting rules. Those violations occurred between 1997 and 2001. 

All of the violations cited in the NCAA report occurred under former head coach Tom Holmoe, who resigned after a 1-10 2001 season. New head coach Jeff Tedford, hired in December, is dealing with serious sanctions before he coaches his first game at the school. 

“I expected we would receive some additional penalty from the NCAA, although it is unfortunate that a new administration and coaching staff must bear the burden,” Tedford said. “Obviously, we would like to have a full complement of scholarships and no bowl restrictions this year. But I don’t expect this ruling to be and impediment for our football program reaching its ultimate goals.” 

Yeager said the carryover of penalties to a coach and players uninvolved in the infractions is an unfortunate but necessary step to punishing the program. 

“It’s a part of the consequence that applies to the institution,” he said. “There is always the possibility that students and coaches not involved will be affected.” 

Cal Athletic Director Steve Gladstone, also a recent hire, condemned the previous administration for the sanctions while expressing surprise at the severity of the punishment. 

“I particularly feel badly for our student-athletes on this year’s team, as they are being punished for violations that involved two individuals in the academic case and for hotel incidental infractions that would normally be considered minor violations by the NCAA,” Gladstone said. “If the athletic department had not been so careless and slow in acting upon the violations, there would have been no NCAA penalty at all. Instead, because of timing, these minor violations became major infractions in the minds of the NCAA.”

To the Editor: 

An open letter to Tom Orloff and his associate Angela Backers: 

Although the recent jury verdict in the death penalty case of the People vs. DaVeggio and Michaud is understandable in light of the heinous actions of the defendants, it is still wrong. 

You must remember the amount of power and the opportunity for example that you hold in the judicial system. Your glorification of the death penalty is not an example for the youth of our community because you only cheapen the value of life. 

Is there a difference between judicial killing and personal killing? I think not. Living in a Judeo-Christian society, our principals are to save life and not to destroy it. Your action in glorifying killing by the death penalty is amoral and outside of civilized society. No one deserves to die by the hand of the district attorney or that of a deprived killer. 

The United Nations Charter on Human Rights does not condone the death penalty. It does not deter crimes or reform the prosecuted. It merely continues the cycle of human violence. 

Please stop your violations of our citizens’ human rights. 

John Murcko 

Oakland

PLEASANT HILL — Even with all Martin Yan’s spunk, the television chef whose “Yan Can Cook” show is broadcast in 70 countries says he just couldn’t feed everybody who wanted to try a bite of his tasty Asian concoctions — until now. 

Yan’s first fast, casual restaurant opened this week, offering his recipes for everything from Thai curry to Korean barbecue. And he says it’s just the beginning. The energetic, sometimes zany master chef says he hopes his Yan Can restaurants will grow into a national chain. 

Four other California restaurants already are in the works as part of the pilot project. 

“Often times I go out and people always say, ’You know Martin, are you a good cook?’ And what can you say since they never can get a chance to taste the food I cook unless they come to the studio,” Yan said. “I decided maybe it’s time to open a restaurant so I can serve the food that I love, the food which I learned from all the masters and all the home cooks from all over Asia.” 

The restaurants are being tested through a joint venture between Hong Kong-based Favorite Restaurants Group and Louisville, Ky.-based Yum! Brands Inc., the parent of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, A&W and Long John Silver’s. 

But Yan said he didn’t just want his name slapped onto a sign and menu. Instead, he said he wanted to be involved with something in which he could take pride, so he assembled a team of top chefs to help open the restaurants and train employees to serve dishes from a variety of Asian countries. 

He also served as a consultant for the restaurants’ design, which features an open grill and stoves allowing customers to watch their food being made. Traditional cooking utensils from all over Asia, such as bamboo steamers, rice bowls and decorative chopsticks, are displayed on the walls. 

And, of course, Yan himself is featured prominently on a large television doing everything from chopping chicken in his kitchen to dressing in costumes and acting out battles on the Great Wall of China. 

A native of Guangzhou, China, the 50-year-old chef grew up in his father’s restaurant and his mother’s cooking school. He moved to Hong Kong at 13 and lived in the restaurant where he worked. By 20, he was teaching cooking classes at the University of California, Davis, where he got undergraduate and master’s degrees in food science. He has since published two dozen cookbooks and hosted more than 2,000 TV shows. 

“This is how they do it in Asia,” he said after cooking up a braised shrimp dish as flames shot up around the wok. “The restaurant is a theater. Just like Disney, we’re all cast members.”

School board raises will be on the November ballot, but City Council pay hikes will not. 

The council voted 8-0 Tuesday, with one abstention, to place a measure on the ballot that would raise monthly pay for school board members from $875 to $1,500. 

But Councilmember Dona Spring withdrew a proposal to raise council pay from the current $1,800 per month to an unspecified amount, effectively killing the issue this year. 

Spring said she pulled the measure because it did not appear to have broad support on the council. 

“This is not the right time,” said Councilmember Linda Maio, explaining her opposition.  

Maio said the council should not ask for a raise while the city faces a $3 million deficit.  

The council passed a new budget Tuesday to address the deficit, but an uncertain state budget and a series of expiring employee contracts may require adjustments in the fall. 

Councilmember Miriam Hawley added that the city will be asking voters in November to provide money for renovation of old City Hall, an animal shelter, affordable housing and pedestrian safety, and should not ask for pay raises at the same time. 

Mayor Shirley Dean said the city has to take a hard look at what it expects of councilmembers before passing any type of raise. Currently, she said, commitment to the job varies across the council. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said he would have voted for Spring’s proposal if it had come up for a vote. But he said a majority of the overall board probably opposed it, forcing the withdrawal. 

Even if the measure had narrowly passed, a contentious fight on the council over pay raises may have doomed the measure to defeat on the ballot, Worthington argued. 

Spring said she pushed the pay raise to draw a broader field of candidates to City Council races. 

“I wanted there to be more diversity,” she said, arguing that the board is largely composed of the well-off and retirees, who can afford to take a small salary. 

The council received its last pay raise in 1998. 

Spring said the council voted to put the school board raise on the ballot because members had not received a pay hike since 1988, when salaries jumped from $300 to $875 per month. 

Worthington said he voted for the measure to encourage greater diversity on the board. 

“I think that we don’t want being in public office to only be possible for people who are rich,” he said. “Someone who’s raising children and paying a mortgage and paying for child care can’t afford to serve on the school board.” 

Critics say the $1,500 per month salary is still not enough to attract lower-income candidates. 

“It is a modest amount, but it adds up to $18,000 per year,” Worthington said, arguing that a school board member could work another job half-time and make a living. 

Two weeks ago, the school board voted 4-1 to request the pay raise, sending the matter to the City Council for formal approval. School board President Shirley Issel was the lone dissenter. 

Issel, as president, thanked the council for approving the request of the board majority. But she said the timing of the ballot measure is inappropriate, given that the district faces a $2.8 million deficit next year and is engaged in heavy layoffs. 

“Both the district and the city are facing deficits and people are concerned about the timing and I understand that,” replied board member John Selawsky, who is leading the push for raises. “On the other hand, it’s been fourteen years since the last adjustment in board pay.” 

School board salaries actually come out of city coffers, and a raise would not effect the district’s deficit. But Issel argued that most voters probably don’t know the source of board salaries.  

“I think that will be quite a lot to expect, that this will be broadly understood,” Issel said. 

Selawsky said board members could choose to divert their raises to pay for a staff member or multiple staffers to return phone calls and conduct research. The board currently has no designated staff. 

But board member Ted Schultz, while he supports the general concept of a raise, said there is not enough money involved to draw ample, qualified staff. 

“I don’t see any carrot there,” he said. 

Selawsky argued that the board could hire interns, providing small stipends. He said the interns might come from UC Berkeley and work twenty or thirty hours a week. 

Selawsky said he does not intend to wage a major campaign on the issues, arguing that there are more pressing concerns. But he said he is glad the issue is on the ballot. 

“I’m pleased, and I think it’s now where it belongs: in the hands of the voters,” he said. 

LOS ANGELES — Propped up in a darkened room and illuminated at an oblique angle, the flat rectangle of pewter reluctantly reveals the scene it has faithfully held for 176 years. 

“You have to dance around it to get a good view,” Dusan Stulik, a senior scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute, said as he hovered nearby. 

You do, and the plate flashes gold before going dark. A step forward, one back and somewhere in between an image emerges. A farm building. Pear and poplar trees. A dovecote. 

Together, the objects appear just as they did to Joseph Nicephore Niepce (pronounced Nee’-sah-for Nee’-yeps) in 1826, when the Frenchman created what is acknowledged as the world’s first photograph. 

“All of the history of photography, the history of film, the history of television, if you go back, this is where all those histories unite,” Stulik said of the faint image. 

Since the photograph arrived on June 14 at the Getty, experts have begun the first scientific study of the image since it was rediscovered and authenticated in 1952. 

“This is the first time we have done any analysis. This is an opportunity to really see it for the first time since it was done,” said Roy Flukinger, a senior curator at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which acquired the image in 1963. 

The analysis is part of a joint photo conservation project with the Getty, the Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology and France’s Centre de Recherches sur la Conservation des Documents Graphiques. 

Over the last week, scientists have pored over the 8-inch-by-6.5-inch photograph with advanced scientific instruments and assessed its state of preservation, which is generally good. 

Experts will repair its original frame and build a new airtight case for it. They have also photographed the image, which is difficult given its faintness. 

The new images include the limited corrosion and three dimples that mar the photo’s surface. Previous reproductions were little more than retouched mosaics of various images made in the 1950s. 

“It’s coming to life as a photograph. Before, it had always been an object,” said James Reilly, director of the Image Permanence Institute. 

Study results are preliminary but confirm accounts that Niepce used a polished plate of pewter, just one-sixteenth of an inch thick, coated with a thin layer of bitumen to create the image. 

During an exposure made over as many as three days, the light-sensitive petroleum derivative hardened. Washing the plate with a mixture of oil of lavender and white petroleum dissolved the unexposed portions of bitumen. 

Niepce called the permanently fixed, direct positive picture — the first ever captured from nature — a “heliograph.” He had previously used the technique to copy engraved images; one such reproduction, made in 1825, sold at a March auction in Paris for $443,220. 

The original image returns to Austin on July 1 and will be back on display in spring 2003. 

Reilly said the study should restore Niepce to his place as the father of photography. He has frequently been overshadowed by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre — of daguerreotype fame — with whom he formed a short-lived partnership. 

“This process is going to rewrite photographic history by fleshing out Niepce’s contribution,” Reilly said.

Wearing bright blue jackets, patrol radios and cheerful smiles, the Berkeley Guides do more than just walk up and down Shattuck Avenue. The four-member team, working in connection with the Berkeley Police Department, patrol the busy downtown merchant sector of Shattuck Avenue Tuesday through Saturday.  

As one of their basic functions, the guides maintain contact with local stores and street vendors, assisting them with customer complaints and contacting police when necessary. In addition, the guides provide citizens and downtown visitors with directions, maps and information.  

According to many local merchants, the guides provide an essential service. “They really helped diffuse a bad situation the other day,” said Mostafa Hallaji of Newberry’s Gifts. “We had a customer that was upset about a pager that she bought. One of them took her outside and calmed her down and the other one came and talked to me.”  

Despite their helpful presence downtown and a strong reaction from merchants and city officials, the Berkeley Guides patrol program faces an uncertain future due to budget constraints. Founded in 1995 as a part of Measure O, the program originally staffed nine members and ran Monday through Saturday day and night along the Avenue. 

According to Ove Wittstock, director of Berkeley Guides, the program is asking for $30,000 in additional city funding to meet rising costs, including increased medical and workers compensation fees.  

