Alta Bates nurses are set to
vote on contract Wednesday 

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center reached a tentative contract agreement with the California Nurses Association late Friday night, averting a planned one-day strike Wednesday. 

The three-year contract includes a 21.5 percent raise over the life of the contract, health benefits for early retirees and a guaranteed pension, according to the union. 

The hospital, which employs 1,500 nurses, did not agree to new nurse-to-patient ratios, union officials said, holding out for statewide ratios that will be released later this year.  

Those ratios are currently working through the regulatory process in Sacramento. 

Alta Bates nurses are scheduled to vote on the contract Wednesday. The hospital, which has facilities in Berkeley and Oakland, would not confirm or comment on details of the tentative contract until the vote is complete. But spokesperson Jill Gruen said Alta Bates is “very pleased” that a tentative agreement has been reached. 

Alta Bates nurse Pat Strickland, who served on the negotiating team, said union members are disappointed that there has been no movement on new staffing ratios. But she still expects approval of the tentative contract. 

“There is definite disappointment that immediate staffing issues are not being addressed,” Strickland said. “But I think, in general, people will ratify the contract.” 

Last week, the California Nurses Association authorized a July 17 one-day strike at four area hospitals, all owned by Sutter Health, the Northern California, nonprofit health care giant.  

Late Thursday night, the union reached agreement with St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco and called off the strike. Friday night, the Nurses Association inked tentative contracts with Sutter Solano Hospital in Vallejo and Alta Bates, averting work stops at both of those facilities. 

The union still has no contract with Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, but has called off the one-day strike. The hospital issued its final offer late Sunday night and is awaiting the union’s response. 

The union argued, over the course of the Alta Bates negotiations, that a strong contract was necessary to attract and retain nurses. The hospital, swept up in a national nursing shortage, has over 200 unfilled positions. 

Union officials said the new agreement should help to ease the shortage. 

“I think the raise certainly helped in recruiting people, and actually, the retirement package too,” said Strickland. 

The contract includes a guaranteed pension payment, rather than one that is tied to the stock market, said California Nurses Association spokesperson Charles Idelson. 

“This is a major improvement,” he said. “Historically, nurses have had very substandard pension plans.” 

The contract also includes new health benefits for early retirees. In the first year of the contract, according to the union, Alta Bates agreed to pay 80 percent of the first $200 of an early retiree’s monthly health care premium. The $200 ceiling rises to $215 and $225 second and third years of the contract respectively.  

When an early retiree reaches 65 and is eligible for Medicare, the Alta Bates payments will shift to cover supplemental Medicare insurance instead. 

Alta Bates nurse Connie Arburua, who served on the negotiating team, said the health care benefit package marked an improvement over Alta Bates’s original offer. 

Although the union did not win new nurse-to-patient ratios, it did make some gains on other staffing issues. Staffing disagreements can now be referred to an independent arbitrator and “charge nurses,” who head the hospital’s various nursing units will not be included when calculating the existing nurse-to-patient ratios. 

Arburua said the hospital would not budge on new staffing ratios and argued that the union could not have won on this issue unless the membership authorized a long-term strike. 

“I’m not overwhelmingly pleased,” Arburua said. “But I do think the contract was the best we could get without an open-ended, full-blown strike.” 

If the union rejects the tentative contract Wednesday, it will authorize a long-term strike, giving negotiators greater leverage in negotiations.

To the Editor: 

I encourage all movie goers to pay for their tickets with cash rather than credit cards. This will make the lines move faster, and everyone will be just a little happier. 

Michael Fullerton 

Berkeley

Tuesday, July 16

Intro to Accessible Software and Hardware  

10:30 a.m. to noon 

Berkeley Public Library - Central Branch 

Electronic Classroom (3rd Floor) 2090 Kittredge Ave.  

Non-profit training organization for software and hardware useful to seniors and disabled people in Berkeley. 

981-6121 for reservations 

Free 

15th Anniversary Derby Street Farmers Market 

Live music and & stone-fruit and peach tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

2 to 7 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Celebration of the Berkeley Farmers Market and Peach Tasting 

2 to 7 p.m. 

Derby St. @ MLK, Jr. Way 

15th anniversary celebration of the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers' Market and annual peach tasting, featuring music and food. 

548-3333 

Free 

Inshallah: In Pursuit of My Father's Youth 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Viviane Wayne will share from her travel/memoir Inshallah, a chronicle  

of her return to Turkey. Turkish sweets served. 

843-3533 

Free 

Berkeley Camera Club Weekly Meeting 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda 

Share slides, prints with other photographers 

525-3565 

Free 

Berkeley Salon on Metaphor and Message Now 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut Ave. at Rose, Berkeley  

Metaphor Project founder Susan Strong on ways to mainstream messages now.  

848-0237. 

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 

Celebration of Gay Pride 

1:15 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. (at MLK) 

Mothertongue Feminist Theatre Collective presents "The Experience of Aging," with discussion and refreshments afterward. 

644-0480 

Free 

Wednesday, July 17

San Francisco Bay Crossings Study 

1 to 1:30 p.m. view displays, 1:30 to 4 p.m. public meeting 

Oakland City Council Chambers, City Hall 

One City Hall Plaza, 3rd Floor, Oakland 

Recommendations for transbay travel in the next 25 years, new facilities/services, as well as funding methods. 

464-7787 

Free 

Friends of Calligraphy 

6:30 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - Central Branch 

2090 Kittredge St. Meeting Room B - Third Floor 

Meeting/demonstrations of calligraphy and lettering design by lettering professionals and FOC members. 

528-1709 

Free 

Doctors Without Borders 

(Through July 18) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

UC Berkeley, Springer Gateway, West Entrance Crescent 

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

www.doctorswithoutborders.org 

Free 

Thursday, July 18

Intro to Accessible Software and Hardware  

3 to 4:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - Central Branch 

Electronic Classroom (3rd Floor) 2090 Kittredge Ave.  

Non-profit training organization for software and hardware useful to seniors and disabled people in Berkeley. 

981-6121 for reservations 

Free 

art.Sites Paris 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Slide show by Sidra Stich offers overview of Paris' exciting innovative changes, new museums, new art and media centers, parks etc. 

843-3533 

Free 

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. 

527-4140 

Free 

"Green Building" Workshop 

6 to 8 p.m.  

Building Education Center, 812 Page Street 

With speaker Greg VanMechelen, Architect, VanMechelen Architects 

614-1699 or lclarke@stopwaste.org 

Free 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m.  

Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave.  

Topic is the Cost of various life choices to the Planet well as to our Happiness, Pocketbook and Community. 

549-3509, or www.simpleliving.net. 

Free 

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 

Saturday, July 20

Public Meeting to Plan a New National Park in Richmond 

1:30 p.m. 

Oakland Museum, Lecture Hall, 1000 Oak St. (at Lake Merritt BART) 

Meeting to gather input for National Park Service to prepare plans that will guide development of historic WWII sites in Richmond. 

817-1517 

Free 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 to 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave. (lower level) 

The Kids on the Block educational puppet troupe present a show about accepting and understanding physical, mental, medical and cultural differences. 

$2 donation, children under 3 free 

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 

Connoisseurs' Marketplace 

(through July 21) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Santa Cruz Ave. Menlo Park (between El Camino Real and Johnson St. 

16th annual mid-summer festival of the arts featuring music, artisans, celebrity chefs, international cuisine, kids' fun zone and more. 

(650) 325-2818 

Free 

Monday, July 22

An evening of song & resistance 

7 p.m.  

AK Warehouse, 674-A 23rd St. Oakland 

With music from Samsara, James Tracy and David Rovics 

208-1700, or akpres@akpress.org 

$5 donation 

Tuesday, July 23

Myanmar (formerly Burma): "The Golden Land" 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Ricky Fishman gives a slide presentation/talk about this isolated and remote land. 

843-3533 

Free 

Q & A with a Personal/Business Coach 

noon to 1 p.m. 

YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way 

For those interested in professional coaching careers, speak with a pro. 

848-6370 

$3 

Wednesday, July 24

Getting Help When You Need It 

7:30 to 9 p.m.  

Summit North Pavilion, Cafeteria Annex A 

350 Hawthorne Ave. Oakland 

Free interactive workshop to help caregivers obtain free assistance, deal with paid in-home help, and create plans to care for loved ones. 

869-6737 

Free 

Thursday, July 25

Combat Medic: World War II 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Memoir presentation by San Francisco physician John Kerner, describing experiences as a combat medic in World War II.  

843-3533 

Free 

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 more information: (510) 527- 4140. 

Free 

Saturday, July 27

Test Ride Kestrel Bicycles 

11 a.m.-1 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Pristine Sandusky of Kestrel, a premier manufacturer of high-end, carbon-fiber road and mountain bikes, introduces 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 technician basic repairs such as brake adjustments and fixing a flat. 

For more information: (510) 527-4140 

Free 

Tuesday, July 30

The Birdhouse Chronicles: Surviving the Joys of Country Life 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Reading and discussion of Cathleen Miller's personal account of moving from San Francisco to Amish Pennsylvania to restore an old house. 

843-3533 

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 rock climbing including knot tying, belaying and movement. 

For more information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

Thursday, August 1

Public Meeting to Plan New National Historic Park in Richmond 

1:30 p.m. 

Richmond Senior Center, 2525 Macdonald Ave. 

Meeting to gather input for National Park Service to prepare plans that will guide development of historic WWII sites in Richmond. 

817-1517 

Free 

Nutrition Career Open House 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Institute of Educational Therapy, 706 Gilman St. 

Become a Nutrition Educator or Nutrition Consultant. 

558-1711 for reservations 

Free 

Saturday, August 3

Mountain Adventure Seminars: Introduction to Rock Climbing 

8 a.m.-3 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

An introduction to rock climbing including knot tying, belaying and movement. 

For more information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

10th Annual Stroll for Epilepsy 

Six Flags Marine World, Vallejo 

The public is invited to join the Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California at Six Flags Marine World for a 5K walk/fundraiser. 

1-800-632-3532 for registration 

Storytelling at the Berkeley Public Library 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Central Branch 

2090 Kittredge St. 

Storyteller Joel Ben Izzy will present a variety of stories filled with warmth, humor, drama in the Children's Story Room. 

981-6223 

Free 

Monday, August 5

Public Meeting to Plan a New National Park in Richmond 

1:30 p.m. 

Richmond Public Library, Whittlesey Room 

325 Civic Center Plaza (near Macdonald Ave. and 25th St.) 

Meeting to gather input for National Park Service to prepare plans that will guide development of historic WWII sites in Richmond. 

817-1517 

Free 

Saturday, August 10

Tomato Tasting 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Tasting and cooking demonstrations  

Free 

Sunday, August 11

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 more information: (510) 527-4140 

Free 

West Berkeley arts Festival 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

4th and University Ave. 

Explore the many resident artists located in Berkeley 

Free. 

Monday, August 12

The First East Bay Senior Games 

10:30 a.m. clinic, 12:30 p.m. tee-off (approximate times) 

Mira Vista Golf and Country Club 

7901 Cutting Blvd. El Cerrito 

A golfing event for the 50+ crowd, in association with the California and National Senior Games Association. 

891-8033 (registration deadline July 29) 

Varying entry fees.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Ted Lilly made an outstanding first impression for the Oakland Athletics. 

The left-hander did not allow a hit for 4 2-3 innings in his Oakland debut as the A’s beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 4-0 Monday night. 

Lilly, acquired from the New York Yankees on July 5 as part of a three-team, seven-player trade, made his first appearance since a June 29 loss to the New York Mets in which allowed six runs in four innings. 

Lilly (4-6), who pitched a one-hitter and a three-hitter this season for the Yankees, didn’t allow a hit until John Flaherty singled to left with two outs in the fifth inning. He left after the first two batters reached in the seventh. 

“Fantastic,” Oakland manager Art Howe said. “And for such a long layoff, that was an outstanding performance.” 

In all, Lilly allowed three hits with four strikeouts and two walks. 

“I felt pretty good throughout the game,” Lilly said. “I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be out there, so I didn’t try to overthrow and I think that’s one of the things that was effective for me.” 

Chad Bradford, Mike Venafro and Billy Koch finished the four-hitter. 

Miguel Tejada had two RBIs for Oakland, which has won eight of 11. The Athletics are 7-1 against Tampa Bay this season, and have won 11 of their past 12 against the Devils Rays. 

Tampa Bay starter Ryan Rupe (5-10) lasted just 2 1-3 innings — allowing three runs, four hits and three walks — in his first start since June 19. The right-hander aggravated a right knee injury that landed him on the 15-day disabled list last month. 

“If I was guessing, it would probably look that way,” said Rupe, when asked if he thought the injury would put him back on the DL. “I tweaked it pretty good again. It’s frustrating. There’s nothing I can do about it. You keep your head up, and keep going.” 

Rupe, likely to undergo an MRI exam Tuesday, is the second Tampa Bay starter to be hurt in as many days. Wilson Alvarez reported arm discomfort Monday, one day after pitching just 1 2-3 innings. 

The Devil Rays have lost 10 of 11, and have a major league-worst record of 29-61. Tampa Bay has been shutout 11 times, tying Kansas City for the most this season in the majors. 

The latest defeat comes one day after Tampa Bay battled back from a 5-0 deficit against Seattle All-Star Freddy Garcia to tie the game before dropping a 7-6 decision. 

“Our bats were cold,” Tampa Bay manager Hal McRae said. “I thought we would have a good game today. I really did. I’m surprised we didn’t swing the bats better today.”

Lunch dates and phone calls have begun to overwhelm mayoral candidates as they bid for support from their friends in high places. 

In a closely-watched political race pitting two-term incumbent Shirley Dean against 20-year Sacramento veteran Tom Bates, both campaigns acknowledge that political endorsements will be pivotal in the November contest in which slim voting margins are projected. 

The latest endorsement, expected to be made official July 27, comes from Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who is expected to throw support behind Bates, Bates’ office said Monday. 

The two-term congresswoman has been popular with her Berkeley/Oakland constituency, especially in light of her recent voting record, which calls to question the war against terrorism. 

Lee’s office would not confirm its support of Bates, but noted the long-standing and positive relationship the congresswoman has had with the former state assemblyman. 

Mayor Dean said Lee’s endorsement of Bates comes as no surprise, and that the list of supporters falling into place on both sides has been predictable. Dean’s highest-ranking endorsement is state Senator Don Perata. 

“I’m working on endorsements but I’m just getting started,” she said. 

County Supervisor Keith Carson, state Assemblywoman Dion Aroner and Bates’ wife, Assembly candidate Loni Hancock, have also come out in support of Bates, his office confirmed. 

“I have a rather impressive lineup at this point,” Bates said. “This support is an indication of your respect and your effectiveness.” 

Bates has also picked up endorsements from former Berkeley Mayor Jeff Lieter, former UC Berkeley Chancellor Mike Hammond and current Alameda County School Board member Jacki Fox Ruby. Berkeley representatives from AC Transit, BART, East Bay Regional Parks and East Bay Municipal Utility District are also on board, he added. 

Dean has also picked up support from representatives of East Bay MUD and East Bay Parks in her young drive for endorsements. 

Beyond the endorsement battle, the mayor hopes her local track record and a strong support base will be enough for her to prevail in the November election. She noted that she sought no endorsements in her successful mayoral bid in 1998. 

Dean, who is known as the leader of Council’s moderate faction, takes what she calls a “more mainstream” approach to issues of housing, education, and redevelopment, and believes her middle-of-the-road position will fare well for her in the election. 

“I’m going to reach out to who I’ve always reached out too... those in the middle, not on the extremes of the right or left,” she said. 

Bates, who has garnered the support of Council’s more progressive faction, said the race is less about specific issues and where voters stand, but about leadership potential. 

A solid reputation for being “reasonable” and “smart” will transcend any position, he said. He expects to win support from moderate voters in the hills and the other more conservative pockets of Berkeley, as well. 

“These people know who I am, and know I’m not too radical,” Bates said.

To the Editor: 

“Berkeley Lab found research fabricated” was the front page headline of both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune on Saturday, July 13, 2002. “The discovery of two new elements was based fraudulent research, the second case of scientific misconduct revealed by the federal [Department of] Energy lab in three years.” 

In light of the above and in response to Elmer Grossman's scathing letter to the editor (Daily Planet, July 9, 2002), surely the community should not be criticized for expressing healthy skepticism about the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's monitoring, analyzing and reporting of Tritium emissions from the National Tritium Labeling Facility operations, which in the past few years have included the burning/oxidizing of radioactive mixed Tritium waste. 

Irmi Meindl 

Pamela Sihvola 

Berkeley

LORIENT, France — Lance Armstrong isn’t the dominating force he used to be in Tour de France time trials. 

The three-time Tour winner recorded a rare second-place finish in Monday’s ninth stage, taking 11 seconds more than Colombian Santiago Botero to complete a wind-swept course through Brittany. 

Armstrong’s performance allowed him to move up six spots into second place overall, 26 seconds behind Spain’s Igor Gonzalez Galdeano. The Spaniard finished 19 seconds behind Botero. 

While the 30-year-old Texan remains the overwhelming favorite to win a fourth consecutive Tour, his rivals see the second-place finish as a dent in the Armstrong armor. 

“The Tour has changed — Armstrong isn’t as strong in the time trial as he was a year ago,” said Gonzalez Galdeano, who finished fourth in the stage to retain the overall leader’s yellow jersey. “The race has become more open.” 

Here’s a measure of Armstrong’s dominance in individual time trials: Since his first Tour victory in 1999, he had won seven of the last nine coming into Monday’s stage. Not counting two quick prologues, he was seven for seven. 

“The Tour isn’t monotone after all,” Armstrong said. “It’s not like everybody had said it was — there are other riders out there.” 

Monday’s stage marked the end of a flat, speedy first week full of crashes. The race now heads to the mountains, one of Armstrong’s other strengths. 

Armstrong dominated in the mountains last year, winning the Tour with a final advantage of more than 6 1/2 minutes. 

Tuesday is a rest day, when the riders fly down to southwestern France. The race resumes Wednesday with a 91.1-mile trek from Bazas to Pau. The Tour enters the Pyrenees on Thursday, for the first of six mountain stages this year. 

“We’ll now see if he’s as unbeatable as he once was in the mountains,” Gonzalez Galdeano said. 

Botero, of the Kelme team, clocked a time of 1 hour, 2 minutes and 18 seconds for the 32.24-mile loop through Brittany from Lanester to Lorient. It was the 29-year-old’s second stage victory.

Energy-efficient lights save
$1,000 a year, program says 

Since enrolling in the Smart Lights Program last November, Black Oak Books on Shattuck Avenue has saved the energy that three single family homes would use in a year. 

“It’s a no-brainer,” bookstore manager Nick Setka said of investing in the program. “It’s like asking people to invest $1,000 in their car so that they can save more than a third of their cost in gas. And we’re saving electricity, so it’s something good for the environment.” 

The nonprofit Community Energy Services Corporation of Berkeley runs the Smart Lights Program of Berkeley and Oakland. It is distributing $2 million that the state set aside last year for energy conservation programs for small businesses. All told the state allocated $700 million for businesses in California. 

The program offsets rising energy costs. In 2001, energy costs for small businesses rose 40 percent.  

“It’s simple from a client’s perspective,” said Neal De Snoo, an energy officer for Smart Lights. “Often, it’s hard for a small business to research or analyze their own energy efficiency. We bring a uniform program out to them.” 

Smart Lights is working with the California Public Utilities Commission. “The small business sector has not been a traditional target for energy rebate programs,” said Maria Sanders, program manager for Smart Lights.  

Smart Lights hires contractors to analyze which lights will be most efficient for each business. In addition, Smart Lights gives businesses a discount on installation and retrofitting, along with an estimate of how much money the business will save with the new lights. 

Savings for small businesses are estimated at about $1,000 each year. Typically, a business recovers the cost of installation in a year. 

The process was not complex for Kim Moore at Uncommon Grounds Gourmet Coffee in Berkeley. “They look at existing scenarios with regards to lighting, the possibility of switching lights and then help determine the net savings,” Moore said. 

Six months ago, Uncommon Grounds Gourmet Coffee on Seventh Street replaced many of its lights. “The savings have been significant,” Moore said. 

Typical upgrades include replacing traditional fluorescent and incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights. 

With a goal of consulting 31 businesses a week, the group is on track to saving businesses in the state more than $1 million. Sanders said. 

“Our goal of 1,000 businesses by the middle of next year is huge,” said Sanders.  

Berkeley or Oakland business owners interested in the Smart Lights Program can call 981-8955.

To the Editor: 

It is time to hear more from the WW II /”Greatest Generation” about “under God” being removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. I am 78 years wise, and in all my years and on back to the beginning of this country, “under God” was not in the pledge, until 1954 and the super patriotic McCarthy Era. I grew up reciting the pledge in the Boy Scouts, in my schools, and in the U.S. Amy Air Force — but our ideas on "God" remained separated, the way the founding fathers set forth — “separation of Church and State.” During WW II I suffered aerial combat, one year as a POW in Germany, earned the purple heart, and lost buddies to the Nazis. I also learned then to dispute the blatant dishonesty of the patriotic rhetoric that “God is on our side.” Now, in our post 9-11 rash of God imbued patriotism, there are those who wrap the our flag around their God, and defy the constitution. I entrust you all to contact your congress members and request that “under God” be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance — for once and for ever — Amen. 

Ken Norwood  

Berkeley

Berkeley promoter Eugene Cockerham Jr. is synonymous with the word swindler in the eyes of many city officials.  

Cockerham, a 31-year-old former bouncer, allegedly rented the space where gunfire broke at The Crucible arts center on Ashby Avenue July 6. 

Cockerham has not broken the law but he is believed to have misrepresented himself and breached a contract. 

“No one has made a criminal complaint against him,” said Berkeley Police Department Acting Chief Roy Meisner. 

According to The Crucible staff, Cockerham gave false identification and insurance policies when he rented the space.  

“We’ve been traumatized by them and threatened by them,” said Michael Sturtz, the executive director of The Crucible about Cockerham and the security staff he brought to The Crucible. 

The Crucible is a nonprofit that provides low-cost art classes and training to the community.  

“He told us that his event was going to be a gospel dance party and fundraiser for the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity,” Sturtz said. “We were also assured there would be no alcohol involved. And the main thing that he did that goes towards premeditation is that he said there would be no advertisement for the event. And as it turned out he had heavily fliered all the area high schools advertising a hip hop show.” 

It was estimated that at one point more than 1,300 people packed the 300-person capacity event. 

Sturtz said that Crucible staff made several attempts to stop people from entering the party after it had reached capacity, and that they tried to stop people from serving alcohol to minors, but they were threatened with physical violence by the security staff.  

In addition to the two people injured at The Crucible two weeks ago, city officials said that many of Cockerham’s past events have been plagued by violence. 

Just last May, a man was killed in Concord directly outside a Cockerham party at the Chronicle Pavilion. In the year 2000, there were two parties in Sunnyvale that ended in looting, violent clashes with the police and shootings. And back in 1996, there was another violent outbreak after a rap concert promoted by Cockerham. 

Investigators have verified that Cockerham has in the past presented property managers with false information about the events he promotes and about himself. 

City officials said Cockerham is a crook, but it wasn’t all his fault. 

“The guy was clearly a crook and the police know who he is,” said Michael Kaplan of Neighborhood Services for the city of Berkeley. “He routinely rents spaces under false circumstances. But [The Crucible] was in violation of their use permit which prohibits them from leasing a space to a third party.” 

Kaplan said the city has received many phone calls from neighbors and business owners concerned about the shooting. Yesterday, city officials talked about what to do. A follow-up meeting with Sturtz is scheduled for next week. According to Sturtz, The Crucible had not intended to rent to Cockerham. 

“It was not our intention to be renting out to a third party. It was our intention to co-sponsor an event with the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and to be doing something good for the community,” Sturtz said. 

Sturtz said he is looking to rebuild a relationship with the community and the city that has taken years to establish. 

“We want to leave this behind us, and we want to focus from here on out on what we do,” Sturtz said. “This has been a terrible tragedy from our perspective. I know there are a lot of people who are disappointed in us right now for being associated with a guy like this.” 

At present, Sturtz has no intention of pressing criminal charges against Cockerham or his security force. According to Lt. Cynthia Harris, the Berkeley Police Department was never made aware of any threats made by Cockerham.

To The Editor: 

This is a reply to a Forum letter from the July 8, 2002, publication of the Berkeley Daily Planet. 

The rational, national pledge of allegiance by Gerta (Greta?) Farber of Berkeley is without-a-doubt better than the arrogant Manifest Destiny that continues to cut at our current culture and state of affairs here and abroad. Can we take the pledge further? How about, “We symbolically promise alliance to the United States of America via this flag, and for the public, which it represents, one land, with liberty to choose how much you want to make, with justice for most.” And I say we put both hands over our heart when we make this pledge, and kneel on one knee. 

Alan Estrada 

Berkeley

Jump was so much fun that
skydiver lost his teeth 

ADDISON, Vt. — Carl Root wishes he’d kept his mouth shut. 

Root, 34, let out a war whoop and lost his false teeth at 9,000 feet during his maiden skydiving jump as a cameraman documenting his tumble to earth. 

“It’s a very expensive learning lesson,” said Root, who vows never to jump with his dentures again. 

By the time he landed, Root had narrowed the search for his wayward teeth to Addison County’s 770 square miles. But he wasn’t sure where to begin. 

“Chances of them ever being found are pretty slim,” he said. 

He called his dentist and ordered a new set. He got his new upper teeth Thursday after going without for nearly a week. 

Root said he was determined not to let a minor mishap like losing his $1,200 teeth spoil his day. He said he’s hooked on skydiving and plans to jump again in October. 

In the meantime, Root and his friends have run the videotape scores of times, and they never fail to get a good laugh at the sight of Root’s dentures tumbling from his mouth and setting off for the wild blue yonder. 

“If you slow it down,” said Root, “you can really see those teeth going.” 

You may no longer kiss the
bride if you are in jail 

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A new bride who wed her jailed groom behind bars is accused of passing methamphetamine during the kiss that sealed their vows. 

Vivian Frazier, 32, is charged with transferring 2 grams of meth in a balloon to her new spouse, Jeremy Guinther, as they puckered up July 5 at the Vigo County Jail. 

