With geologists expecting a large-scale earthquake in the Bay Area by 2030, the city is offering people who live and work in Berkeley free emergency preparedness classes in September and October. 

“We know another disaster will happen,” said firefighter paramedic Sam Hoffman, one of the instructors. “Our jobs as emergency responders are to prepare everyone for the emergency.” 

The United States Geological Survey has concluded that there is a 70 percent chance of a major earthquake hitting the Bay Area by 2030 and a 32 percent chance of an earthquake along the Hayward fault line which runs through Berkeley. 

Berkeley officials also warn that a wildfire like the hills fire of 1991, landslide, toxic spill, flood or act of terrorism are additional possibilities. 

To prepare citizens, the city is offering courses in personal preparedness, first aid, search and rescue, disaster mental health, shelter operations, fire suppression and earthquake retrofitting. 

Participants will learn basic skills like setting splints, operating a fire extinguisher and “cribbing,” or using planks of wood as leverage to lift large objects off trapped victims.  

“It can be done by an 80-pound woman,” said Dory Ehrlich, community emergency response training coordinator for the city. 

Participants will also learn how to comfort the victims of disaster and strengthen their homes by installing expansion and epoxy bolts, among other items. 

Hoffman said, in the event of a major disaster, it usually takes about three days for outside agencies to descend on a city and help in relief efforts. That means citizens can be on their own for 72 hours and need to be prepared. 

The city began offering courses in 1989 after the Loma Prieta earthquake, Ehrlich said, and the 1991 hills fire renewed interest. 

But funding dried up in the mid-1990s before a citizens’ advisory group, the Disaster Council, pushed the city to restart the program, according to Ehrlich. 

The courses are funded by the fire department and run through the department’s office of emergency services. The city will train 10 firefighters as new instructors Monday, bringing the total number of fire department instructors to 12. 

Berkeley contracts with the American Red Cross to teach the shelter operations class and with the Berkeley nonprofit Building Education Center to run the earthquake retrofitting course. 

The courses are offered several times a year. 

The classes are free and open to anyone 18 and older who lives or works in Berkeley. All classes are scheduled at the Fire Department Training Center, 997 Cedar St., except the Earthquake Retrofitting course, which will take place at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 

For more information or to register call the Office of Emergency Services at 981-5605, or register on-line at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html.

To the Editor: 

In an Aug. 22 story, the university claims that next week's three-day strike by clerical and other employees would be “illegal.” The strike is legal because the university has repeatedly violated its legal commitments to do a number of things, such as the requirement to convert temporary workers into career employees after a certain period of time. 

As well, the university has illegally prematurely cut off negotiations, failed to give the clericals' union, the Coalition of University Employees, crucial information needed in bargaining, unilaterally changed terms and conditions of employment without bargaining with CUE, and broken a promise by denying clericals parking and transit subsidy improvements. There are many, many more of these types of violations. They have been filed with the Public Employment Relations Board, which will ultimately decide on their legality, but we in CUE know without a shred of uncertainty that the university is in gross violation of them. 

The story also repeats UC's claim that “the university is offering a 2 percent raise for 2001-2002.” The university is not “offering” any such thing. The university is already paying clerical employees 1 percent of that raise, which was negotiated in the last contract round. It is not currently on the table; it is not being bargained over and it is not an issue in the current dispute. It is, however, a wedge that the university trots out and tries to use to make CUE look somehow dishonest by giving the appearance of a disagreement over facts and figures. 

The reality is that, in the face of inflation, particularly in housing costs, clerical workers' buying power continues to decline while the university offers up to 25 percent raises to administrators making six-figure salaries. Clericals face longer commutes as they are forced to seek housing further away from the Berkeley campus, many are forced to get second jobs, and some are on food stamps. 

The university has, for the first time in my memory of 27 years as a campus employee, rescinded the promise that is made to every entering clerical employee, that with satisfactory employee evaluations, they become eligible for “step” increases until the top of the salary range for the employees' position is reached. In previous budget “crunches” these step increases have been merely delayed. Never have they been cancelled. It is particularly galling that in the last contract round a sixth step was added to the existing five, and now the university says that for two years in a row, clerical employees will not get *any* step increases. This amounts to a take-away. 

The disrespect and dishonesty being shown by UC towards its clerical workers is beyond belief. It is why clerical turnover is 54 percent annually, why clerical positions have gone unfilled, sometimes for years. And as a result of an inability to recruit and the state-mandated “Tidal Wave II” increase in Berkeley campus enrollment, clericals are suffering form a monstrous increase in workload. 

The result of all this is that we clericals have had enough. A strike is the only way to make the university notice that conditions have become unbearable for us. I urge all members of the Berkeley and campus community to remain off the campus Aug. 26-28. Instead, join our picket lines. 

Alan Collin 

UC Berkeley

First Church of Christ, Scientist is the only building in Berkeley that has been designated a National Landmark. It is the highest honor that can be given a structure or site in the United States. The church, on the northeast corner of Dwight Way and Bowditch Street, was designed by Bernard Maybeck in 1910.  

The church is considered Bernard Maybeck’s masterpiece and in the words of Kenneth Cardwell, Maybeck’s biographer, “no other building demonstrates so completely Maybeck’s imaginative architectural genius…with its masterly handling of space, structure, color and light.” Others have remarked that it is one of the Bay Area’s greatest architectural monuments, a monument of inner beauty and strength, an inspiration for unique formulations of space, light, and texture and perhaps, simply one of the great buildings of the world. Indeed, most anthologies on American architecture include this church.  

The building is a fusion of ordinary materials such as reinforced concrete, industrial sash windows glazed with translucent glass, panels of asbestos siding called transite, and redwood trellises and roof framing. The building is a highly creative combination of historic references from Byzantine, Romanesque, and Gothic to Japanese.  

Structure and decoration merge on the interior of the church where the color scheme has been well preserved. The natural brown of the roof trusses and the gray of the concrete pillars contrast with the gold gilt in the tracery enhanced by blue, red, black, and green in the depths of modeled ornament and flat stencil work. Natural and artificial light is used to enhance the structure and different shades of translucent glazing create the desired effect. 

The Christian Science hurch was founded in Boston in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) who claimed to have discovered the principles by which Jesus had healed the sick and by bringing the material body into harmony with the spiritual, man can achieve perfection and be healed. Most Christian Science churches are plain, often classically inspired structures, reflecting the rational principles of the religion. Maybeck created a church for the Berkeley congregation that is non-traditional, yet immensely spiritual.  

When the university began acquiring properties south of campus for redevelopment during the 1950s, members and friends of the church obtained National Landmark status for the building to discourage its destruction. The church was built in the heart of an established residential neighborhood that is now mostly gone.  

There will be an opportunity to visit the church and tour the neighborhood 6 p.m. Aug. 29. Please call the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association at 841-2242 for further information and reservations.

Berkeley is home to many aspiring musicians and provides opportunity for the amateur performer to get onstage nearly every night of the week. Here’s what the Daily Planet found in a typical week of talent-spotting. 

The open mic week begins Sunday at The Starry Plough Pub, 3101 Shattuck Ave., where expat Irishman Shay Black has hosted a seisun (the Gaelic word from which “session” is derived) for the past six years. A more traditional Irish session might feature only instrumental music, mainly fiddle tunes, but Black extends his evening to include a bit of singing.  

When the man from Kelly’s Corner, Dublin shouts ciunas (“order” in Gaelic), the bar hushes, and singers step to the center of a semicircle of chairs and belt out a tune. 

“I emphasize that it’s an Irish session and that they should sing something from that tradition, or that they’ve learned from someone,” says Black. Though the selection sometimes strays into sea chanteys and Scottish tunes, Shay generally sets the tone with a good sing-along number like “Molly Malone,” “Whiskey in the Jar” or the rebel standard “The British Army.” There’s even a brief Irish step-dancing interlude.  

The Starry Plough has a mixture of veterans and beginners, and everyone eventually learns their place in the circle of players in a process Black calls “musical socialization.” He says that it’s always best to observe a session before showing up with instrument in tow, but “I’ve tried to make it open to everyone.”  

Monday eveneing blues lovers can take guitars, harmonicas and the like to Blake’s on Telegraph Avenue for a blues jam hosted by Mz. Dee and featuring Steve Gannon’ house band. Performers are called upon starting at 10:30 p.m. You can go up with a group, or individually. Sometimes ad-hoc bands are assembled from various individuals who’ve shown up. Gannon’s house band alternates sets with jammers until 1:30 a.m.  

Tuesdays at the Freight & Salvage Coffee House the 30-year-old folk club hosts a stage of local talent. The Shay Black session is totally not amplified but the Freight has a state-of-the-art sound system and will even record your performance if you supply a cassette.  

The Freight alternates bi-weekly open mics at its Addison Street facility with the Northern California Songwriters Association. Joining NCSA requires some additional commitment, as membership costs $75. For the fee, however, songwriting contests are judged by music biz professionals, and winners are awarded with free studio time.  

The most recent NCSA event in Berkeley featured previous winners from the East Bay and Sacramento region open mics, and was a semifinal for the song-of-the-year competition. Many performers were hawking their own CDs and phrases bandying phrases like: “I’ve got a quarter-inch jack you can borrow.” All performers seem very polished, and stage and technology savvy.  

Ian Crombie has been running the NCSA events for the past 15 years. They’ve been held at the Freight for the last 20. He estimates that half the NCSA members may be on a career path (some have returned from tours to perform tonight) but that many just join for its community spirit. 

The Starry Plough walks a bit more on the wild side. Performers show up at 7:30 p.m. to sign up for a two-song set, and the most recent event had 25 performers. As hostess Joan Pez tells the audience, “If you’re after number 20 you’re having breakfast with us.” Memorable performances from last week included a fiddler playing “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” through a wah-wah pedal, and local legend Girl George (who hosts her own open mic Sunday at Oakland’s Stork Club) careening around the dance floor, encouraging audience participation in her originals, “Everybody’s Crazy (But Me)” and “Johnny Got Herpes.”  

The sound system is quality and Joan and her crew say that everybody sounds good (or, the best they can). Pez, who’s hosted for the past two years, released a “Best of Berkeley” CD in 2001 which featured 16 cuts from open mic performers. “We’re trying to foster a community where it’s as fun for the people who watch as the musicians,” says Pez. “I’m trying to do for young musicians what I wish had been done for me a long time ago.”  

Remember, early arrival ensures that you will be singing before midnight. For those into the spoken word, the Plough hosts an open mic Poetry Slam on Wednesdays.  

Wednesday ou can take your guitar, or just your own bravado, down to Beckett’s at 2271 Shattuck Ave., where Nicole McCrory, aka “The Human Jukebox” hosts an unforgettable evening. She begins with a set of her own, accompanied by saxophonist Bruce Martin, with whom she first performed on the steps of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on Haight Street. A turn of fortune got Nicole into the clubs, and she decided last September to pay back her audience by inviting them to sing along with her.  

And “human jukebox” is no misnomer—she has a spiral notebook with hundreds of songs, and if you pick it, she’ll play it for you. Nicole is adored by her audience, as much for her talent as her barrage of witty banter. Fusillades of sexual innuendo, political humor and other witticisms stream from the informal stage in front of the fireplace. Nicole has been liberated from the conservative realms of Vail, Colo., for two years now, and it shows in her joyous performances. 

“This area has so many people with the ability and desire, and they need some place to go and get it out,” she says. “It’s a healing thing.” She continues, “People that come are so beautiful in the courageousness. It takes great love to get up and perform.” 

The crowd at Becketts may listen, or they may not. And if you’re not concerned with the audience hanging on your every note, this might be a good place to start.  

Becketts also hosts its own session on Thursday evenings, led by multi-instrumentalist Brian Theriault, who co-founded the Starry Plough night with Shay Black, six years ago. This evening, like the Plough’s, features plenty of fiddling and a bit of dancing, as well as interesting bluesy harmonica and some singing.

NEW YORK – Alex Rodriguez offered to slash his record-setting salary if it would help baseball, a novel approach to solving the sport’s problems as it moved within a week of another strike. 

“I would take a cut in pay – 30 to 40 percent – if it would make the game better,” the Texas shortstop said Friday at Yankee Stadium before adding: “It’s not a very realistic proposition.” 

Rodriguez’s $252 million, 10-year contract is the richest in sports, and many owners have pointed to it as a sign of baseball’s imbalance between rich and poor. 

Seven days before the threatened Aug. 30 strike date, the sides avoided the key issues. Management said it expects a new proposal from the union Saturday on the key economic elements of a labor deal. 

Meanwhile, former commissioner Fay Vincent predicted baseball won’t be able to avoid its ninth work stoppage since 1972. 

Vincent, ousted 10 years ago by a group led by current commissioner Bud Selig, praised his successor for what owners have achieved in bargaining. Still, he thinks Selig will be unable to stand up to hardline owners who want a new economic system. 

“I think he has done a very good job in this negotiation of getting more from the union than I would have thought possible,” Vincent said. “He’s in a position to declare victory, That’s an enormous achievement. 

“If he would just admit 30 percent is a victory and not 90 percent, he would have a victory. All Selig has to say next week is that, ‘This is the best we’re going to get. It’s a victory.’ But I don’t think he will do that.” 

Selig, who determined the owners’ labor policy during strikes in 1985 and 1994-95 and a lockout in 1990, said he was hopeful there would be a deal but didn’t go into specifics. 

“Nobody on this Earth is more hopeful than I,” Selig said. “Yes, I’m optimistic. I’m always an optimist, in everything in life. You have to be, especially when you have a job like I have. And these are different from past labor negotiations. So, I’m hopeful. But time will tell.” 

The sides spent Friday discussing issues such as drug testing, the amateur draft, player discipline, scheduling, licensing, medical care, and regulations on uniforms, according to Rob Manfred, the owners’ chief labor lawyer. While they are not far apart on revenue sharing, they remain divided on the luxury tax, designed to cause high-payroll teams to spend less on players. 

“We’re at the point in time where we really need to get at the core issues and see if we can get them resolved,” Manfred said. 

“The pace on those issues needs to improve,” he said, adding, “I think all the issues that we have out there are resolvable.” 

When asked what needs to spark talks on the key issues, union head Donald Fehr responded: “Rob knows what he has to do.” 

It appears any movement is likely to take place in the day or two before the strike deadline, which starts with games of next Friday afternoon. The union still hasn’t decided whether players should travel to the next series after Thursday’s games. 

“I don’t see a lot happening until the last 48 hours, 24 hours,” Rodriguez said. 

Asked if only the imminent pressure of a walkout would cause movement, Fehr said: “Let’s hope the owners don’t make that mistake again.” 

While some owners, such as Texas’ Tom Hicks and San Diego’s John Moores, said in the past week that baseball needs revolutionary change, Manfred is confident that he can work out an agreement owners will ratify. Moores said he would prefer a yearlong shutdown to a bad deal. 

“There is no owner, forget segment of owners, that I am aware of that would prefer a work stoppage to an agreement,” Manfred said. “I have absolutely no concern with our ability to get ratified with anything in neighborhood of the proposals we have on the table.” 

Players made a new proposal on steroid testing Friday, according to Manfred, who said it moved toward owners “modestly.” The union said Aug. 7 that it would be willing to have mandatory random testing for illegal steroids. 

Players want 2003 to be a survey, and proposed that if more than 5 percent test positive, a second survey be taken in 2004. If more than 5 percent test positive that year, mandatory random testing would start the following year. 

“No matter what the circumstances are, we want to have testing for steroids throughout the agreement,” Manfred said. 

The sides are about $33 million apart on how much money to move from the rich teams to the poor. Owners are at $268 million and players at $235 million, using 2001 figures. 

Owners have proposed a luxury tax on portions of payrolls above $102 million, with rates of 37.5 to 50 percent. Players have proposed thresholds of $130 million to $150 million, with rates of 15 to 30 percent. 

Before responding to the last management proposals, the union’s executive board held a telephone conference call Friday. Many players, however, did not listen in. 

Anaheim’s Scott Schoeneweis was among the few pessimistic players. 

“The only sense I have is feeling there will be a strike,” he said. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of.” 

Atlanta’s Tom Glavine hopes for compromise. 

“The last time, it was kind of an all-or-nothing on both sides. And I think because of that, I think it was easier to have more hardline guys on their side because they were digging in and getting ready for a fight,” he said. 

“This time around, both sides I think inevitably are going to get to a position where they have to really sit down and figure out what’s left to fight for. And when that happens, you start to get more guys who are on the fence. That may reduce the number of hard-liners on their side.”

State education consultants said the Berkeley Unified School District’s transition to a new data processing system has been “very smooth,” despite a pair of high-profile payroll problems in late July. Errors are unavoidable in a transition, they said. 

“I can’t think of a single conversion that ever went flawlessly,” said Andrew Prestage, management analyst for the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, at a Board of Education meeting earlier this week. FCMA has been advising the district on budget and technical matters since last fall. 

Prestage said the system’s failure to pay 122 employees and withhold the proper taxes on July 31 – when the district ran its first payroll through Quintessential School Systems (QSS) – were “wrinkles” that have been worked out. 

“You never like to see problems with the payroll system, but it was a problem that was immediately addressed,” he said. “They’re the kind of wrinkles that, once solved, are gone forever.” 

QSS failed to pay employees with direct deposit because the system dropped the “0” at the start of 122 employees’ bank account numbers. 

FCMAT consultant Jim Hickenbottom said paycheck problems have been resolved for all but eight of the employees, and added that the system should be running smoothly by the end of September. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence was quick to add that, while the computer system may be functioning properly by then, the district still has to do significant staff training to ensure the system is handled properly.

Cal men’s basketball head coach Ben Braun confirmed that point guard Shantay Legans has asked for his release from the program in order to transfer to Fresno State. 

Braun said he spoke with Legans this week, but stopped short of confirming he would release Legans. Braun said he hopes to meet with Legans in person to discuss the matter. 

“I have requested that Shantay meet with me in person to obtain his release from his commitment to the University of California,” Braun said Friday. “To this point, Shantay has not met with me regarding his release. I have supported Shantay since his arrival at Cal and will continue to do so in the future. Obviously, I am disappointed that he has chosen not to finish his senior year at Cal, as well as with the timing of his request.” 

Legans averaged 8.1 points and 3.8 assists last season for a Cal team that made the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row. But Legans was reportedly upset when former walk-on A.J. Diggs took over the starting role for a few games in the middle of the season. 

Diggs, who was awarded a scholarship this summer, will likely be the full-time starter. Freshman Richard Midgely could challenge for time as well. 

New Fresno State head coach Ray Lopes adopted Shantay Legans through the “Big Brother” program when the player was in the fifth grade. 

“Ray’s really the only father Shantay knows,” Susan Legans told the Oakland Tribune. “I think it’s always been a dream of his to play for Ray Lopes.” 

It has been a topsy-turvy summer for Braun’s program. Freshman Jamal Sampson made a surprising jump into the NBA Draft, then junior Gabriel Hughes decided to transfer before changing his mind last week. Israeli big man Yaniv Green flirted with the idea of joining the Bears before backing out, then Braun added 6-foot-9 Jordi Geli Vilardell of Spain. 

Bears work on situations: Cal’s final scrimmage turned into a situation practice on Friday afternoon at Memorial Stadium. The Bears went through some regular plays, but concentrated on special situations like clock management and turnovers. 

“We needed to cover every possible situation today, and we did that,” head coach Jeff Tedford said. “We had to communicate what we need to do in certain situations.” 

Senior quarterback Kyle Boller looked solid, completing 9-of-15 passes, including several nicely timed slant patterns and two screen passes to tailback Joe Igber. Training camp sensation Vincent Strang continued to impress at wideout, catching five balls in the first half, including a 25-yard touchdown toss from Boller. 

New turf broken in: Friday was the first time the Bears have played on the new Memorial Stadium turf, which was reseeded this summer. Tedford said the new turf met his expectations and held up well during the practice. 

Injury update: Offensive left tackle Mark Wilson was held out of Friday’s practice due to a sore foot. Tedford said Wilson will be ready to practice Monday... Freshman wideout David Gray also didn’t practice Saturday with a sore shoulder, but should be ready for the Baylor game next weekend... Receiver Chase Lyman has resumed limited practice, but may not be ready for Baylor. Likewise, junior college transfer Junior Brignac is questionable with an ankle injury... Linebacker Ryan Estes has a foot fracture and will miss several weeks. Tedford said a redshirt year is a possibility. 

Decisions this weekend: Tedford said he will make decisions on redshirting freshmen and awarding scholarships to walk-ons this weekend. Although he doesn’t have to make official decisions on redshirts until the Bears’ first road game on Sept. 14 at Michigan State, he’d like to have them sorted out by the opener. 

“You’d like to know ahead of time who you’re going to want to use,” he said. “If we have a game in hand and want to get guys reps, we want to get guys we’re going to use on the field.” 

Tailback battle: Michael Porter has edged ahead of freshman Marcus O’Keith for the third tailback spot, which means O’Keith will likely redshirt this year unless an injury occurs. 

WR competition: With all the nagging injuries among the wide receiver corps, it’s been hard to get a read on who will contribute early in the season. Tedford said junior college transfer Jonathon Makonnen has established himself as the No. 1 receiver, but the picture gets cloudy from there. Lyman was the top wideout coming out of spring practice, but finger and hamstring injuries have limited him in the fall. Sophomore Geoff McArthur is listed as the other starter after missing most of last season with an arm injury. The X-factor is senior LaShaun Ward. After moving over from cornerback last season, he showed a talent for getting behind the defense.

Gov. Gray Davis announced approval of more than $20 million by the California Transportation Commission to upgrade service on BART. 

“My administration is committed to improving public transportation in the Bay Area,” Davis said. “These investments will ensure a safe and speedy commute.” 

The funding is part of the governor's $5.3 billion Traffic Congestion Relief Program. 

A total of $19.5 million was approved to continue environmental and design activities to seismically strengthen the BART system in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. According to Davis, the funding will be used to lay out a strategy for strengthening BART bridges and the Transbay Tube so that they can withstand a major earthquake. 

In addition, $1.1 million was approved for BART to continue to study ways to improve the connectivity between various modes of transportation in the Interstate Highway 580 corridor between Pleasanton and Livermore.

It seems the first little pig, looking for an affordable yet solid home, may not have been too far off base in choosing straw as his primary construction material. 

The Shorebird Nature Center in the Berkeley Marina, with a handful of local volunteers, raised the straw bale walls of a new 860-square-foot facility earlier this month. The new facility, which will adjoin with the current building where visitors are taught about birds and the bay, includes a 450 square-foot outdoor classroom, office space, a visitor’s center and additional teaching space. 

The addition is said to be the Bay Area’s first public building made of straw bales. 

Although straw bale construction has emerged as a trend only recently, the concept has been around for nearly a century. At the beginning of the 20th century, homesteaders in the Nebraska “Sandhills” turned to bale hay construction due to a shortage of trees for lumber. The oldest existing bale building was built in 1903 in northwestern Nebraska. It still withstands Nebraska’s wild temperature swings and blizzard-force winds. 

In Berkeley, the primary building material for the Shorebird Nature Center is straw bales made of rice. The bales are also commonly made from wheat, oats, barley, rye and flax. 

Following this month’s construction of the walls, the bottom straw bales will be enclosed in a water-resistant sheath and steel rods will be pounded through the bales for added stabilization. Wire mesh and stucco will also be used to further secure the structure. Completion of the structure is expected late this fall. 

The benefits of using straw bales – which unlike wood are renewable annually – in the construction of homes and commercial buildings are numerous.  

“There are a myriad of environmental reasons [for using straw bale construction],” said Greg Van Mechelen, a contractor at the nature center with Van Mechelen Architects in Berkeley. 

Straw bale buildings make use of material that would otherwise go unused – the stalks remaining after the harvest of grain. Normally that refuse is burned, creating pollution. 

One million tons of straw were burned each year in the mid-1990s in California, according to Dietmar Lorenz, an architect for Dan Smith Associates of Berkeley who is also helping with the Shorebird Nature Center project. While that refuse could have been used to create nearly 100,000 new homes, instead it generated more carbon dioxide emissions than all of California’s power plants combined, Smith said. 

“If you go up to Sacramento in October, you will see a haze from the burning of that straw,” Van Mechelen added. 

Straw bale buildings have another long-term benefit. The straw is more solid as an insulator than traditional types, so it saves money in utilities. Straw insulation is more earthquake resistant and acoustically sound. And, the building will hold up better during a fire. 

“Six years ago people had no idea [about straw bale homes],” he said. “Now, people have an idea and are requesting more environmental-friendly buildings.” 

Lorenz, whose firm has completed more than 40 straw bale projects, has seen an upswing in people requesting “green” homes. 

“It’s really gaining momentum very quickly,” Lorenz said. “Every year there is increased interest.” 

Although using straw bales can increase building costs 10 percent to 15 percent, Lorenz and Van Mechelen agreed that consumers quickly make up the expense through other benefits. 

“In the end you get a much more substantial house in terms of quality, longevity and operating costs,” Lorenz said. 

Straw bale buildings are also more conducive to the “do-it-yourselfer.” “If you do some of the construction yourself, you can save money,” Van Mechelen said. 

The center is being constructed with grants from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Department of Energy, West Berkeley Foundation, The Strong Foundation, Builder’s Bookstore, the city of Berkeley and individual contributions. In addition, the California Integrated Waste Management Board and the Alameda County Waste Management and Recycling Board are also major funders of the project.  

Other environmental features of the new building include passive solar design, integrated photovoltaics, hot water solar panels for radiant heating system, natural linoleum floors, recycled and sustainability harvested wood framing, cabinetry from wheat straw particleboard and countertops made from recycled glass. 

Construction of the Shorebird Nature Center addition is due to be completed in November. It will be open to the public six days a week for presentations, workshops and open houses. 

SACRAMENTO — California’s budget impasse is on course to break records as it heads into the ninth week and the Legislature prepares for the final marathon week of its 2002 session. 

The latest recorded budget in the state was signed Sept. 2, in 1992, and as that date approaches there are few signs of a break in the standoff between Assembly Republicans and Democrats over $3.7 billion in tax increases. 

Friday is officially the last day of the 2002 legislative session in California. But the Assembly has yet to approve a budget plan and, as of late last week, neither side appeared prepared to budget on the issues. 

Meanwhile, state vendors, college students and some programs for the poor and disabled are feeling the sting of the state operating without a budget for nearly two months. 

“It certainly is serious,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project. “It means that people who are used to having care and services provided to them won’t have that available.” 

State agencies continued to operate and 250,000 non-legislative state workers continued to be paid last week. 

However, the budget impasse has prevented California college students from receiving grants to pay for books and housing, it has held up lawmakers’ and staffers’ paychecks for two months, and it has halted payments to vendors who sell supplies to the state’s prisons and hospitals. 

It also has stalled payments of nearly 384,000 claims to elderly, blind and disabled Californians who participate in a program of assistance for homeowners or renters. State Controller Kathleen Connell also has withheld paychecks for members of the Legislature and statewide officeholders, including Gov. Gray Davis and herself.

LOS ANGELES — Low interest rates, strong demand and tight supply kept California’s real estate market red hot in July, with home prices soaring 16.5 percent over the same period last year. 

The median home price, the point at which half the homes sell for more and half for less, increased to a record $271,000, according to a report released Thursday by DataQuick Information Systems. 

Sales activity also surged 7.5 percent from a year ago, despite concerns raised by some experts that California’s market is ready for a correction. 

“The danger signals that would indicate that we are in a bubble are just not there,” said John Karevoll, a DataQuick analyst and author of the report. “What’s astonishing to us is the breadth of the growth across the board.” 

Put in perspective, the price gains mean a homeowner with a median-valued home has been making about $3,200 every month for the last year through the appreciation of their property. 

Many homeowners have cashed in some of those gains by refinancing their mortgages, providing an injection of cash into the economy that has held off a more serious recession. 

Several factors suggest the market will remain healthy for some time to come, Karevoll said. 

The median size of down payments relative to loans remains stable at about 15 percent, and there’s a good balance of supply and demand in all categories of the market, from entry level to luxury, he said. 

In addition, consumers are opting for a balanced mix of mortgages, from 30-year fixed rates to riskier adjustable rate mortgages that are easier to obtain. At the peak of the last boom in the late 1980s, about 60 percent of buyers chose adjustable rates. Today that figure is only 27 percent, Karevoll said. 

The market is likely to thrive for at least another year, said Christopher Cagen, director of research and analytics at First American Real Estate Solutions, a real estate information firm. 

“We are deep in a bull market, and I don’t see any reason — barring a war or other catastrophe — that the market is about to turn,” Cagen said. 

Some mortgage brokers and lenders serving buyers in high-end markets, however, warn that a downturn in their segment could be on the horizon.

SAN FRANCISCO — A former business executive was sentenced to 30 months in prison Friday for insider trading. 

Chan Desaigoudar, 64, of Watsonville, was the former chief executive officer of California Micro Devices. He was charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and insider trading. 

According to a plea agreement, Desaigoudar admitted that in 1994, he was aware of “widespread” accounting fraud at the Milpitas-based electronics company. He said the company booked revenue for products never shipped. He admitted illegally profiting $572,000 in stock sales from the faulty bookkeeping. 

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ordered restitution in that amount and also handed him three years post-prison supervision.

Computer hackers used the Berkeley Unified School District’s network to transmit pornographic images last year, according state and district officials. 