Wittstock says that the program hopes members of downtown’s merchant community will help support the guides. As a former Berkeley merchant himself, Wittstock understands the importance of safety in downtown. 

“We hope to take this to the people who have a stake in this, the merchants and the school district, to have them place an economic value on what these guys do on a daily basis,” said David Manson, Executive Director of the Berkeley Boosters, the parent organization of Berkeley Guides. 

Deborah Badhia, Executive Director of the Downtown Berkeley Association, says that the guide program is one piece of a complicated puzzle of policy, presence and enforcement in the downtown area. “The guides are a piece of the puzzle as are police and as is policy,” Badhia said. She says that additional resources such as the mobile crisis team and homeless centers are also necessary parts of keeping downtown safe for everyone.  

According to Roy Meisner, Deputy Chief of the Berkeley Police Department, the guides provide the city with an important service. "They're ambassadors for the city and for the people who shop and eat in downtown. The other part is that they're able to answer questions and give directions to places like UC. They've been a big boost," Meisner said. "They're the ones that hear about all of the things going on down there and they let us know if there's a problem." 

For many the guides provide a link between the community and the police. Guides Lashawn Nolen and Jay Elliot have each served Berkeley for several years and have built relationships and trust with both citizens and the police department. For those who might not be willing to speak directly to a police officer about a problem, the guides are there.  

"People don't feel that threat. We're in between. They know we're not cops but we still have jobs to do,” said Berkeley Guide John Lara. According to Lara, problems on the street can often be resolved with a bit of patience and friendly advice from a guide. Lara says that the guides are able to deal with situations, such disputes between customers and local vendors that police officers do not always have time for.  

Though some have criticized the Berkeley Guides program for not doing enough to eradicate the homeless problem downtown, others say that citizens must realize the limits of the program. “It’s important for people to understand what they can do and what they cannot do,” Badhia said. “The guides aren’t police officers.” 

Despite the fact that the guides are trained to handle numerous problem situations including natural disasters, animal control and parking backups, they are not able to detain individuals involved in violent crimes.  

When a violent crime does take place, the guides radio the police and often monitor the situation or follow a suspect from a safe distance. After hearing a report on his patrol radio recently, Lara was able to spot and follow an armed robbery suspect to the downtown BART station where he called police. According to Lara, the suspect was arrested shortly after contacting the police. 

Along with the Berkeley Guides, the Boosters also operate a winter BART escort program and provide supervision of after-school programs at three local middle schools.  

The guides program was established in reaction to the wave of violent crime in Berkeley and Oakland that followed the Rodney King verdict in the early 1990s.

LOS ANGELES — Details on late director Stanley Kubrick’s unfulfilled plans to make a movie about Napoleon will be published in a book next year, his family said. 

His wife, Christiane, and her brother Jan Harlan, the director’s executive producer, are assembling the book “Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon — His Greatest Film Never Made,” The Hollywood Reporter reported Tuesday. 

“Napoleon interested Stanley very much because here was a man with a huge talent and tremendous charisma who in the end failed only because of his emotions and vanity,” Harlan said. 

Kubrick, who died in March 1999, was obsessed with the project for 30 years, collecting a library of about 18,000 books about the French leader and studying minute details of the subject’s life. 

Kubrick’s film would have chronicled Napoleon from birth to death, Harlan said, and the director assembled a script and thousands of location photographs while preparing for the film as a follow-up to his 1968 sci-fi epic ”2001: A Space Odyssey.” 

But the 1970 film “Waterloo,” which starred Rod Steiger as Napoleon in the days before the title battle, flopped at the box office and Kubrick was never able to get funding for his story. 

SAN DIEGO — The city crossed the line separating church and state when it sold a 43-foot-tall cross to a memorial association, a federal court ruled Wednesday. 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the city of San Diego rigged the sale of the cross on a city-owned war memorial at Mount Soledad so that only groups wanting to keep the cross could buy it. 

The 7-4 decision that the sale violated the California Constitution reversed a three-judge 9th Circuit panel, which in August approved the sale of the cross. 

The appeals court released the ruling on the same day that it declared that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because it contains the words “under God.” (See stories on page 10) 

The cross controversy arose more than a decade ago, when a federal judge ruled the city was violating the Constitution by owning land with a Christian symbol. 

Acting on a lawsuit from Vietnam veteran Philip Paulson, the judge ordered the city to sell the cross. Paulson, a San Diego atheist who objected to using the Christian symbol as part of a war memorial, accused the city of violating the constitutional separation of church and state. 

The cross sits inside the 170-acre Mount Soledad Natural Park on a hillside overlooking the city’s upscale La Jolla neighborhood. Paulson and opponents have asserted that the city’s sale of the cross and a tiny piece of the park created an illegal endorsement of religion. Supporters said the towering white cross is now a memorial to war veterans. 

In 1998, the city sold the cross and a half-acre of surrounding land for $106,000 to the nonprofit Mount Soledad Memorial Association, the highest bidder and the same agency that has maintained the cross since 1952 when it was city owned. 

Paulson and his attorneys claimed that the bidding process for the land was flawed, charging that the city’s requirements for the purchase tended to favor the memorial association or others with plans to retain the cross. 

Paulson on Wednesday directed questions to the American Civil Liberties Union. 

“The deck was stacked in favor of preserving the cross from the very beginning,” said one of Paulson’s lawyers, Jordan Budd of ACLU. “It is past time for the city to quit evading its constitutional duty and end its entanglement with the Soledad cross. 

The appellate court sent the case back to San Diego and left it to the parties involved and a federal judge to remedy the violations of the state’s Constitution. 

San Diego City Attorney Casey Gwinn said the appellate court based its decision on an area of California Constitution that the ACLU didn’t raise at a hearing in March. Gwinn said the city was mulling a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“This case has been ongoing for the past 13 years,” he said. “It’s not likely to end anytime soon.” 

San Diego voters in 1992 passed Proposition F, which allowed the sale of the city property. The city initially sold the cross and 222 square feet of land to the memorial association. But a federal judge ruled that the sale required a bidding process and that more land had to be sold. 

The city then began accepting bids from nonprofit organizations for the cross and a half-acre parcel on the condition that any symbol could be used as long as it honored war veterans. 

SAN JOSE — Despite the high-tech meltdown of the past two years, Silicon Valley residents continue to generously give to charities, according to a report released Wednesday. 

The report, based on a poll by Field Research Corp. and commissioned by Community Foundation Silicon Valley, found that 78 percent of households in the area said they have given money or property to a charity or nonprofit group this year. 

That figure was 83 percent when Community Foundation did a similar study in 1998. But those who are giving are donating a higher percentage of their income — 3.3 percent, compared to 2.7 percent in 1998. 

Perhaps most surprisingly, 83 percent of the 1,516 people surveyed said they are donating just as much or more than they did last year, said Chi Nguyen, a senior associate at Collaborative Economics, the private advisory firm that wrote the report. 

“I think it’s a hopeful message that our community has stayed committed even through the difficult year we’ve had economically,” she said. 

She said the study should shatter the commonly held belief that high-tech workers are too busy or too self-involved to donate. The report said the average Silicon Valley household gives $2,300 to charity, well above the national average of $1,620. 

“We’ve lived with this often-repeated stereotype of ‘cyber-stingy,”’ Nguyen said. “Our data doesn’t support that.”

SAN JOSE — Telecommunications equipment companies, already battered by a sales meltdown, sustained another hit Wednesday as WorldCom Inc. — a major buyer of networking gear — admitted major accounting fraud. 

Cutbacks by WorldCom, which already plans a massive reduction in capital spending, will trickle through its vendors and will likely have an impact far beyond those companies, analysts say. 

“The WorldCom accounting scandal is pretty much the last thing the doctor could have ordered right now for telecom equipment stocks,” John Wilson, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said in a research note. 

Networking gear suppliers have been sputtering since the telecom meltdown began with the collapse of the dot-coms in 2000. 

The news has not improved since, as carriers cut back spending and as aggressive rollouts of networks led to overcapacity, falling prices and — in many cases — bankruptcy. 

Even before Tuesday’s revelation that it disguised $3.8 billion in expenses over the last five quarters, WorldCom was struggling with $32 billion in debt, slowing revenues and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. 

Now, the nation’s No. 2 long distance company and a leading carrier of behind-the-scenes Internet traffic said it will only maintain its current network, not expand or upgrade it. 

“There’s not going to be a whole lot of spending on gear there,” said Ryan Molloy, an analyst at SoundView Technology Group. “They’re just going to keep the network running.” 

Juniper Networks Inc. is expected to be among the hardest hit. About 10 percent of the Sunnyvale-based company’s sales are from WorldCom’s purchases of its high-end routers and other equipment. 

“I think 2003 would pose a serious problem because there’s an upgrade cycle that Juniper’s pinning their hopes on that wouldn’t materialize at WorldCom if things really tanked,” Molloy said. 

Shares of Juniper lost $1.16, or more than 18 percent, to close at $5.13 Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. 

Networking gear leader Cisco Systems Inc. receives about 1 percent of its total revenue from WorldCom, he said. Cisco shares lost 2 cents to $13.43 in Nasdaq trading. 

Nortel Networks Corp., a maker of equipment for optical networks, once had considerable business dealings with WorldCom — until all major long-haul voice and data carriers found themselves stuck with too much fiber in the ground and not enough customers. 

“Nortel Networks has no material exposure to WorldCom, who is primarily an optical customer,” Nortel spokesman David Chamberlin said. 

Still, Nortel shares lost 14 cents, or nearly 9 percent, at $1.47 in New York Stock Exchange trading. 

More significantly, major long-distance carriers such as WorldCom have traditionally been more aggressive than regional phone companies in buying and implementing new technology, Molloy said. 

“It’s the psychological impact of losing a customer that would be more willing to adopt a next-generation platform,” Molloy said. “If we lose one, it makes others less willing to spend and be more careful with their money. It’s kind of a domino effect.” 

And not just telecom gear-makers are exposed. Computer services giant Electronic Data Systems Corp., for instance, runs data centers for WorldCom in a deal that brings EDS $600 million in annual revenue.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s currency fell to its lowest level since 2000 on Wednesday, ending a two-year stretch of unaccustomed strength that had some Mexicans calling it “the super peso.” 

Some analysts said the fall of the U.S. dollar against other currencies may have hurt the peso, given Mexico’s dependence on the U.S. economy. 

“We are seeing full correlation with the U.S. dollar decline against the euro,” said Dolores Garcia, currency analyst at local financial group BBVA-Bancomer. 

In Mexico City, banking leader Banamex quoted the peso closing at a midrate of 10 per dollar, significantly weaker from 9.8850 at the close Tuesday. It began sliding from around 9 pesos per dollar in mid-April after the central bank eased its monetary policy. 

Bank of Mexico Governor Guillermo Ortiz said on Tuesday that market turbulence in South America also has hit his country’s currency.

LOS ANGELES — Some groups have canceled their traditional fireworks extravaganzas and some have gone hunting for alternatives because it’s so hot, so dry and so dangerous in California this year. 

Fireworks shows are still on at most big show sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities throughout California, authorities said. But some of the pyrotechnics designed for business celebrations, company picnics and promotional events have been scrapped. 

Laser light show producers say calls about shows are 20 times higher than last year. 

“Without a question, we’ve had 20 times more phone calls,” said Kevin Bilida, president of TLC Creative Special Effects, which specializes in pyrotechnic, laser light and other shows. 

“Every single fireworks show that had a question mark — whether it was going to be perceived as dangerous — has been canceled. It’s not worth the liability,” he said. 

