Known as one of the Bay Area's biggest and best block parties, Sunday’s Solano Stroll is expected to draw 150,000 strollers to Albany for a day of food, fun and wholehearted fulfillment. 

The event comes just three days before the one-year anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11 – a once inconspicuous date marked by the end of lazy summer.  

Event organizer Lisa Bullwinkel said that Sunday’s Solano Stroll will open itself up to the tragic day.  

This year’s theme – the making of origami cranes, a Japanese tradition of sending wishes for peace – was inspired by a Sept. 11 memorial that Bullwinkel came across during a trip to New York’s Ground Zero last Christmas.  

Bullwinkel was impressed by the colorful peace cranes attached to the memorial fence around the site. She immediately thought of bringing the concept home.  

“They're a perfect symbol and graphically beautiful,” she said. “Our idea is that everyone at the stroll will be decorating with the cranes – crane puppets, hats, booths, clothes.” 

Origami cranes as a form of calming began in Hiroshima, Japan, when a child injured from nuclear radiation made 1,000 origami paper birds with a wish that they would bring healing and peace. 

Alison Tully, with the Beacon School in Oakland, said local students have been working diligently to prepare birds for the festival. 

“They love origami, they could make them forever,” she said. “There's no cutting, pasting or drawing and you end up with a functional dimensional object,” Tully said. 

“It's a positive way to approach past events and give thanks to people who acted heroically, so to not dwell on the sadness, but on the positive,” she added. 

There will be three grand marshals at this year’s Solano Stroll parade, including former Berkeley police Chief Dash Butler, who retired this summer after 28 years of service. 

Berkeley firefighter Darren Brobosky and his German Shepard rescue-dog Dylan are the other two leaders. Both Brobosky and Dylan served at Ground Zero. 

The trio will ride an antique fire engine at the parade’s kick-off at 11 a.m. at the intersection of Colusa and Solano avenues.  

A lineup of performers and activities are also planned: stilt walkers, face painters, horses, art cars, carnival games, Kidtown, Teentown, belly dancers and more than 75 entertainers, 50 food booths, 100 crafts and 200 community organizations. 

The day begins at 8 a.m. with the traditional pancake breakfast at Veterans’ Memorial Park. Stroll booths open at 10 a.m. Madame Ovary uses egg puppets, puns and performances in a show for all ages which she calls, “an all day grazing thing, a movable feast.”  

Free shuttles are scheduled to run from the North Berkeley BART station and along the parallel Marin Avenue. 

For more information visit: www.solanostroll.org.

To the Editor: 

I am dismayed by the increasingly familiar claim that Berkeley is “already too dense.” The fact is that while the rest of the Bay Area was exploding with growth over the past decades Berkeley actually lost population. The U.S. Census clearly shows a drop of 8,000 people since 1970.  

There are many, many people who work here and would like to live here (teachers, store clerks, office workers, librarians) but cannot afford to. Would-be residents are forced to be commuters, driving through our streets and our neighborhoods in high volumes, looking for parking spaces, increasing noise and air pollution, compromising our safety. We have lost population but gained cars and traffic. 

Berkeley used to be a place where artists, musicians, and writers could find a place to live. No longer. Children born and raised here cannot afford to live as adults in their hometown.  

It should be possible for people to live near their work, for Berkeley’s artists to continue to be residents, for our seniors and the next generation to live in their hometown. If indeed as a city we want all of that, and I believe we do, we need to be purposeful about creating safe, attractive, affordable housing. While we are too dense in traffic, we are not too dense in affordable housing. If anything, we are under-dense in the kind of housing that will keep Berkeley the city we want it to be. 

Several measures on the November ballot will determine whether Berkeley will circle the wagons around itself or welcome as residents those who have been forced to become commuters. Measure P, the so-called “height initiative,” would cripple our ability to create new affordable housing on our major streets (San Pablo, University, Telegraph), the only places where affordable housing is a realistic possibility. In the electoral debate over Measure P you will hear over and over that Berkeley is “already too dense” as if it were a fact. The U.S. Census clearly shows that Berkeley has lost thousands in population over the last few decades. The “too dense” argument was created to alarm us and distract us from the main point, which is Berkeley’s profound imbalance between jobs and housing that is affordable to the people who hold those jobs. The kind of city we will be in the future depends upon our ability not to resist change but to imagine and create those changes that will mean a better city for all of us.  

Linda Maio, 

Berkeley City Council, 1st District

Without public transportation in the form of trains and streetcars the fast paced urban development of the Bay Area, 1863 to 1915, would not have been possible. The first railroad in the Bay Area opened in 1863 and ran from San Francisco to San Jose. The transcontinental railroad opened in 1869, and soon there were rail lines around the state. The railroads made development possible and created a network of towns and cities.  

When the University of California opened its first campus in Berkeley in 1873, the only way to reach the campus by public transportation from Oakland was by a horse-drawn trolley and is reported to have taken about 1 1/2 hours. However, only three years later a steam train began operating on a spur line from Oakland to Berkeley Station at Shattuck Avenue and Center Street. Horse drawn trolleys continued to make the shorter runs.  

After electric streetcars began operating in Berkeley in 1891, property near the new and convenient streetcar lines was quickly subdivided. The earliest lines ran along Grove Street (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Way) and Shattuck Avenue. In 1892 an electric streetcar line was running along Telegraph Avenue. By 1912 there were so many train and electric streetcar lines crisscrossing Berkeley that no one was more than three blocks from some sort of public transportation.  

The AC Transit System that today operates in Alameda and Contra Costa counties is the legacy of the Key System (originally called the Oakland Transit Company.) Starting in 1893 the wealthy Death Valley borax miner, Francis Marion “Borax” Smith (famous for his “20 Mule Team” borax products), began acquiring railroad and streetcar companies in Alameda County. By 1903 he had unified and modernized these companies and then expanded them into a coordinated transit system that eventually included ferries. Smith had laid the foundation for today's transit system.  

When the Key System streetcars began running on College Avenue in 1903, the farmland along the route was subdivided for housing and small commercial districts. Although busses replaced electric streetcars in north Berkeley as early as 1941, the streetcars on College Avenue were not removed until 1947.  

In 1946 after many of the electric streetcar and rail systems had been abandoned, the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association was formed to preserve and interpret the history of electric railroad equipment. The association maintains the Western Railway Museum and Archive Center at Rio Vista Junction in Solano County (www.wrm.org) where a visitor can not only see historic electric streetcars but can actually take a ride on them.  

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

Gina Rose Halpern’s paintings are colorful, often exuberant works that incorporate references to many spiritual traditions, from Christianity to Buddhism to the nature religions of the world’s indigenous people. For Halpern, her work is not simply decorative or expressive but a form of healing. The 51-year-old El Cerrito artist has a career as vibrant and colorful as her paintings. She is an interfaith minister, teacher, and therapist who believes in the literal healing power of art.  

The spiritual dimension in Halpern’s art goes back to her youth. In 1976, at the age of 25, she was well on her way as an accomplished visual artist with a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design when her career came to an abrupt halt. She was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. 

During that time of terror and confusion, she underwent a near-death experience and had the first of what she came to call her “transformational” dreams. The joyous figure of a child appeared to her, laughing and dancing.  

Halpern set about capturing the dream on canvas. It was the beginning of a spiritual journey for her, and of a career dedicated to art as a healing medium. “My dream life has informed everything I do,” she explains. “The intention of all my work is healing.” 

“Dreams Manifest: Manifest Dreams,” an exhibit opening Sept. 8 at Seventh Heaven Yoga Center, offers a 20-year retrospective of Halpern’s work. The watercolor, gouache, and pastel drawings range from geometric mandalas to fantastic images of human, animal, and plant life.  

Some viewers may detect echoes of Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist who depicted her physical and mental sufferings with images of bodies riven by thorns, or opening up to expose internal organs. Halpern’s “Animal Allies” shows the figure of a kneeling woman whose body seems cleaved by jagged lines. In fact, Halpern’s work comes out of her own experiences with illness and death. But Halpern’s paintings are not driven by psychological anguish. They reflect a more optimistic, spiritual approach that embraces life and death, suffering and joy. The figure in “Animal Allies” has a nerve line that runs up her spine and out her hand, where flowers bloom from her fingertips. She is attended by the ministering figures of an owl, a coyote, and a rabbit. 

A non-practicing Jew, Halpern began her spiritual quest by “reading the Bible from page one all the way through,” eventually being baptized as a Catholic. In time, she migrated to the Episcopal Church and was ordained as a minister. Later she expanded her studies to all the world’s religions. Today, she is the director of the Chaplaincy Institute, an interfaith seminary based in Fairfax in Marin County that encourages people to integrate their religious beliefs and their work. 

Along the way, Halpern worked with hospitals and health care facilities, creating art for cancer patients and teaching art to the sick. She traveled and taught in India and toured Russian pediatric hospitals with maverick doctor Patch Adams. A series of mandala paintings she created in 1987 is still used for meditation and healing at the Commonweal Center, a facility that offers alternative treatments for cancer patients.  

The Chaplaincy Institute, which Halpern co-founder with two other ministers in 1998, is the culmination of her mission to integrate the healing arts and spirituality. Halpern’s dreams take substance as art; for others, she says, the call may be to political or social action. It’s not just individuals who need healing, Halpern observes; it’s the world.  

With the anniversary of Sept. 11 looming, Halpern says, she feels her work to be increasingly important. Lately her dreams have been of “healing the world through beauty.” 

“In our culture people often look at art as decoration,” she says. “I’m going back to the original purpose of art as spiritual service.”  

Halpern’s work serves as the backdrop next Wednesday for a Sept. 11 commemoration at Seventh Heaven, featuring meditation and yoga. On Sept. 13, poet Tamam Kahn will read from her collection “Al Kishaf: The Unveiling.” On Sept. 22, the gallery hosts an equinox celebration and fund-raising reception for the Chaplaincy Institute, featuring music and dance. All events are open to the public by reservation.

Saturday, September 7 

Freedom Song Network’s Twentieth Birthday Benefit Concert 

8 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

$10 to 50 (sliding scale) 

Hirax, Phobia & Lack of Interest 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Mark Growden’s Electric Pinata, Amor 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$6 

Rachel Garin CD Release Show 

8 p.m.  

The Freight and Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.thefreight.org 

$15.50 in advance/ $16.50 at the door 

Mystic Roots, Sangano, Elijah Emanuel & the Revelations 

9:30 p.m. 

Blakes on Telegraph, 2367 Telegraph Ave. 

848-0886 

$6 

Sunday, September 8 

Kulture Schock 

8:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Darryl Purpose 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Women Baring Soles 

7:30 p.m. 

Rose Street 

Featuring Irina Rivkin, Lorna Hunt and Lisa Sanders 

594-4000, ext. 687 for info. and directions 

$5-$20 

Monday, September 9 

Kris Delmhorst, Noe Venable 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tuesday, September 10 

DP & Rythym Riders 

7:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

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 

Misch Kohn - Celebrating Sixty Years of Printmaking 

Sept. 12 through Oct. 16: Tues.-Fri., Noon to 5:30 p.m.; Sat., Noon to 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Arts Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

549-2977, kala@kala.org 

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 

Henry IV: The Impact Remix 

Through Sept. 8, Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 7 p.m. 

Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. 

Sept. 13 through 21, Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 7 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. 

Impact theatre’s first Shakespeare production staring Rich Bolster as Prince Hal and Bill Boynton as Falstaff. 

464-4468, www.impacttheatre.com 

$15 general/$10 students 

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 

Sept. 5 through Oct. 12 

Thurs. through Sat. 8 p.m. 

LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre, 1834 Euclid 

234-6046 

$10 

The House of Blue Leaves 

Sept. 11 through Oct. 27 

Berkeley Rep's Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Berkeley 

647-2917 or 888-4BRTTIX 

$10 - $54 

The Shape of Things 

Sept. 19 through Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St. 

Play by writer/director Neil LaBute's spins a morality tale of a young art student, his art major girlfriend, and the Pygmalion-like changes that bring into question how far one should go for love. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35  

Alarms and Excursions 

Nov. 15 through Dec. 22 

Aurora Theatre Company,  

2081 Addison St. 

Michael Frayn's comedy about the irony of modern technology. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35  

Saturday, September 7 

Bay Area Poets Coalition Open Reading 

3 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

West Branch Berkeley Public Library, 1125 University Ave. 

527-9905, poetalk@aol.com 

Free 

September 7, 12 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Civic Center Park, Center St. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Poetry readings, presentations by environmentalists, interactive events and more. 

526-9105  

Sunday, September 8 

Poetry Flash @ Cody’s 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Ivan Arguelles reads “Tri Loka and Carolyn Grassi read “Transparencies.” 

845-7852  

$2 

Wednesday, September 11 

Poetry for Peace Benefit Reading 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Proceeds will benefit refugee relief agencies. Readings by Frances Payne Adler, Ivan Arguelles, Ellen Bass and Judy Grahns. 

845-7852  

$2 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Featured poets: George McKibbins and Sean Shea.  

841-2082 

$7 door, $5 w/ student I.D. 

Saturday, September 7 

Vertical Pool presents Three Experimental Narrative Videos 

8 p.m. and 10 p.m. 

TUVA, 3192 Adeline St. 

A screening of “Requiem For a Friend”, “Inertia” and “Roadkill” by Antero Alli. Filmmaker will be present. 

464-4640 

$7 

Saturday, September 7 

Watershed Environmental  

Poetry Festival 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Park 

A day of poetry, music and environmental activism. Exhibits. Open poetry readings.  

Strawberry Creek Walk starts at 10 a.m. at Oxford and Center streets. 

526-9105 or www.poetryflash.org 

Free 

Sick Plant Clinic 

9 a.m. to noon 

University of California Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 

UC plant pathology and entomology experts will diagnose what ails your plant.  

643-2755 

Free 

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. Event includes a health fair, food, prizes, live music and free insurance eligibility screening. 

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.solanostroll.org 

Free 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King Prostate Cancer Lecture 

2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way 

Understand the risk of prostate cancer and how to detect early symptoms from a survivor. 

869-6737 

Free 

Tuesday, September 9 

Arts Education Network 

6 to 8 p.m. 

James Irvine Foundation Conference Ctr., 353 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza 

208-0842 

Free 

Berkeley Gray Panthers Home Owners Meeting 

3 p.m. 

1403 Addison St. 

All welcome. 

548-9696 

Free 

Tuesday, September 10 

Brown Bag Career Talk 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way 

Cynthia Weekly, Senior Recruiter with UC Berkeley Office of Human Resources will provide information on the process of seeking temporary and permanent employment at UC Berkeley. 

848-6370 

Free 

Michael Newdow: Lecture 

8 p.m. 

2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley Campus 

Michael Newdow is a Sacramento physician with a law degree whose case against the common procedure of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools fueled national uproar last summer.  

USE-SANE, sane@ocf.berkeley.edu, http://www.BerkeleySANE.org 

Free 

Wednesday, September 11 

One Year Later, a Peace Vigil and Meditation 

6 to 7:30 p.m. 

West entrance of UC Berkeley Campus near the corner of University Ave. and Oxford St. 

The Buddhist Peach Fellowship invites people of all traditions to bear witness to the continued suffering related to Sept. 11, 2002. 

223-0683, www.bpf.org 

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.  

Caterina Rando discusses her new book “Learn to Power Think: A Practical Guide to Positive and Effective Decision Making” 

Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. 

559-9184, www.bookpride.com 

Friday, September 13 

Lecture by Dr. Paul Farmer 

7:30 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church, 2640 Addison St. 

Dr. Farmer will speak on Health Care and Human Rights: Solidarity with the Haitian People. Benefit for Partners in Health. Music by Vukani Mawethu Choir. 

558-0371 

$5 to $15 donation 

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 

Congressman Dennis Kuchinich Appearance 

7 p.m. 

Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley Campus, near University Ave. 