The district does not know who broke into the school system last December, but officials said evidence suggests that it was done by outsiders from a remote location. A state technology consultant has since put in place security measures to prevent external use of the district network.  

In a separate development, the state consultant, Director of Technology Philip Scrivano of the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, learned in December that unlike most state schools, no filters existed in Berkeley to block students and staff from viewing on-line pornography. Filters have been put in place since the revelation. 

School board President Shirley Issel said she was pleased that the district implemented filtering technology, but does not believe students were making heavy use of pornographic web sites before the installation of filters. 

“I just don’t see kids working on computers unsupervised,” said Issel. “[But] since you can’t watch all screens at all the times, I think getting some filters on is a safeguard that I’m glad is in place.” 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence said she was pleased that FCMAT, which has been advising the troubled district on budget and technical issues for almost a year, was able to remedy the district’s hacking and filter problems.  

The problems surfaced Wednesday night, during a Board of Education meeting, when Scrivano made a presentation about his eight-month effort to improve security, increase bandwidth and cut costs for the district’s computer network. 

FCMAT Deputy Executive Officer Joel Montero said the network upgrade began in December after his agency discovered that the system was running unusually slow. 

An investigation into the matter revealed two basic problems. First the district’s system was disjointed and needed a significant overhaul.  

Second, FCMAT discovered a “Code Red” virus, implanted by hackers, that allowed them to use district systems for the transmission of pornographic images. 

FCMAT moved immediately to cut off the hackers and improve system security by replacing a porous “firewall” that had allowed hackers to get into the network. 

“We had to lock down right away,” said Montero. 

FCMAT proceeded to replace an inefficient and costly computer network that used 18 separate T1 data lines, replacing it with a single “seamless” fiber optic network that is scheduled to go into full swing this weekend. 

Montero said each of the 18 T1 lines in the old system cost the district $300 per month. The single DS3 line that has replaced the 18 old cables costs less than one T1. 

The network clean-up has cost the district somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000 according to district and FCMAT estimates. But both district and state officials are predicting significant short- and long-term savings with the system upgrade. 

Scott Sexsmith, president of the California Educational Data Processing Association, said Berkeley’s addition of filters to protect children from pornographic web sites puts the district in line with nearly every other school system in the state. 

Sexsmith said districts moved toward filtering after federal legislation, called the Child Internet Protection Act, passed in 2000. The law requires schools to use filtering software to receive federal funds for computers or Internet access. 

With the filters in place, Berkeley Unified has obtained funding for the DS3 line through the federal government’s e-Rate program, which provides deep discounts on infrastructure.

To the Editor: 

I take serious issue with the Aug. 15 letter from Charlie Betcher, founder of the Bus Riders Union, who calls for reducing wages of bus drivers in order to meet AC Transit’s financial problem. Charlie Betcher does not speak for me; nor does he speak for the majority of seniors, Gray Panthers or Bus Riders Union members. The great majority of us are workers. We fought for decent wages and conditions for ourselves and all working people. We supported and continue to support the trade union movement in its constant struggle for job security and we are against efforts to destroy unity and create a wedge between bus drivers and bus riders. 

Charlie’s letter is a shameful response to the transportation crisis. Bus drivers have one of the most difficult of all jobs. They deal with awful traffic situations, work long hours without adequate rest periods, constantly give directions, deal with sometimes cantankerous passengers and have difficult schedules. That they deal so well with the stress of the job is something I believe most riders are aware of and grateful for.  

We need a governmental subsidized transportation system, and in order to have it, our government must cut the military budget. Tell that to that man in the White House; tell it to your congresspeople; tell it to your City Council. 

Vivian Raineri 

Berkeley

Here’s a conundrum for you. When watching local theater productions, do you look past the rough parts that plague most plays and give the company a break? Or do you hope for a higher level of performance that can be found in other small theater productions?  

If you opt for the first choice, you may want to check out Theater Absurd’s inaugural production of “Death,” by Woody Allen. However, if you’re hoping for a diamond-in-the-rough of a play from a new theater group, you’d better keep looking – at least for now.  

“Death” is chock full of themes reminiscent throughout all of Allen’s work: love, alienation, a quest for spiritual understanding, what the universe is all about (according to a hooker), and of course, what happens after we die. And though the title may put you off, it is actually a Woody Allen comedy. (And for those of you put off by Woody Allen, it is only a one-act play.) It’s filled with some great one-liners and situations that are pure Allen. 

You have to give the cast of “Death” credit for trying to pull off a long, forgotten play by Allen, though you may have seen a variation on this play in Allen’s movie “Shadows and Fog.” The production, which runs through this weekend, has some great comic moments. But it is somewhat fraught with rushed performances and parts that don’t quite make sense. 

The piece centers around the main character, named Kleinman, played by Geoff Roelants, and his attempts to grasp a bizarre reality that one, a homicidal maniac is trolling his neighborhood, and two, some of his friends think that he may be the killer. Played with high energy, Roelants is a decent Allen-type, replete with the nebbish whining, tics and perplexed rants that help push the play through its quick 45-minute run.  

Kleinman is a salesman of some kind—we’re never told of what, but just that it’s “the height of the season.” One morning he is awoken at 2:30 a.m. by three of his friends who are dressed like the musical group The Village People – a construction worker, a sailor and a cowboy. These costumes are never really explained, though Kleinman makes a joke when he mimics the YMCA dance while asking if they’re all going to go out dancing. This must be one of the “absurd” parts of Theater Absurd. 

Kleinman is pulled and pushed by his friends to get up and join a vigilante group they’re forming to find the killer. While never told why he is needed or what the “plan” is, Kleinman nevertheless follows his friends’ lead out into the night. One by one, most of his friends and others he encounters on the street – a doctor, a hooker and a police officer – are either killed or are in on the plan to find the killer.  

The problem for Kleinman is that no one describes the plan to him. When he asks, he can’t get a straight answer. This dilemma slowly eats away at the small string Kleinman holds on reality.  

The characters surrounding Kleinman, who could resemble the characters on an episode of Bob Newhart, are perfect at causing mass confusion in the life of Kleinman. During a few moments they even think that Klein 

man is the killer.  

Two notable characters who shed a little light on the whole scene are a hooker and Abe – an orthodox Jew or Rabbi, you’re not sure which. (What would a Woody Allen play be without a hooker and a orthodox Jew?)

Friday, August 23 

Irate, For the Crown, Beneath the Ashes & Pain of Sleep 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Deke Dickerson and the ecco-fonics & Calamity and Main 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$7 

Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums with Ms. Carmen Getit 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

8 p.m. dance lesson 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$12 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Peppino D’Agostino 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

The Damnations & Loretta Lynch  

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$7 

Saturday, August 24 

Anthony Brown Ensemble  

Doors open 7:30 p.m. Show 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck 

Free Jazz Concert explores inspiration of Ralph Ellison. 

981-6100 

Free 

California Brazil All-star Band 

Brazil Camp Benefit 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$10 door/ Free for 12 and under 

John McCormick 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

New Millennium Strings, conducted by Laurien Jones 

8 p.m. 

A concert featuring The Hebrides, Op. 26 (Fingal’s Cave) by Mendelssohn; Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Op. 64, E minor, Loretta Taylor, soloist; Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun; and Children’s Corner Suite by Debussy. 

526-3331 

$10 General admission, $7 students and seniors, under 12 free 

Phantom Limbs, Dead and Gone & Pitch Black 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Sunday, August 25 

Dan & Dale Zola Present The Great Night of Rumi 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Celebrating Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi with spoken word, music and dance. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Benefit for the Neibyl Proctor Library 

Featuring Red Dust 

3 to 5 p.m. 

6501 Telegraph Ave. 

Benefit for a progressive research center for teachers, students and activists. 

595-7417 

$5 to $10, sliding scale 

BACA National Juried Exhibition 

Through Sept. 21, Wed.-Sun. Noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park 

40 artists from across the U.S. including 28 Bay Area artists. 

644-6893 

Free 

"Before and After"  

Reception 4 to 6 p.m.  

Through Sept. 19  

Albany Community Center and Library Galley 1249 Marin Ave. 

Jim Hair's photographs of the San Diego Hells Angels motorcycle chapter from the 1970s.  

524-9283  

Freedom! Now! 

Berkeley Arts Festival Gallery & Headquarters 2055 Center St. 

Reception 6 to 8 p.m. 

Through Aug. 25, Tues. - Sun., noon to 5 p.m. 

Commemorates the work of those who struggled for justice and freedom from government/state repression. 

841-2793 

The Creation of People’s Park 

Through Aug. 31, Mon. - Thurs., 9 a.m. 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, with curator Harold Adler. 

hjadler@yahoo.com 

Free 

"New Work: Part 2, The 2001 Kala Fellowship Exhibition"  

Through Sept. 7, Tues.-Fri. Noon to 5:30 p.m., Sat. noon - 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

Featuring 8 Kala Fellowship winners, printmaking 

549-2977  

“If These Walls Could Talk” 

Through Sept. 8 

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California Campus (just below Grizzly Peak Blvd.) 

See how various civilizations built all kinds of structures from mud huts to giant skyscrapers at this building exhibit. 

642-5132 

Admission: $8 for adults; $6 for ages 5-18, seniors and disabled; $4 for children 3-4; Free for children under 3, LHS Members and full-time Berkeley students. 

In a preview of what should be an explosive offense, the Cal women’s soccer team got goals from four different players to win 4-0 against USF in an exhibition game on Thursday. 

Junior Kassie Doubrava, sophomore Kacy Hornor and freshmen Dania Cabello and Tracy Hamm all scored for the Bears, and goalkeepers Sani Post and Lee Ann Morton combined to shut out the Dons, who tied Cal 3-3 last season. 

None of the Bears’ goal came from senior forward Laura Schott, who should become the leading goal- and point-scorer in school history sometime this season. Schott has 49 goals and 110 points, six goals and 23 points short of Joy Fawcett’s school records. 

“Laura looks great. This could be her best season,” Cal head coach Kevin Boyd said. “She’s preparing for a professional career, so she’s very driven to improve.” 

Schott isn’t the only player on pace to take down one of Fawcett’s records. Senior midfielder Brittany Kirk needs seven assists to overtake the former U.S. National Team star in the record book. 

Boyd thinks this could be a breakout year for his team, which has lost in the first round of the NCAA playoffs the last two seasons. With Schott leading the attack up front and Kirk and junior Kim Yokers, who joined Schott on the Under-21 National Team this summer, manning the midfield, the Bears have a solid core up the middle. 

“We’re really well-rounded this year,” Boyd said Thursday. “We have good players at every position, and our depth is good. Even our most established starters are being pushed by the younger and newer players.” 

Boyd will be breaking in a new goalkeeper for the second year in a row. Mallory Moser, who started as a freshman last year, quit the team, leaving transfers Post and Ashley Sulprizio to battle it out between the posts. Post, a junior, came to Cal from Notre Dame last year but sat out with an injury. Sulprizio redshirted last year at Nebraska and has all four years of eligibility remaining, but is currently recovering from a concussion. Morton, a senior, was a midfielder for the last three seasons but shin problems forced her to quit playing the field. Her athleticism somewhat makes up for her lack of experience at the position, as she showed by recovering well to tip a chip shot wide on Thursday, but she will likely be the third keeper. 

Boyd hopes one of his goalies takes ahold of the starting job, as Maite Zabala did for three years and Moser did last season. 

“Nobody has clearly differentiated themself from the group,” Boyd said. “It’d be nice to have that one person you stick in there every game.” 

Another important position change is that of Ashley Valenzuela, who moves to the backline after starting for two seasons in the midfield. Valenzuela is a physical player who should solidify the central defense along with junior Lucy Brining. Senior Kim Stocklmeir has a solid hold on the third fullback spot, and should Boyd employ a four-back set, junior Amy Willison is the leading candidate for the last spot. 

The battle to be Schott’s main strike partner will likely go on all season, as at least four candidates look to replace departed Kyla Sabo. The 5-foot-10 Hornor showed flashes as a freshman last season, scoring four goals, but needs to learn to use her size advantage better. Senior Krysti Whalen has scored six goals in her Cal career but isn’t a very dynamic player, and freshmen Cabello and Liz Eisenberg will have to get used to the speed of the college game in order to contribute. 

Speed is something that’s Boyd’s teams have lacked in the past, but that shouldn’t be a problem in years to come. He estimates that four of his freshmen are among the six fastest players on the team. Hamm could be an instant force on the wing, as showed against USF, using her pace to set up Hornor’s goal then blowing past a defender for her own score. Cabello and Eisenberg also have elite speed, which could be a nice complement to Schott’s skills and hustle. 

The Bears open their season with the Cal Invitational next Friday. Ohio State, Purdue and St. Mary’s will be in the tournament.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said the state’s fiscal crisis will prevent the university from boosting its wage offer to clerical workers, who are set to strike Monday,  

“I understand their frustration and the concerns that they have,” said Berdahl at his annual back-to-school press conference Thursday. “There really isn’t the kind of leeway that I wish we had.” 

Berdahl acknowledged that “many staff have salaries that make it difficult for them to support families,” but said the university’s hopes for a cash infusion to boost salaries this year “disappeared very quickly as the budget situation went south.” 

Clericals, though, say there is much more the university can do. 

“The University of California’s own figures show that only 36 percent of [the clericals’] salaries come from state monies,” said Michael-David Sasson, president of the Berkeley chapter of the Coalition of University Employees, which represents 18,000 clericals systemwide.  

“The current crisis in the state budget is not determinant of salaries.” 

The union maintains that the university has an unrestricted $2.3 billion reserve it could tap for salary increases. But university officials say they need the money to support other programs.  

CUE is asking for a 15 percent raise over two years for clericals throughout the system. The university says it is offering a 3.5 percent pay hike over the course of two years, with an additional 3 percent in deferred pay that would appear in employees’ retirement plans.  

Union officials say the university’s two-year offer, excluding the deferred pay, actually amounts to 2.5 percent, not 3.5 percent. 

In June, the Berkeley branch of CUE, which represents 2,300 secretaries, library assistants and childcare workers at UC Berkeley and the Oakland-based offices of the system-wide president, authorized a strike. The union officially announced the three-day work stoppage at a campus rally on Sproul Plaza Wednesday. 

Fifty nurses from the university’s health care center and 600 lecturers will join in “sympathy strikes” with the clericals.  

Berdahl warned, at the press conference, that state funding woes might eventually extend to the students. If the economic slump continues and the state is unable to increase funding for the UC system, he said, student tuition for California residents, which has remained stable for eight years, may increase in the future. 

The chancellor said there was good news around student housing, an ongoing concern for the university. For the first time in his tenure, Berdahl said, there is no waiting list for student housing. 

The chancellor attributed the improvement, in part, to the construction of the university-owned, 120-bed College-Durant apartment complex, which opened this weekend and played host to the press conference Thursday. 

By 2005, the university plans to have 1,100 new beds in place on the south side of campus, getting closer to its goal of guaranteed housing for first-year students, half of second-year students and all transfer students. 

Berdahl, in the free-ranging press conference, also suggested that he opposes a push by some students and faculty to divest from Israel, and said UC Regent Ward Connerly’s Racial Privacy Initiative, which will appear on the state ballot in November, is “a bad idea.” 

The Racial Privacy Initiative would ban state agencies from collecting data on citizens’ race. Berdahl said he is concerned, in particular, that important social science databases might be effected. He said carefully-worded exemptions must be included in the measure. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net. 

To the Editor: 

It would be easy to get rid of Saddam Hussein in only10 days. President George W. Bush has this power. All George W. has to do is endorse Saddam Hussein and tell America and the world that Saddam is a nice guy.  

This would immediately trigger the greatest hate movement the world has ever seen. We all know that anything that George W. says or does is wrong and he will destroy world peace as well as trigger global warming, cheat stockholders, kill salmon, pollute our air and water and destroy the environment. 

If George W. says Saddam is great, the United Nations will hate Saddam; the Democrats will hate Saddam, the Russians will hate Saddam; the Euro-intelligentsia will hate Saddam; the NAACP will hate Saddam; the Eco-Freaks will hate Saddam; the Sierra Club will hate Saddam; the NOW members will hate Saddam; the Iraqi citizens will hate Saddam. Even Saddam’s mother will hate him. 

There is no way that Saddam can endure all this hate. I guarantee that if our president acts today Saddam will kill himself within 10 days. 

Sidney Steinberg 

Berkeley

OAKLAND – BART officials adopted a fare schedule Thursday in preparation of January’s opening of the five-station extension to the San Francisco International Airport. 

Riders from downtown Berkeley will pay $5.15 for a one-way BART trip to the airport.  

The price does not include the 5 percent rate increase approved by BART’s board of directors earlier this year, slated to take effect in January. The price also does not include a likely $1.50 surcharge, to help pay off construction loans that will be assessed to riders who go to the airport. 

The highest price that BART riders will pay for a one-way trip to the airport is $6.90, which is the cost from the Pittsburg/Bay Point station. The average fare to the airport from the 42 BART stations will be roughly $5.24. 

According to Joel Keller, BART’s board president, the cost of getting to the airport will be significantly less than other options. 

“That $6.90 trip will probably be about $7.25,” Keller said. “It's still a bargain for a one-way trip.” 

To the Editor: 

Section 8 refers to a portion of federal legislation administered by the U. S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. It has been providing rent subsidies for low-income people. Tenants generally pay one-third of their income in rent, with the balance subsidized by HUD. The Berkeley Housing Authority works with HUD to administer a tenant-based Section 8 program as well as a public housing program. Of the two types of provisions of low-income housing – tenant-based Section 8 and public housing rentals – the Section 8 provision represents considerably more units for Berkeley low-income citizens and business for the authority. 

Ultimate responsibility for the Berkeley Housing Authority is vested in a BHA board consisting of the mayor, the council members and two tenant representatives. In the past, the two tenant board members have been representative of Section 8, the elderly and public housing tenants. Recently the BHA board changed the wording of its definition and make-up to the extent that “Section 8” is not mentioned, and more importantly, neither tenant representative is stipulated as representing Section 8. The revised city web site BHA description:  

“The Housing Authority is responsible for carrying out the Housing Assistance Voucher and Public Housing Programs for low income Berkeley families. The authority is composed of the elected City Council and two tenant members of the Housing Authority. Tenant members are appointed to the authority by the council for two-year terms. One tenant member must be 62 years of age or older.”   

It seems likewise notable that the minutes and agendas of the Section 8 Resident Advisory Board – but not the Public Housing Resident Advisory Board –  are “missing.” 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

Berkeley 

What’s in a name? A heck of a lot, according to members of Citizens for an Eastshore State Park, who have worked since 1985 for the preservation of a stretch of coast from the Bay Bridge to Richmond. 

With park planners just months away from seeking final approval for the park, CEST members have been told that their hard earned park will be designated “a state recreation area.” 

The name change reflects the additional, and in some cases unexpected, recreational opportunities at the expense of preserving natural habitat. 

CEST members aren’t happy. 

“We have not worked all these years for a state recreation area,” said Sylvia McLaughlin of CEST during a joint meeting of the Waterfront Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission Wednesday. 

Ron Schaefer of the California Department of Parks and Recreation tried to allay the fears of McLaughlin and others. He said the designation would not affect the park plan and that either designation would protect wildlife.  

But Robert Cheasty, CEST president, said the issue is more than just semantics. 

“A ‘park’ designation will protect the rarest and most precious qualities of our shoreline.” 

“A ‘recreation’ designation allows for greater development. In an urban setting you can always add more development but can almost never reverse it,” he said. 

The Waterfront and Parks and Recreation Commissions sided with CEST. They both voted to recommend to City Council that the coastal stretch be designated a state park. 

State parks, however, still has final say on classification and it is leaning against the CEST position. “As [the plan] sits now it looks like a recreation area,” said Schaefer. 

A name change would be a bitter pill for CEST members who are already facing a plan that runs counter to several of their initial goals. When CEST started their campaign for a coastal state park 17 years ago, the aim was to preserve one of the few vestiges of undeveloped shoreline for native plants and animals. 

But when planning for the new park got under way early last year, CEST members found themselves in competition with new interest groups that had conflicting visions for the coast. 

Playing field advocates, off-leash dog walkers, windsurfers and boaters, many who already used lands included in the park plan, clamored for their stake in the 8.4 mile park. 

“We had a vision of a natural park with some recreational aspects, but not all the parking, visitor facilities, concrete promenades and baseball fields,” said Norman La Force of CEST and the Sierra Club. 

The current plan, he says, sacrifices preservation for too much recreation and development, specifically in the Berkeley Brickyard and North Basin and Albany Plateau. 

Planners have proposed making the Brickyard, the swath of land just south of the marina, into the park’s centerpiece. The plan calls for a built-up brickyard to house a parking lot, boat launch, cafe, headquarters, kayak and bike rentals, and a shoreline promenade with a viewing platform. 

The North Basin Strip, just west of Gilman Street is also slated for heavy development. A boat launch, boat house, interpretive center, food vendors and a hostel are all planned on the site. 

CEST would like to see the buildings consolidated. “We envisioned some recreational facilities, but why should there be duplicative concrete,” Cheasty said. He proposed combining the proposed interpretive center and visitor center, limiting the number of parking spaces, and forgoing the hostel, some of the food stations and concrete promenades. 

Ballfields slated for the Albany Plateau appear to be a more contentious issue. Cheasty says the fields would be too expensive to build, destroy valuable habitat and violate state park law. He wants park officials to consider buying land owned by the parent company of the nearby Golden Gate Fields racetrack and put fields there. 

Playing field advocates counter that the planned three to five fields are desperately needed and that the only land available is at the Plateau. 

CEST members have hinted at going to court to stop the fields, but Cheasty hopes a compromise can be reached. 

After nearly two decades of work for a state park, Cheasty said he is willing to meet opponents halfway. 

“We would have liked to have seen them a little earlier, but they are all potential friends,” he said. “We can be flexible.” 

So long as they don’t call it a recreation area, he said. 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

The Oakland Police Department says that homicide detectives are investigating the shooting death of a man on Wednesday night in the city's 71st killing of the year. 

Authorities say that the victim, in his 30s, was shot to death just prior to 6 p.m. in the area of 27th Avenue and East 21st Street. 

No suspect is currently in custody.

The Federal Highway Administration will investigate allegations by two Bay Area construction firms that Caltrans violated federal regulations by not meeting goals for minority-owned business participation during the bidding process of the Bay Bridge's east span replacement project. 

In June, the owners of Port-O-Walls Systems of Sonoma and Oakland-based Bay Line Concrete Cutting and Coring filed a complaint with the civil rights office of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration seeking to block funding from the long-delayed billion-dollar project. 

The companies allege that the prime contractor, Kiewit/FCI/Mason, which was awarded the lucrative contract in January, did not engage in a bona fide effort to recruit so-called DBEs, or Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, even though they told Caltrans that they would do so. 

The construction firms accuse the contractor of manipulating the subcontracting process, calling the invitations for minority participation "window dressing,'' and claiming that the contractor had no intention of hiring them. 

The highway administration's civil rights office will investigate the matter to determine whether Caltrans and Kiewit made a good faith effort to involve disadvantaged businesses in the process. 

Willie Harris, director of civil rights with the Western Resources Center of the Federal Highway Administration, said that the call for an investigation has nothing to do with the merits of the allegation. 

He said the highway administration's civil rights office investigates all complaints that are filed within 180 days and fall under the agency's jurisdiction. 

Harris said that an investigator would be assigned to the case to conduct the probe, which will draft a recommendation to the Associate Administrator for Civil Rights to determine if there's probable cause to the allegations. 

Harris added there is no time restriction for the investigation and added that there's no way of knowing how long the probe into the east span project will last. 

Caltrans representatives locally and in Sacramento did not return calls for comment.

SAN FRANCISCO — Creditors of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. have teamed with California power regulators to promote a plan to settle PG&E’s debts that could require millions of customers to keep paying among the nation’s highest electricity rates for an unknown number of years. 

The Public Utilities Commission and creditors committee will work with investment banking firm UBS Warburg to design a financial plan that would leave PG&E with enough cash to pay its debts, become creditworthy and resume buying electricity for its customers, attorneys for the state Public Utilities Commission said Thursday at a news conference. 

Now, the state buys power for customers of PG&E and two other electric utilities, the result of a freeze on electric rates that kept them from collecting enough money to pay bills as energy costs skyrocketed in 2000 and 2001. California officials say the price surge was caused by market manipulation by energy firms such as now-bankrupt Enron Corp. Separately on Thursday, the PUC voted to allow utilities to begin buying long-term power contracts through the state to help keep energy prices stable. 

State officials have said PG&E customers must help pull the company from Chapter 11 or the state could lose its oversight over much of the company’s dealings to federal energy regulators whom the state has blamed for moving too slowly to rein in out-of-control prices. Those include the utility’s use of its Sierra lands and the prices it charges for power generated at its power plants and hydroelectric dams. 

Thursday’s agreement would enable U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali to require that PG&E’s rates be high enough to meet the utility’s financial obligations. PUC general counsel Gary Cohen said it’s necessary to let Montali shape rates to reassure creditors and investors they will get paid. 

Rates could even drop, Cohen said, although he acknowledged the state’s ratepayers still are on the hook for billions spent keeping the lights on. 

The agreement angered consumer advocates, who said they’re going to court to kill it. The new plan resembles one state officials crafted in to help fellow utility Southern California Edison pay its debts. 

That plan requires Edison customers to continue paying record electric rate hikes for the next several years to help the beleaguered utility pay an estimated $3 billion debt incurred during the state’s energy crisis. 

“We’re not going to let five unelected (Gov. Gray) Davis appointees impose $20 billion in bailout charges on the ratepayers to cover the deregulation debacle,” said Harvey Rosenfield, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a Santa Monica-based consumer advocacy group. 

Four of five commissioners at the PUC were appointed by Davis, a Democrat up for re-election this November. The state Supreme Court recently dismissed a case brought against the PUC by consumer groups that claimed the state was wrong to make such agreements without allowing public comment and participation. 

Davis’ spokesman, Steve Maviglio, said Thursday the governor was not aware of the agreement and did not have comment. PG&E said the tardiness of the state’s announcement in the bankruptcy process only enhanced its view that the state’s plan is flawed. 

“Since many of the important details of the CPUC’s arrangement have not been made public, PG&E will need to obtain and thoroughly review additional information in order to provide a detailed analysis,” the company said in a statement. 

Thousands of creditors recently finished voting on a pair of plans for PG&E’s future to help Montali determine how the debts will be paid. 

The utility hopes to regain its good credit by disregarding state laws and regulations and transferring transmission lines, power plants and other assets away from state oversight and into three new companies that would be regulated by the federal government. Analysts say that would allow PG&E to borrow more money to pay its debts, since it would escape state control over how much it can charge for wholesale electricity. 

The revised plan the state and creditors committee hope to put before creditors calls for the utility’s 4.6 million ratepayers to pay billions, for PG&E to sell preferred stock and its parent — PG&E Corp. — to forgo a huge chunk of profits. 

Montali is scheduled to decide on one or a combination of the scenarios Nov. 12, although Cohen said the revised plan’s future relies on the judge extending the voting period to give creditors a chance to examine the changes and perhaps switch their votes. 

Both PG&E and the state say the other’s plan is fatally flawed. 

PG&E’s creditors committee came full circle with Thursday’s announcement of allegiance with the state. The committee initially backed PG&E but fears its ambitious plan will be appealed for months with creditors left unpaid in the meantime. 

“PG&E’s plan is a viable plan, in many senses it’s a very good plan,” said Paul Aronzon, the committee’s spokesman. “The problem is it’s going to be argued many times up to the United States Supreme Court.” 

SACRAMENTO — For the second time this year, the Assembly advanced legislation Wednesday that would make California the only state to ban smoking by anyone under age 21. 

The backup bill is needed because similar legislation previously approved by the Assembly appears stalled in the Senate, said Assemblyman Rod Pacheco, R-Riverside. 

He amended a Senate bill with the ban previously sought by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood. The measure was sent back to committees for review after the amendments were added on a 42-10 roll call. 

Assemblyman Dario Frommer, D-Los Angeles, called it “a smoke screen” and “a cynical ploy” to divert attention from Assembly Republicans’ opposition to a proposed $2.13 tax increase on a pack of cigarettes as part of Democrats’ plan to bridge the state’s $23.6 billion budget gap. 

But the move drew support from Koretz and other Democrats, who said the combination of a tax increase and age limit increase would help reduce smoking particularly by young people. 

And it drew opposition from Republicans who argued the state shouldn’t impose such a ban on legal adults, including those who serve in the military.

SACRAMENTO — Gone are the good old days of distracted driving, when motorists merely juggled coffee, shaved, read a map, drove with a pet dog in the lap and lit cigarettes for the miles still ahead. 

Today, millions of American drivers are taking traditional driver absent-mindedness to new heights. 

Behind the wheel, they’re talking on cellular phones, sending and receiving pages, checking sports scores on personal digital assistants and even sneaking a glance or two at television. 

Though the much-maligned cell phone gets the headlines for stealing drivers’ “glance time” and causing abrupt lane weaving, experts say it’s the mere tip of the iceberg. 

In California, a state that has long defined American car culture, more commute-weary residents are loading up their interiors with VCR and DVD players, fax machines and dashboard video screens for satellite navigation systems. 

Experts attribute the trend to the state’s legendary and worsening traffic, which traps people in their cars for longer stretches and further blurs lines between the office and front seat. 