San Bernardino County on Wednesday canceled annual fireworks shows in Lake Arrowhead and Lake Gregory. 

“There’s nothing like a good fireworks show, but the alternative to having any threat to our forest is not acceptable,” Fire Marshal Peter Brierty said. 

“A lot of standing dead trees are in our mountains, and if you have sparks raining down on them, it’s much more difficult to put out. It was a very, very difficult decision to make, but the pictures of Arizona tell the story,” he said, referring to a wildfire there that has burned more than 400,000 acres and destroyed nearly 400 homes. 

Lake Arrowhead is looking at alternative events for the Fourth of July, including a laser light show and a carnival, Brierty said. 

In Orange County’s Newport Beach, the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort has canceled its show, a 43-year tradition, because of increasing costs and the lack of liability insurance. 

“The costs have been rising dramatically for several years,” Andrew Theodorou, general manager of the resort, told The Orange County Register. 

While the high-powered lasers can be flammable, they are less likely to start fires than fireworks and their embers that may not burn out before they reach the ground. 

“Your fire danger is way low obviously,” said David Lytle, editor of the Laserist, a magazine on the laser display industry. “I’ve never heard of a laser causing a fire — ever.” 

Laser light show producers said most callers are worried about fire hazards. When they find out how much the laser shows cost, however, their worries are compounded. 

“There have been a lot of inquiries, triple from last year,” said Ivan Dryer, president of Laser Images, Inc. in Los Angeles. “A lot of them don’t have the budget for laser shows; they thought they were cheaper than fireworks, but that’s not necessarily true.” 

An extravagant, 20-minute laser light show — including graphics and aerial effects — can cost up to $12,000, while fireworks cost about $12,000 for a 20-minute show, Dryer said. 

However, laser light shows are more of a do-it-yourself kind of spectacle, said Neville Hanchett, President of Mobolazer Inc. in Thousand Oaks who also sets up firework shows. 

“It’s easier for people to do laser shows than firework shows,” he said. “There are more channels to go through for a fireworks show. You need a fire marshal on site. Lasers are like a free-for-all, you can buy your own system and make your own show.” 

Hanchett also prefers the sensory appeal of fireworks. 

“I would rather watch a fireworks show with the bang and the smoke instead of a light show,” Hanchett said. “You’re painting the sky with light, and although you can do a lot of cool things with beams, I never tire of seeing a good fireworks show.” 

SAN FRANCISCO — Stunning politicians on both the left and right, a federal appeals court declared for the first time Wednesday that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the words “under God” inserted by Congress in 1954. 

The ruling, if allowed to stand, would mean schoolchildren could no longer recite the pledge, at least in the nine Western states covered by the court. 

Critics of the decision were flabbergasted and warned that it calls into question the use of “In God We Trust” on the nation’s currency, the public singing of patriotic songs like “God Bless America,” even the use of the phrase ”So help me God” when judges are sworn into office. 

In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the phrase “one nation under God” amounts to a government endorsement of religion in violation of the separation of church and state. 

Leading schoolchildren in a pledge that says the United States is “one nation under God” is as objectionable as making them say “we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion,” Circuit Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote. 

In Canada, where President Bush was taking part in an economic summit, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: “The president’s reaction was that this ruling is ridiculous.” 

“The Supreme Court itself begins each of its sessions with the phrase ‘God save the United States and this honorable court,”’ Fleischer said. “The Declaration of Independence refers to God or to the Creator four different times. Congress begins each session of the Congress each day with a prayer, and of course our currency says, ‘In God We Trust.’ The view of the White House is that this was a wrong decision and the Department Justice is now evaluating how to seek redress.” 

The ruling was also attacked on Capitol Hill, with Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., calling it “just nuts.” 

After the ruling, House members gathered on the front steps of the Capitol to recite the Pledge of Allegiance en masse — the same place they defiantly sang “God Bless America” the night of Sept. 11 attacks. 

And senators, who were debating a defense bill, angrily stopped to unanimously pass a resolution denouncing the decision of a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. 

The government had argued that the religious content of “one nation under God” is minimal. But the appeals court said that an atheist or a holder of certain non-Judeo-Christian beliefs could see it as an endorsement of monotheism. 

The 9th Circuit covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state. Those are the only states directly affected by the ruling. 

However, the ruling does not take effect for several months, to allow further appeals. The government can ask the court to reconsider, or take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Congress inserted “under God” at the height of the Cold War after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, religious leaders and others who wanted to distinguish the United States from what they regarded as godless communism. 

The case was brought by Michael A. Newdow, a Sacramento atheist who objected because his second-grade daughter was required to recite the pledge at the Elk Grove school district. A federal judge had dismissed his lawsuit, which named the school district, Congress and then-President Clinton. 

Newdow, a doctor who holds a law degree and represented himself, called the pledge a “religious idea that certain people don’t agree with.” 

The appeals court said that when President Eisenhower signed the legislation inserting “under God” after the words “one nation,” he declared: “Millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.” 

The appeals court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has said students cannot be compelled to recite the pledge. But even when the pledge is voluntary, “the school district is nonetheless conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious belief when it requires public school teachers to recite, and lead the recitation of, the current form of the pledge.” 

The ruling was issued by Goodwin, who was appointed by President Nixon, and Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee. 

In a dissent, Circuit Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez, appointed by the first President Bush, warned that under his colleagues’ theory of the Constitution, “we will soon find ourselves prohibited from using our album of patriotic songs in many public settings.” 

”‘God Bless America’ and ‘America the Beautiful’ will be gone for sure,” he said, “and while use of the first and second stanzas of the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ will still be permissible, we will be precluded from straying into the third.” 

Fernandez said the same faulty logic would apply to “In God We Trust” on the nation’s currency. 

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., was one of many lawmakers who immediately reacted in anger and shock to the ruling. 

“Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok,” Bond said. “What’s next? Will the courts now strip ’so help me God’ from the pledge taken by new presidents?” 

Harvard scholar Laurence Tribe predicted the U.S. Supreme Court will certainly reverse the decision unless the 9th Circuit reverses itself. “I would bet an awful lot on that,” Tribe said. 

The 9th Circuit is the nation’s most overturned appellate court — partly because it is the largest, but also because it tends to make liberal, activist opinions, and because the cases it hears — on a range of issues from environmental laws to property rights to civil rights — tend to challenge the status quo. 

The nation’s high court has never squarely addressed the issue, Tribe said. The court has said schools can require teachers to lead the pledge but ruled students cannot be punished for refusing to recite it. 

In other school-related religious cases, the high court has said that schools cannot post the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. 

And in March, a federal appeals court ruled that Ohio’s motto, “With God, all things are possible,” is constitutional and is not an endorsement of Christianity even though it quotes the words of Jesus.

BALTIMORE — A court ruling the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional was no surprise to an expert on the patriotic promise. 

John Baer, author of “The Pledge of Allegiance: A Centennial History 1892-1992,” said the pledge has been modified over the years. 

“About every 40 years, the wording of the pledge is changed,” the Annapolis man said Wednesday. “It’s about time for another change to take place in the pledge. It’s a living document.” 

Baer said the current pledge and the practice of reciting it with hand over heart is nothing like the original author intended. 

Until 1942, for example, a straight arm salute resembling the Nazi salute was used, Baer said. 

Baer, 71, credits the Rev. Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, with authorship of the original pledge in 1892. Bellamy’s pledge omitted any country’s name or religious reference. 

His original pledge read: 

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 

Baer, a former economics professor, said Bellamy intended his words to be a peace pledge. 

“He saw an international side to this thing,” Baer said. 

Baer wrote that the words “my flag” were changed to “the flag of the United States of America” in 1924 at the National Flag Conference under the leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution. 

Bellamy, who died in 1931, disliked the change, Baer wrote, but his protest was ignored. 

In 1954, Congress added the words “under God” to the pledge after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus. 

Bellamy’s granddaughter said Bellamy also would have resented that change — especially after he was forced to leave his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons, Baer wrote. 

The “under God” phrase is what the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found unconstitutional on Wednesday, saying it violates separation of church and state. 

The Pledge of Allegiance, attributed to socialist editor and clergyman Francis Bellamy, was first published in 1892 in The Youth’s Companion, a children’s magazine where he worked. 

The pledge was meant to echo the sentiments and ideals of Bellamy’s cousin, Edward Bellamy, an author of “Looking Backward” and other socialist utopian novels, according to pledge expert John Baer. 

Bellamy crafted it as a resonating oration to bolster the idea that the middle class could fashion a planned political and social economy, equitable for all, Baer said. 

After a proclamation by President Benjamin Harrison, the pledge was first used on Oct. 12, 1892 in public schools during Columbus Day observances throughout the nation. 

The original wording was: “I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 

There were those who claimed The Youth’s Companion editor James B. Upham penned the famous pledge, but the U.S. Flag Association ruled in 1939 to recognize Bellamy was the author. 

The pledge has been changed a few times since. For Flag Day in 1924, “the flag of the United States of America” was officially adopted as a substitution for the phrase “my flag.” 

In 1954, the words “under God” were added, after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s service organization, and other religious leaders who sermonized that the pledge needed to be distinguished from similar orations used by “godless communists.” 

The prospect of atomic war between world superpowers so moved President Dwight D. Eisenhower that he directed Congress to add the two small but controversial words.

SAN DIEGO — In halting and heavily-accented English, a former Soviet spy recounted Wednesday how she became an FBI informant in a murder-for-hire case. 

Svetlana Ogorodnikova this week is testifying as a key government witness, seven years after her release from prison. She was convicted of seducing a Los Angeles FBI agent into selling a confidential document to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. 

After serving half her 18-year sentence, Ogorodnikova was released and spent several years fighting deportation from the United States — an effort she gave up by moving to Tijuana, Mexico, with a convicted drug trafficker she met and married in prison. 

Ogorodnikova returned illegally to Southern California in 1999 and moved with her husband to a ranch in Fallbrook. The ranch was owned by Kimberly Bailey, who is now on trial in federal court on charges of having a San Diego private investigator tortured and murdered in an abandoned house in Tijuana. 

Bailey repeatedly asked Ogorodnikova if she could hire a hitman to kill witnesses and others involved in the murder of the private investigator, Richard Post, the Russian woman testified. 

“I became very scared,” said the former spy, dressed in a dark blue suit, her hair cut short. “I think maybe she’d forget, maybe she’s not serious.” 

Bailey is accused of having Post kidnapped, tortured over five days in Tijuana, and then murdered because she believed he cheated on her with other women and stole money from her. 

Bailey has pleaded innocent to conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign country and other charges. Through her lawyer, she has insisted that Post is alive and in hiding. 

FBI agents who had the Fallbrook ranch under surveillance approached Ogorodnikova, who agreed to covertly tape conversations over the phone and in person with Bailey. 

The Russian woman, according to the tapes, set up a meeting in the Mandalay Bay casino between an FBI agent posing as a hitman and Bailey, who allegedly wanted to have him kill several people involved with Post’s slaying. 

In their conversations, Ogorodnikova said she and Bailey developed a code. Examples included “brother” or “lawyer” to mean hitman and “investigation” to refer to murder. “It was like a spy movie, like in James Bond,” she testified. 

Bailey’s defense attorney, Philip DeMassa, said he hoped to use Ogorodnikova’s past to convince jurors that she is not a reliable witness. 

“She’s an experienced KGB agent and she’s lying about everything,” he said outside the federal courtroom. 

Ogorodnikova pleaded guilty to espionage charges in 1985, after she admitted seducing Richard Miller, the first FBI agent charged with espionage. 

The former Soviet spy had no trouble slipping back into the United States when a friend drove her across the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, where inspectors failed to check Ogorodnikova’s background, according to her husband, Bruce Perlowin. 