Chair of the House Progressive Caucus will speak. Keith Carson, Country Joe McDonald and performance artist Shelly Glaser will also be on hand. 

http://www.bfuu.org/rscongress 

$10 in advance, $12 door 

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 

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 

Monday, September 16 

Berkeley Ecological and Safe Transportation (BEST) Coalition meeting 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Central Library, Kitteredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 

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 

Thursday, September 19 

Berkeley Path Wanderers’ Meeting 

Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Annual fall meeting, titled “The East Bay Waterfront: Visions for the Future” will include a panel discussion introduced by Sylvia McLaughlin, founder of Save the Bay. 

524-4715 

Free 

Breast Self Exam for Seniors 

10 to 11:30 a.m. 

Maffley Auditorium, Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way 

Workshop to educate women with physical limitations about accessing breast health care and do-it-yourself exam education. 

869-6737 

Free 

Freedom From Tabacco 

6 to 8 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center  

2939 Ellis St. 

A quit smoking class. First of six Thursday evenings through Oct. 24. Free to Berkeley and Albany students, residents and employees. 

981-5330, quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Free 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m  

Claremont Branch Library  

2940 Benvenue Ave. 

A panel of people who will share their experiences and ideas for living inexpensively but richly.  

549-3509, www.simpleliving.net 

Free 

Saturday, September 21 

Do-It-Yourself all-Natural Body Care from Your Kitchen 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Learn how to make your own all-natural skin care from products you might already have in your own kitchen. 

548-2220, ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org 

$10 for members, $15 for non-members 

Third Annual David Brower Youth Awards 

6 p.m. 

Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way 

Celebrate the next generation of environmental activists at Earth Island Institute’s award ceremony. R.S.V.P. 

(415)788-3666, ext. 260, www.earthisland.org/bya 

Coastal Cleanup Day 

10 a.m. 

Work at the outflow of Strawberry Creek to clean up the San Francisco Bay coastline. 

info@strawberrycreek.org or 848-4008 

Free 

Saturday, September 21 

Fall Plant Sale 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

200 Centennial Dr. 

Annual plant sale featuring rare and unusual plants. Members-only preview and auction from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.  

643-2755, www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/ 

Free admission 

Saturday, September 28 

Free Legal Workshop: “Crossroads: Health and the Law.” 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

514 58th St. at Telegraph Ave. 

Navigate your way through legal issues when living with cancer or any serious illness. Panel presentation on employment, insurance and public benefits and one-on-one sessions with attorneys. Please, pre-register. 

601-4040 ext. 102(info.), ext. 103(reg.) 

Free  

A depleted Cal women’s soccer team fell to 10th-ranked Texas, 2-1, Friday afternoon at Edwards Stadium. The Texas win avenged a 2-1 loss to Cal in Austin last year. 

The Golden Bears played their second straight game without All-American forward Laura Schott and Kim Stocklmeir, arguably the best defender on the Cal team. The latter is out with a broken collarbone sustained in the season-opening win over Ohio State. Schott missed the Texas game and will likely miss the Texas A&M game on Sunday due to a sprained MCL in her right knee, which she suffered Wednesday in practice. 

Against the Longhorns, Cal started freshman Sierra Garthwaite in place of Stocklmeir and freshman Tracy Hamm, Cal’s leading scorer this year with two goals, in place of Schott. 

But the game’s brightest star was Texas forward Kelly Wilson, who scored twice. The first goal came in the 53rd minute when Texas defender Laura Kram launched a free kick from near midfield into the Cal penalty area. The ball glanced off of a Golden Bear defender and fell at the feet of Wilson, who scored past Cal goalkeeper Ashley Sulprizio. 

Wilson scored her second in the 75th minute, running onto a long pass as Cal defender Lucy Brining challenged her. Wilson shed Brining and slid the ball past an onrushing Sulprizio to make the score 2-0. 

While Cal was unlucky to lose its big-time goalscorer for yet another game, Texas was glad to have Wilson back. The young All-American missed the Longhorns’ wins over New Mexico and Duke last week because she was helping the U.S. under-19 national team win the U-19 World Championship in Canada. 

“We’re so happy to have Kelly back,” Texas coach Chris Petrucelli said. “She saved us. We didn’t play very well. We were fortunate to win. But when you have a great player like that, she gets two chances and she scores two goals.” 

Cal pulled a goal back in the 86th minute, when a handball in the Texas penalty area led to a Bears penalty kick. Midfielder Carly Fuller easily converted the PK to cut the lead in half, but Cal soon ran out of time. 

The absence of Schott was glaring, as Cal outshot Texas, 10-5, with seven shots on goal. But the only shot the Bears could finish was the penalty kick. 

Texas goalkeeper Alex Gagarin made five saves, though none were that difficult.  

“We didn’t put any away that we needed to put away,” Cal coach Kevin Boyd said. “We just didn’t put any good chances on goal. Most of our strikes went right at the keeper, so that she didn’t even have to move. She just had to hold the ball.” 

Boyd said he isn’t sure if Schott will be available for next weekend’s games against Santa Clara and at St. Mary’s. Schott, who needs just six goals and 24 points to become Cal’s all-time goalscorer and scorer, respectively, has played just 70 minutes this season. All those minutes came against Ohio State, against whom she also received a red card. The ensuing one-game suspension kept her out of the last Sunday’s win over Purdue. 

Stocklmeir’s return date is also unclear. She will miss at least six weeks and may return sometime in October. If the senior can’t return this year, she may redshirt and come back next season as a fifth-year senior. 

“If I’m strong and able to come back and know that I can contribute to the team in the NCAA tournament this year, then I’ll definitely do it,” Stocklmeir said. “If not, if I need to take some time, then I’ll definitely wait till next year.” 

“Either way, Stock out, Laura out, I think we outplayed them,” Boyd said. “It got ugly for a while there, but it had to. We were down 2-0 and we had to catch the game. We had to just launch numbers forward. It’s early in the season. If we can correct those little mistakes, we’ll be okay down the line.” 

The Bears face No. 3 Texas A&M on Sunday at Edwards Stadium. The game will follow the men’s match, which will start at 1 p.m.

Michael Israel had been living in subsidized housing at 1040 University Ave. for only a week when fire swept through his building and put him out of a home. Like many of the 69 residents who were ousted by the Aug. 26 blaze at UA Homes, Israel had been a drifter, living in the streets of the East Bay, before rooting himself with the help of social service workers in the now scorched west Berkeley residential hotel. 

“I was looking for a new and brighter future,” Israel said. He had started taking classes at Merritt College in Oakland and was trying to get his life together, he said. But progress was marred when the flames hit. 

The residents were escorted without serious injury from the early morning blaze with only the clothes on their backs. They won’t be allowed to return to the partially-damaged complex for at least another five weeks. And now, in addition to personal problems the residents might be trying to deal with, many of them are again facing homelessness. 

“It took a lot of work to find housing for a lot of these people in the first place, and we don’t want to lose them now,” said Drew King, an analyst with the city’s housing department.  

The city is one of many groups working to find transitional housing for the fire victims.  

After the victims spent two days living in a gymnasium at the James Kenney recreation center on Eighth Street, the American Red Cross moved in to assist, providing residents with private motel rooms in Berkeley and Oakland. 

But with accommodation expenses costing about $30,000 a week, after Monday night the Red Cross cannot afford to pay for rooms. 

“We still don’t have a plan for what’s going to happen Tuesday,” said Matt Rosenberg, relief operation director for the Red Cross. Finding a large facility, like the old Oakland army base, or cheaper rent-by-the-week motels, are housing options, but nothing has been secured, he said. 

So the search continues. 

Working to the benefit of the displaced residents is a section of the Berkeley Municipal Code known informally as the relocation ordinance. The uncommon city law puts the burden of finding housing on the landlord, in this case, Resources for Community Development (RCD). 

RCD is “going above the call of duty” in their effort to find housing for the former tenants, according to one city official, but finding housing for 69 people is going to be difficult. The reason is cost. 

RCD could not be reached for comment, but city officials said that insurance reimbursements for the fire were not coming through as RCD had hoped. 

Though managed by RCD, the building is owned by UA Housing Inc., a nonprofit developer specializing in federally-subsidized housing. 

City fire officials estimate that the blaze, which is thought to have been started accidentally when a pile of clothing caught fire, caused about $500,000 of damage to the building, mostly by water during the suppression effort. 

All but eight of the building’s 74 units are expected to be repaired and made inhabitable next month. 

This weekend, the displaced residents have moved into five west Berkeley hotels, down from nearly a dozen earlier this week and all much closer to home. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” said former UA resident Carl Johnson in the lobby of the Ramada Inn on San Pablo Avenue. Johnson receives government subsidies for housing and to treat medical conditions and said that considering his circumstances Red Cross and city officials have made the last two weeks easy. 

The same can not be said for displaced resident Pat Boushell. 

Boushell is the third and lesser-known candidate in this year’s high-profile mayoral race in Berkeley. He says the fire has been a setback for his campaign. 

“This is a real inconvenience, but we’ve been a grassroots effort all along and will be able to get over this,” he said. 

To the Editor: 

Whenever I see an article in the Daily Planet signed by Will Youmans I can easily predict the nature of it, i.e. anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Although he always interjects that “some of my best friends are Jewish,” probably the far-left self-hating Jews. Mr. Youmans has the same problem that the FBI has in labeling the killing of two innocents at the El Al desk at the Los Angeles airport. The FBI believe that the Egyptian Muslim who carried his weapon into the airport was bent upon a killing spree and his act was an act of terror. So Mr. Youmans, I believe it is safe to say that the incident at the Hillel was also an act of terror in the fact that it has unnerved the many Jewish students on campus. With your letters and the Moslem student groups haranguing Jewish students, it has made life very unpleasant and unacademic for them. 

Aubrey Lee Broudy, 

UC Berkeley alumnus

The Cal men’s soccer team got its first win of the season in dramatic fashion against Portland on Friday, tying the game with three minutes left in regulation before scoring a golden goal in overtime for a 2-1 victory. 

The Bears’ goals, scored by sophomores Noah Merl and Mike Muñoz, respectively, were also their first two goals of the young season. Cal (1-1-1) was shut out in both games at the Loyola Marymount Tournament last weekend. 

Merl’s goal came in the 87th minute. A Cal freekick deep in Portland (2-1-0) territory bounced around and was cleared to Merl at midfield. He juked past one defender and launched a shot from 25 yards out that deflected off of a Pilot foot and skimmed past goalkeeper Curtis Spiteri, who may have been shaken up after being kicked in the head by one of his teammates moments earlier. 

Merl’s goal sent the game into overtime at 1-1, and the Bears ended the game in the first 10-minute extra period. Sophomore Calen Carr, a Berkeley native, took a ball on the left wing and hit a cross that Muñoz flicked into the side-netting. Muñoz raced behind the goal and ripped his jersey off in celebration, the first of the year for the Bears. 

“That’s all we’ve been doing in practice, working on crosses,” Muñoz said. “Caleb put a great ball in, and I was lucky enough to go up and get it.” 

Cal head coach Kevin Grimes said he wasn’t too worried about his team’s ability to score despite the two shutouts last weekend. 

“Goals are streaky, they come and they go,” Grimes said. “We’ve traditionally started slowly, and the goals start to come later for us.” 

Portland came into the game ranked No. 7 in the country, while the Bears dropped out of the rankings after the LMU Tournament. Although Cal is a young team (just two seniors and five juniors), the Bears felt a need to get back on track quickly. 

“We try not to pay attention to the rankings,” Merl said. “But when it comes down to it, we killed our reputation last weekend. We had to come out strong this weekend and get a win, maybe two.” 

The Bears face No. 22 Southern Methodist on Sunday. The game will kick off at 1 p.m. at Edwards Stadium.

With the ink still drying on the state’s 2002-2003 budget, Berkeley Unified School District officials say the impact on the local school system is far from clear. 

“Everybody is asking that question,” said Board of Education President Shirley Issel. “I don’t think we’ll know for a while.” 

But statewide observers said that local districts like Berkeley Unified will fare relatively well given that the budget includes a $3.3 billion spending hike over 2001-2002 levels, while funding in other areas, like health care and social services, declined significantly in the face of a $24 billion budget shortfall. 

“There’s no question that education was the winner in a bad budget year,” said Kevin Gordon, executive director of the California Association of School Business Officials. 

Still, there are some strings attached. Critics note that the $3.3 billion increase in public school spending is actually less than it appears because it includes $1.15 billion in education money borrowed from the 2001-2002 budget year. 

Furthermore, Gov. Gray Davis made several education-related line item vetoes when he signed the budget Thursday. Adult education programs, which are administered by local districts like Berkeley Unified, took a $23 million hit and Davis cut $17 million from nonprofit Healthy Start, which funds academic and health support services. 

Still, observers agree that public education fared well overall, with per pupil spending increasing 6.9 percent over last year from $6,610 to $7,067. 

Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, said urban school districts like Berkeley Unified will fare even better in 2003-2004 when a new formula for “equalization” funding, aimed at ensuring equal funding from district to district across the state, goes into effect. 

The old formula favored suburban districts, she said.  

Contact reporter at scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

All of this talk about the BTV show “Unlimited Possibilities” fails to address the real issue here – it's dreadfully boring. I would bet the surveillance video tape at the DMV information counter would have more human interest than the monotonous drone of this show. That said, the Berkeley City Council is squandering an opportunity to inspire youth about true possibilities. I suggest the council assemble a group of youth to view the show, provide them with video cameras and see what happens. For any child that can sit through he show (without falling asleep) will surely come to the conclusion that they could do much better with an precious hour of public access cable. Who knows, the next young Antonio Fellini might be living right here in Berkeley – the possibilities are endless! 

Joshua Polston, 

Berkeley

SAN FRANCISCO – As a judge framed it Friday, the lawsuit over who owns Barry Bonds’ record-setting 73rd home run ball boils down to simple definitions: “A catch is a catch – if it’s a catch.” 

Judge James J. McBride’s musings matter because he will decide whether the case goes to trial, or whether one of the men with claims to the million-dollar memento should get it outright. 

After an hour’s worth of arguments Friday, McBride didn’t rule who owns the ball: Alex Popov, the man who gloved it but lost it in a scrum, or Patrick Hayashi, the man who emerged from the tussling tangle with the big grin. 

Though Hayashi initially took it home, the ball has since been placed under lock and key. The judge has 90 days to rule, but won’t likely take that long. 

The case has reached a legal logjam since Oct. 7, when the San Francisco Giants’ slugger whacked the single-season record ball into the bleachers of Pacific Bell Park. Popov says Hayashi is trying to keep what’s not his while Hayashi insists he found the ball on the ground because Popov never caught it. 

Popov’s lawyers asserted it’s indisputable he caught the ball – he had it in his glove and brought it to his chest, they said, before being consumed by what McBride called “a low-grade mosh pit” of fans. 

Hayashi’s lawyers preferred the major league baseball definition of “catch,” which they said proves Popov neither possessed nor owned it.

Mayoral candidate Tom Bates and Councilmember Donna Spring were the big winners at Wednesday’s Berkeley Green Party nomination event. Both candidates won overwhelming support in preliminary votes and are now all but assured the official endorsements, to be named Sunday. 

For Bates, who represented Berkeley in the state Assembly for 20 years, the support of Berkeley’s 5,000 registered greens is pivotal. His race against incumbent Mayor Shirley Dean is expected to be close, and Bates says having progressive factions behind him is necessary to win. 

“I really do value you guys,” Bates told party members at a member’s home on 2000 block of Blake Street, adding that he would seek their counsel on policy issues if he were elected mayor. 

Although other environmental organizations have endorsed Bates, he is considered a centrist by most progressives, and several greens worry that he is too conservative on issues such as the environment, development and human rights. 

“I want a sense of how the city is going to be different other than nicer city council meetings,” said Laura Stevens, expressing concern that Bates’ positions weren’t much different than Dean’s. 

But most greens voiced support for Bates. “Tom has done more since he returned from the Assembly than a lot of elected officials who are getting paid,” said Pam Webster. 