And that is raising new fears among an array of authorities from lawmakers to insurance companies of a spate of new road crashes as more people are literally driven to distraction. 

Nationally, officials believe up to 30 percent of crashes are caused by driver distractions that include mobile communications devices. 

A March report by the National Conference of State Legislatures suggests device-related distractions that killed an estimated 600 to 1,000 motorists in 2001 could kill 2,000 a year by 2004. 

The report also cites “great potential” for even more dramatic increases in fatalities by the decade’s end. 

To those who spend most of their lives on the roads, the handwriting is on the asphalt. 

“We see it all the time,” says Leo Williams, a North Carolina trucker who watches passengers and drivers play video games, hold phones to their ears and work laptop computers. 

At an I-80 truck stop east of San Francisco, New Mexico trucker Gene Smith adds: “Computers. They’re going down the road with a computer on in the front seat. I see more of that.” 

“You can now buy aftermarket TVs and plug them into the dash and actually watch DVD movies,” says Lt. Joel Broumas, who heads the traffic division at the Modesto Police Department in the Central Valley. “We stopped a kid who was driving a nice Blazer. He had one hooked up in the dash, about an eight- or nine-inch deal.” 

Academics have coined the word “carcooning” to describe how people increasingly outfit their cars for comfort, entertainment and productivity. Phone systems are built in. New stereos pull in satellite radio broadcasts and play MP3 files downloaded from the Internet. 

“We’re seeing a lot of requests for mobile video,” says Doug Kalpakoff, salesman at Wireless World in Morgan Hill, Calif. “Fewer people are flying and more are driving. The most popular is the drop-down screen from the roof. We see that in larger SUVs.” 

Some stores, he says, now install video screens on front-seat passenger visors. 

That’s already alarmed some California legislators, who proposed bills this year and last to follow the lead of New York state and ban California drivers from using hand-held cell phones. 

Both measures died after vigorous opposition by major wireless companies, who argued that the number of wireless phone users has jumped from 10 million in 1988 to 120 million in 2002 without a huge corresponding increase in car crashes.

If you’re like most folks, your home is the single biggest investment that you will make in a lifetime. Therefore, it makes good sense to do everything that you can to take good care of it. 

People who get the best return on their investment — when it comes time to sell — don’t wait for the roof to leak or paint to peel. They perform regular home-maintenance tasks that preserve the structural integrity of their home. Regular maintenance also keeps a home looking spiffy, which also has a lot to do with value. 

Painting is a maintenance task that offers one of the best returns for the dollar — inside or out. Also, a fresh coat of paint can transform a “plain Jane” home into an eye-catcher. This can be particularly true of a stucco home since stucco has special problems, such as cracking, fading and efflorescence. 

Besides enhancing appearance, a fresh coat of paint can help protect the home from the elements (sun, rain and snow) and the inevitable deterioration that occurs from prolonged exposure to them. 

How often should you paint the exterior of your home? The answer depends on several factors: exterior siding material, climate, sun exposure and the quality and type of paint used. With proper preparation and top-quality paint, a home typically will require painting every five to seven years. Darker shades — as with trim colors — might need repainting every couple of years to retain their original brilliance. 

Choose paint quality and color carefully. Use colors that will enhance the architectural appearance of your home. The one- or two-color schemes used in the past are just that — a thing of the past. A well-thought-out color pallet — using several colors or shades — can be visually pleasing by accentuating various architectural elements. For example, the barge, fascia and general trim can be painted one color, the overhang or soffit another, the body another and shutters, if they exist, yet another. And you can set it all off by using a punch color for the entry door. A reputable paint dealer and-or a professional color consultant can be of help when choosing colors. 

Think of paint as an investment and not a cost. If you enjoy painting and want to paint your home often, buy inexpensive generic brands. We guarantee that you’ll be busy painting every year of so. If, on the other hand, you like to paint, but would rather not enjoy the experience more often than every five to seven years, we suggest that you buy the best paint available. 

Good paint isn’t inexpensive, but when you consider lasting quality and the protection that it offers your home, it’s a bargain. Shop for a major name brand and plan to spend about $25 a gallon for a high-quality 100-percent acrylic latex exterior house paint. 

Preparation and paint application technique are no less important than the quality of the paint. This is especially true with stucco because of the concerns mentioned earlier. 

It doesn’t make any difference how good the paint is; it simply won’t stick unless the surface is clean. With stucco, we suggest a thorough power washing to clean the surface and remove chipped and peeling paint. Dirty areas such as the lowest section close to the ground should be scrubbed with a coarse nylon brush and powder laundry detergent. Use 1/3 cup to 1 gallon of hot water. Add 1 quart of bleach to this concoction if mildew is present. 

Efflorescence — a white powdery substance that is common with stucco and masonry finishes — should be removed using a wire brush. 

The most challenging aspect of prepping a stucco house for painting is crack repair. You can turn your home into an interstate road map of obvious crack repair, if you aren’t cautious. When it comes to stucco crack repair, less is more. Don’t attempt to patch every crack. Hairline cracks and those that you can’t get your fingernail into should not be patched. High-quality paint should be used to fill those cracks. 

Wider cracks should be filled with a high-quality exterior grade acrylic latex caulk. Have a damp sponge handy to wipe away excess caulking. There are two trade secrets for caulking stucco. First, when using a damp sponge to wipe off excess caulking, wipe in all directions to remove caulking that might be lodged in a textured finish. Second, while the caulking is still wet, place fine texturing sand into the palm of your hand and, holding your hand in front of the caulking, blow across the sand to scatter it onto the surface of the damp caulk. This will help make the patch less obvious and prevent the “road-map” effect by helping the caulk blend into the surrounding finish. 

Stucco can be painted using a roller or with an airless sprayer. A brush is not recommended. A roller works well for small jobs, but can be overwhelming on larger projects. For big jobs, consider using an airless sprayer. Don’t put your roller away when using a paint sprayer. Spraying will get the paint onto the surface. Use a deep-nap roller (3/4 inch to 1 inch) to work the paint into the surface and to achieve a uniform finish. 

Although one coat might do the trick, stucco usually will require two, due to its high level of absorption and to conceal cracks and other repairs. 

OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. — Elizabeth Tashjian has spent most of her 89 years trying to prove that nuts are at the very core of human existence. 

For her stand, some have called her nutty. But her work is being taken very seriously by some in the arts community. 

In the Nut Museum she created in her home in Old Lyme, she displays paintings, sculptures and masks based on the shelled snack. She sees art in walnuts, in peanuts, in coconuts. She believes there are souls under the shells of Brazilian nuts and pecans. And she’s likely to belt out a song over pine nuts, chestnuts and hazelnuts. 

“I use the nut form to inspire my artwork and thinking philosophy,” Tashjian said in an interview at the nursing home where she now lives. “I don’t want my museum to be taken as a joke.” 

It’s not. Connecticut College recently took over her collection, which it plans to develop into a traveling exhibit and a book about her art. 

The collection includes metal sculptures, a 35-pound coco de mer, nut masks, paintings and nuts themselves. There are also video clips from her four appearances on NBC’s “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, and many newspaper clippings telling stories about the offbeat museum. 

The college inquired about the collection when Christopher Steiner, director of college’s Department of Museum Studies, saw that Tashjian’s house was up for sale. 

Tashjian fell ill in late May, and police found her unconscious in her home. She awoke from a coma 28 days later and was transferred to a nursing home. The court appointed emergency conservators to handle her personal affairs, because she has no surviving family. They say Tashjian is too ill to care for herself, or her home. 

It’s a decision she contested. Tashjian appeared at a recent court hearing, and to everyone’s surprise, defended her sanity and declared she wanted to go home. 

“I’m as sane as anyone in this room,” she said. “I negate everything that’s been done here because it was based on the assumption I did not have my sanity. My sanity is intact.” 

The Gothic, tree-shrouded house was put up for sale to pay off her medical bills, said John Watts, her conservator. Tashjian never worked, has no social security and owes $330,000 on a mortgage. The house is listed at $695,000. 

Assessors found no monetary value in the nut collection. 

Steiner, however, saw a different kind of value — and was compelled to save it. 

“It’s almost a philosophy that she was trying to develop using the nut as a starting point,” said Steiner, who for years has used the museum as an example in his course Introduction to Museum Studies. “She was trying to say even the smallest everyday object can be beautiful if looked at correctly.” 

Jeff Andersen, director of the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, wrote a letter to the Probate Court in support of Steiner’s request for the collection. Florence Griswold’s documents and personal items were auctioned off when the house was sold years ago, and the museum has spent decades trying to reclaim them. 

He didn’t want to see Tashjian’s collection suffer the same fate. 

“It’s kind of a quandary about just how you value something like this,” Andersen said. “I would say there are other values — cultural value, artistic value.” 

In his quest to put together an exhibit, Steiner has been piecing together Tashjian’s life, leafing through diaries, fan mail and her art. Her parents divorced when she was seven, and she and her mother came to Old Lyme in 1950. Her mother died in 1959, and left the house to her. 

Tashjian opened her Nut Museum in 1972. 

She claims she didn’t realize the word “nut” could also mean crazy until a man visiting the museum didn’t have the required admission — $3 and a nut — so he offered his wife instead. 

“I was so surprised. I was astonished. I was shocked,” Tashjian said. “I almost closed the museum.” 

Instead, she says, she became a champion of nuts — a crusader aimed to rid the word nut of its double meaning. She would educate visitors on different kinds of nuts. Then she would try on masks that represented each nut, and quiz visitors on what they learned. 

“She was doing this 20 years ago, and museums weren’t doing that kind of interactive education,” Steiner said. “She was really ahead of her time in that sense.” 

Steiner said it will take two to three years to get the contents of the museum organized and arranged for an exhibit. In the meantime, Tashjian, steadily recovering from her medical bout, has another plan. 

“I want to build a nut theme park,” she says, smiling. “One that will put Disneyland to shame.” 

CLEVELAND – Sitting on the dugout steps before the game, Oakland manager Art Howe glanced at the threatening clouds above Jacobs Field and worried about a postponement. 

The rain never came. 

“Not a drop,” Howe said. 

Nope, the sun is still shining on the Athletics. 

Mark Mulder completed Oakland’s first four-game sweep of Cleveland and the A’s won their season-high ninth straight game Thursday night, 9-3 over the Indians. 

“We’re feeling pretty good about ourselves,” Howe said. “We’re getting contributions from everyone in the lineup. That’s nice.” 

Mulder (15-7) followed a brilliant performance by Cory Lidle — a one-hitter Wednesday night — with a pretty good one of his own, allowing three runs and five hits in 7 2-3 innings. 

Mulder threatened to give Oakland consecutive one-hitters as he entered the seventh. He had only allowed a leadoff single in the third and retired 11 straight before Omar Vizquel singled with one out. 

Ellis Burks followed with his 27th homer, bringing the Indians to 3-2 and snapping an 18-inning scoreless streak for Cleveland. Jim Thome then singled, but Mulder got Travis Fryman to hit into an inning-ending double play. 

Mulder walked none, struck out two and got 16 outs on grounders as the A’s moved into a tie for first place in the AL West with Seattle, one game ahead of Anaheim. 

“I just think we got a lot of confidence right now,” said Mulder, who is 13-3 in his last 17 starts. “Everybody is picking each other up and we’re just playing solid ball.” 

Mulder also gave Oakland’s outfield the night off, as none of the A’s caught a fly in left, center or right. 

Chad Bradford pitched 1 1-3 innings for his second save. 

Karim Garcia also homered for the Indians, who have lost five in a row. 

Following the game, interim manager Joel Skinner held a brief meeting with his players. 

“I just talked to the guys to make sure we are all OK,” Skinner said. “It wasn’t a holler session and I didn’t chew anyone out.” 

Oakland, which had an 11-game winning streak last season, swept a four-game series from Cleveland for the first time since the A’s moved to California from Kansas City in 1968. 

The A’s did it with their usual great pitching — and some clutch hitting. 

Of Oakland’s final 21 runs over the last three games of the series, 18 came with two outs. The A’s outscored the Indians 29-7 in the four-game sweep and never trailed. 

“Anytime you can extend an inning with a two-out base hit, that’s winning baseball,” Skinner said. “That’s what beat us the last four nights.” 

Miguel Tejada put Oakland ahead 3-0 in the fifth with a two-out, two-run single off Jason Phillips (1-2). 

“That gave us some momentum and gave Mike a margin to work with, and he made it stand up,” Howe said. 

Tejada has 104 RBIs — second in the AL to Texas’ Alex Rodriguez, who entered Thursday with 110. 

Oakland opened a 5-2 lead in the eighth on a fielder’s choice grounder by Terrence Long and Ramon Hernandez’s RBI single. 

The A’s, who spent the past four nights stepping all over the Indians, took a 1-0 lead in the second and spiked catcher Einar Diaz in the process. 

David Justice drew a two-out walk, and Mark Ellis followed with a single. Long followed by grounding a single through the right side, and Justice was waved around. 

Right fielder Karim Garcia made a strong throw home that handcuffed Diaz, who spun and reached back across the plate as Justice stepped on his right hand while scoring. 

Diaz, who suffered a bruised hand and triceps muscle, was replaced by Eddie Perez. 

Skinner said Diaz has three spike marks on his hand and will have X-rays on his arm taken Friday.

NEW YORK – With a week to go, negotiators for players and owners expressed optimism that they have enough time to reach a deal and avoid another baseball strike. 

The sides had three bargaining sessions Thursday, completing an agreement on debt regulation that eased the union’s concerns the rules would restrict spending on players. The union didn’t respond to the owners’ latest revenue-sharing proposal but said it will soon. The players’ executive board was to discuss the talks during a telephone conference call Friday. 

“The issues have been narrowed sufficiently that it would not take very much time to conclude an agreement,” said union lawyer Steve Fehr, the brother of union head Donald Fehr. 

While the sides are still apart on their revenue-sharing proposals and disagree on the levels of a proposed luxury tax on the payrolls of baseball’s biggest spenders, they agree on much of the framework. 

Sometime next week, the sides must decide whether they want to compromise on their numbers or try to outlast each other during a strike. If players walk out on the Aug. 30 strike date, it would be baseball’s ninth work stoppage since 1972. 

“We have plenty of time to resolve all of the issues that are outstanding between the parties,” said Rob Manfred, the owners’ top labor lawyer. “It’s just a difference of numbers. ... Seven days is plenty of time to resolve those numerical differences.” 

Much of Thursday, according to Manfred, was devoted to scheduling, interleague play and the assignment of player contracts. 

The debt regulation agreement resolved a potential problem with the owners’ 60-40 rule, according to a management official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

The 60-40 rule, established in the mid-1970s but enforced only periodically, requires each team to have at least 60 percent of its value in assets and no more than 40 percent in debt.

Clerical walkout will coincide
with start of classes Monday 

About 2,300 clerical employees at UC Berkeley and the Oakland-based Office of the President, which oversees the nine-campus University of California system, will begin a three-day strike Monday, union officials announced at a campus rally Wednesday afternoon.  

The long-expected strike, rooted in salary and workplace safety disputes, will coincide with the start of fall classes. But university officials say they have made contingency plans and contend that the work stoppage will not have a significant impact on day-to-day operations. 

“This is just a three-day strike,” said UC Berkeley spokesperson Carol Hyman. “We see classes beginning on Monday just as they would.” 

Fifty nurses from UC Berkeley’s health center, represented by the California Nurses Association, and some 600 lecturers, represented by the University Council–American Federation of Teachers, will join the clericals in “sympathy strikes.” 

The nurses will strike for three days and the lecturers will strike for one day, on Wednesday. 

The university contends that the impending strike, which would be the first clericals’ work stoppage since 1972, is illegal. 

But the Coalition of University Employees, which represents the UC Berkeley workers and a total of 18,000 clericals across the UC system, argues that the university has engaged in a series of “unfair labor practices,” allowing the union to strike legally. 

University spokesperson Paul Schwartz said UC will pursue legal remedies against the California Nurses Association, which has a “no strike” clause in its newly-inked contract with the university. 

UC and the clericals’ union have been negotiating a systemwide contract for more than a year and the university made a final offer during an Aug. 7 negotiating session. If the union rejects the offer, which they haven’t, and the state declares an official impasse, the two sides will go to mediation. 

UC and the union have reached agreements on 37 of 48 contract areas but are deadlocked on wages and workplace safety. 

The union is asking for a 15 percent pay raise over the course of two years. The university is offering a 2 percent raise for 2001-2002, a 1.5 percent raise for 2002-2003, pending state funding and 3 percent in deferred compensation that would show up in employees’ retirement packages. 

University officials say they cannot offer higher wages because they are constrained by state funding limitations. 

“These numbers are driven by state funding,” Schwartz said. “If we got more state funding, we’d offer more.” 

Schwartz said it is time for the union to take a more realistic approach to wages. 

“We can only control our side of the equation and we’d appreciate it if the union did likewise,” he said. 

The union, in turn, contends that UC has a $2.3 billion unrestricted surplus that it could tap to offer higher wages.  

But the university says it needs that money to keep all its programs running and could only offer higher wages if the state provided funding for that purpose. 

CUE is also asking the university to test workplace stations for all its employees, determine whether they are creating repetitive stress injuries and replace any hazardous equipment.  

According to the union, the university is only offering to test stations for new employees and will not guarantee replacement of faulty equipment. 

“They’re trying to defend their right to cripple,” said Michael-David Sasson, president of Local 3 of CUE, the Berkeley branch of the union. 

Schwartz would not discuss the details of the university’s offer, but said UC is working to address the issue. 

“We take the matter seriously and our proposals reflect our concern over the issue,” he said. 

Hyman, the UC Berkeley spokesperson, said she expects students to wait in longer lines next week as a result of the strike, but does not foresee any major disruptions. 

She said the university’s health care clinic, the Tang Center, has canceled appointments early next week in anticipation of the nurses’ sympathy strike. But the center will keep its urgent care unit open under the supervision of doctors and will see drop-in patients, Hyman said. 

The university will have security on hand during the strike, but Hyman said she does not expect any labor-related violence. The university, on its web site, has assured employees that they can attend work and will be protected if they cross the picket line. 

Hyman said the university may postpone deliveries until after the strike to avoid problems with unionized delivery workers who do not want to cross a picket line.  

Contact reporter at scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net

To the Editor 

CNN-TV is unleashing a series of “Terrorism Tapes” to show how inhuman al-Qaida has been since Sept. 11. The high point was the image of a dog being disposed of by some noxious gas, possibly cyanide and some member of the public called in to deplore the horror of it. People seem to forget that cyanide is available in all countries and that hundreds of prisoners were dispatched by it in American prisons. 

CNN is not alone in presenting terrorism on tap. There have been endless redundant broadcasts on all TV stations of mass murders of school children, crazed shooters on a tower killing unsuspecting people below, a homosexual boy let to die while bound to a fence, a black man being dragged to death behind a truck etc, etc. 

It seems that this latest effort of the media is designed to scare the viewers dungless, so that our regime won’t be inhibited from unleashing a new war. What better way to rally the citizens around the flag. 

Max Alfert, 

Albany

Friday, August 23

Teen Playreaders present  

Bizarre Shorts 

Through Aug. 24, 7 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - North Branch 

1170 The Alameda 

Playreaders present 20 short, bizarre plays, contemporary and classic. 

981-6250 

Free 

Saturday, August 24

Anthony Brown Lectures on Ralph Ellison’s Musical Influences 

2 p.m. 

Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kitteredge St. 

Anthony Brown, jazz percussionist and music scholar will explore Ralph Ellison’s  

Berkeley Art Project Celebration 

2 to 6 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Project on the corner of Adeline St. and Stuart St.  

Event to gather community support for long-time Berkeley artist co-op. Festivities include puppet show, art raffle, silly animals, jugglers, music, free ice cream.  

548-5349 

Free 

UC Berkeley Circle K Garage Sale 

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday) 

Berkeley ACE Hardware parking lot, 2145 University Ave. 

Garage sale fundraiser held by UC Berkeley, non-profit community service organization to raise money for pediatric trauma patients.  

(858) 335-9021 

Fuel Cell Car Experiments 

1 to 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California Campus (Just below Grizzly Peak Blvd.) 

Observe a miniature car operating on solar energy and water, and help conduct physics experiments to learn more about this environmentally friendly new technology. For ages 12 and up. 

642-5132 

Admission: $8 for adults; $6 for youth; $4 for children 3-4: Free for children under 3 

Vegan Food Party 

11:30 a.m. 

Lake Anza in Tilden Park 

Social, food party event presented by Contra Costa Vegetarians and SFBAVeg. 

dhermit4424@yahoo.com 

Free with vegan dish 

Sunday, August 25 

Destination Telegraph 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Durant Ave., between Telegraph Ave. and Bowditch Ave. 

Live music, beer and wine garden, street artists, community booths, art and prizes. 

649-9500 or www.telegraphyberkeley.org for information, booth space or to volunteer 

Free Family Workshop: "Creating Physical Characters" 

1 to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Repertory School of Theatre, 2071 Addison St. 

Two-hour participatory workshop, led by guest artists from the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre, will focus on physical characterization work. No prior acting experience is necessary. 

647-2972, or school@berkeleyrep.org 

Free 

Tuesday, August 27

A House of Straw: A Natural Building Odyssey Slideshow 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo 

Carolyn Roberts presents slides and talks about her experiences building her straw bale house. 

548-2220 Ext. 233 

Free 

Thursday, August 29 

2nd Annual LGBT  

Elders Conference 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland 

Workshops and conference for LGBT elders to learn about senior services.  

705-8918 

$20 registration, no one denied for lack of funds 

Saturday, August 31

Berkeley Youth  

Orchestra Auditions  

(Wind, Brass, Percussion) 

All day 

Laney College Music Dept.,  

Fallon St., Oakland 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra will audition musicians aged 10-15 for the 2002-2003 season. 

For an application or more information call Penny Boys at 540-0812 or e-mail her at philiph@seismo.kerkeley.edu 

Monday, September 2

Labor Day Potluck  

Picnic and Poetry Reading 

Hosted by Bay Area Poets Coalition 

Noon to 4 p.m. 

Live Oak Park, Walnut and Rose St. 

527-9905, poetalk@aol.com 

National Organization for Women Oakland/East Bay Chapter  

6:30 p.m.  

Mama Bears Bookstore and Coffeehouse, 6536 Telegraph Ave.  

Chapter’s monthly meeting. Speaker: Multicultural historian, Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, received 

the prestigious Valitutti Award for non fiction.  

549-2970 

Free 

Thursday, September 5

Nutrition Career Open House 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Institute of Educational Therapy, 706 Gilman St. 

Learn how to become a nutrition educator or consultant. 

558-1711 for reservations and information 

Free 

Friday, September 6

'The Winona LaDuke Reader'  

lecture and reception 

Presented by the American Indian Graduate Program 

5 p.m. Reception, 7 p.m. Lecture 

Native American environmental and Indigenous Rights activist and author 

of several books and articles, Winona LaDuke, will discuss the topics of 

her new book 'The Winona LaDuke Reader' as well as other current work. 

atalay@sscl.berkeleyl.edu 

Free 

Saturday, September 7

Travel Careers Seminar 

8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

Vista Community College, 2020 Milvia St., Room 306 

The day’s program will include travel industry speakers covering a variety of career possibilities: Cruise specialists, tour leaders, tour operators, adventure operators, home-based travel agents and more.  

981-2931 

$5.50 for California residents 

Sunday, September 8

Lifelong Medical Care First Annual 5K Fun Run/Walk Fundraiser 

9 a.m. to noon 

West Berkeley 

Individual and team participation, a health fair, food, prizes, live music, free insurance eligibility screening - fun for all ages. 

704-6010 

Having opened for alt. country rockers Wilco this summer in towns such as St. Louis, Chicago, and Nashville, guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg has returned home to Berkeley. 

A founding member of the rock and roll band Pavement, Kannberg lives with his wife in south Berkeley. Over the band’s 10 years in existence, Pavement built a loyal fan base and earned critical acclaim for its live shows and six albums including favorites "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" and "Wowee Zowee." 

Following Pavement's breakup in 1999, Kannberg wrote and released his first solo album, "All This Sounds Gas," under the moniker Preston School of Industry in August 2001. Kannberg also runs his own San Francisco-based label, Amazing Grease Records, that has put out music by the Moore Brothers, Oranger, Carlos and the Panty Lions. 

Kannberg sat down with the Berkeley Daily Planet Tuesday to reflect on a year of touring, paved streets in Berkeley, records and many other subjects. 

Daily Planet: How was the tour? 

Scott Kannberg: The tour was great. It seemed like the best way to end the year really. Going on tour with Wilco was really cool. I've liked them since their first record. I hadn't heard the new record, which I like, before we toured with them. It's really refreshing to see a really good band like that, too. 

Daily Planet: Where did you go? 

Kannberg: These dates in the US were in the Midwest. Really big shows two or three thousand people – big theaters. Before that we had done a U.S. tour on our own, and then we played in Europe with Wilco, as well. Before that we were in Australia. Before that we did another U.S. tour and a European tour. It all kind of started when the record came out, and we've been touring throughout the year. So I've been busy, but it's pretty much over now, until I record another one. 

Daily Planet: Is that on the horizon? 

Kannberg: Yeah, I'm going to start recording soon. 

Daily Planet: Where? 

Kannberg: Probably just in my house – most of it in the initial stages. Then I'll probably go to some studios around. Very homemade again. Like the last one.  

Daily Planet: You run your own record label, Amazing Grease. Do you enjoy it? 

Kannberg: Yeah, totally. I like being able to put out records of people I like, and giving the stuff that I've learned over the years back. If in some ways I can help a band that I really like... It's really fun. 

Daily Planet: Who are some of the bands you like right now? 

Kannberg: I like Film School. They're from the East Bay and they're really good. I love the Moore Brothers. I just went and saw them again last night – they're on my label still. There's a band called the Vivian Girls from Berkeley. They're cool. There's an Austin band – I want to put out their record. They're called Canoe.  

Daily Planet: Does the label pay right now? 

Kannberg: Sweet dreams. It actually drains the money more than it pays. 

Daily Planet: You live in Berkeley.  

Kannberg: Yes. I do live in Berkeley – a block away from Oakland. 

Daily Planet: How did you settle here? 

Kannberg: Well my wife went to school here and I use to come over here all the time. I moved to San Francisco about 10 years ago. We were living in San Francisco for a long time, and we were looking for a place to buy a house, and we were looking in San Francisco and it was so expensive at the time. Things were so much cheaper, here – even though that's not the case anymore. We could have ended up anywhere but ended up here. 

Daily Planet: Do you like living in Berkeley? 

Kannberg: Yeah, I guess. Taxes are high for what you get out of it (laughter). Our street is still very bumpy.  

Daily Planet: Bumpy with speed bumps? 

Kannberg: No. They never pave the street. It's actually the Bicycle Boulevard and it's the bumpiest street in Berkeley (laughter). We've been trying to get speed bumps on our street for six years and there's one person on the next block over who is holding it up because she's got a bad back and she doesn't like to drive over them. So, one person is holding it up. 

Daily Planet: It's been said that you have an extensive record collection. How has it shaped up lately? 

Kannberg: I have a lot of records, still. Old or new? It depends. I'm constantly learning about new things. That's one good thing: Berkeley has the best record stores in the world, pretty much. Amoeba is great. But my favorite is Mod Lang. Every time I go in there the people who work there turn me on to something new. Most of it's really old, like folk music or something, but I'm constantly buying new stuff and old stuff. 

Daily Planet: Were you turned on to anything recently?  

Kannberg: Let's see. Doug Sahm. He use to be in the Texas Tornadoes. There is always something new or something you never heard of, or something you heard of and didn't get into. I don't know if I could ever leave Berkeley having that at my disposal. I'm sure there are a lot of people like that here.  

Daily Planet: The arrangement of the band... It's basically you. You write the songs, and invite other people to play out with you? 

Kannberg: Yeah, it's me, pretty much. It's mostly friends who are in bands, who either don't have a job (laughter) or have some free time on their hands, that I'm able to bring them along and tour. I don't know what it is going to be like for the next record. It would be nice to have a band eventually, but maybe this won't be that phase. Still the solo phase right now.  

Daily Planet: Do you like the working on your own in contrast to working with a whole band, the way you worked with Pavement? 

Kannberg: I totally missed having a real band, where everybody is sort of contributing. With Pavement it was mostly myself or Stephen [Malkmus] writing songs, and whatever drummer we had – we kind of wrote songs with the drummer [Gary Young or Steve West]. The bass player [Mark Ibold] and extra drummer [Bob Nastanovich] helped out as well. It was kind of like an arrangement where we got together early on and just kind of stuck together. We had a lot of experiences we've never had before all together and so there was kind of a bond there. Where as now I've kind of done a lot of it already. Touring is still fun and I still try to make it interesting, but I've been to a lot of the same places and even though it's a new thing, when you do it the first time or the first five times it's a little more exciting then it is this time. In some ways this is more exciting because it's a group of new people and so you have different experiences. I'm definitely enjoying this more than the last few years of Pavement.  

Daily Planet: Why is that? 

Kannberg: Because it's positive; there is more energy there. It kind of feels like Pavement felt in the early days.  

Daily Planet: Are there any bands from those days that you still follow or see doing good things? 

Kannberg: Older bands... Wilco is a good example. I still think Sonic Youth does some really cool things. I really think the younger bands are ultimately going to be a little more interesting. I get older, my taste changes, but I still like innocent bands (laughter). There is so much energy going on there.  