The Bailey trial is expected to last several more weeks. 

SACRAMENTO (AP) — A national business-turned-education strategy could be the latest school experiment in California if a bill moving through the legislature is successful. 

The bill, authored by Sen. Bruce McPherson, R-Santa Cruz, was approved by the Assembly Committee on Education on Wednesday. 

The measure would establish a three-year $3-million pilot program in nine districts across the state that would bring Baldrige business strategies and principles into the classroom. 

The Baldrige business model — named after the late Malcolm Baldrige, former commerce secretary in the Reagan administration — was designed in 1987 and expanded to education in the mid-1990s. 

The program focuses on streamlining classroom activities so that more time is focused on learning. It also sets up individual goals for every student as well as for whole classrooms. Teachers are required to monitor each student’s progress daily. 

Students in the program typically score between 10 and 14 points higher on the SAT-9, the statewide tests taken annually by kids in grades two through 11, according to the California Center for Baldrige in Education. 

“It’s a proven success story in many states like Alaska, Florida and Texas,” McPherson said. “It’s a goal-oriented program in which students establish a daily portfolio so they can track their own progress.” 

McPherson said the program promotes a healthy level of competition between the students, but it also encourages the students to work together to obtain their common classroom goals. Students decide how they want to be rewarded for reaching their goals. 

Ruth Miller, executive director of the California Center for Baldrige in Education, said that although the program is already being used in Santa Cruz, Long Beach and Santa Clara, the pilot program is needed so that “the state can move forward as a whole.” 

“Everybody can use the same approach, talk the same language and be on the same page,” she said. 

SACRAMENTO — A bill that would impose strict eligibility requirements on members of the State Board of Education, which is now largely comprised of business leaders and former politicians, passed the Senate Education Committee Wednesday. 

The measure by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, D-Los Angeles, seeks to diversify the board by adding members experienced in teaching students with limited English skills. If it becomes law, it would require at least two of the 11 members to be familiar with teaching students who speak little or no English. 

The Senate Education Committee approved the bill on Wednesday, sending it to the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Although Education Committee Chairman John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, called the bill “a remarkably good idea,” other committee members said Firebaugh is a “dreamer.” 

“I think the possibility of getting this signed by the governor is not (very) high,” said Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena. 

AB2363 would set up specific criteria for members of the governor-appointed board. Currently, there are no formal requirements that candidates must meet to fill 10 of the positions. The last position, which is a one-year term, must be held by a 12th-grade student at a public school. 

The measure would require the governor to appoint two parents with children in public schools, one public school administrator from a low-performing school, one school board member, three public school teachers and one school employee. Two of the positions would remain open to the general public, while the last position would be reserved for a student. 

The board now includes the former mayors of San Jose and Beverly Hills and the assistant executive director of California’s largest teachers union. High-ranking business executives also sit on the board, including officials of NetFlix.com, Gap Inc. and the former CEO of OneNetNow.com. 

LOS ANGELES — Of all the members of Charles Manson’s murderous “family,” Leslie Van Houten was always seen as the different one — the youngest, the one most vulnerable to Manson’s diabolical control. 

Now she hopes to be the first member of the cult involved in the 1969 Tate-La Bianca killings to get out on parole. 

On Friday — nearly 33 years since the slaughter of actress Sharon Tate and six others shocked the nation — Van Houten, 52, goes before the state parole board for the 14th time. This time, she might have a chance. 

The reason: Earlier this month, Superior Court Judge Bob N. Krug strongly admonished the board for flatly turning Van Houten down every time based solely on the crime. Such decisions, he said, ignore Van Houten’s accomplishments in prison and turn her life sentence into life without parole, in violation of the law. 

In addition, Krug said that Van Houten had successfully completed every rehabilitation program offered in prison and that her psychiatric evaluations “clearly indicate that she is not a present danger to society and should be found suitable for parole.” 

Van Houten was a 19-year-old Manson disciple in the summer of 1969 when she participated in the stabbing deaths of grocers Leno and Rosemary La Bianca in their home. Van Houten was not present the night before when Tate and four others were slain at the actress’ Beverly Hills mansion. 

Van Houten, Manson, his chief lieutenant Charles “Tex” Watson, and two other women, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkle, were convicted and sentenced to death for their part in the Tate-La Bianca murders. The sentences were later commuted to life when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in the 1970s. All five are still behind bars. 

Van Houten’s initial conviction was overturned on the grounds that she received an inadequate defense; her lawyer disappeared and was found dead during her trial, and she was assigned a replacement. Her second trial ended in a hung jury. A third trial ended in a conviction. 

Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay will be arguing against Van Houten’s parole for the 14th time. 

“This is not a garden-variety murder case and it should not be treated as such,” he said. “I commend her for her good acts in prison and she appears to be a model prisoner. I think she should spend the rest of her life being a model prisoner. I feel because of what she did, she is not entitled to parole.” 

In light of the judge’s ruling, however, Van Houten can take her case to court if she is denied parole again. 

Van Houten’s lawyer, Christie Webb, said she has shown remorse and has been rehabilitated. Van Houten went through alcohol and drug rehab, group therapy and psychotherapy. She also obtained a college degree in literature and has helped run drug and alcohol programs for other women. 

Webb said Manson’s influence on Van Houten was powerful. 

“She was the youngest. She was vulnerable and she was controlled by drugs and clever manipulation,” Webb said. “All that LSD changed the chemistry of her brain.” 

The lawyer added: “I certainly have sympathy for the victims’ families. But Leslie and her family are also among Charles Manson’s victims. We are talking about one horrible night of violence in her life when she was clearly not in her right mind.” 

NEW YORK — Shares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. tumbled almost 24 percent Wednesday, fueled by reports that the style maven may face a wider probe into alleged insider trading. 

The widening investigation was reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, which cited a person familiar with the case and said possible charges could include obstruction of justice and making false statements. 

The Journal also reported that an assistant to Stewart’s stockbroker had changed his initial version of her Dec. 27 sale of shares of ImClone Systems Inc. 

Shares of Stewart’s multimedia company fell $3.20 to close at $10.40 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has fallen about 45 percent since news broke this month that Stewart’s sale of stock in the biotech company was under scrutiny in an insider trading investigation. 

At issue is whether Stewart misled prosecutors in explaining why she sold almost 4,000 shares of ImClone a day before the Food and Drug Administration announced it would not consider Erbitux, ImClone’s experimental cancer drug. 

Stewart is a friend of former ImClone CEO Sam Waksal, who was arrested two weeks ago on charges of insider trading for allegedly trying to sell his stock and tipping off family members after learning of the impending FDA decision. 

The Journal said sales assistant Douglas Faneuil acknowledged that he misled his brokerage firm’s lawyers and the Securities and Exchange Commission when he supported the claim that Stewart and her stockbroker had a prearranged sales agreement to dump the shares when they fell below $60. The newspaper cited people familiar with the matter. 

The stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, also is the broker for Waksal and his daughter Aliza. 

In repeated public statements, Stewart has pinned her innocence to the existence of this agreement, which she said was done verbally. She has insisted the trade was lawful and done based on public information. 

A call Wednesday by The Associated Press to Stewart’s publicist was not returned. 

In an appearance Tuesday on CBS’ “The Early Show,” Stewart said: “I think this will all be resolved in the very near future and I will be exonerated.” 

According to the Journal report, Faneuil said he created his story after being pressured by Bacanovic, and now says he was unaware of the agreement. 

Faneuil is expected to be interviewed by representatives of the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, the newspaper said. 

Merrill Lynch announced last week that it had put Bacanovic and Faneuil on paid leave, following an internal investigation, citing discrepancies in their accounts. 

Richard Strassberg, the attorney representing Bacanovic, declined to comment. 

Marvin Smilon, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, also declined to comment. Neither Tim Cobb, a spokesman for Merrill Lynch, nor Marc Powers, the attorney for Faneuil, immediately returned calls. 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Two days after being convicted of corruption, Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr. announced Wednesday he will not seek re-election to a fourth straight term in November. 

“It’s time for me to move on,” he said at City Hall. “It’s been a great ride. It’s been a great experience.” 

The 61-year-old Cianci — a charismatic and beloved figure in Providence, even after he was indicted — announced his decision even as he held out hope a federal judge would reverse his racketeering conspiracy conviction next week. 

Cianci was found guilty of turning City Hall into a den of thieves at the same time he was bringing about Providence’s revitalization over the past 12 years.

HARTFORD, Conn. — The state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that small companies can fire pregnant employees without violating the state’s ban on gender discrimination. 

The court ruled in a 3-2 vote that a 1967 law exempts businesses that have fewer than three workers. 

“This state’s public policy against sex discrimination by private employers is not absolute,” Justice Richard Palmer wrote for the majority. “The legislature has carved out an exception to that policy for small employers.” 

The case involved Nicole Thibodeau, who was fired in 1998 by her employer, Design Group One, a tiny architectural firm in Chester. Her attorneys argued the firm violated her rights under the state Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on gender. 

The court’s decision is “very upsetting,” her attorney, Elaine Rubinson said. “I never thought they would do that,” she said. 

Rubinson said her client may appeal to the federal courts or state lawmakers. 

Michael O’Connell, a lawyer for Design One, said: “We don’t just willy-nilly change it on a whim because of a particular case.” 

The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union had said upholding her firing would leave tens of thousands of workers at small businesses in Connecticut without legal protection from discrimination. 

In the dissent, Justice Christine Vertefeuille wrote that because of the ruling “it is the public policy of this state to permit small employers to discriminate against their employees on the basis of sex.” 

KANSAS CITY, Mo.— A man was convicted of participating in a scheme to offer $1.5 million in bribes to Costa Rican politicians and government officials in exchange for land concessions in a Caribbean development project. 

A federal court jury on Monday found Robert Richard King, 68, guilty of one count of conspiracy and four counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 

King’s lawyer said he would appeal. 

Prosecutors alleged King conspired with Owl Securities & Investment, a Kansas City company in which he owned stock, to bribe Costa Rican officials. The quid pro quo was a land concession of 50 square miles on the Caribbean coast, according to secret recordings made by former Owl president Stephen Kingsley at the request of the FBI. 

Owl Securities had won the right to finance and develop port and resort facilities at Limon, on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. 

A second defendant, Pablo Barquero Hernandez of Costa Rica, is a fugitive. Two officers of Owl Securities, Albert Reitz and Richard Halford, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and await sentencing. 

King is free on bail and no sentencing date was set. Philip Urofsky, the Justice Department’s senior counsel for international litigation, said he believed King could get three to five years in prison. 

DENVER — Parents of minors have no right to sign liability waivers for their children, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled, clearing the way for children to sue ski resorts for negligence once they turn 18. 

In a case that could affect the state’s entire recreation industry, the court said its Monday ruling was based a 1978 law and other statutes that give broad rights to children to file lawsuits once they reach majority age. 

The justices overturned a lower-court ruling that would have barred lawsuits if a parent had signed a form acknowledging a sport’s risk and waiving the right to sue in case of an accident. 

“If this had been affirmed, the doors to the courthouse would be locked,” said attorney Jim Chalat, who specializes in recreation accident cases. 

“This will make skiing and all other sports in Colorado safer for children. It doesn’t mean large awards,” he said, noting that such negligence lawsuits are rare. 

The Aspen Skiing Co., a defendant in the case, did not return a call seeking comment. 

The decision stems from the case of David Cooper, who was 17 when he was training on a ski race course and crashed into a tree, suffering injuries including blindness 

Both he and his mother had signed a release. The trial court found that his mother’s signature bound him to the terms of the agreement, barring his claims against defendants that also included the Aspen Valley Ski Club and the U.S. Ski Association. 

The Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. 

The state Supreme Court said Colorado law affords minors significant protections that preclude a parent or guardian from releasing a minor’s own claims for negligence. 

While the case involved a ski company, attorneys said it would also apply to horseback riding, rafting, mountain climbing and any other sport involving children. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Supreme Court: http://www.courts.state.co.us/supct/supct.htm 

Aspen Skiing Co.: http://www.skiaspen.com 

HOUSTON — Playboy’s “Women of Enron” reveal much more than shady accounting in a 10-page pictorial that hits newsstands Friday. 

Ten past and present Enron women shed their threads for the Chicago-based adult magazine’s August issue, though some showed more of the naked truth than others. 

“I was always the one who broke the rules,” said Shari Daughtery, a graduate of Fort Bend Baptist Academy in suburban Houston who still works as an information technology administrator at Enron’s 50-story downtown headquarters. 

“My mom always said as long as everything is covered, it’s fine,” said the 22-year-old Daughtery, who has modeled before. She didn’t follow that advice when she posed wearing only shoes and a belly chain atop Enron’s parking garage, with its two glass towers in the background. 

Daughtery was among 300 women who answered Playboy’s March invitation to pose. She joined three others Tuesday to discuss their experiences. 

They said they posed for the fun of it and to earn some money — though none of them would say how much the magazine paid them. 

“It’s privileged information, but it was substantial,” said Janine Howard, 39, who was laid off from her job selling energy for defunct Enron Energy Services. “They were very, very generous.” 

Daughtery and Taria Reed, a 31-year-old database coordinator, survived December’s layoffs that left more than 5,000 employees jobless when Enron filed the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. 

The former No. 7 company on the Fortune 500 imploded last year in a storm of hidden debt and inflated profits. Employees and retirees saw 401(k) accounts loaded with Enron stock evaporate when shares became worthless after trading at an all-time high of near $90 in August 2000. 

None of the four models who spoke Tuesday said they suffered the kind of financial losses that devastated others who depended on stock for retirement or their children’s college funds. 

Reed said she sold her Enron stock before shares began tumbling exponentially last fall because she needed the money. Daughtery said she made sure her 401(k) was diversified so her losses were minimal, and Howard had shut down her portfolio. 

Courtnie Parker, 27, who was laid off as an Enron recruiter last December, said she’d only worked there a year, so her losses were small. 

Parker was the only model to avoid frontal nudity in the pictorial because she didn’t want to offend her grandparents. 

The women voiced no bitterness toward the company or its executives, though Howard said Kenneth Lay, former chairman and chief executive, should have known his company was in jeopardy. 

“He needs a heart,” she said. “Get awake and find out what’s happening in your company. We knocked the market out.” 

Council members make difficult
decisions during tough
economic year 

Many Berkeley residents have noticed that the hooting and hollering over how to spend city dollars has been more restrained this budget season as compared with past years. 

With the city forced to make $3.1 million worth of cuts due to the weak economy, city leaders might appreciate the relative lack of antagonism. But the city manager’s office says the silence is not reassuring. 

“It been easy so far, but things are about to get more difficult,” said Phil Kamlarz, deputy city manager. 

The city’s budget was successfully adopted Tuesday night, but with the somber understanding that two issues will likely throw the weighty fiscal document back into disarray: city employee contract negotiations and state budget cuts. 

More than 1,000 city employees are pushing city managers for better wages and benefits, as union contracts come up for renewal next month. 

Mayor Shirley Dean says money has been set aside for new contracts, but it is not known whether enough money is there to fund whatever settlement is reached. 

Dean noted that nearly 80 percent of the city’s $100 million budget goes to employees’ salaries. 

As for pending state cuts, most political experts say it is unlikely that California Legislators will meet the July 1 deadline for adopting a budget, and unanswered will be how much money cities and towns will receive. 

“The state will soon do something and it’s not going to be good whatever it is,” said Kamlarz. 

Most measures adopted by the city to patch the $3.1 million shortfall involve cutting administrative services and eliminating employment positions. Nearly every city department, from public works to police, will share in the reductions. 

“The idea was to avoid any big cuts,” Kamlarz noted. 

While major cutbacks may have been avoided so far, funding increases to city departments and partnering nonprofits were also bypassed. To this end, City Council established a list of funding requests Tuesday night that they will revisit in September. 

One group that felt slighted in the budget process was those who support the city’s fledgling Green Building Program. 

“The city has created good resolutions for green building, but now it’s not following through,” said Michael Green, with the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health. 

Passed last year, a city resolution put forth a plan to review building and construction policies with energy savings and nontoxic building materials in mind. The idea was lauded as a landmark environmental plan. 

However, revenue to launch the Green Building Program, expected to come through city utility taxes, did not materialize and the plan is yet to get off the ground. Environmentalists have urged the city to find another way to pay for the $96,000 program next year, but have proved unsuccessful. 

“I recognize that the city budget is not in great shape, but the pain should be spread equally,” said Ed Gulick, program manager for the Berkeley-based Green Resource Center. 

Gulick noted that the program would have eventually paid for itself through energy savings and would have been a big economic boost for local retailers of building materials. 

City officials say the Green Building Program will be one of the items revisited in September. 

To the Editor: 

What looms “grim” and “ghastly” over Berkeley these days? Not Edgar 

Allan Poe's ‘Raven,’ but rather Berkeley's new Public Safety (or police) Tower, with its potentially damaging microwave emissions. While these emissions, like Poe's 'Raven,' continue their “wandering from the nightly shore,” where will all the money come from to determine just how harmful they may be? 

The City of Berkeley is still trying to figure out whether to give the Macro Corporation the $43,000 it has asked for to study ‘field strengths’ around tower sites. But why didn't the Corporation tell the City--in its report that already cost Berkeley citizens $50,000 – about RFI, or radio frequency interference? RFI can sabotage Berkeley's public safety systems. It can cause dropped calls, dead zones, and static in police and fire radio transmissions. More often than not, the RFI interference comes from commercial wireless services--notably, from cell phones and the antennas and towers that keep them going. (“Sounds of Silence: Cell Phone Towers are a Police Radio Nightmare,” Law Enforcement News, March l5, 200l), and “Cell Phones Drowning Out Police Radios,” USAToday.com). 

Police complaints, possibly rooted in RFI, were recently used to justify turning on Berkeley's illegal (put up without City permits) ‘safety’ tower. Most likely Nextel was the source of the RFI, although RFI can, under certain circumstances, also come from other wireless providers, such as AT&T and Cingular. Nextel, police and fire share the same range of radio frequencies. When and if these frequencies overlap, Nextel transmissions can overpower police calls. Consequently, police emergency response might be delayed by a busy signal, static or dropped calls.  

To further complicate matters, every time Nextel adds a new site, the whole configuration of their system is changed. The police can't keep up with the changes. What good would it do for Berkeley to pay the Macro Corporation $43,000 to measure today when it might be playing in a different ballpark tomorrow? Wouldn't it be better for the City to create a part-time, salaried position for an independent, physicist-engineer, researcher type (perhaps even a grad student) to figure things out and keep tabs on Berkeley's changing emissions' maps? Similarly, when and if the City takes down the new tower, can't it train City employees already on the payroll to do the job, rather than hire expensive industry?  

Berkeley (as elsewhere) has to decide which is more important, public safety or recreational cell phone use. And if measure we must, why should Berkeley foot the bill? If the need for measurements does come from Nextel – charge Nextel. Let them take up the issue with the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), who unwisely sold Nextel a license in the already occupied public safety waveband sector.  

Thanks to Berkeley Council Members Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington who recently voted against turning on the illegal Tower. 

Kate Bernier 

Berkeley

Wednesday, June 26

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil 

6:30 pm 

BART Station, Shattuck & Center 

Weekly candle-lit vigil and peace walk to raise 

awareness and gather support for opposition to the 'war on terrorism' 

vigil4peace@yahoo.com, 528-9217 

Thursday, June 27

The Lost Spacecraft:  

Liberty Bell 7 Recovered 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Chabot Space and Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd. Oakland 

Preview new exhibit of resurrected 1961 spacecraft 

RSVP June 20, (415) 864-6397 or news@davidperry.com 

Speak Out Against Police Repression 

7 p.m.  

Defremery Park, 1651 Adeline St. West Oakland 

Jerald Smith from COPWATCH, Angela Rowen and Roger White from East Bay Uprising. Sponsored by East Bay Uprising 415-364-1870 or email ebuprising@yahoo.com 

Freedom From Tobacco 

A quit smoking class 

5:30-7:30 Thursday Evenings, June 6-July 18 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis Street, (510) 981-5330 

QuitNow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Celebrate Queer Pride  

with fabulous FolkDivas 

8 p.m. 

Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St, Oakland  

Performers include: Helen Chaya, Eileen Hazel, and Marca Cassity. All Ages 

798-5456  

$6-10 sliding scale 

Friday, June 28

Paramount Movie Classics 

The General (1927), starring Buster Keaton, a silent film with live Wurlitzer organ  

accompaniment by Jim Riggs, playing  

his original score. 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature Film 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

$5 

The Tao of Energy Medicine Workshop 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Upaya Center 478 Santa Clara Ave.  

Oakland 

www.upayacenter.org  

Free 

One Man's War Tour 

7 p.m.  

AK Press Warehouse 674-A 23rd St.-between MLK and San Pablo, Oakland  

Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba celebrates the release of his new CD. May contain live violence and sex. 

594-2329, satanicapache@hotmail.com, www.satanicapache.com 

FREE 

Berkeley Women in Black 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

Telegraph and Bancroft 

A vigil for peace for Palestine and Israel 

548-6310, or www.wibberkeley.org 

Politics in Sacramento 

11:45 for lunch. Speaker begins 12:30 

Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 

Dion Aroner, Assemblywoman 

$11.00/$12.25, students free. 

"Really Rosie" Kids  

Theater Performances 

7:30 p.m.  

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins Street in North Berkeley 

"Kids On Stage" Stage Door Conservatory's " programs presents musical theater performances by kids, for kids 

527-5939 or StageDoorCamp@aol.com. 

Free 

Friday, June 28

Paramount Movie Classics 

Doors at 7, Mighty Wurlitzer at 7:30, Newsreel, Cartoon, Previews, and Prize give-away game Dec-O-Win and feature film. 

2025 Broadway 

Oakland  

The General (1927), starring Buster Keaton, a silent film with live Wurlitzer organ accompaniment by Jim Riggs, playing his original score. $5 

Berkeley Women in Black 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

Telegraph and Bancroft 

A vigil for peace for Palestine and Israel 

548-6310, or www.wibberkeley.org 

Politics in Sacramento 

11:45 for lunch. Speaker begins 12:30 

Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 

Dion Aroner, Assemblywoman 

$11.00/$12.25, students free. 

"Really Rosie" Kids  

Theater Performances 

7:30 p.m.  

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins Street in North Berkeley 

"Kids On Stage" Stage Door Conservatory's " programs presents musical theater performances by kids, for kids. 

527-5939 or StageDoorCamp@aol.com. 

Free 

Saturday, June 29

Know Your Rights Training 

11 a.m.- 2 p.m. 

Copwatch Office 

2022 Blake St., Berkeley 

Learn what your rights are and how to observe the police effectively and safely; hosted by Copwatch. 

For more information: 548-0425 

Free 

Emergency Preparedness  

Classes in Berkeley 

9 a.m. to noon 

997 Cedar Street 

Disaster First Aid: Learn to apply  

basic first aid techniques. 

981-5605 

How to Travel with Children 

11 to noon 

East Bay's Premier Action Sports Store  

1440 San Pablo Ave. 

Lonely Planet's global travel editor, Don George will offer tips and advice. 