Green party members faced an unprecedented choice in having two green candidates to choose from in the city’s 4th District race. Community activist L A Wood has challenged the party’s standard-bearer, Councilmember Donna Spring.  

Party members had no difficulty deciding who to endorse as Spring won 16–2 in the preliminary vote. 

“I’m deeply concerned about two greens running in the same district,” said Tom Kelly. “We’re putting ourselves in jeopardy.” 

Bob Migdal, an attorney and former rent board commissioner, is supported by the council’s moderate faction and is expeted to mount a strong campaign. David Freeman a former Zoning Adjustment Board member is also running for the council seat. 

Wood, though expecting the endorsement to go to Spring, wasn’t happy about the decision. 

“The [green] power structure is in the hands of so few people and the county party is not working to overcome it,” he said. 

Wood sparked controversy recently when he claimed green party leaders purposely excluded him from a meeting Aug. 26 to plan to give the endorsement to Spring. Spring supporters, though, maintain that the meeting was publicized and held in the public library for anybody to attend. 

There was one surprise endorsement by the greens. 

In the 8th District, Green Party member Carlos Estrada was shunned in favor of Peace and Justice Commissioner Anne Wagley. 

According to party members, Estrada gave disappointing answers on a questionnaire provided to the candidates. He was was too concerned with UC Berkeley rather than with city issues, said Elliot Cohen. Wagley’s endorsement was made at an earlier meeting. 

While the greens were united on nearly every issue, the height initiative drove a wedge through the party. The controversial initiative will appear on the November ballot and, if passed, would decrease allowable building heights in several neighborhoods. 

Party members decided not to offer an official opinion on the initiative after a preliminary poll showed that six members supported height limits and seven opposed them. 

Those against the initiative said limiting building heights would lead to more urban sprawl and more cars on the road. “We are becoming the laughing stock of the smart growth movement,” said Stuart Cohen. 

Supporters said the initiative was the only way to stop developers from forcing out-of-scale development on a compliant City Council and planning staff. 

Bob Marsh, Berkeley Green Party treasurer said he would probably vote for height limits, but understood the divide. “This is an emotional idea,” he said. “People are going to vote on what they think Berkeley should look like.”  

With 5,000 members, Berkeley’s chapter of the Green Party constitutes 8 percent of the city’s registered voters. Donna Spring is the only party member in City Council, but greens are represented on the Rent Board and School Board. 

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles County woman has tested positive for West Nile virus in what is believed to be the first case of a person contracting the illness in the western United States, health officials said Friday. 

The results of further tests won’t be known for another week, but based on preliminary tests county health officials called it a probable case of locally acquired West Nile virus infection. The victims of four other confirmed cases in Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho contracted the virus in states east of the Rocky Mountains. 

The diagnosis in Los Angeles surprised health officials because ongoing monitoring of chicken flocks, dead wild birds and mosquitoes had shown no trace of the virus in California. 

“The virus’ arrival in California is anticipated, but unexpected at this time since it is not present in any contiguous states,” said Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director and chief medical officer of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. 

The unidentified woman had a mild case of meningitis, which is associated with the virus, in early August and later recovered. 

She had not traveled outside the region for several months, county Department of Health Services spokeswoman Maria Iacobo said. Officials provided no further information about the woman, including her age or where in the county she lives. 

Since West Nile was first detected in New York in 1999, the virus has been found in humans in 27 other states and the District of Columbia. While its push westward had been expected, until Friday there had been no confirmed cases of humans contracting the disease west of the Rocky Mountains. 

Nationwide this year, there have been 854 confirmed human cases of the virus, including 43 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

In the four other western cases of confirmed West Nile virus, the victims are thought to have been infected in states where the mosquito-borne virus is already known to be present. 

In Salem, Ore., a Grand Rapids, Mich., woman also tested positive for the virus Friday, although state officials said she didn’t contract the disease in Oregon. 

Heather Aldridge, 29, was in critical condition undergoing treatment for brain inflammation. 

“She did not acquire the infection here in Oregon. She came from a place where we know that the West Nile virus is circulating quite a bit,” state epidemiologist Mel Kohn said. 

Earlier, a Washington man was diagnosed with the virus, which health officials said he contracted in Louisiana. 

In Idaho, officials said a 47-year-old man had been diagnosed with the virus but said they believe he contracted the disease during a recent trip to the East Coast. The man did not need to be hospitalized and is recovering well, health officials said. 

Montana state epidemiologist Todd Damrow said a 23-year-old Sweet Grass County women began showing symptoms of West Nile after returning to Montana from Ohio. He said the woman is doing fine and was not admitted to a hospital. 

West Nile virus is closely related to St. Louis encephalitis, already present in California and other western states. It typically causes flulike illness or no symptoms at all in humans. In rare cases, it can lead to deadly inflammation of the brain. The young and the elderly are especially at risk. 

Officials estimate there could be 110,000 to 150,000 people who have been infected in the United States, most of whom will never suffer its effects or know they have the virus. 

Infected mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus in their saliva and pass it on when they bite. Several mosquito species act as vectors for the virus, and more than 110 North American bird species can serve as hosts, according to the CDC. 

A dispute over a leaky roof has made finding authentic south-of-the border cuisine considerably more difficult for west Berkeley residents and has roused the mayor while forcing at least one single mother to lose her livelihood. 

Berkeley police officers on Tuesday served Pepito’s Deli owners an eviction notice, and police and sheriff’s deputies escorted employees out. On Wednesday a barbed wire fence was erected around the deli at the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Allston Way. 

The deli’s owner, Maria Magana who has a 17-year-old daughter, said she refused to pay rent in April after landlords Leo and Helena Chen, of San Francisco did not repay her the money she gave them for a new roof. Magana said the Chens asked her to pay for the $10,000 repair herself and promised to reimburse her with interest. 

The Chen’s son, Nelson, would not comment on specifics of the case but said that Magana’s claims are “untrue, unrealistic and blown out of proportion.” 

“I think she feels that she’s been victimized and it’s not true,” he said. 

After Magana withheld the $3,300 monthly rent – $300 more than what she said is on her lease – the Chens filed a complaint with the Alameda Superior Court. 

On Tuesday, a judge denied Magana a 30-day extension of her eviction. 

Magana said she was “heartbroken.” 

“I couldn’t believe our system wouldn’t protect small businesses that are providing jobs for people and helping the community,” she said. 

Standing outside the closed business with her one-and-a-half year old daughter, local resident Leticia Maciel said she was stunned to find the business that she has frequented for 15 years closed. 

“Now where can we go?” Maciel said, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s the only Mexican food here.” 

Gordon Choyce of Jubilee Restoration, a nearby nonprofit organization, said the problems between Magana and the landlord had gotten so bad that Magana was seriously considering relocating her business. Magana had discussed with him the possibility of moving to a mixed-use site being built at 2700 San Pablo Ave. 

Local residents lamented the loss of a neighborhood fixture. Long lines frequently greeted hungry patrons at lunchtime. The Latino community was particularly fond of the business because a portion of the eatery carried hard-to-find Mexican specialty groceries and magazines. 

Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean expressed sympathy. She said Magana was the victim of “bad legal advice” and emphasized that Magana is a single mother who often worked late at night to keep her business running smoothly. 

Dean said she tried to stave off the eviction by making calls over the weekend to judges, attorneys and the landlords on Magana’s behalf. Unfortunately, Dean said, she was not able to reach an agreement that would save the business. 

“It’s a crying shame,” she said. “This is the kind of minority-owned business we want to protect.”  

Henk Boverhuis of Britalia, Ltd., a nearby auto shop, said that Magana was a popular business owner and “is greatly missed in the neighborhood.” 

But the closure of the deli struck Boverhuis on a more personal level. 

“I’m hungry,” he said. 

OAKLAND – Alameda County officials announced Thursday that the contractor working on the new critical care building at the Highland Hospital campus has been pulled off of the job. 

County officials blame the Minneapolis-based contractor, M.A. Mortenson, for repeated problems with the five-story building's heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. 

The county notified the company of its intentions to find a new contractor for the job last week after several attempts to resolve problems with the system and numerous work delays. Mortenson was removed from the job late Wednesday. 

The $68 million project is 14 months behind schedule. 

“We took this action to ensure that the remaining work is done quickly and correctly,” said Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. “We want to make sure this facility is available as soon as possible to the thousands of patients who seek care at Highland each year.” 

Meanwhile, Mortenson has filed a breach of contract suit against the county, said senior vice president Paul Cossette. The lawsuit seeks $10 million the company said it is owed and additional unspecified damages. 

Cossette disputed the county's claims Friday, insisting that the plans for the building's air system were flawed from the start. 

“The allegations made by the county are completely unfounded,” Cossette said. “The problems with the HVAC system are clearly design-related.” 

He said that work has continued on the hospital project even though the county hasn't paid Mortenson since March. He added that the county is dumping the contractor with the job “99.5 percent'' complete. 

Cossette maintains the blame for delays in the job lies with the county. 

“From virtually the first instant we showed up on the job site they started dumping changes on us,” Cossette said. “Virtually every drawing in the documents has been changed, some of the pages have been changed a dozen times.” 

He said the fundamental problem is that the design calls for “pushing a huge amount of air through a duct system that isn't designed for it.” 

Aki Nakao, director of the county's General Services Agency, denied that the system's design is faulty. 

“As far as our opinion goes there is no design flaw,” he said.  

“We believe that the design can work. It just needs to be properly installed.” 

He said the company has been running behind schedule for some time and most recently missed a “self-declared” deadline of June 13. 

Nakao said the project could still be completed by the end of the year although a news release issued by the county said the project would be completed in the spring. 

A new contractor is expected to be chosen in the next week.

SANTA CRUZ — Medical marijuana advocates outraged by a raid at a local prescription pot supplier protested at federal offices in several cities in Northern California and across the country Friday. 

“Medical marijuana patients and advocates around the country realize what’s happening in California is absolute terror,” said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, who was heading to the Drug Enforcement Agency office in Oakland to protest. 

DEA spokesman Richard Meyer in San Francisco said his agents simply were doing their job. 

“Federal law says marijuana is illegal,” he said. “We have no choice. We’re enforcing the law.” 

On Thursday, federal agents raided a small pot farm located on a quiet coastal road about 55 miles south of San Francisco, pulling up about 100 plants and arresting the owners — Valerie and Michael Corral. 

The couple, leading activists for medical marijuana, were the latest high-profile advocates to be arrested in a series of sweeps during the past year in California. 

State law in California, as well as Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, allows marijuana to be grown and distributed to people with a doctor’s prescription. Federal law, on the other hand, prohibits marijuana use under any circumstances. 

California medical marijuana growers and distributors work closely with local law enforcement, and are quite open about their programs. In fact, the farm raided Thursday morning by DEA agents had been featured in national media, and the program is listed in the local telephone book. 

But in recent months, federal agents — working strictly without local support — have been busting pot clubs and farms in Northern California. 

News of the Santa Cruz raid spread quickly across the country 

“This is an issue that faces all of us,” said Karen Heikkala, holding a “Arrest Pain, Not Patients and Caregivers” in front of the federal building in Austin, Texas. 

“It’s a sad day in the United States when the federal government goes after the sick and dying in direct violation of states’ rights,” she said. 

In Washington, D.C., 15 people protested in front of the Justice Department. In Northern California, protesters gathered at DEA offices in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. 

“The only way to explain this is in a truly fanatical, inhumane ... spirit that this was carried out,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. 

Back at the Corrals’ farm, where users had been preparing their annual harvest, a sign “Love Grows Here” still stood but there were only a few large stems and leaves scattered on the ground. 

Prosecutors said the Corrals, who helped write the provision in California’s Proposition 215 that allows patients and their caregivers to cultivate their own medicine, had not been charged by Friday morning. But their attorney said they could be indicted at any time. 

This was not the first arrest for the Corrals. 

Before state and local laws allowed their program, they were arrested in 1992 and 1993. In 1992, Valerie Corral was prosecuted, but was found innocent after being the first person in California to challenge marijuana laws by arguing it was medically necessary. When they were arrested again in 1993, local authorities decided not to prosecute. 

Valerie Corral said Friday she was deeply pained by the raid. 

“They cannot know how many people’s lives they are causing suffering in because, if they did, they would not do this,” she said.

SANTA ROSA — As the insurance industry tries to offset rising costs and poor investment returns, leading providers are raising rates and denying renewals to people who’ve filed claims. 

Insurance companies are raising rates for California homeowners by 20 percent this year and next year rates could go up even more, The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa reported Friday. 

“Virtually every major carrier has asked for some sort of increase,” said Nanci Kramer, deputy press secretary for the California Department of Insurance, told the newspaper. “It’s a very hard market for homeowners.” 

In addition to raising rates, many insurance providers are refusing to renew policies for consumers who have filed more than one claim in a three- to five-year period, Kramer said. 

“Most consumers have no idea what a claim can do to them,” Kramer said. 

The rate increases and stricter renewal standards are stunning consumers and have started an onslaught of complaints to state regulators in California and nationwide. 

There are multiple reasons for soaring rates and tightening underwriting standards, according to Robert Hartwig, chief economist at the Insurance Information Institute, a New York insurance industry research firm. 

The industry has been hit by multimillion-dollar claims for catastrophic events and the cost of home construction and repairs has increased, Hartwig told the newspaper. 

Also, U.S. housing stock is getting older and claims for mold damage cost insurers more than $1 billion last year. Ultimately, carriers had to pay more in claims and claim expenses than they made in premiums. 

Insurers had been able to cover the shortfall with good investment returns, but the current economic downturn has made it harder for companies to make up the difference.

NEW YORK — The smoke hangs thick at Pete’s Tavern, swirling through the 138-year-old pub as the lunch-hour conversation turns to the mayor’s plan to ban smoking in thousands of bars and restaurants across the city. 

“They did it in California, but everybody out there is a health nut,” said Phil Kraker, an accountant and a Pete’s regular. “They’re out jogging at four in the morning. Those people are crazy. This is New York.” 

Depending on which smoker you ask, the proposal — which must still clear the City Council — is either a personal affront or an attack on the appeal of New York itself. 

Bar patrons say they should have the option of savoring a cigarette with their cocktails, especially in a city that prides itself on its independence, not to mention its nightlife. 

“New York is the capital of the world,” said Audrey Silk, founder of the smoker-rights group NYC CLASH. “The charm of New York is our differences. Now you want to create this bland, faceless city?” 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg stirred up the controversy a week ago in calling for the ban. The former smoker said bars and restaurants have to protect their employees from harmful smoke, just as they do from toxins like asbestos. 

New York already outlaws smoking in restaurants with more than 35 seats, but there is no restriction against smoking in bars or the bar area of any restaurant. 

A ban would cover about 13,000 establishments and would be the most visible tobacco restriction since California issued a similar rule four years ago. About 400 communities nationwide have adopted smoking bans in restaurants, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. 

Anti-smoking groups have sided with Bloomberg, but proprietors of bars and restaurants worry his plan will chase business away with the smoke. 

Gerard Meagher, who manages the Old Town Bar near Union Square, tells customers cell phones are not welcome because they disturb the friendly pub atmosphere. But he said a smoking ban would be a mistake. 

“The do-gooders are winning out,” Meagher said. “This is people who never had a fun time trying to take all the fun out of life.” 

The debate is as much about culture as health, smokers say. 

“People just like a smoke with their drink,” said Buster Smith, the white-haired manager at Pete’s. “Now they’re going to have to go outside. What do they do in the rain and snow?” 

They might seek refuge in private clubs, or “smokeasies” as one puffer described them to The New York Times. Private clubs would be exempt from the proposed ban. 

Ingl Kehrens, a visitor from Amsterdam who was puffing a cigarette at Connelly’s bar, questioned the logic of a ban. “How come you sell cigarettes but you don’t let people smoke them?” he asked. 

Bloomberg is trying to discourage tobacco sales, too. Earlier this year, the city hiked its cigarette tax by more than $1, sending the price of a pack to $7.50 in some places. The city says the increase cut cigarette sales nearly in half. 