Daily Planet: Where do you like to see a show in the East Bay? 

Kannberg: The East Bay? I like seeing a band at the Ivy Room, but I don't like the Ivy Room. The Starry Plough is OK once in awhile. We need a really good club here in the East Bay. There needs to be more free shows. Just parties. Putting on parties. I really like the co-op things, putting on bands and everything.  

Thursday, August 22 

Anton Barbeau, The Bellyachers & Darling Clementines 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5  

Freight and Salvage Fiddle Summit 

Featuring Alasdair, Fraser, Ellika Frisell, Darol Anger and Mike Marshall 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Lost Weekend 

Harbor Lights and Cowboy Blues Tour 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$10 door/ Free for 12 and under 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra 

7:30 p.m. 

The Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. 

Mozart, Vivaldi and “Summertime” by violinists Karla Donehew and Jeremy Cohen. 

(415)255-9440 0r www.sfchamberorchestra.org 

$20 suggested donation 

Friday, August 23 

Irate, For the Crown, Beneath the Ashes & Pain of Sleep 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Deke Dickerson and the ecco-fonics & Calamity and Main 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$7 

Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums with Ms. Carmen Getit 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

8 p.m. dance lesson 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$12 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Peppino D’Agostino 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Friday, August 23 

The Damnations & Loretta Lynch  

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$7 

Saturday, August 24 

Anthony Brown Ensemble  

Doors open 7:30 p.m. Show 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck 

Free Jazz Concert explores inspiration of Ralph Ellison. 

981-6100 

Free 

California Brazil All-star Band 

Brazil Camp Benefit 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$10 door/ Free for 12 and under 

John McCormick 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

New Millennium Strings, conducted by Laurien Jones 

8 p.m. 

A concert featuring The Hebrides, Op. 26 (Fingal’s Cave) by Mendelssohn; Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Op. 64, E minor, Loretta Taylor, soloist; Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun; and Children’s Corner Suite by Debussy. 

526-3331 

$10 General admission, $7 students and seniors, under 12 free 

Phantom Limbs, Dead and Gone & Pitch Black 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Sunday, August 25 

Dan & Dale Zola Present The Great Night of Rumi 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Celebrating Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi with spoken word, music and dance. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Benefit for the Neibyl Proctor Library 

Featuring Red Dust 

3 to 5 p.m. 

6501 Telegraph Ave. 

Benefit for a progressive research center for teachers, students and activists. 

595-7417 

$5 to $10, sliding scale 

"First Anniversary Group Show"  

Reception, 5 to 8 p.m.  

Through Aug. 17  

13 local artists display work ranging from sculpture to mixed media. 

Ardency Gallery, Aki Lot, Eighth Street 

836-0831 

"Before and After"  

Reception 4 to 6 p.m.  

Through Sept. 19  

Albany Community Center and Library Galley 1249 Marin Ave. 

Jim Hair's photographs of the San Diego Hells Angels motorcycle chapter from the 1970s.  

524-9283  

Freedom! Now! 

Berkeley Arts Festival Gallery & Headquarters 2055 Center St. 

Reception 6 to 8 p.m. 

Through Aug. 25, Tues. - Sun., noon to 5 p.m. 

Commemorates the work of those who struggled for justice and freedom from government/state repression. 

841-2793 

Images of Love and Courtship 

Through Sept. 15 

Gathering Tribes, 1573 Solano Ave. 

Ledger paintings by Michael Horse. 

528-9038 

Free 

"Balancing Acts" 

Through Oct. 10 

Gallery 555, 555 12th St. in Oakland City Center 

Oakland's 'Third Thursday' art night features Ann Weber's works made of cardboard. 

http://www.oaklandcitycenter.com.  

Free 

The Creation of People’s Park 

Through Aug. 31, Mon. - Thurs., 9 a.m. 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, with curator Harold Adler. 

hjadler@yahoo.com 

Free 

"New Work: Part 2, The 2001 Kala Fellowship Exhibition"  

Through Sept. 7, Tues.-Fri. Noon to 5:30 p.m., Sat. noon - 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

Featuring 8 Kala Fellowship winners, printmaking 

549-2977  

“If These Walls Could Talk” 

Through Sept. 8 

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California Campus (just below Grizzly Peak Blvd.) 

See how various civilizations built all kinds of structures from mud huts to giant skyscrapers at this building exhibit. 

642-5132 

Admission: $8 for adults; $6 for ages 5-18, seniors and disabled; $4 for children 3-4; Free for children under 3, LHS Members and full-time Berkeley students. 

"Poems Form/From the Six Directions" 

Through Sept. 15 

Pusod: Center for culture, Ecology & Bayan, 1808 Fifth St. 

A visual poetry exhibition and presentation of a wedding happening, a Filipino tradition. Poetry workshops presented by Eileen Tabios 7 to 9 p.m., Aug. 14, 21 and 28. 

883-1808 

Free 

“Virtually Real Oakland - The Magic, The Diversity and the Potholes” 

Through Sept. 21, Mon.-Fri. 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. 

Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St., Berkeley 

Exhibit by Ken Burson; digitally enhanced photos of Oakland. 

644-1400 

Free 

Richard Misrach, Berkeley Work 

Though Oct. 13 

UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way 

On view in Gallery 2, presents two photographic series by this internationally recognized Berkeley-based artist.  

642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

$7, $5 BAM/PFA members, $4 UC Berkeley students 

BACA National Juried Exhibition 

Aug. 18 through Sept. 21, Wed.-Sun. Noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park 

40 artists from across the U.S. including 28 Bay Area artists. 

644-6893 

Free 

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights 

Through 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 

Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida 

Through Sept. 1, Sat. and Sun. at 5 p.m..  

John Hinkel Park, off The Arlington at Southampton Road in North Berkeley  

704-8210 for reservations or www.shotgunplayers.org  

Pay what you can 

Wednesday, August 21 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

Featured poet: Solidad diCosta 

8:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$7 door, $5 with student I.D. 

Saturday, August 24 

Rhythm & Muse 

6:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 

Poetry reading and open mike featuring Zigi Lowenburg & Raymond “Nat” Turner. 

527-9753 

Free admission 

Saturday, August 17 and Tuesday, August 27 

Magic School Bus Video Festival 

From 10:30 a.m to 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive 

Seven video adventures with Ms. Frizzle and her class aboard the Magic School Bus.  

642-5132 or www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

$6 for youth, $8 for adults, $4 for children 

Thursday, August 22 

Film: "Ralph Ellison: An American Journey" 

7 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Central Branch, 2090 Kittredge St. 

Berkeley filmmaker Avon Kirkland's stirring documentary about the great American author, Ralph Ellison. 

981-6205 

Free 

Truth: Exposing Israeli Apartheid  

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Premiere of documentary by local filmmaker Wendy Campbell. 

655-5889 

$20 donations  

Shantay Legans, Cal’s starting point guard for the past three seasons, may not return to the Golden Bear program for his senior year, his mother said this week. 

Legans’ mother told the San Francisco Chronicle that her son has asked for a release from his scholarship. 

“He has asked for his release,” Susan Legans said. “He has not received it yet. He has told Coach (Ben) Braun that he does not want to come back.” 

Legans averaged 8.1 points and 3.8 assists last season for a Cal team that made the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row. But Legans was reportedly upset when former walk-on A.J. Diggs took over the starting role for a few games in the middle of the season. 

Susan Legans mentioned Fresno State, DePaul, UC Santa Barbara and Long Beach State as possible destinations for her son if he is granted a release. New Fresno State head coach Ray Lopes adopted Shantay Legans through the “Big Brother” program when the player was in the fifth grade. 

“Ray’s really the only father Shantay knows,” she said. “I think it’s always been a dream of his to play for Ray Lopes. But I know there are other schools he’s also interested in.” 

Cal can choose not to release Legans from his scholarship. According to a university source, Braun wants to meet with Legans face-to-face before he makes a decision. The coaching staff is on a retreat for the next three days. 

It has been a topsy-turvy summer for Braun’s program. Freshman Jamal Sampson made a surprising jump into the NBA Draft, then junior Gabriel Hughes decided to transfer before changing his mind last week. Israeli big man Yaniv Green flirted with the idea of joining the Bears before backing out, then Braun added 6-foot-9 Jordi Geli Vilardell of Spain.

A popular recycling center has won a four-year lease extension from UC Berkeley, ending a lengthy struggle that involved hundreds of teachers, a host of local politicians and thousands of dollars in legal fees. 

The nonprofit East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, which recycles cans, paper, bottle caps and other items for use in art classes in local schools, will remain in a university-owned building at 6713 San Pablo Ave. until at least Jan. 2006, at a reduced rent, under the terms of an out-of-court settlement reached Aug. 15. 

The agreement still needs to be finalized, according to an attorney for the Depot, but both sides expect it to go through. 

The university and Depot inked a five-year lease in January 1996 with an option for a five-year renewal. As the first five-year term reached its conclusion, the Depot told the university it wanted to renew. 

But UC Berkeley officials pointed out that the contract only allowed renewal “with landlord’s consent” and suggested that it wanted the space back. 

Depot officials said they had not agreed to the “landlord’s consent” language in contract negotiations and argued that it should not have been placed in the final contract. 

With local politicians and teachers pressuring the university to extend the lease, the Depot and UC Berkeley worked out a compromise in March 2001 involving an 18-month lease extension and an increase in rent.  

But the Depot subsequently backed out of the deal and pursued legal action. 

According to Depot attorney Zona Sage, the university acknowledged in depositions that the “landlord’s consent” language was not a part of negotiations and that an administrative assistant in the university’s real estate office had added it into the contract of her own accord. 

University attorneys could not be reached to confirm this account.  

In the spring, the university pursued a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to throw out the Depot’s claim, but lost, paving the way for the Aug. 15 agreement. 

Under the agreement, the university agreed to cover the Depot’s extensive legal fees. According to Sage, UC Berkeley will cover those fees through both reduced rent and a cash payment. 

Irene Hegarty, the university’s director of community relations, said the cash payment totals $50,000.  

Depot Executive Director Linda Rinna-Levitsky said the agreement was a “thrilling,” David and Goliath-type victory. 

“This was, on one level, a very strong landlord-tenant fight,” she said. “But I think the bigger issue is a small nonprofit, there for teachers, stood up to the university and won.” 

Hegarty said she was glad an agreement had been reached, but disputed the notion that the university had acted as a cruel landlord. 

“I think we need to keep in mind that the university has done the community and the East Bay Depot a favor for 6 1/2 years now by providing an attractive space at below-market rates,” she said. 

Hegarty said the long-term future of the building is still up in the air since the university may need space for staff displaced by its ongoing efforts at seismic retrofitting of on-campus buildings. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net  

To the Editor: 

My wife, Peggy, died July 9 of a stroke. Back in the 1930s there was only one classical music station in northern California: “Music of the Masters” on KRE Berkeley. Sponsored by the “Berkeley Music House,” Peggy and her father selected each night’s program. Her father founded and owned the “Berkeley Music House.” 

One night Peggy played Stravinski’s “Rites of Spring.” Immediately, the phone started ringing off the hooks in protest. Letters came in for weeks asking, “Do you call this music?” 

Peggy worked at the music department at UC Berkeley for more than 25 years. Each day she walked to the campus and back to our home in the Elmwood area (Cherry Street) and made a home for me. If there is a heaven, Peggy’s there. 

George Kauffman 

Berkeley

RBs to split carries: Head coach Jeff Tedford said senior Joe Igber will the starter at tailback, but sophomore Terrell Williams will get a share of the carries. Igber missed the last four games of 2001 with a broken collarbone, and Williams was impressive as his replacement, racking up three 100-yard rushing games in Igber’s absence. 

“You can’t go with just one back,” Tedford said. “They’ll both see a lot of action.” 

Freshman make take kickoffs: Mark Jensen and Tyler Fredrickson have solid holds on the placekicking and punting jobs, respectively, but true freshman Kevin Johnson is making a push on kickoffs. Tedford is considering using Johnson, who has a powerful leg, on kickoffs, even if it means using up a year of eligibility for the Red Bluff Union High graduate. 

“It’s a tremendous weapon if you can put kickoffs out the back of the end zone on a regular basis,” Tedford said. “Kevin may be able to do that for us.” 

Injury report: The starting offensive line is finally starting to get healthy. Senior guard Scott Tercero is finally at full speed, while fellow guard Jon Geisel has recovered sufficiently from a hamstring injury to resume limited practice... Sophomore linebacker Ryan Estes sprained his foot earlier this week and is wearing a boot. Tedford said he may redshirt if the injury is serious enough to keep him out of the early games... Starting middle linebacker John Klotsche’s chronic knee problems have flared up again, so he is allowed only limited contact for the time being... Wideout Jonathon Makonnen had the cast removed from a broken finger.

Company wins a state award
for program in question 

Some Telegraph Avenue merchants say Gov. Gray Davis is in the dark about conservation, specifically about a prestigious award presented to an international light bulb company. 

On Tuesday, Philips Lighting Company was one of 22 recipients of the governor’s first Flex Your Power Energy Conservation Award. However, Phillips never fully executed the Berkeley program it received honors for, some locals say. 

The award lauded a 2001 program by the company to install energy efficient light bulbs in Telegraph Avenue homes and businesses between Channing Street and Durant Avenue. Several storeowners say they were initially contacted about the program, but that was the end of it. 

“Somebody from Philips came and said they wanted to change the bulbs, but then nobody showed up,” said Tariq Sultan, owner of the Berkeley Market at 2369 Telegraph Ave. 

Sultan’s story is not unique. 

Harry Keally, the owner of Blake Bar Restaurant and Night, at 2367 Telegraph Ave., said his business never received the promised bulbs. 

“They never came around,” said Keally, who added that he and other business owners on the block attended a meeting with Philips officials about the bulb installations. But, he said, the company never contacted him after the meeting. 

Bill’s Mens Shop, at 2368 Telegraph Ave., didn’t receive the promised lights either, said a store manager.  

Philips spokesperson, Steven Goldmacher, said it was possible that some stores were excluded inadvertently. “If we missed any stores then my apologies,” he said. “That was not the intention of the plan.”  

Goldmacher said Philips changed hundreds of bulbs on the block and spent roughly $12,000 on the project. Another Philips spokesperson estimated that the new bulbs saved locals a combined $4,672 on annual energy costs. 

Goldmacher said he wasn’t aware of any service complaints but suggested that some stores never received the energy efficient bulbs because they already had efficient bulbs or had sockets that couldn’t accept new bulbs. 

“Not everything could be changed to something better,” Goldmacher said. 

Although Philips conceived the program, it contracted Oakland-based Amtech Lighting Services to identify sites that could be upgraded. Amtech officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday. 

Kathy Berger, executive director of a Telegraph Avenue development group, said that many homes and businesses had received the energy upgrades and were surprised to hear that some stores didn’t get new lights. 

“We thought that every one who wanted lighting would have received it,” she said. 

Davis spokesperson David Chai defended Philips and the recent award. 

“The fact is that they saved the block 45 percent on energy costs and served as an innovative example for other folks,” he said. 

Philips chose to institute the program in Berkeley because of the city’s reputation as an environmentally aware city, Goldmacher said. City officials helped narrow the site to Telegraph Avenue. 

“Philips wanted a busy mixed-use block where they could showcase their residential and business lighting,” said Alice LaPierre of the city’s energy office. 

The lights were installed between May and June 2001. Stores outfitted with new lights included Dharma, Futura, Mrs. Fields, Mars Mercantile, UC Sports Luggage and Bear Basics. 

Goldmacher assured that Phillips will determine if some stores on the block were excluded from the program and will follow up on any mistakes.  

The energy conservation awards were created during the recent energy crisis. In addition to Philips, the Port of Oakland and the County of Alameda received the award. 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

I was appalled to read of Berkeley Councilmember Linda Maio’s proposal in the Aug. 17 Daily Planet to neuter raccoons. I assume her ultimate goal with such a suggestion is to eliminate raccoons altogether, or to greatly decimate their numbers. 

Raccoons are one of the few remnants of an area once rich with a variety of wildlife. And yes, they are pesky – we can all produce anecdotes to prove that. In my experience it was a reduction of the fish population in my pond from 12 to three. But they are also smart, funny and incredibly tough survivors, and I like to see them in what is an increasingly urbanized/concretized Bay Area. They remind me of how glorious this area must have been 100 years ago, when raccoons didn’t have to dig around for a couple of pathetic cookies in a car someone left open. 

We can all take steps to protect ourselves from raccoon mischief. But really, are they the most threatening creatures in our lives? What about the creatures who constantly run red lights? Now there’s a group to consider neutering. 

Diane Joy, 

Berkeley

BHS girls’ volleyball tryouts next week 

The Berkeley High girls’ volleyball team will be holding tryouts for the upcoming season next week. Tryouts for incoming freshmen will be held on Aug. 26-27 at 8 a.m. in Berkeley High’s Donahue Gymnasium. For more information, call head coach Justin Caraway at 482-3987. 

Brown begins college career 

Former Berkeley High football player Akeem Brown will play for Humboldt State University this season. Brown reported to the Humboldt campus for fall practice Monday. 

“It’s crazy up here,” said Brown, a linebacker. “Everyone’s faster and stronger than in high school.” 

Humboldt State is a Division II school. 

U.S. team to take on China in Oakland 

OAKLAND – Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown and members of the Golden Gate Warriors will roll out the red carpet for the USA men's basketball team and Chinese basketball officials. 

The American team is playing an exhibition game in Oakland Thursday against China in preparation for the World Championships, which will be held later this month in Indianapolis, Ind. 

Included in the Team USA roster are Antonio Davis of the Toronto Raptors and Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers.  

They will face the national Chinese team, which includes 7-5 center Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets, who was the number one overall pick of the 2002 NBA Draft, in his first on-court performance on American soil. 

The game will take place Thursday evening at the Networks Associates Coliseum. It is almost sold out, but some tickets are still available online at www.tickets.com or by calling (510) 762-2277.

Boy’s blue hair a celebration 

OMAHA, Neb — Mark Ashby Jr.’s hairstyle earned him one more day of summer vacation. 

The 7-year-old turned up for the first day of school Monday at Marrs Academy and was promptly told to go home because his blue Mohawk was a distraction. 

The haircut and color was allowed by his parents to reward him for good grades last semester. 

“We gave him the Mohawk. He saw a picture of an Indian with blue hair. He wanted that, like the Indian,” his father, Mark Ashby Sr., said. 

The younger Ashby is 25 percent American Indian and wanted to celebrate his culture, the family said. 

The school’s principal called the hair color disruptive and sent him home until his hair is returned to a more natural color, the senior Ashby said. 

The school district’s handbook requires students to dress in a reasonable and appropriate manner that doesn’t distract from learning, but leaves those standards up to individual principals. 

The second-grader was allowed back in school Tuesday with no explanation from the district. His parents have asked the American Civil Liberties Union to investigate. 

To the Editor: 

In her letter to the Daily Planet (Aug. 13), Councilmember Dona Spring questioned the adequacy of plans to retrofit old City Hall at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Her concerns about access and fiscal prudence need to be addressed, but I suspect she is confused about the recommendations of consultants to the city who helped prepare designs for the ballot measure. 

First, it's important that the overriding purpose of measure J is to preserve and strengthen this heavily-used building. The consultants concluded that: “In the event of a major earthquake, the existing building is subject to extensive damage and potential instability, rendering it a major life safety hazard, with potential loss of life and loss of the historic building.”  

Ms. Spring favors adding a new, free-standing building on the south side of old City Hall for spacious council chambers, an option suggested by the consultants. The cost of this addition would be $7 million in addition to the $21 million required to retrofit the main building. The prudent decision of seven members of the council was to postpone the addition of the new building in view of the many important, unmet needs in Berkeley. 

The planned retrofit of old City Hall will not change the size of the council chambers. The seating arrangements will be determined by the council after hearing from several commissions, including the Commission on Disability. Access for disabled persons will be improved throughout the building. No one has seriously suggested that seating be reduced to “less than 60,” as Councilmember Spring claims. An overflow room that can be added behind the council chambers will be ideal for the public hearings that typically bring large numbers of people to council meetings, some of whom must now stand in the corridor. 

I agree with Councilmember Spring that new and larger council chambers would be ideal. But I disagree that “making do” in a safe and restored building will be a hardship. Measure J will improve conditions in the building for all of us and it will respect the pocketbooks of taxpayers. Most important, the building and the people using it will be safe.  

The bonds authorized by this measure will incur interest, as Ms. Spring points out. But in the future, both principal and interest will be paid in inflated dollars so that, just as with mortgage payments, the future burden is lightened.  

Measure J is a fiscally prudent, sensible solution. I strongly urge a “yes” vote on this measure. 

Mim Hawley,  

Councilmember, District 5 

Today’s Highlight in History: 

One hundred years ago, on Aug. 22, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. chief executive to ride in an automobile, in Hartford, Conn. 

On this date: 

In 1775, England’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies in a state of open rebellion. 

In 1846, the United States annexed New Mexico. 

In 1911, it was announced in Paris that Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” had been stolen from the Louvre Museum the night before. The painting turned up two years later in Italy. 

In 1956, President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon were nominated for second terms by the Republican national convention in San Francisco. 

In 1989, Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton was shot to death in Oakland, Calif. Gunman Tyrone Robinson was later sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. 

Ten years ago: President Bush told an evangelical gathering in Dallas that the Democrats had left “three simple letters” out of their platform: “G-o-d.” Democrat Bill Clinton said Bush was trying to divert attention from the economy. 

Five years ago: A federal official threw out the contentious Teamsters election because of alleged campaign fund-raising abuses, forcing union President Ron Carey into another race against James P. Hoffa. 

One year ago: Republican North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms announced he would not seek re-election the following year. Space shuttle Discovery glided to a landing, bringing home three spacefarers who had spent nearly six months aboard the international space station. 

Today’s Birthdays: Nazi-era filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl is 100. Author Ray Bradbury is 82. Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf is 68. Singer Tori Amos is 39.

Police arrest stabbing suspect at BART 

SAN FRANCISCO – Police on Wednesday took one man into custody on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest after leading police on a foot chase through the Civic Center BART station. 

According to a police spokeswoman, a female victim was stabbed in the area of Seventh and Market streets at roughly 6 a.m. after the suspect attempted to sell her concert tickets. 

Responding officers learned that the suspect had entered the Civic Center station, prompting BART officials to shut down power at the station, significantly impacting the morning commute, the spokeswoman said. 

The spokeswoman said that following a brief foot chase through the station, officers were able to apprehend the man, who has not yet been identified. 

Although BART power was restored at 6:29 a.m., 20-minute delays in the East Bay continued for about an hour. 

Calif. businessman agrees to deportation 

SAN FRANCISCO — A Pakistani native detained since June for overstaying his student visa has agreed to be deported but denies the government’s allegation that he might be involved in terrorism. 

Nasir Ali Mubarak, 34, attended flight schools with Abdul Hakim Murad, a man convicted of a 1995 plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners and who allegedly admitted ties to Osama bin Laden. 

But he said he didn’t know Murad was involved in terrorism and hadn’t seen nor talked with him since 1992. 

Mubarak now has an American-born wife and an airplane repainting business in Corning, about 170 miles northeast of San Francisco, and had applied for permanent residency based on his marriage. 

“Since I’ve been in the United States I’ve loved this country,” he told U.S. Immigration Judge Alberto Gonzales of San Francisco on Tuesday. “I wanted to stay here.” 

Now, he and his wife plan to resettle in the United Arab Emirates. His wife plans to join him, but he will have to leave behind two young children from a previous relationship.

SAN LEANDRO – The Alameda County Fire Department reports that about 175 firefighters from numerous agencies have contained a six-alarm grassfire in Anthony Chabot Regional Park Tuesday night. 

Capt. Dave Wheeler said the fire was reported at about 4 p.m. and contained at about 6:30 p.m. He said that the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection supplied two fixed-wing aircraft and two helicopters to the firefighting effort, and the East Bay Regional Park District supplied an additional water-dropping helicopter. 

The fire blackened about 17 acres, Wheeler said, but never threatened any structures. Crews are expected to remain on the scene throughout the night to monitor the area for hot spots. 

No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is still under investigation. 

Fire companies from throughout Alameda County responded to the blaze as did a strike team from Marin County.

The Oakland Police Department is now able to receive confidential information about suspected illegal drug activity from tipsters who speak languages other than English. 

The police department's Drug Hotline, at 238-DRUG, or 238-3784, is now available for use by those who speak Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese. 

The hotline, which allows citizens to provide anonymous tips about suspected drug dealing in their neighborhoods, has existed since the mid 1980s.  

Its transition to include languages other than English was conducted by Oakland's Equal Access Office, which was created a year ago after the city council passed an ordinance requiring all city agencies to make services available in languages spoken by 10,000 or more Oaklanders. 

Police Chief Richard Word said that community involvement can help to make a difference in fighting drug activity by allowing police to deploy their services more efficiently. He added that expanding the services to non-English speakers will make the service more effective. 

“By working together, the Oakland Police Department and neighborhood residents can reduce crime and make neighborhoods safer,” Word said. “We encourage our non-English speaking community members to call the anonymous drug hotline.”

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A powerful, new version of the rocket that carried John Glenn into orbit blasted off Wednesday on a flight intended to revolutionize — and revitalize — the nation’s launch business. 

Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Atlas V rose from its seaside pad right on time at 6:05 p.m., carrying a European broadcasting satellite along with the hopes of more than 1,000 aerospace workers and Air Force dignitaries on hand for the inaugural liftoff. 

The mood was tense as the countdown reached zero. Even after the rocket took off, no one dared celebrate in the launch control center. It was another nerve-racking half-hour before the satellite reached the proper orbit, and only then were the champagne bottles uncorked. 

Flight controllers broke into applause, shook hands and embraced at the news of success. At least one wiped away tears. 

“Congratulation, guys,” launch director Adrian Laffitte said. “Let’s party!” 

The Atlas V — a descendant of America’s first intercontinental ballistic missile and the Mercury-Atlas booster that propelled Glenn in 1962 — is the biggest and most powerful model in this 45-year-old rocket line. It stands 191 feet and packs 860,000 pounds of thrust with its Russian-built engine. 

“After five years of working on something, it was thrilling, right up there with the births of my kids,” chief systems engineer George Sowers said shortly after liftoff. 

Lockheed Martin poured more than $1 billion into the Atlas V program, and the Air Force contributed another $500 million in order to have an assured path to space. The Air Force also invested $500 million in the competition: Boeing’s Delta IV rocket, scheduled to make its debut in October.

Former Enron executive pleads guilty
to money laundering, wire fraud 

HOUSTON — A former Enron Corp. executive acknowledged Wednesday that he raked in millions of dollars in a corporate shell game that also involved his high-ranking boss at the energy giant. 

Michael Kopper’s admission came as he pleaded guilty to money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, making him the first Enron executive to admit to crimes in the aftermath of the company’s implosion last year. 

Kopper, 37, who was managing director of Enron Global Finance under former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, told the judge he ran or helped create several partnerships that earned him and others millions of dollars while hiding debt and inflating profits at Enron. 

“We think this is a substantial breakthrough in our investigation,” said Leslie Caldwell, head of a nationwide task force of federal prosecutors probing the company’s collapse. “His knowledge will become our knowledge.” 

Liquid Audio sues dissident shareholders
over efforts to block merger 

REDWOOD CITY — Liquid Audio Inc. filed suit Wednesday against two large shareholders for allegedly violating federal securities laws in their efforts to block the online music company’s planned merger with media distributor Alliance Entertainment Corp. 

Under the proposed merger announced in June, Coral Springs, Fla.-based Alliance would get 46.2 million new shares of Liquid Audio and own 67 percent of the new public company. Existing shareholders would own the remaining 33 percent. 

One dissident shareholder, MM Companies Inc., is attempting to take control of Liquid Audio’s board of directors. According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, MM failed to register as an investment company and is violating federal securities laws. 

Liquid Audio also claimed Steel Partners II LP failed to make proper filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission before distributing statements the company calls false and misleading.

LOS ANGELES — When President Bush arrives in California on Friday, political observers will be watching closely to see how enthusiastically he promotes the candidacy of GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Simon. 

Bush will be headlining three private fund-raisers for Simon, but the popular president is not expected to appear in public with the beleaguered nominee. 

And don’t look for Bush, whose administration has been cracking down on corporate wrongdoing, to say anything supportive about the $78 million civil fraud verdict handed down against Simon’s investment firm last month. 

“What I think you’ll hear from the president is a very nice partisan pitch,” said GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum. “One thing he probably could do very easily, as almost anyone could, is talk about the evils of the incumbent.” 

Simon faces Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in November. 

The surprise fraud verdict astonished the White House and struck at a central theme of Simon’s first-time candidacy, his business prowess. Simon was already struggling from missteps and underfunding. Last week he fired almost half his staff. 

Republican insiders said the administration never seriously considered backing out of the commitment to return to California. But they expect this visit to be the president’s last on behalf of Simon. 

“I would be stunned if he came out again,” said one political consultant who’s worked for the Republican National Committee. “I think that this is totally it, and I think that if they could’ve gotten out of it they would’ve.” 

They didn’t, the consultant said, in part to avoid the impression of contributing to Simon’s struggles. 

Publicly, Republican officials downplay such speculation. They note that at the end of this visit Bush will have done five Simon fund-raisers, more than for most candidates. 