526-7529. 

Free 

Save the Bay's East Bay  

Shoreline Bike Ride 

Noon 

Ride with Save the Bay along this beautiful section of the 10-mile SF Bay Trail. 

452-9261 for info and reservations.  

Savebay@savesfbay.org 

Free 

Northern California Labor Conference  

on Democratic Rights 

9:30 to 4:00 p.m.  

Valley Life Science Building Room 2040 UC Berkeley 

One day conference is being organized to focus on the growing attack on labor rights since the "War On Terrorism" 

Free 

Garden Party for David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Two Strong Roots garden sites;  

on the corner of Sacramento and Woolsey, and Sacramento and Harmon 

Gardening for all ages, honey making,  

gardening workshops 

(415) 788-3666 

Free 

Meditation Seminar 

11 a.m. 

Rockridge Library,  

5366 College Ave.  

Oakland 

Thakar Singh's seminar 

(888) 297-1715 

Free 

David Brower Day 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at  

Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

Stanford Jazz Festival,  

June 29-August 10 

10:30 a.m. kids 7 & under, 11:30 a.m.  

Kids 8-12, Campbell Recital Hall  

Stanford Campus  

Early Bird jazz for kids and families  

with Jim Nadel & Friends. 

Free 

Maybeck High School  

30th anniversary  

6 p.m. to 10 p.m.  

Piedmont Community Hall  

711 Highland Ave. Piedmont 

Call 841-8489 for reservations 

Kids are Street Safe Campaign 

10 a.m. to noon 

Neighborhood House of North Richmond, 305 Chesley Ave, Richmond 

Police, Richmond mayor,  

superintendent, youth directors speak  

on how to keep kids safe. 

235-9780 

Free 

Sunday, June 30

Celebration of the California Least  

Tern Nesting Season 

11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Crab Cove Visiting Center, Alameda 

Craft-making, slide show, visual displays,  

and a visit to the nesting colony 

Bus tour recommended for ages 6 and up, needs reservations. 

Reservations for tour: 521-6887 

General: Free; Tour: $6-$8 

Monday, July 1

“Children of AIDS” film 

6:30 p.m.  

Mama Bears Bookstore and Coffee house, 6536 Telegraph Avenue  

Presented by the National Organization  

for Women  

549-2970, 287-8948  

Free 

What You Need to Know Before you Remodel 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 

Discussion by builder Glen Kitzenberger 

525-7610 

Free 

Tuesday, July 2

Adopt A Special Kid (AASK) 

7 to 9 p.m. 

7700 Edgewater Drive, Suite 320  

Oakland.A workshop for singles or couples, gay and lesbian, experienced or older parents, interested in adoption. 

533-1747, ext. 12. 

Saturday, July 6

Capoeira Batizado 

2 to 6 p.m.  

Capoeira Arts Cafe 

2026 Addison, Berkeley 

A celebration of Capoeira with  

performances by local arts organization. 

For information: 666-1255 

Free 

Saturday, July 6 - 

Sunday, July 21

Marin Classic Theatre 

presents "Born Yesterday" 

8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sunday matinee; 7 p.m. Sundays 

A bittersweet comedy by  

Garson Kanin. 

For information: 415-892-8551 or 

www.MCTheatre.com 

$18 evening performances, $15 matinee 

Thursday, July 11

Great Sierra Backpacking Destinations 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo  

Karen Najarian of Sierra Wilderness Seminars presents slides from her more that 20 years exploring the Sierra Backcountry. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Peach / Stone Fruit Tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

15th Anniversary Derby Street  

Farmers Market 

Live music and & stone-fruit and peach tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Festival of New Versions  

of Classic Asian Games 

Noon to 5 p.m 

Dr Comics and Mr Games,  

4014 Piedmont Ave., Oakland  

Dr Comics and Mr Games Hosts Game a festival featuring two new versions of classic Asian board games 

601-7800 

Sunday, July 14

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m. to noon 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Learn from an REI bike technician  

basic bike repairs such as brake  

adjustments and fixing a flat. 

More information: 527-4140 

Free 

Family Health Day 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

4th and University Ave. 

Explore health concerns in a family  

oriented environment 

Free 

vTuesday, July 16

Berkeley Camera Club Weekly Meeting 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church,  

941 The Alameda 

Share slides, prints with  

other photographers 

525-3565 

Free 

Thursday, July 18

Mystique of the Wilderness 

7 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Phil Arnot presents slides from over 50 years of exploring such places as Alaska, New Zealand, the Sierra and the Rockies. 

For information: 527-4140 

Saturday, July 20

Emergency Preparedness  

Classes in Berkeley 

Earthquake Retrofitting: Learn how to strengthen your wood frame home. 

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

812 Page St. 

981-5605 

Free 

Thursday, July 25

California Landscapes: A  

Geologist's Perspective 

7 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

John Karachewski presents an educational slide show on such amazing places as the Sierra Nevada, Coast Ranges the Great Valley and Cascades 

For information: 527- 4140. 

Free 

Saturday, July 27

Test Ride Kestrel Bicycles 

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Preston Sandusky of Kestrel, a premier manufacturer of high-end, carbon-fiber  

road and mountain bikes, introduces  

their latest design. 

For information: 527-4140 

Free 

"Neon: The Living Flame" 

7 p.m.  

Alameda Museum, 2324 Alameda Ave  

The Alameda Museum presents Michael Crowe, author, and neon artist Karl Hauser 

lecture by Michael Crowe 

748-0796 or 841-8489.  

Members free, non-members $5  

Sunday, July 28

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m.-12 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Learn from an REI bike technician  

basic repairs such as brake adjustments  

and fixing a flat. 

For information: 527-4140 

Free 

Jamal Sampson started the school year at Cal as a freshman with great promise. He won MVP honors at the BCA Classic in his first three games and turned into a defensive force to help the Bears reach the NCAA Tournament, earning All-Pac-10-Freshman honors. It looked as if the Bears had a big man who would dominate the middle for at least another year. 

But Sampson decided that one year of college was enough. He declared for the NBA Draft shortly after Cal’s NCAA second-round loss to Pittsburgh, then dropped out of school and signed with an agent, cutting off any chance to return to Cal. That decision is looking increasingly foolish heading into today’s draft, as it is all but impossible to find anyone who projects the 6-foot-11, 235-pound center/forward as a first-round pick. 

“Sampson could have been a first-round pick had he stayed in school a few more years,” said Andy Katz of ESPN.com. “Instead, he’s likely going in the second round or could go undrafted. His size will be hard to turn away from, but he probably cost himself money by leaving school after one season.” 

Sampson is treading in dangerous waters. Unless a team makes a big reach to take him in the first round, Sampson won’t get a guaranteed contract. Second-round picks are often training camp fodder in today’s NBA, while undrafted free agents almost never find work. The Mater Dei graduate could be looking at a stint in the NBA’s developmental league or another minor league or a job in Europe. 

Coming out of high school, Sampson was grouped with the four prep big men who were drafted in the first round of last year’s draft, including top pick Kwame Brown and Chicago Bulls teammates Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler. But a broken foot made Sampson hesitant to enter the draft, opting instead for Cal. 

“I was real tempted, but surgery isn’t a good thing to have going into the draft,” he said. “I played against all those guys, and I measured up well with all of them.” 

Sampson was always honest about the fact that he was anxious to get to the NBA. 

“I’m like every other guy in that I want to get to the next level, but I’m not going to put a limit on it,” he said before his first game at Cal. “It could be one, two, three or four years.” 

Until the last few years, Sampson would have been at least a borderline first-round pick. After all, he is a big man with potential. But with the globalization of the game, foreign players have become more popular, with as many as 12 possibly going in the first round this year. That has pushed marginal U.S. players down the board, and Sampson is just one of several college stars who may not get a sniff of the NBA.

Wages, safety top concerns  

UC Berkeley clerical employees have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike of up to three days, hoping to shake up a year of protracted contract negotiations with the university. 

A strike date has been set, but union members say the threat will have an impact.  

“If you take all the clericals out of the university, things will just stop,” said Sue Meux, an administrative assistant at UC Berkeley’s Extension School. 

But university officials are taking the strike vote in stride. 

“It’s one of those things that unions do,” said UC spokesman Paul Schwartz. “It is in some sense a part of the process.” 

The UC Berkeley clericals, who voted by a six-to-one margin to authorize a strike, are part of the larger 18,000 member coalition of University Employees which represents workers at all nine UC campuses. 

CUE Local 3, which represents clericals at UC Berkeley and the Oakland-based University of California Office of the President, is the only local that has authorized a strike at this point, according to Local 3 President Michael-David Sasson. 

Sasson said Local 3 may wait until other campuses authorize strikes so that CUE can orchestrate a larger action. 

Sasson said the two major issues in contract negotiations are wages and the safety of employees’ work stations. He said inadequate equipment often leads to repetitive stress injuries. 

CUE wants the university to commit to testing every work station and making adjustments where needed. 

“We do take the matter seriously and we are trying to be as responsive as we can and we’re having to work through the details,” said Schwartz. 

The union is asking for 7.5 percent wage increases in each of the two years of the proposed contract, plus 4.5 percent raises each year for employees who advance a step on the pay scale. 

The university, according to Schwartz, is offering a 2 percent raise this year. Next year’s raise will depend on the final state budget, he said, but will likely amount to a 1.5 percent hike for those who qualify for merit pay increases.  

The university is also offering an additional 3 percent deferred raise that would appear in employees’ retirement packages. 

Schwartz said limits on state funding do not allow the university to offer more. CUE has hired an independent economist who reports that the university has an “unrestricted” $2.3 billion surplus that it could tap for salary increases. But the university argues that those funds are labeled as unrestricted for technical reasons only, and are in fact tied up in various legal and fiduciary obligations. 

The union, because it represents public employees, can strike only if the negotiations reach an impasse, requiring a state-appointed mediator, or if the university commits an “unfair labor practice.” 

CUE claims that the university is engaging in an unfair practice by laying off “hundreds” of temporary employees just before they attain “career” status and accrue better benefits. 

Schwartz said the university has a whole host of legitimate temporary employment needs and is abiding by the temporary worker provisions of the last CUE contract. 

The last contract expired in December. Since then, the university and union have been operating in a “status quo” period, during which many of the key provisions of the last contract have remained in place.  

To the Editor: 

The human race has been at war for over ten thousand years and just look at us. We have nothing but bigger and better weapons, more and more people slaughtered, larger and larger death counts. We have proved conclusively that violence does not work. 

War always leads to more war. 

Punishment always leads to resistance. 

It is time for us to unilaterally change to a more rational approach to problem solving. The only other alternative is total human annihilation. 

National and world leaders show us daily that their main goal in life is to accumulate wealth and power in every greedy, petty little way that they can. If we are ever going to have a future as a race, this approach to world politics has got to stop. 

Without love, peace and more love, none of us have a future. Love stands for “looking for good.” Let’s start looking for good in the human race (instead of just bombing it and exploiting it) – and give ourselves a future. 

Jane Stillwater 

Berkeley

OAKLAND – Unless the Golden State Warriors, the Houston Rockets and the Chinese basketball federation do something crazy in the final hours before the NBA draft, everyone expects Mike Dunleavy to be wearing the Warriors’ cap. 

Dunleavy is expected be chosen by Golden State on Thursday night with the third overall pick in the draft. The 6-foot-9 Duke junior forward all but clinched it by choosing to remain in the draft last week after meeting with Warriors officials. 

But the last-minute shenanigans around 7-foot-5 Chinese center Yao Ming’s draft status have thrown the entire event into turmoil, with the Rockets trying not to flinch at the possibility Yao won’t be allowed to play in the NBA next season. 