Legislation aimed at improving the quality of life in the nation’s largest city has been a steady staple since 1994, when Rudolph Giuliani became mayor. He waged war against sex shops, panhandlers, squeegee men and even jaywalkers. But even Giuliani didn’t take on smoking. 

Under Bloomberg’s plan, smokers who break the law may be fined $10 to $100 or be jailed up to 30 days. 

City health inspectors would be responsible for enforcing a ban. There are no specific penalties for proprietors or employees. 

The New York State Restaurant Association said it was reserving judgment on the plan until surveying its members. 

After California’s ban took effect, many proprietors complained of lost business. But supporters of the measure pointed out that tax figures have not reflected a significant drop in business, and polls showed a majority of patrons backed the ban. 

Johnny Stavern, a patron at Dave’s Tavern near Times Square, applauded Bloomberg’s proposal. “In restaurants especially, you’re there to eat and the smoke gets on everything — your clothes, your bags, everything.” 

The mayor contends the ban will save employees and customers at bars and restaurants from secondhand smoke. He said an eight-hour shift for a bartender or waitress can be like smoking half a pack of cigarettes. 

Smith, who has paced the floors of Pete’s greeting customers for more than three decades, doesn’t buy it. 

“I just had an examination,” he said, “and my lungs are clear as a bell.”

SAN FRANCISCO — As many as 76 million people — mostly children — could die from water-related diseases by 2020 if changes aren’t made worldwide in the way communities develop their water systems and policies, according to a California think tank. 

If those projections are correct, the deaths would exceed the number of people expected to die from AIDS over the same span. 

According to a report released Friday by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, even if the world meets a United Nations Millennium Goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of people who cannot reach or afford safe drinking water, between 34 million and 76 million people could still die in the next 18 years. 

The diseases that the report says will afflict these people include cholera, malaria, dengue fever and dysentery. More people die of diarrheal diseases than other water-related diseases, and children are extremely vulnerable to them. 

“All of these diseases are associated with our failure to provide clean water,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, director of the institute. “I think it’s terribly bleak, especially because we know what needs to be done to prevent these deaths. We’re doing some of it, but the efforts that are being made are not aggressive enough.” 

The problem is many people, especially those in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, don’t have access to clean water or basic sanitation, Gleick said. 

While most of the deaths are projected to occur in developing nations, Joan Rose, professor of water microbiology at the University of South Florida, said every country is vulnerable. She pointed to a recent outbreak of E. coli in Canada that came from a contaminated well and killed some people. 

“We look at our political agreements like NAFTA, and they’ve been economically beneficial to South America because we have allowed them to export their vegetables to the United States,” she said. “But none of that finance has been reinvested in sanitation, and in fact, we may be getting vegetables — we already have — that bring diseases into the United States.” 

Protection of the water supply is a global and environmental issue, as well, Rose said. 

“What we’ve forgotten is the water they’re getting, if it’s, say, from a river, is really part of a watershed,” she said. “If your upstream neighbor is polluting your water supply, there needs to be some coordination beyond the community in terms of protection.” 

There aren’t good numbers to determine how many people die each year due to water-related diseases, because medical reporting varies in different parts of the world, and the diseases sometimes aren’t diagnosed, Gleick said. The World Health Organization estimated in 2000 that 2.2 million people die each year from diarrheal diseases alone. Other estimates that include various water-related diseases put that number higher than 5 million a year. 

U.N. figures say 1.1 billion people worldwide live without access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion lack proper sanitation. 

And in January, at the request of the U.N. Environment Program, the institute completed a study that found the world’s freshwater resources are more threatened now than they have ever been. 

NEW YORK — It makes an eye-opening story: knives, razors and pepper spray easily passing through supposedly beefed-up airport security. But it also raises troubling ethical questions: In particular, are journalists justified in breaking a law to expose weaknesses in enforcing it? 

The New York Daily News, in an investigation published this week, revealed that its reporters had taken prohibited items through airport security 14 times at 11 different airports. Not one of them was caught. 

The potential weapons were concealed in carry-on bags. Contraband was slipped past security at all four of the airports where terrorists boarded planes last Sept. 11, the News revealed. 

A “CBS Evening News” story this week exposed similar weaknesses. CBS didn’t smuggle prohibited items, but tried to pass lead-lined film bags that block X-rays through security. In 70 percent of the cases, scanners didn’t notice or check the bags. 

The stories, and the prospect of more of them, infuriate federal officials — not just, they say, because the results are embarrassing. 

“It’s bad for the country,” said Department of Transportation spokesman Chet Lunner. “That these stories are helping the bad guys seems to be completely obfuscated by the rush to get attention or notoriety for your newspaper or broadcast.” 

The Air Transport Association, the airline industry’s largest trade group, said reporters who try to test security this way should be prosecuted. Federal law prohibits both passing banned items through security and taking them on airplanes. 

The Daily News story followed a similar investigation done last October, said Edward Kosner, the paper’s editor in chief. 

Given the crucial part security lapses played Sept. 11 and the increased spending on improving the system, the Daily News believed it was important to check how the system is working. 

“No one breaks any law lightly,” Kosner said. “In a way, I guess you could look at it as civil disobedience. We were willing to take the consequences.” 

It would be different if reporters created a hazard by, for example, testing airline security by rushing a cockpit, he said. 

CBS thought it could probe the system without smuggling prohibited items. If security didn’t see a large black blob that indicated their X-rays couldn’t get through, they wouldn’t see a concealed knife, said correspondent Vince Gonzales. 

CBS would never break the law to get the story, he said. 

“We didn’t believe it would be a good idea to try that,” he said, “especially when you had the National Guard standing with guns at a lot of those checkpoints.” 

A code of ethics published by the Society of Professional Journalists doesn’t specifically address law-breaking. It advises that undercover or other surreptitious methods not be used unless there is no other way to get a story of compelling public interest. 

“I don’t condone breaking the law just for the sake of doing it, just to get great footage for sweeps week,” said Jane Kirtley, a professor on media ethics at the University of Minnesota. “But the question always comes down to, how else are you going to test these things out?” 

The federal government says these systems are checked by independent inspectors, with the results shared with Congress. 

Reporting publicly on their weaknesses is like Pentagon reporters publishing news of troop movements, Lunner said. Potential terrorists could learn which airports have the weakest security and the best way to conceal weapons, he said. 

“It shouldn’t be the media’s job to undermine the national security of the United States by increasing the risk to passengers and airline personnel,” said Michael Wascom, spokesman for the Air Transport Association. 

Kosner said he understands the unhappiness, but the News considers the information important. 

Similar stories have been done by a handful of local CBS affiliates, after CBS News first tested security earlier this year. Federal authorities conceded they’re in an awkward position when it comes to prosecuting reporters, since it may look like sour grapes because of an embarrassing story. 

Plus, they’d have to catch them in the act. 

“My own view is that security ought to be grateful to have these weaknesses exposed,” Kirtley said. 

SACRAMENTO — A survey of California students released Friday found that more than 10 percent of high school students have tried the drug Ecstasy, prompting the state to create a media campaign to target use of the drug. 

The biennial survey by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s office found that Ecstasy was the third most popular drug among the 7th, 9th and 11th graders questioned. 

Alcohol and marijuana topped the survey, Lockyer said. This was the first year students were asked about their use of Ecstasy. 

Though alcohol remained the most popular illegal substance, its use dropped more than other drugs, especially in the 7th and 11th grade, the survey found. 

The previous survey, from 1999-2000, found that 35 percent of 7th graders had used alcohol in the previous six months, 52 percent of 9th graders and 66 percent of 11th grade students had used alcohol. 

This year, 30 percent of 7th graders, 50 percent of 9th graders and 63 percent of 11th graders reported drinking in the past six months. 

“The good news is that 7th graders are not drinking and smoking as much as they have in the past,” Lockyer said. “But we are concerned that heavy drinking and drug use among older high school students remain unacceptably high.” 

The survey found 4 percent of 7th graders said they had smoked cigarettes in the last 30 days, down from 7 percent the year before. 

Marijuana use remained at similar levels to the previous study, with 7 percent of 7th grade students saying they had smoked it in the last six months, a drop of 2 percent. Use among 9th graders and 11th graders remained at 19 percent and 34 percent, respectively. 

Though Ecstasy, an illegal hallucinogenic drug popular at all-night parties, ranked third for drug use, it was at a much lower rate. Six percent of 9th graders and 11 percent of 11th graders reporting that they had tried the drug. Two percent of 7th graders, 5 percent of 9th graders, and 9 percent of 11th graders reported using Ecstasy in the past six months. 

The survey’s results prompted the state Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs to focus a statewide media campaign on Ecstasy and other “club drugs,” said Kathryn P. Jett, the department’s director. 

The attorney general’s study is conducted every two years, and is co-sponsored by the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs and the Department of Education. The 2001-2002 study questioned 8,238 randomly selected students in 113 middle and high schools. 

Student activists criticized UC Berkeley’s admission practices and launched a campaign to boost minority student enrollment, at a press conference Thursday. 

“UC Berkeley is the most elite campus in the state,” said Yvette Felarca, a graduate student and affirmative action advocate. “It cannot be the most reactionary and segregated campus in the state.”  

Overall, UC Berkeley admitted fewer African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans this year than it did last year, with acceptances dipping slightly from 1,303 to 1,291. 

But the decline in “underrepresented minority” admissions coincided with a drop in studentwide admissions, from 7,601 last year to 7,393 this year, and minority representation actually climbed as a percentage of the overall total, up from 17.1 percent last year to 17.5 percent this year, according to university statistics. 

Activists rejected talk of a percentage increase, arguing that any decline in the actual number of minority students on campus is a problem. 

They also noted that UC Berkeley admitted fewer minorities than other universities in the UC system this year. The 17.5 percent figure put UC Berkeley behind the 19.1 percent average for the nine-campus University of California system. UC Berkeley officials did not return calls for comment. 

This year marked the first admissions cycle governed entirely by “comprehensive review,” a system activists hoped would draw more minority students.The system considers nonacademic factors like community service, leadership and overcoming adversity in addition to traditional academic factors like grade point average and SAT scores. Prior to this year, the university admitted 50 percent to 75 percent of students based on academic factors alone and used comprehensive review to admit the rest. 

Activists at the Monday press conference argued that GPA and SAT standards are inherently biased against minorities and said campuses should heavily weigh nonacademic factors to boost minority acceptance rates.  

Activists acknowledged that they have no direct proof of the weight that UC Berkeley admissions officers gave to nonacademic factors, but argued that officials must have undervalued those factors since they admitted fewer minorities than other UC campuses. 

“The proof is in the pudding,” said Felarca. 

Officially, the UC system does not view comprehensive review as a tool for boosting minority enrollment. UC spokesperson Hanan Eisenman said the process simply provides a fuller picture of all applicants. 

“It allows us to go deeper into our applicant’s full record than ever before,” he said. 

Conservatives have argued that comprehensive review is an attempt to get around a 1997 voter-approved ban on considering race in admissions.  

But Eisenman argued that the systemwide jump in minority admissions, from 18.6 percent last year to 19.1 percent this year – with comprehensive review in full swing – indicates that the procedure has had only a modest impact in swelling the ranks of underrepresented minorities. 

The student activists, including graduate students, undergraduates and members of the student government, said their campaign to boost minority enrollment will include a march and rally Oct. 24.  

The students will also seek to gather 10,000 signatures for a petition calling for “full integration of UC Berkeley.” The activists, who said they already have 2,000 signatures, including that of City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, plan to present the petition to UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl by spring. 

Contact reporter  

at scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

There are apparently some people who think we can turn back the clock to when civilization did not exist and the land belonged to wild animals, such as deer and raccoon. I would like to point out to these people that in those days, these animals had natural predators with which to contend. Now they have none, at least in the cities, so instead of there being a balance, we have raccoons getting into garbage cans, raccoons killing other forms of life, and raccoons spreading disease. 

Cases in point: Two weeks ago my leashed dogs were attacked by a raccoon that just kept on coming, although my husband repeatedly pulled the dogs away. Vet bill: $110. Today my fish pond is a mess because the raccoons scrabble in the water, tearing up the plants, trying to get the fish (who have just as much right to their lives as the raccoons have to theirs), causing financial loss and the expenditure of time of two very busy people. Some raccoons in this area carry a roundworm that can kill dogs and people. It is passed through their feces, so small children and pets are definitely at risk. 

Come on, people, if mice and rats come into your house, do you just move aside and try to make them comfy? Raccoons have no place here in the city. They are not an endangered species. If the city council wants to sterilize them, I say Right On! 

Jenifer Steele, 

Berkeley

The 20-somethings in slacks breeze into a café on University Avenue, hardly taking notice of a woman sitting hunched with her back to the sunlit doorway. They don’t know that she lived for 12 years in a cave smaller than the café’s restroom or that she has come here to help them along the path to enlightenment and happiness. 

The woman removes her hands from the folds of her crimson robes only to whisk away the flies that swoop down from the café’s high ceiling toward her close-shorn head. He pale blue eyes are piercing.  

“We never step back and look at what’s going on inside because we’re so captivated with what’s going on outside ourselves,” the Venerable Tenzin Palmo said, her hands now shooting from her sleeves to grasp the forearms of her tablemate.  

Tenzin Palmo, a nun in the Kargyu order of Tibetan Buddhism, will discuss that idea 7 to 9:30 tonight at the Berkeley Shambhala Center on Fulton Street, as part of a 12-day Bay Area tour that started Thursday in San Francisco. A seven-hour workshop at the center Saturday is entitled “Compassion in a Violent World.”  

It’s 1:50 p.m. Thursday, and the Venerable Tenzin Palmo has 10 minutes to sip down a latte before she begins her daily fast. The 59-year-old Buddhist nun was accompanied by the two Bay Area residents who were waiting to bring her back to San Francisco, where she held the first talk of the series. 

Tonight Tenzin Palmo will discuss the importance to Tibetan Buddhists of extended spiritual retreats, and how Easterners can balance the need for retreat with the pressing demands of daily life. 

“The people we’re facing are not monks and hermits and nuns,” she said. 

Tenzin Palmo, however, is a hermit and she always knew it. She was born Diane Perry in 1943 and grew up happy in the East End of London, but said she knew from the beginning that she was different. 

“I always felt that I was in the wrong place since I was a child,” she said. 

She would beg her mother to take her to London’s Chinatown, where she loved the food. She would draw Japanese Geishas in elegant Kimonos, she told biographer Vicki Mackenzie in “Cave in the Snow,” an account of Perry’s spiritual development. 

She boogied down to the tunes of Elvis Presley, but in the daytime she read the likes of “The Mind Unshaken.” She dated only Asian men at a time when interracial relations were still uncommon in Britain. 

When she read “Seven Years in Tibet,” one Austrian’s account of the mountain kingdom, something jelled in her, she said. In 1964, at the age of 20, she packed her bags and headed for the Himalayas of northern India, where Tibetan communities were growing in the wake of Communist Chinese repression. 

In the summer of 1964, Perry became the second Western woman to be ordained as a nun in the Kargyu order. She took on a Tibetan name.  

When Tenzin Palmo began her isolation in 1976, she didn’t set a specific time frame. But a cave at 13,200 feet became her home and a three-foot box became her bed. She continued her life there until 1985, leaving the cave for a couple of weeks each summer. During her final three years there, she neither spoke to nor saw anybody. 

But that silence, she said, fills her even now with a certain peace. Part of her mission tonight and during the rest of the tour is to bring the peace of the crisp, shimmering air of the Himalayan cave to the people of the workaday United States. 

“When I’m in the middle of great chaos, that’s when the clarity comes, and with that clarity comes great compassion” for people who feel only confusion, she said. 

“People are interested in hearing about how to live their lives skillfully. Everybody has this desire to be happy, but despite our best efforts, we wind up being miserable nonetheless. It could just be that we’re looking for happiness in the wrong places.” 

The nun leaves the Himalayas each year during the three-month monsoon season for a series of speaking engagements, workshops and meditation sessions. Entry to tonight’s talk is $20. Saturday’s workshop, which begins at 10 a.m., will cost $70. 