A guard became suspicious after noticing that Guinther had a slight bulge in his cheek after the kiss, according to a police report. 

When ordered to open his mouth, the 26-year-old Guinther swallowed, police said. He later admitted to ingesting meth, the report said. 

The drug was later recovered during a hospital stay, police said. 

Frazier, who was arrested Thursday, was charged Friday with trafficking with an inmate. 

Frazier denied the accusation. “Why would someone give something that could kill them on their wedding day? It’s supposed to be a happy time,” she said. 

The alleged meth incident has led to a new rule at the jail: no kissing in weddings behind bars. 

“I’ve checked with the ministry. There’s no requirements for kissing,” Sheriff Bill Harris said. 

Telephone-toting transient
helps police nab burglar 

LINCOLN, Neb. — A transient with a cellular telephone helped police catch some suspected cigarette thieves in the act. 

“I can’t recall another transient with a cell phone helping us solve a crime in circumstances like this,” Police Chief Tom Casady said. “It just goes to show you how much our culture has changed.” 

The arrests came less than a day after police said someone had committed smash-and-grab cigarette thefts at seven stores. 

The break came — literally — early Friday morning when the sound of shattered glass attracted the attention of the transient, whose name was not released.

To the Editor: 

On July 4, 2002, I went to Washington D.C., to serve a “3-day Notice to Perform or Quit” on the tenants of the White House. Said tenants were not living up to their lease agreement (the U.S. Constitution) and I, as citizen cum landlord, objected to their cavalier disregard for said lease agreement. 

Gingerly, I approached the fence around the White House, expecting at any moment to have Secret Service guys pounce on me and haul me off to jail despite my faith in the First Amendment (the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances). 

Gingerly, I scotch-taped my three-day notice to the fence. 

Nothing happened. 

I had done my civic duty - and had actually gotten away with it. Some nearby tourists even applauded. 

Happily, I turned away from the fence - thinking that perhaps there was some democracy left in the land after all. Happily, I turned to walk toward the mall where the big Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza was about to go off. At that exact point, I tripped on a piece of broken sidewalk and broke my arm. 

So. Where does the Berkeley Daily Planet fit into this melodrama? Read on: The DC emergency room said that the bone I broke didn’t need a cast. The Alta Bates emergency room said that the bone I broke didn’t need a cast. But the bone still hurt. Finally, in desperation, I wrapped a copy of the Berkeley Daily Planet around my arm (the July 7 issue to be exact) tied it up with an ACE bandage and voila, got instant relief. 

So, thank you for your help. And thank you also for having just exactly the right size and shape hometown newspaper to fit safely and snugly between my elbow and wrist. 

Jane Stillwater 

Berkeley

Monday marked the first day for residents who want to run for a public office to pick up nomination papers at the City Clerk’s office.  

Potential candidates have until Aug. 9 to file nomination papers with 20 to 30 signatures from registered Berkeley voters.  

Several prominent incumbents and challengers who have announced their intention to run have not yet picked up papers. If an incumbent for a given office does not file by Aug. 9, the deadline for that office will be extended until Aug. 14. 

All told, 12 candidates took out papers. 

This year, the mayor, the city auditor, City Council districts 1, 4, 7 and 8, three Board of Education seats, and five rent stabilization board commissioner positions are open. The election is scheduled Nov. 5. All of the offices are four-year terms. 

According to the City Clerk’s office, the following is a list of people who took out papers by 5 p.m. Monday.

OAKLAND — A man and woman were shot and killed Monday morning in a Safeway grocery store in what police called a murder-suicide. 

The woman was a manager at the store. Her name has not been released, but police spokesman George Phillips said she was in her 40s. 

The man, who was in his 20s, was also an employee at the store. 

The shooting happened at 9:20 a.m. in a rear storage area at the store on Grand Avenue. 

Phillips said police are still looking for a motive.

OAKLAND — A man was sentenced to six years in prison Monday for a fatal hit-and-run accident that killed a 5-year-old girl and injured five others earlier this year. 

Osvaldo Urzua, 41, a citizen of Mexico, pleaded no contest in and Alameda County Superior Court to one count of vehicular manslaughter. 

The Jan. 15 accident left Ana Cerna, 5, dead and five other people on the side of the road suffering from various injuries. 

Urzua told police at the time of the accident that he sped from the scene when he saw a a patrol car because he did not have a driver’s license.

Dog owner said victim
could have gotten away 

SAN FRANCISCO — It seemed like everyone in the courtroom wanted to hear her apologize. 

The judge, prosecutors, family and friends of Diane Whipple, and a crowd of reporters who have followed the sensational dog mauling case for more than a year were waiting for Marjorie Knoller to express some regret Monday before she was sentenced for involuntary manslaughter. 

Prosecutor James Hammer nearly lost control, his voice strained with emotion, as he practically begged her to take responsibility and give Whipple’s family “some peace.” 

“Is there anybody else at all in the courtroom ... counsel, family members, parties, who wish to address anybody else,” asked Judge James Warren, watching and waiting expectantly. 

Seconds, then minutes ticked by. Knoller, a 47-year-old attorney with dark circles under her eyes and limp brown hair, jotted down notes, leaned over and whispered to her lawyer, but kept her silence. 

She didn’t even sign the pre-sentencing statement she submitted, the judge noted, possibly to avoid incriminating herself in a wrongful suit filed by Sharon Smith, Whipple’s partner. 

Citing her failure to apologize and the fact that she repeatedly perjured herself, Warren sentenced her to four years in the January 2001 death of 33-year-old Whipple, a college lacrosse coach who was ripped to pieces by two presa canario fighting dogs in Knoller’s presence. 

Her husband Robert Noel, 61, was sentenced to four years in prison on the same charges, involuntary manslaughter and keeping a mischievous animal that kills a person. With credit for good conduct and time served, the lawyer couple will spend about 14 months in state prison. 

“A life sentence won’t bring back Diane Whipple. Four years won’t bring her back,” Hammer said in court, his voice straining. 

“The only thing that would bring some peace, I think, to everyone who knew Diane is if this woman here, this lawyer ... who mocked Diane Whipple and blamed her for her own death, would stand up as a human being and say, ’I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t done these things. I’m responsible and I’m ready to pay the price.” 

A Los Angeles jury in March also convicted Knoller of second-degree murder for her role in Whipple’s death. But Warren tossed out the murder conviction, saying that Knoller had no way of knowing the dogs would kill someone that day. 

His decision drew cries of injustice from Smith and prosecutors, who appealed. District Attorney Terence Hallinan said it should take about a year for the appeal to work its way through the system. 

The dogs, Bane and Hera, each outweighed the 110-pound victim. Knoller testified that she tried to fling herself between the animals and her neighbor to no avail — one of many statements the judge didn’t believe. 

Knoller denied responsibility and said Whipple could have saved herself simply by going inside her apartment. Noel suggested Whipple may have attracted the dogs’ attention with her perfume or even steroids. 

“She has been an attorney from day one,” Smith said Monday outside court. “She has not acted like a human ... and she’ll be an attorney to the end. She’s not going to say she’s sorry because she doesn’t want to admit, and I think she probably doesn’t even believe, that she’s responsible for this.” 

Hallinan said Monday it’s “probably true” that he will be unable to retry Knoller for murder because of laws against double jeopardy or trying a person twice for the same crime. He’s hoping the appeals court will reinstate Knoller’s murder conviction. 

The case stunned this city and made legal history when Smith won the same right as a spouse to sue for damages. The state Legislature enacted a law to allow wrongful-death lawsuits by gay partners. 

And, for now, a certain kind of justice has been served, prosecutors said. 

“It’s not everything we wanted,” Hammer said of Knoller’s sentence. “But they’ve now received some punishment.” 

Even Smith sounded resigned. 

“Would it have made a difference in the beginning for her to be sorry? Yeah, absolutely,” she said. “Today, I wouldn’t have believed it.” 

SAN FRANCISCO— The trial judge in the dog mauling case on Monday defended his decision to toss out a second-degree murder conviction against Marjorie Knoller. 

Prosecutor James Hammer and Sharon Smith, whose partner Diane Whipple was mauled to death, were among the critics who said that Judge James Warren had “stolen justice” from them by overturning the jury’s decision. 

“There was a statement made that this court has destroyed a sense of justice in the city of San Francisco,” Warren said before sentencing Knoller to four years in prison on the other conviction, involuntary manslaughter. 

“I certainly hope that is correct. I hope that is the result that I accomplished,” Warren said in an unusual soliloquy: 

“A sense of justice is precisely what this court will never become involved in creating. 

“A sense of justice is personal. It is infected with bias, prejudice, public opinion, public feeling, everything that the court should not be involved in. 

“A sense of justice was achieved by vigilante posses. 

“A sense of justice, I suggest, was achieved by Ku Klux Klan members and I daresay a sense of justice was achieved by people who flew airplanes into buildings not so long ago. 

“That is not justice. That is not justice, in fact. It is a sense of justice that is personal. And it is precisely that which this court will seek to avoid. We will administer justice, in fact, in this case without regard to whether anyone feels that a sense of justice on a personal level has been achieved.” 

Warren said he believed he had managed the trial well, given its sensational nature. 

Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel, were caring for the presa canario dogs that killed Whipple, a 33-year-old lacrosse coach, in the hallway of her upscale apartment building in January 2001. They enraged San Francisco by denying responsibility and refusing to apologize. 

“I wish I were superhuman judge but I am not. I do not have every one of the 60 or 70,000 cases dealing with second-degree murder at the tip of my tongue or the tip of my hand,” Warren said.

Firm considers appeal and
trial involving 10 media
companies opposing ads 

RICHMOND, Va. — A California software company must stop delivering ads that pop up unauthorized when surfers visit the Web sites of several prominent media companies, a federal judge has ruled. 

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria, Va., issued the preliminary injunction Friday in a lawsuit that 10 media companies filed last month against Gator Corp. of Redwood City, Calif. 

The plaintiffs, including parents of The Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today, accused Gator of parasitic behavior. 

No date has been set for trial. 

Janet Collum, an attorney for Gator, said company officials were considering an appeal of the injunction, confident it will win the case at trial. “We believe strongly that the facts and the law are on our side,” she said. 

Gator, which runs an ad network that claims 22 million active users and 400 advertisers, produces pop-up ads that appear when computer owners with its software browse Web sites targeted by Gator’s advertisers. 

Internet users get Gator advertising software when they install a separate product for filling out online forms and remembering passwords. Gator also comes hitched with free software from other companies, including games and file-sharing programs. 

As users surf the Web, Gator runs in the background and delivers advertisements on top of what the surfer would normally get at a site. 

Terence P. Ross, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the court injunction “is an indication that the judge thinks our case does have merit.” 

The publishers claim Gator’s practices lower their advertising revenue by directing Web surfers to competitors’ sites, hiding legitimate ads and offering deals that directly compete with those of the site’s paid advertisers. 

Ross said Gator’s practice also “causes a loss of content control,” noting that Gator ads might conflict with stories on Web sites and potentially create an appearance of journalistic bias or incompetence. 

But Gator likens its practice with having multiple windows from multiple applications open at once: To ban its ads would be to ban running instant messaging and a Web browser at the same time. 

Last year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau threatened to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Gator’s selling of ads that block out the banner ads displayed on other Web sites. 

Gator responded with a federal suit in California against the trade group, seeking the court’s declaration that the practice was legal. Gator ultimately agreed to stop the practice, and the lawsuit was dismissed. 

PALO ALTO — Technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co. announced Monday it is discontinuing software products for corporate networks that came with a $450 million acquisition in 2000. 

The decision affects nearly 500 people in HP’s “middleware” division in Mount Laurel, N.J., outside Philadelphia. Some employees will find work elsewhere in HP, and others will be laid off — though the cuts will be part of the 15,000 already being carried out because of the $19 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp., HP spokeswoman Sherri Stuart said. 

The discontinued products are middleware, which is necessary for Internet-based business applications. Most of the technology came on board when HP bought Bluestone Software Inc. 

HP hoped the Bluestone products would invigorate its software business and support the company’s bid to offer a wider array of Internet services to large companies.

REDWOOD CITY— Liquid Audio Inc. and Alliance Entertainment Corp. have modified the terms of their merger agreement, giving Alliance a larger share of the combined company. 

Internet music company Liquid Audio said it intends to conduct a self-tender offer, under which it will acquire 10 million of its shares at $3 a share in cash, in connection with the merger. 

After the merger, Liquid Audio stockholders will own 26 percent of the combined enterprise, and Alliance Entertainment stockholders will own 74 percent. 

Privately held Alliance Entertainment, which is based in Coral Springs, Fla., distributes CDs, videos, DVDs and games. 

In the agreement announced in June, Alliance was to receive 67 percent of the new company’s shares, and Liquid Audio was to hold the remaining 33 percent. Alliance will be getting less cash in the merger due to the self-tender and more equity. 

The agreement has been approved boy both companies’ boards. 

Liquid Audio’s board also considered Steel Partners’ proposal to purchase all of the company’s outstanding shares for $2.75 each and determined after consultation with its financial adviser that Steel Partners’ offer is “inadequate.”

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court warned Monday that if officers administering field tests to people suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol don’t follow the guidelines for administering them, the tests could eventually lose their reliability. 

The justices said police must closely follow rules governing use of breath test machines for the results to be admissible at trial and to ensure future results are reliable. 

“Compliance with the regulations ... guarantees ... quick and certain admission of evidence, eliminating laborious qualification, critical cross-examination, and the risk of exclusion,” Justice Janice Brown wrote for the unanimous court. “Furthermore, compliance will ensure that the tests retain their reliability, and thus their relevance and admissibility in the future.” 

The judgment stems from Steven Vaughn Williams’ 1997 arrest for driving under the influence. 

His lawyers tried to get the breath test results thrown out, saying the arresting officer did not conform to state requirements for administering the tests.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — John Walker Lindh, the young convert to Islam who left California to fight alongside the Taliban, pleaded guilty to two felonies Monday in a surprise deal that spares him life in prison and ensures his cooperation with terrorism investigators. 

Lindh faces a maximum of 20 years in prison under the agreement struck between prosecutors and defense lawyers after a weekend of negotiations that ended after midnight — just hours before he was set to appear for court hearing. 

“I provided my services as a soldier to the Taliban last year from about August to November,” Lindh told U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, recounting the two crimes to which he pleaded guilty. 

“During the course of doing so I carried a rifle and two grenades. And I did so knowingly and willingly,” he added. 

In accepting the plea, prosecutors foreclosed the chance for the public to see evidence in the first major trial scheduled from the war on terrorism. 

U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said prosecutors had a strong case against Lindh but wanted to reserve “limited and very vital resources” for other terrorism cases. 

“This is a tough sentence. This is an appropriate punishment and this case proves that the criminal justice system can be an effective tool in the fight against terrorism,” McNulty said. 

Chief defense lawyer James Brosnahan said Lindh joined the Taliban because he was a devout Muslim. He never fired his rifle and never intended to hurt Americans, the lawyer said. 

“This is not Rambo we’re talking about here,” Brosnahan said. 

Lindh’s mother, Marilyn Walker, broke down outside the courthouse as she called him an “honest, kind, humble and a loving son.” 

Lindh was set to be tried Aug. 26, and now will be sentenced Oct. 4. 

Monday’s events leaves Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman charged with conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers, as the lone marquee defendant awaiting trial on terrorism charges. His trial is to begin at the end of September. 

Lindh, 21, entered the courtroom wearing a green prison jumpsuit and offered a quick smile to his parents, older brother and younger sister sitting in the second row. 

The judge had planned to hold hearings this week on whether Lindh’s statements to investigators and the news media in Afghanistan should be kept out of his trial. 

Ellis, who learned of the plea deal shortly before the hearing began, opened court by discussing arrangements for the hearing before Brosnahan interjected, “There is a change in plea.” 

An hour later, Lindh entered his two guilty pleas and ended talks that went so late Sunday that Lindh’s lawyers had to make special arrangements to return to his cell so he could sign off on the deal. 

President Bush was told of a possible deal last Thursday, administration officials said. 

“I plead guilty,” Lindh told Ellis as he entered his plea to one count of supplying services to the Taliban, Afghanistan’s now-ousted strict Muslim rulers. To the charge of carrying explosives during commission of a felony, Lindh said, “I plead guilty, sir.”

REEDLEY — An Orange Cove man was stabbed to death after a fight escalated between two groups of men who were floating down the Kings River in inner tubes. 

Carlos Robledo, 32, a father of four, died at an area hospital an hour after the incident Sunday evening, police said. Police did not know what kind of weapon was used, but said it may have been a knife. A man hit with a crowbar also suffered minor injuries. 

Two men were arrested and police were searching for two others, Reedley Lt. Steve Wright said. Police would not release their names. 

Robledo, who was employed at an area packinghouse, was stabbed when he tried to stop the fight. 

A witness told police the men were arguing about gangs. 

FRESNO — Miss Greater Bay Area finished second at the Miss California pageant — not bad, since a gaffe almost cost her a place in the finals. 

Nicole Lamarche’s name wasn’t called Saturday as one of the ten finalists because the outgoing Miss California read another contestant’s name by mistake, leaving Lamarche out of the competition. 

After officials realized their goof, Lamarche and Miss Greater East Bay, Rachelle King, hugged and traded places.

BEVERLY HILLS — A judge refused Monday to disqualify the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office from prosecuting actress Winona Ryder on shoplifting charges, rejecting her lawyer’s claim that prosecutors have been trying to humiliate her. 

Attorney Mark Geragos specifically accused a prosecution spokeswoman of making inaccurate statements to the press. 

But Superior Court Judge Elden Fox said he would be more concerned if statements were made by attorneys rather than their spokeswoman. 

Ryder did not appear in court Monday. 

The actress was arrested in December at a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills for allegedly possessing painkillers without a prescription and stealing nearly $6,000 worth of designer merchandise. 

Charged with second-degree burglary, grand theft, vandalism and possession of a controlled substance, Ryder could face more than three years in prison if convicted. 

Geragos said that district attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons inaccurately described a security videotape from Saks early in the case, alleging that Ryder was seen snipping off anti-theft tags from merchandise. He said there is no such scene on the videotape. 

“You keep referring to a spokesperson. What are you ascribing to the attorneys in the office?” Fox asked Geragos. 

“I’m ascribing to them efforts to humiliate my client and stop her from having the right to a fair trial,” Geragos replied. He then added, “Most people believe the press spokesperson is speaking for the district attorney himself.” 

WHITTIER — Sheriff’s deputies arrested a 23-year-old man for the cruel stabbing deaths of a family of four, including an 8-year-old girl who was molested before she was killed. 

Investigators said the bloody bodies were dragged from room to room and that the victims suffered greatly before they died. 

Alfonso Ignacio Morales, who lived in the victims’ neighborhood, was arrested late Sunday, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Lt. Ray Peavy. 

Morales was described as an acquaintance of the family and investigators anticipate more arrests will be made, Peavy said. Morales was booked for investigation of multiple murder and was being held without bail, Peavy said. 

A preliminary investigation has determined young Jasmine Ruiz was “brutally sexually assaulted” before she was killed and at least two assailants carried out the slayings, said Deputy Bill Spear. 

The bodies of Miguel “Mike” Ruiz, 37; his wife, Maritza Trejo, 41; their daughter, Jasmine; and Ruiz’s 70-year-old grandmother, Ana Luisa Martinez, were found Saturday by Trejo’s 21-year-old daughter, investigators said. 

The bodies were found in separate rooms and the family’s Whittier house had been ransacked, with walls and ceilings damaged, furniture overturned and drawers emptied, Peavy said. 

No evidence of forced entry was found, Peavy said. The murder weapon has not been found. Also, no one in the neighborhood had reported unusual sounds, including barking by the family’s two dogs. 

“Whoever did this did not need to inflict so much pain and so much suffering to steal a couple of computers,” Peavy said. 

Investigators believe the family was killed some time Friday. 

Neighbors described the Ruizes as a likable, hardworking family involved in computer and audio equipment sales and repair. 

A computer was found in a neighbor’s backyard, and family members told authorities that computer equipment was missing from the home. 

Peavy said Ruiz had no criminal record and that the family was not involved in “anything out of the ordinary.” 

“My entire family has just been stabbed to death. My brother, my grandma, my baby niece, my sister-in-law,” Olga Ruiz, Miguel’s sister, told the Los Angeles Times as she loaded the family’s two dogs into her sport utility vehicle, stopping to hug neighbors who cried in her arms. 

Ruiz’s friend, tattoo parlor owner Mike Gutierrez, said he last talked to his friend of nine years about 9 p.m. Thursday. 

Guitierrez told the Times that Ruiz worked as a stereo technician at Sound City in Maywood, and fixed computers at home. Trejo also worked in the electronics business, selling audio equipment at a Pomona swap meet. 

“It made his day when he was able to fix (the problem),” Gutierrez said. “He saw the relief in their customers’ faces when he brought the computers back to life. I’m just flabbergasted, I’m having a hard time understanding it.” 

Neighbors said Ruiz fixed his schedule so he could care for his grandmother, who had suffered a stroke, and pick up Jasmine from school. 

“He was always there for his daughter, like a Mr. Mom,” said neighbor Lupe Rivera, 27. 

SAN JOSE — The prosecutor who wants to put Cary Stayner to death on Monday led jurors on a tour of the lives his victims led up to their degrading deaths. 

Prosecutor George Williamson said the charges were very straightforward — three counts of murder and a count of kidnapping, plus six additional allegations that could trigger the death penalty. But, he said, the facts of the case were twisted. 

“This evidence is going to be horrific,” Williamson told the panel of nine men and three women. “You’re going to remember this for the rest of your lives.” 

Earlier, Stayner’s lawyers lost a bid to get the Yosemite homicides trial moved again just before the final jury was picked. 

Despite publicity so intense that 96 percent of the jury pool said they had seen or read something about the case, Stayner should be able to get a fair trial in Santa Clara County, Judge Thomas C. Hastings said. 

The defense even gave the judge digital photos of the scene outside the courthouse Monday morning, where dozens of reporters and cameramen had gathered, and complained of a circus atmosphere. 

But Hastings said he agreed with a prospective juror who said “you have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know about this case,” and said he’s confident that jurors can set aside their opinions. 

Stayner is being tried for the February 1999 killings of Carole Sund, 42, and her daughter Juli 15, both of Eureka, and of Silvina Pelosso, 16, of Cordoba, Argentina. He is already serving life without parole in federal prison after pleading guilty to killing Yosemite park guide Joie Armstrong. 

Monday afternoon, Williamson told jurors that two factors doomed the trio of women. 

They arrived at Cedar Lodge outside Yosemite National Park on Valentine’s Day weekend when the motel was at capacity, so they were given rooms in its farthest reaches, leaving them isolated once other guests left. 

The second factor, Williamson said, was Stayner. 

“They crossed paths with this defendant,” and his need for control, power and sexual fantasy, Williamson said. “Little did they know they were going to be dead in little more than 24 hours. Never had a clue, zero, zip.” 

The jury of nine men and three women was chosen from a pool of 67 people selected after more than a month of winnowing. Four alternates also were chosen. 

ELDORADO, N.M.— It’s sizzling outside in the desert heat, yet Fred and Barbara Raznick are nice and cool inside their solar-powered adobe home without air conditioning or ceiling fans. 

The south side of the home is covered with windows that let sunlight in during the winter and keep it out in the summer. 

“You kind of feel like the house takes care of you,” Raznick said. 

According to the 2000 Census, this community of 5,700 people near Santa Fe has the nation’s highest percentage of homes heated mainly by solar power: 13.2 percent. Two Hawaiian villages rank second and third. 

The communities appear to be remnants of a stalled movement with its roots in the 1970s. According to the census, the number of U.S. homes heated primarily by solar energy fell from 54,536 in 1990 to 47,069 a decade later. 

Federal and many state tax credits for solar homes have long since dried up, and some suggest that poorly designed homes have hurt solar power’s reputation. The movement also has been hurt by the growing availability of natural gas. 

In New Mexico, with its often cloudless winter sky, hundreds of solar homes have been built in and around Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Taos, where KTAO calls itself the only solar-powered radio station on the planet. 

Back in the ’70s, a billboard at the entrance to Eldorado had touted the new development as a solar community, attracting idealists who wanted to put solar power into practice and families looking for affordable housing. 

Homes were oriented toward the south to take advantage of the sun, which shines about 75 percent of daylight hours in New Mexico, where Santa Fe-area temperatures range from 20 degrees in the winter to the 90s in the summer. Many homeowners built the north sides of their houses into the juniper-dotted hillsides for better insulation. 

New Mexico’s solar push in the ’70s was also aided by technical help from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Solar builders were able to tell homeowners how much money they could save with solar or predict what would happen if, for example, windows were moved or curtains added. 

“We weren’t just shooting in the dark, but this was a new methodology behind us,” said Mark Chalom, a Santa Fe architect who designs solar homes. 

By the 1990s, however, Eldorado’s billboard had come down and solar-home construction had slowed to a trickle. 

“The natural gas line came out and that was the end of it all,” said Chalom said. 

Some solar homes have been built in recent years, but in nowhere near the numbers seen in the ’70s. As of 2000, Eldorado had 317 solar homes. 

Solar homes are active or passive or both. The Raznicks heat their home with a passive solar system, which does not use pumps or fans to move hot air or hot water around the house. Their water is heated by an active system that uses solar panels on the roof. 

Sunshine heats the tile floors and interior walls, including waist-high heat-absorbing masonry walls about a foot from the windows. The interior surfaces radiate the heat, much like a sidewalk on a summer evening, and the 2-feet-thick walls provide enough insulation to keep the home warm — or cool. 

“I love it in the winter,” said Raznick, a property broker. “The only time we really turn our heat on is in the bathrooms in the morning if I get up before the sun comes up and there’s a chill in the house.” 

The cost for solar heating, electrical and water heating systems varies widely based on location, the home’s size, type of appliances and how much electricity family members use. Experts said a well-designed passive solar home provides 75 percent to 80 percent of all heating. 

Monte Ogdahl, owner of New Age Energy Research 2000, said a solar system can cost between $20,000 and $75,000, depending on the age of the house, the amount of insulation and the number of energy-efficient appliances. 