If Yao’s paperwork isn’t completed on time, the Rockets may change selections or entertain offers for their pick. If they do, the Warriors might figure out a way to land Duke point guard Jay Williams, the player they wanted all along. 

But the intrigue in Oakland won’t stop with the team’s first pick. If no way to draft Williams materializes, the Warriors still will hunt for a point guard, perhaps through a widely rumored deal with a team choosing midway through the first round. Golden State also has the first pick of the second round. 

“We’ve had some very good workouts, not only with very good talent, but with very good people,” Warriors general manager Garry St. Jean said. “I know we’ll get a good, exciting player who’s going to be a big part of this franchise.” 

After finishing 21-61 last season and missing the playoffs for the league-worst eighth straight season, the Warriors likely need a player who can help immediately with their top pick. 

After Yao and Williams, most NBA observers consider Dunleavy the top talent available in a forward-heavy draft — and on paper, he’s a particularly good fit for the Warriors. 

With his smooth outside shooting, innate court sense and impressive athleticism, he’s expected to become the Warriors’ starting small forward, allowing Antawn Jamison to move to power forward and obviating the need for Danny Fortson, a rebounding demon who can’t score and rarely plays good defense. 

Fortson possibly could be included in a deal to land the point guard desperately needed by the Warriors. They gave up on Larry Hughes at the spot last season, which ended with talented swing guard Gilbert Arenas leading the offense. 

The Warriors are known to be talking with teams who have a shot at the handful of talented point guards available midway through the first round. Among the candidates are Gonzaga’s Dan Dickau, Illinois’ Frank Williams, Memphis’ Dajuan Wagner, Fordham’s Smush Parker and Cincinnati’s Steve Logan. 

Philadelphia, choosing at No. 16 overall, might be willing to pick a point guard for Golden State in a trade that might return the 2005 first-round pick the Warriors got from the 76ers in last season’s trade of Vonteego Cummings. 

“Obviously, everyone writes about the point guard position for us,” Warriors assistant general manager Gary Fitzsimmons said. “But the reality is, sometimes you can’t get the ultimate that you want.” 

No matter the results of the draft, changes already are taking place in Oakland. The Warriors aren’t expected to make a qualifying offer to Hughes, who lost two starting jobs in the backcourt last season to rookies Jason Richardson and Arenas, by the June 30 deadline. 

Instead of extending the $2.9 million offer needed to keep Hughes, acquired from Philadelphia two seasons ago to be one of the franchise’s cornerstones, the Warriors likely will let him walk to another team for no compensation.

City leaders met privately Tuesday evening in an abnormally long session that signaled continued difficulty in drawing up new contracts for more than 1,000 frustrated city employees. 

The closed meeting, which delayed the start of its regularly-scheduled public meeting, followed the unification of four city unions over controversial municipal contracts due to expire next month. Cost of living adjustments, retirement benefits, and worker compensation provisions are at the heart of union concerns. 

After months back and forth, union leaders gave City Council two things to think about Tuesday: a 2.7 percent pension after age 55 instead of 3 percent at age 50; and a 6 percent cost-of-living wage hike instead of previously discussed 8 and 9 percent increases. Union leaders dubbed the demands as compromises in their bargaining position. 

Council’s deliberations over the proposal were not public. State law says that wage negotiations can be private until a contract is in place. 

“I don’t get into the numbers game, but I want an all-out push this week,” Mayor Shirley Dean said. She expects a new contract to be settled by Friday. How much the city was willing to compromise, she would not say. 

Union leaders are classifying their demands not as raises, but as increases that are compatible to what other city employees recently were given. Salary hikes as high as 30 percent for police officers and city managers are cited in the union’s statement to the city. 

“Why are some walking away with the beef and others the wrappers?” asked Tom Farrell, a union representative of Local One. 

More than 300 city employees marched in front of the City Civic Center Monday and at least half as many protested outside City Council Chambers Tuesday night. 

“We stand united. We will get respect,” was a common cheer bellowed by the workers. 

The four unions in collaboration include Local One, Local 790 of Service Employees International Union, Local 535 of SEIU and Local 1245 of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Their representation reflects a range of professions from mid-level managers to technical and trade positions. 

To the Editor, 

It was okay for the United States to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Vietnam, using weapons of mass destruction, because we are good and our enemies are evil. 

Now our enemies are striving to develop their own weapons of mass destruction. They say that this would level the playing field. 

We’ve got to show them that this is our planet, and our playing field, and if they want to be in the game, they’ve got to play by our rules. 

The commies were evil because they went around trying to overthrow governments by force and violence. Of course, that’s what our forefathers did to the British Colonial government back in the 1770s. But that was then, and this is now. 

To end terrorism, we have overthrown the government that controlled Afghanistan by voice and violence, and now we are planning to do the same thing to Iraq. To hell with what the Afghanis or the Iraqis want. This is our playing field and if they don’t like it, they can shut up and get out. 

Marion Syrek 

Oakland

Cal women’s basketball head coach Caren Horstmeyer announced Tuesday that junior college All-American Nihan Anaz has signed to play basketball for the Golden Bears beginning with the 2002-03 season. 

“We’re thrilled that Nihan is joining the Cal basketball program this season,” said Horstmeyer, “and are confident that she will have an immediate impact. Nihan is a leader by example because she is so skilled and talented, and she makes big plays.” 

The 5-foot-9 shooting guard from Istanbul, Turkey, has two years of eligibility remaining after playing the 2000-01 season at the University of South Carolina and the 2001-02 campaign at Weatherford College in Texas. 

Last season at Weatherford, Anaz ranked second in the Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference in scoring (21.2 ppg) and assists (7.5 apg)

Two unrelated shootings last weekend in west Berkeley along with recent violent crimes plaguing south Berkeley are symptomatic of a larger issue that needs to be addressed, police said. 

On Saturday night police responded to a report of gunfire in the 2100 block of Sixth Street, where they found a victim shot in the stomach and bleeding in the stairwell of an apartment building, said Lt. Cynthia Harris of the Berkeley Police Department.  

Though the victim was not cooperative in giving police information about the man who shot him, special enforcement unit officers who were patrolling the area arrested a suspect during a routine traffic stop. 

“What happened was a vehicle description was being completed by officers,” Harris said. “At about same time special enforcement officers were in the area. Soon after, they learned the person they had stopped was responsible for the shooting.” 

Rodney Collin, 29, of Berkeley, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Police can upgrade the charge to attempted murder if they find that the suspect’s intent was to kill the victim. 

The second shooting occurred early Monday, at about 3:30 a.m., at Seawall Drive and University Avenue, which is in the Berkeley Marina. 

“The victim was in marina with some friends in his car. Also in a separate car were some acquaintances of the victim,” Harris said. “The victim got into a verbal dispute with another person not associated with them. He got out of his car to confront the individual, and he was shot.” 

The victim and his acquaintances left the scene and flagged down an officer on University and Sixth avenues. 

The suspect in this case is described as a black male in his early 20s, approximately six feet tall, of slim build, with a mustache and a medium complexion. He was wearing a black knit cap, dark jeans and a puffy jacket. He was accompanied by a Hispanic male in his late teens, of slim build, who was wearing a black beanie, dark jeans and a puffy jacket. The two men fled in a dark-colored, late model Honda Accord.  

Both victims were taken to Highland Hospital and are in stable condition. 

The crimes have caused anxiety among area residents. 

“We are listening to their concerns,” said Berkeley Police Chief Daschle Butler. “We have been working with outside agencies to address these issues and we will continue to fight this battle in these neighborhoods.”  

Police are asking anyone with information about any crimes to contact them.

It’s a Freaky Friday in Texas 

AUSTIN, Texas — An Aggie in the University of Texas president’s office? A Longhorn leading Texas A&M? 

It may sound like a cruel joke on the rival universities’ loyal fans, but it’s really going to happen: Larry Faulkner, UT’s leader, and Ray Bowen, president of A&M, will swap jobs on Friday. 

In a joint statement released Monday, the presidents said they want “to underscore that the two institutions, while competing fiercely in athletics, have much in common in their academic and related aspirations and face many of the same challenges, fiscal and otherwise.” 

Both presidents will start off the day with late-morning meetings with university executives and then have sessions with deans, other faculty members and student leaders. 

“We expect to have some fun while getting a taste of how the other guy lives,” the presidents said. 

Despite the good-natured bad blood between the schools, UT senior Stephanie Melton said Bowen should get a hospitable welcome when he becomes president for a day. 

“UT’s a friendly campus,” Melton said. 

Two-state candidate  

a longshot in one  

LAS VEGAS — Mike Schaefer, who is no longer allowed to practice law, is taking a stab at a career in politics — two stabs, in fact. 

The disbarred Nevada lawyer is simultaneously running for public administrator in Clark County, Nev., and for Congress in Arizona. 

While Nevada law blocks Schaefer from seeking two offices in this state, there’s no legal prohibition against being a two-state candidate. That’s because the Las Vegas Republican won a federal appeals court case stemming from a previous effort to run for Congress in California. 

The perennial candidate tried to run for the seat of the late Rep. Sonny Bono of Palm Springs but was rejected by filing officials because he lived in Nevada. He sued, and in June 2000 a court ruled that House candidates don’t have to live in the state they hope to represent — as long as they have a legal residence in that state once they’re elected. 

Schaefer said he’s a long shot in the congressional race, where he is one of seven Republicans hoping to replace retiring Rep. Bob Stump. But he considers himself a front-runner in the Clark County race. 

Oldest active logger  

praises the chain saw  

SEQUIM, Wash. — John Kirner has been logging so long that he has memories of the arrival of a revolutionary piece of equipment — the chain saw. 

“I was up in Sequim, and I heard a great, big noise behind this building,” he said. “The chain saws started to come in, and boy I was happy to see them.” 

Kirner, 97, began cutting trees 80 years ago, and he’s believed to be the oldest active logger on Washington state’s North Olympic Peninsula. 

Through the years, Kirner has watched the trade change from a backbreaking physical industry for only the strongest men to the less strenuous but still demanding work it is today. 

“The new loggers do a lot more in the way of accomplishment, but none of them worked harder than we did,” Kirner told the Peninsula Daily News. “You couldn’t just stand there and look at the logs, you had to get out there and work.” 

Before chain saws, Kirner used the crosscut saws, called “misery whips.” After hearing his first chain saw, Kirner knew he needed one and worked out a deal to buy it the same day.

Chief Butler retires in July; Meisner to fill in as chief 

The Berkeley Police Department freely admits that July will be a rough and tumble road loaded with challenges.  

Next month the department will deal with an unusually high number of retiring officers, including the departure of Chief Daschle Butler, and the subsequent training and recruitment of replacement personnel.  

In addition, the department will revamp its internal communication and computer systems. And last, but not least, the department is facing an increase in violent crime nearly equal to that of the mid- to late-1980s, when crack first hit the streets. 

In the interim, while Berkeley conducts a national search for Butler’s replacement, Deputy Chief Roy Meisner will run the department. 

Meisner says he’s approaching the challenge with three distinct priorities in mind. 

“It’s about community engagement — people I call the VIP’s, the very important people in all this and they are the people who live here, the residents, the merchants and the people who shop here in Berkeley,” Meisner said. 

Meisner said that one way in which the police department can improve community policing is to open lines of communication with neighborhood groups to better address safety concerns. 

Quality of service is the second priority for the police department. 

“And problem-solving is the third Priority,” Meisner said, adding that solving the problems that face Berkeley will have to involve a lot more than simple enforcement. 

“Those are really the three things we try to emphasize and it’s really a philosophy,” Meisner said. 