The money, she said, is going toward building a nunnery near Dharamsala big enough for 160 girls and women, along with a nearby retreat. Now, she said, she has 24 nuns living in a three-room mud-brick house. So far, her efforts have raised about half the money she needs. 

The nun declined through a spokeswoman to specify how much the total project will cost.

Tuesday, September 3 

Bebelekov Family  

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

525-5024 or www.ashkenaz.com 

$8 door  

Free for 12 and under 

Red Mountain & White Trash 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$14.50 in advance, $15.50 at door 

Wednesday, September 4 

Carlos Oiveira & Ventos do Brasil 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau 

7:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Rum Diary, Rubymar & The Cusion Theory 

9:30 p.m. 

Blakes on Telegraph, 2367 Telegraph Ave. 

848-0886 

$6 

Thursday, September 5 

Jimmy LaFave 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $17.50 at door 

The Mekons 25th Anniversary Show 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$15 

Friday, September 6 

Caribbean All-Stars 9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Gehenna, Brainoil & Blown to Bits 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Tempest 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$10 

Saturday, September 7 

Freedom Song Network’s Twentieth Birthday Benefit Concert 

8 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

$10 to 50 (sliding scale) 

Hirax, Phobia & Lack of Interest 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Mark Growden’s Electric Pinata, Amor 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$6 

Rachel Garin CD Release Show 

8 p.m.  

The Freight and Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.thefreight.org 

$15.50 in advance/ $16.50 at the door 

Mystic Roots, Sangano, Elijah Emanuel & the Revelations 

9:30 p.m. 

Blakes on Telegraph, 2367 Telegraph Ave. 

848-0886 

$6 

Sunday, September 8 

Kulture Schock 

8:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Darryl Purpose 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Women Baring Soles 

7:30 p.m. 

Rose Street 

Featuring Irina Rivkin, Lorna Hunt and Lisa Sanders 

594-4000, ext. 687 for info. and directions 

$5-$20 

Monday, September 9 

Kris Delmhorst, Noe Venable 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tuesday, September 10 

DP & Rythym Riders 

7:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Wednesday, September 11 

The Rolling Requiem 

Doors open at 8 a.m.; performance begins precisely at 8:46 a.m. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Dana St. and Durant Ave. 

A sing-along performance of Mozart’s Requiem in every time zone to commemorate the events of Sept 11, 2001. All singers welcome and non-singers are welcome to listen. 

ucalumnichorus@ucchoral.berkeley.edu, www.ucac.net 

Free 

Lunasa 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$17.50 in advance, $18.50 at door 

Thursday, September 12 

The Clumsy Lovers 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$6 

Slaid Cleaves 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Friday, September 13 

Dope Sick, Mommy’s Friend and Cellofane 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

From Ashes Rise, Manifesto Jukebox & Submachine 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Garmarna 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $1.50 at door 

Moodswing Orchestra 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Saturday, September 14 

Amandla Poets 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

The Cheap Suit, The Serenaders 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$18.50 in advance, $19.50 at door 

Tipsy House Irish Band  

9:30 p.m. 

The Albatross Pub, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 

THE-BIRD (843-2473) 

$3 

The Good Life, Denail & The Velvet Teen 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Lisa’s Birthday Party: The Wore, Lemon Lime Light 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Sunday, September 15 

Fairport Convention 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Monday, September 16 

Anouar Brahem 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tuesday, September 17 

Cortableu 

8:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Wednesday, September 18 

John Dobby Boe & the Steve Slagle Trio 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Red Archibald and the International Blues Band 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Thursday, September 19 

Houston Jones 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

The influences, Plus Ones and The Simple Things 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

841-2082 

$5 

Friday, September 20 

Cris Williamson, Teresa Trull & Barbar Higble 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Double Fling Ding, The Crooked Jades & Bluegrass Intentions 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$12 door/ Free for 12 and under 

New End Original, Counterfeit and Lo Lite 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Saturday, September 21 

Memorizing Windows 

8 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut Street 

Dancer Lucinda Weaver and Writer Alan Bern present an evening of dance, poetry, and stories.  

526-7901, abbern@sbcglobal.net  

Free 

Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Fernando, Garrison Star and Old Joe Clarks 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-2082 

$7 

Jack Wembly, Phemomenauts and Rock N Roll Adventure Kids 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

West African Highlife Band 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Sunday, September 22 

Broceliande 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Dick Hindman Trio 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

Les Yeux Noirs 

8 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$12 door/ Free for 12 and under 

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  

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 

Misch Kohn - Celebrating Sixty Years of Printmaking 

Sept. 12 through Oct. 16: Tues.-Fri., Noon to 5:30 p.m.; Sat., Noon to 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Arts Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

549-2977, kala@kala.org 

Threads: Five artists who use stitching to convey ideas 

October 6 through December 15, Wed.-Sun., Noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center 

Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. 

For more information: www.berkeleyartcenter.org, (510) 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 

Henry IV: The Impact Remix 

Through Sept. 8, Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 7 p.m. 

Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. 

Sept. 13 through 21, Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 7 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. 

Impact theatre’s first Shakespeare production staring Rich Bolster as Prince Hal and Bill Boynton as Falstaff. 

464-4468, www.impacttheatre.com 

$15 general/$10 students 

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 

Sept. 5 through Oct. 12 

Thurs. through Sat. 8 p.m. 

LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre, 1834 Euclid 

234-6046 

$10 

The House of Blue Leaves 

Sept. 11 through Oct. 27 

Berkeley Rep's Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Berkeley 

647-2917 or 888-4BRTTIX 

$10 - $54 

The Shape of Things 

Sept. 19 through Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St. 

Play by writer/director Neil LaBute's spins a morality tale of a young art student, his art major girlfriend, and the Pygmalion-like changes that bring into question how far one should go for love. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35  

Alarms and Excursions 

Nov. 15 through Dec. 22 

Aurora Theatre Company,  

2081 Addison St. 

Michael Frayn's comedy about the irony of modern technology. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35  

Saturday, September 7 

Bay Area Poets Coalition Open Reading 

3 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

West Branch Berkeley Public Library, 1125 University Ave. 

527-9905, poetalk@aol.com 

Free 

September 7, 12 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Civic Center Park, Center St. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Poetry readings, presentations by environmentalists, interactive events and more. 

526-9105  

Sunday, September 8 

Poetry Flash @ Cody’s 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Ivan Arguelles reads “Tri Loka and Carolyn Grassi read “Transparencies.” 

845-7852  

$2 

Wednesday, September 11 

Poetry for Peace Benefit Reading 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Proceeds will benefit refugee relief agencies. Readings by Frances Payne Adler, Ivan Arguelles, Ellen Bass and Judy Grahns. 

845-7852  

$2 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Featured poets: George McKibbins and Sean Shea.  

841-2082 

$7 door, $5 w/ student I.D. 

Saturday, September 14 

Shirley Imura 

8 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 

527-9753, sheflerium@earthlink.net 

Free 

Wednesday, September 18 

Poetry Flash @ Cody’s 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Readings by Meg Kearney and Cornelius Eady. 

845-7852  

$2 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Featured poet: Anthony R. Miller 

841-2082 

$7 door, $5 w/ student I.D. 

Sunday, September 22 

Poetry Flash @ Cody’s 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Readings by Piri Thomas and Max Schwartz. 

845-7852  

$2 

Sunday September 29 

Poetry Flash @ Cody’s 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Readings by Margaret Kaufman and Robert Funge. 

845-7852  

$2 

Saturday, September 7 

Vertical Pool presents Three Experimental Narrative Videos 

8 p.m. and 10 p.m. 

TUVA, 3192 Adeline St. 

A screening of “Requiem For a Friend”, “Inertia” and “Roadkill” by Antero Alli. Filmmaker will be present. 

464-4640 

$7 

Saturday, September 7 

Watershed Environmental  

Poetry Festival 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Park 

A day of poetry, music and environmental activism. Exhibits. Open poetry readings.  

Strawberry Creek Walk starts at 10 a.m. at Oxford and Center streets. 

526-9105 or www.poetryflash.org 

Free 

Sick Plant Clinic 

9 a.m. to noon 

University of California Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 

UC plant pathology and entomology experts will diagnose what ails your plant.  

643-2755 

Free 

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. Event includes a health fair, food, prizes, live music and free insurance eligibility screening. 

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.solanostroll.org 

Free 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Farmers' Market 

Center Street at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Prostate Cancer Lecture 

2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way 

Understand the risk of prostate cancer and how to detect early symptoms from a survivor. 

869-6737 

Free 

Tuesday, September 9 

Arts Education Network 

6 to 8 p.m. 

James Irvine Foundation Conference Ctr., 353 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza 

208-0842 

Free 

Berkeley Gray Panthers Home Owners Meeting 

3 p.m. 

1403 Addison St. 

All welcome. 

548-9696 

Free 

Tuesday, September 10 

Brown Bag Career Talk 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way 

Cynthia Weekly, Senior Recruiter with UC Berkeley Office of Human Resources will provide information on the process of seeking temporary and permanent employment at UC Berkeley. 

848-6370 

Free 

Michael Newdow: Lecture 

8 p.m. 

2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley Campus 

Michael Newdow is a Sacramento physician with a law degree whose case against the common procedure of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools fueled national uproar last summer.  

USE-SANE, sane@ocf.berkeley.edu, http://www.BerkeleySANE.org 

Free 

Wednesday, September 11 

One Year Later, a Peace Vigil and Meditation 

6 to 7:30 p.m. 

West entrance of UC Berkeley Campus near the corner of University Ave. and Oxford St. 

The Buddhist Peach Fellowship invites people of all traditions to bear witness to the continued suffering related to Sept. 11, 2002. 

223-0683, www.bpf.org 

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.  

Caterina Rando discusses her new book Learn to Power Think: A Practical Guide to Positive and Effective Decision Making 

Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. 

559-9184, www.bookpride.com 

Friday, September 13 

Lecture by Dr. Paul Farmer 

7:30 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church, 2640 Addison St. 

Dr. Farmer will speak on Health Care and Human Rights: Solidarity with the Haitian People. Benefit for Partners in Health. Music by Vukani Mawethu Choir. 

558-0371 

$5 to $15 donation 

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 

Congressman Dennis Kuchinich Appearance 

7 p.m. 

Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley Campus, near University Ave. 

Chair of the House Progressive Caucus will speak. Keith Carson, Country Joe McDonald and performance artist Shelly Glaser will also be on hand. 

http://www.bfuu.org/rscongress 

$10 in advance, $12 door 

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 

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 

Monday, September 16 

Berkeley Ecological and Safe Transportation (BEST) Coalition meeting 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Central Library, Kitteredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 

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 

Thursday, September 19 

Berkeley Path Wanderers’ Meeting 

Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Annual fall meeting, titled “The East Bay Waterfront: Visions for the Future” will include a panel discussion introduced by Sylvia McLaughlin, founder of Save the Bay. 

524-4715 

Free 

Breast Self Exam for Seniors 

10 to 11:30 a.m. 

Maffley Auditorium, Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way 

Workshop to educate women with physical limitations about accessing breast health care and do-it-yourself exam education. 

869-6737 

Free 

Freedom From Tabacco 

6 to 8 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center  

2939 Ellis St. 

A quit smoking class. First of six Thursday evenings through Oct. 24. Free to Berkeley and Albany students, residents and employees. 

981-5330, quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Free 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m  

Claremont Branch Library  

2940 Benvenue Ave. 

A panel of people who will share their experiences and ideas for living inexpensively but richly.  

549-3509, www.simpleliving.net 

Free 

Saturday, September 21 

Do-It-Yourself all-Natural Body Care from Your Kitchen 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Learn how to make your own all-natural skin care from products you might already have in your own kitchen. 

548-2220, ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org 

$10 for members, $15 for non-members 

Third Annual David Brower Youth Awards 

6 p.m. 

Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way 

Celebrate the next generation of environmental activists at Earth Island Institute’s award ceremony. R.S.V.P. 

(415)788-3666, ext. 260, www.earthisland.org/bya 

Coastal Cleanup Day 

10 a.m. 

Work at the outflow of Strawberry Creek to clean up the San Francisco Bay coastline. 

info@strawberrycreek.org or 848-4008 

Free 

Saturday, September 21 

Fall Plant Sale 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

200 Centennial Dr. 

Annual plant sale featuring rare and unusual plants. Members-only preview and auction from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.  

643-2755, www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/ 

Free admission 

Saturday, September 28 

Free Legal Workshop: “Crossroads: Health and the Law.” 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

514 58th St. at Telegraph Ave. 

Navigate your way through legal issues when living with cancer or any serious illness. Panel presentation on employment, insurance and public benefits and one-on-one sessions with attorneys. Please, pre-register. 

601-4040 ext. 102(info.), ext. 103(reg.) 

Free  

There is a full slate of college soccer this weekend in Berkeley, with Cal’s men and women’s teams both playing two games against nationally-ranked teams. 

The women have a tougher pair of games, with No. 10 Texas and No. 3 Texas A&M coming into Edwards Stadium. This weekend is a rematch of last season’s trip to the Lone Star state by the Golden Bears (2-0). 

Texas (2-0) is led by forward Kelly Wilson, who recently returned from playing for the U.S. National Team at the inaugural FIFA U-19 Women’s World Championship. The Longhorns fell to Cal 2-1 last year in Austin. 

The Bears will be looking to avenge their first loss of last season against Texas A&M (2-0). The Aggies won 3-1 in College Station. 

Cal will welcome back senior forward Laura Schott, who missed last Sunday’s game against Purdue after drawing two yellow cards in the previous game. The Bears got some scoring punch from their freshmen last weekend, as winger Tracy Hamm scored two goals while classmate Dania Cabello racked up a goal and an assist against the Boilermakers. 

The Cal men will also face a team from Texas, No. 7 Southern Methodist, which is Cal head coach Kevin Grimes’ alma mater. The Bears will also face Portland, which outscored its opponents 9-1 at last week’s Nike Portland Invitational. 

The Bears started with a disappointing showing at last weekend’s Loyola Marymount Tournament in Los Angeles, falling 3-0 to Cal State Northridge before tying the host team 0-0. The youthful Cal squad is 75 percent underclassmen, led by the talented trio of Mike Munoz, Angel Quintero and Carl Acosta. 

Both the men will play before the women both Friday and Sunday at Edwards Stadium. The men take on Portland at 2 p.m. on Friday with the women facing Texas afterward, while Sunday’s action will kick off at 1 p.m.

The University of California fared well in the final state budget signed by Gov. Gray Davis Thursday, taking a relatively minor $108 million cut systemwide.  

The reductions include a $32 million cut in research dollars and a $67 million cut in university-run professional development academies for elementary, middle and high school teachers. 

But with the governor set to make $750 million more in state funding cuts by the end of the fiscal year in June 2003, university officials fear that the nine-campus UC system could face further reductions. 

“The bottom line for us is a lot of uncertainty,” said UC spokesperson Brad Hayward. 

Davis must make more cuts by June because democrats and republicans in the state Legislature, faced with a $24 billion shortfall, were unable to decide on the final $750 million in cuts and agreed to pass the responsibility on to the governor. 

Hans Hemann, legislative director for Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, said that Davis has spared the university from heavy cuts so far, and predicted that he will do the same when it comes to the $750 million in future reductions. 

“Considering how well the university system fared in the rest of the budget process, they will do well in that process as well,” he argued.  

The cuts approved Thursday drop UC’s state funding from $3.3 billion last year to $3.2 billion. State dollars account for about one-quarter of UC’s overall budget. 

The reductions include:  

n a $32 million, or 10 percent across-the-board cut in state funding for research 

n a $67 million cut in professional development programs, operated by the university, for K-12 teachers  

n a $10 million cut to a $32 million university-run program that installs high-speed Internet connections in K-12 schools  

n a $7 million reduction in outreach programs to K-12 schools  

n a one-time, $29 million cut from the university’s $150 million budget for equipment, library materials, deferred maintenance and instructional technology. 