“I think people are trying to read too much into the tea leaves. He supports Bill Simon for governor, and he’s coming to do three fund-raisers for him. That should say all it needs to say,” said Mindy Tucker, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. 

Simon said he’s confident of support from Bush, who backed a different candidate in the primary. 

“Actions speak louder than words, in my estimate,” Simon said Wednesday on CNN’s “Inside Politics.” “President Bush is behind us 100 percent.” 

Bush will headline a fund-raising lunch for Simon on Friday in Stockton, a reception for the state Republican Party and for Simon that night in Dana Point, and a breakfast for Simon the next morning in Los Angeles. The events are expected to raise $3 million for Simon and $1 million for the state GOP. 

The Stockton event is being thrown by San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos, and Dole Food Corp. President David Murdock is playing host in Los Angeles. Speculation was stirred when the Los Angeles event was moved from Murdock’s Thousand Oaks ranch to a much smaller and more central venue, but campaign aides chalked that up to logistics. The Stockton event sold out and was moved from Spanos’ home to his jet hangar, they said. 

The president will also do two nonpartisan policy events, allowing him to split the cost of the trip between taxpayers and the GOP. Friday morning he’ll address a crowd at Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium, and that afternoon he’ll meet with Hispanic community leaders at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana. 

The state Democratic Party dubbed the visit the “Bush/Simon California ’Tour de Fraud’ 2002” and promised protests outside each event. 

It will be Bush’s fifth visit to California since becoming president. He lost California to Al Gore by 12 percentage points in 2000 and Republicans are determined to do better in 2004. 

Bush was last in the state in late April, when he headlined two Simon fund-raisers and stopped in Los Angeles to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1992 riot. He also gave Simon a ride on Air Force One, an event that’s not scheduled to be repeated, though campaign aides said Bush and Simon meet privately at some point during the trip. 

While Simon aides talked up Bush’s visit the Davis campaign played it down. 

“In the end there are two names on the ballot and none of them are George Bush,” said Davis campaign press secretary Roger Salazar. 

The world’s oldest profession has San Pablo Avenue merchants flagging down police officers. Again. 

Shop owners between Ashby Avenue and Dwight Way say the number of prostitutes pacing their blocks has gotten out of hand and that police are doing little to stop it. 

“I’ve seen as many as 15 ladies in one day and they’re always the same ones,” said Jack Fox, owner a San Pablo transmission shop. “It’s the most negative atmosphere a business could ask for.” 

Fox said prostitution has been a problem for his shop since it opened in 1977, but the last two months have been the worst. 

“Every day, all day it’s a steady stream of women flagging down cars,” he said.  

San Pablo Avenue has long been the mecca of Berkeley prostitution. It offers prostitutes heavy car traffic and easy access to isolated spots such as Aquatic Park where they conduct business. 

Fox and nearby merchants said they have complained to police, but say the number of prostitutes walking past their stores continues to grow. 

“Apathy has set in. We don’t think the city will do anything to support us,” he said. 

Police, however, say they are confronting the problem.  

Lt. Cynthia Harris said police made 72 prostitution arrests on San Pablo Avenue during the first half of this year, slightly higher than average. 

Berkeley police routinely perform sting operations along San Pablo Avenue, said Sgt. Dave Odom. Undercover officers pose as prostitutes or prospective clients to target prostitutes and johns, the men who seek their services.  

The undercover operations often result in arrests, but otherwise, Odom said, unless an officer catches a prostitute getting into a car, there is little an officer can do except demand that she leave the city. 

“A beat officer can approach them and check them for warrants,” Odom said. If they find that the prostitute is on probation the officer might threaten the woman with telling her probation officer.  

But merchants say Berkeley can do more to address the problem. 

They cite a recent Oakland law allowing authorities to confiscate cars of convicted johns. 

“If you tighten up an area like Oakland, they’re going to move here,” said Felipe Romero, a San Pablo shop owner who said prostitutes were crossing over to the Berkeley side of San Pablo Avenue. 

Sgt. Odom doubted that the confiscation law or other Oakland police measures account for the reported surge in Berkeley prostitution. He noted that most prostitution on the Oakland side of San Pablo takes place well south of the Berkeley border.  

He also said the frequency of prostitution correlates closely to seasons and the time of month. There are more prostitutes in the summer when there is no rain and at the end of the month, when some women have spent their welfare checks and need money, he said. 

Prostitutes arrested in Berkeley and Oakland are tried in Alameda County criminal court. According to Alameda County Assistant District Attorney John Adams, first-time offenders are usually slapped with a “stay away” order preventing them from returning to the neighborhood where they were arrested. Second-time offenders get a fine and possible jail time, and third-time offenders receive a jail sentence, he said. 

Adams said the key to curtailing prostitution is developing a reputation as a city that does not tolerate it. 

“Prostitution moves around,” he said. “If the heat’s on in Berkeley, they go to San Francisco. If the heat’s on in San Francisco, they move to Fresno.”  

San Pablo merchants say the health of their businesses depends on Berkeley doing more to discourage prostitutes from calling their block home. 

“My lady customers know San Pablo has a reputation for prostitution and they’re intimidated to come down here,” Fox said. 

Romero has similar concerns. “You can see the disgust in the customer’s face,” he said. 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

There is no doubt that the appearance of graffiti in front of an eatery should be condemned (“Hate graffiti reported at Jewish eatery” Aug. 20). However, we have to be careful about how we classify the incident. 

I am bothered by the quickness of important and intelligent people to assume that it was politically-motivated. Councilmember Kriss Worthington mentioned Middle East “peace” in response, and the owner said that in 1993 they gave away free falafel to supporters of peace, but “now they put this near my window.” Considering that the police have no suspects, and the graffiti message “Holy blood” is ambiguous, it is dangerous to suggest that a “they” did it out of political motivations. It is implicating a whole category of people who have a certain political view. 

The ambiguity of “Holy Blood” lies in this: It could refer to Israel's murderous military occupation of the Palestinian people, or the classic anti-semitic “blood libel” myth, or it could simply be the name of a gang or punk rock group. I am not denying or asserting that it was any one of the above. My basic point is that we do not know. 

This is not the first time an incident in Berkeley was described as politically motivated or a hate crime without any evidence in support. Governor Davis portrayed the attack on two Orthodox Jewish men near UC last spring as anti-semitic. However, according to the Jewish publication Forward, neither police nor one of the victims was “calling the incident a bias attack” (April 12). The attack, after all, occurred on a dark and empty street late at night, and the attacker said or did nothing to insinuate anti-Jewish hate as a motivation. Similarly, every unfortunate act of vandalism at Berkeley's Hillel, which is surrounded by fraternities known for wild partying, is described in the same vain. 

I am not denying the existence of anti-semitism or politically-motivated violence. On the contrary, careful use of loaded terms will make fighting these more effective. Liberally throwing labels around will only make them less potent, less significant, and will result in a watering down of meaning. Some Jews rightfully fear that overuse of the anti-semitism label stifles discussion, and may even stoke the flames of hate. 

Will Youmans, 

Law Student Boalt School of Law 

Wednesday, August 21 

Kepa Junkera 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Steve Riley and the Maou Playboys 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

8:30 p.m. dance lesson with Diana Castillo. 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$14 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Tangria Jazz Trio 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Bistro, 1801 University Avenue 

This week’s nightly music feature. 

849-ANNA 

$4 

Thursday, August 22 

Free Melanoma Update 

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 

Summit North Pavilion, Cafeteria Annex B & C, 350 Hawthorne Ave., Oakland 

Information on melanoma skin cancer, detection and treatment. 

869-6737 

Free 

Anton Barbeau, The Bellyachers & Darling Clementines 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424  

Freight and Salvage Fiddle Summit 

Featuring Alasdair, Fraser, Ellika Frisell, Darol Anger and Mike Marshall 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Lost Weekend 

Harbor Lights and Cowboy Blues Tour 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$10 door/ Free for 12 and under 

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra 

7:30 p.m. 

The Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. 

Mozart, Vivaldi and “Summertime” by violinists Karla Donehew and Jeremy Cohen. 

(415)255-9440 0r www.sfchamberorchestra.org 

$20 suggested donation 

Friday, August 23 

The Damnations & Loretta Lynch  

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$7 

Teen Playreaders present Bizarre Shorts 

Through Aug. 24, 7 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - North Branch 

1170 The Alameda 

Playreaders present 20 short, bizarre plays, contemporary and classic. 

981-6250 

Free 

Saturday, August 24 

Anthony Brown Ensemble  

Doors open 7:30 p.m. Show 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck 

Free Jazz Concert explores inspiration of Ralph Ellison. 

981-6100 

Free 

California Brazil All-star Band 

Brazil Camp Benefit 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$10 door/ Free for 12 and under 

John McCormick 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

New Millennium Strings, conducted by Laurien Jones 

8 p.m. 

A concert featuring The Hebrides, Op. 26 (Fingal’s Cave) by Mendelssohn; Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Op. 64, E minor, Loretta Taylor, soloist; Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun; and Children’s Corner Suite by Debussy. 

526-3331 

$10 General admission, $7 students and seniors, under 12 free 

Phantom Limbs, Dead and Gone & Pitch Black 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Berkeley Art Project Celebration 

2 to 6 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Project on the corner of Adeline St. and Stuart St.  

Event to gather community support for long-time Berkeley artist co-op. Festivities include puppet show, art raffle, silly animals, jugglers, music, free ice cream.  

548-5349 

Free 

UC Berkeley Circle K Garage Sale 

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday) 

Berkeley ACE Hardware parking lot, 2145 University Ave. 

Garage sale fundraiser held by UC Berkeley, non-profit community service organization to raise money for pediatric trauma patients.  

(858) 335-9021 

Fuel Cell Car Experiments 

1 to 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California Campus (Just below Grizzly Peak Blvd.) 

Observe a miniature car operating on solar energy and water, and help conduct physics experiments to learn more about this environmentally friendly new technology. For ages 12 and up. 

642-5132 

Admission: $8 for adults; $6 for youth; $4 for children 3-4 

Free for children under 3 

Vegan Food Party 

11:30 a.m. 

Lake Anza in Tilden Park 

Social, food party event presented by Contra Costa Vegetarians and SFBAVeg. 

dhermit4424@yahoo.com 

Free with Vegan dish 

Sunday, August 25 

Dan & Dale Zola Present  

The Great Night of Rumi 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Celebrating Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi with spoken word, music and dance. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Benefit for the Neibyl Proctor Library 

Featuring Red Dust 

3 to 5 p.m. 

6501 Telegraph Ave. 

Benefit for a progressive research center for teachers, students and activists. 

595-7417 

$5 to $10, sliding scale 

Destination Telegraph 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Durant Ave., between Telegraph Ave. and Bowditch Ave. 

Live music, beer and wine garden, street artists, community booths, art and prizes. 

649-9500 or www.telegraphyberkeley.org for information, booth space or to volunteer 

Tuesday, August 27 

A House of Straw: a Natural  

Building Odyssey Slideshow 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo 

Carolyn Roberts presents slides and talks about her experiences building her straw bale house. 

548-2220 Ext. 233 

Free 

Thursday, August 29 

2nd Annual LGBT Elders  

Conference 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland 

Workshops and conference for LGBT elders to learn about senior services.  

705-8918 

$20 registration, no one denied for lack of funds 

Saturday, August 31 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra Auditions (Wind, Brass, Percussion) 

All day 

Laney College Music Dept., Fallon St., Oakland 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra will audition musicians aged 10-15 for the 2002-2003 season. 

For an application or more information call Penny Boys at 540-0812 or e-mail her at philiph@seismo.kerkeley.edu 

Last fall, Bob Foster was sitting at home, retired after 36 years of coaching college football. But when new Cal head coach Jeff Tedford came calling, Foster jumped at the chance to get back on the field. 

Foster, 61, is now the Bears’ linebacker coach, one of seven new coaches brought on board by Tedford (running backs coach Ron Gould is the lone holdover). Foster and Tedford worked together at Oregon, where Foster was the defensive coordinator and Tedford the offensive coordinator in 1998-99. 

Foster spent two years away from the game after leaving Oregon, living in Davis with his wife, Carol. That time off was enough to convince him that he wanted to keep coaching. 

“The bottom line is that I just enjoy being with the student athletes too much to stay away,” Foster said. “I love having those enthusiastic eyes on me, wanting to learn.” 

Foster admitted the Cal job was a perfect opportunity for him, as he didn’t want to move far from Davis. The trek to his new home in Emeryville was short and painless. 

Foster is by far the most experienced of the Cal coaches, which is part of the reason Tedford wanted him on the staff. Since this is Tedford’s first season as a head coach, Foster’s four years of leading the UC Davis program (1989-92) could prove invaluable in getting the Bears off to a good start. 

“Bob would never say ‘this is how I did it, and you should do it the same way,’” Tedford said. “But I’m sure if he feels I’m going down the wrong road somewhere, he’d come over to me and say something.” 

Indeed, Foster doesn’t see his role as an advisor to Tedford, but as a partner in the coaching staff. He has worked closely with defensive coordinator Bob Gregory, first at Willamette University in 1996-97, then making Gregory his defensive backfield coach at Oregon. Now Gregory is the coordinator and Foster the position coach, and the former mentor’s experience should continue to benefit his former student. 

“I would certainly hope my experience would add some things to the defensive side of the team,” Foster said. “I’ve seen a lot of things, and experience is a great teacher.” 

But Tedford said Foster’s influence doesn’t end with the linebackers or even the defensive players. 

“Bob’s awesome with all the guys, and he creates a good atmosphere at every practice,” Tedford said. “He has a wealth of experience, and he just knows how to treat the kids.” 

While Foster is enjoying his first year at Cal so far, he admits that he doesn’t know what the future holds. Retirement does have its advantages, and coaching can be exhausting, especially during fall’s two-practices-per-day schedule. But despite being the oldest coach on the field, Foster is among the most active, getting involved in drills and constantly moving around for different perspectives. 

“We all know it’s a year-to-year deal for me,” Foster said. “Double-days are always tough, and you have to work hard the entire time. Once you get into the regular season, it’s more fun, since you get to play the games instead of just practicing against each other.”

When UC Berkeley student Brad Evans died last year because the smoke detector in his Oakland apartment failed to detect a fire – the second fire-related student death during that school year – Berkeley officials decided to take action. 

City Council quickly instituted the Rental Housing Safety Program, requiring landlords to do annual safety examinations and contract periodic furnace inspections. But after the inaugural year ended last month, landlords are questioning the program’s merit. 

“It’s quite redundant and costly,” said Robert Englund of the Berkeley Property Owners Association. Englund said the majority of Berkeley landlords already did their own inspections and provided tenants with safe accommodations before the city program. 

The program, says Englund, burdens good landlords because of a few bad ones when landlords are forced to pay various administrative costs. Though PG&E provides free furnace inspections, they can only do so many. Several landlords who are trying to meet the July 1 deadline for inspections ended up paying private contractors the typical $75 an hour service fee. 

Terry Piccolo of the city housing department said that although the city gave landlords a year to certify their furnaces, she understands their concern. 

She has issued extensions to landlords who have not yet performed the inspections. 

Faith Stein, a housing advocate with the Associated Students of the University of California, understood that some property owners might be frustrated by the new regulations, but said the program is the city’s best weapon to protect students and other renters from negligent landlords. 

Since 1990, nine Berkeley residents have died because of faulty safety devices at their homes. Several of the cases involved gas furnaces.  

The safety program costs the city about $500,000 annually, most of which goes to paying staff and running outreach programs. Various city and university grants have paid for the first year, said Piccolo, but the source of future funding is uncertain.  

Originally the housing department suggested assessing landlords a $10 fee per inspection to help pay program costs. City Council, however, rejected the plan. 

Landlords now fear the housing department might propose it again and they warn the extra fees would ultimately be passed on to tenants. 

Since the program went into effect last August, 10,000 units have been inspected, Picolo said, a number she says represents great success. 

Euglund, however, says the initial success is misleading. Very few code violations were discovered, he said, raising doubts that the costly new program is actually more effective than the previous one. 

He said the old system in which residents still had the right to ask for a city inspection worked just as well.  

Stein says the program protects the safety of renters and offers merits that cannot be quantified in dollars. 

“Student’s were increasingly cynical,” Stein said. “They thought ‘I’ll be here for four years and I’ll be taken advantage of and this is how the system works,’ ” she said. “Now the city is telling students ‘This is your home.’ ” 

The housing department will issue an annual review of the program in October, at which time future modifications and funding proposals will be discussed. 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

While the “Holy Blood” graffiti painted near the storefront of the Holy Land Kosher Foods on College Avenue may be a piece of hate graffiti, I do not understand what it means. 

The only information I can find on the Internet refers me to some sort of Christian or quasi-Christian cult having to do with Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail. Please educate this reader as to the meaning of this graffiti and why it's considered to be a hate message. 

Monroe Pastermack 

Oakland

Berkeley High senior wide receiver Sean Young verbally committed to play for Cal in 2003 earlier this week. 

Young said the decision came down to choosing between Cal and UCLA. 

“I really wanted to go to a UC, so I weighed the pros and cons between Cal and UCLA,” Young said Tuesday. “Everything came up in Cal’s favor, so I decided it’s my school.” 

Young, who runs a 4.4 40-yard dash and was the offensive MVP at UCLA’s summer camp, said he has talked several times with Cal head coach Jeff Tedford and liked the coaching staff. Young, who stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 165 pounds, lives close to the Cal campus and cited the proximity as one of the main reasons he chose his hometown school. 

“The stadium is real close to my house, so my family can come watch me play,” Young said. “I just liked it up there a lot.” 

High school players can’t sign official letters of intent until November, so Young’s oral commitment isn’t binding. UCLA is still calling and sending recruiting information, and Young admitted he is still listening to the Bruins’ pitch. 

“Anything can change in a few months,” Young said. “UCLA is still talking to me, and I don’t want to limit things. I’ll probably still take an official visit there before signing day.” 

Young is the second local player to commit to the Bears. St. Mary’s High’s Leon Drummer gave his verbal last month.

A new study by UC Berkeley economist David Romer urges football coaches to strive for a first down or touchdown on fourth down rather than punt or kick a field goal. But don’t expect Cal football coach Jeff Tedford to embrace this more aggressive strategy. 

“There’s too many negatives that can happen,” said Tedford. “The ramifications are very serious.” 

The Romer study, “It’s Fourth Down and What Does the Bellman Equation Say?,” conducted for the National Bureau of Economic Research, reviewed almost 20,000 first quarter plays in 732 National Football League games in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and found that coaches are far too timid on fourth down. 

“The results are striking,” Romer writes. “The analysis implies that teams should be quite aggressive. In practice; however, teams almost always kick on fourth down early in the game.” 

Romer found that on average a team should go for a first down in their own half of the field as long as they need to gain four or fewer yards.  

Teams should be even more aggressive, he asserts, in the offensive portion of the field. 

Yet on the 1,100 fourth downs that Romer found best to go for it, teams kicked 992 times. 

Romer used an economics statistical tool known as the “Bellman equation,” weighing the points involved – three for a field goal, seven for a touchdown – and assigning values to various field positions. 

One of the scenarios Romer examined was the classic fourth-and-goal from the two yard line. While coaches typically elect to kick a field goal, particularly early in the game when the score is close, the study found that going for a touchdown is more advantageous. 

A team has a roughly three-sevenths chance of scoring a seven-point touchdown, providing a roughly equal payoff for a three-point field goal, the study found. But, even if the team fails to score, it would leave the opponent in terrible field position, Romer argues, tipping the scales in favor of going for the touchdown. 

Tedford said the argument is compelling, but suggested that Romer didn’t factor in the intangibles. 

“You’ve got to think about momentum too,” he said, arguing that a failure to score a touchdown during a fourth-and-goal scenario can give a vital boost to the opponent. “Football is a game of emotions.” 

On the Cal gridiron, at least, it appears that emotional considerations will outweigh cold, statistical analysis. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor:  

Today the Israeli government agreed to remove its troops from the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem in return for a promise by the Palestinian Authority to police the territories and crack down on the terrorist groups that operate there. For the first time in months, the Palestinian Authority is being allowed to exert its authority over its people without interference from Israeli troops. 

What happens next will be a major test for the future of the region.  

Already the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have denounced the compromise and have pledged to continue their attacks against Israelis. These extremist groups believe that Israel must be destroyed, and they have ruled out any compromise where a Palestine would exist alongside Israel. 

If the Palestinian Authority can crack down on these groups and foster something positive for its people instead of a culture of martyrdom and terrorism, then the peace process can get started again. However, if the Palestinian Authority fails to crack down on the terrorist groups and allows attacks against Israel to continue, then it will only have itself to blame for its bleak future. 

Josh May, 

Berkeley

A small, independent Berkeley lab has made it to the big time. 

Three weeks ago the federal government’s National Human Genome Research Institute, best known as a key funder in the effort to map the human genome, named the nonprofit Molecular Sciences Institute on Shattuck Avenue one of five “Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science” in the country. 

The award comes with a five-year, $15.5 million grant that MSI will use to study how proteins interact within Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a single-cell organism better known as baker’s yeast. In the end, scientists hope MSI’s research will lead to cures for complex human diseases such as cancer. 

MSI joins heavyweights like Stanford and Yale in winning a genomic science grant. 

“This is huge,” said Lauren Ha, MSI’s vice president of administration. “We are at the same time relieved, excited, honored, stressed – all of these feelings rolled up into one.” 

MSI was started in San Diego in 1996 with a $10 million “no strings attached” seed grant from Philip Morris. The lab, which moved to Berkeley in 1998, employs 18 scientists and has partnership agreements with researchers at UC Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.  

A total of 40 researchers, including partners, will work on MSI’s newly-funded, five-year program known as the Alpha Project. 

The Alpha Project focuses on protein interaction within yeast cells. But researchers hope their work will contribute to an understanding of how proteins interact in the cells of more complex organisms, like humans. 

If researchers learn more about how proteins interact in humans, they can develop a deeper appreciation for how those interactions go wrong, creating disease.  

“We still don’t know very much about how individual proteins within cells interact with each other to cause diseases or other complex outcomes,” explained Roger Brent, scientific director and president of MSI, in a written statement. “Our work aims to understand this choreography so that we can predict the results of cellular changes, and ultimately, how certain changes contribute to disease.” 

MSI researchers, if successful, will pour their findings into a computer model that will predict cellular change in baker’s yeast. Eventually, Ha said, scientists may be able to build on such a computer model, constructing new models that could predict cellular change and disease in humans and contribute to the search for cures. 

The computer modeling approach was one of the factors that inspired the federal government to award a grant to MSI. 

“This is really the cutting edge right now of genomic or biological analysis,” said Jeff Schloss, program director for technological development coordination at the National Human Genome Research Institute. 

If they make significant findings, MSI researchers hope to share them freely. 

The lab is exploring the concept of “open source biology,” a new approach modeled after the “open source code” movement in computer technology, which allows techies to examine and improve the code at the root of a software program and pass it on. 

“This is a nascent concept that we’re trying to build a community around,” said Ha. “This information should really be public.” 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

The Aug. 9 letter by Rhiannon (“Fair Housing, Fair Process for All”) contained several inaccuracies regarding the East Bay's nonprofit housing development sector, and Berkeley affordable housing public policy. 

Rhiannon incorrectly states that Berkeley “donates millions... to a couple of pet nonprofit [housing] corporations” to produce affordable housing in Berkeley.  

Over the last 10 years, the city of Berkeley has provided bridge loans – not donations – to at least a half dozen (rather than a “couple”) East Bay-based nonprofit housing developers, including Resources for Community Development, Affordable Housing Associates, Northern California Land Trust, Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS), and Jubulee Restoration among other organizations. 

At another point in the letter, Rhiannon states that “the city needs to stop paying the full cost” of affordable housing developments. In actuality, all city Housing Trust Fund (HTF) loans – the source of city housing money – to nonprofit developers represents only a small portion of the development's total cost, typically 15 percent to 30 percent.  

The primary purpose of city HTF loans is to enable nonprofit developers to leverage hundreds of thousands or millions of extra dollars from outside banking/institutional sources to fully fund and complete developments. 

Finally, Rhiannon states that affordable housing developments have “no regulation or oversight.” 

Along with the city of Berkeley's codes and inspections unit and other city agencies and commissions that monitor/audit HTF-financed developments, Berkeley's affordable developments are also subject to state and federal government monitoring/regulating agencies if any state or federal funding is used for construction.  

Chris Kavanagh, 

Housing Advisory Commission

The Oakland Police Department reports that a male suspect who dragged an officer behind his car and then led police on a high speed chase has been arrested after crashing his car in Tracy Tuesday morning. 

Details of the incident are still vague but authorities say that the policeman was issuing a traffic citation in the 1400 block of 82nd Avenue just before 2:11 a.m. when the suspect sped off pulling the officer behind him for about 20-25 feet. 

After falling away from the suspect's vehicle, a 1986 Thunderbird, the officer was able to run back to his patrol car and pursue the man, who is described as an Hispanic male. 

Patrol units in the area assisted in the chase as the suspect drove southbound on Interstate Highway 880, quickly changing over to Interstate Highway 580 east via Interstate Highway 238 east at speeds of up to 110 mph. 

As the suspect drove out of Alameda County into San Joaquin County onto eastbound Interstate Highway 205, California Highway Patrol units joined the pursuit deploying spike strips along the highway, a CHP spokeswoman said.  

The suspect lost control of his vehicle after driving over one of the spike strips and crashed just west of the Tracy Boulevard exit at about 2:39 a.m. CHP units arrested the man who was then taken to an area hospital for medical treatment.

Fake bomb prompted morning evacuation in Burlingame 

BURLINGAME – Police are investigating whether a fake bomb that caused an evacuation of an apartment building Tuesday is connected to another fake bomb found at the same building in July. 

A San Mateo County bomb squad responded to the 100 block of Lorton Avenue at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday after a resident of the apartment building flagged down a Burlingame police officer and reported finding a suspicious object in a common hallway, Officer Don Shepley said. 

Police subsequently evacuated half of the block while the bomb squad tested the device and ultimately determined that it posed no danger. 

“It was designed to look like a bomb, but it was ineffective,” Shepley said. 

Residents were allowed to return to their homes by around 9:50 a.m., he said. 

Detectives are investigating whether there is a connection between Tuesday's hoax and another bomb scare at the apartment building on July 11.  

Woman who suffocated daughter changes plea to insanity 

SAN RAFAEL — The Novato woman accused of suffocating her young daughter in a hotel room has changed her plea from innocent to innocent by reason of insanity. 

Marisa Mariposa Garcia appeared Monday before Marin County Superior Court Judge Terrence Boren for a preliminary hearing to decide if the evidence warrants a trial. 

The court ordered Garcia, 27, to be evaluated by two court-appointed psychiatrists, who were expected to complete reports about her mental condition before a hearing next month. 

Garcia was arrested April 8 and later was charged with murder and assault on a child with force likely to produce great bodily injury resulting in death. 

Garcia was taken into custody at a San Francisco hospital after telling staffers she had killed her 3-year-old daughter, Kaya Isabella Hamilton, at the posh Acqua Hotel. 

Assistant District Attorney Ed Berberian said insanity pleas are uncommon, especially coming so early in the court process. 

“She’s stable and is holding up well,” said Donnie Doerschler, one of Garcia’s nine sisters. Garcia remains at Marin County Jail, where officials said she has been taken off suicide watch. 

Eight arrested in  

Colma Target store theft ring 

It looks like the Target in Colma may be hiring. 

Colma police announced Tuesday the arrest of eight employees suspected of participating in a two-year-long theft ring that has cost the store an estimated minimum of $250,000 to $1 million. 

Police say Target corporate investigators contacted Colma detectives about an alleged theft ring at the Target Greatland store in the Serra Center last week. 

Target's detectives told police that they had conducted a surveillance of the store and had allegedly observed several employees taking large amounts of merchandise that they transported to a house in San Francisco. 

Police say that much of the alleged thieving was recorded by the store's security cameras, making it easy for them to identify the suspects involved.

SAN JOSE — City officials and developers of the fire-ravaged Santana Row development promised Tuesday that their $500 million project, conceived at the height of the dot-com boom, will rise as planned and help lead Silicon Valley out of the dot-com bust. 

“Although this has had and will have a tremendous economic impact on this project and our city, I am confident that we will move forward and rebuild,” Mayor Ron Gonzales said Tuesday. “It is very, very important.” 

City spokesman David Vossbrink said the planned Sept. 19 opening for the destroyed section and other parts of the complex “will have to slip a bit,” but the city was committed to helping it open as soon as possible. 

“People want to live here, people want to be here and we want to get it opened as quickly as possible,” said Steve Guttman, chairman and CEO of Federal Realty Investment Trust, the project’s Maryland-based developer. 

The 11-alarm fire gutted a six-acre section of the development — a 42-acre retail, commercial and residential project designed to become a destination for people from all over the Bay Area. 

There were no immediate damage estimates Tuesday and investigators have not been able to begin determining a cause because the damaged area was still too hot. 

The development was one of the most ambitious projects of its kind in the United States. 

“It was a boost to our psyche that we were poised for an economic recovery, “ said Jim Cunneen, chief executive of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. “I am devastated.” 

Hundreds of job seekers had lined up last month hoping to land one of the estimated 1,000 jobs that would ultimately open at the mall. The annual sales tax contribution to the city was expected to be “in the millions,” said Paul Krutko, San Jose’s economic development director. 