Outgoing Chief Butler echoed Meisner’s priorities and stated that police department must have a role in addressing the cause of crime and not just the outcome. 

“There’s an ebb and flow to drug trafficking and the violence that’s associated with it,” Butler said. “And now we’re on that cycle where we are having more of it, and we are responding to it.” 

Butler worked in narcotics for several years before becoming police chief. He believes that a holistic approach to the current increase in violent crime will be imperative. 

“We are constantly struggling and fighting that. The big challenge for many municipalities will be looking at abatement at education, and the idea that the community needs to self actualize as a whole,” Butler said. “It’s not fair just to look at the enforcement issue. We have to look at cause, and we can’t just get into warehousing people.” 

In particular, Butler addressed the need for vocational opportunities for Berkeley’s youth. Even though the city provides a plethora of services, there are still not enough of them. 

He also pointed to a recent drug operation in south and west Berkeley that yielded the arrest of 42 people on possession and trafficking charges. 

Butler said that the police department will continue to work with those communities to decrease violence as well as offer viable alternatives to the “drug life.” 

“We need to totally revive the community policing effort,” Butler said. “Somehow or the other, we got a little side-tracked there. But we’ve got to get back to that.” 

Butler added that only about10 percent of the department’s work involves law enforcement. “The larger part of what we do involves quality of life issues,” he said. 

Much like Butler, Meisner was born in San Francisco and has lived in the Bay Area his whole life. Also much like Butler, Meisner does not call Berkeley his home.  

“I couldn’t afford the mortgages around here,” Meisner said, adding that many of the department’s personnel do not live in Berkeley, which complicates the department’s future staffing needs. 

“We offer competitive salaries, but sometime officers don’t want to commute for several hours, so the housing issue makes retaining officers more difficult,” Meisner said.  

“Not only is Chief Butler leaving but so are a number of other experienced officers and that’s experience that we really are going to miss,” he said.  

“There’s a lot of training associated with that and shepherding,” he added. 

And as the department faces the challenge of returning to community policing, it must consider the loss of retiring staff members and their long-standing relationships in the community. Furthermore, the newer, younger officers must indoctrinate themselves into their jobs and into “Berkeley’s own unique community.” 

“And the communities themselves have changed as well,” he added. 

He also said that the City Council has asked the department to address increased traffic and accidents as soon as possible. 

“Crime, traffic and staffing will be the biggest obstacles for me to address,” Meisner said. “And one of challenges of taking over is looking at what we are doing now and what we can do in the future, how we can improve upon that and I want to work with the community to make these things happen.” 

Specifically, Meisner and Butler both said the community can look forward to seeing more beat officers in their neighborhoods and an increased emphasis on communication. Department staff that works as community liaisons will attend more neighborhood and community meetings. 

“Generally, I’m very proud of our employees, and I think we do a great job. But nobody’s perfect, and we are not pretending to be,” Meisner said, adding that the community and police department can educate each other. 

“And even though that housing is an issue as it relates to getting to know the community, it really gets down to the individual officers and how open they are to the community. And it’s not just about the officers, but also the jail staff, the communication staff, clerical people and parking enforcement, all of these elements make up the department,” Meisner said.  

“And everyone wants really the same thing,” he continued. “They want to live in a safe community. They want their kids to be safe when they go to school. Berkeley has a lot of great things to offer, and I never wanting lose sight of that.” 

Meisner became deputy chief in 1993. His tenure as interim chief starts July 13. 

Urban children benefited more than rural students 

SACRAMENTO — California’s $1 billion-a-year experiment with class size reduction isn’t producing the monumental benefits lawmakers had hoped for, according to a study released Tuesday. 

The Public Policy Institute of California found that while many schools across the state boosted test scores, other schools appeared to benefit little, if at all, from the class size reduction law that passed in 1996. 

Overall, schools that reduced their average class size by 10 students saw the number of third-graders with test scores above the national median jump by only 3 to 4 percent, according to the report released by the institute, a San Francisco-based think-tank. 

“Originally, I was expecting a bigger effect,” said Christopher Jepsen, co-author of the study. “But when I thought of all the new teachers that had to be hired, it’s not that surprising.” 

Students in urban schools benefited more from the reduction than students in rural schools. Urban schools saw an improvement of about 5 percent for math and 4 percent for reading. Rural schools, on the other hand, had math and reading scores inch up only 2.5 and 1 percent, respectively. 

Schools with low-income students benefited the most. In Fresno, Long Beach, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco, the poorest schools saw test scores improve by about 14 percent in math and 9 percent in reading. 

However, Los Angeles Unified School District’s schools did not fare well with class size reduction, with some of its poorest schools seeing dramatic declines in test scores. Overall, Los Angeles third-graders improved scores by about 2 percent. 

Minority and white students fared the same across the state, except in Los Angeles, where math scores at schools with predominantly black student populations dropped 15 percent. 

Although the numbers seem surprising, the weak improvements can be attributed to the statewide teaching shortage, caused in part by the class size reduction law, Jepsen said. 

Following the implementation of the law, thousands of new teaching positions were created, which pushed experienced teachers into more affluent areas and rookie teachers with emergency credentials into low-income districts. 

Esther Wong, an assistant superintendent in the Los Angeles Unified School District, said the district has always had a hard time finding and retaining qualified teachers. 

The district employs about 33,000 teachers and has up to 60,000 students in each grade level. 

“We’ve had some minor gains ... but we can’t attribute those gains to be solely the result of class size reduction,” Wong said. Despite the lower improvements, she said the numbers were still encouraging. 

OAKLAND – The vice chancellor for external affairs at the Peralta Community College District announced today that she will retire in July, after 34 years. 

Dezie Woods-Jones was hired by the district in 1968 as a director of the Merritt College Outreach Center. She held several other posts before Chancellor Ronald J. Temple named her to her current position. 

Woods-Jones also served on the Oakland City Council, beginning in 1991. She served as vice-mayor under former Mayor Elihu Harris from 1996 to 1997. 

Woods-Jones says she intends to continue working on behalf of the East Bay.

SAN FRANCISCO — Older workers are not necessarily entitled to the same benefits as younger workers, according to a California Supreme Court ruling. 

The court already has said age-bias laws protect older workers from being discriminated against when it comes to hiring and firing, or from being demoted or suspended. 

But the court found that age is exempted when it comes to what benefits employees are due, and said employers may grant younger employees better benefits than their senior counterparts. California age laws group those under or over 40. 

The case concerns Dan Esberg, a former Union Oil Co. telecommunications specialist who sued after his employer refused to pay his master’s program tuition. Union Oil has reorganized and Esberg, now 64, no longer works for the company’s Anaheim office. 

The high court noted that age is among a dozen factors, including race, religion, sexual orientation and gender, which employers cannot use when hiring and firing workers. The law, however, includes all those factors but age when it comes to the “terms and conditions” of employment. 

State law, Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote, “does not prohibit employment discrimination in the furnishing of employee benefits on the basis of age.” 

California lawmakers, meanwhile, are considering legislation that would add age to the list of other protected factors regarding employee benefits. Chino Assemblywoman Gloria Negrete McLeod’s bill cleared the lower chamber Jan. 28 and is before a Senate committee.

SAN FRANCISCO — California energy regulators hope partnering with global investment banking and capital markets giant UBS Warburg will boost support on Wall Street for their plan to lift the state’s largest utility from bankruptcy. 

The partnership, announced Tuesday during a news conference, would become official if U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali approves the state’s request that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. pay UBS’ fees — $3 million upon Montali’s approval and roughly $5 million more if the firm arranges and obtains the state’s financing. 

“It’s a major endorsement by one of the most important financial institutions in the world and we hope that Wall Street will view it as an important development,” said Alan Kornberg, an attorney representing the state Public Utilities Commission in the bankruptcy. 

Gary Cohen, general counsel for the PUC, said the state chose to work with UBS Warburg because of its “stellar” reputation, its size and its “extensive experience in the utilities sector and in the state of California.” 

Calls to PG&E for comment Tuesday were not immediately returned. 

The announcement comes at a critical point in PG&E’s 14-month-old bankruptcy, born of the power crisis that brought rolling blackouts to California households and businesses in 2001. PG&E’s creditors are reviewing the two reorganization plans and must support or reject them by mid-August to help Montali determine which, if any, offers the best means by which they’ll be paid. 

The utility hopes to regain its good credit by transferring transmission lines, power plants and other assets away from state oversight and into three new companies that would be regulated by the federal government. Analysts say that would allow PG&E to borrow more money to pay its debts, since it would escape state control over how much it can charge for electricity. 

The state’s plan calls for the utility’s 4.6 million ratepayers to pay billions, PG&E to sell common stock and its parent — PG&E Corp. — to forego a huge chunk of profits. Both swear the other’s plan is fatally flawed. 

While credit-rating agency Standard and Poor’s has pledged to grant PG&E creditworthiness should Montali confirm its reorganization plan, the PUC’s plan has received a lukewarm response. But Ken Crews, vice chairman of UBS Warburg, said financial support for PG&E’s plan may erode because the utility hopes to split itself into separate trading, distribution and generation divisions at a time when many power companies are moving toward combining operations.

Jury awards research hospital 

$200 million in punitive damages 

LOS ANGELES — Genentech Inc. said it will appeal a jury verdict ordering it to pay more than $500 million to City of Hope National Medical Center if it can’t persuade a Superior Court judge to order a new trial in the intellectual property rights dispute. 

The biotech giant was ordered Monday to pay City of Hope $200 million in punitive damages. Earlier this month the same jury ordered Genentech to pay the research hospital $300.1 million in compensatory damages. 

Jurors found that Genentech failed to pay royalties on some drugs manufactured at City of Hope under the terms of a 1976 agreement. 

Sean Johnston, Genentech’s vice president of intellectual property, did not say what the basis for a new trial or an appeal would be. But he said the agreement with City of Hope stood for 20 years without dispute. 

“We continue to be very disappointed in the outcome of this trial,” he said. 

Napster wins approval of  

$5 million debtor-in-possession loan  

WILMINGTON, Del.— Napster Inc., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early this month, won final approval Tuesday of a $5.13 million debtor-in-possession agreement with Bertelsmann AG, its prospective purchaser. 

Napster, which stirred controversy as the provider of a free Internet music service, will use $4 million of the loan to fund business operations. The remaining $1.13 million will fund a key employee retention plan, the terms of which also were approved Tuesday. 

The loan includes an 8 percent interest rate and expires the earliest of Aug. 30, the completion of the sale, or the termination of the sale agreement. The loan also includes $250,000 to cover administrative expenses incurred during the Chapter 11 case. 

Napster was unable to win approval of bid procedures in connection with the proposed sale of substantially all its assets to Bertelsmann in a deal valued at $92 million. As a result, attorneys for Bertelsmann said they may not be able to go through with the sale. 

Chief Judge Peter J. Walsh of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington said he was “not prepared” to approve the bid procedures because the proposed sale process was too short. 

Bertelsmann has agreed to acquire Napster’s assets for $8 million in cash plus the elimination of its alleged $83 million secured claim. 

Palm’s fourth-quarter loss  

matches Wall Street expectations  

SAN JOSE – Handheld computer maker Palm Inc. on Tuesday reported a fourth-quarter loss in line with reduced Wall Street expectations and said it doesn’t expect to break even until the quarter ending in November. 

For the three months ended May 31, Palm said it lost $27.5 million, or 5 cents a share. In the year-ago period, the Santa Clara-based company lost $392.1 million, or 69 cents a share. 

Excluding one-time events, the company reported a loss of $18 million, or 3 cents a share — compared to a loss of $89.2 million, or 16 cents per share, in the year-ago