The impact of the $108 million in cuts on UC Berkeley is unclear because the reductions apply to universitywide programs. But Hayward said the local campus will be affected. 

“There will be some impact,” he said. 

Hoku Jeffrey, a senator in UC Berkeley’s student government, raised concerns about the cuts in K-12 outreach programs, which are aimed at preparing students to attend UC. Jeffrey said the cuts could hamper the ability of the university to reach out to minority communities and develop a diverse student body.  

The Davis Administration and University of California hope to keep the professional development programs for K-12 teachers up and running by replacing state dollars with new federal funding from President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation. 

But according to Jennifer Kuhn, senior fiscal and policy analyst for the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which advises the Legislature, the federal money in question will go to K-12 school districts across the state, not the university. It will be up to those districts, she said, to decide if they want to spend the money on UC-run professional development programs. 

To the Editor: 

Your Sept 1. article “More trouble over housing,” might equally have been headlined “Citizens sue over city's violation of environmental laws.” Our lawsuit is primarily about the city's failure to abide by our state's strong environmental laws, principally the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). California courts have emphasized that the public holds a “privileged position” in the CEQA process “based on a belief that citizens can make important contributions to environmental protection and on notions of democratic decision making.” I regret that in a moment of frustration I should have suggested any link between the city and developers, for that is not the problem. 

As a matter of record, neighbors, supported by a petition signed by 400 residents, have consistently and repeatedly made clear to the developers that we had no objection to an appropriately scaled project with no more than three stories, in conformance with the West Berkeley Plan. Moreover, we challenged the developers to dramatically increase the amount of affordable housing, even to as high as 100 percent. The developers declined to accept this challenge of lower height but greater affordability. 

After the application's withdrawal last summer, and in expectation of its renewal, neighbors repeatedly asked both the developers and, in a special meeting, Mayor Dean, to send this matter to a qualified professional mediator. This request was made most recently in our appeal to City Council. With the city's July denial of a public hearing of the neighborhood's appeal, it rejected our request for mediation as well. Neighbors were left with no recourse but legal action. A score of inconsistencies with zoning ordinance, multiple conflicts with the area and general plans, 12 potentially significant and five significant environmental impacts, all inadequately considered. Any one of those impacts would trigger a full environmental impact report, and it is unavoidable that one should be performed for this project. 

We preferred citizen participation through dialogue and mediation, but the city left us with no alternative but the courts.  

Howie Muir, 

Berkeley

Winona LaDuke has used nearly every form of writing to tell the story of Native Americans through their eyes. Via essays, speeches, poetry and fiction, she’s been telling the tale of a wounded culture trying to restore ancient patterns of life, and how 19th and 20th century consumerism and militarism undermine those efforts. An overview of her oeuvre, The Winona LaDuke Reader, was published by Voyageur Press this year and will be discussed by the author at Black Oak Books on Sunday evening.  

While coming to the fore of national consciousness as Ralph Nader’s running mate in the 1996 and 2000 presidential campaigns, 42-year-old LaDuke has been in the political arena her entire adult life. As a spokesperson for Native Americans – she is half Anishinaabe, and lives on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota – LaDuke has connected causes such as environmentalism, women’s rights and cultural restoration.  

“She has so much good writing, we wanted to collect it,” said Margret Aldrich, the editor who worked with LaDuke on the compilation. Voyageur Press also published LaDuke’s novel Last Standing Woman in 1997. “She writes on lots of different subjects, so we thought it would be a worthy project.”  

The book includes a preface by Ralph Nader, and is divided into five sections: native environmentalism, native traditions, women’s issues, politics and the presidency, and fiction and poetry. But no matter what genre or topic, to LaDuke it’s all about the long-term preservation of a native heritage.  

“One of her philosophies is that we should be thinking about the next seven generations,” said Aldrich. In the speech announcing her Green Party candidacy with Nader in 2000 LaDuke said, “Until we have an environmental, economic and social policy that is based on the consideration of the impact on the seventh generation from now, we will still be living in a society that is based on conquest, not on survival.”  

In an essay on restoration of the sturgeon, a fish sacred to the Ojibwe, she writes, “I thought about how most of them (the fish) were twenty years my senior… and that this whole effort was not about my generation.”  

LaDuke also writes about what Native Americans consider a blood kinship with other living things. She begins the essay on sturgeon with the Ojibwe traditional tale of a grandmother becoming a fish, and concludes “[We] will come to know the fish again, the fish who are our relatives.”  

In an address to architects called “Building With Reservations” she quotes a Northwest native who said: “Our people hang the umbilical cords of our children from those trees. They are our relatives.”  

The pun in the title “Building With Reservations” displays a wry sense of humor often evident in LaDuke’s work, no matter the seriousness of the subject matter. Her essay entitled “The Diaper Problem” is full of humor, while still making the point that plastic, disposable diapers pose a myriad of health and environmental risks. Similarly, in the address to architects, she said, “The Creator did not say ‘Go forth Ojibwes and go to Safeway.’ ”  

One element of cultural pride is the maintenance of language, and LaDuke’s writing is sprinkled with Native American words and phrases. In fact, the final chapter of her novel “Last Standing Woman” is written in the Ojibwe language. She talked about the effect of language in a speech called “Honor the Earth: Our Native American Legacy.”  

“We are a language of eight thousand verbs,” she said. “That’s a lot of verbs. That’s what I always say, though. We’re a people of action.”  

The commitment to action led LaDuke into the U.S. elections of 1996 and 2000, and her glimpse into the most recent presidential race is enlightening. “We started working on this book right after election when it was at the forefront of her mind,” said editor Aldrich. LaDuke wrote several new election-themed pieces for this collection. She laments the Bush election in “Reflections on the Republic of Dubya,” an essay that skewered the 43rd president even before scandals like Enron hit.  

The fiction and poetry section includes an excerpt from “Last Standing Woman” entitled “Coming Home.” It is the story of an Ojibwe man named Moose who is charged with moving Native remains from the Smithsonian Institute to their original burial grounds in Minnesota. Here LaDuke is on familiar ground; the driver’s destination is White Earth reservation, where she now lives. The author’s inclusion of a somewhat patronizing DeadHead and a surprisingly cooperative state trooper add levity and poignancy to the tale.  

The Winona LaDuke Reader concludes with poetry. In “Song for Moab, Utah” she decries the use of native lands for both World War II internment camps and subsequent nuclear bomb test sites:  

And the earth screamed 

And the wind screamed 

And the people of the creation 

Lived with those radiation poisons 

And screamed in the night.  

She continues to expose historic truths like this, employing a variety of writing, as this collection demonstrates. As the poem concludes: 

And the earth never moved, 

Offended, pained, 

She was still in need of company and prayers.

n Freshman surprise: Redshirt freshman Chris Mandarino got his first start at fullback last week and made a good impression with three catches for 41 yards, including a great catch on an 18-yard touchdown reception. 

A quarterback, tailback and linebacker in at Newport Beach High in Newport, Mandarino has gained 20 pounds to make himself a more effective blocker as a fullback. A former walk-on, he earned the starting job and a scholarship this summer when senior Ryan Stanger was injured and took a medical redshirt. 

“Some things happened at the fullback spot, and I had the opportunity to win the job,” Mandarino said. “I won it, and I was fortunate enough to keep it in fall camp.” 

Head coach Jeff Tedford praised Mandarino for his all-around performance against Baylor. 

“He’s very dependable,” Tedford said. “He makes very few mental mistakes and he blocks well. If you’re a fullback in this system, you have to be able to catch the ball.” 

n A new tradition: Tedford called for fans to turn up early before Saturday’s game against New Mexico State. The team will arrive at Maxwell Family Field (formerly Kleeberger Field) at 1:30 p.m., two hours before kickoff, and march to Memorial Stadium. Tedford would like fans to line the route to cheer for the team. 

“I’ve seen it in other places and it can give you goose bumps. It would be great to walk and see the people show their support,” he said. 

n Injury report: Wide receivers Chase Lyman and Junior Brignac are both doubtful for Saturday’s game against New Mexico State. Lyman has been cleared for a broken finger but is still battling a hamstring injury, while Brignac has yet to recover from a sprained ankle. Defensive tackles Daniel Nwangwu and Josh Beckham, both starters before coming up injured before last week’s game, should both be available on Saturday although neither is listed as a starter. Lorenzo Alexander and Tom Sverchek started in their places against Baylor and should keep their positions again on Saturday. 

n Tricky: Tedford pulled out two trick plays against Baylor, both successful. He said trick plays will be part of the game plan every week, although whether to use them will depend on the game situation. The Bears used only one quarter of the game plan last week.

UC Berkeley again found itself in the hot seat Wednesday when plans to stop the distribution of red, white and blue ribbons on campus Sept.11 were blasted as un-American. 

“The allegation is an insult to everyone at this university,” said Chancellor Robert Berhahl in a statement released Wednesday night. “I deeply resent the implication that... we are unpatriotic.” 

University officials said that plans to issue white ribbons at campus memorial services next week instead of the more traditional red, white and blue, were meant to save money. Printing three colors instead of one is cheaper. 

However, after members of campus College Republicans criticized the white ribbons at a student government meeting Wednesday, the university decided to incur the expense and go with red, white and blue after all. 

“The campus is patriotic,” insisted Janet Gilmore, university spokesperson. “There will be red, white, and blue ribbons. There will be red, white and blue flags.” 

University officials expect thousands of students to take part in activities on Sept. 11, in remembrance of last year’s terrorist attacks. At the center of the ceremonies will be a campuswide moment of silence following the noon chiming of the Campanile bells.Campus republicans, though victorious in the recent color conflict, chided the university for wanting to “skimp” and have white ribbons at next week’s ceremonies. 

“For a school that spends so much money on political issues, like the Middle East... it’s ridiculous that they won’t spend money on some pro-America things as well,” said senior Seth Norman, managing editor of a student-run conservative journal. 

Others suggested that politics, not cost-savings might not have been the reason for the white ribbons. A white ribbon would not exclude students who disagreed with U.S. policy or were not from the country, some said. 

“They’re trying to keep a large majority of the students from participating because they didn’t want to isolate a small majority,” said Dave Galich, vice president of campus College Republicans. 

Student republicans alleged that white ribbons would have watered down the sanctity of the Sept. 11 ceremonies and prevented most students from expressing patriotism as they would want to – with American colors. 

University officials said the republican hype was merely an attempt to stir up right-wing media, admitting that the university had been an easy target in the past. 

“I will not allow the quiet moments from noon to 12:30 p.m., moments of prayer, grief, mourning and reflection... to be misused for political purposes,” Berhahl said. 

University officials said that memorial services held last year, six days after the terrorist attacks, drew 15,000 people and was symbolic of the campus’ patriotism.

To the Editor: 

A recent article in the Daily Planet (Aug. 28) seems to have left the impression in some quarters that I am “anti-growth.” For the record, I think Berkeley needs to grow – in certain ways: We need a lot of well-designed, well-built affordable housing, and a lot of well-run, accessible public transit. 

Councilmember Linda Maio's forum on gentrification last year made vivid what is happening in our town: Soaring land values have priced many longtime residents out of the market. With the state legislature’s weakening of our rent control law, Berkeley tenants have become especially vulnerable. Unless we provide a substantial amount of affordable housing in the near future, we are going to lose a prized aspect of our common life: our social, economic and cultural diversity. At the same time, we need to counter a mounting threat to our city's livability: paralyzing traffic congestion. 

Addressing these concerns is among the foremost goals of the city's new General Plan. The plan ties these goals together; it says that the best place for new housing is along major transit corridors. It also says that we need to increase massively the amount and quality of public transportation in the city. 

I will do what I can to support new transit-oriented development and expanded public transportation that, in the words of the General Plan, will help “preserve Berkeley's unique character and quality of life.” 

Zelda Bronstein, 

Chair, Planning Commission

OAKLAND – The Oakland Athletics have won 20 straight games, yet they all know they haven’t won anything yet. 

One look at the standings reveals what manager Art Howe reminds his players: Despite their thrilling charge to baseball’s longest winning streak in 67 years, Oakland is just 3 1/2 games in front of Anaheim for the AL West lead. 

With one poor series in the A’s final 23 games, the longest winning streak in AL history could become a memory. 

“That’s one of the most amazing parts of all this,” left-hander Barry Zito said. “We’ve been the hottest team in years, and we’re still one bad series away from second place. It just reminds us to treat every game the same way and not think about the streak.” 

The A’s, winners of every game on their schedule since Aug. 12, open a three-game series at Minnesota on Friday night with a chance to make their streak the second-longest in major league history. The Chicago Cubs of 1880 and 1935 both won 21 straight; the major league record is 26, set by the 1916 New York Giants. 

The AL Central-leading Twins, who lost three tough games at the Coliseum last weekend, will break out the famed Homer Hankies at the Metrodome to boost their fans’ enthusiasm as they attempt to end Oakland’s run. 

A’s right-hander Cory Lidle, the AL Pitcher of the Month for August after allowing exactly one earned run in six outstanding starts, faces Brad Radke in the first game. 

“These three games coming up will be the toughest we’ve played during the streak,” said first baseman Scott Hatteberg, whose pinch-hit homer in the ninth gave Oakland a 12-11 win over Kansas City on Wednesday night. “That’s a division-leading team playing at home. We’ll have to get a little lucky to come out of there with all three games.” 

No matter when it ends, the streak has given Oakland the push it needed to move ahead in baseball’s toughest three-team division race. 

When the streak began, Oakland was 4 1/2 games behind Seattle in third. The A’s needed seven straight wins to claim a share of the division lead, and they didn’t have sole possession until their 10th straight victory on Aug. 23. 

But not even a wild card berth is a certainty for Oakland. The struggling Seattle Mariners are seven games behind the A’s – but everybody in baseball learned what manager Lou Piniella’s players can do last season, when they won 116 games. 

The A’s have six games remaining against Seattle, including a three-game series in Oakland next weekend. The A’s final 20 games are against division opponents.

Two Berkeley High School students were injured during a brawl involving roughly 50 students Wednesday afternoon at Civic Center Park. 

“We’re investigating the incident right now,” said Co-Principal Mary Ann Valles, who refused to give details about the fight. 

Police took witnesses into the school for questioning but had not released any information at press time.According to witnesses, at approximately 3:40 p.m. a band of students left Berkeley High School and entered the park. One member of the group immediately began assaulting a male student at the northwest corner of the park, while the others cheered him on. The victim did not try to fight back, a witness who did not want to be identified said. 

A female student tried to break up the fight, but was also attacked. 

“Someone sweared at her and then a group of girls jumped her,” said Berkeley High School student Jared Amgott-Kwan. Several males also assaulted the girl, Amgott-Kwan added. 

The attack lasted five minutes, he said, and ended before police arrived on the scene. 

Both victims were visibly wounded from the fight, Amgott-Kwan said. “The guy had several welts and the girl had hair missing.” A witness said the girl was on the ground, crying and shaking and complained of an injured jaw. Student fights at Civic Center Park are fairly common, the witness said. 

Wednesday’s brawl was the first significant incident of this school year, said Lt. Cynthia Harris of the Berkeley Police Department. “Relatively, it’s been a quiet start of the school year.” 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Longfellow School parent volunteer Sue Dickey sings the praises of the school staff as triumphing over adverse conditions to bring a great education to her son. 

We need more of that kind of positive recognition of the daily heroic efforts of administrators, teachers, volunteer parents, staff aids, para-educators, garden coordinators, master gardeners, before and after school child care providers, food service personnel and others who mentor our children on a daily basis, school year after school year. 

Gardens on Wheels Association, a nonprofit, is a new local and regional organization devoted to preventing burnout among these helping constituencies by presenting comprehensive, inspirational awards ceremonies complete with music, speeches, testimonials and vide services. Once the legion of champions are recognized, many will forge on and new recruits will come on board. 