Dorothy Schoech and Elizabeth Barnes moved to a solar home built here in 1993. Schoech said “it’s the only way to do it” — no furnace groaning, no hot air from a fan blowing on her. 

“You should take advantage of it on principle,” she said. “You’re not using our limited natural resources.” 

BOISE, Idaho — A top federal health official told the nation’s governors Monday not to count on support for one of their key priorities — getting Washington to pick up a greater share of the costs of providing health care to the poor. 

“We can’t always give you more money. I know that’s frustrating,” Medicare Administrator Tom Scully said at a meeting of the National Governors Association. “But we are trying to help you ... make the money you have go as far as you can.” 

Scully delivered the bad news as some 30 governors gathered in Boise in search of ways to cut costs and increase revenue to close budget deficits. 

They had hoped to get some immediate help from the Bush administration through legislation that would increase the amount the federal government contributes to Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor. 

A measure in the Senate would provide an additional $4.5 billion in Medicaid money over the next 18 months and a block grant of $4.4 billion that states could use for health care or social services. 

Governors consider the measure vital, noting that Medicaid spending increased 13 percent in the last fiscal year and now constitutes 20 percent of state budgets.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – President Bush demolished his own record for a single fund-raising appearance Monday, hauling in nearly $4 million for Alabama’s financially trailing Republican gubernatorial candidate, Rep. Bob Riley. 

The cash infusion could catapult Riley past Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman. According to the most recent campaign finance reports, Siegelman had $4.2 million, compared to $561,661 for Riley.

The East Bay Humane Society and the city of Berkeley welcomed a special breed of graduate to the Berkeley Marina on Sunday. Several breeds, in fact. 

The “Bay to Barkers” 1.3 mile hike took place for the fifth straight year, bringing together dogs who have been adopted from the Humane Society. 

The Baha Boys’ hit song “Who Let the Dogs Out” boomed from the loudspeakers, breaking up early morning sniffing, barking, petting and snacking. As the sun broke through the fog and chill, scores of dachshunds, Dalmatians, Dobermans, German Shepherds, Australian sheep dogs, pit bulls and mutts turned their noses into the salt-spray breeze and took their owners for a walk. 

Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean brought her dog Ben, a Labrador Retriever, to the event. Dean read a proclamation in honor of the “Bay to Barkers,” which organizers claimed was the biggest to date– more than 600 dog owners registered to walk the loop at Caesar Chavez Park. 

Dean also stumped for a ballot initiative that would provide funding for a new animal shelter in Berkeley. A group handed out literature entitled “Gimme Shelter” urging Berkeley voters to say “yes” to the November measure. 

Lisa Fine, executive director of the Humane Society, introduced the alumni dogs at Sunday’s event. Captain, a shepherd mix, was described as “kind, generous and warm hearted... a Don Juan.” 

DOGS/From Page 1 

Don Juan was available for adoption, as were four or so other dogs walking around, including Coco, a cattle dog, and Galeano who is “as exotic as his name.” Tiny Guinness,” full of puppy sweetness,” drew “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd. 

Mary Milton of El Cerrito, a volunteer at the Humane Society, was in charge of walking Galeano for the day. She provided recommendations for those thinking of adopting a dog: Volunteer at the shelter and learn about the animals. 

Of course there is the legend that owners and their pets eventually come to resemble one another. A pet-look-alike contest furthered this theory, and following on its heels, a dog-kissing contest. 

Berkeley’s own Top Dog restaurant offered its usual array of bratwursts and other grilled sausages. There was also Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, burritos and for the four-legged folks free sample doggie snacks were proffered by Pet Food Express. 

While the event was indeed a celebration of man and woman’s best friend, it served also as an information center for different animal service groups. Groups that rescue German Shepherds were represented as was a nascent coalition of California dog owners, promoting issues such as off-leash access. 

Doug McKechnie, who heads the Oakland-founded California Dog Owners Group said, “There are more dog-owning households in California than there are homes with children. We’re just trying to promote responsible dog ownership, and keep our trails open for responsible dog owners.” 

Also in attendance was an Oakland-based veterinarian who offers acupuncture services to dogs. “They’re good,” she said. “They barely feel the needles going in.” 

All proceeds from the “Bay to Barkers” benefit the Humane Society.

To the Editor: 

Last weekend’s article “Two Green(s) Vying for District 4” makes too many assumptions and several outright mistakes including the spelling of my name. For the record, my name isn’t LA, as in la-di-da, but L A, like the city, and it’s Wood, not Woods. Easy to remember: Wood is just a four-letter word. 

Your reporter also suggests that little separates the activism of the incumbent and myself and our “deeply rooted environmentalism.” In truth, we are miles apart. While she has been preoccupied with pronouncements concerning global issues, I have been in the trenches for more than a decade, as the incumbent states, “banging the drum” for concerns affecting local residents.  

In fact, the incumbent raises this very point with the example of the city’s recently constructed playing fields in west Berkeley. After paying UCB too much for a toxic site and spending an additional million dollars in management and cleanup, the city has been forced to post air quality warnings for park users before the skateboard park has even opened! Perhaps Berkeley taxpayers will remember this budgetary fiasco when contemplating this year’s financial shortfall. 

The incumbent says she simply didn’t know about the air quality problems because the city staff failed to provide that information to the council. 

Has the incumbent already forgotten that I raised this very issue in the environmental review and that it was also the central focus of both my legal appeals of the Harrison Park projects? The public record is quite clear. 

Moreover, it doesn’t require a staff report to understand the stupidity of building a park in the heart of the city’s industrial sector and on the shoulder of I-80, just a little common sense. 

Obviously, there are many shades of green. I was willing to raise issues of health despite the public ridicule I endured from a very aggressive lobby of soccer parents. The incumbent chose to remain silent.  

Her response in the article was that “he (L A) thinks I compromise too much” and that “he’s a bit more of a perfectionist than I am.” And later states, “Sometimes it’s better to compromise.” Let my record stand for itself. I would rather be called a perfectionist than a compromiser when it comes to the health of our children. That’s being green. That’s the difference. 

L A Wood 

Berkeley

Monday, July 15

Making Moral Decisions from a Catholic Perspective 

(Through July 19) 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. 

St. Mary Magdalen Parish, 2005 Berryman St. 

Father Jude Eli will give a parish mission on making moral decisions. Each presentations is approximately 1 and 1/2 hours long. 

841-5600 

Free 

Restore Berkeley Beach 

7:30 p.m.  

City Corp. Yard Meeting Room, 1326 Allston Way  

Berkeley Partners for Parks General Meeting. Historical pictures and talk by Curtis Manning. 

649-9874, or http://www.bpfp.org.  

Free 

Tuesday, July 16

Intro to Accessible Software and Hardware  

10:30 a.m. to noon 

Berkeley Public Library - Central Branch 

Electronic Classroom (3rd Floor) 2090 Kittredge Ave.  

Non-profit training organization for software and hardware useful to seniors and disabled people in Berkeley. 

981-6121 for reservations 

Free 

15th Anniversary Derby Street Farmers Market 

Live music and & stone-fruit and peach tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

2 to 7 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Celebration of the Berkeley Farmers Market and Peach Tasting 

2 to 7 p.m. 

Derby St. @ MLK, Jr. Way 

15th anniversary celebration of the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers' Market and annual peach tasting, featuring music and food. 

548-3333 

Free 

Inshallah: In Pursuit of My Father's Youth 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Viviane Wayne will share from her travel/memoir Inshallah, a chronicle  

of her return to Turkey. Turkish sweets served. 

843-3533 

Free 

Berkeley Camera Club Weekly Meeting 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda 

Share slides, prints with other photographers 

525-3565 

Free 

Berkeley Salon on Metaphor and Message Now 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut Ave. at Rose, Berkeley  

Metaphor Project founder Susan Strong on ways to mainstream messages now.  

848-0237. 

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 

Celebration of Gay Pride 

1:15 p.m.  

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. (at MLK) 

Mothertongue Feminist Theatre Collective presents "The Experience of Aging," with discussion and refreshments afterward. 

644-0480 

Free 

Wednesday, July 17

San Francisco Bay Crossings Study 

1 to 1:30 p.m. view displays, 1:30 to 4 p.m. public meeting 

Oakland City Council Chambers, City Hall 

One City Hall Plaza, 3rd Floor, Oakland 

Recommendations for transbay travel in the next 25 years, new facilities/services, as well as funding methods. 

464-7787 

Free 

Friends of Calligraphy 

6:30 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - Central Branch 

2090 Kittredge St. Meeting Room B - Third Floor 

Meeting/demonstrations of calligraphy and lettering design by lettering professionals and FOC members. 

528-1709 

Free 

Doctors Without Borders 

(Through July 18) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

UC Berkeley, Springer Gateway, West Entrance Crescent 

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

www.doctorswithoutborders.org 

Free 

Thursday, July 18

Intro to Accessible Software and Hardware  

3 to 4:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - Central Branch 

Electronic Classroom (3rd Floor) 2090 Kittredge Ave.  

Non-profit training organization for software and hardware useful to seniors and disabled people in Berkeley. 

981-6121 for reservations 

Free 

art.Sites Paris 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Slide show by Sidra Stich offers overview of Paris' exciting innovative changes, new museums, new art and media centers, parks etc. 

843-3533 

Free 

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. 

527-4140 

Free 

"Green Building" Workshop 

6 to 8 p.m.  

Building Education Center, 812 Page Street 

With speaker Greg VanMechelen, Architect, VanMechelen Architects 

614-1699 or lclarke@stopwaste.org 

Free 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m.  

Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave.  

Topic is the Cost of various life choices to the Planet well as to our Happiness, Pocketbook and Community. 

549-3509, or www.simpleliving.net. 

Free 

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 

Saturday, July 20

Public Meeting to Plan a New National Park in Richmond 

1:30 p.m. 

Oakland Museum, Lecture Hall, 1000 Oak St. (at Lake Merritt BART) 

Meeting to gather input for National Park Service to prepare plans that will guide development of historic WWII sites in Richmond. 

817-1517 

Free 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 to 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave. (lower level) 

The Kids on the Block educational puppet troupe present a show about accepting and understanding physical, mental, medical and cultural differences. 

$2 donation, children under 3 free 

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 

Connoisseurs' Marketplace 

(through July 21) 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Santa Cruz Ave. Menlo Park (between El Camino Real and Johnson St. 

16th annual mid-summer festival of the arts featuring music, artisans, celebrity chefs, international cuisine, kids' fun zone and more. 

(650) 325-2818 

Free 

Monday, July 22

An evening of song & resistance 

7 p.m.  

AK Warehouse, 674-A 23rd St. Oakland 

With music from Samsara, James Tracy and David Rovics 

208-1700, or akpres@akpress.org 

$5 donation 

Tuesday, July 23

Myanmar (formerly Burma): "The Golden Land" 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Ricky Fishman gives a slide presentation/talk about this isolated and remote land. 

843-3533 

Free 

Q & A with a Personal/Business Coach 

noon to 1 p.m. 

YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way 

For those interested in professional coaching careers, speak with a pro. 

848-6370 

$3 

Wednesday, July 24

Getting Help When You Need It 

7:30 to 9 p.m.  

Summit North Pavilion, Cafeteria Annex A 

350 Hawthorne Ave. Oakland 

Free interactive workshop to help caregivers obtain free assistance, deal with paid in-home help, and create plans to care for loved ones. 

869-6737 

Free 

Thursday, July 25

Combat Medic: World War II 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Memoir presentation by San Francisco physician John Kerner, describing experiences as a combat medic in World War II.  

843-3533 

Free 

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 more information: (510) 527- 4140. 

Free 

Saturday, July 27

Test Ride Kestrel Bicycles 

11 a.m.-1 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Pristine Sandusky of Kestrel, a premier manufacturer of high-end, carbon-fiber road and mountain bikes, introduces 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 technician basic repairs such as brake adjustments and fixing a flat. 

For more information: (510) 527-4140 

Free 

Tuesday, July 30

The Birdhouse Chronicles: Surviving the Joys of Country Life 

7:30 p.m.  

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave.  

Reading and discussion of Cathleen Miller's personal account of moving from San Francisco to Amish Pennsylvania to restore an old house. 

843-3533 

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 rock climbing including knot tying, belaying and movement. 

For more information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

Thursday, August 1

Public Meeting to Plan New National Historic Park in Richmond 

1:30 p.m. 

Richmond Senior Center, 2525 Macdonald Ave. 

Meeting to gather input for National Park Service to prepare plans that will guide development of historic WWII sites in Richmond. 

817-1517 

Free 

Nutrition Career Open House 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Institute of Educational Therapy, 706 Gilman St. 

Become a Nutrition Educator or Nutrition Consultant. 

558-1711 for reservations 

Free 

Saturday, August 3

Mountain Adventure Seminars: Introduction to Rock Climbing 

8 a.m.-3 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

An introduction to rock climbing including knot tying, belaying and movement. 

For more information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

10th Annual Stroll for Epilepsy 

Six Flags Marine World, Vallejo 

The public is invited to join the Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California at Six Flags Marine World for a 5K walk/fundraiser. 

1-800-632-3532 for registration 

Storytelling at the Berkeley Public Library 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Central Branch 

2090 Kittredge St. 

Storyteller Joel Ben Izzy will present a variety of stories filled with warmth, humor, drama in the Children's Story Room. 

981-6223 

Free 

Monday, August 5

Public Meeting to Plan a New National Park in Richmond 

1:30 p.m. 

Richmond Public Library, Whittlesey Room 

325 Civic Center Plaza (near Macdonald Ave. and 25th St.) 

Meeting to gather input for National Park Service to prepare plans that will guide development of historic WWII sites in Richmond. 

817-1517 

Free 

Saturday, August 10

Tomato Tasting 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Tasting and cooking demonstrations  

Free 

Sunday, August 11

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 more information: (510) 527-4140 

Free 

West Berkeley arts Festival 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

4th and University Ave. 

Explore the many resident artists located in Berkeley 

Free. 

Monday, August 12

The First East Bay Senior Games 

10:30 a.m. clinic, 12:30 p.m. tee-off (approximate times) 

Mira Vista Golf and Country Club 

7901 Cutting Blvd. El Cerrito 

A golfing event for the 50+ crowd, in association with the California and National Senior Games Association. 

891-8033 (registration deadline July 29) 

Varying entry fees.

Former Salesian High star hits two homers and a triple, throws complete game in Babe Ruth state tournament 

When the Berkeley/Albany Lions showed up for Tuesday’s game against North Bay, Derek Yow was set to play third base and try to break out of an 0-for-6 slump. By the third inning, Yow was well on his way to carrying his team to victory. 

When scheduled starting pitcher Joe Storno came down with a sore throwing shoulder, Yow was forced into service. The Salesian High graduate responded with four shutout innings to begin a complete game, 14-3 win that moved the Lions to the next round of the Babe Ruth state tournament at San Leandro Ballpark. 

But even more impressive was Yow’s performance at the plate. The slender Yow gave his team a kickstart with a two-run homer as the second batter of the game, followed the next inning with a triple, then blasted another two-run bomb in the third inning to put the Lions ahead 9-0, pretty much locking up the game. 

The second homer of the day, which cleared a row of trees and an overpass behind the leftfield fence, gave Yow seven for the summer, second-best on the team. Yow said it was his first multiple-homer game of his post-Little League career. He just missed capping things off with a seventh-inning grand slam, with North Bay leftfielder Matt Byers making a spectacular running catch at the fence and doubling off Randy Renn at second base. 

“I just wanted to come out of my slump from the last two games,” Yow said. “I just got some good swings in today.” 

Yow’s offensive outburst was just part of the Lions’ attack that mowed through seven North Bay pitchers. Starter Mike Trejo didn’t even make it out of the first inning, leaving after Tom Carman’s two-run single gave Berkeley/Albany a 4-0 lead. Rob Muniz managed to get six outs, but also surrendered five runs, and from then on it was a parade of pitchers coming from all over the diamond. 

The Lions were just one out away from ending the game in five innings, as they staked Yow to an 11-0 lead after their half of the fifth. But Kyle Haycock brought in a run with a sacrifice fly, then Jeff Berry ensured at least one more inning of play with a two-out RBI single. The Lions failed to score in the sixth inning, which meant a full seven for the players and fans on a cold night. 

Yow worked in and out of trouble all night on the hill, stranding 12 North Bay baserunners. But he didn’t allow an extra-base hit and even shook off an odd adventure in the first inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, Haycock swung and missed at a pitch in the dirt. The home-plate umpire called strike three, and the Berkeley players came off the field. But after a long delay, the scorekeeper determined that Haycock only got two strikes, so the officials ordered the Lions back onto the field. Yow induced Haycock to ground out on the next pitch, so no harm came from the controversy other than a heated argument between Berkeley/Albany manager Joe Pinguelo and the home plate umpire. 

Pinguelo was duly impressed by Yow’s performance. 

“Derek’s my utility guy, just a great all-around ballplayer,” Pinguelo said. “He did a great job hitting, obviously, and an excellent job pitching. He’s been wanting to pitch all summer, and he closed them down for most of the game.” 

The Lions are in the loser’s bracket of the double-elimination tournament thanks to an 11-1 loss to the defending champion San Leandro Rangers on Saturday, so it’s a long road to the championship game. They play Capitol Valley on Tuesday at 8 p.m., with the loser going home and winner playing again on Wednesday.

Former state assemblyman kicks off campaign for mayor 

Tom Bates jump-started the Berkeley mayoral race Saturday, opening his campaign headquarters to supporters who hope the former state assemblyman will defeat incumbent Mayor Shirley Dean this November. 

“I pledge to you that I will work with all my energy to win this campaign,” Bates told the approximately 140 residents on hand at his new and still unfurnished office at 2471 Shattuck Ave. 

Bates, who served in the state Assembly for 20 years until term limits forced him to retire in 1996, accepted the mayoral nomination of Berkeley’s progressive faction in May. He used Saturday’s event to outline key issues and familiarize progressive activists with his campaign staff and strategy. 

Education, affordable housing and the environment headline Bates’ agenda. 

“I believe it is my responsibility and duty to make sure every kid gets the opportunity to get the best education he can get,” said Bates. 

He proposed hiring a deputy mayor that would concentrate solely on youth issues. He added that he would work to better coordinate community resources such as UC Berkeley, Vista College and after school programs to improve education opportunities and job training for the city’s youth. 

On housing, Bates lamented the loss of rent control and said that if Berkeley is to remain a multi-cultural community it has to find ways to build “work force housing” affordable for teachers and other civil servants. 

Bates was equally forceful on the environment, saying that Berkeley needed to regain its position as an innovator and push the environmental envelope instead of lagging behind neighboring cities.  

Bates also addressed the issue of divisiveness on the City Council between the progressive and moderate factions. 

Saying it was time to “break down the Berlin Wall of Berkeley,” Bates presented himself as a conciliator who can bring people of differing opinions together. 

When asked to specify differences between Bates and the mayor’s policies, Bates’ campaign consultant Larry Tramutola said that in July it was more important to familiarize voters with Bates rather than delve into specific policies.  

Several supporters disagreed with the strategy. 

“If you go to these people and just tell them Tom’s my best buddy, they’re never going to listen to you again,” said Judith Bloom who lives in the Berkeley hills. 

“When we create division here, we get off on the wrong foot and we take that out the door,” Bates responded, promising to formulate policies as the campaign progresses. 

“I’m a pragmatist, a person who wants to see things implemented,” he added. “I’m not going to duck these issues.” 

When the meeting ended, Bates and about 50 supporters walked through precincts in south Berkeley, handing out campaign literature to residents. 

Berkeley mayoral races usually get underway in September, but Bates, who has been out of the public eye since 1996, said it was important to raise his profile to compete with Mayor Dean. 

Bates started campaigning door-to-door several weeks ago, and said he plans to continue introducing himself to voters during the next four weeks. 

Bates is also off to a strong start fundraising. As of June 30, the first filing period, Bates said he raised about $50,000. Dean said she raised about $13,000 during the same period. 

Berkeley campaign finance law forbids donations from businesses and limits personal donations to $250. 

Dean said she has started preliminary campaign work, but as mayor, she does not have time to campaign aggressively now. She added that she will run on her accomplishments, among which she mentioned are revitalizing the downtown arts district, constructing the bicycle bridge over the I-80 freeway, providing greater access to health insurance and re-zoning areas to promote pragmatic development.

To the Editor: 

L. Dawud Said (“Brothers Liquor closure is a sign of the ‘yuppies rule’ time,” in Forum, 1/19/02) writes that “Berkeley is being invaded by dot.com Yuppies.” 

If Said truly paid attention to what’s going on s/he’d see there’s been an exodus of such professionals since the dot-bomb. What’s left in their wake is a skeleton crew of families and working class people, like the neighbors of Brothers Liquor, who have lived here for decades.  

My south Berkeley neighborhood is rich only in human diversity. We have few trees and the air is heavy with car exhaust. Neighbors have various-paying jobs; many are retired, unemployed and disabled. My family doesn’t belong to PAIN (“PALE,” as Said calls it), but we are grateful the city realizes the increased burden Brothers has placed on us.  

The motivating factor to close Brothers is this: Most residents, regardless of skin color, don’t want a neighborhood where selling drugs, prostitution and murder is the norm. Those from the “gentrification terrorist cells” don’t want our kids to be offered pornography or crack cocaine when they go to a cornerstore for candy.  

Many of the people who feel this way, who Said describes as “well-heeled immigrants infiltrating the neighborhood,” are third-generation families who have been battling Brothers for years.  

People who live in close vicinity of Brothers (unlike Said who lives blocks away), citizens who s/he calls “self-interest groups,” are woken at night by screaming people and screeching tires- all related to sales of drugs and sex. Gunfire is not unusual. 

Like many of Said’s “Hatemongering Yuppies” on my block, prior to the crackdown on Brothers I had a special morning ritual that befit my posh lifestyle: Before I walked my child to Malcolm X, I’d go in the yard and pick up used condoms, syringes, human feces, broken liquor bottles, and beer cans in brown bags.  

Is it my hosing of a drunk’s vomit off the sidewalk that Said calls a “modus operandi- a form of racial cleansing to make room for more white people”?  

Said writes that “the Berkeley Police Department was used or manipulated to justify the newcomers nefarious paranoia.” My neighbor said the last time she was in Brothers the cashier asked her to sign a petition protesting the illegal activities occuring on the store premises. 

This petition was in truth presented to the Berkeley City Council as a list of Brothers’ supporters. Said defends a business that operates “by whatever means (influencing or manipulating by deception?).” 

R. Walker 

Berkeley

BALTIMORE – Mike Hargrove tried to put it delicately, yet there was no mistaking his assertion: Cory Lidle is not to be confused with Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson or Barry Zito. 

Having finally worked their way past the top three starters in the Oakland rotation, the Baltimore Orioles ended their scoring drought Sunday, beating Lidle and the Athletics 6-3 to avert a four-game sweep. 

Jay Gibbons hit two home runs and had a career-high five RBIs for the Orioles, who failed to score a run against Mulder, Hudson and Zito in the first three games of the series. 

It was a different story against Lidle (2-8), who yielded six runs and eight hits in 5 1-3 innings. 

“I’m not going to sit here and say that Lidle’s not a good pitcher, because he is,” said Hargrove, the Orioles’ manager. “But obviously, the three guys we faced earlier have tremendous stuff, and we were able to get to Lidle today.” 

Especially Gibbons, who hit a two-run drive in the third inning and put Baltimore up 6-3 with a three-run shot in the fifth. He has 16 homers, one more than he hit as a rookie last year in a season shortened by a wrist injury. 

“This feels good, the RBIs more than anything else,” Gibbons said. “The home runs will come; driving runs in and scoring runs are the most important thing.” 

Scoring runs was a difficult proposition for all the Orioles before Sunday. Baltimore managed only one run in the series before feasting on Lidle, who ran into a team desperate to get its offense in sync. 

“They’re hungry. They haven’t been scoring,” Lidle said. “They hit a couple of mistakes I made, and they also hit some good pitches.” 

Rodrigo Lopez (9-3) allowed three runs, seven hits and two walks in seven innings. In 15 starts this year, the rookie is 8-3 with a 3.28 ERA. 

Buddy Groom worked the eighth and Jorge Julio got three outs for his 18th save. 

“I guess if you can win one game of the series,” Hargrove said, “the last one is a good one to win.” 

Jermaine Dye and Miguel Tejada homered for the A’s, who were bidding for a fifth straight victory and their first four-game sweep in Baltimore. Dye enjoyed his second straight three-hit game and scored twice. 

“It’s hard to sweep a four-game series,” Dye said. “The guy at first base (Gibbons) beat us.” 

Baltimore took its first lead of the series in the third. After Tony Batista ended the Orioles’ 21-inning scoreless streak with a two-out RBI double, Gibbons hit Lidle’s next pitch into the right-field seats to make it 3-1. 

But Oakland promptly came back to tie it. Tejada led off the fourth with his 17th homer, the second in two games, before Dye singled and scored on a two-out double by Olmedo Saenz. 

Gibbons put the Orioles ahead for good in the fifth. After Chris Singleton hit a leadoff single and Batista drew a one-out walk, Gibbons drove a 2-1 pitch over the rightfield wall.

Mayor Shirley Dean and former state Assemblyman Tom Bates would each get 35 percent of the vote if Berkeley’s mayoral race were held this summer, according to a poll commissioned in mid-June by developer Patrick Kennedy. 

San Francisco-based David Binder Research conducted the poll, which sampled 400 Berkeley residents. 

The findings have not been released to the public, but both Bates and Dean confirmed that Kennedy has shared the results with them. 

To the Editor: 

At a time when the housing affordability crisis is affecting people of all income levels, we cannot afford to engage in costly lawsuits and "resistance" politics. The proposed development at 2517 Sacramento St. (Thursday, July 11, 2002 article "Neighbors sue to stop development") not only complies with the housing element of the Berkeley General Plan, but it also would allow seniors to remain in our community. They deserve the opportunity to live in affordable housing. 

The disregard for seniors' needs expressed by a few vocal neighbors is disgraceful and selfish. Their concerns over parking spaces and shadows are not as important as the needs of our community. 