The blaze erupted Monday afternoon, spewing 100-foot-high flames and billowing black smoke that could be seen for miles. It was the largest fire in San Jose history, according to Fire Chief Manuel Alarcon — and perhaps the most devastating since an 1887 blaze burned the city’s Chinatown and displaced more than 2,000 people. 

The fire engulfed the largest of nine buildings in the expansive complex. Firefighters were able to spare the others, though wind-born embers destroyed apartments blocks away. 

Battalion Chief Greg Spence of the San Jose Fire Department said that after 27 years of fighting fires this is the biggest he’s been through. 

“At its peak the whole place was in flames, corner to corner and edge to edge,” he said. “There was a huge column of black smoke, sections of the wall were falling down.” 

Wind-blown embers also started fires that damaged or destroyed 43 apartments and homes in a nearby neighborhood, displacing more than 130 people. Some residents straddled roofs and tried to douse flames with garden hoses, while others hurriedly carried belongings from their homes. 

“My whole roof was on fire,” said Devin Dizon. “Whatever you see in the garage is the only thing we’ve got left,” he said, pointing to charred furniture. 

The fire at Moorpark started about a half hour after a blaze erupted at Santana Row. Spencer said it would take several days to confirm what caused both fires. 

There were no major injuries reported from any of the blazes. 

Smoke from the fires snarled several major Bay Area roadways during the evening commute. All of San Jose’s available firefighters responded, as well as crews from nearby cities. 

The Santana Row development was to open next month with 36 retail shops as well as 246 rental housing units that carried monthly rents into the thousands, said Tom Miles, a spokesman for Federal Realty. 

The rest of the Mediterranean-style project, which was slated to resemble a lushly landscaped San Francisco street scene and was billed as a “city within a city,” was designed to include 1,200 luxury residences, a shopping area big enough to hold 14 football fields with stores such as Escada and Gucci, a hotel, a farmer’s market and outdoor cafes. 

“It’s a major loss for this project to go down,” said Fred Phillips, a local retail consultant. “There are millions and millions and millions of dollars going up in flames.” 

Keith Taylor, 27, lives about a half mile from the blaze and planned to rent one of the new two bedroom apartments that burned. 

“It was just the ultimate place you would want to live,” Taylor said. “I would only have to walk down the stairs. It is a self-contained community.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.santanarow.com 

Scores dipped for the high school class of 2002 on the ACT college entrance exam, breaking a five-year streak during which results remained unchanged, the test maker said Wednesday. 

ACT Inc., a non-profit based in Iowa City, Iowa, said the drop was to be expected because Illinois and Colorado began requiring that all high school juniors, starting with the class of ’02, take the test whether or not they are enrolled in college-prep courses. 

Using scores students received on the latest ACT they took, 2002 graduates averaged a composite of 20.8, down from the 21 average maintained from 1997 to 2001. 

In California, ACT scores stayed steady at 21.4. More than 40,700 California students took the test last year, double the number of students a decade ago. Girls made up nearly 65 percent of the test takers in the state. 

ACT vice president Don Carstensen said the company plans to add a writing section to the California version of the test by 2004. The company decided to make the change because the University of California system proposed dropping college entrance exams. 

In Ohio, 62 percent of 2002 graduates took the exam and averaged a composite of 21.4. 

More students than ever took the ACT, 1.12 million of this year’s graduates, or about 46,000 more than last year. 

This year’s results are the first since Illinois and Colorado began assessing their public schools by having all 11th graders take the ACT at state expense, even if they don’t plan on attending college. 

Richard Ferguson, chief executive of ACT, said in a statement that the requirement had a positive result: “Thousands of students in Illinois and Colorado who had not indicated an interest in attending college were identified as ready for college coursework.” 

Illinois added the ACT to its two days of state tests to assess learning. Colorado is using ACT scores to evaluate schools, but also to encourage more students to attend college. 

David Bahna, an assessment consultant in Colorado’s Education Department declined to comment on the scores before seeing results from other states. 

Robert Schiller, Illinois schools superintendent, said his state’s policy might open doors for students unable to afford the $25 test fee, or who never realized they were college material. 

In college admissions, the ACT is designed for use with high school grades to predict academic readiness for college. Scored on a 1-36 point scale, the ACT is actually four exams: English, reading, mathematics and science.

HALF MOON BAY — California fishermen are bringing home a huge haul of king salmon this season — but it’s been a mixed blessing. 

A glut of the pink-fleshed fish means buyers are paying much lower prices, a problem the California Salmon Council says is made worse by similarly “phenomenal” seasons in Oregon and British Columbia, and stiff competition from farmed salmon imported from Chile and Norway. 

California boasts the West Coast’s largest wild Chinook, or king salmon population, and consistently lands the nation’s largest catch, followed closely by Alaska, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. 

This season, fishermen have hooked 4.3 million pounds of salmon as of Aug. 4, or more than 345,000 fish, with nearly two months left to fish. That’s up from last year’s 2.2 million pounds, or about 180,000 fish, according to David Goldenberg, manager of the Sacramento-based salmon council. 

But the bounty has meant prices of $2.50 per pound to as little as 64 cents per pound, he said. That could put the 2002 average below last year’s $1.95. The fish can fetch nearly twice that in leaner times. 

Since fuel and maintenance costs have remained stable, some fishermen have switched to pricier albacore tuna to make ends meet, and others are selling their catch directly from their boats to the public to net a better price. 

“This was an absolute reaction to prices,” said fisherman David Friedman, who has spent 19 years plying the waters and increasingly hawks salmon from his boat, the Sunday. 

Rather than settle for the roughly $2 per pound offered by buyers this week, Friedman has snared $3 to $3.50 per pound from fish lovers who congregate along the misty docks at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. He can sell as many as 60 fish each weekend, including a glistening 19-pounder that swayed from his scale Monday. That fish went for about $60. 

Fishermen have to get creative, he said, to compete with cheaper, more consistent supplies of farmed salmon that increasingly crowd grocery store fish cases. California law currently does not require sellers to label whether fish are wild or farmed, the council said. 

According to the Fisheries Service, the United States imported more than 2,500 metric tons of farmed Chinook from Canada and Chile in 2000. Fishermen landed 7,305 metric tons of wild salmon along the Pacific coast that year, and exported 11 percent of the catch to Japan. 

Japan’s depressed economy also has contributed to this year’s price drop, Goldenberg said, since those extra fish have remained in American markets. 

So why all the fish? Aside from a strong Chinook run, Chamois Andersen of the California Department of Fish and Game said regulators also have opened more of the coast to fishing and extended the season. Modeling systems now have more years of data to crunch, allowing for regulators to pinpoint more precise locations for fishing restrictions, Andersen said. 

Efforts to improve habitat and maintain sufficient water levels for salmon to spawn along the Sacramento River and other major tributaries also have helped, she said. 

This year’s catch still pales next to 1988, when fishermen landed a whopping 14.4 million pounds of salmon, or about 1.3 million fish. There was less foreign competition then, keeping average prices at $3.89 per pound, Goldenberg said. 

Chinook salmon are the largest of the salmon species, and are found from Northern Alaska to Central California, as well as from Northern Japan to the Bering Sea on the east coast of Asia. 

——— 

On the Net: 

California Salmon Council: http://www.calkingsalmon.org 

Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission: http://www.psmfc.org 

LOS ANGELES — NASA has found a missing $159 million spacecraft, thanks to a half-dozen telescope images that confirm the silent probe is in orbit around the sun but possibly broken in pieces. 

Astronomers at observatories in Arizona, California, Hawaii and elsewhere have captured pictures of the Contour spacecraft, which has been silent since Thursday when it left Earth orbit to embark on a multiyear mission to visit at least two comets. 

“It’s orbiting the sun at this point,” Michael Buckley, a spokesman for Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, said Tuesday. 

The university built and manages the mission for NASA. 

The images confirm Contour fired its solid-propellant rocket motor as planned, but suggest something went awry, since they show two objects moving away from the Earth in tandem at 13,600 mph. 

Mission members believe a portion of Contour broke off as it left Earth orbit. They are assuming the octagonal spacecraft remains largely intact, however, and continue scanning for a signal from it. 

If no commands are received by the spacecraft for 96 hours, it is programmed to cycle through three of its four on-board antennas and contact Earth. 

That process takes 60 hours to run through and could have begun as late as 7:09 p.m. PDT Monday. So far, nothing has been heard. 

If the team does not hear from Contour by Thursday, members will make a final effort to listen in December, when the spacecraft’s antennas are in a more favorable orientation. 

“We’re obligated to give it this last try,” Contour mission operations manager Mark Holdridge said in a statement. “And who knows, we might get lucky.” 

Meanwhile, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is preparing to investigate the mishap, said spokesman Don Savage. 

Contour, short for Comet Nucleus Tour, was launched into Earth orbit on July 3. On Thursday, it fired its motor as programmed in a maneuver designed to send it looping around the sun. The mission plan called for Contour to then meet up with comet Encke in 2003, Schwassman-Wachmann 3 in 2006 and perhaps comet d’Arrest in 2008. 

Contour was supposed to signal operators at Johns Hopkins about 45 minutes after the rocket burn, but no signal arrived. 

NEW YORK — The names of the World Trade Center victims will be etched into portions of a viewing wall that will encircle ground zero during its redevelopment, officials said Tuesday. 

The wall will be in place for the one-year anniversary of the disaster that claimed more than 2,800 lives, said Michael McKeon, a spokesman for Gov. George Pataki. 

The 13-foot high wall of galvanized steel, proposed in April, will replace the makeshift barriers that have mostly blocked the site from view since the Sept. 11 attacks. 

Designers have said it will contain a series of steel mesh panels for people to see through, replacing the existing wooden viewing platform. It will remain along most of the perimeter of the 16-acre site throughout redevelopment, which is expected to last several years. 

The wall also is expected to include panels depicting what happened at the site and descriptions of the history of the site and the attacks. 

Plans for the wall were confirmed with families at a meeting with the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. on Monday to discuss a permanent memorial, which is still being planned. Pataki and New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey were scheduled to announce details of the plan Wednesday.

NEW YORK— CNN and CBS both paid for videotapes that depict al-Qaida poison gas experiments, but insisted Tuesday — without naming their sources — that the money didn’t go to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization. 

CNN began showing its video, from a cache of 64 al-Qaida tapes taken from Afghanistan, on Sunday night, and CBS followed with similar material the following morning. 

CNN, which is continuing to air fresh material from the cache, at first said it had not paid for the tapes. On Tuesday, blaming internal miscommunication, the network said it had paid in the “low five figures.” The Miami Herald reported the amount as $30,000. 

CBS paid a “very nominal, very standard” fee for its tapes, said Marcy McGinnis, senior vice president of news coverage. She wouldn’t say how much. 

Most television networks occasionally pay for newsworthy video they can’t obtain elsewhere. For example, many paid for pictures after Sept. 11 that showed planes flying into the World Trade Center from different angles. 

A journalism ethics expert suggested that, in this case, the networks should be more forthcoming about their arrangements.

LOS ANGELES — A proposal to place authority for California water projects under a governor-controlled board is drawing criticism from the state’s largest water district because it could complicate efforts to meet a deadline to reduce consumption of Colorado River water. 

Failure to create the plan could affect millions of customers as early as next year. 

Under an agreement with six other Western states, California has until Dec. 31 to offer a plan outlining how it will cut its annual use of Colorado River water over the next 14 years. The Interior Department has threatened to cut off this extra water by the end of the year if the state misses the deadline. 

Frustrated at the pace of negotiations, state Sen. Jim Costa and Assemblyman Joseph Canciamilla say they are concerned that no one state agency is in charge of seeing that the plan goes forward. 

“I think unfortunately that each of the water districts have their own particular interests,” Canciamilla said. Phone calls to Costa were not immediately returned. 

Officials with the Metropolitan Water District, which serves 17 million Southern California customers, say the legislators’ proposal will only complicate the process and could cause the state to miss the deadline. 

Local districts are also concerned that the proposal goes far beyond the transfer of Colorado River water and would also affect their authority over other water projects, including ocean desalination proposals and efforts to store water under the Mojave Desert. 

“If we determine that we will either proceed or not proceed with a project, that decision could be ... possibly reversed, affecting local control and local investment,” said Metropolitan Water District spokesman Adan Ortega. 

Canciamilla said he proposed placing financial strings on other projects to get the districts’ attention. 

“I don’t think the local agencies have been serious about achieving an agreement,” he said. 

California has long used more than its share of Colorado River water — about 261 billion gallons a year more, enough for 1.6 million households.

Few surprises await them 

UC Berkeley students return to campus this week to face higher tuition, better housing options and a chance to take an entire science course on-line. 

Tuition for California residents jumps a modest two percent, from $4,122 last year to $4,200 this year, to help pay for dental insurance and student transit passes. The $4,200 bill compares to a UC system-wide average of $3,859. But it still falls below the $5,864 average resident tuition for four universities that UC references for comparison – the University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Virginia and State University of New York. 

Out-of-state undergraduates, meanwhile, will face a significant hike in tuition at all nine UC campuses, with the annual bill moving from $10,704 to $12,009.  

The UC Board of Regents approved the non-resident hike in July, in the face of uncertain state funding, to help pay for system-wide outreach programs for kindergarten-through-12th grade students and health benefits for employees. 

While tuition is on the rise, university officials say the housing situation should be gentler this year. A new university-run complex, the College-Durant apartments, opened this weekend, providing 120 new on-campus beds.  

Officials also say that Berkeley rents are declining. According to a study released earlier this month by the university-run Cal Rentals, rent for a one-bedroom apartment dipped from $1,375 in July 2001 to $1,202 in July 2002. 

But UC Berkeley graduate student and City Council candidate Andy Katz points out that the July 2002 figure is still higher than the July 2000 figure of $1,101. 

“Instead of rents being astronomically unaffordable, they are only ridiculously unaffordable,” he said, arguing that more needs to be done to ease the housing crunch. 

The university has about 900 more on-campus beds in the pipeline, with the first becoming available in 2005. 

More students will be competing for housing this year, with total student enrollment expected to jump from 31,500 to 32,500, despite a dip in undergraduate acceptances. 

The student body will be a little more diverse this year. The percentage of “underrepresented minorities” – American Indians, African-Americans and Latinos – accepted as undergraduates grew from 17.1 percent last year to 17.5 percent this year. 

Some attribute the growth of minority acceptances at UC Berkeley and system-wide, where the figure moved from 18.6 percent to 19.1 percent, to a new admissions policy put in place this year called “comprehensive review.”  

Previously, the university selected 50 to 75 percent of students based on academic factors alone and picked the remainder based on a combination of academics and other qualities like leadership and perseverance. Under comprehensive review, all students are admitted based upon a combination of academics and other factors. 

Critics say the system is too subjective and may provide a way around a 1997 ban on considering race in admissions. 

But UC spokesman Hanan Eisenman said comprehensive review did not significantly increase underrepresented minority acceptances. 

“We didn’t think it was going to impact the class in terms of ethnic composition and it really didn’t,” he said. 

This year, all UC Berkeley students will also face a revised slate of courses that will touch upon terrorism and the war in Afghanistan as well as an entirely on-line course that will focus on the study of gems and other stones. 

Officials are hush-hush about the details of the on-line course, which will be unveiled Thursday during a back-to-school press conference hosted by UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl. 

Contact reporter at 

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net

To the Editor: 

The secret has been revealed that Reagan and Bush Sr. supported that “evil” Saddam Hussein while he was using poison gas weapons against his own people. 

Word has leaked that Ashcroft wants to set up internment camps for U.S. citizens deemed by him to be “enemy combatants” who criticize the regime. 

It's been uncovered that both Bush Jr's company, Harken, and Cheney's company, Halliburton, conducted the same kind of illegal stock and accounting manipulations that Enron, Anderson, and Martha Stewart did. 

Government reports indicate that more than 40 percent of the new, huge budget deficits are caused by Bush's tax give-away to the very rich. 

All of these revelations have come from a few republicans with enough wisdom to realize that the integrity of our government and our market system is the basis of their own personal wealth. My question is, “Why are the democrats so meek and quiet?” 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont

Tuesday, August 20

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 Special Education  

Parents Network (BSPED) 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ala Costa Center, 1300 Rose St. 

Guest, BUSD Superintendent Michele Lawrence will answer questions regarding re organization of the BUSD Special Education administration and the new Special Education Task Force comprised of parents, teachers, professionals and administrators. BSPED meets each month. 

525-9262, tmelton@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Free 

Escape to the Wine Country:  

California’s Napa, Sonoma and  

Mendocino 

Fodor’s text by Thom Elkjer, photography by Robert Homes 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Slide presentation and talk on the best wineries, vineyards, activities and dramatic countryside found in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino County.  

843-3533 

Free 

Thursday, August 22

Free Melanoma Update 

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 

Summit North Pavilion, Cafeteria Annex B & C, 350 Hawthorne Ave., Oakland 

Information on melanoma skin cancer, detection and treatment. 

869-6737 

Free 

Friday, August 23

Teen Playreaders present Bizarre Shorts 

Through Aug. 24, 7 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - North Branch 

1170 The Alameda 

Playreaders present 20 short, bizarre plays, contemporary and classic. 

981-6250 

Free 

Saturday, August 24

Berkeley Art Project Celebration 

2 to 6 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Project on the corner of Adeline St. and Stuart St.  

Event to gather community support for long-time Berkeley artist co-op. Festivities include puppet show, art raffle, silly animals, jugglers, music, free ice cream.  

548-5349 

Free 

UC Berkeley Circle K Garage Sale 

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday) 

Berkeley ACE Hardware parking lot, 2145 University Ave. 

Garage sale fundraiser held by UC Berkeley, non-profit community service organization to raise money for pediatric trauma patients.  

(858) 335-9021 

Fuel Cell Car Experiments 

1 to 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California Campus (Just below Grizzly Peak Blvd.) 

Observe a miniature car operating on solar energy and water, and help conduct physics experiments to learn more about this environmentally friendly new technology. For ages 12 and up. 

642-5132 

Admission: $8 for adults; $6 for youth; $4 for children 3-4 

Vegan Food Party 

11:30 a.m. 

Lake Anza in Tilden Park 

Social, food party event presented by Contra Costa Vegetarians and SFBAVeg. 

dhermit4424@yahoo.com 

Free with Vegan dish 

Sunday, August 25

Destination Telegraph 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Durant Ave., between Telegraph Ave. and Bowditch Ave. 

Live music, beer and wine garden, street artists, community booths, art and prizes. 

649-9500 or www.telegraphyberkeley.org for information, booth space or to volunteer 

Tuesday, August 27

A House of Straw: a Natural  

Building Odyssey Slideshow 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo 

Carolyn Roberts presents slides and talks about her experiences building her straw bale house. 

548-2220 Ext. 233 

Free 

Thursday, August 29

2nd Annual LGBT Elders  

Conference 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland 

Workshops and conference for LGBT elders to learn about senior services.  

705-8918 

$20 registration, no one denied for lack of funds 

Saturday, August 31

Berkeley Youth Orchestra Auditions (Wind, Brass, Percussion) 

All day 

Laney College Music Dept., Fallon St., Oakland 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra will audition musicians aged 10-15 for the 2002-2003 season. 

For an application or more information call Penny Boys at 540-0812 or e-mail her at philiph@seismo.kerkeley.edu 

Monday, September 2

Labor Day Potluck Picnic and Poetry Reading 

Hosted by Bay Area Poets Coalition 

Noon to 4 p.m. 

Live Oak Park, Walnut and Rose St. 

527-9905, poetalk@aol.com 

National Organization for Women Oakland/East Bay Chapter  

6:30 PM.  

Mama Bears Bookstore and Coffeehouse, 6536 Telegraph Avenue  

Chapter’s monthly meeting. Speaker: Multicultural historian, Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, received 

the prestigious Valitutti Award for non fiction.  

549-2970 

Free 

Thursday, September 5

Nutrition Career Open House 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Institute of Educational Therapy, 706 Gilman St. 

Learn how to become a nutrition educator or consultant. 

558-1711 for reservations and information 

Free 

Friday, September 6

'The Winona LaDuke Reader' lecture and reception 

Presented by the American Indian Graduate Program 

5 p.m. Reception, 7 p.m. Lecture 

Native American environmental and Indigenous Rights activist and author 

of several books and articles, Winona LaDuke, will discuss the topics of 

her new book 'The Winona LaDuke Reader' as well as other current work. 

atalay@sscl.berkeleyl.edu 

Free 

Saturday, September 7

Travel Careers Seminar 

8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

Vista Community College, 2020 Milvia St., Room 306 

The day’s program will include travel industry speakers covering a variety of career possibilities: Cruise specialists, tour leaders, tour operators, adventure operators, home-based travel agents and more.  

981-2931 

$5.50 for California residents 

Sunday, September 8

Lifelong Medical Care First Annual 5K Fun Run/Walk Fundraiser 

9 a.m. to noon 

West Berkeley 

Individual and team participation, a health fair, food, prizes, live music, free insurance eligibility screening - fun for all ages. 

704-6010 

28th Annual Solano Avenue Stroll 

10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Solano Avenue 

A mile-long block part featuring “Journey of a Thousand Cranes’ Parade” at 11 a.m.  

527-5358 or www.salonstroll.org 

Free 

Watershed Environmental  

Poetry Festival 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Free 

Thursday, September 12

The 14th Small Business  

Development Trade Fair 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

The Pauley Ballroom in the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, near Telegraph Ave. and Bancroft Way, UC Berkeley 

The event will introduce small businesses to the UC Berkeley community and give campus departments a glimpse of the services and products small businesses have to offer.  

Saturday, September 14

Basic Personal Preparedness 

9 to 11 a.m. 

Fire Department Training Center, 997 Cedar St. 

Learn five critical steps to take care of yourself, your family and your home. Classes open to those 18 or older who live or work in Berkeley. 

981-5605, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html 

Free 

Heritage Day 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

4th and University Ave. 

International BBQ and beer festival 

Free 

Spin for the Stars Fund-raiser 

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Spieker Aquatics Complex, Recreational Sports Facility on UC Berkeley campus 

Noncompetitive swimming and stationary cycling event. Proceeds will help Cal STAR enhance its facilities and programs for the disabled. 

$20 registration fee, $35 for biathlon challenge  

West Berkeley Open Air Market 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

University Avenue between 3rd and 4th St. 

West Berkeley celebrates Neighborhood Heritage Day with crafts, food, live music, art and family entertainment. 

841-8562 or sfbayshellmounds@yahoo.com 

Free 

Thursday, September 19

Sukkot Holiday Workshop 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

Join Dawn Kepler, director of Building Jewish Bridges, for hands-on crafts, food projects, creative sukkah decorations and tips for making your own sukkah (hut). 

848-0237 Ext. 127 

$10 BRJCC members/$12 public 

Saturday, September 21

BREAD and Roses Garden Party 

1 to 5 p.m. 

Peralta Community Garden, Berkeley 

Hopkins & Peralta, Wheelchair accessible  

BREAD's birthday party - five years of dismantling corporate rule through local 

currency. 

644-0376 

$12 advance, $15 door, low-income rate $10 

A's on the way 

CLEVELAND — Look out, because here come the A’s. Again. 

The Oakland Athletics, who each year seem to get better as the season goes on, are closer to first place in the AL West than they’ve been in four months. 

“Maybe some people will start thinking about the Oakland A’s again,” said their manager, Art Howe. “We’ve been the stepchild in this race.” 

Tim Hudson pitched 8 1-3 innings to remain unbeaten in August and Eric Chavez homered twice as the A’s won their sixth straight game Monday night, 8-1 over the Cleveland Indians. 

Oakland’s win, coupled with Seattle’s loss at Detroit, moved the A’s within one game of the Anaheim Angels, who lead Seattle by two percentage points. 

“I kind of like the position we’re in,” said Hudson, “sneaking up on guys and then we’re breathing down their throats.” 

Hudson meant necks, of course. It was one of his few mistakes of the night. 

Hudson (10-9) allowed six hits and one run but was lifted just two outs away from his third complete game this season. He improved to 3-0 with a 1.21 ERA this month, and beat the Indians for the first time in six career starts. 

“Right now, he’s really locked in,” Howe said. “That was vintage Hudson.” 

The A’s, who haven’t been within one game of first since April 13, are 24-11 in their last 35 road games. 

Chavez hit a two-run homer in the first inning off Danys Baez (9-10) and added a three-run shot in the ninth off Mark Wohlers for Oakland, which improved to 13-4 in August. Only the idle Arizona Diamondbacks, also 13-4 this month, have been as hot. 

Oakland has scored 24 runs in its last three games and the A’s haven’t trailed once during the 54 innings of their current winning streak. 

“The pitchers have carried us,” Chavez said. “It’s about time we started doing something for them. It’s nice to have everything working right now.” 

Jim Thome hit his 38th homer for the Indians, and Cleveland rookie Coco Crisp had two hits and made a diving catch in center field during his debut at Jacobs Field. 

Hudson came in 0-2 with a 10.08 ERA in five previous career starts against Cleveland. Most of those outings, though, came against a very different Indians’ lineup than the one he faced Monday night. 

Hudson walked none, struck out six and was never in trouble. Oakland’s outfielders only recorded two putouts as Hudson’s breaking pitches had the Indians hammering the ball into the ground. 

“He has great movement and you don’t get too many good looks at his pitches,” Thome said. “He threw a couple balls up and over the plate to me and that is unusual.” 

Oakland’s first three hits off Baez were for extra bases with Chavez’s 27th homer giving the A’s a 3-0 lead in the first. 

Ray Durham led off with a double to right, and one out later, Miguel Tejada doubled off the wall in left-center. Batting in the cleanup spot for the eighth straight game, Chavez then lined his homer into the A’s bullpen in right. 

Baez got through the next two innings unscathed, but the A’s got him for two more runs in the fourth on Ramon Hernandez’s broken-bat RBI single and Durham’s grounder. 

“I threw a couple of fastballs that were mistakes,” Baez said. “That’s not good against that team.” 

Thome homered with one out in the fourth, lining an 0-1 pitch over the wall in right-center. 

Chavez made it 8-1 in the ninth, connecting for his 28th homer, a towering shot to right. 

Notes: The Indians are sending RHP Ryan Drese to Triple-A Buffalo and calling up RHP Ricardo Rodriguez, who was acquired from Los Angeles in the Paul Shuey trade. Rodriguez will take Drese’s spot in the starting rotation and is scheduled to make his major league debut Wednesday night against the A’s. ... Since the 2000 All-Star break, the A’s are 125-62 — baseball’s best record. ... Tejada has played in 395 straight games, the longest active streak in the majors. ... Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 7-foot-3 center, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Typical basketball player, he bounced it. ... Chavez has four multihomer games this season and seven in his career. ... Indians RHP Bob Wickman, who is out for the season and waiting to have “Tommy John” elbow surgery, said he has talked to several players who have had the procedure. And what has he learned? “It’s a battle,” he said. “But you can come back from it. You just have to work hard and keep your fingers crossed.” 

Berkeley counts record number
of hate crimes since Sept. 11 

A Middle East peace supporter and falafel maker was shocked Sunday when she found the words “Holy Blood” scribbled in red on the storefront of her kosher restaurant on College Avenue. 

The incident at Chaya Mizrachi’s Holy Land Kosher Food may be the latest in a rash of post-Sept. 11 hate crimes in Berkeley. 

“This makes me feel very bad,” said Mizrachi, who emigrated from Israel 15 years ago. “I don’t sit in the White House. I make falafels. Why should they do this to me?” 

Mizrachi said that a child walking into her restaurant noticed the writing shortly after the restaurant opened for lunch Sunday. Restaurant workers were able to remove most of the ink, which appeared to come from a felt marker, but Mizrachi said the words, printed about an inch tall, are still noticeable. 

Police arrived after the lettering had been nearly erased. They have not officially labeled the defacement a hate crime, saying that state authorities make that determination. 

Mizrachi, however, has no doubt about the perpetrator’s motives. 

“They were trying to say something,” she said. “I think this was done by stupid people.” 

The defacing of the kosher restaurant is the latest in an upsurge of politically-motivated Berkeley crime.  

There were 20 reported hate crimes during the first four months of 2002, compared to just four during the same period last year, said Berkeley police Lt. Cynthia Harris. 

Several Jewish organizations have been among the victims. In March, a brick was thrown through the glass door of the Berkeley Hillel, and in April, bomb threats were called into local Jewish synagogues. 

Berkeley city officials say they are addressing the problem. 

At a July 23 City Council meeting, after weeks of back-and-forth debate on the issue, council unanimously passed a piece of hate crime legislation. The vote authorized the city manager to offer rewards of up to $5,000 for information on specified hate crimes. The legislation also increases police training for hate crime cases. 

An additional proposal to develop a separate police hate crimes unit like those in San Francisco and Oakland is being reviewed by city staff. 

The city will call a town hall meeting, tentatively scheduled for October, to share ideas on how to stop politically motivated crimes. 

Councilmemeber Kriss Worthington is hoping the meeting helps residents better understand the flawed logic behind hate crimes. 

“How does punishing a woman who runs a Jewish restaurant contribute to peace?” he asked. 

Mizrachi’s support of the Middle East peace process was highlighted in 1993 when, after the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, she gave away free food at her Oakland restaurant.  