Thank you, Sue Dickey, for pointing up the need for more recognition. Trophies, plaques, certificates, service pins, gardening smocks, volunteer uniforms... all of these are available through Gardens on Wheels Association. 

Wendy Stephens, 

Berkeley

With a ballot initiative vote to improve pedestrian safety still two months away, the Berkeley Police Department Wednesday got a jump on dangerous drivers. 

Police dished out tickets to 34 drivers rolling through the intersection of Adeline and Fairview streets during a sting operation to protect the rights of pedestrians. 

Five officers on motorcycles crashed down cars that failed to yield to a pedestrian decoy during the one hour 45 minute operation. 

“I think it went pretty well,” said the operation’s supervisor, Officer Matt Meredith of the Berkeley Police Department Traffic Division. “When [drivers] see multiple officers patrolling an intersection it makes you think twice about racing through the crosswalk.” 

Pedestrian and cyclist safety is a growing concern in Berkeley. According to Meredith, one pedestrian and one cyclist have been killed on Berkeley streets this year, and the annual number hurt from collisions with cars is on the rise.  

To better protect nondrivers the BPD instituted the Pedestrian Right-Of-Way Enforcement Program in July 2001. Including Wednesday’s sting, the police have performed seven crosswalk operations throughout Berkeley, citing 223 drivers for not yielding to a pedestrian. Penalized drivers receive a $115 fine and one point on their license. 

Meredith said the program is being expanded to include two operations every month, and will address other blocks notorious for pedestrian injuries. So far police have patrolled the intersections of Addison Street and Martin Luther King Way, Telegraph Avenue and Oregon Street, Dwight Way and Acton Street and University Avenue and Grant Street. 

The start of UC Berkeley’s fall semester is the most dangerous time of year for pedestrians, said Officer Bob Rollins, who participated in Wednesday’s sting operation. 

A lot of students who just arrived from Southern California tend to be more lax about pedestrian right-of-way laws than locals, he said. “They move up here and they’re not used to the tight, cramped lanes and slower speed zones, so we end up teaching them the rules that have to be followed.” 

Rollins said that between February and May, he issued 400 pedestrian right-of-way tickets at the intersection of Oxford and Addison streets. 

Some residents, though, say the city still needs to do more to protect pedestrians and cyclists.  

Belmont police make first arrest with electric car 

BELMONT – Less than a week after the Ford Motor Company announced it would discontinue its Think electric car, the Belmont Police Department made its first arrest with the high-tech vehicle. 

Belmont police officer Chris Ledwith was cruising around the Twin Pines Park on Wednesday afternoon in the Think car--which police say resembles a golf cart both in appearance and performance--when he noticed smoke coming from the west end of the park. 

With a nearly silent motor and wide tires, Ledwith was able to drive over a dirt path and sneak up on a man who was stoking an illegal fire in a barbecue pit with leaves and sticks. 

“I never heard you coming,” protested 51-year-old Christopher Strei, who was arrested after police discovered that he was wanted for a theft in his hometown of Redwood City. 

Hayward Ford donated the car to Belmont Police last Thursday, a day before Ford Motor Company announced that it was giving up on the Think car after an investment of $123 million. 

Oakland woman surrenders  

on workers’ comp fraud 

OAKLAND – A 52-year-old Oakland woman who collected $41,000 in workers' compensation benefits after an allegedly illegitimate claim that she injured her back on the job has surrendered to authorities. 

Jeanette Deran surrendered Wednesday on a $70,000 arrest warrant charging her with committing workers' compensation insurance fraud, according to Scott Edelen, a spokesman for the state Department of Insurance. Deran is charged with six counts of felony insurance fraud, two counts of perjury, and two counts of grand theft. 

If convicted, Deran could face up to five years in state prison or a maximum fine of $50,000, or both. 

Deran allegedly reported to her employer that she injured her back on Oct. 28, 1997, Edelen said. She allegedly made false statements as to the severity of her injury to obtain additional benefits to which she would not have been entitled. 

Deran was videotaped doing activities she claimed she was unable to do as a result of her injury, Edelen said, and allegedly made false statements at her sworn deposition. 

Port talks yield benefits accord 

SAN FRANCISCO — Shipping lines and West Coast dock workers tentatively have agreed to a new benefits package, a sign that even as contract negotiations drag on neither side is ready for crippling labor unrest. 

Both sides signed the benefits agreement Wednesday evening, a day after rhetoric from shipping lines and the longshoremen’s union made trouble on the waterfront sound imminent. 

Spokesmen for both sides confirmed the agreement, but would not discuss its details Thursday. 

“Nothing is finalized until the whole package is done, but the idea is that the issue is resolved,” said Steve Stallone, spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. 

The union and the Pacific Maritime Association reached a similar accord during the weekend before a dispute over arbitration led to a breakdown in talks and a lapse in the contract. Brinksmanship followed — the union said it could stage a work slowdown, and the shipping lines promised a lockout in response. 

On Thursday, Stallone reiterated that because the union was not renewing the contract on a short-term basis, it legally could take a job action such as a slowdown. 

SF activists say  

Navy sonar kills whales 

The San Francisco-based Earth Island Institute stepped up its attack against the Bush Administration with a full-page ad in the New York Times protesting a whale-killing sonar system. 

The ad appeared in Wednesday's Times with the following question and answer: “How do whales tell us we're doing something wrong? They swim up on the beach and die.” 

Institute director David Phillips said the U.S. Navy's Low Frequency Active Sonar, which detects enemy submarines by sending sound pulses through the ocean, has killed whales in the Bahamas with a noise that he compares to “standing next to a Saturn V rocket on takeoff.” 

The Bush Administration has approved the sonar as long as certain modifications are made that Phillips say will not make a difference for the whales. 

“The Bush Administration's proposed ‘mitigation’ plan for the sonar is a complete sham,” Phillips said. “The Navy is trying to whitewash the deadly effects of LFA sonar by proposing an ‘If we don't see it, we don't harm it,’ approach to blasting the oceans with deafening sounds.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gray Davis signed a $98.9 billion hard-times state budget Thursday that makes $9 billion in cuts, trims the state payroll by 7,000 jobs and leaves Capitol budget players open to criticism they did too little too late to prevent worse cuts next year. 

Davis signed the budget two months and five days into the 2002-2003 fiscal year, which ends next June 30 — the latest budget signing in California’s recorded history. 

“Completing this budget was an arduous and difficult task and there’s more work to be done,” the governor said. “But any time you can bridge a $24 billion gap you have to feel you’ve taken a positive first step and I feel we have.” 

Davis’s fourth budget is $2.4 billion less than last year’s $101.3 billion spending plan and includes $41.6 billion in state and federal funding for elementary and high school education — more than 40 percent of all spending. Davis said it reflects a $3 billion increase over last year for schools, now totaling $7,067 per student. 

The budget also contains a $1 billion reserve fund and $235 million in vetoes. Among them, the governor nixed a proposed $50 million increase in the state’s Healthy Families program, which provides medical care for poor Californians. 

“The governor feels we can’t afford to expand it,” said Tim Gage, Davis’ top budget official. 

Other vetoes stripped $70 million from transportation funding, $13.8 million from children’s’ mental health services, $5 million from local air districts and $3 million from farmworker housing grants. The governor also cut $2 million from dairy waste-to-energy programs and $5 million each from local trauma centers and emergency medical services providers and $800,000 for family court services. 

The new budget reflects the continuing downturn in the state’s economy, which wiped billions of dollars off the state’s books, as taxes from stock options and capital gains evaporated with a stock market plunge. State lawmakers passed it last weekend after a record two-month impasse, using cuts, loans, and “revenue enhancements” to help fill a $23.6 billion gap. 

Gage said the administration will target state agencies for another $750 million in cuts by next June. The budget plan also calls to eliminate 7,000 positions among the state’s current 9,500 job vacancies. 

During a brief ceremony in his office, Davis signed the spending plan, which pays for schools, prisons and health care for the poor, while building highways and paying salaries of more than 250,000 state workers. Afterward, he took only a handful of questions from reporters, including one about possible election-day consequences from a budget 65 days late. 

“I regret the inconvenience it caused people,” Davis said. “I knew when I proposed this budget it would challenge both Democrats and Republicans.” Davis added that his budget cuts caused grief among Democrats and his “modest increase in taxes” made Republicans balk. 

“It took a while to work through that process,” he said. 

Davis also refused to speculate about raising taxes for the 2003-2004 budget year beginning next July 1. 

“I have no expectations one way or another,” he said.

SACRAMENTO — Crime in California increased 3.7 percent last year over 2000, the state attorney general said Thursday, though violent crime dropped 0.8 percent over the same period. Total property crime was up 6 percent. 

It’s the second consecutive increase after historic declines in the 1990s. 

The arrest rate dropped by 2.3 percent per 100,000 population — the 12th consecutive decline.  

Felony arrests among adults dropped 1.7 percent, and by 5.8 percent for juveniles. 

“California is at a crossroads,” Attorney General Bill Lockyer said in releasing the report. “The slight increase in the overall crime rate in 2001, after years of steep decreases, suggests that the long period of impressive annual decreases in crime has ended, at least temporarily.” 

But there’s no consistent trend, Lockyer said: While rates for four of the six major crimes increased, one dropped and one stayed steady. 

Homicides were up 5 percent, robberies up 4.2 percent, burglaries up 2.6 percent and motor vehicle thefts up 10.2 percent, according to the California Crime Index. However, aggravated assaults dropped 3.1 percent and rapes stayed unchanged.

SANTA CRUZ — Federal agents raided a marijuana farm Thursday and arrested the owners, who grow the pot for a medical users club, surprising community members and local law enforcement. 

Officers seized more than 100 marijuana plants, three rifles and a shotgun in the pre-dawn raid, said Drug Enforcement Agent spokesman Richard Meyer in San Francisco. 

Valerie and Michael Corral were arrested on federal charges of intent to distribute marijuana and conspiracy, he said. 

“These are incredibly compassionate people who’ve worked closely with law enforcement to help the sick and dying in our community,” said Ben Rice, an attorney for the Corrals. “This is absolutely outrageous.” 

Suzanne Pfeil, a patient at the club who was arrested during the raid and later released, said federal agents stormed her room around 8 a.m. in full assault gear, including helmets and semi-automatic weapons. They arrested everyone and uprooted the marijuana plants, she said. 

Zero-percent it and they will come. 

This seems to be the motto of mid-range car dealers in the East Bay who for several months have been offering free financing in hopes of boosting car sales. The Labor Day week was no exception, as final-clearance sales lured in customers. 

“Our wives are sunbathing and kids are asleep and we heard about this great deal with zero-percent financing,” said Archan Joshi, one of the hundreds who showed up at the Fremont Auto Mall last weekend. 

Mid-range dealers in the East Bay said sales over the holiday almost measured up to what they’ve seen in previous years. But year-to-date totals have been low compared to prior years. 

Some dealers suggested that the East Bay has been relatively lucky during the recent economic slowdown and that automobile sales have suffered less than in other areas of California. 

Billy Tave, a sales representative at McKevitt Volvo on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, said auto retailers in Berkeley have fared better than their counterparts around the bay.  

David Zaman, a sales representative at Auto Warehouse of Oakland, agreed that the East Bay was better off and said San Jose and Silicon Valley had been hit harder. 

“Sales are fine,” added Mark Fitzgerald, general manager at the Val Strough Company on Auto Row in Oakland. The economy “obviously affected us, but now [sales are] maybe a little below average,” he said. 

The small slump in car sales this year follows three years of record-high sales, according to the National Automobiles Dealers Association. Still, the weak economy is reflected in sales that are slightly lower than during the late 1990s economic boom.  

About 1.7 million new cars were sold nationwide in August, a high car sales month, according to NADA. That’s just over 17 percent more than cars sold in August 2001. 

The dealers association forecasts sales of 16.8 million this calendar year, a projected drop of almost 2 percent from the 17.1 million sold last year. 

Mike Ahmadi, a sales consultant at Connell Auto Center on Broadway Avenue in Oakland, said his dealership, too, has seen a slight dropoff this year. 

“The economy’s been bad for six months, but has picked up the last three weeks,” Ahmadi said. 

Labor Day played into the recent upswing in sales. 

“The Labor Day weekend is almost a traditional day to buy cars in America,” said Shacon Shokoor, a sales manager at Fremont’s Autowest Honda who has been in the business for 15 years. 

“Sales double over the Labor Day weekend. Look at our deals,” said Marcus Rahimi, looking over his fleet of new Mitsubishis on a lot in Fremont. “This last year has been very, very slow, but summer time it increased. Because of the special deals, the manufacturer does suffer in terms of profits but we get much more traffic.”

LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors announced a 36-count grand jury indictment Thursday against four executives charged with defrauding investors in a public technology company of $140 million in a “cook the books” scheme. 

Prosecutors allege three senior officers and an outside director of NewCom Inc. illegally inflated sales before Westlake Village firm’s 1997 initial public offering. 

In one case, a $3.7 million purchase order was allegedly recorded from a nonexistent company. 

“This case illustrates the serious and corrosive nature of crimes committed by corporate insiders, crimes which have affected too many companies in America and have shaken the nation’s faith in the securities markets,” U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said.

LOS ANGELES — EBay Inc. said Thursday it is considering legal action against a parody Web site called E-Gray that lampoons Gov. Gray Davis and is produced by his opponent’s campaign. 

“Obviously it has the look and feel of eBay without our permission,” said eBay spokesman Chris Donlay. “Whenever we see a situation like that we always take a good hard look at it.” 

“We are exploring our options and we’ll decide whether to take legal action or not,” Donlay added. 

E-Gray parodies the popular Web auction site by purporting to sell favors from Davis. It’s meant to illustrate one of Republican Simon’s principal accusations against the Democratic incumbent, that he runs a “pay-to-play” administration that favors those who make large political contributions. 

With its logo and color scheme it is clearly meant to mimic ebay. Simon staff said they intend to leave it online. 

“We think there are numerous differences, one of them being E-Bay clearly sells products to the public, while Gray Davis clearly sells public policy,” said Simon press secretary Mark Miner. “The only similarities there are is they’re both sold to the highest bidder. We stand by the Web site.” 

“This is once again another example of Bill Simon’s legal problems,” responded the Davis campaign’s press secretary, Roger Salazar. “He’s got several court dates over the next couple of months. I’m not sure they want another.” 

Simon is scheduled to testify Nov. 8 in the trial of a lawsuit in which he and other investors accuse the government of improperly seizing a savings and loan and costing them millions of dollars.

LOS ANGELES— A police officer arrested last week for alleged drunken driving was charged Thursday with manufacturing the “date-rape” drug GHB, prosecutors said. 

Officer Heather Sinock, 25, was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence after she arrived for work last Friday at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart station near downtown. 

Prosecutors said the GHB and other drug charges were filed after a search of her home and car. The three-year veteran of the department was jailed Wednesday in lieu of $600,000 bail. 

Deputy District Attorney Valerie A. Rocha said Sinock was charged Thursday with manufacturing and transporting GHB and possessing cocaine and methamphetamine, all felonies. She also was charged with driving under the influence, a misdemeanor. 

Sinock, who faces up to 13 years in prison if convicted, was scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday. 

Ten Berkeley police officers assembled outside headquarters in the dark, early hours Wednesday. 

They’re trained to handle shoot-outs, armed robberies and domestic disputes but none of that prepared them for what they were about to face – three days, 216 miles and 18,000 feet uphill, all on bikes. And all for charity. 

The 17th annual Turkey Ride, when it concludes Friday in the mountains of South Lake Tahoe, will have raised about $10,000 to help feed needy families this Thanksgiving Day and during the winter holiday season, say the participating officers from the city and UC Berkeley police departments. 

“The great joy is handing out the food baskets during the holidays,” said Lt. Bruce Agnew, who along with Sgt. Alec Boga founded the charity ride in 1985.  

“A couple of us went for fun in 1983 and during the trip we talked about turning it into a fundraiser.”  

The route is challenging. Day one takes them 125 miles into the Central Valley. Although the terrain is relatively flat there, the cyclists must withstand 100-degree temperatures and a breakfast at Jack in the Box. 