There is a public process in place for reviewing new developments that is very open to influence by concerned citizens. This is a valuable process that protects our neighborhoods against the excesses of unrestrained development. The process should not be abused by self important "no growthers" who are resisting this reasonable and needed project. 

Cody Sisco 

Berkeley 

In a 40 minute speech Friday night at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church, 68-year-old Ralph Nader, activist and former presidential candidate, continued his three-decade-old battle against big business. 

Nader reminded Berkeley residents that victories in consumer rights and human rights won in the 1960s and 1970s were prone to a backlash that many never anticipated. Vigilance, he said, was required to wrest the power from corporate interests and put it back in the hands of the American people. 

A congregation of about 350, filling the balconies, intermittently broke up Nader’s address with applause and shouts. The event was sponsored by Cody’s Books and the Nader-founded Center for the Study of Responsive Law. 

Nader’s most recent book, “Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender,” was the theme of Friday’s address. Nader joked as he picked up the book, “I could have called this ‘I told you so.’”  

The audience laughed in the wake of this year’s string of corporate scandals and nobody was spared Nader’s wit or vitriol: He attacked and poked fun at Al Gore, Berkeley’s cafe pontificators, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush with equal vigor.  

Nader was quick to put the onus for America’s current fiscal and political misdeeds squarely on the shoulders of the public, who, he noted, spent 500 million cumulative hours watching the Super Bowl this year. “If we had spent that much time on civic activity, we could have gotten universal health care,” he mused. 

He said it would not take a “massive dislocation of routine” for Americans to accomplish such things, only renewed energy toward “civic mobilization.”  

Much of the call to civic duty was at the end of his speech and directed toward youth who were noticeably absent from the audience. 

He reminded the audience, mostly Caucasian and over 30, that the social and political gains made in prior eras were no guarantee. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, things did happen... but we didn’t pay enough attention to the counterattack,” he said. Nader felt a downturn was signaled by Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, but again his message continued to deride both political parties “serving the entrenchment of corporate power.” 

He called America’s economic system not a capitalist model, but one of “corporate socialism” where big companies “don’t sink or swim– they go to Washington for a bailout.” He said only people, and not “artificial entities” like corporations, should have the rights of people in our society. He reminded his audience of how much ground and private rights are lost to corporations daily: More than 300 patents on human genetic structure are owned by corporations, he said. 

Nader had a simple solution for the Enrons and other corporations that have recently been caught in wholesale acts of financial misrepresentation and malfeasance– “Make ‘em pay it back and send ‘em to jail.” He noted that for all the investigations and committees established in the wake of corporate scandals, not one person has been convicted of any wrongdoing. 

Nader struck out at the current two-party system in the United States, stating that neither one had the courage to upset the status quo. He said that former Vice President Gore had the information, regarding President Bush’s dealings with Harker Energy, that became widely disclosed this week but did not bring it up during the campaign. 

As for any notion that he or the Green Party lost the election for Gore, Nader scoffed. He reminded his listeners that Gore did not win his home state of Tennessee, nor his own former election district within that state. 

Nader spun the wisdom of the ancients into his lecture. Again zinging the attendees, he quoted a Chinese proverb that said “if you know and you don’t act, you don’t know.” As for the situation in Cuba, he quoted Scottish poet Robert Burns: “Oh the gift that god would give us, to see ourselves as others see us,” implying that while Cubans may live a restricted life in some ways, “we bear some responsibility for the climate of fear” in the Caribbean nation. 

A planned question and answer session quickly became a chance for some in the audience to not necessarily ask Nader questions, but make extemporaneous speeches on various themes. Nader patiently waited for their points to be made and then commented on topics ranging from Cuba to Burma to political organizing.

Fraudulent research led to the pronouncement of a “stunning discovery” of two new heavy elements in 1999 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, lab officials now confirm. 

At a speech to employees last month, the lab’s director, Charles Shank, said the previously hailed landmark discovery of elements 118 and 116 was the result of fabricated research data and scientific misconduct by one individual of a 15-member team. Shank’s remarks were detailed in the lab’s official newsletter. 

The individual Shank alluded to was identified by three Bay Area newspapers as physicist Victor Ninov. 

Ninov was suspended in November and later fired. Ninov now has a grievance pending against the lab regarding his dismissal. 

Last year, Lawrence Berkeley lab officials retracted the announcement that team had detected and observed the elements 118 and 116, a discovery reported in the June 1999 edition of the journal Physical Review of Letters. 

The retraction came after members of the research team that claimed to have made the breakthrough discovery failed to duplicate their results. Scientists at the GSI laboratory in Germany and the RIKEN lab in Japan were also unable to duplicate the original reported results. 

Prior to the scrutiny over the discovery, the Lawrence Berkeley lab team said its work confirmed theories that began to circulate among physicists some 30 years ago about an “island of stability” for nuclei with approximately 114 protons and 184 neutrons. 

In the original experiment, lead targets were bombarded with beams of high-energy krypton ions. The sequence of decay events for elements 118 and 116, if detected, would be consistent with theories of an “island of stability” for nuclei. 

Shank lauded his own department for ferreting out the fraud. The team’s leader, Ken Gregorich, submitted the proposed retraction last year to the journal and it was published in the July 15, 2001 issue. 

“I am proud of the intensity and professionalism of the review to get to the bottom of this, and of the commitment of the laboratory to the highest level of scientific integrity,” Shank told lab employees. “There is nothing more important for a laboratory than scientific integrity. Only with such integrity will the public, which funds our work, have confidence in us.” 

There was no phone number listed in California for Ninov. Calls placed to the lab’s spokesman Saturday by The Associated Press seeking further comment were not immediately returned. 

The heavy element research fraud is a stinging embarrassment for the lab. Shank admitted that basic verifications, necessary for such lofty scientific proclamations, were not followed. 

“In this case, the most elementary checks and data archiving were not done,” Shanks said. 

Today’s Highlight in History: On July 15, 1971, President Nixon announced he would visit the People’s Republic of China. 

On this date: In 1606, Dutch painter Rembrandt was born in Leiden, Netherlands. 

In 1870, Georgia became the last Confederate state readmitted to the Union. 

In 1916, Boeing Co., originally known as Pacific Aero Products, was founded in Seattle. 

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman was nominated for another term of office at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia. 

In 1964, Sen. Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona was nominated for president at the Republican national convention in San Francisco. 

In 1965, U.S. scientists displayed close-up photographs of Mars taken by Mariner 4. 

In 1979, President Carter delivered his “malaise” speech in which he lamented what he called a “crisis of confidence” in America. 

In 1985, a gaunt-looking Rock Hudson appeared at a news conference with actress Doris Day. It was later revealed Hudson was suffering from AIDS. 

Ten years ago: Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in New York. 

Five years ago: Fashion designer Gianni Versace was shot dead in Miami; suspected gunman Andrew Phillip Cunanan was found dead eight days later.

Childhood mentors
present Mary Rhodes
Award to Barbara Lee 

Barbara Lee’s past caught up with her on Saturday evening at Oakland’s Chabot Space and Science Center. 

Mingling with Lee’s family, friends and local progressive leaders at the congresswoman’s 56th birthday party and fundraiser were three Catholic nuns whose order was an indelible part of Lee’s childhood. 

The sisters, dressed in civilian attire, belonged to the Order of Loretto, a charitable community that operates schools in 16 U.S. states and abroad. They were on hand to award Lee the Mary Rhoades Award, named after the order’s founder who in 1811 left Boston to start a school in rural Kentucky. Since 1981 the sisters have presented the award to a woman who they believe embodies the ideals of peace and justice. 

What the sisters failed to realize when selecting Lee as this year’s recipient was that Lee was also an alumnus of their Catholic order. 

Lee, who grew up the daughter of an army officer in El Paso, Texas, attended Loretto St. Josephs from grades one through eight because segregation laws prevented her from attending the local public school. 

Lee joked with the sisters and the audience about a recent encounter she had on the east coast with members of the order. 

“In Washington a couple of months ago, several of the sisters of Loretto came into my office and they started talking to me about Mary Rhoades and the Sisters of Loretto for about 20 minutes,” Lee said. “I said ‘uh-huh’ and I realized they had no clue that I attended St. Josephs of El Paso. So I shared that with them. They were shocked.” 

Sister Kathleen Tighe presented Lee with a carving of a lighthouse, saying the gift was symbolic because “Barbara is such a light to us and such a wonderful pillar.” 

Upon accepting the carving, Lee joked, “The sisters were rough. They were tough. And they made me a rebel.” 

Tighe later said that Lee’s record was so good the choice was easy. “So many politicians cave in,” she said. “They don’t speak the truth.” 

During her brief speech, Lee moved past the subject of her lone dissenting vote on the issue of granting President George W. Bush expansive powers to execute the War on Terrorism last September and focused exclusively on current priorities. 

She mentioned her legislative efforts to fight the spread of HIV, calling it a “pandemic,” as well as the upcoming investigation of corporate accounting scandals. 

“People have lost their pensions. People have lost there jobs– this is criminal,” said Lee who added that the investigation should include members of the Bush administration. 

“When you look at the people in the White House and you look at some of those in the administration and where they come from and how they got to where they got, it’s scary,” Lee said. 

The congresswoman then urged her fellow democrats to return to their liberal past in order to energize the party base and regain power.  

“We must make sure that democrats sound like and become democrats,” Lee said “and not allow the fear of the moment to take over.” 

Fittingly, Lee was at the epicenter of the party room, laughing and joking with the approximately 100 people in attendance.

Thousands converged on Oakland’s city hall Saturday to protest the violence that has seized the city. 

So far 55 people have been killed in Oakland this year, compared with 40 last year. Officials fear that by the end of the year, the death toll could reach triple digits for the first time in five years. 

Groups marched from north, east and west Oakland to city hall in the March for Peace, which was sponsored by more than 70 churches and community groups. 

A conference called Release the Peace was also held to discuss the problems and hold workshops on issues such as anger management, male responsibility and promoting nonviolent solutions to disputes. 

“The key thing is — this is a real concern at our conference — is to be able to prevent and to be able to catch some of the young people who do want help,” said the Rev. Brondon Reems, conference organizer and pastor at Center of Hope Church in East Oakland. “We have powerful programs in the city of Oakland, all kinds of service providers, but the bottom line is no one is making the connection.” 

Most of the city’s murder victims this year have been black. Organizers said the march was a way to show the city’s youth that there are alternatives to violent lifestyles. 

“So many of us have gone to sleep. Too many of us have become complacent, and while we sleep our children die. So this is a wake up call my brothers and sisters,” Congresswoman Barbara Lee told the crowd. “We march today to wake up our community. To let our voices be heard and saying we will not tolerate anymore ruthless killing!”

A Mexican citizen who was charged with hit-and-run and manslaughter charges in connection with a crash that killed a 5-year-old Oakland girl as she was walking to school with relatives is scheduled to be sentenced Monday. 

Osvaldo Urzua, 41, pleaded no contest to a charge of manslaughter in a deal with Alameda County prosecutors. He is expected to spend six years behind bars. 

Police arrested Urzua several days after a 1967 Ford Mustang, which he allegedly took from his employer without permission, plowed through a group of people Jan. 16 as they were walking to the International Community School on International Boulevard. 

Ana Karen Cerna died from her injuries a day after the incident. Five other people, her brother, three cousins and an aunt, were injured. 

Urzua fled the scene and was arrested later.

Former Deputy Chief Roy Meisner is the city's top cop today, since Dashchel Butler has just retired from the police chief position. Butler stepped down Friday. 

Police dispatcher Ed Tan said that Meisner has not been named as an official replacement for Butler, but is instead considered the interim chief. 

–Daily Planet Staff

SAN FRANCISCO – Marjorie Knoller may be sentenced today for involuntary manslaughter in connection with the San Francisco fatal dog-mauling case –or maybe not. 

Her attorney, Dennis Riordan, has filed papers arguing that Superior Court Judge James Warren cannot sentence Knoller, 47, because prosecutors filed an appeal of his ruling last month tossing out her second-degree murder conviction. Riordan says state case law forbids the judge to act on any related matters, such as the lesser offense of which Knoller remains convicted. 

On June 17, Warren sentenced Knoller's husband and law partner Robert Noel, 61, to the maximum four years for the same charge, and he has already been taken to prison. 

Diane Whipple was killed Jan. 26, 2001 in a mauling involving two large Presa Canario dogs that Knoller and Noel had been caring for in their Pacific Heights apartment. Only Knoller was present walking the animals in the hallway that day, as Noel was out of town. 

But the judge said, in tossing out Knoller's murder conviction last month, that he believed the husband was more responsible for the death and had demonstrated a more troubling attitude afterward. 

Both defendants were indicted in March 2001 and have been in custody ever since. Because of credits for time served, Noel is expected to get out of prison in just more than a year's time, as would Knoller as well if she were to get the maximum sentence. 

A District Attorney's spokesman said prosecutors expect that Warren will carry out the sentence now, denying Riordan's motion and putting an end to the sentencing suspense that began on June 7. That day the judge said he needed more time to weigh Riordan's many arguments that the murder case against his client had not been sufficiently proved and her rights had been violated during trial, when she was represented by another attorney.

SAN FRANCISCO — Great weather, top-notch sports venues and the glint of cutting-edge technology will be the focus of a visit by U.S. Olympic Committee as San Francisco puts its best foot forward in hopes of snaring the 2012 games host city bid. 

The Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee (BASOC) is convinced that San Francisco and surrounding cities have the best chance of competing internationally for the coveted 2012 Olympic host bid. 

San Francisco is one of the remaining four U.S. cities vying for the honor. New York, Washington and Houston are the others, and the site team and USOC officials have already visited the other three. 

Upon their arrival Sunday, members of the committee began their tour with something this area knows better than any other in the country — technology. 

Each member of the site evaluation team was given shiny iPAQ personal digital assistants, small handheld computers pre-programmed to welcome them by name and offer greetings from prominent area athletes including Michael Johnson and Brandi Chastain. 

Then it was off for a fast-paced tour of the Bay Area., lunch with San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, followed by a boat cruise on the bay, a bus ride to Stanford’s sport venues, then back to San Francisco for a cable car ride and reception at a Union Square hotel.

SAN JOSE— The company that is selling land around the San Francisco Bay to the government for wetland restoration said it has seen the appraisal of the land, although the deal is still in negotiations. 

Minneapolis-based Cargill Salt struck a deal to sell 16,500 acres of salt ponds to the government for $100 million, but the state and federal governments have refused to release the appraisals of the land. 

But some now say that the fact that Cargill has seen the government’s appraisals means the public should also be allowed to see them to determine whether price is fair. 

“It’s normal for a public agency to not share its appraisals with the other side in a land sale so they can bluff on the price the same as the other side,” Terry Francke, general counsel for the California First Amendment Coalition in Sacramento told the San Jose Mercury News. 

“When that isn’t the case, all the rationale for confidentiality disappears.” 

Cargill and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service each did an appraisal, and the state Wildlife Conservation board reviewed both. The two agencies settled on a $240 million price, announced by Gov. Gray Davis, Cargill and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who led the negotiations for the land. 

But details about price and the land conditions haven’t been released. 

The plan to buy the salt flats, which date back to the 1850s, pools money from state and federal governments, as well as four private foundations. The land will be turned back into habitat for both endemic species and migratory birds flying between Alaska and the tropics.

MOUNTAIN VIEW – You don’t know Darby Bailey, but you may have already talked to her on the phone. 

Thousands of people hear her crisp and pleasant recorded responses every day when they call AT&T’s toll-free directory assistance or dial E-Trade for a stock quote. 

Voices like Bailey’s are in high demand as a growing number of companies employ speech recognition technology to save cash and combat caller alienation. 

Instead of unwieldy touch-tone tap dances, callers are engaged in faux conversations. 

“Touch-tone menus are very frustrating experiences – right up there with standing in line at the DMV,” said Mike McCue, president of Tellme Networks Inc., which sells voice automation software. 

With the financial services and airline industries leading the way, some companies use voice-activated systems to better route calls to live people. Others use them to replace some human agents altogether – except for complex transactions. 

“It’s more intuitive, more natural than using a touch-tone pad,” said Tom LaCentra, customer service director for the credit card division of Wells Fargo & Co. 

After decades of research, speech recognition technology has gotten good enough that some analysts predict the voice will one day become our sole means for interacting with machines. 

Hold on to your keyboards and phone pads, though. This technology is not foolproof yet. 

Major providers such as SpeechWorks International Inc. and Nuance have reached 90-plus percent accuracy rates in recognizing speech and generating correct responses. But systems still have difficulty understanding thick accents or callers on bad cell phone connections. 

People who prefer a live interlocutor may still find computerized voices annoying, so most companies offer a way out. Typically, pressing ”0” will get you a human. Also, when automated systems can’t understand or handle a request, they usually route callers to a live person. 

Having embraced voice automation, corporations sold on it are now upgrading their systems to lend them some personality. 

After months of market research, Wells Fargo’s credit card division decided on a young, hip but serious voice that sounds like a 30-something male business banker. 

“We thought our customers might like some fun in the system, but they told us, ’No.’ They just wanted someone professional,” LaCentra said. 

Wells Fargo, which led efforts by banks nationwide to reduce transactions handled by tellers in bank branches, will soon test its speech-automated phone system in select markets and hopes to expand it nationally next year. 

Early adopters say voice automation pays off in consumer satisfaction. 

Since online travel site Orbitz upgraded to a voice-automated system in June, allowing customers to get confirmations or cancellations, calls solved without an agent have risen from 3 percent to more than 15 percent, said Eliah Kahn, Orbitz’ vice president of customer experience. 

Voice systems can shorten phone calls, especially with impatient customers who end up punching numbers that lead them into telephonic blind alleys. 

Charles Schwab Corp. installed a system in 1997 that allows callers to speak – asking for quotes – rather than push buttons. Today, its clients can even trade stocks and confirm transactions that way. 

Most clients calling Schwab’s main customer lines choose the voice option over touch-tone, said Cecily Baptist, Schwab’s vice president of voice technology. Transferring cash, for example, takes 14 steps with the touch-tone method and as few as five steps via voice, she said. 

At least a quarter of Fortune 500 companies invested in voice-automated systems in 2001, up from 12 percent in 2000, and by 2007, the voice technology market will reach revenues of nearly $3 billion, up from $485 million this year, predicts the research firm Datamonitor. 

It’s been good to voice actors, who nowadays include telephone greetings and message prompts in their demo tapes. 

Darby Bailey’s work with Tellme is a far cry from the stilted, robotic responses of systems past. In a friendly, conversational tone, Bailey’s recorded voice – aided by a computer program that listens for key words and phrases and responds by piecing her words and phrases together – will ask callers to state their requests. 

She’ll then respond with “OK, here’s the number,” or, in E-Trade’s case, with the stock information. 

In April, AT&T eliminated 200, or nearly half, of its toll-free directory assistance operators after switching all of its weekend and evening services and part of its weekday services to speech automation. 

The National Weather Service thinks a new speech-automation system may even help save lives. 

The agency is converting from the “Schwarzenegger-sounding” computerized weather reports to the human voices of “Craig” and “Donna,” said Curtis Carey, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages the weather service. 

A computer powered by SpeechWorks software uses the prerecorded human voices to compile phonemes – syllables and other word fragments – and distribute tornado and flood alerts more quickly and more clearly than ever before, Carey said. 

“Clarity is so critical during warnings,” he said. 

It’s only a matter of time before computers will be able to understand all manner of speech – perhaps even sarcasm or irony. 

AT&T Labs has developed a system called “How May I Help You,” designed to recognize not just what someone is saying but also the meaning, no matter how it is phrased. 

For instance, the new system now being tested could understand a caller who says, ’“There’s a phone number on my bill I don’t understand,”’ said Doug Shurts, a director at AT&T’s consumer division. 

A friendly female – automated – voice would then ask, “Would you like to look up a number on your bill?” After a series of questions and answers, the caller would be routed to a live person who would resolve the problem. 

The new system now handles half the center’s 1.5 million monthly calls and has cut routing times so dramatically that service complaints have dropped by 80 percent. 

“My prediction,” Shurts said, “is we will eventually get rid of all number menus.”

LOS ANGELES – California’s jobless rate has remained steady at 6.4 percent as the hesitant economy managed only 4,400 new jobs in June. 

The job growth was so slim that most economists considered it inconsequential. But the rate remained unchanged from May, providing a break from a pattern of steady losses that had cost an additional 214,000 jobs over the past 12 months, according to the Employment Development Department which released its report Friday. 

In June 2001, California’s jobless rate was 5.2 percent. 

But with many companies questioning the recovery’s staying power, job growth is unlikely to take off in the next few months, experts said. 

“A lot of CEOs and CFOs have been programmed by the news so far not to hire before the third quarter,” said Michael Swanson, a senior economist with Wells Fargo & Co. in San Francisco. 

Although non-farm job gains were small across the state, they occurred in a wide range of industries. Mining, construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, finance, insurance and real estate added a combined 9,400 jobs.

Legislation that would require
customer permission to share
info stalled on floor of Assembly 

SACRAMENTO – Attempts to tighten restrictions on how banks could share consumers’ financial information have been stalled for three years, but the lawmaker pushing those reforms could be helped by the threat of a voter initiative on privacy. 

Sen. Jackie Speier’s bill, which would require financial institutions to get consumers’ permission before sharing or selling information to other companies, remains stalled on the floor of the Assembly. 

But it could be revived under the threat of an initiative financed by the president of E-Loan. Chris Larsen put $1 million aside and formed a group called Californians for Privacy Now to put a privacy initiative on the ballot in 2003 or 2004. 

Under federal law, customers can ask banks not to share their personal information with other companies and other third parties. Companies can share that information with affiliated companies without permission. 

Speier’s bill would require banks to get customers’ permission before sharing consumers’ financial information with other companies — an “opt-in” system. The banks could share information with businesses that were within the same corporate family, but customers could “opt out” by requesting their information not be shared. 

“There’s no question in my mind that if an initiative went to the voters, that the opt-out/opt-in approach we’ve taken wouldn’t be good enough,” she said. “The initiative would be stronger.” 

Giving voters a direct say on the issue would be “a wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee call to the banks and insurance companies in this state,” Speier said. 

With a few exceptions, Speier has battled banks and insurance companies over the bill — which has been amended from a strict “opt-in” policy to the hybrid version it is now. But banks, credit unions and other financial companies haven’t budged in their opposition. 

“We think Sen. Speier’s bill is bad, and from what I understand about the ballot measure, it would be worse,” said Fred Main, senior vice president of the California Chamber of Commerce. 

California is “an exaggerated example of the borderless economy we are now,” said Anissa Yates, a spokeswoman for the California Bankers Association. “Trying to have state solutions to information sharing becomes unwieldily and unmanageable. 

“We really do think the best solution is one that is federal,” she said. 

Larsen agreed that a federal law would be best. But he said he had been pursuing that goal for three years, and hasn’t gotten anywhere. 

After becoming frustrated with the fight over Speier’s legislation, Larsen has focused on the initiative. His contribution of $1 million just about guarantees enough signatures can be gathered to put the measure on the ballot. 

Speier has another ally in the fight — a North Dakota Republican, Rep. Jim Kaster, who traveled to Sacramento last week following a landslide victory of a voter referendum he pushed in that state. 

In June, North Dakota voted to throw out a new state law on information sharing and go back to a 1985 statute that requires companies to get written permission before sharing data with other companies. 

Kaster, who considers himself a conservative Republican, visited with lawmakers from both parties to try and convince them that privacy is an issue that both parties should get behind. 

Speier’s bill has been a compromise between consumer and privacy advocates and the financial industry, Larsen said, and would be a better law for banks. 

“Initiatives are generally not a good thing. They’re used when government fails,” he said. 

But as technology that allows companies to build profiles of customers grows, “privacy fears are increasing,” he said. Those fears are growing faster than laws that govern how that information can be used or shared, he said. 

Companies such as E-Loan “really can’t grow with that fear,” he said. Online businesses depend on “consumers feeling comfortable giving out their most private financial information.” 

But the bill’s opponents aren’t interested in compromising to avoid a ballot measure, said Main. 

“We’re still going to continue to oppose the bill, even under the threat of an initiative,” Main said. 

That, Larsen said, is shortsighted. An initiative could be stronger than the Speier bill — and if approved by voters, could be a “tipping point” for a national law, he said. 

But Main’s not convinced that California voters would follow North Dakota’s example. The North Dakota referendum called for a “no” vote to overturn a law, which is easier to get from voters than a “yes” vote to enact a new law, he said. 

Kaster disagreed, saying privacy is an issue that will resonate with voters from California, just as it did with North Dakota voters who approved the referendum with 74 percent of the vote. He said he doubts banks will be able to craft an opposition campaign that will turn that around. 

“They can’t come up with a campaign ad that says ’we promise we will handle your confidential financial information in a very protective way, but we’re going to sell it wherever we want,”’ Kaster said.

LOS ANGELES – Hesham Mohamed Hadayet took a big chance 10 years ago. 

The man who authorities say gunned down two people on July Fourth at Los Angeles International Airport left behind an upper-class family in Egypt, gambling that he could parlay a six-month tourist visa into success in America. 

It didn’t work out that way. 

Hadayet, 41, worked as a cab driver before starting his own limousine service. Along the way, he worked illegally, overstayed the visa, applied for asylum and even bought a limo he didn’t know how to drive, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. 

In recent months, his business teetered on the verge of collapse. 

Since the shooting, more details have surfaced from Hadayet’s family and friends about his life in America. But there are still few clues about what led to the rampage. 

His personal agenda may have died with him. 

“We all thought it was someone else and they blamed it on Hesham,” said Tarek Oraby, 35, a Cairo native and former cab driver living in Garden Grove. “Nobody believes it .... People are asking, did he go crazy?” 

For a while after coming to America, luck seemed to be with Hadayet. 

He avoided deportation when his wife won a lottery for permanent residency. He worked up to a two-limousine service and hired help. He lived with his wife and two sons in Irvine, a classic Southern California suburb. 

He was known as a quiet, observant Muslim who wanted people to believe he was running a successful business. 

But in recent months, he couldn’t keep up with his liability insurance and his wife began asking neighbors for baby-sitting work. 

A number of neighbors, business acquaintances and family members in Southern California and Cairo described Hadayet as an ordinarily religious man with little appetite for politics. 