“For three days we gave free falafels to anyone who said they supported peace,” she said. “Now they put this near my window.” 

Police have no suspects. 

Contact reporter at berkeleydailyplanet.net.

To the Editor: 

The rumors that Dr. Susan Block and I bribed the city attorney to write the indecent cable television programming ordinance in such a way that our shows are not affected by it except that it allows our shows to be aired on B-TV anytime day or night are not true. She did it all by herself. She got rid of the “safe harbor” time slot of after 10 p.m. for shows with adult content. In its place she created an “indecent” time slot from midnight to 6 a.m. Our shows are not indecent. Linda Maio said this at the last council meeting as she voted against the ordinance. So our shows then could be shown any time. 

In fact, no show airing on B-TV will fall into the definition of “indecent” as defined in the ordinance. To be “indecent” a show, when viewed as a whole with respect to minors and applying contemporary Berkeley standards, is designed to appeal to prurient interest and contains patently offensive representations or depictions of sexual conduct, normal, or perverted, actual or simulated, or patently offensive representations or depictions of masturbation, excretory functions or lewd exhibition of the genitals and taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors. 

This is a very hard test if it is applied fairly. As Dona Spring said as she voted against this, what is of value for a 17-year-old, for a 12-year-old, and for a 12-year-old watching with her parents are all different. Under this ordinance, if the show has value for a 17-year-old, it isn't indecent – if it is applied fairly. 

But it doesn't have any safeguards to assure that this law will be applied fairly. In fact, it makes us producers vulnerable to be hassled by anybody who doesn't like our shows. (The final vote on this ordinance is scheduled for the next City Council meeting.) 

Frank Moore 

Berkeley

SAN FRANCISCO — A hip injury forced Jay Williams to sit out practice for a second straight day Monday, leaving him contemplating whether to withdraw from the U.S. national team. 

Williams sprained his left hip flexor Saturday in a collision with teammate Andre Miller during the team’s first hard practice. 

“It was horrible yesterday. I woke up thinking I’d never play basketball again, whereas I woke up today and felt a lot better,” Williams said Monday. 

Williams, originally selected to Team USA as an alternate, was added to the main roster last week after Ray Allen pulled out because of a knee injury. The U.S. team did not replace Williams with another alternate. 

“We’re kind of fatiguing some guys with only 12 bodies and no perimeter substitutions,” said coach George Karl, who had his team drilling against zone defenses during practice at the University of San Francisco. 

Williams watched the scrimmages and shot jumpers but did not run. 

Chicago general manager Jerry Krause, who drafted Williams second overall last June, said his trainer was in daily contact with USA Basketball’s trainers. 

“It’s very important for him to be on that team, for him and for us, but obviously his health is the most important concern,” Krause said. “Young kids, they want to play even if they’re hurt. That kid, he’d play with a broken leg.” 

Williams also injured his right groin during a Bulls mini-camp in late July, and this latest setback has left him wondering whether it might be prudent to rest for the next 1 1/2 months before NBA training camps begin. 

The U.S team, preparing for the World Championships in Indianapolis Aug. 29-Sept. 8, plays an exhibition against China on Thursday night before moving its training camp to Portland. 

Williams emphasized that he would take things day-by-day for the time being. 

“The thing for me is I don’t want to go into training camp favoring an injury already,” Williams said. “You’ve got to think about it as it should be an honor to play for your country, but in the same sense I know I have 82 games ahead of me, which I’ve never experienced in my life. I got tired after 40-something games in college.” 

Krause said he had not yet spoken with Williams about the injury, although Williams said he had already discussed whether to withdraw from the U.S. team with his agent, Bill Duffy. 

“I say this right now,” he said of possibly withdrawing, “but then I’m one of the most competitive guys I’ve ever met. So I don’t know.” 

The potential loss of Williams, the national player of the year last season for Duke, would reduce the U.S. team’s backcourt depth. 

The other guards on the roster are Miller and Baron Davis at point guard and Paul Pierce and Reggie Miller at shooting guard. Davis was a replacement for Jason Kidd, who withdrew because of a groin injury. 

Union says the administration wrongly laid off teachers 

The Berkeley Federation of Teachers filed suit against the Berkeley Unified School District earlier this month, claiming that district officials misclassified 38 teachers as “temporary” this spring and improperly laid them off. 

In recent weeks, the district has restored several of the teachers in question as part of its normal budget processes, but union officials say 12 to 13 teachers still qualify for legal action. 

“Unless they are all reinstated, we are probably going to proceed with this suit,” said BFT President Barry Fike. 

Associate Superintendent for Administrative Services David Gomez said the district still might reinstate the remaining teachers. But if that doesn’t happen, Gomez is confident that the district would prevail if the case goes to trial. 

“We’re pretty sure that they’re properly classified,” he said. 

The district, faced with a $5.4 million 2002-2003 deficit, issued layoff notices to 173 teachers in March. The layoffs included 82 “probationary” status teachers – generally first or second year instructors with a full or preliminary credential – and 91 temporary teachers, often first-year instructors on an emergency credential. 

The district, as planned, has rescinded almost all of the layoff notices in recent months as the murky budget picture has cleared, but some teachers remain without jobs. Gomez said about 10 teachers are jobless, but the union said 40 to 50 are still unemployed. 

The union warned as early as May that it might file suit on behalf of the allegedly misclassified teachers, but it held out in hope that all the instructors would get their jobs back. Fike said BFT decided to file in August because there were still some teachers with pink slips. 

“We were hoping the question would become moot,” he said. “In fact it has not.” 

In April the district, in accordance with state law, provided probationary teachers with a chance to challenge their layoff notices at official hearings. But, as is customary, the district did not provide hearings for temporary status teachers. 

The union claims that by improperly classifying permanent or probationary status teachers as temporary, and subsequently denying the instructors their right to layoff hearings, the district broke the law and must reinstate the teachers in question. 

The district, though, contends that it properly classified the teachers as temporary and therefore does not owe them hearings or reinstatement. 

Fike said the district’s conduct is particularly troublesome because it has filled vacancies in recent weeks with new teachers instead of restoring some of the temporary teachers involved in the suit. 

But Gomez said the district, in filling open slots, has only hired new teachers when the laid-off instructors lacked the proper credentials for the jobs in question. Fike said that is true in most, but not all cases. 

Gomez suggested that he was disappointed with the union’s decision to sue, arguing that the district has made a “good faith” effort to restore as many teaching positions as possible. 

Fike said some of the teachers who still qualify for legal action have taken jobs elsewhere and may not be able to wait for a fall court case to win their posts back. But he said some teachers have not found employment elsewhere and still plan to take part in the suit. 

Gomez said that if the district is fully-staffed and a judge rules in favor of the union this fall, requiring the restoration of laid-off teachers could have a negative financial impact on the cash-strapped district. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net

LOS ANGELES — Skipper Torben Grael and crew member Marcelo Ferreira from Brazil won the second race in the Star Class world championships Monday to take the overall lead. 

Grael and Ferreira, two-time Olympic gold medalists, lead the 103-boat fleet with four points. Competitors receive points in direct proportion to their finish, and will sail one race a day until the event ends Friday. 

Grael and Ferreira finished 11 seconds ahead of Bermuda’s Peter Bromby and Martin Siese. Allen Adler and Ricardo Ermel, also from Brazil, were third. 

France’s Xavier Rohart and Yannick Adde are in second place overall with 14 points. Paul Cayard and Hal Haenel of the United States’ are two points behind in fourth. 

The 13 houseboat residents at the city-owned marina are hoping a compromise struck with the Waterfront Commission will end years of monthly fees that they say were as unpredictable as the bay winds. 

For the past several years houseboat owners paid rents based on the government’s tabulated cost of living increases. Because the numbers fluctuated so much the residents, who are mostly retired and living on fixed incomes, never knew how much money they owed the city each month. 

If the City Council approves a compromise residents made with the Waterfront Commission last week, houseboat residents will pay the same monthly dock fees charged to all marina boats plus a flat $125 surcharge. Current fees are $271.20 for a 48-foot boat slip and $360.80 for a 54-foot slip. 

The compromise will cost houseboat residents roughly $600 more annually, but Marty Steiger of the Berkeley Marina Residents’ Association, a neighborhood group of residents from all of the live-in boats, says the new simplicity is worth the rate hike. 

“Before, everything was so convoluted and complicated. I couldn’t understand it,” he said. 

Houseboat residents praised two additional facets of the compromise with the city. The Waterfront Commission agreed to eliminate a $50 monthly charge to every resident on a boat besides the owner. 

Also, because houseboat owners are assessed the same fees as other boat owners, they can expect to have greater negotiating power by teaming with other owners when it comes to challenging rate hikes, said Brad Smith of the Waterfront Commission. 

Steiger said the confusing terms of the previous agreement strained relations between houseboat residents and other marina boat owners because many of the boat owners assumed the houseboat owners were paying lower fees. 

Houseboat owners said the compromise failed, however, to achieve their top priority – a yearly lease from the city. The city and the houseboat residents will maintain month-to-month agreements. 

“Not having a lease makes us feel insecure,” said Steiger. “Because we’re older we want to know what we can expect.” 

Smith said houseboat residents have no reason for concern. “City staff and the City Council all want them there,” he said. 

Steiger said the city could benefit from leases. Because Berkeley has a housing transfer tax, he said the city could collect money on the sale of a houseboat. He noted that houseboats docked off Marin County waters all have leases, and some boats sell for as much as $800,000. 

Cliff Marchetti, waterfront commissioner, said the city rejected the lease option because it might obligate the city to offer leases to all marina boats. 

“We can’t treat a few boat owners differently than other boat owners,” he said. 

The Waterfront Commission retains the power to review marina dock rates.  

Contact matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

It’s alive 

MONOCACY STATION, Pa. — This is no fish story: Two fishermen pulled a live military rocket out of the Schuylkill River. 

Michael Nagy and Jeremy Lloyd found the rusted, 2-foot-long rocket in a shallow area of the river Sunday and dragged it to shore, police said. The men then posed to take photographs with the explosive before driving it to police. 

“It was confirmed as an active military device, an RPG Rocket,” said West Pottsgrove police officer Steven Ziegler. “It had the firing pin still in it. That’s how we knew it was live.” 

The military-issue surface-to-air missile was designed to be launched out of a weapon, such as a bazooka, Ziegler said. The Montgomery County Sheriff Bomb Disposal Unit detonated the device at a remote location. 

It’s unclear how the missile ended up in the river. A similar explosive device was found in the Schuylkill River about six months ago, police said. That device had been discarded. 

Monocacy Station is about 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. 

Big tax bill mistake 

MANHATTAN, Kan.— A mistake that caused the property value of a home to be inflated by $200 million has left local governments scrambling to refigure their budgets. 

Riley County Appraiser Sam Schmidt’s staff uncovered the error last week while preparing for next year’s valuations. The staff found the valuation on a single $59,500 property east of Kansas State University inadvertently had been changed to $200,059,000. 

The tax bill was never sent out, but Manhattan, Riley County and the local school district based their budget calculations on the erroneous valuation, which created a 6.5 percent overstatement of the value of property in the county. 

Now they are faced with fixing a shortfall that’s likely to reach at least $2.3 million. 

A 56-year delivery time 

LEBANON, Ind. — A package that sat in a hidden vault since 1945 has finally reached its intended recipient. 

Kenneth F. Perkins of Lebanon received a package last week containing after-shave lotion, talc and hair dressing. 

It was postmarked Dec. 13, 1945. 

Construction workers discovered Perkins’ package during July renovations at the federal courthouse in Indianapolis. 

The courthouse once housed the post office and when workers moved a shelf, they discovered the vault containing some undelivered mail, said Kim Yates, a U.S. Postal Service representative. 

Officials tracked down Perkins, now 79, through the military. The package was sent to him while he was serving in the Navy.

A woman was choked and robbed early Sunday evening on the 500 block of Gilman Street by a homeless man she had hired to help her move, police said. 

The woman picked up two transients at People’s Park earlier in the day to assist with her move. When she was bringing one man back to the park, she noticed that her camcorder was missing, police said. When she confronted the transient, he began choking her and stole her money. He fled the scene on foot. 

Police later arrested the man and returned the stolen property. 

-Matthew Artz 

Foggy weather but no sharks  

STINSON BEACH – The weather may not be cooperating, but so far the sharks are. 

Stinson Beach reopened to surfers and swimmers Sunday morning after a shark sighting last week kept both groups out of the water for five days. 

Lifeguard John Pellolio said this morning the beach is fogged in and neither surfers nor swimmers were in the water as of 11 a.m. But that is likely to change, he said. 

“They'll still come out. It's sunny over the hill,” Pellolio predicted. 

The beach was closed for two five-day periods in June after a surfer was bitten by a shark and another shark was sighted. 

Police puzzled over Hayward homicide 

HAYWARD – Police are still trying to understand why a 24-year-old man, with no apparent connection to either drugs or gangs, was shot in the head and killed early Sunday morning. 

Residents found the man, identified by the Alameda County Coroner as Damion Allen, lying dead on the street around 8:30 in the morning in the 27000 block of Del Norte Court in Hayward. 

Hayward police say they have no witness information nor any reports of gunfire, although one resident said he may have heard shots between 2 and 4 a.m. Police are investigating why Allen was killed and whether he was actually killed where he was found. 

Anyone with information on this homicide should contact Inspector Ramona Hernandez at the Hayward Police Department at 293-7074. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Bay Area officials are looking closely, yet skeptically, at a Los Angeles County program that provides free preschool using proceeds from state cigarette taxes. 

Los Angeles County residents approved a proposition earlier this month that allows some of the tobacco-tax money to be used for early childhood programs. The county plans to phase in as many as 100,000 children into preschool slots over several years. 

But officials in the Bay Area say a universal preschool program would not work for every county in the state. 

“L.A. has much more money than we have, so that does come with a certain flexibility,” said Brenda Blasingame, executive director of Contra Costa County’s Children and Family Commission. 

Blasingame said it’s better to invest limited resources in the education and retention of child-care workers than to put the money on a free preschool system. 

In Contra Costa county cigarette-tax revenue has fallen from $12.8 million in the first year to $11 million this year. 

Los Angeles County agrees it receives more funding than most counties. Proposition 10, the tobacco-tax measure passed in 1998, generates about $700 million annually for the state and $165 million for Los Angeles County. 

Proposition 10 added a 50-cent tax to a pack of cigarettes and an additional levy on cigars and pipe tobacco. California’s 58 counties divide the revenue based on local birthrates and use the money mainly for child-development programs. 

Alpine, California’s smallest county, is planning a preschool program funded by tobacco taxes, but its program would need to cover only about 20 children. 

Since the burden is larger for counties like those in the Bay Area, most are pursuing other policies in the face of declining tobacco tax revenues. 

San Francisco, which received $8.5 million in the program’s first full year and $7.7 million last fiscal year, considered a program like Los Angeles’ when its Children and Families Commission was first formed. Officials decided against it and chose to put much of their money into programs to supplement the low pay and benefits earned by child-care providers. 

SAN JOSE — A six-alarm fire gutted a six-acre section of Santana Row, an expansive $500 million retail, commercial and residential development designed to become an upscale destination for people from all over Silicon Valley. 

The blaze, which erupted Monday afternoon, spewed 100-foot-high flames and billowing black smoke that could be seen for miles, and delivered yet another blow to an already sagging economy still weathering the dot-com bust. 

“This was going to be a very, very big deal for San Jose,” said city councilman Ken Yeager. “It was really all set to be a regional shopping center, it was going to draw shoppers from around the area and help the economy.” 

Homes and businesses within a half-mile of the site were evacuated. Cinders blew onto nearby apartments where residents straddled roofs and tried to douse flames with garden hos Bay Area roadways during the evening commute. There were no known injuries. All of San Jose’s available firefighters responded, as well as crews from nearby cities. 

Left charred was the largest of nine buildings at the development. 

The proposed legislation
would curb speed shows
and reckless driving 

SACRAMENTO – The state Assembly Monday approved a proposed law that could help the Oakland Police Department deal with so-called “sideshows.” 

The Assembly voted 65-1 to approve Senate Bill 1489, which has been named the U'Kendra K. Johnson Memorial Act in memory of a 22-year-old Oakland resident who was killed in February during a hit-and-run incident that authorities say was related to sideshow activities. 

If made into law, the bill would allow police departments to tow and impound for 30 days the cars of those who engage in illegal speed exhibitions and reckless driving. The cars would not be returned until the owners pay impound fees, currently estimated at about $1,500. 

The ‘sideshow’ bill was authored by state Sen. Don Perata, D-Alameda, and was carried in the Assembly by Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Oakland.  

Sideshows have been taking place in Oakland since the 1980s. They are loosely organized street gatherings in which participants snake though Oakland neighborhoods and take over streets and parking lots, where crowds stand next to cars that spin doughnuts and burn rubber, sometimes as passengers hang from an open car door or windows. 

Oakland city officials say the proposed legislation could be one of the tools that allow them to finally end sideshows in the city, which adds $1.5 million each year to the city's budget in police overtime. 

Under the current law, police can only hold impounded vehicles until their owners claim them and pay their fine. City officials claim that the law does little to deter sideshow activity, since some participants have been known to have their cars towed only to return to the streets hours later after paying the fine. 

The bill now goes back to the state Senate, which has to approve naming the proposed law after U'Kendra Johnson – an Assembly modification.  

The issue is considered non-controversial and the proposed legislation could be on the governor's desk as early as this week.

SAN FRANCISCO – A lawyer for an environmental advocacy group said today that she expects a judge to uphold their legal challenge to a Richmond refinery pollution permit as he did a similar one against a Martinez facility. 

Attorney Danielle Fugere said the suit filed Friday in the same San Francisco Superior Court that last month upheld an environmental challenge to the pollution permit held by the Tesoro Martinez refinery raises the same issues in the case of the Chevron Richmond refinery. Such differences as there are, Communities for a Better Environment senior scientist Greg Karras added, don't favor Chevron. 

“If there is a difference, Chevron's the biggest refinery, and their own EPA statistics say they're the biggest source of dioxins and mercury releases to surface waters in the 10 county Bay area,” Karras said today. 

But regional board officials, while agreeing that the issues in the two cases were largely the same, said the lawsuit was unlikely to help matters because the pollution in question originates elsewhere. 

“We would say this is pointless ‘gotcha’ litigation that will not help us solve these problems,” said Larry Kolb, assistant executive officer for the San Francisco Bay Region Water Quality Control Board. 

San Francisco Superior Court Judge James McBride granted a similar challenge against the Tesoro refinery July 19. That was just one day after state water regulators in Sacramento upheld a decision by the Oakland-based regional board to allow Chevron to operate using higher interim dioxin limits instead of requiring compliance with stricter health based limits specified by the federal Clean Water Act. 

Today's suit against Chevron raises similar complaints about the Richmond refinery dioxin discharges as well as with the refinery's releases of mercury, selenium and nickel. 

“This is your classic 'do you study it while the pollution continues' or ‘do you permit it to continue while you study it’ – and then clean it up,” Karras said. 

But Kolb says there's “plenty of data” to show that it makes no sense to go after the regional board and the refinery in an attempt to cut back on dioxin and mercury pollution. 

“Even if all the discharges we regulate were to immediately go to zero, the problem would remain,” Kolb said, adding that for mercury the biggest problem is historic old sources of the toxic metal that have already infiltrated Bay sediments. 

“The worst ongoing mercury problem is drainage from the old Almaden quicksilver mine in Santa Clara County,” Kolb said. 

Kolb said that because regulators are certain that dioxins are discharged into the air and then settle out on the land and show up in storm water runoff.

SAN JOSE — Testimony concluded Monday in the first phase of Yosemite killer Cary Stayner’s triple-murder trial, setting the stage for closing arguments and jury deliberations. 

Defense lawyers and prosecutors presented 55 witnesses over five weeks of evidence, including three weeks dominated by testimony about Stayner’s brain. 

Defense lawyers presented a final witness Monday in the battle over whether Stayner’s brain was abnormal, concluding many days of testimony from psychologists and psychiatrists who performed a battery of tests on the confessed killer. 

Stayner has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to the February 1999 killings of three Yosemite National Park tourists who were staying at the rustic lodge where he worked as a handyman outside the park. 

Numerous defense witnesses testified that he had a deformed brain and had defective brain activity similar to a schizophrenic. 

A prosecution rebuttal witness, Dr. Alan Waxman, testified last week that Stayner’s brain was normal. 

Frank Balch Wood, a neurology professor at Wake Forest University, said Monday that Waxman’s conclusions were fraught with errors. 

Jurors in Santa Clara Superior Court are expected to hear closing arguments Tuesday afternoon and will likely begin deliberations Wednesday in the guilt phase of the trial. 

Stayner, 41, faces the death penalty if convicted of murdering Carole Sund, 42, her daughter, Juli, 15, of Eureka, and their Argentine friend Silvina Pelosso, 16. 

If Stayner is convicted of first-degree murder that could trigger the death penalty.

SACRAMENTO — A measure that would require utilities to have 20 percent of their electricity produced from renewable sources passed a key legislative committee Monday. 

The bill, by Sen. Byron Sher, D-Stanford, gives the utilities until 2017 to meet that threshold, increasing the requirement each year until then. 

“A diversity of sources of energy in California is essential for reliability,” Sher said. 

Environmental groups have warned the state is becoming too dependent on natural gas-fired power plants, leaving it vulnerable to price spikes if that commodity becomes scarce. 

Sher’s bill, and a companion bill that allows funds raised by a public goods charge to be used to help offset the higher cost of renewable energy, were approved by the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee after languishing there for a year. 

Gov. Gray Davis praised lawmakers for moving the bill, saying it would cut the state’s dependence on aging, inefficient and pollution-producing power plants, reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. 

“California is the nation’s leader in renewable energy —and we intend to keep that title,” Davis said. 

Julia Levin, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the bill was “great for consumers, it reduces air pollution, it creates jobs.” 

Southern California Edison supported the bill, but it was opposed by the state’s other two investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and Sempra, which owns San Diego Gas & Electric Co. 

Under the bills, utilities would be able to receive money from a fund supported by a 3 percent surcharge on electricity bills. The public goods charge goes toward renewable energy, conservation and efficiency research, and rebates for energy efficient products. 

Sher’s bills allow the funds to also help utilities offset the higher cost of renewable energy, which will those costs from being passed on to consumers. 

“That’s the incentive,” said Levin. “The problem in the last few years has been there’s been no market for renewables. Clearly, we need both incentives and a requirement.” 

The bill requires the PUC to find utilities in contempt if they don’t meet the minimum standards. 

If alternative energy providers, also called direct access providers, are allowed to continue in California, they will also be required to buy at least 20 percent renewable energy. The Public Utilities Commission has the final say on whether those providers will be allowed to take on new customers. 

Currently, customers cannot sign up for direct access service because state regulators were concerned that too many customers were fleeing the utilities, leaving the state with a large power debt. 

The bill setting the 20 percent threshold was also approved by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee later Monday. Both bills will now be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

PGP Corp. acquires encryption product lines from Network Associates 

SAN JOSE — PGP Corp., a newly formed company specializing in message and data storage security, said Monday it has acquired Network Associates Inc.’s “Pretty Good Privacy” encryption product lines and plans to update the technology. 

Pretty Good Privacy, which was first released in 1991 as free software by programmer Phil Zimmermann, is commonly used to scramble e-mail messages to ensure contents are not read while in transit. Network Associates acquired the commercial rights in 1997. 

But Network Associates stopped selling its PGP products last year after corporate sales did not meet expectations and the company decided to focus on its core computer security products. 

Under the agreement announced Monday, PGP Corp. bought the following products: PGP Mail, PGP File, PGP Disk and PGP Admin software products for Windows-based computers, PGP Corporate Desktop for Macintosh, PGP Keyserver for Windows and Solaris, PGP Mobile for handheld operating systems and the PGP SDK software development kit. 

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Network Associates retained some products built with PGPsdk, including the McAfee E-Business Server, McAfee Desktop Firewall and McAfee VPN Client. 

Terms of the deal, which was finalized July 26, were not disclosed. 

Agilent posts wider loss in fiscal third quarter 

SAN JOSE — Agilent Technologies Inc., a maker of test and measurement equipment, reported a larger-than-expected third-quarter loss Monday because of weak demand and disruptions caused by the installation of a companywide management system. 

For the three months ended July 31, the company lost $228 million, or 49 cents per share, compared with a loss of $225 million, or 49 cents a share, in the same period last year. 

Excluding one-time items, the company lost $143 million, or 31 cents per share, compared with a loss of $101 million, or 22 cents per share, in the same period last year. 

Third-quarter sales totaled $1.4 billion, a 24 percent decrease over the $1.8 billion reported last year. 

Analysts were expecting a loss of 15 cents per share on sales of $1.5 billion, according to a survey by Thomson First Call.

LUSBY, Md.— On the shore of one of the country’s most bountiful waterways, the Chesapeake Bay, two reactors have produced electricity for nearly a quarter century — and accumulated 950 tons of radioactive waste. 

Some security experts worry that at Calvert Cliffs on the Chesapeake and other nuclear power plants, the most vulnerable terrorist target may not be the reactors, but the waste they produce. 

Last month, President Bush signed into law a plan to ship used reactor fuel, now kept in deep pools of water at power plants in 31 states, to a central underground repository in the Nevada desert. 

But the Yucca Mountain site is not expected to open until 2010 and still faces legal and regulatory hurdles, while the amount of reactor waste — now about 45,000 tons nationwide — is growing by 2,000 tons a year. 

Nestled on 380 coastal acres surrounded by a nature preserve, dense woods and agricultural land where tobacco farming once was a way of life, the Calvert Cliffs plant has produced about 30 tons of spent fuel a year since its two reactors began operating in the mid-1970s. 

Most of the radioactive waste is kept in 39 feet of treated water in what looks like an indoor swimming pool, though much deeper and reinforced with a steel liner and four feet of concrete. With pool space filing up, a small amount of the waste has been stashed in steel casks inside concrete bunkers on the site. 

“We think it’s very safe ... in the pool and in the dry storage area,” says Peter Katz, senior plant official and a vice president of Constellation Energy, the plant’s owner. He says he doesn’t “for a minute doubt the safety and security” of the material. 

Because of new terrorist concerns, Katz is tightlipped about precautions taken and he won’t tell how much fuel is kept there or specify its location. He agreed only reluctantly to meet with a reporter — and then only at the now-shuttered visitors’ center outside the complex perimeter. 

Before Sept. 11, Calvert Cliffs officials freely provided such information, even distributing an aerial photograph identifying plant structures by number, including the reactors, spent fuel pool building, and the dry-cask waste storage area. 

Shown one of the photos, Katz lamented: “I can’t get them all back.” 

Federal security experts believe Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network has been interested in nuclear facilities, and power plants have been on high alert since September. The nearby waters of the bay are now off limits to boaters. Plant guards carry automatic weapons. All but business-related visitors are turned away. 

Because the government was supposed to take the spent fuel years ago, plants were never designed for long-term storage. Nor were fuel pools designed with a terrorist attack of the scale launched last September in mind. 

While the highly radioactive fuel rods inside the reactor are protected by a four-foot-thick concrete dome, anti-nuclear activists consider the spent fuel a potential easy target. 

“An attack against a spent fuel pool could drain enough water to cause a catastrophic radiological fire that cannot be extinguished,” Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department senior policy adviser, told a recent Senate hearing. He cited a 1997 analysis that said such a fire could contaminate up to 188 square miles. 

Another nuclear critic, David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the industry’s mock security exercises have paid little attention to protecting waste at reactor sites. 

The NRC acknowledges its studies on spent fuel vulnerability have focused on ensuring the pools can withstand an earthquake or other natural disaster — not a terrorist assault. In May, the NRC ordered increased security for spent fuel pools at all plants and a review of their vulnerability to a terrorist attack. The review has not been completed. 

But Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade group, said preliminary findings of an industry-sponsored analysis show the pools are “much more robust and much more well protected ... than we even believed.” 

The analysis showed a crashing aircraft would not rupture the pool, despite major damage to the building itself, he said. “The pool would not leak significantly,” he said. 

Jack Skolds, chief nuclear officer at Exelon, which owns 17 reactors in Illinois and Pennsylvania, also cited the new industry analysis and said: “Can I categorically say every spent fuel pool would withstand the impact of a (Boeing) 767? No I can’t tell you that. I can tell you they are very safe indeed,” says Skolds. 

An uncontrollable fire in a fuel pool was theoretically possible, Skolds said, but “the number of things that would have to happen are so unlikely that the probability of that occurring is very, very small.” 

Exelon operates the oldest commercial power reactor still operating — the Dresden plant, near Joliet, Ill., where 6,579 fuel assemblies, some 15,000 tons, are stored in twin pools. 

During the debate over Yucca Mountain repository, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham insisted the waste is safe. However, he repeatedly cited the security, safety and environmental concerns of leaving it scattered at reactor sites, many of which are near precious waterways or population centers.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind.— Indiana University was crowned the nation’s No. 1 “party school” Monday in an annual Princeton Review survey that school leaders and medical experts derided as irresponsible and unscientific. 

Following IU in the rankings were Clemson University, the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Florida. 

IU officials questioned the No. 1 ranking. The school, which didn’t appear on the list last year, has toughened its stance on student drinking since the 1998 alcohol-related death of a student. 

In the past year, five IU fraternities have been suspended or expelled for violations of alcohol policies, said Bill Stephan, the university’s vice president for public affairs. 