It now seems he may have been an overstressed man who snapped. 

“If someone is going to do a terrorist act, they wouldn’t park their car, then walk minutes to a terminal and then stand in line before they shoot someone,” said Medhat Mahmoud, a Los Angeles produce wholesaler and a former security official for Egypt Air who had known Hadayet since 1992 

Authorities said Hadayet was in line at the El Al ticket counter when he opened fire, killing Victoria Hen, 25, of Chatsworth and Yaakov Aminov, 46, of Valley Village before he was killed by an El Al security guard. 

His family refuses to accept any conclusions beyond the fact that Hadayet is dead. 

“All I want to know is: What will be the outcome of the investigation?” Hadayet’s widow, Hala Mohammed Sadeq al Awadly, said in Cairo, where she and the couple’s young sons have been vacationing since mid-June. “And from the investigation we should know exactly what happened and then we will know what the truth is.” 

Born in Egypt on July 4, 1961, Hadayet was the son and nephew of Egyptian military brass. He was exempted from military service as his family’s only son and embarked on a promising career at the Misr Iran Bank. 

By 30, he was chief of the securities and credit division. 

Given that success, it’s unclear why he chose to move to the United States. One American acquaintance said Hadayet had suggested his tenure at the bank ended badly. 

“He had to leave Egypt because he was in trouble there for some accounting thing he did,” said Bob Milstead, who runs the Newport Beach-based limo service, Executive Transportation. “He said he was framed.” 

Hadayet’s family denied he had a problem with the bank, and said his emigration grew from a years-long desire to live in America. 

Like many immigrants, Hadayet had trouble adjusting to his new life, Emad al Abd, a cousin in Cairo, told the Times. 

“He had to start all over again,” Abd said. “It was difficult to begin with. It was not what he expected when he left a bank here in Egypt to go to the States. It’s hard when you feel you’ve gone down, but he insisted on sticking with it.” 

In 1997, Hadayet started the limousine business. He bought a 28-foot limo in November 1998, putting $3,000 down on the $30,000 vehicle and agreeing to $1,225 monthly payments. 

Virgil Budnic, a limousine salesman, went with Hadayet to pick up the limo. He said Hadayet assured him he knew how to drive the vehicle but then ripped a long gash on the passenger side when he hit a pole moments after getting behind the wheel. 

“Of course, he was very upset and embarrassed,” Budnic said.

LOS ANGELES – The Rev. Al Sharpton called Sunday for legislation to curb what he called a national epidemic of police abuse that includes the videotaped beating of a black teenager in Inglewood. 

“There is a national issue of police misconduct and police brutality that must be addressed by the president himself,” Sharpton said. 

Sharpton said he traveled to Los Angeles to meet with the family of Donovan Jackson, the 16-year-old punched in the face by white Inglewood police Officer Jeremy Morse. 

Sharpton also expressed support for Mitchell Crooks, who shot the video on July 6 and was later jailed on unrelated warrants. 

Crooks “has done something of a national service and needs to be supported,” Sharpton said during a news conference at Los Angeles International Airport. 

The New York-based activist called for national legislation mandating creation of local review boards to investigate allegations of police abuse and that requires stiffer penalities for police convicted in such cases. 

Sharpton has said he will consider a run for president in 2004.

Police have no
suspects, say family
probably died
on Thursday 

WHITTIER – Four family members, including an 8-year-old girl, were found stabbed to death in a home outside the city Saturday, authorities said. 

No arrests were immediately made. A relative found the bodies and called police at about 11 a.m. But the four probably died on Thursday, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Pena said. 

There were no signs of forced entry at the home but “it appears a struggle ensued, or whoever did it wanted to give the appearance that a struggle ensued,” sheriff’s Deputy Ray Peavy said. 

The home was ransacked with items “strewn about,” Peavy said. 

“A great deal of blood, a great deal of violence, a great deal of disarray in the home,” Peavy said. “It’s quite a devastating crime scene.” 

The victims were identified as Miguel Ruiz, 37, and his wife, Maritza Trejo, 41; their daughter, Jasimin Ruiz, 8, and the girl’s grandmother, Anna Martinez, 70. 

“The preliminary information that we have it’s just a quiet family, nothing to make you thing anything out of the ordinary,” Peavy said. “It’s just baffling.” 

“We just don’t have a clue as to what have occurred at this point. It’s a very brutal murder.” 

News of the deaths shocked neighbors. 

“Why her?” Marie Cervantes told KNBC-TV. “Why the little girl? She was like one of my own. I don’t know who could have done that.” 

Yvonne Ybarra told KTLA-TV that her daughter, Candice, was a friend of the 8-year-old and often slept over. 

“Thursday night, she had asked me if she can spend the night,” said Ybarra. She refused. 

“The first thing on my mind was, what if my daughter had been there that night?” 

“This guy is the nicest guy, if you needed help he’d come over here and help you,” Leo Ramirez said of Ruiz. “Why would anybody do something like this to him or to his family?” 

The quadruple homicide was the second family killing in Whittier this year. In March, five children died of asphyxiation after their father, Adair Javier Garcia, allegedly lit a charcoal grill inside the family’s home. 

Whittier is 24 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

AUBURN – The lights were dimmed to conserve power on a searing afternoon last week, but otherwise it was business-as-usual at the tiny Department of Motor Vehicles office here. 

In fact, many of those doing business with the state Thursday in this foothills town were unaware that California had crept 11 days into the fiscal year without a budget. Those who knew were unconcerned. 

As a budget standoff between Republican lawmakers and the Democratic governor seeking re-election heats up, California residents seemed more worried about their lights staying on during summer’s heat. 

“They always get it done in the end,” said Katy Fries, 36, a former teacher from Auburn. “I can’t get into the panic.” 

The California Assembly is scheduled to meet Monday to debate the $99.1 billion budget and $3.6 billion in tax increases needed to help balance it. The plan – crafted by Gov. Gray Davis to close a $23.6 billion budget deficit – was supposed to go into effect July 1. 

Rebecca Cryer, a 29-year old finance director who drove 40 miles to Auburn to avoid lengthy lines at the DMV in the capital, hadn’t heard the state budget was late. 

“Once it starts to affect you is usually when you start to worry,” she said, shrugging. 

Political analysts agree with Cryer: Residents likely won’t get fired up until they start to feel the pinch personally. 

“It resonates slowly with the voters. It’s 12 days and people haven’t seen any really tangible impact,” said Ted Lascher, department of public policy and administration chairman at California State University, Sacramento. 

Bill Simon, the Republican candidate who wants to unseat Davis, is counting on voters taking notice. With Davis’ approval ratings still low and summertime power alerts starting up again, political analysts say a drawn-out budget duel could help the political newcomer. 

Simon began airing a 30-second television spot last week criticizing the Davis budget plan and pledging he wouldn’t raise taxes if elected governor. 

Davis, meanwhile, has insisted that Simon has failed to offer up his own budget plan. The Davis campaign has issued press releases daily since mid-May calling for Simon to do so. 

And Simon, a multimillionaire who stayed out of the public spotlight before his gubernatorial bid, has been unable to direct focus on the budget standoff, instead deflecting mounting questions about his own business experience and, Friday, reports that he had used offshore tax shelters now under federal investigation. 

Jamie Hawes, 21, was a crisis counselor at an Auburn women’s shelter that recently laid off she and about 30 other employees because of state cutbacks. She said she doesn’t blame Davis and has been moved by Davis ads criticizing Simon’s record as a businessman. 

“I don’t think (the budget issue) will overcome the other obstacles that Bill Simon is facing,” Hawes said. 

That could change, analysts say, if the standoff drags on, which is a possibility. 

The latest a budget ever was signed was September 2, 1992, when the Gov. Pete Wilson combined tax increases and budget cuts to fill a $14 billion hole. Wilson, a Republican, was working with a Democratic Legislature. 

Davis, in contrast, is working with a Democrat-controlled Legislature. But the Assembly needs four GOP members to pass the budget by the necessary two-thirds majority. 

The state Senate approved the budget bill June 29 and then adjourned until August. But the spending plan fell five votes short of passage the following day in the Assembly, the day before the new fiscal year began July 1. Since then, Davis and Democratic leaders have been trying to negotiate for the Republican votes to approve the measure. 

Davis has said he has secured two GOP votes, but 28 of the 30 Assembly Republicans signed a letter to Davis Thursday pledging to stick together. 

Assemblymen Dick Dickerson, R-Redding, and David Kelley, R-Idyllwild, did not sign the letter and have indicated they might be willing to vote in favor of the Davis budget plan. 

Observers, however, say the final two votes might be hard to get this year. 

“You don’t want to defect from your party in an election year. It’s out there and it’s visible at a time when you both need party support for your election,” said Kim Rueben, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Parole violator wanted for kidnapping, maybe burglary and murder 

After eluding authorities for nearly a month, Kenneth Earl Watson — the San Mateo man who inspired a task force devoted solely to his felony crime spree — was caught in Berkeley Friday after an acquaintance turned him in. 

Watson, 31, is facing charges for a range of crimes throughout San Mateo County including the kidnapping of his ex-wife and is wanted for questioning in the murder of an acquaintance in Millbrae earlier this week.  

Berkeley police arrested Watson at 2:30 p.m. at the 2900 block of Sacramento Street near Ashby Avenue after being tipped off by a friend of Watson’s. 

"He contacted a citizen there in hopes of getting refuge and that person contacted the police who in turn contacted the Kenneth Watson Task Force," said San Mateo County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Bronwyn Hogan. 

Police surrounded the area and Watson was arrested without incident, Hogan said. 

Berkeley police assembled their SWAT team and hostage negotiators but neither was necessary. Three officers saw Watson walking alone and quickly subdued him. Watson was unarmed, police said. 

"He tried to run but he didn’t get too far,” said Lt. Ed McBride of the Berkeley Police Department. 

Watson made no statements but did admit his identity to arresting officers. Hogan said she could not disclose the relationship between Watson and the person who turned him in.  

Watson briefly attended UC Berkeley on a scholarship in 1989 before dropping out. 

Although Watson was arrested in Alameda County he waived his rights to appear in court there and sheriff’s deputies brought him back to San Mateo County last night. He was booked on charges of kidnapping and parole violation. 

"There are a lot of agencies that want to talk to him about a lot of different crimes," Hogan said. 

Authorities have wanted Watson since he kidnapped his ex-wife at gunpoint from an exclusive Woodside neighborhood on June 17. The victim, 30-year-old Nancy Brayer, was passed from friend to friend until one released her unharmed later that night. 

Since then, Watson has been sighted numerous times throughout the county but has continued to elude capture. On July 4 he broke into a Belmont home and robbed the residents before fleeing. 

A task force of 10 different law enforcement agencies was formed this week to find Watson after Redwood City resident Damon Anthony Whitney, 25, was shot and killed in Millbrae on Wednesday. Police believe Watson may be connected to the shooting. 

Whitney was shot in the head shortly after midnight while sitting in his truck. He died later that afternoon. Meanwhile, the Cipriani neighborhood in Belmont was cordoned off for hours by SWAT team members on a manhunt for Watson after police received a tip he was in the area. 

A tan Ford Explorer found abandoned on state Route 92 in Belmont after the shooting has now been linked to the crime by evidence found within the vehicle, according to Millbrae police. They refused to disclose specifics of the evidence or the name of the owner. 

Millbrae police also say that in interviews with Whitney’s friends, Watson’s name was mentioned although they have not said what the relationship was between the two. 

Authorities believe associates of Watson helped him avoid capture for so long, although Hogan said some were beginning to cooperate earlier this week. One even provided a recent photograph of Watson to the task force.  

Hogan said the task force was the first in recent memory to be devoted to one person rather than a crime, such as narcotics or vehicle theft. 

The U.S. Marshal’s Service issued a $1 million arrest warrant for Watson following the kidnapping. He was also wanted on a no-bail warrant stemming from his parole violation. Watson was previously convicted of battery, false imprisonment, spousal abuse and evading police. 

To the Editor: 

I read Kurtis Alexander's report on the Height Initiative with amazement. Where did he get his facts?  

The H.I. collected 3,303 valid signatures, l,259 more than the 2,044 needed to qualify for the November ballot. Please have your reporters do a fact check. 

The following is a letter that I sent to the City Council, and your reporter should have read. 

Dear Mayor and Councilmembers:  

After a two year period of research and conferencing, the Berkeley Height Initiative has been successfully circulated amongst the citizenry and has found several thousand supporters in a few short weeks. Like the Neighborhood Preservation initiative of l973 it has been supported by neighborhood people of the flatter lands with great enthusiasm. Hill people have not been left out, their grievance about over scale additions to homes on hill sites has been a growing problem. (McMansions, enlarging or replacing older homes) These communities will have the added protection of a mailed zoning notice, information on structural changes that cause increased building height, and a public hearing before the Zoning Adjustments Board.  

The Height Ordinance has been carefully presented in a format that makes it easy for staff the integrate the sections into the Zoning Ordinance. Saving much staff time and giving citizens a clear building standard for the next 10 years. 

Perhaps this would reduce the contention that has caused massive public hearings. 

You will be reading a new summary developed by Ms Albuquerque, I would like to point out a misleading statement. It is implied that the State Density Bonus of extra units are supplying housing for low-income residents, quite the contrary the extra apartments and lofts are deluxe units to boost the developers bottom line. 

The City Clerk reports that 3,303 were good signatures were collected, more than one thousand better than the 2044 needed to qualify. This should indicate to you the need to support the Ordinance as it stands and give the community  

Martha Nicoloff 

Berkeley 

Most people know that Berkeley hosts a long list of movie theaters that screen great independent and foreign films. Since October 2001, the list is one theater shorter. During the last nine months, the California Theater has been closed for renovations.  

On Thursday, July 11, the California Theater hosted a celebratory reopening for Berkeley cinephiles. The UC Berkeley band performed for a crowd that eagerly waited for the doors to open so that they could satisfy their curiosity. When the doors finally opened, smiling faces and enthusiastic banter filled the auditorium.  

In addition to new carpets, a renovated concession stand and more comfortable seating, the California will feature the largest screen in Berkeley. It is also worth noting that this theater offers ample wheelchair-friendly seating. 

The evening festivities continued with the spinning of the Deco wheel and the bestowal of prizes from various Berkeley merchants. The prizes included gift certificates for dinner, a night stay at the Shattuck Hotel, merchandise from Dark Crystal, games from Games of Berkeley, CDs from Amoeba Music, computer accessories for the Mac, a Homer Simpson Rubix cube, and of course, free tickets to the Landmark Cinemas (including the California Theater). 

After the gifting concluded, Mayor Shirley Dean spoke to the restless crowd. Mayor Dean commended the Landmark Theaters ownership for their commitment to keeping theaters like the California open in the wake of multiplexes. She referred to the decision to renovate instead of closing as "a labor of love" that will "keep the beautiful, comfortable, and safe movie theater open for years to come". Dean also declared July as California Theater month in the City of Berkeley. 

A free screening of "Lovely & Amazing" followed the Mayor's speech and ceremonious ribbon cutting. "Lovely & Amazing" shares the stories of four female relatives, each at different life stages and each struggling with different issues related to low self-esteem.  

The ensemble cast truly brings the characters to life in a way that promises to speak to audiences, especially women. Brenda Blethyn portrays the aging mother who sees how lovely and amazing each of her daughters is, but sees only physical imperfections in herself. Catherine Keener depicts the oldest and middle-aged daughter who has anger management issues with everyone she encounters, primarily because she cannot stand herself. Emily Mortimer plays the middle thirty-something daughter, whose career as an actress magnifies her self-consciousness about her body and sexual attractiveness. Raven Goodwin portrays the youngest sister, who views herself as the family outsider and, despite her age (8), she becomes the most endearing and insightful character. Goodwin steals the screen whenever she is in the scene, which is quite an accomplishment considering that she is a newcomer amidst some seasoned actors. Dermot Mulroney, Jake Gyllenhaal, and James LeGros depict the males who come in and out of their lives, raising and lowering their feelings of self-worth. (This film will open on July 12 at the Landmark's Albany). 

If you plan to go to the California this weekend, you have the option of seeing the MIB sequel. "MIB 2" definitely serves up a hearty helping of entertainment and action, but I doubt that it will blow away audiences as the first one did.  

In this episode, K (Tommy Lee Jones) and J (Will Smith) return to save the planet. This time the earthly duo fight a light-seeking alien opponent named Serleena who, when she is not disguised as a Victoria Secret model, resembles a cross between Cousin It and Medusa. Lara Flynn Boyle plays the wicked Serleena in human form.  

As one would expect, this sequel features great special effects, including a lot of CGI aliens; action, and the return of many of the funny characters that made the first film such a delight. However, "MIB 2" lacks the adventure and sustainable story of the first. We do get to see J fall in love and view the softer, civilian side of K, but the most amusing character development is that of the talking pug.  

The California will also screen the re-release of "Cinema Paradiso", the director's cut, with new footage. This modern-day Italian classic was an international hit when it originally opened in 1988. If you love movies about amore and if you are an aficionado of cinema, you will enjoy "Cinema Paradiso". 

The reopening of the California Theater was a success, and the it will be open all summer. So, what are you doing this weekend? 

The California Theater is located at 2113 Kittredge St. Call 843-3456 for information. 

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 

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 

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 

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 

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 

First and third Tuesdays,  

7:30 to 9 p.m. 

World Ground Cafe,  

3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., Oakland 

Open mic and featured readers 

Boas Writing Group 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Stefani Barber, Jean Lieske  

and many more 

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 

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. 

For information: 527-4140 

Free 

Family Health Day 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Fourth Street and University Avenue 

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 

Until 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 

Free 

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 information: 527-4140 

Introduction to Accessible  

Software and Hardware  

3 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 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 slideshw 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, intrduces their latest design. 

For information: 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, nonmembers $5  

Sunday, July 28

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m. to noon 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

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

For information: 527-4140 

Free 

Wednesday, July 31

Mountain Adventure Seminars:  

Introduction to Rock Climbing 

7 to 9 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

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

For information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

Saturday, August 3

Mountain Adventure Seminars:  

Introduction to Rock Climbing 

8 a.m. to 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 

Sunday, August 11

Hands-on Bicycle Repair 

11 a.m. to noon 

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 

West Berkeley Arts Festival 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Fourth Street and University Avenue 

Explore the many resident artists located in Berkeley 

Free.

Big eight-run fifth gives Lions a 12-2
slaughter rule win over Alameda;
state opener against Rangers today 

Friday’s game against Alameda was a must-win for the Berkeley/Albany Lions. Boy, did they win. 

The Lions (formerly referred to as the Barons in this space) exploded for eight runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to win by the “slaughter rule.” The 12-2 victory qualified the team for the Babe Ruth Under-19 State Tournament, the third year in a row the Lions have made it to the state level. 

“This game was much more indicative of the way we’ve been playing all summer,” Berkeley/Albany manager Joe Pinguelo said. “We’ve been hitting well most of the season, but some kids went on vacation and threw a wrench into things.” 

Friday’s game was the final round of the Babe Ruth district tournament, with the winning team claiming a bid to the state tournament. Pinguelo had been under the impression that his team would automatically qualify after compiling the best record this season, but found out Wednesday night that his team would have to play again. 

Pinguelo planned to have Randy Renn throw the opener of the state tournament, but was forced to move him up a day. Renn responded with a solid outing, pitching out of trouble in the first three innings and stranding seven runners in his five frames of work. 

The Merchants scored both of their runs in the third inning, as David Bellerini and Nick Thomson walked to start the rally. Rafael Mendoza flew out to centerfield, but Mark Wellman came through with an RBI single and Chris Sheddle followed with a sacrifice fly to right. 

The Lions hitters, on the other hand, had difficulty figuring out Alameda starter Juan Mendoza, squeaking across single unearned runs in the second and third innings to keep the game tied at 2-2.  

Berkeley/Albany cleanup hitter Chase Moore showed why the Pittsburgh Pirates thought he’d make a worthwhile draft pick, almost taking off Mendoza’s head with line drive to start the second inning, then stealing second despite being picked off. Moore then scored on Jason Moore’s single to center. 

The Lions caused more havoc on the basepaths in the third, with Ricky Arias scoring after Lee Franklin managed to draw five throws in a rundown between first and second. 

But Benny Goldenberg knocked a two-run single to left in the fourth inning to put Berkeley/Albany ahead 4-2, then the Lions sent 10 men to the plate in the fifth to put the game away. Goldenberg hit another two-run single, then Chris Morocco followed with a three-run blast to right-center to chase Mendoza from the game. The home run was Morocco’s third of the summer. 

Alameda reliever Chris Sheddle came in to put out the fire, but was met by singles from Joe Storno and Ricky Arias. After a wild pitch, Franklin ended the game with a shot to the gap in right-center that scored both runners.. 

Goldenberg has been moved around in the Lions’ lineup all summer, and hasn’t had many runners on base ahead of him. But his four RBI out of the six-hole on Friday helped put the game away. Goldenberg also made a diving catch in right field to help kill an Alameda threat in the third inning. 

“I don’t usually get that many RBI opportunities,” he said. “But when they’re there, I know I have to take advantage.” 

The Lions open the state tournament today against the San Leandro Rangers, the defending state champions. The game will start at 7 p.m. at San Leandro Ballpark.

Lake Temescal overflowed with smiles and laughter on Friday as nearly 700 local kids from the Berkeley-Albany YMCA participated in the third annual Carnival Day.  

Merging a number of the YMCA’s summer camp programs, the day-long event included relay races, face painting, tug-of-war, safety tips from the Oakland Police Department and even a presentation by a group of Japanese drummers. 

Organizers of the carnival stressed the importance of bringing kids from throughout the community together for a day of learning, excitement and fun.  

“We want to show these kids that they are a part of something larger,” said Tom Ratcliff, a board member with the Berkeley-Albany YMCA. “We think that with a day like this kids are stretched. They have an opportunity to meet new friends, to learn about themselves and to explore.”  

Among the YMCA programs participating in the carnival were the south Berkeley YMCA’s Learning Academy, a program that provides hands-on science education, and the local Head Start programs for kids five and younger.  

At the day’s face painting booth, a popular spot, Elvin Torrian and Duchess Howlett of the south Berkeley Head Start decided on two very patriotic designs. Inspired by the summer’s blockbuster movie, Torrian went with a Spiderman design while Howlett chose a red, white and blue butterfly. 

Though the carnival’s events focused on the kids, counselors from the different programs enjoyed the day in the sun as well.  

“It’s been a lot of fun so far,” said Brian Hickman, a counselor with the Explorers, a group of fourth- and fifth-grade campers at the Albany YMCA. “You get the opportunity to do a lot of things you wouldn’t normally do during the summer. I’ve enjoyed it,”  

As a part of the day’s education theme, Officer Herman Waller of the Oakland Police Department provided campers with safety tips for crossing the street and even allowed kids to take a tour of his patrol car.  

“This is the only time I want to see you guys in the back of a cop car,” Waller commented.  

According to Waller, the safety presentations, organized by the department’s community services division, allow kids to get to know police officers and help eliminate the fear many associate with the force.  

The candy-necklace station, another hot spot at the carnival, provided kids with a creative task.  

“I’ve made them before but this is something hard,” said six-year-old Noah Blankenship of the Albany YMCA’s kinder-cub division.  

“This is way different than being in the classroom and I like my counselor,” declared Naomi Jacobsen, also of the kinder-cub division. Jacobsen added that receiving stickers provided by the boat race station and knocking down the juices were among her favorite activities. 

Though many of the YMCA’s activities have an educational or creative focus, organizers hope that the summer campers simply have fun. 

Ebonee Harden, a counselor with the Learning Academy, says the educational programs at the south Berkeley YMCA allow campers to enjoy learning. She stressed that instructors use a hands-on approach. “We encourage an active participation and provide them with arts and crafts activities, language programs, mathematics. Things that will help them during the school year,” Harden said. 

Along with creating a fun learning environment, directors at the Berkeley-Albany YMCA stress the importance of providing financial assistance to local families. According to Vicki Bozzone, communications director with the Berkeley-Albany office, the YMCA offers a Y Scholars Program for deserving children. In addition, Head Start, a federally funded program, offers educational support to children five and younger from needy families. 

According to Bozzone, the YMCA also partners with UC Berkeley, Berkeley High School and the Rotary Club among others to bring additional educational services to the community. 

To the Editor: 

The Berkeley Daily Planet has written up the Crucible party incident as an isolated event in Berkeley. This is incorrect.  

Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theater (BRG) on Adeline rented their facility out to Eugene Cockerman twice, in July of 1998 and October of 1998. At both times, events got out of control.  

During the second incident, there were over 400 people in the building with a legal capacity of 250 when a fire alarm was pulled for fun. There were another 400 people outside still trying to get in. During the evacuation, someone inside yelled: 

“He's got a gun,” which caused panic inside.  

Cockerman rented the Francis Albrier Park Recreation Center in January of 1999. The doorman was pistol whipped which resulted in a 2’’ laceration. There were subsequently three different volleys of gunfire.  

Subsequently, Cockerman rented the Thousands Oaks Masonic Temple. One gunfire death occurred at that event.  

All these events were presented to the renting facility as medium sized semi-private party.  

In fact, local high schools are plastered with notices of the event. Cockerman jams as many people in as he can get away with for the cover charge (typically $15 to $20 a head). He then pleads ignorance when a thousand people show up and leaves others to deal with the consequences. 

All of the cited events have required extensive police intervention with many backup officers from adjacent jurisdictions. Other police departments may bill Berkeley for these services, hardly desirable in time of budget cuts. But worse, areas from Lake Meritt to Richmond are without police protection for the several hours of the incidents. 

In May of 1999, the Berkeley Police Department was preparing a letter to send out to all facilities warning them to not rent their facility out to Cockerman . I don't know if this was ever done.  

Approximately two years ago, the City of Berkeley attempted to prevent such future out-of-control events with an ordinance written by the City Attorney's office, and processed through the Recreation Commission, and the Planning Commission. Other cities that I checked with several years ago claimed to have much stricter requirements for special events and do not have events which get out of control.  

Osman Vincent 

Berkeley

NEW YORK — The South African version of “Sesame Street” is introducing a character with a problem far more serious than scraped knees or missing cookies. She’s HIV positive. 

The Muppet character will join the cast of the children’s show in September to help educate children about AIDS at the urging of the South African government. 

Some 4.7 million South Africans — one in nine — are HIV positive, more people than in any other country in the world. 

There are no plans to incorporate an HIV-positive Muppet in the American or other versions of the show, said representatives of Sesame Workshop, its New York-based production company. 

Plans for the South African version were announced this week at the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain. 

“Takalani Sesame” in South Africa is one of several locally produced versions of the children’s program. Egypt, Russia, Germany, Mexico and Spain, among other countries, all have shows modeled after the American “Sesame Street” that premiered in 1969. 

The South African show uses Muppets similar to the American characters of Big Bird, Elmo and the Cookie Monster. The South African Cookie Monster, for example, is called Zikwe. 

Sesame Workshop hasn’t revealed the new, HIV-positive character’s name, but it will be a girl Muppet who is an orphan, said Robert Knezevic, head of the company’s international division. 

In one script being developed, the character is sad because she misses her mother, he said. In another, the character is shunned by children who don’t want to play with her because she is HIV-positive, but the other Muppets rally around her. 

Children won’t be told how the character became HIV positive. Nor will the common ways that the virus is transmitted — through sexual contact or drug abuse — be discussed, he said. 

“We don’t think those are appropriate issues to deal with on the air through a television program that targets children,” he said. 

Educational materials distributed to parents who request them will suggest ways of broaching the more delicate subjects with their children, he said. The government hopes the show will be a springboard for family discussions. 

“One of the things about the Muppets is they are so non-threatening to children that we can communicate what may seem to be controversial messages and start a dialogue,” Knezevic said. 

The American version of “Sesame Street,” for example, gingerly introduced the issue of the terrorist attacks by having Elmo be scared about a fire in the general store. The Egyptian version of the show frequently stresses the need for girls to get an education, at the government’s behest. 

In South Africa, despite the large population infected with AIDS, there is a crushing stigma surrounding it. The government has been criticized for its often lackluster approach to fighting the disease, but recently expanded its budget as the Cabinet announced a strong effort to fight AIDS. 

“We want to build hope and address the issues of stereotypes against HIV,” said Yvonne Kgame of the South African Broadcasting Corp., which airs the program. 

“The reality is that children as young as they are affected very closely by HIV/AIDS. They experience death and dying of people very close to them.” 

Cal 2002-03 men’s basketball
schedule announced 

Featuring non–conference games against Kansas, Georgia, New Mexico and Providence, the Cal men’s basketball squad faces one of its most difficult schedules in many seasons.  

The Bears start 2002–03 at New Mexico in The Pit on Saturday, Nov. 23, then hold their home opener on Tuesday, Nov. 26 vs. Providence of the Big East Conference.  

Other home games on tap before the New Year are against Howard Dec. 3, UC Santa Barbara Dec. 10 and the Golden Bear Classic Dec. 20–21. Detroit–Mercy and Louisiana–Lafayette – both NIT participants a year ago – are in the field, with one opponent still to be announced.  

Unlike last season when Cal played nine of its 10 non–league games at home, this year’ s slate features four games outside of Haas Pavilion. In addition to the New Mexico contest, Cal visits Cleveland State Nov. 30, meets Georgia in the Wooden Classic in Anaheim Dec. 7 and faces Kansas in the Pete Newell Challenge at the Oakland Coliseum Dec. 28. Both Georgia and Kansas are expected to be ranked in the preseason Top 10.  

Pac–10 action opens and closes with Stanford – the Cardinal travels to Berkeley Jan. 4, with the Bears making the return trip down the peninsula March 8. This year’ s Pac–10 Tournament at the Staples Center in Los Angeles is March 13–15.  

Edwards to host Mexican soccer  

Two Mexican Premier Division soccer teams will face each other Sunday, July 21, at 4 p.m. at Cal’ s Edwards Stadium. The match features the Monarchs Morelia against Atlas of Guadalajara.  

Morelia’ s top players include Jose Francisco Almiron, Flavia Davino, Dario Franco and Hernan Bujan, while Atlas is led by Daniel Osorno and Sigifrido Mercado, who played on Mexico’ s 2002 World Cup team.  

Tickets are $25 for general admission and can be purchased in advance by calling the Cal Ticket Office at 1–800–GO–BEARS or through several area stores. Locations include: Discolandia in San Francisco, 2964 24th Street, 415–826–9446; La Tapatia Market in Vallejo, 601 Broadway Street, 707–881–4890; Ciudad de Mexico in Oakland, 3812 International Boulevard, 510–532–7010. 

Yokers selected to U-21 national
team for Nordic Cup  

Cal junior midfielder Kim Yokers was one of 18 players chosen to represent the United States at the 2002 Women's Under-21 Nordic Cup Championships, being contested in Finland from July 22-28. Without a sanctioned FIFA championship for U-21 women, the Nordic Cup serves as the top competition in the world for this age group.  

Yokers, a second team All-Pac-10 and third team all-region selection in 2001, emerged last season as one of the best central midfielders in the country. She finished third on the team with 12 points (3 goals, 6 assists) after posting eight points as a freshman. The Seattle native was second on the Bears in assists and tied for fifth in the Pac-10.

For David Freeman, a 29 year-old Berkeley resident with muscular dystrophy, a power outage is more than an inconvenience. 

“For me, it’s a matter of life and death,” he said. 

Freeman relies on a ventilator to breath.  

When the electricity goes out, he taps a 12-hour battery attached to his power wheelchair, then a 45-minute battery in the ventilator itself. 

“After that, I’m a fish out of water,” he said. 

Last year, when a severe storm hit, the power outage outlasted Freeman’s battery supply. Fortunately, he owned a back-up generator and was able to make it through the storm.  

Freeman, who is considering a run for City Councilmember Dona Spring’s seat, spoke during a Friday event convened by the Berkeley Center for Independent Living and Pacific Gas & Electric focused on “personal emergency preparedness plans” for the disabled. 

“When the power goes out, we’re bummed out that we can’t watch our ‘Friends’ reruns,” said PG&E spokesman Jason Alderman. “For Mr. Freeman, it’s more serious.” 

PG&E recommends, among other things, that the disabled purchase a generator, maintain a backup telephone that does not rely on electricity, keep blankets handy in case the heat goes out and make sure the local utility company is aware of any special electric-powered life support or medical devices. 

Freeman said friends and family pooled their resources to buy him a generator, which cost over $700, during the Y2K scare. 

“But most people in my condition can’t afford it,” he said. 

Jan Garrett, executive director of the Center for Independent Living, said there is no public funding currently available to pay for generators and other emergency preparedness equipment for the disabled. 

But the disabled rely on a wide range of electrically-powered equipment to survive, Garrett said. Ventilators, power wheelchairs, telephones and elevators could all prove critical in an emergency, she said. 

The center has benefited from limited funding for energy-related education and outreach efforts. A $5,000 grant from PG&E to the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers in Sacramento paid for a brochure on emergency preparedness that will be distributed to the Berkeley Independent Living Center and the 30 other independent living centers around the state in the coming weeks. 

The brochure will also be available on the center’s web site, www.cilberkeley.org and the PG&E site, www.pge.com. 

A $40,000 grant from the Public Utilities Commission paid for Loreeta Earl to work as the Berkeley center’s energy coordinator and trainer this year, teaching seniors and the disabled in the area how to conserve energy and tap state programs to reduce their energy bills. 

“These are hard to reach populations,” said Earl, lamenting the end of the grant in August. 

Alderman said PG&E might consider chipping in to keep Earl’s position in place. 

To the Editor: 

The addition to the Oath of Allegiance introduced by McCarthyites in 1954 is entirely correct: One nation, indivisible - but only under God and not in reality. 

Seeing those Senators rushing out on the lawn like lemmings to mouth a redundant oath on an oath was high camp. It goes to show that every one of them is a hypocrite, motivated only by political considerations. It opened the door to a critic of “liberal judges,” when the one judge responsible for the High Court decision was appointed by an anti-Semitic foul mouth like Nixon! 

Alfred March 

Kensington

NEW YORK — CNN is entering the comedy business, although you’ll have to travel overseas and stay up very late to notice. 

The news company has signed Jon Stewart of Comedy Central to make a weekly version of his satirical news program, “The Daily Show,” to air late at night on its international network. 

There are no plans to air it domestically, and the program will be stripped out of the CNN International feed that reaches a select few American homes. 

Yet despite obstacles, it’s not hard to imagine something like Stewart’s show appearing on CNN’s flagship domestic network — certainly a lot easier than it would have been five or 10 years ago. 

In an era in which many Americans find out about current events through Jay Leno or David Letterman, the idea of comedy on CNN isn’t shocking, said Charles Bierbauer, former CNN correspondent and dean of the University of South Carolina’s communications school. Larry King frequently sprinkles entertainers among newsmakers on his show. 

Indeed, “The Daily Show” would seem in line with Turner chief Jamie Kellner’s drive to bring more glitz and glamour to the formerly staid, now often slick, CNN. 

“Jon is smart, he’s witty, he’s relevant,” said Rena Golden, general manager of CNN International. “We think our audience is just going to eat this up. He’s got a wry sense of humor that I think will really translate abroad.” 

Stewart will tape a CNN version of his “headlines” segment for the international audience, but the rest of the half hour will have highlights of his Comedy Central program. It will air post-midnight on the weekends. 

“I always knew how much it would help our show to be seen in sub-Saharan Africa,” Stewart cracked. 

Comedy Central is using the deal to raise its international profile, spokesman Tony Fox said. The network, owned in part by CNN parent AOL Time Warner, licenses “South Park” for use in many countries, but that’s about it. 

The arrangement also brings in cash, of course. Comedy Central will get a portion of CNN’s advertising revenue for the show. 

CNN executives say privately there’s been no talk of airing Stewart’s show domestically. The comedian is signed at Comedy Central through the 2004 presidential election, and the comedy network — used to having talent poached by bigger companies — is fanatical about enforcing its contracts. Even if Stewart were to leave, Comedy Central owns the rights to his show’s format. 

If Stewart were to become available, people at CNN doubt they would be able to afford him, anyway. 

On CNN International, Stewart’s show won’t seem as jarring as if it were slotted in the United States between, say, “Moneyline” and “Crossfire.” 

Particularly on weekends, the international network often mixes entertainment programming with news, Golden said. It has a music show and fashion programming. The CNN International audience is generally much younger than the domestic one, she said. 

“If this can work internationally, it would be much easier to work domestically,” said Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington. “It would be almost impossible to resist bringing a success abroad back home.” 

News is still king at CNN, but the hiring and promotion of Connie Chung, Paula Zahn and Aaron Brown reflect a belief that viewers are drawn to personalities as much as a desire to find out what’s going on. 

Stewart and CNN have flirted before, if awkwardly. 

The comedian appeared on the premiere of Chung’s new prime-time show last month, although its host didn’t seem to know what to do with him. And CNN White House correspondent John King appeared on “The Daily Show” last week, with clips later shown on CNN. 

Stewart says his show “supposedly exists as a counterpunch” to CNN’s serious news programming, which he thinks has “slightly more bombast” than before. He has a hard time seeing himself on CNN domestic, however, joining forces with the people he makes fun of. 

On the other hand, “It’s probably just a ridiculous philosophical argument that in the thousand-channel universe we live in probably wouldn’t raise any eyebrows,” he said. 

Stewart’s got more practical immediate concerns, like how his jokes are going to span the globe. 

“It’s strange enough to think we’re going to be on in Bahrain,” he said, “let alone what network we’re going to be on.” 

BALTIMORE — Tim Hudson made the right pitches when he had to, and when he didn’t, his infield made sure it didn’t matter. 

Hudson outpitched Jason Johnson, and Miguel Tejada drove in the game’s lone run in the first inning as the Oakland Athletics beat the Baltimore Orioles 1-0 Friday night. 

Mark Ellis had two hits, scored a run and made two clutch plays at second base to help the A’s to their sixth win in eight games. 

Tejada contributed with a fielding gem of his own as Oakland frustrated the Orioles, who went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position — including 0-for-5 with a runner on third base. 

“Sometimes you’ve got to tip your hat to the pitcher,” Orioles shortstop Mike Bordick said. “He gave us a few opportunities, but he got out of it. He made big pitches when he had to; anytime he wanted a ground ball, he got it.” 

Hudson (7-7) gave up eight hits, struck out two and walked one in seven-plus innings. The right-hander is 6-0 with a 2.06 ERA in six career starts against the Orioles, including 3-0 with an 0.44 ERA at Camden Yards. 

“It seems that everytime I pitch, they battle really hard,” Hudson said. “We’ve just managed to play some pretty good baseball.” 

Such was the case this time, as the A’s scored the only run they needed early and Hudson managed to make it stand up. 

“It’s kind of how it’s been for the whole year for me. It really hasn’t been easy,” he said. 

Chadwick Bradford worked out of an eighth-inning jam, and Billy Koch got three outs for his 22nd save, the second in two nights. 

Johnson (3-6) allowed one run, six hits and a season-high four walks over seven innings. He struck out six. 

Johnson has a 1.93 ERA over his last four starts, but is 2-1 in that span. He’s 0-3 with two no-decisions in games decided by one run. 

“It’s a funny game, huh? I’ll take the good with the bad,” he said. “Tough loss tonight, but that’s the way it goes.” 

Jay Gibbons had two hits for the Orioles, who went 1-for-15 with runners on base. Baltimore scored only one run in the first two games of the series. 

“We’ve had two nights of not scoring runs. That’s not been typical of this team this season,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “We have good hitters in the lineup. We will hit again.” 

Oakland scored in the first when Ellis hit a leadoff double and came home on a single by Tejada. But the A’s stranded runners at the corners, and did so again in the second inning. 

Hudson was aided by two fine fielding plays in the third. After Geronimo Gil hit a leadoff single and Jerry Hairston followed with a double, Melvin Mora hit a bloop that a diving Ellis caught in short right field. 

“If he doesn’t make that play they score one, maybe two. That turned that inning around,” Hudson said. “I was able to make some pretty good pitches after that.” 

While Hudson is usually calm in such situations, Oakland manager Art Howe is not. 

“He hitches up his belt when he’s in tough spots,” Howe said. “My heart rate goes up. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all.” 

After Ellis disposed of Mora, Chris Singleton hit a soft liner to short. A walk loaded the bases before Tejada made a diving stop of Tony Batista’s bouncer up the middle and threw to Ellis for a force at second. 

“Our guys were playing some great defense behind me. They really picked me up,” Hudson said. 

Mora saved a run in the Oakland fifth, leaping at the wall in left to rob Tejada of a homer. 

The A’s used another nice play by Ellis in the seventh to maintain the lead. Bordick reached second on a throwing error by Tejada and took third on a grounder by Gil. With the infield in, Ellis deftly grabbed a bouncer by Hairston and threw out Bordick at the plate. 

Hairston then stole second and took third on an errant throw by catcher Ramon Hernandez, but Mora ended the threat with a fly to left. 

Notes: It was the eighth one-run game in the last nine for Oakland. ... Baltimore sent 2B Brian Roberts to Triple-A Rochester and purchased the contract of INF Luis Lopez from the same team. ... Gil’s streak of throwing out five straight would-be basestealers ended when Terrence Long stole second in the fourth inning. ... Ellis is 9-for-24 (.375) with 9 runs scored leading off games. 

Calling for a return to the massive, social protests of the ’60s, hundreds of residents from Berkeley and across the Bay Area gathered Thursday night to decry the loss of civil liberties in the United States since Sept 11.  

Speakers at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley said that federal policy makers used the terrorist attacks as an excuse to execute racist and restrictive laws. 

“Many people in America were afraid of terrorism after 9-11,” said Barbara Lubin, director of Friends of Free Speech Radio and co-host of the forum. “I’m not afraid of a bomb. I’m afraid of John Ashcroft. I’m afraid of what’s happening today in America. It’s clear what’s happening and it’s horrifying and frightening,”  

Many at Thursday’s meeting titled, “The Coming of a Police State in the US,” came to support embattled New York attorney Lynne Stewart, who faces 40 years in prison for allegedly aiding a terrorist organization. Receiving several standing ovations and loud cheers from the crowd and mixing humor with stern warnings, Stewart, an attorney for Saudi Sheik Omar Abel Rahman, said that she has done nothing wrong. 

Stewart was charged with helping Rahman, convicted in 1995 of plotting terrorist attacks, by releasing a press statement from the Sheik. However, Stewart claims that she is the victim of government wiretapping and that officials violated her attorney-client privileges.  

“This isn’t about lawyers. It’s about clients,” Stewart said. “If the government is permitted to listen in on communication between lawyers and clients then the entire system, as perverted as it is, is at stake.” 

Stewart is out of jail after raising $500,000 bail. 

Several prominent civil rights and immigration law attorneys also spoke on Thursday. Bob Bloom, a longtime civil rights lawyer who recently helped two Earth First! environmental activists win $4.4 million in their case against the FBI, urged attendees to scrutinize mainstream media reports. 

“I am sick of the incredibly inept national news stories cheerleading for genocide, racial profiling and the American form of terrorism,” Bloom said. 

While each speaker criticized current policies, there was a combined call to unite against alleged government injustices. 

“It is time to pick ourselves up individually and collectively despite these pressures,” Boom said. 

“These circumstances are not unlike those of Germany in the 1930s. We have to be very conscious. We really have a job to do. The worse it gets, the more important is our work.”  

Bloom noted that he was inspired by Earth First! trial jurors who found members of the FBI and Oakland Police Department responsible for violations against First and Fourth Amendment rights. He says the case is important because it represents a victory by the people over the government’s attempts to neutralize dissent. 

“I’m a cynical person but even I found myself inspired by what these people were able to do,” Bloom said. 

Much of the attack on government Thursday was aimed at tightening immigration policies. Critics, including Marc Van Der Hout, an immigration law specialist, say that basic constitutional rights were violated during the patriotic surge of the last year.  

“Even though the American public is willing to accept some curbs, we are not willing to accept a fundamental change,” Van Der Hout said. “We don’t know what’s going on with the military tribunals. We only know the tip of the iceberg.”  

Some at the meeting said they were there because they believe fundamental changes are taking place in the United States. 

“I’m very concerned about what’s happening to the country today,” said Burlingame resident Bill Wolfe. “It’s obvious to me that members of the government are using 9-11 to promote their own agenda.”  

Another policy they criticized was the U.S. Patriot Act, passed by Congress after Sept. 11. The act allows government officials an unprecedented and unwarranted level of power, proponents of the Act said.  

While many individuals often feel powerless to challenge government policy, Stewart says that now is the time for change.  

“The question here is what can we do?” Stewart said. “The toughest question for the left is, “What can we do?’ My answer: organize, organize, organize. I’m here to organize.” 

Citing the success of the social and political protests of the ’60s and ’70s, Stewart said, “We could have another opportunity here. This may be it.” 

The fight followed a play in which a player was elbowed  

during a battle for a rebound 

NEW YORK — Latasha Byears and Michelle Marciniak were suspended Friday by the WNBA for their part in a fight the previous night. 

Byears, of the champion Los Angeles Sparks, was suspended for two games and fined $1,000. 

Marciniak, of the Seattle Storm, got a one-game suspension and a $500 fine. 

“It’s just what the league saw,” Sparks coach Michael Cooper said Friday. “(WNBA president) Val Ackerman has done a great job so far, and the governing body of that, that’s what they decided. Whenever there’s punches thrown, that player is going to get the more severe penalty.” 

Storm coach Lin Dunn said the team would appeal any suspension handed to Marciniak. 

Byears was dribbling on a fast break when Marciniak fouled her. Byears tossed the ball from close range off Marciniak’s face. Marciniak came at Byears with her hands up before Byears shoved her to the ground. 

Cooper, who already had a technical foul for arguing about the game’s physical play, charged onto the court. Both players were ejected with 9:51 left in the Storm’s 79-60 victory. 

The fight followed a play in which Sparks star Lisa Leslie and the Storm’s Lauren Jackson battled for a rebound and Leslie elbowed Jackson in the chest. No foul was called. 

“It’s part of the game of basketball. It was a very physical game last night,” Cooper said. “The officials called the game the way they saw it. That’s one of the things, one of those unfortunate incidents that happens in basketball. It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last time.” 

Byears’s suspension covers Friday night’s game at Portland and a July 17 game at Indiana. Marciniak’s suspension was for Friday night’s game against Cleveland.

A Berkeley police officer and three vacationers were injured Thursday night when a Buick collided with a cruiser at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Oregon Street, police said. 

Lenard and Michelle Hawes and Robert Adams of Salt Lake City and Lynn Chronister of Whittier were in the vehicle, said California Highway Patrol Sgt L.D. White.  

Police did not say which of the four in the Buick were injured. Officer Charles Davis was treated for scrapes and back pain. All were released the same night from Alta Bates and Highland hospitals, said Berkeley Police Lt Ed McBride. 

At 9:15 p.m. Davis was traveling southbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Way when his patrol car collided with a four-door Buick sedan traveling westbound on Oregon Street. 

It is still unclear whether the civilian driver and his three passengers failed to stop at the intersection of the two streets, or if the driver did stop briefly and then continue through the intersection without noticing the oncoming police vehicle, police said. 

The officer was driving about 25 mph down the major thoroughfare, which has right-of-way over motorists entering the road from Oregon Street. 

Police said that the officer was unable to stop his car in time to avoid the four-door Buick sedan. The front of his Crown Victoria Interceptor hit the side of the Buick. 

Police units responding to the scene helped the officer out of the cruiser because the its steering wheel had bent and pinned Davis against the door. The airbag of the police cruiser was deployed, police said. 

Police said they do not suspect that alcohol was a factor in the accident. 

The California Highway Patrol is still investigating the cause of the accident, White said. 

Today’s Highlight in History: 

On July 12, 100 B.C., Roman dictator Julius Caesar was born. 

On this date: 

In 1543, England’s King Henry VIII married his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr. 

In 1817, naturalist-author Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Mass. 

In 1972, George McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Miami Beach. 

In 1977, President Carter defended Supreme Court decisions limiting government payments for poor women’s abortions, saying, “There are many things in life that are not fair.” 

In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale announced he’d chosen U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running mate; Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket. 

In 1993, 196 people were killed when an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 7.8 struck northern Japan.  

Ten years ago: In an emotional farewell speech, Benjamin Hooks, outgoing executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, urged the group’s convention in Nashville, Tenn., to show the world that it remained vital. 

Five years ago: In Copenhagen, the last stop of an eight-day European tour, President Clinton said political divisions in Europe were closing. In Spain, kidnapped Basque politician Miguel Angel Blanco was found mortally wounded shortly after a deadline set by his militant Basque captors. 

One year ago: Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York City police station, agreed to an $8.7 million settlement.  

Today’s Birthdays: Rock guitarist Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum) is 40. Rock singer Robin Wilson is 37. Actress Lisa Nicole Carson is 33. Olympic gold medal figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi is 31. Country singer Shannon Lawson is 29. Rapper Magoo is 29. Singer Tracie Spencer is 26. Actor Topher Grace is 24. Actor Erik Per Sullivan is 11. 

Thought for Today: “The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again.” — Alan Paton, South African author (1903-1988).  

Arson investigators in Oakland are looking into a suspicious two-alarm fire that damaged a two-story apartment in the 2000 block of 38th Avenue shortly after midnight. 

Battalion Chief James Williams said there were no injuries reported and no one was inside the house at the time of the fire. 

Williams said police have a suspect in custody in connection with the blaze, but police were not available to confirm the information. 

The fire was reported at 12:40 a.m. and fire crews arrived within three minutes.  

The fire was on the first floor, and had spread to the attic upstairs. 

The fire was brought under control in 30 minutes using five fire engines and two trucks. 

The damage is estimated at $50,000. Williams said the second alarm was called as a precautionary measure because firefighters were concerned that flying embers would spark another fire. 

The California Nurses Association announced today that it has reached a tentative contract agreement with St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco, averting a potential strike that had caused the hospital to stop admitting new patients. 

Nurses' union spokesman Charles Idelson said the deal, hammered out late Thursday night, would increase nurses' wages by 21 percent over three years, increase pension benefits, award health coverage to retirees and require binding arbitration for staffing disputes. A joint nurse-administration committee would also provide oversight on the implementation of new state-mandated nurse staffing ratios. 

The 250 registered nurses at St. Luke's will meet to vote on the contract on Tuesday. 

The CNA has withdrawn its strike notice for St. Luke's, but says a July 17 one-day strike is still scheduled for four other Bay Area Sutter Health affiliates, including Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center's Berkeley and Oakland facilities, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley and Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo. 

Nurses at Mills-Peninsula Hospital facilities in Burlingame and San Mateo are voting today on an agreement reached last Saturday, and talks are scheduled to resume today at Alta Bates and Sutter Solano. Eden Medical Center talks broke late Thursday without an agreement. 

In response to the 10-day strike notice it received Sunday, St. Luke's immediately shut down its emergency room and initiated layoffs of some hospital staff. State health officials intervened, ordering the emergency room to reopen by Tuesday morning, but the hospital continued to refuse to admit new patients in other departments.

Man pleads innocent in
granddaughter’s death 

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO — A man charged with leaving his infant granddaughter in a hot vehicle pleaded innocent Friday to charges related to her death. 

Lonnie Sopko, 60, of South San Francisco is charged with involuntary manslaughter and felony child endangerment after allegedly forgetting his 5-month-old granddaughter, Kiana Sopko, in his SUV on June 5. The child was in the vehicle for several hours as temperatures climbed into the 80s. 

Prosecutors say there may be an opportunity for a plea bargain. 

“It all depends at what point the defense and I can reach a meeting of the minds,” said Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaff. “I won’t use the word accident, but I don’t think there was any intentional effort to harm the child.” 

Sopko was released on his own recognizance. He is scheduled to return to court Aug. 29. 

Big rig overturns on Bay Bridge 

SAN FRANCISCO — A big rig overturned Friday on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge, leaking diesel fuel onto both levels. 

The accident occurred at 9:39 p.m. west of Treasure Island, said California Highway Patrol Officer Timothy Willock. 

Westbound lanes four and five were closed on the upper deck, while eastbound lanes one and two were shut down on the lower deck until the fuel could be mopped up. 