“I think there are some serious questions about the methodology of the study and it really calls into question the credibility of the ranking,” Stephan said. 

IU freshman Anya Simonova said her school may be perceived as a party school, but noted that “it’s getting quieter because they’re cracking down more.” Junior Erin Pritchard agreed. 

“I’d be surprised to hear we’re number one,” she said. “Even though most people party three or four times a week, this past year they’ve been a lot more strict.” 

The survey, conducted since 1992, ranks schools in 63 categories based on in-person or computer interviews with 100,000 students. The party school designation is based on student reports on alcohol and marijuana use, the amount of time spent studying outside of class and the popularity of fraternities and sororities on campus. 

Princeton Review, a test-preparation and college admissions company with no connection to Princeton University, defended its survey. 

“We simply are reporting on the conditions that exist on those particular campuses, and if social life continues to be an aspect that students comment on, then I will continue to include that list in the book,” said Robert Franek, the company’s editorial director. 

SANTA ANA — A reputed gang member jailed on an attempted murder charge was bailed out when someone posted $500,000 in counterfeit cashier’s checks, sheriff’s officials said Monday. 

Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo said Dominic Peter Rizzo, 33, left the Orange County Jail on July 17 after the phony checks were presented to a jail cashier. 

“It only became clear after the checks went to the bank that there was nothing of value standing behind them,” Jaramillo said, adding a warrant has been issued for Rizzo’s arrest. If captured, he’ll be held on $2 million bail this time. 

Rizzo, believed to be a member of the skinhead prison gang Public Enemy Number One, was one of three people arrested for an April 1999 knife attack. Authorities say a man who was once Rizzo’s friend was stabbed in the chest, abdomen and arms but recovered. 

Although the prison gang has a reputation for counterfeiting, authorities say this is the first case they know of in which phony cashier’s checks were used to make bail. They are trying to determine who posted the bail. 

Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s Department will no longer accept cashier’s checks until they have been verified by a bank. 

SACRAMENTO — The nation’s largest pension fund adopted procedures Monday designed to root out conflicts of interest among its money managers and investment bankers. 

The California Public Employees Retirement System approved rules requiring greater disclosure about how money managers, brokers and bankers are compensated, sever the link between analysts’ pay and investment banking and establish a monitoring process. 

“Weak corporate governance and fraudulent financial reporting practices have caused investors around the globe to lose confidence in the market. People now question the basic integrity of many corporate leaders,” said William Crist, CalPERS board president. “Everyone must do their part — including CalPERS own money managers and investment banks — to help restore integrity in our markets and help protect our pensioners.”

Khaled Almaghafi came to the United States from Yemen in 1986 and studied business administration at UC Davis. He now uses his business acumen to run an international honey exporting firm from his south Berkeley home near the Ashby BART station. 

It all started when he answered an ad for bee removal 10 years ago. Equipped with a vacuum containing a catch basin for bees, Almaghafi removed unwanted bees from Berkeley homes and businesses. Knowing the value of honey, Almaghafi began making use of what most feared. Soon the captured bees were making honey on small plots of land in Berkeley, El Sobrante and Walnut Creek. 

“In Yemen, people will fight over a swarm of bees,” he said, noting the demand for honey. In America, though, people are frightened of the stinging buzzards, he said. 

In his backyard, Almaghafi brazenly pulls trays of honey from wooden boxes, called frames. He rarely gets stung 

“[People] are afraid because maybe they got stung as a child. It shouldn’t be like that,” he said. Bees have no interest in stinging humans, he added. 

In his adventures into the homes of fearful East Bay residents, Almaghafi once claimed more than 700 pounds of honey from a home in which the walls had been a bee haven for two decades. 

In addition to making honey, bees pollinate many trees and bushes, Almaghafi explained. 

“If it wasn’t for the bees we wouldn’t be eating [a wide] variety of fruits,” he said. 

When Almaghafi’s bees aren’t making honey on his property, he rents them to farmers who use them to pollinate crops. Bees pollinate almonds, kiwis, melons, alfalfa and other crops. 

When the farmers are done with the bees, a homing instinct brings them back to their cages where Almaghafi collects them and brings them home. 

Almaghafi explains that migratory beekeepers follow crops much like migrant workers, renting their bees to farmers in different regions in a mutually beneficial relationship. 

California is a particularly good place to keep bees, Almaghafi adds, since bees can make honey year-round from different crops. 

Almaghafi notes the ups and downs of a nature-dependent business model. Drought and other phenomena can wreak havoc on the harvest, he says. 

“In a good year I can get 150 pounds of honey per hive,” he said. “In a bad year, I only get 20 or 30 pounds. But in the Bay Area, bees are making honey all year.” 

After harvesting the honey from local sources, Almaghafi turns to his native land to sell his product. Not enough honey is produced in the arid nation of Yemen to meet the demand so he steps in, shipping containers full of the stuff by boat each year.

To the Editor:  

Long time artist/tenants living in a 100–year–old warehouse building in south Berkeley were served eviction notices last Septmber and are still living in the building. The Berkeley City Council voted unanimously in April to help fend off an Ellis Act eviction. The tenants have succeeded in being recognized by the Berkeley City Council as an asset to the community.  

Councilmember Kriss Worthington says, “This is not an isolated instance. There is a pattern of artists being forced out of their studios. We need to get the landlords and the tenants working together.”  

There will be an event held on Aug. 24 to show support for the building. The new plan is to maintain the current building by the current tenants as a live/work space and to create a future artist facility open to the public.  

Natasha Shawver, 

Berkeley

Monday, August 19 

Berkeley Citizens Sunshine  

Coalition Meeting 

7 p.m. 

Downtown library: Meeting Room A, Kittredge and Shattuck Ave. 

Meeting to discuss better access to city government and school administration.  

B-Sunshine@yahoogroups.com  

Berkeley Ecological and Safe Transportation (BEST)  

Coalition meeting 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Central Library, Kittredge St. and Shattuck 

Group joins pedestrians, bicyclists, mass transit users and land-use advocates. Topics of discussion include: Berkeley height initiative, pedestrian issues and employer incentive plans. Potluck. 

652-9462, imgreen@jps.net 

Food Addicts in Recovery  

Anonymous 

7:30 p.m. 

Herrick Campus, Alta Bates Hospital, Dwight Way  

A free 12-step recovery program for individuals who suffer from overeating, bulimia, anorexia and obsession with food. Morning and evening meetings are held seven days a week. See web site for schedule. 

(800) 600-6028, www.foodaddicts.org 

Free  

Parkinson's Support Group 

10 a.m. to noon 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Guest speakers, gentle exercises, treatment updates and experience sharing for those with Parkinson's disease. Care-givers and families are welcome. 

527-9075 

Free 

Tuesday, August 20 

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 Special Education  

Parents Network (BSPED) 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ala Costa Center, 1300 Rose St. 

Guest, BUSD Superintendent Michele Lawrence will answer questions regarding re–organization of the BUSD Special Education administration and the new Special Education Task Force comprised of parents, teachers, professionals and administrators. BSPED meets each month. 

525-9262, tmelton@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Free 

Escape to the Wine Country:  

California’s Napa, Sonoma and  

Mendocino 

Fodor’s text by Thom Elkjer, photography by Robert Homes 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Slide presentation and talk on the best wineries, vineyards, activities and dramatic countryside found in Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino.  

843-3533 

Free 

Thursday, August 22 

Free Melanoma Update 

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 

Summit North Pavilion, Cafeteria Annex B & C, 350 Hawthorne Ave., Oakland 

Information on melanoma skin cancer, detection and treatment. 

869-6737 

Free 

Friday, August 23 

Teen Playreaders present Bizarre Shorts 

Through Aug. 24, 7 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library - North Branch 

1170 The Alameda 

Playreaders present 20 short, bizarre plays, contemporary and classic. 

981-6250 

Free 

Saturday, August 24 

Anthony Brown Lectures on Ralph Ellison’s Musical Influences 

2 p.m. 

Berkeley Central Library, 2090 

Kitteredge St. 

Anthony Brown, jazz percussionist and music scholar will explore Ralph Ellison’s music 

Berkeley Art Project Celebration 

2 to 6 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Project on the corner of Adeline St. and Stuart St.  

Event to gather community support for long-time Berkeley artist co-op. Festivities include puppet show, art raffle, silly animals, jugglers, music, free ice cream.  

548-5349 

Free 

UC Berkeley Circle K Garage Sale 

8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday) 

Berkeley ACE Hardware parking lot, 2145 University Ave. 

Garage sale fundraiser held by UC Berkeley, non-profit community service organization to raise money for pediatric trauma patients.  

(858) 335-9021 

Fuel Cell Car Experiments 

1 to 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California Campus (Just below Grizzly Peak Blvd.) 

Observe a miniature car operating on solar energy and water, and help conduct physics experiments to learn more about this environmentally friendly new technology. For ages 12 and up. 

642-5132 

Admission: $8 for adults; $6 for youth; $4 for children 3-4 

Free for children under 3 

Vegan Food Party 

11:30 a.m. 

Lake Anza in Tilden Park 

Social, food party event presented by Contra Costa Vegetarians and SFBAVeg. 

dhermit4424@yahoo.com 

Free with Vegan dish 

Sunday, August 25 

Destination Telegraph 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Durant Ave., between Telegraph Ave. and Bowditch Ave. 

Live music, beer and wine garden, street artists, community booths, art and prizes. 

649-9500 or www.telegraphyberkeley.org for information, booth space or to volunteer 

Tuesday, August 27 

A House of Straw: a Natural  

Building Odyssey Slideshow 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo 

Carolyn Roberts presents slides and talks about her experiences building her straw bale house. 

548-2220 Ext. 233 

Free 

Thursday, August 29 

2nd Annual LGBT Elders Conference 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

First Unitarian Church, 685 14th St., Oakland 

Workshops and conference for LGBT elders to learn about senior services.  

705-8918 

$20 registration, no one denied for lack of funds 

Saturday, August 31 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra Auditions (Wind, Brass, Percussion) 

All day 

Laney College Music Dept., Fallon St., Oakland 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra will audition musicians aged 10-15 for the 2002-2003 season. 

For an application or more information call Penny Boys at 540-0812 or e-mail her at philiph@seismo.kerkeley.edu 

Monday, September 2 

Labor Day Potluck Picnic and Poetry Reading 

Hosted by Bay Area Poets Coalition 

Noon to 4 p.m. 

Live Oak Park, Walnut and Rose St. 

527-9905, poetalk@aol.com 

National Organization for Women Oakland/East Bay Chapter  

6:30 PM.  

Mama Bears Bookstore and Coffeehouse, 6536 Telegraph Avenue  

Chapter’s monthly meeting. Speaker: Multicultural historian, Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, received the prestigious Valitutti Award for non fiction.  

549-2970 

Free

OAKLAND – Terrence Long kept to his usual routine, and for one day it worked. 

Long homered twice and drove in four runs to break out of a lengthy slump as the Oakland Athletics completed a three-game sweep Sunday with a 7-4 victory over the Chicago White Sox. 

“I live and die by what works for me,” Long said. “I’m not changing anything. I know what works for me.” 

Barry Zito (17-5) matched his career high for victories, allowing three runs on four hits in 5 2-3 innings. The A’s, who have won five straight and 11 of 14, remained two games behind first-place Seattle in the AL West. 

Oakland’s Scott Hatteberg tied a career high with four hits. Long was 3-for-4 after getting just four hits in his previous 47 at-bats. 

“I’ve been struggling basically the whole season,” said Long, one of two A’s (along with Miguel Tejada) to play in every game this season. “I keep doing the same thing, but it just wasn’t happening for me.” 

Oakland manager Art Howe was glad to see Long break out of his slump. 

“I know he wants to be part of the offense,” Howe said. “He hasn’t been, and that’s frustrating. Now he can breathe a lot easier. He needed that and we needed that.” 

Zito won despite his third-shortest outing of the season. 

“That’s the frustrating thing,” Zito said. “I shouldn’t have to come out that early, but I understand why.” 

Oakland’s David Justice robbed Tony Graffanino of a home run in the first inning, reaching over the left-field wall to haul in the long drive. 

“That was a great catch,” Zito said. “It was discouraging to me to give up that pitch on the first hitter of the game.” 

Royce Clayton homered for the White Sox, who dropped their fourth straight. 

Dan Wright (8-11) gave up seven runs — five earned — on 10 hits to lose for the third time in four starts. 

“I kept making more mistakes as the game wore on and they took advantage,” Wright said.

SAN FRANCISCO — Commuters in the San Francisco Bay area are spending less time sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, according to a state Department of Transportation study. 

The number of hours wasted in traffic declined 12 percent during 2001, the study said. That’s the biggest one-year decline since Caltrans began tracking traffic jams on state highways in 1981. It’s also the first time congestion levels have fallen since 1994. 

The number of freeway miles where traffic slows to a crawl also fell by 3 percent. 

Caltrans officials believe the reductions are a sign highway improvements are working. But many motorists believe unemployment’s responsible. 

“It’s the unemployment, definitely,” said Ray Torrefiel, who lives in Santa Clara and has noticed the lighter traffic. “People are moving out of the area. There’s no jobs.” 

Michael Cunningham, vice president of transportation for the Bay Area Council, an employers’ organization, agreed. 

“The generally accepted explanation is that a lot of people are out of work,” he said. “It’s not a surprise we’re seeing (a congestion reduction) here, but there is not evidence of any systemic improvement in how our transportation network works. When the economy comes back, every expectation is that traffic congestion is going to come back, too.” 

Caltrans Director Jeff Morales acknowledged the economy is contributing to the drop in congestion, but said the dramatic dips in some areas where traffic improvements have been completed show that the Caltrans projects are making a difference. 

Morales cited the addition of lanes and other improvements to Highway 87 in Santa Clara County, the Sunol Grade on Interstate 680 in Alameda County and Highway 101 in San Mateo County as examples. 

In 2001, Caltrans completed 115 traffic improvements, including freeway widenings, rehabilitation efforts such as the repaving of Interstate 880 and safety improvements. Other improvements, such as the introduction of Fastrak electronic toll collection have also had an impact, said Dennis Trujillo, a Caltrans spokesman. 

Congestion dropped in every Bay Area county but Alameda and Contra Costa, where it continued to rise. 

The biggest reductions came in San Mateo at 40 percent, San Francisco at 32 percent and Santa Clara at 28 percent counties.

To the Editor: 

It surprises me that in a city such as Berkeley I have not heard of any discussions (much less public rallies) in support of the peaceful spirit of the Palestinian cause – that is, to regain land taken from them in 1948. It seems to me that a community which is pro-civil rights has neglected this particular issue. 

Another point of history: During World War II, Europeans from Italy and Germany were imprisoned in camps in the Oakland area (and perhaps others as well), yet this is not discussed. They were not U.S. citizens, but I know personally a woman who, as a child, was imprisoned along with her mother, and she is still waiting for her apology, requested by her to various U.S. leaders over many years. As long as the 21st century is the time for political/social apologies why not be complete about it? 

Actually, I once listened to a National Public Radio show in which the guest was the author of a book about Japanese-American soldiers during World War II. A Mexican-American veteran called in and his contribution was joyfully received by the show host, but when an Italian-American called in mentioning the Italian internment camps, the host demonstrated what sounded as a rebuke and downplayed the significance of the Italian experience. 

C. Crapotta,  

Berkeley

CHASKA, Minn. – Playing as if he had nothing to lose, Rich Beem buried Tiger Woods and captured a PGA Championship even though he thought he had no business winning. 

Beem hit a 5-wood to within 6 feet for an eagle on the 11th hole to seize control, then put the finishing touches on a fearless round by rolling in a 35-foot birdie putt on No. 16 to thwart a final charge from Woods. 

Players in only their fourth major are supposed to wilt in the stifling pressure of the final round of the PGA Championship, not hit one career shot after another. 

“When I sat up here yesterday, I didn’t know if I had what it took to win it,” Beem said Sunday night, the Wanamaker Trophy at his side. “I found out today that I do. I’m elated beyond belief.” 

When he tapped in a meaningless bogey on the 18th hole at Hazeltine, Beem, who seven years ago sold car stereos, raised both arms and looked into the bright blue sky.

Daily Planet Staff 

The last public discussion on the Eastshore State Park General Plan resembled an outlandish daytime talk show Thursday, as a crowd of more than 300 people jeered planners, mocked opponents and even watched police drag a woman out in handcuffs. 

The park, billed as a bastion for personal contemplation and family recreation, stretches 8.4 miles along the coast from the Emeryville Crescent to Marina Bay in Richmond. 

After decades of public support for a state park, chief planner Don Neuwirth has seen consensus wither during the last 18 months in which environmentalists, playing fields advocates, dog walkers, artists and windsurfers have come forth with conflicting demands. 

The current plan tries to appease all parties. 

The plan allocates 40 percent of the land and 60 percent of the water for recreation, preserving the remainder for wildlife habitat.  

Among the highlights include playing fields, picnic facilities and bicycle rentals at the Berkeley Brickyard just south of the marina, preservation of the Berkeley Meadow just north of the marina, a boat launch and youth hostel at the North Basin Strip west of Gilman Street, up to five athletic fields at the Albany Plateau and a windsurf launch and continued off-leash dog walking at Point Isabel in Richmond. 

But attendees of last week’s meeting weren’t impressed. 

“The plan lacks vision,” said Norman La Force of the Sierra Club. “It is a hodgepodge of compromises that creates conflict between groups.” 

The central battleground concerns 40 acres of overgrown brush at the coastal landfill in Albany. For the past several years off-leash dogs and artists painting on driftwood have claimed the area. 

But the current plan calls for three to five athletic fields on the landfill’s eastern plateau, while the bulb-shaped western part is designated as sea bird habitat. To protect children and birds from dogs and human encroachment, the state will mandate leashes and prohibit art at the landfill. 

“We have not been taken into consideration one bit,” said Sasha Futran of Let It Be, a grassroots alliance of dog walkers and artists. Her group argues that unleashed dog walking and unlicensed art add to the vitality of the park and have not endangered birds or children. 

Neuwirth labeled the art, some of which depicts nudity, inappropriate for a public park and said efforts to compromise with artists have failed. 

Playing field advocates accepted the plan and defended the inclusion of fields on the plateau against environmentalists, who want the entire plot preserved for wildlife. 

“You guys aren’t really getting it. We play on fields with glass. A little wind isn’t going to hurt us,” said one teenage soccer player in response to a claim that the Albany fields would be too windy.  

Environmentalists argued that soccer and baseball players could disrupt the migratory birds that flock to the mud flats just north of the Albany landfill. They support an alternative Berkeley City Council resolution calling for playing fields along the western edge of Gilman Avenue. Playing field advocates say the city’s proposal is unrealistic because the land is private property. A field shortage, they said, has already cost Berkeley its spring little league. 

Windsurfers are also involved in the turf war. According to Berkeley resident David Fielder, the south end of the Albany bulb has the best wind in the park. Citing the heavy equipment windsurfers must carry, he wants planners to pave an established road and build a small parking lot so windsurfers can access the spot. 

Neuwirth doubted the windsurfers would get their way. He said the city of Albany owns the road and opposes a windsurf launch.  

The meeting got off to a contentious start. Inexplicably, before unveiling the plan, the planners played the Beatles’ “Let It Be” followed by the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” 

“It felt like a very sarcastic jab,” said Missy Bronsnan of Let It Be. 

Later, two East Bay Regional Park officers arrested a woman who asked a question out of turn and had started walking towards Neuwirth. She was not charged and was released into the custody of an attorney present at the meeting.  

Residents continued to trade barbs after the arrest. Even teenage girls were subject to abuse. After a group of uniformed female soccer players defended building fields, a woman replied, “Are you going to ride your bikes [to the field] or are your moms going to drive you in their SUVs.” 

Neuwirth warned that continued bickering could undermine the entire project. 

“If people don’t support state bond allocation to build it, the money may go elsewhere,” he said. 

The entire project, supported in conjunction with the East Bay Regional Park District and the California State Coastal Conservancy, will be implemented over 20 years. Neuwirth estimated the park would cost between $10 million and $50 million.  

Public comments on the plan and the environmental impact report are still being accepted. In November, a final plan will be presented to the State Parks Commission, which has the last say on the project. 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net

To the Editor:  

Me, John Ashcroft, Hitler and other control freaks I have known: I confess! I am a control freak. I run my children's lives with an iron hand. Why? Because I can't stop myself! Elementary fact of life: Control freaks are control freaks because we are not in control. 

I myself am a control freak because when I was a child I had no control over anything. I was told what to say, what to think and what to do – 24/7. I was told that Jesus and God were spies for my parents and that they would report back even my thoughts to said parents. I was even told when I needed to go to the bathroom. Now, when I go into control freak mode, my children just shrug their shoulders and avoid me. 

However, when government leaders go into control freak mode, they shred the Constitution, push their religions down our throats, ruin the economy, try to take over the world and threaten us with an all-too-real Armageddon that involves concentration camps and nuclear destruction. You can't get much more out of control than that. Moral of the story: Let's stop letting control freaks run our world. Let's start learning to trust and to cooperate with our fellow man.  

Let's drop the control freak version of Jesus-as-Dominatrix and become more familiar with the real Jesus – Jesus, the Prince of Peace. And let's start voting for candidates who aren't constantly trying to toilet train us and run our lives. “Imagine a world where every child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!” Plus we will have children who know how to think for themselves. 

Jane Stillwater, 

Berkeley 

LOS ANGELES — A group of California legislators urged the Bush administration Friday to stay out of stalled negotiations between shippers and West Coast dockworkers. 

At a state legislative hearing convened in Wilmington, near the Port of Los Angeles, various state and federal representatives urged the Bush administration to respect the collective bargaining rights of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. 

“The White House ought to be very concerned when the Legislature of the fifth largest economy in the world is concerned about federal intervention,” state Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Los Angeles, said after the hearing. “It could affect our economy and the national economy.” 

The Bush administration met with both sides this spring and has been monitoring negotiations and exploring federal intervention strategies, including the possible use of the Navy to operate the ports during a labor disruption. 

Alarcon, chairman of the state Senate’s Labor and Industrial Relations committee, said using inexperienced Navy personnel to run the docks would pose a risk to national security. 

A more likely option would be for Bush to declare a national economic emergency, forcing a strike delay for 80 days. The last time such authority was invoked under the Taft-Hartley Act was 1978, when President Carter unsuccessfully tried to end a national coal strike. 

Economists warn that with some $260 billion worth of goods — or more than 7 percent of the gross domestic product — moving through West Coast ports each year, a labor disruption could badly injure the nation’s sputtering economic recovery. 

The ILWU’s labor contract expired July 1 and members have been working under 24-hour extensions ever since. The two sides have met for less than 54 hours since talks began in May, according to the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shippers and stevedores. 

The next round of discussions is scheduled to begin Aug. 26. 

ILWU officials say the talks have been undermined by White House support for management. 

But the PMA, which attended the Friday hearing, said the White House has made it clear to PMA negotiators that they are on their own and that they must make some concessions to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gray Davis unveiled a new statewide advertising campaign Thursday to encourage consumers to purchase California-grown produce to help boost the state’s largest industry. 

“The purpose is to put one thought in people’s mind: Food grown in California is the very best in the world,” Davis said, announcing the launch of the program at the California State Fair in Sacramento. 

Contributions from the agriculture industry, as well as state and federal grants, pay for the “California Grown” program. 

The ads poke fun at some of Calollowed by a man declaring, “I’ve never called anybody dude.” A man then says “I’m, just a Californian” who buys California produce. 

The two 30-second spots will air for 30 weeks in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Fresno, Monterey-Salinas, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield. 

The ad campaign is part of a $75 million “Buy California” campaign launched by Davis last year to help California farmers — most of which run family farms or partnerships.

Seven minor injuries in  

Amtrak derailment in Hayward 

HAYWARD — An Amtrak train bound for Seattle derailed here after hitting an unknown object, slightly injuring seven people, a company spokeswoman said Thursday. 

There were 287 passengers and 23 crew members about the Coast Starlight, which runs daily from Los Angeles to Seattle, when the accident occurred about 10:10 p.m. Wednesday, said Amtrak spokeswoman Veernae Graham. 

The locomotive hit an unidentified object on the tracks, which are owned by Union Pacific and leased by Amtrak, causing its derailment. Six cars went off the tracks, but all of them were standing upright, Graham said. 

Four passengers were treated for minor injuries at the scene and released. Three others also were taken to area hospitals for minor injuries, Graham said. 

The train was traveling about 60 mph at a junction that allows for speeds up to 70 mph, Graham said. The train’s next scheduled stop was Oakland. 

Passengers were being bused Thursday to destinations beyond the accident site. A majority of them will board another Amtrak train in Sacramento to Seattle, Graham said. That train is expected to arrive in Seattle at 8:25 p.m. Thursday. 

Union Pacific Railroad spokesman Mike Furtney said another set of tracks runs through Hayward, about 25 miles east of San Francisco. The derailment was not expected to cause a “severe impact” on the Capitol Corridor commuter train that runs daily between San Jose and Sacramento, he said. 

Bay water on tap? 

SAN RAFAEL — Who would drink treated San Francisco Bay water? 

The Marin Municipal Water District wants to know, and agreed Wednesday to ask county residents. The move is part of the district’s attempt to increase its water supply. 

One way would be to increase use of Russian River water by building a pipeline from Petaluma to Ignacio. Another option is to remove salt and contaminants from bay water. 

Opponents of the pipeline plan say it will hurt endangered salmon and trout in the river. Those against the bay plan say a desalination plant would cost too much. 

The district will hire a company to establish public focus groups at a cost of about $45,000. 

Those will help the board “have a better handle on the public’s feeling with the supply option,” said president Jared Huffman. 

SALT LAKE CITY — An American Airlines flight bound for San Francisco from Chicago was diverted to Salt Lake City after a passenger tried to recharge a battery with a cigarette lighter. 

Maxim Segalov, who allegedly put a flame to an AA-size battery on the Tuesday flight, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail. He was to appear at a detention hearing Thursday, said Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office. 

A call to Segalov’s attorney was not immediately returned Wednesday. 

Segalov, 22, is a native of Belarus and a student at San Jose State University. His traveling companion was also detained but later released. 

Heating batteries is known to be a homespun way of eking out a few more hours of life. 

SACRAMENTO – Thousands of college students throughout California began classes this week without the financial help they had been promised by the state, and one South Bay legislator has seized on the issue.  

State Assemblywoman Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, and 41 of her colleagues sent a letter Monday to Assembly Republican Caucus Leader Dave Cox urging for a quick passage of the budget in light of the Cal Grant holdup. 

In the letter, Alquist cited the need to disperse Cal Grants as a reason for the Republican members to take a fresh look at the proposed budget. 

“This past week we have learned that nearly 200,000 college students will not be provided their Cal Grant awards,” Alquist wrote. 

“(Monday was) the first day of classes for 46 community colleges and over 35,000 community college students will be facing the new semester without the aid we have promised them.” 

With the State Budget Act still unsigned eight weeks after the deadline, Alquist said the Student Aid Commission has been unable to transmit funding for University of California, California State University, California Community College or private university grants. 

Other local Assembly members who signed Alquist's letter include Rebecca Cohn, D-Saratoga, Ellen Corbett D-San Leandro, John Dutra, D-Fremont, Barbara Matthews, D-Stockton, Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, Lou Papan, D-Millbrae, Simon Salinas, D-Salinas, and Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa.

Today’s Highlight in History: 

On Aug. 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring” liberalization drive of Alexander Dubcek’s regime. 

On this date: 

In 1833, Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States, was born in North Bend, Ohio. 

In 1866, President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, months after the fighting had stopped. 

In 1914, German forces occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I. 

In 1918, Britain opened its offensive on the Western front during World War I. 

In 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paid tribute to the Royal Air Force, saying, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” 

In 1955, hundreds of people were killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria. 

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed a nearly $1 billion-dollar anti-poverty measure. 

In 1977, the U.S. launched Voyager II, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature. 

In 1979, swimmer Diana Nyad succeeded in her third attempt at swimming from the Bahamas to Florida. 

In 1994, Benjamin Chavis Junior was fired as head of the NAACP after a turbulent 16-month tenure. 

Ten years ago: In the early hours of Aug. 20, the Republican national convention in Houston renominated President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle. On the evening of the 20th, Bush delivered a hard-hitting speech in which he attacked the Democrats and promised to seek across-the-board tax cuts if re-elected. 

Five years ago: United Parcel Service drivers put away their picket signs, put on their brown shirts and shorts, and called on customers again as the delivery giant began to sluggishly recover from its costly strike. 

One year ago: Nikolay Soltys, a 27-year-old Ukrainian immigrant in Sacramento, Calif., fled after killing his wife and five other relatives. Soltys was captured and committed suicide in his jail cell in February. Sir Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “Big Bang” but never accepted that theory for the origin of the universe, died in Bournemouth, England, at age 86. Actress Kim Stanley died in Santa Fe, N.M., at age 76. 

Today’s Birthdays: Writer-producer-director Walter Bernstein is 83. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a Maine Democrat, is 69. Singer-musician Isaac Hayes is 60. Broadcast journalist Connie Chung is 56. Rock singer Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) is 54. Actress Joan Allen is 46. TV personality Asha Blake is 41. Rapper KRS-One is 37. Rock singer Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit) is 32. Rock singer Monique Powell (Save Ferris) is 27.