Traffic began backing up soon after the crash. It was not immediately clear how many vehicles were involved or if anyone was injured. 

The City Clerk also announced that arguments in favor of November ballot measures, 300 words or fewer, are due noon Aug. 2. Rebuttals, 250 words or fewer, must be submitted by noon Aug. 9.

SAN DIEGO — Air Force officials have grounded a San Diego-designed spy plane pending an investigation into this week’s crash of one such unmanned aircraft in Pakistan. 

The Global Hawk, manufactured by Northrop Grumman, will undergo no further operations testing at Edwards Air Force Base until more can be learned about what caused Wednesday’s crash, according to an Air Force statement issued Friday to the defense contractor. 

Pentagon officials have attributed the crash to engine failure. The U.S. Central Command confirmed that the craft was not brought down by hostile fire. 

The Pentagon decided to rush the Global Hawk into use following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks even though normal developmental tests had not been completed. Only about a half-dozen of the aircraft were made available. Wednesday’s crash was the second loss of a Global Hawk: The first occurred in late December near Afghanistan. 

The 44-foot-long aircraft, with a wingspan of 116 feet, is expected to replace the Air Force’s U-2 spy plane, which has been in use for 50 years.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Duke Energy said Friday that it had received subpoenas from federal authorities and was responding to the requests for information about energy trading practices in California and other states. 

Word of the subpoenas pushed down Duke’s stock more than 11 percent, with shares closing Friday on the New York Stock Exchange at $24.75, down $3.20 from a day earlier. 

The subpoenas from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Houston office of the U.S. attorney request documents and information about Duke’s trading activities, including so-called round-trip trading. 

Duke Energy said it is fully cooperating with the investigations, as it has with other government organizations inquiring into the same issues. 

Federal regulators are investigating energy companies for the round-trip trades, in which electricity is bought and sold at the same quantity and price to inflate revenue and trading volume. Last month, a federal securities regulator asked Duke to voluntarily turn over information on what are also called wash trades. The company said it would comply. 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made an informal request for more details on the trades, Duke said. The company has said that such trades represented about $1.1 billion, or about 1 percent of its trading volume during the period of interest to the SEC. 

Because the sale and buyback is at the same price, wash transactions do not typically affect profits. But the transactions can make market demand appear greater, which can drive up prices. By inflating revenues or other financial results, the trades could also mislead investors, a violation of securities laws. 

Duke spokesman Terry Francisco said the alleged wash trades were done throughout the United States from 1999 to the present. 

Duke told federal regulators its check of natural gas and electricity trades in Western states during 2000 and 2001 found only a few round-trip trades under investigation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 

“We’ve found a minute amount of trades were done and the ones that were done were either for valid business purposes or natural gas done at the request of the counterparty, and we don’t know what the motivation of the counterparty was,” Francisco said. 

In a sworn affidavit filed with the FERC, Duke said none of the three round-trip trades uncovered after its review of more than 30,000 natural gas trades boosted revenues, volumes or prices. 

Company is collecting fees for sending bets through its e-mail service 

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Online payment provider PayPal Inc. said the New York state attorney general’s office has issued a subpoena seeking information about the company’s involvement in Internet gambling. 

Mountain View-based PayPal received the subpoena earlier this week and plans to “cooperate fully” with the request, company spokesman Vince Sollito said Friday. 

A spokeswoman for the office of New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer declined to comment on the request. 

Spitzer, who has attracted headlines recently for cracking down on alleged conflicts of interest at investment banks, has been scrutinizing an online gambling market industry expected to hit $4 billion in revenue this year. 

PayPal has been getting a piece of the action by collecting fees for sending bets through its e-mail service. Online gambling accounted for about 8 percent, or $117 million, of the $1.46 billion processed through PayPal during the first three months of this year. 

The rapidly growing payment service will stop handling online gambling transactions later this year if San Jose-based eBay’s proposed acquisition of PayPal is completed. Citing legal concerns, eBay disclosed the plan to withdraw from the online gambling business Monday when it announced its proposed $1.5 billion acquisition of PayPal. 

Gambling outside authorized sites, such as horse racing tracks, is illegal in New York and many other states. Online casinos have skirted U.S. authorities by establishing headquarters in offshore locations. 

Critics of online gambling, including Spitzer, have been trying to curb the industry’s growth by pressuring credit card issuers and other payment services to stop dealing with Internet casinos. 

PayPal’s shares rose 3 cents to close at $23.08 Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

SAN JOSE — A federal judge has rejected a claim from NCR Corp. that Palm Inc. and Handspring Inc. violated its patents in their handheld computers. 

NCR, a Dayton, Ohio-based company best known as a maker of cash registers and ATM machines, doesn’t currently sell a handheld computer but claimed in a lawsuit filed in March 2001 that it had patented such a device to work with a docking station in 1987. 

Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge of the U.S. District Court in Delaware granted summary judgment Thursday in favor of Palm and Handspring, saying in a 67-page opinion that neither company infringed on NCR’s patents, the companies involved said Friday. 

NCR indicated it would appeal the court’s decision. 

“While we are disappointed with the present ruling, we are confident we will prevail in this case,” the company said in a statement. 

Palm, based in Santa Clara, and Handspring, based in Mountain View, vowed to keep fighting similar suits. 

“Palm respects valid patents and has taken licenses where appropriate,” said Eric Benhamou, Palm’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We refuse to succumb to intimidation by companies that use charges of patent infringement to bully others.” 

Added Handspring chief executive Donna Dubinsky: “We will always aggressively fight meritless lawsuits, such as this one brought by NCR.” 

Palm is the leading maker of personal digital assistants, and Handspring makes PDAs using Palm’s operating system. The electronic devices, as well as those of other rivals, have gained popularity since the original Palm Pilot debuted in 1996. Sales have been sluggish, however, since the economic downturn last year. 

Here’s a plant you’re sure to love. Perhaps you’ve seen this vine growing in a large wooden barrel and clambering up a small trellis. A quick glance gives the impression of a red-flowered morning glory. But no, the colors of morning glory’s flowers and leaves are somewhat muted, the leaves with a touch of blue and the flowers tending toward pastels. This other plant’s leaves, in contrast, are leathery and glossy, with the rich green of a tropical forest. And its flower color is full-bodied rose pink, white or red. 

The plant commonly is known as mandevilla, named after John Henry Mandeville, a British minister to Argentina, where the plant originated. Mandevilla is not at all well-known, but should be. 

The plant, a perennial, tropical vine, admittedly might not be much to look at in winter. Indoors in winter, the plant might cough forth only an occasional blossom and, depending on the particular variety of mandevilla, leaves frequently are yellow. Nonetheless, the better the growing conditions in winter, the better the plant will look then. 

No matter how mandevilla looks in winter, though, its summer show makes it worth growing. Some people even grow mandevilla as a summer annual, relegating the plant to the compost pile come winter and buying a new plant each spring. 

Mandevilla appreciates light and very well-drained soil, especially in winter when the plant tends to sulk rather than grow. The way to ensure good soil drainage is by adding extra perlite to whatever potting mix you usually use for houseplants. With that extra perlite, you will have to water more often in summer, but at least the plant will be happier the rest of the year. 

Mandevilla does like to rest in winter, so one option is to just let it do so. Keep it in an out-of-the-way place, where yellowing leaves won’t be noticed. Begin in autumn, gradually watering less to help the plant along into its semi-sleep, then keep the plant somewhat dry and cool for a few months. 

Toward the end of winter, repot a mandevilla, cut back any weak stems, and move it to a sunnier window in a warmer room. From then on, the plant should send out fresh, new growth. Move it outdoors in spring, and the glossy leaves and vivid flowers will create a tropical oasis all summer. 

Q. Alan asks: When installing indoor-outdoor carpet, should I trim, then glue to concrete or glue, then trim? 

A. Glue first, then trim. 

First, be sure that the concrete slab is clean and dry. Check for moisture problems by securely taping a 12-inch-square piece of plastic sheeting to the slab, using duct tape. If moisture appears between the plastic and the slab, it should be sealed with a high-quality concrete sealer. 

Use a stair tool (a large chisel-like tool) to seat and crease the edge of the carpet into the joint between the floor and the wall. Finish the job by trimming the carpet with a utility knife. 

Q. Alice asks: What effect does the magnetic coating have on computers, pacemakers, cell phones, etc.? With four coats, does it cause problems with a computer in the same room? I think this is a really neat idea if it  

doesn’t cause problems in these other areas. Thanks for coming up with it. My grandchildren will love the things that can be done. But it would have been nice to have it when my daughters were growing up, so the walls in their rooms wouldn’t look like a dried-out sponge from all the pushpin and staple holes. 

(Editor’s note: The questioner is referring to Magnetic Creations wall treatment — a product that is painted on walls as a primer and allows magnets to stick to walls.) 

A. Magnetic Creations has no effect on any high-tech piece of equipment (computer, pacemaker, etc.). The product is not magnetic, but merely is receptive to magnets. It is just like any piece of steel in your house — refrigerator, dishwasher, clothes dryer, etc. All of these items are inert when it comes to interference with other items. 

NEWPORT BEACH — The son of an Orange County assistant sheriff and two other teenagers were charged Friday with the videotaped gang rape of an unconscious 16-year-old girl. 

The 17-year-olds were charged as adults with 21 felony counts that included rape, rape by a foreign object and administering a drug to incapacitate the victim. 

Gregory Scott Haidl, Kyle Joseph Nachreiner and Keith James Spann appeared briefly in court for an arraignment, which was continued until next week to give their attorneys time to review the charges. 

The teens’ hands and feet were shackled. They bowed their heads behind a wall to try to prevent being photographed in the packed room. 

All three were ordered held without bail. 

Outside the courtroom, the teenagers’ attorneys declined to comment on the charges. 

Attorney Joseph G. Cavallo, who represents Gregory Haidl, said his client was “holding up as well as can be expected for a 17-year-old.” 

Prosecutors allege the teens drugged the girl and raped her while videotaping the incident on July 5 at the Newport Beach home of Haidl’s father, Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl. 

Investigators would not say whether the assistant sheriff was home during the alleged incident or whether he even was aware of the party. 

The assistant sheriff arrived at the courthouse escorted by two deputies as a safety precaution because he “was the subject of a couple of death threats,” sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said. He declined to provide details. 

Haidl declined to comment on the case but Amormino said he was cooperating with Newport Beach police in the investigation. 

“As any parent would be, he’s upset,” the spokesman added. 

Haidl is one of five assistant sheriffs and oversees the department’s 250-person reserve program.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gray Davis could do a better job of improving California’s energy situation, balancing the budget and improving public schools, factors that contributed to an overall negative rating of his performance, according to a Field Poll released Friday. 

Although the voters surveyed held a 49 percent disapproval rating of Davis’ work, that margin has improved since May 2001 when 55 percent of voters reported negative opinions, the survey shows. 

Forty-one percent approved of the job Davis is doing, and 10 percent had no opinion. That compares to 36 percent who gave a positive appraisal in May 2001 and 9 percent who had no opinion. 

Within Davis’ Democratic Party, 31 percent were unpleased with the governor’s performance, while 75 percent of Republicans held that opinion. 

When it comes to specific policy issues, Davis was given a negative performance rating for improving the state’s energy situation, 49 percent; balancing the state budget, 39 percent; improving the economy, 35 percent; improving public schools, 34 percent; and improving the health care system, 33 percent. 

Davis’ performance was viewed positively regarding his efforts to prevent terrorism and improve the state’s security, 44 percent; protect the environment, 40 percent; and reduce crime, 38 percent. 

When it comes to the job the state Legislature is doing, 45 percent approved and 36 disapproved of its overall performance. 

In addition, 51 percent of voters said California was headed in the wrong direction, while 37 percent said it was on track, the survey found. 

The survey, conducted between June 25 and July 2, involved 543 registered voters in California. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. 

Unemployment in SF County rose to 6.9 percent from  

6.3 percent in one month 

LOS ANGELES — California’s economy produced an extra 4,400 jobs in June, but the slim gain was not enough to push down the unemployment rate, which remained unchanged from May’s revised figure of 6.4 percent, state officials said Friday. 

In June 2001, California’s jobless rate was 5.2 percent. 

This year there are an additional 214,000 unemployed, according to the Employment Development Department. 

Although the nonfarm job gains were small, they occurred across a wide range of industries. Mining, construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, finance, insurance and real estate together added 9,400 jobs in June. The strongest growth came from construction, where 2,900 jobs were created. 

Three sectors reported a combined loss of 5,000 jobs: manufacturing, services, and transportation and public services. 

Regionally, Los Angeles County saw one of the biggest increases in unemployment. There were 31,900 more people without jobs than in May, and the jobless rate rose to 7.1 percent from 6.5 percent, the EDD said. 

In Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, the unemployment rate increased to 7.6 percent, up from 7.1 percent as the labor pool swelled by 14,300, EDD said. 

In San Francisco County, which is also still feeling the effects of the technology meltdown, the unemployment rate rose to 6.9 percent from 6.3 percent. Nearly 30,000 people are looking for work in the area. 

Man accused of SF
home invasion rapes arrested 

SAN FRANCISCO — One of three men wanted in connection with breaking into homes and raping the women inside has been arrested. 

Steven Glass, 23, was arrested at his home Tuesday on weapons possession and narcotics charges. He was later charged with sexual assault, robbery, false imprisonment and assault while armed with an assault weapon, police said. 

He and two other men are accused of entering a home early Monday morning and sexually assaulting a mother and her two adult daughters while the family of five was sleeping, said San Francisco Police Lt. Jere Williams of the sexual assault unit. 

The armed men are accused of locking the husband and a son in a room. The mother and a daughter were raped, while another daughter fought off her attacker and pulled off his mask, Williams said. 

Jewelry and electronics were stolen from the house before the men fled, police said. 

The July 2 attack was in the same neighborhood and conducted in a similar way. The three men entered the house, raped a woman and tied up her husband while their three children were locked in a room, police said. 

The two other suspects were still being sought. 

Fake Oscars are out there  

LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of fake Oscar statuettes were destroyed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Friday, part of a continuing crackdown on copyright infringement. 

A document destruction company was hired to chop up 12 pallets of phony Oscars and keychains, shot glasses, snow globes and picture frames that made unauthorized use of the Oscar symbol, said John Pavlik, a spokesman for the academy. 

The items were turned over to the academy in recent weeks by wholesalers who were selling them to souvenir shops on Hollywood Boulevard. 

“These were plastic, real cheap knock-offs,” Pavlik said. “Only from a distance would you really be fooled into thinking it was an actual Oscar.” 

The academy has an in-house lawyer who tracks down fake Oscar suppliers and sends wholesalers “cease-and-desist” letters. 

Passer-by discovers dismembered
body in Inglewood alley  

INGLEWOOD — A headless torso believed to be the remains of a woman was found in an alley by a passer-by, police said. 

The discovery of the mutilated body near the Gospel Temple Church was reported at 3 p.m. Thursday, said Inglewood police Sgt. Ray Lloyd. 

Lloyd said it appears the woman had been killed elsewhere and her body was dumped in the alley. 

“It’s a pretty macabre crime scene,” he said. 

Police have yet to identify the woman. 

DNA evidence helps convict
bear poachers  

RANCHO CORDOVA — Game wardens used DNA evidence to convict a Yuba County bear poacher for the first time in California, authorities said Friday. 

“It’s very similar to a murder case — just a different animal,” said California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Patrick Foy. 

A Fish and Game laboratory in Rancho Cordova matched DNA from pieces of a deer carcass used in a bear bait pile with drops of deer blood in a shed at suspect Edward Harryman’s residence. A positive match also occurred with deer meat found in his freezer. 

Harryman, 41, pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy to bait bears with poached deer. 

The lab’s analysis of the venison in Harryman’s freezer also found the meat was from seven different deer, including two does. 

Harryman’s son-in-law, Shaun Mote, 29, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession of the female deer. 

The department used DNA evidence last year to gain a conviction in a deer poaching case, setting a legal precedent, Foy said. 

Bear poachers commonly use bait piles to attract the animals to a remote area where they can be killed. 

Bears are often poached for their gallbladders and paws, which some Eastern cultures believe have powerful medicinal properties. However, Foy said investigators found no evidence Harryman was poaching for that illegal trade. 

His sentencing has been delayed for a year, and the charges may be reduced if he refrains from possessing a firearm, ammunition or hunting. Mote is set for sentencing Monday in Yuba County Superior Court. 

WASHINGTON — Bill Simon, the Republican nominee for governor, is among dozens of investors identified by the Internal Revenue Service as participants in tax shelters now under federal investigation. 

Simon’s late father, former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon; Gary Winnick, chairman of the bankrupt telecommunications giant Global Crossing Ltd; Robert Shaye, chairman of New Line Cinema; and the late race car drive Dale Earnhardt were among scores of names made public by the IRS as part of a court fight with KPMG LLP over documents that detail the tax shelters. 

The Justice Department, acting on behalf of the IRS, sued KPMG and BDO Seidman LLP on Tuesday for information about the tax shelters they have promoted. The firms said the documents at issue are protected by client confidentiality privileges. 

IRS spokesman Frank Keith said the unusual disclosure was “designed to substantiate for the judge the basis of the allegation being made in the filing.” The names came from KPMG, not from individual taxpayer filings, Keith said. 

For Simon, the suits present a political problem, because they focus new attention on his refusal to release his federal and state income returns, as his opponent, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, has done. 

Peter Simon, the candidate’s brother and chairman of the family investing firm William E. Simon and Sons, said the Simons relied on professional tax advice from KPMG and others. 

“The matter at hand is between the IRS and KPMG,” Peter Simon said in a statement issued by his brother’s campaign. “Like many Californians, because of the technical complexity of IRS regulations, we have utilized the advice and guidance of tax professionals, including KPMG, other accountants and tax attorneys.” 

Davis said the disclosure “raises serious and troubling questions about whether Mr. Simon has been improperly using shelters to avoid paying taxes. It is now more incumbent than ever that Mr. Simon make public his tax returns immediately. 

“There’s only question,” Davis said. “Did Mr. Simon use offshore tax shelters to reduce his taxes or not. I think the answer to that is probably yes. I think we all suspect it’s yes. If Mr. Simon did not have anything to hide, he’d be releasing his taxes for all of us to see.” 

Simon said Friday he has “paid over a million dollars a year in state and federal taxes” and that he has already filed a statement on his finances with the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission. “That document complies not just with the letter, but the spirit of the law.” 

At a campaign appearance in Los Angeles, Simon was asked whether he was aware of or participated in the decision to put his money in a tax shelter, but did not answer the question. 

The IRS suits are part of an attempt to rein in shelters that officials estimate cost the government tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue every year. Companies can be sanctioned for promoting shelters that only serve to avoid paying taxes. 

Also, the suits come amid a growing number of corporate accounting scandals and increasing political pressure to make corporate officials more responsible. 

The investors disclosed by the IRS were participants in two shelters marketed by KPMG — the Foreign Leveraged Investment Program and the Offshore Portfolio Investment Strategy. According to an IRS agent who examined the shelters, both used foreign investments and tax rules to create large artificial losses to balance real gains. 

KPMG has turned over some information, including a list of names, but the government wants more. KPMG maintained that it has done nothing wrong, either through the options it presented investors or its decision to withhold documents. 

“It’s disappointing that the IRS has deemed it appropriate to disclose the identity and embarrass individual taxpayers without having expressed any deficiencies in their transactions to the listed parties,” KPMG said in a statement. “Individual taxpayers have a right to expect privacy in the tax system, which has been violated as part of the IRS’ public filing.” 

BDO Seidman refused to provide even lists of its clients that use tax shelters. The company said the IRS demand for documents was too broad and vague. 

Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, said the unusual disclosure violated investors’ privacy rights. “It’s a return to the classic bullying tactic that the IRS used to use in the past,” Moore said. “Not only haven’t these people been convicted, they haven’t even been charged with a crime.” 

The law requires tax shelter promoters to register each shelter with the IRS before it is marketed and to keep a list of investors that must be made available to the IRS within 10 days of its request. 

The lawsuits ask a federal judge to order KPMG and BDO Seidman to comply with 29 summonses between them seeking tax shelter documents. In KPMG’s case, the documents go back to arrangements marketed since 1998; the lawsuit against BDO Seidman seeks documents dating to 1995. 

The IRS has issued 148 summonses to 11 firms seeking similar documents. Officials said more are likely. 

Last month, the IRS announced a settlement with the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP accounting firm in a similar dispute that resulted in the company paying an undisclosed amount. 

The Treasury Department has asked Congress for greater powers and tougher penalties in its bid to rein in shelters. 

Winnick has so far declined to comment, according to the New York-based public relations firm that represents him. 

A spokeswoman for Shaye and New Line Cinema failed to return phone calls on Friday. 

LOS ANGELES — Former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith testified against her ex-boyfriend at a preliminary hearing, alleging that he called her repeatedly and assaulted her neighbor after she broke up with him. 

Smith appeared in court Thursday at a hearing for Mark Hatten, 34, of Los Angeles, who faces charges of battery, assault with a deadly weapon, terrorist threats and stalking. 

Hatten, who has no prior criminal record, was ordered to stand trial and return to court July 25. He remains in jail on $300,000 bail. 

If convicted, Hatten could face up to eight years in prison. 

Smith, 34, said she met Hatten shortly before the Academy Awards two years ago and the pair began dating soon after. 

The relationship ended in June 2000 after he approached her with a knife in her home, Smith said. She never reported the incident to police. 

After the breakup, Hatten continued to call her, leaving messages on her home and cell phones. 

Smith claims that Hatten called earlier this year and said he was coming over with a gun. 

“I was holding my (16-year-old) son and we were just freaking out,” Smith said. 

Neighbor Rene Navarro went over to Smith’s house to persuade Hatten to leave but was allegedly punched and kicked by the defendant. 

Navarro, who wore a cast on his left arm, said he had to have surgery on hand ligaments that were torn when he tried to block Hatten’s blows. 

Defense attorney Peter Knecht said Smith had a sporadic, two-year sexual relationship with Hatten and believes the actress brought charges against his client to “silence him.” 

Smith recently announced she will have her own reality TV show that will air on E! Entertainment. In March, she won an $88 million judgment over the estate of her elderly husband, J. Howard Marshall, who died in 1995.

Inmate had pleaded with judge to let him stay in jail 

OROVILLE — In this tree-lined old mining town still called the “City of Gold” nothing has attracted so much outside attention as the apparent suicide of a 92-year-old man who only wanted to stay in its county jail. 

Coval Russell, released June 26 from the Butte County Jail against his wishes, is dead. On a brutally hot morning Wednesday, he leaped, or possibly fell, head first from the green steel Table Mountain Bridge onto big river rocks 40 feet below. 

Now, because he may have been California’s oldest jail inmate, the spotlight has turned to this working-class seat of Butte County, a farming and timber region 65 miles north of Sacramento. 

From atop what locals call “the old green bridge” in this town of 12,600 people, Russell would have seen the deep green hues of the Feather River, its tree-lined shores, the placid water and the fish hatchery to his right. What the elderly man whom jail inmates called “Pops” saw before dying was far prettier than one mile away where he spent more than a year for stabbing his 70-year-old landlord with a pocket knife last year. 

It was his first time in jail, in a lifetime free of any criminal history, says Russell’s attorney, Grady Davis. During his stay, he was one of 47,000 inmates over 55 years old in the local jails, state and federal prisons of the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Among the 157,000 inmates inside the California state prison system at the end of 2001, only 487 were more than 70 years old, the Department of Corrections reported in April. 

It was a story more like the movies than real life. After Russell got accustomed to the single-story facility at the edge of town, with its razor wire above a chain-link fence, he gave Davis instructions of the like he’d never heard of in 20 years of lawyering. 

“Really, his objective was ’to keep me in jail’ for as long as I could,” Davis says. “His instructions were to continue the case as long as you can. He wanted to stay in jail as long as he could.” 

“He pretty much considered our jail his home,” says Butte County Sheriff Scott Mackenzie. While Mackenzie didn’t know his best-known inmate, he repeats the stories of department jailers who did. And they liked the old guy as much as Russell’s fellow inmates did. 

Some inmates are just likable, says Mackenzie, a former county jail commander. “This old guy had those attributes and everybody in the jail loved him.” 

While physically infirm, Russell’s mind was “sharp as a tack,” say his attorney and the sheriff. Russell became a grandfather figure to younger inmates, Mackenzie says, while Davis adds that Russell “was in a place where he would have people listen to him, talk to him and share some camaraderie.” 

But as most things pass one day at a time, Russell’s jail time was up at 426 days. He was placed on probation and shown the door. Because he had up to $20,000 in his bank account, and wasn’t mentally incapacitated, the county couldn’t tell him where to go or what to do. So Russell moved into a Motel 6 near the Montgomery Street exit off Route 70. And there, where rooms go for $37.99 a night plus tax, he talked to a Los Angeles Times reporter last week about ending his life. 

“It just kind of shocked me that it happened,” says Elizabeth Ellis, walking across the bridge Friday from which Russell fell 48 hours earlier. “He must have been depressed.” She recalls another elderly man who jumped from the bridge years ago and died, too. 

At a little diner near the bridge called The Boss, where a half-pound burger, fries and drink sell for $5.89, shift leader Tabitha Barkey says, “A young boy came in and said there’s a dead body down there.” 

A son of the diner’s owner went to the bridge to see for himself, then called 911. A crowd gathered. The paramedics came. It wasn’t pretty. 

But it was over. A bachelor all his life, Russell had outlived his family and friends. He was blind in one eye. He had prostate cancer and back problems and couldn’t walk far. Those who knew him say he had little left on the “outside” of a county jail that became his last home. 

Because no one saw him fall, most of the town must speculate. People in this town of mining murals on downtown walls, with its old boarded-up Montgomery Ward store and the big white “O” painted onto the table-flat butte outside of town, didn’t know the man. It was something that happened. They’d read about it in the paper and it was, as one resident says, “too bad.” 

“We don’t know if it was an accident or a suicide. I suspect it was a suicide,” Mackenzie says. The department line is that Russell took a taxi to the bridge. 

So far, there is no word of a funeral. The sheriff says a San Franciscan called after reading about Russell’s death, offering to pay funeral expenses. Truth is, Davis says, money wasn’t the problem. Russell had it. What he lacked after leaving jail was a home. 

Outbreak believed to have come from a feral cat colony 

LOS ANGELES — An outbreak of a fast-spreading mutant virus killed 15 cats in Los Angeles County this month, veterinary researchers said Friday. 

Humans are not threatened by the rare hemorrhagic calicivirus but can spread it among cats, the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine said. 

Owners of healthy cats were urged to minimize contact with unknown cats. Owners of cats that develop fever or respiratory problems were urged to call their veterinarians before taking the animals anywhere. 

Janet Foley, director of Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis, said past outbreaks ended quickly and the current outbreak appears to be fading due to precautions taken by veterinary practices. But she said owners should still be careful. 

“If the contact is not limited then more cats are going to get sick and die,” she said. 

The Southern California Veterinary Medical Association said it issued an advisory to its 1,200 members after the UC Davis investigators confimed the disease. 

First signs of the often-fatal illness appeared July 2 when cats believed to have the infection were brought to several Los Angeles-area veterinarians. 

Thirty illnesses were deemed “probable” cases of the virus and 15 of those cats had died as of Thursday. Another 10 to 20 cats were deemed “possible” cases. 

The deaths occurred at four locations. Foley said the identities of those locations were not being released because they are private practices. 

The Southern California veterinary association said in a statement that the outbreak was believed to have come from a feral cat colony and spread to three West Los Angeles veterinary hospitals and a cat foster care network. 

Most of the animals were healthy prior to the illness, and some were current on their vaccinations. 

Cats infected by the virus develop a high fever, become depressed, often have oral and nasal discharge, and often develop swellings on their face, trunk and lower extremities. Foley said swollen head and feet are key signs. 

Spreading appears to occur cat-to-cat or person-to-cat from contaminated clothes, hands and shoes. The virus is a mutant strain of a common calicivirus that is widespread among cats and does not usually cause disease. 

The current outbreak is only the fourth identified appearance of the virus. It was first identified in Northern California in 1998 and appeared twice last year on the East Coast, Foley said. It had never before been seen in Southern California. 

The infection was confirmed at the veterinary school’s Center for Companion Animal Health by laboratory personnel associated with the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program, which has been studying infections among cats living in animal shelters.

Always listen to your mother 

My husband and I recently decided to purchase a 2002 Ford Focus ZTS. Our current car is a 1995 Ford Escort, which has served us pretty well. The Focus was in the right price range, and all the test-drive reviews I found were fairly positive. We ended up having to order the car, because we wanted the ABS with AdvanceTrac option and couldn't find one with that. We expect the car to be delivered sometime in the next month. About two days after we ordered the car, Consumer Reports issued its 2002 buying guide, which rated the car far below average in reliability, but in other ways rated it positively. I was a bit disappointed, but still OK. THEN, a story appeared in the paper and on National Public Radio stating that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had opened four defect investigations into the Focus for the 2000 and 2001 model years. My mother called in a panic, urging us to cancel our order, but my husband seems to think that the NHTSA investigations aren't that serious and favors going ahead with the purchase. So my questions are: How bad does a car have to be to be investigated by NHTSA, and how serious is such an investigation? Does the investigation into two prior model years have any impact on the 2002 Focus, and what is the likelihood that the problems have already been fixed for the 2002 model year? Thanks! – Jessica 

TOM: Well, we also liked the Focus when it came out. And we continue to like the design of the car and the way it drives. But Ford certainly does seem to be having some quality issues with the Focus. And yes, they are serious, in our opinions. 

RAY: According to NHTSA, the Focus is now the subject of six open investigations -- those are investigations that could lead to possible safety recalls. 

TOM: NHTSA says that any investigation it opens is serious, because it believes there might be a defect that could lead to the injury or death of the car's occupants. Once it investigates, NHTSA might opt to issue a recall, close the investigation with no action taken, or expand the investigation (into other model years, for instance). 

RAY: The current issues it's looking at on 2000 and 2001 Focuses are: a collapsing front suspension, a rear-wheel bearing failure that could lead to a wheel falling off, burns resulting from air-bag deployment, air bags deploying when they shouldn't have deployed, engine-compartment fires, and an engine-stalling problem that can happen at any speed. I might be assuming too much here, but I'm going to guess that that's a list of things you'd like to avoid. 

TOM: The only positive thing we can say is that the actual numbers of affected cars (or at least the number of incidents reported to NHTSA) are fairly low: fewer (sometimes far fewer) than 100 incidents per investigation. That means, at least statistically, that there's a low likelihood of these things happening to YOUR particular Focus. Of course, your mother's point is that there's NO chance of them happening to you in a 2002 Honda Civic. Which is hard to dispute. 

RAY: So far, all of the investigations concern only 2000 and 2001 models. Ford has a policy of not commenting on open investigations, and it won't say whether any of these problems have been addressed for the 2002 or 2003 model years. We can only hope they have, but we don't know. 

TOM: A Ford spokesman did say this about the Focus: "We are obviously not happy it has had more than its share of recalls and has been figuring in NHTSA investigations. That said, we are committed to the safety of our products. If we identify an issue, we move quickly to take action, regardless of how many prior recalls there have been. We also have made quality a top priority and are implementing new processes that will upgrade the quality of all our vehicles." 

RAY: Well, what did you expect him to say? "Yeah, it's junk. You caught us"? So it's a tough call, Jessica. But I think I'd have to side with your mother. I guess if it were me, I'd ask for my deposit back and would buy something else. And I don't think we can recommend the Focus again until Ford or NHTSA addresses these problems. 

TOM: That means either NHTSA has to close the investigations and conclude that the problems don't exist, or Ford has to tell us what it's done on future models to make sure these things don't happen anymore. 

RAY: It's too bad, because the Focus is a very nice car to drive. But with fires, air bags deploying and wheels falling off, it's not a car we can endorse right now. We'll keep an eye on the situation and report back when we have an update. Meanwhile, Jessica, I hate to tell you, but your mother is right – again. 

SANTA FE, N.M. — State Republican chairman John Dendahl wooed the Green Party with an offer of potential “six-figure” political support from an unidentified source if the Greens ran candidates in two congressional races. 

Dendahl said Thursday that the offer of campaign contributions didn’t come from the Republican Party, but that he didn’t know the source of the potential donations to the Green Party, which often draws Democratic-leaning voters. 

Dendahl said he had been asked by an acquaintance in Washington, D.C., to make the offer, but Dendahl declined to identify the individual. 

“I can’t say that this source has no Republican connection of any kind. I don’t recognize this as a Republican connection and it was not Republican Party money,” he said. 

Dendahl talked last month with several Green Party members and a party co-chairman. He told them that a donor might provide “six-figure” financial support if Green candidates ran in the 1st and 2nd Congressional districts. The Greens turned down the offer, and none of the party’s candidates filed for the offices. 

“We disavow and condemn any attempts to manipulate or use New Mexico voters as pawns in the game of politics as usual,” party co-chairwoman Lisa Houston said in a statement. 

Many political analysts say Green candidates can potentially tip a race in favor of a Republican by taking away Democratic votes. 

The Albuquerque-area 1st District is represented by Republican Heather Wilson, who for the first time will be in a general election race for the seat with only a Democratic opponent. Greens fielded candidates in 1998 and 2000. There’s no incumbent in the race for the 2nd District seat in southern New Mexico because Republican Joe Skeen is retiring. 

Jamie Koch, the head of the state Democratic Party, called for Dendahl to resign, saying the GOP leader had “stepped over the line.” 

David Contarino, a senior adviser to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Richardson, called the offer a “flat out bribe” to try to improve GOP chances in the congressional and gubernatorial races. 

“It’s simply to defeat the Democrat. That’s a dirty trick,” Contarino said. 

But Richardson, Koch and Contarino also met with Green Party leaders earlier this year. 

Xubi Wilson, a Green Party co-chairman, said the Richardson camp tried to discourage the Greens from running a candidate for governor. 

The message from Richardson, Wilson said, was that “if we played ball with him and he was elected governor, he would change the law to make it easier for us to become a major party.” 

The Greens hope their candidate for governor, David Bacon, will help them regain major political party designation under state election law by receiving at least 5 percent of the vote in the general election. 

Contarino stressed that no deals or promises were made to try to keep a Green candidate out of the race. 

“Bill did express sympathy for their position and support for ballot access,” Contarino said. “He said he would be very open to those kinds of electoral reform.” 

He said Richardson also had asked to speak at a Green Party convention about common grounds on issues. 

Dendahl said he forwarded the offer to the Greens because Democrats and their supporters recently have “defined a whole new political landscape” by trying to alter the outcome of GOP primary races. 

One of Richardson’s supporters, a labor union representing public employees, spent more than $150,000 on advertising and mailings mainly against GOP gubernatorial candidate John Sanchez. California Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat seeking re-election, spent $10 million on attack ads against former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in the state’s GOP primary earlier this year. 

Had a deal been made with the Greens, Dendahl said, the source of the money would have been disclosed through campaign finance reports. He said he told the Greens that the money could not have been spent directly on congressional candidates but would have been for “party-building” activities because of restrictions in federal election laws. 

State officials will look at ways to remove the fish, the snakehead, from the pond 

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Nearly 100 meat-eating fish native to China have been found in a Maryland pond where a pet owner dumped two of them in 2000, state officials said Friday amid concern that the fish will become a major threat to native species. 

The northern snakehead can grow to be 3 feet long and has a voracious appetite. 

The situation is of special concern to authorities because the Little Patuxent River is about 75 yards from the pond, and northern snakeheads can live three days out of water and even walk short distances on their fins in search of food. 

“They can gain a foothold here and begin to proliferate in ways that would displace native organisms,” said Eric Schwaab, director of the Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Service. 

On Thursday, agency officials caught 99 young northern snakeheads by using an electroshock method that stuns them, causing them to float to the surface of the water. 

“We’ve said all along that if there are juveniles in there, there would be hundreds or thousands of them,” agency spokesman John Surrick said Friday. 

Two adult fish were released into the Crofton pond two years ago, police said Thursday. State officials discovered the presence of the species in May, when an angler caught a suspicious fish and provided a photo for identification. Since then, biologists have caught several young fish. 

State officials are setting up a scientific panel to investigate the problem and come up with recommendations to remove the snakeheads from the pond. 

No charges were filed against the owner of the two original fish, whom police would not identify, because the statute of limitations has expired. 

“They outgrew the capability of his care, so the individual chose to release them into what he felt was a safe environment,” said Capt. Mark Sanders of the Maryland Natural Resources police. 

Medical examiner will continue tapping all  

available DNA technology  

NEW YORK — The man who has led the monumental effort to put names to the remains of the World Trade Center dead has come to the sad realization that the task could end with just 2,000 victims identified. 

Of the 2,823 people believed killed in the terrorist attack, 1,229 victims — fewer than half — have been identified, 519 by DNA alone. 

Dr. Robert Shaler, the city medical examiner’s chief of forensic biology, said in an interview that the medical examiner’s office will exhaust all available forensic technology in an undertaking expected to last until the end of the year. But if the final number is 2,000, he said, “I think we’ll have done a pretty good job.” 

“If we get that high,” Shaler said, hesitating, “I don’t think I’ll feel really, really glad. But I’ll feel like we’ve done the best we can do.” 

Experts have said some victims probably were vaporized by the intense fires and the crushing weight of concrete and would never be identified. City officials have hesitated to venture any estimates for fear that victims’ families might interpret any number as the point where the work will stop. 

For Shaler, who says he is “obsessed” with identifying the dead, the only endpoint is when all available DNA technology has been tapped. 

The medical examiner’s office has become the last wisp of hope for families whose loved ones were not recovered in the trade center ruins. The recovery effort ended last month at ground zero, and on Monday the last bit of rubble will be sifted at a Staten Island landfill. 

For the past 10 months, the medical examiner’s office has been conducting the biggest forensic investigation in U.S. history. 

Shaler manages about two dozen staffers who work full-time on trade center identifications at the facility along Manhattan’s East River. Some staffers work in laboratories extracting DNA from human remains; others analyze DNA profiles on computers. 

Families regularly visit, affecting the dynamic in the laboratory as well as the scientists themselves. 

“Being in this profession and being involved in a laboratory isolates you from the real world, and I think you get hardened. You steel yourself against the emotional aspects of it,” Shaler said. “That barrier has been broken down, and I’m much more emotional now.” 

Technicians sometimes weep at their computers. Shaler himself meets regularly with families at the office. They tour the place, usually peppering him with questions. 

“He’s been very direct, and up front,” said Terry Strada, who regularly calls Shaler to see whether any progress has been made in finding her husband, Thomas. “He doesn’t give you any false hope, but at the same time he says, ‘If he’s here, we’ll find him.”’ 

Shaler said that getting close to the relatives is painful. “What it does, though, is it instills in you an obsession to help them,” he said. “And I think that’s what drives me now.” 

Human DNA is made up of billions of base pairs, represented by the letters “A,” “C,” “G” and “T.” Forensic scientists generally work with DNA samples of about 400 base pairs. 

Genetic laboratories around the country process the samples found at the trade center site along with DNA taken from family members, and the results eventually come back to the medical examiner’s office to be matched. Generally it takes about six weeks for one sample to go through the process of extraction, profiling and matching. 

But about half of the nearly 20,000 body parts recovered did not initially yield enough usable DNA, mostly because the samples were so damaged by moisture, bacteria and the fires that raged in the ruins for months. 

The medical examiner’s office is working with Dallas-based Orchid GeneScreen to adapt a test that would examine pieces of DNA shorter than 100 base pairs. 

“I feel an obligation to these families to do whatever we can do,” Shaler said. “I haven’t in my own mind exhausted everything that can be done.” 

This summer Kelsey Israel-Trumnel, like a lot of teenagers, is slaving over an oven to make some summer cash. But it’s not a typical oven – and it isn’t sitting in the kitchen of a local restaurant. 

Israel-Trumnel, who will be a senior at Berkeley High School this fall, is building a small oven that science researchers will use to heat potassium atoms and learn more about how they function and change.  

She is one of 26 high school students from the area working a six-week internship at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  

Building the oven in the lab’s chemical sciences department, she said, has given her an appreciation for the day-to-day work of a professional scientist 

It has also taught her how individual scientific disciplines like physics, chemistry and engineering interact in the real world. 

“You really can’t learn that in the classroom,” Israel-Trumnel said, noting that the high school curriculum tends to separate the disciplines. 

Israel-Trumnel and eight other Berkeley High School students got the internships through the lab’s High School Student Research Participation Program.  

The program matches up local teenagers with scientists and engineers at the lab who serve as mentors. Participants, who earn $9 to $12 an hour, also listen to weekly science lectures and take tours of lab facilities. 

Gwen Espino, a Richmond High School counselor who serves as a program director, initiated the effort in the summer of 2000. Espino said the idea took root during a 1999 visit to the lab with a group of students during Latino History Month. 

“I was really impressed by the lab,” she said. “I thought, maybe we could get a partnership going.” 

Espino, who calls herself “very persistent,” worked tirelessly to develop a formal partnership between the laboratory and Richmond High School’s Science Academy, a school-within-a-school. 

That summer, the lab launched a pilot internship program with 11 Richmond High students. 

“When we came out here, they didn’t know us and we didn’t know them,” she said. “But it was a match made in heaven.” 

Last summer, the program expanded to 23 students, drawing from public and private schools in Richmond, Oakland, Berkeley, Vallejo and San Jose. Next year, Espino hopes to match 30 to 35 kids with mentors. 

Rollie Otto, who heads the Center for Science and Engineering Education, said the program seeks to expose promising young students, many of them disadvantaged, to “big-time science.” 

Otto said some of the mentors sought out the program and went right to work. Others, who are used to providing advanced post-doctoral students with open-ended research projects, required a little more help. 

“It’s really hard for many of the scientists to understand what in the world they’d do with high school students,” he said. 

Otto said he works with those scientists to develop discrete projects that can be completed within the program’s six-week window and make a real impact. 

“There’s nothing more thrilling for these students than to understand that they’re making a contribution to the team, no matter how small,” he said. 

Two high school science teachers, hired to work for the program for the summer, also help lead the internships and teach the students some of the scientific principles behind the work they are doing. 

Thanh Huynh, who will be a senior at BHS next year, is designing Web pages at the lab. She said the day-to-day experience in the lab has fostered a new appreciation for science. 

“I’m liking science more. It’s a lot more interesting than when you’re at school,” said Huynh, who hopes to attend UC Berkeley after high school. “Now I want to minor in science.”.

To The Editor, 

As reported in the Daily Planet's July 4 from page article on Instant Runoff Voting(IRV), many Berkeley citizens, including myself, feel a tremendous sense of disappointment and regret that five of the Berkeley City Council's nine members voted to reject on June 11 a modest proposal that would have directed city staff members to research the operational potential and feasibility of Instant Runoff Voting for future city elections. 

The above City Council motion would have placed a measure on the November, 2002 ballot allowing Berkeley voters themselves to decide democratically whether IRV is worth investigating or not. To repeat, this was a measure seeking only electoral research, it was not a binding mandate. 

IRV is the ballot procedure whereby a voter ranks two or more candidates by a simple "first, second, third, etc" selection/marking process. 

IRV eliminates the need for expensive, low turn-out runoff elections usually held 30 days after the initial general election. 

In Berkeley, past December run-off elections (30 days after the initial November election) have cost the city $200,000 while seeing voter turn-out typically plummet by 50 percent or more.  

The IRV ballot ranking procedure has been used successfully in Ireland and Australia, among other countries, for decades. In San Francisco, the upcoming November, 2002 election will use IRV for all candidate races. Oakland, San Leandro and Santa Clara County have all passed IRV ordinances. In August, 2002, Alaska's citizens will vote on a state-wide IRV ballot initiative. In Vermont, town hall meetings across the state recommended use of IRV this past March. 

IRV is a simple and proven voting method that has gained acceptance in communities across the US. I urge Berkeley citizens to contact their respective City Councilmembers to ask that Berkeley voters be allowed a future opportunity to decide whether or not IRV is appropriate for their city.  

Chris Kavanagh 

Berkeley

“T'was a rough night,” Macbeth murmurs shortly after he does in King Duncan in Shakespeare's bleak Scottish play. No kidding.  

Too bad those words might also describe the version by Cal Shakespeare,directed by Kate Whoriskey, now at the Bruns Amphitheater in the Orinda. It features real horses that canter onstage and clip-clop among the audience. On opening night a serendipitous hawk keened eerie cries to counterpoint Lady Macbeth's, “Unsex me here!”  

Sometimes strong and sometimes silly, it's one of the oddest takes on the play: a schizophrenic Macbeth. 

Its oddness begins with its set, a book-ended pair of black, looming walls. Not that they don't make a fitting statement about what's to come, but unfortunately, the stage under them is covered with a blanket of grayish gravel that trips up some actors and has others plodding carefully. 

It's symbolic gravel, of course, but is it worth sabotaging the action? 

Worse is the giant box that takes up center stage. It’s tacky and oblong, like a giant K-Mart display case, and is strewn 

with garish pink sand. Pink? Statues of a bull, a serpent and a ram stare out from its confines. Why? And why is King Duncan's seat of power discovered inside the serpent? Isn't that niche more appropriate for Macbeth? 

From the start the production can’t gain momentum. The actors seem oddly at sea, and despite its moments of clever staging, the tale limps for most of its first half. A main problem is Mia Barron as Lady Macbeth. Barron hasn't a drop of evil in her, and her swank dresses and perfectly coiffed hair make her look more like a teen debutante than a schemer. Her glossy performance might fit a sharp-witted comic heroine like Rosalinde or Viola. But it doesn't suggest a woman who could drive an unwilling husband to murder. When she and Macbeth meet in moments that are supposed to be fraught with passion, they evoke only a tinny melodrama. 

Yet Boris McGiver as Macbeth is something to watch. His version of the would-be king develops in fits and starts. In the last analysis, it doesn't work. But it is fascinating and even daring. The tormented tragic hero is a bewildered bloke. McGiver's Macbeth is like a dull, working class Joe one might meet in a bar. He might be genial, scratching his head at the weirdness that comes his way (like prophetic witches), and going along with the bad stuff because it's easier than fighting it. 

Despite his subsequent deeds, this Macbeth remains strangely innocent. But is a Gary-Cooperish Macbeth strong enough to sustain Shakespeare's play? Unfortunately, no. Yet even though McGiver blinks too much and has too many slack-jawed moments, he is absorbing, and he gives the famous “out, out” speech a riveting reading. 

Fortunately the production gets better as it goes along. Act I ends with an effective banquet scene. Act 2 develops momentum and authority, partly due to strong performances by David Mendelsohn, as an earnest and impassioned Malcolm, and by James Carpenter, as a stirring Macduff, whose reaction to his family's murder is especially moving. Fight scenes, choreographed by Christopher Morrison, have a jarring clout, and bare white branches nicely evoke Birnham Wood. Sound man Garth Hemphill provides ominous background rhythms. Meg Neville's coal and ash-colored costumes enhance dark moods. 

And Scott Zeilinsky's lighting is evocative. The audience can be grateful that at the end no one parades Macbeth's severed head on the end of a stick. 

Among the rest of the cast: Chris Ayles is a richly avuncular Duncan, Andy Murray is a sturdy Banquo, and Julie Eccles is an affecting Lady Macduff. (In fact Murray and Eccles' performances make you almost wish they had played the leads.) 

Macbeth may be the least complex and varied of Shakespeare's tragedies. More than the others, it cries out for texture, subtlety – a treatment to make its familiarity come alive. Though it has its moments, Cal Shakespeare's version doesn't renew Macbeth so much as act it out once more. It lacks urgency and the consistency of imagination to remind us why this great play should still speak to us. 

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 

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 

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 

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 

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 

First and third Tuesdays,  

7:30 to 9 p.m. 

World Ground Cafe,  

3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., Oakland 

Open mic and featured readers 

Boas Writing Group 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody's, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Stefani Barber, Jean Lieske  

and many more 

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, July 12

Celebration of Emma Goldman's Birthday  

8 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. 

Fellowship of Humanity Hall  

390 27th St  

An all-ages, alcohol-free party with live music, DJ, and dance lessons 

http://www.ebcaw.org  

$5 to $10 sliding scale  

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. 

For information: 527-4140 

Free 

Family Health Day 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Fourth Street and University Avenue 

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 

Until 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 

Free 

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 information: 527-4140 

Introduction to Accessible  

Software and Hardware  

3 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 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 slideshw 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, intrduces their latest design. 

For information: 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, nonmembers $5  

Sunday, July 28

Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

11 a.m. to noon 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

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

For information: 527-4140 

Free 

Wednesday, July 31

Mountain Adventure Seminars:  

Introduction to Rock Climbing 

7 to 9 p.m. 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

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

For information: (209) 753-6556 

$115 REI members; $125 non-members 

Saturday, August 3

Mountain Adventure Seminars:  

Introduction to Rock Climbing 

8 a.m. to 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 

unday, August 11

Hands-on Bicycle Repair 

11 a.m. to noon 

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 

West Berkeley Arts Festival 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Fourth Street and University Avenue 

Explore the many resident artists located in Berkeley 

Free. 

Tuesday, August 13

Tomato Tasting 

Tasting & cooking demonstrations 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Derby Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way  

Free 

Berkeley Camera Club  

Weekly Meeting 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda 

Share slides, prints with other photographers 

525-3565 

Free 

Sunday, August 18

Hands-on Bicycle Repair 

11 a.m. to noon 

REI Berkeley, 1338 San Pablo 

Learn from an REI bike technician basic repairs such as braqke adjustment and fixing a flat. 

For information: 527-7470 

Saturday, August 24

Cajun & More 

Four Live Bands, crafts fair, Cajun food, dance lessons, micro-brewery beer & dance floor. 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

Berkeley police captain
heads up elite program 

When the Junior Olympics Regional Qualifier kicks off at James Logan High in Union City this weekend, the 3M track & field club will be well represented. 36 athletes in several age groups will be representing the East Bay organization, and all will be under the watchful eye of head coach William Pittman. 

Pittman, a captain in the Berkeley Police Department, started 3M in 1983 as a way for his 7-year-old daughter to get some track experience. What started as a personal project has become the East Bay’s elite track & field club, with about 55 athletes competing every year. 

Mike Hammerquist has been with 3M for 11 years, and the 16-year-old has been to the Junior Olympics every year since 1995. A Berkeley resident, Hammerquist spent the past school year at Claremont’s Webb High after a year at Berkeley High, and 3M has helped him become one of the country’s top throwers in his age group. 

“Kyle has the potential to win in the shotput, javelin and discus,” Pittman said. “We have a very strong throwing group this season, but Kyle is a standout.” 

For Hammerquist, who just missed qualifying for the CIF State Championship as a sophomore, the regionals are a familiar stomping ground. 

“I’ve been there every year for a long time, but I still get excited to be there,” he said. “It’s still a real good sensation to throw in tough competition.” 

The 3M hopefuls also include a bevy of sprinters from James Logan High, one of Northern California’s most powerful prep programs. Pittman expects great things from Talia Stewart, who he considers the favorite to win the national title for 100-meter hurdles, as well as Brittani Dudley, a standout in the 100- and 200-meter races. 

3M also has high hopes in the younger age groups, including boys’ and girls’ relay teams that Pittman calls “high-powered, maybe the best we’ve ever had.” Pittman considers the younger kids his biggest project, as they are putting together the building blocks of high-potential athletes. 

“The younger kids tend to want to emulate the older athletes, and they’re trying to prove something to themselves as well as their parents and peers,” Pittman said. “We try to give them the opportunity to be who they want to be and have people appreciate that.” 

The Junior Olympics will be held July 24-28 in Omaha, Neb. Assuming at least one 3M athlete qualifies this weekend by finishing in the top three at Logan High, this will be the 17th consecutive year the club is represented at the national meet. 

“My program wouldn’t be as steady as it is if it wasn’t for a simple formula: quality kids, quality parents and quality coaching,” Pittman said. He is assisted by Charles Casey, Steven Parker, Stanley Harvey and Mike Hammerquist, each of whom specializes in a few events. “We have a great long-term coaching staff, and we have success with children who want to succeed.”