“It’s probably the worst breakfast you can have, but it’s open,” said Doug Hambleton of the BPD. Day two includes 68 miles and two grueling climbs as high as 8,000 feet into the Sierra Nevada. Day three consists of a 26-mile ride through mountain passes, ending at cabins in South Lake Tahoe. 

The rigors of the journey foster camaraderie. “After riding all day in up mountains, we get together for beers, slump against a wall and razz each other,” said Frank Onciano, a bike officer in downtown Berkeley. 

Some cyclists get heckled more than others. Onciano recalled one sergeant who acted a little too macho before his first ride. 

“He found out it’s not so easy when the sun’s at your back at 113 degrees,” Onciano said. “We haven’t seen him since.” 

Wednesday’s rookie was Lt. Adan Tejada from the UC Berkeley Police Department. Although he was unsure how he’d hold up, he expected the ride to be a relaxing alternative to his day job. 

“This is fun,” he said. “At work whenever you answer a call you never know if you will end up fighting for your life or somebody else’s.” 

In the months preceding the ride officers ask friends, neighbors and local merchants to sponsor them with 5-cent to $1 donations for each bicycle mile.  

Last year the cyclists raised enough money to give away 500 food baskets to needy Berkeley families. Each basket has food for about eight people. The food distribution is arranged by the Berkeley Boosters, a charitable organization affiliated with the BPD. 

The officers don’t just sacrifice their legs for the hungry; they forfeit something from their wallets. Each officer pays $125 to cover the costs of food and lodging during the trip. And the riders use three vacation days to make the trek. 

Lt. Mike Freeman, a retired UC Berkeley police officer and competitive cyclist, says the most fun comes November. “The best part of the ride is delivering the food on Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said. “That’s why we do it.” 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Councilmember Betty Olds says “When they bring a camera close to a woman’s crotch and try to insert a disabled man’s penis into a vagina – if you don’t call that bad taste, I don’t know what is,” (Daily Planet, Sept. 3). Well, now I’m intrigued, as a disabled person. I would love to watch a demonstration of the fact that disabled people lead full lives! I read this comment in Braille on the Internet, and I assume the speaker was making an assumption that disabled people wouldn’t bother reading it or be able to read it. Guess again. 

In all seriousness, however, it greatly saddens me that this kind of condescending tone is still used when referring to disabled people, as if our very lives are in bad taste. Hopefully this is a reminder that there is still a lot of awareness to be raised, and in that spirit, the ACLU is right on the button. 

Teresa Cochran 

Berkeley

Mekons front man John Langford did not expect his band to last 25 days let alone a quarter of a century when he started the Mekons along with Tom Greenhaigh in the late ’70s. But low and behold the band that hails from England is on the first leg of its 25th anniversary tour. The Mekons will bring their signature brand of English country rock to the The Starry Plough Pub tonight. 

Since emerging from the same Leeds University scene that produced post-punk legends Gang of Four in the late 1970s, the Mekons have undergone countless lineup changes. Langford and Greenhaigh are the backbone of the Mekons, and the only members to stay in the band throughout its history. Throughout the band’s existence critics have strained to pigeonhole them, comparing their music to diverse genres – from punk to traditional folk. Rather than waste time with comparisons some critics, such as legendary rock ’n’ roll critic Lester Bangs, who wrote the liner notes to the reissue of “The Mekons Story,” have simply called their music “important.” 

The lineup they are presenting on this tour piles an accordion and a Turkish instrument called a Saz on top of drums, bass, guitar and fiddles. 

“It's a wall of sound,” Langford said. 

The Mekons are touring to support their latest album called “Oooh! (Out of Our Heads),” released this May on Quarterstick Records. Along with the new songs, the Mekons will play some oldies that audiences have not heard for quite some time including “Lonely and Wet” of their 1979 debut album “The Quality of Mercy is Not Strnen” and “Teeth” a song off of a rare single released on Virgin records that the band has never before played live. 

“[These songs] didn’t sound the way they originally sounded,” Langford said. “I'm surprised how good they are.”  

The Mekons will aslo play on Friday at Slim's, 333 11th St., in San Francisco.

Thursday, September 5 

Jimmy LaFave 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $17.50 at door 

The Mekons 25th Anniversary Show 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$15 

Friday, September 6 

Caribbean All-Stars 9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Gehenna, Brainoil & Blown to Bits 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Tempest 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$10 

Saturday, September 7 

Freedom Song Network’s Twentieth Birthday Benefit Concert 

8 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

$10 to 50 (sliding scale) 

Hirax, Phobia & Lack of Interest 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Mark Growden’s Electric Pinata, Amor 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$6 

Rachel Garin CD Release Show 

8 p.m.  

The Freight and Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.thefreight.org 

$15.50 in advance/ $16.50 at the door 

Mystic Roots, Sangano, Elijah Emanuel & the Revelations 

9:30 p.m. 

Blakes on Telegraph, 2367 Telegraph Ave. 

848-0886 

$6 

Sunday, September 8 

Kulture Schock 

8:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Darryl Purpose 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Women Baring Soles 

7:30 p.m. 

Rose Street 

Featuring Irina Rivkin, Lorna Hunt and Lisa Sanders 

594-4000, ext. 687 for info. and directions 

$5-$20 

Monday, September 9 

Kris Delmhorst, Noe Venable 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tuesday, September 10 

DP & Rythym Riders 

7:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Wednesday, September 11 

The Rolling Requiem 

Doors open at 8 a.m.; performance begins precisely at 8:46 a.m. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Dana St. and Durant Ave. 

A sing-along performance of Mozart’s Requiem in every time zone to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001. All singers welcome and non-singers are welcome to listen. 

ucalumnichorus@ucchoral.berkeley.edu, www.ucac.net 

Free 

Lunasa 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$17.50 in advance, $18.50 at door 

Thursday, September 12 

The Clumsy Lovers 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$6 

Slaid Cleaves 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Friday, September 13 

Dope Sick, Mommy’s Friend and Cellofane 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

From Ashes Rise, Manifesto Jukebox & Submachine 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Garmarna 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $1.50 at door 

Moodswing Orchestra 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Saturday, September 14 

Amandla Poets 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

The Cheap Suit, The Serenaders 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$18.50 in advance, $19.50 at door 

Tipsy House Irish Band  

9:30 p.m. 

The Albatross Pub, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 

THE-BIRD (843-2473) 

$3 

The Good Life, Denail & The Velvet Teen 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Lisa’s Birthday Party: The Wore, Lemon Lime Light 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Sunday, September 15 

Fairport Convention 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Monday, September 16 

Anouar Brahem 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tuesday, September 17 

Cortableu 

8:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Wednesday, September 18 

John Dobby Boe & the Steve Slagle Trio 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Red Archibald and the International Blues Band 

9 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Thursday, September 19 

Houston Jones 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

The influences, Plus Ones and The Simple Things 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

841-2082 

$5 

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  

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 

Misch Kohn - Celebrating Sixty Years of Printmaking 

Sept. 12 through Oct. 16: Tues.-Fri., Noon to 5:30 p.m.; Sat., Noon to 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Arts Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

549-2977, kala@kala.org 

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 

Henry IV: The Impact Remix 

Through Sept. 8, Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 7 p.m. 

Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. 

Sept. 13 through 21, Fri. and Sat. 8 p.m. and Sun. 7 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. 

Impact theatre’s first Shakespeare production staring Rich Bolster as Prince Hal and Bill Boynton as Falstaff. 

464-4468, www.impacttheatre.com 

$15 general/$10 students 

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 

Sept. 5 through Oct. 12 

Thurs. through Sat. 8 p.m. 

LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre, 1834 Euclid 

234-6046 

$10 

The House of Blue Leaves 

Sept. 11 through Oct. 27 

Berkeley Rep's Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Berkeley 

647-2917 or 888-4BRTTIX 

$10 - $54 

The Shape of Things 

Sept. 19 through Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St. 

Play by writer/director Neil LaBute's spins a morality tale of a young art student, his art major girlfriend, and the Pygmalion-like changes that bring into question how far one should go for love. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35  

Saturday, September 7 

Bay Area Poets Coalition Open Reading 

3 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

West Branch Berkeley Public Library, 1125 University Ave. 

527-9905, poetalk@aol.com 

Free 

September 7, 12 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Civic Center Park, Center St. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

Poetry readings, presentations by environmentalists, interactive events and more. 

526-9105  

Sunday, September 8 

Poetry Flash @ Cody’s 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Ivan Arguelles reads “Tri Loka and Carolyn Grassi read “Transparencies.” 

845-7852  

$2 

Wednesday, September 11 

Poetry for Peace Benefit Reading 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Proceeds will benefit refugee relief agencies. Readings by Frances Payne Adler, Ivan Arguelles, Ellen Bass and Judy Grahns. 

845-7852  

$2 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Featured poets: George McKibbins and Sean Shea.  

841-2082 

$7 door, $5 w/ student I.D. 

Saturday, September 14 

Shirley Imura 

8 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 

527-9753, sheflerium@earthlink.net 

Free 

Wednesday, September 18 

Poetry Flash @ Cody’s 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave.  

Readings by Meg Kearney and Cornelius Eady. 

845-7852  

$2 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Featured poet: Anthony R. Miller 

841-2082 

$7 door, $5 w/ student I.D. 

Saturday, September 7 

Vertical Pool presents Three Experimental Narrative Videos 

8 p.m. and 10 p.m. 

TUVA, 3192 Adeline St. 

A screening of “Requiem For a Friend”, “Inertia” and “Roadkill” by Antero Alli. Filmmaker will be present. 

464-4640 

$7 

The Mersey Hot Shots, a Berkeley club soccer team, recently made the journey to Europe to take part in two of the world’s biggest soccer tournaments. The players kept a diary of their travels and experiences. The conclusion of the diary: 

Day 10 

After dancing all night at the disco, we emerged from our rooms rather tired and groggy. I think everyone wishes that we could stay here in Denmark another day, rather than keep traveling. From the ferry terminal we were taken to the Seacrest Hotel in Whitley Bay, England. The place is a little funky but very cute, and the people are extremely good to us.At the beach, the water was chilly but after running around in a scrimmage, some of the girls took a little swim. I think we’re all relaxed and have high hopes for the Newcastle Tournament. 

Rose Lockwood-Holden 

Day 11 

We walked to the train station to go touring in Edinburgh, Scotland. Three other American teams went as well. Our tour guide showed us beautiful buildings. After the tour, we went to the shops and ate lunch. The weather began to change from being foggy and chilly to rain. When we got back to Whitley Bay, dinner was being served just for us. It was the best dinner!  

Maritza Martinez 

Day 12 

Today was our first game at the Newcastle Tournament. We won 2-1 even though everyone on the sidelines was cheering against us. We are the only American girls team here and they all want to beat us. It was nice to go back to our beloved Seacrest Hotel where they congratulated us and we sat down to a delicious dinner made by Karen. Dennis and Karen are the owners of the Seacrest and they’re like our parents here in Whitley Bay. 

Mercedes Ruiz 

Day 13 

We had our worst game in terms of sportsman-like conduct. At one point in the game, a girl was hurt and the game was stopped for around 15 minutes. At the same time, it was a triumph because we won after being down 1-0 and then again 2-1. Well, so far we have kept up the expectations of Dennis since he said that every year the winning team stays in his hotel. I hope we can keep this up! 

Stephanie de Sousa 

Day 14 

Most of us woke up this morning grumpy and uninterested in visiting the Newcastle United Football Stadium, but once we got a view of the field, we became bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The grass was immaculate and the brightest shade of green. I guess seeing a professional footballers’ workplace gave us some inspiration to kick some English ass. 

As goalie, I can see what’s going on in the whole field. What I saw in today’s game would flabbergast you. Our opponents kicked, pulled, pushed, scratched, and swore the whole first half. Unfortunately, I got to experience that in the second half because I moved to my old position as forward. Fortunately, I scored twice, and our back-up goalie, Grace, saved a penalty kick! Overall the game was an interesting experience and I hobbled home and took some Advil. 

Perry Kramer 

Day 15 

Our first game wasn’t until 2:40 so we had the entire morning to relax and prepare for the game. Since it was the semi-finals, there were lots of people watching the game. The other team scored a lucky goal in the first half and that was the only goal of the game. We played very hard and controlled most of the game; we just couldn’t get a goal. It was very disappointing. The people who worked at the hotel came to watch and support us, too.  

We had dinner at the hotel, then went to a birthday party for the coach of the Idaho team who were staying in a nearby hotel. Karen baked us two huge chocolate chip cookies that said “Mersey Hot Shots” in frosting on them. 

Elise McNamara 

Day 16 

Today we left Newcastle for the long-awaited London. We woke up and ate our last breakfast with our favorite server Michael. Isn’t he just adorable? After loading all our stuff onto the bus, we were ready to take the eight-hour bus ride to London with the Idaho boys’ team. 

After a long drive, we arrived in London and, boy, were we happy to get there. 

Anya Schwin 

Day 17 

After breakfast, we set out on our tour. We boarded the underground towards Buckingham Palace to see the once-every-other-day changing of the guard. We walked through St. James Park towards Westminster Abbey. Then we made our way to the House of Parliament and the Thames River. It was beautiful. We walked towards St. James Palace and past Tony Blair’s residence. Some of the girls took pictures with a very solemn guard. We made our way to Harrod’s by double-decker bus, then we went to Oxford Street. I have never been so overwhelmed by shopping. 

Catherine Charpentier 

Day 18 

Oxford Street: A shopping mecca for women and men alike. As our tour guide said, “You could easily shop for days on this street alone.” And we might have done just that if it weren’t for our departure the next morning. As it was, most of the team shopped all day. I’d say the only setback we had today was the realization that we were no longer in our cozy B&B in Seacrest. No warm dinners would be waiting for us after a long, hard day of shopping. Poor us. 

Katie Lieberman 

Day 19 

Today has been very frustrating. We all awoke early, preparing ourselves for the last leg of our trip. Lines were long and tensions high, everyone was exhausted. We arrived at Gatwick Airport with only a short time before our flight to Minneapolis and from there to SFO. At the gate we received the news that our flight was delayed for 45 minutes. Then, we were informed to our disbelief that our flight was delayed 24 hours. Northwest put up the entire flight in hotels with free meals and breakfast vouchers. We were happily surprised when we found the hotel to be comfortable. We each had our own very spacious room, there was a swimming pool, gym, and the food was delicious. Although we haven’t forgiven Northwest, the hotel helped a lot, and we’ll try to put the morning behind us. 

Rose Lockwood-Holden 

Epilogue 

We eventually caught our return flight and everyone arrived home safe and sound, where we were met at the airport by parents and friends. Being a part of the Dana Cup was amazing because we interacted with teams from all over the world, which gave us a sense of belonging to a global soccer community. People were nice and very approachable and the tournament was well organized and ran smoothly. The Hot Shots conducted themselves very admirably throughout the trip whether under competitive pressure or while traveling. Overall, it was a wonderful trip and a great experience. Many thanks to coach/chaperone Laura VanWart.  

Steven Morrison, Coach

California’s majestic coast redwood and Douglas fir trees are susceptible to a pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death, UC researchers have confirmed. 

The discovery adds two more plant species to a growing list of 17 that can host the pathogen – Pythophthora ramorum – which has killed tens of thousands of oak and tanoak trees in California and Oregon since 1995, with no cure in sight for infected trees. 

UC researchers said it is unclear if the pathogen is fatal for coast redwoods and Douglas fir and that years could pass before its effects on the two species might be discovered. 

The long-term impact on the state’s ecology and economy, particularly its timber, nursery, landscape and construction industries, is also cloudy, the researchers said. 

But concern is growing outside the research community. Gov. Gray Davis said that in light of the new findings he sent a letter to President George W. Bush requesting $10 million in federal aid to fight Sudden Oak Death.  

The money would buttress the $2 million in state funding included in the 2002-2003 budget that Davis is expected to sign today. 

“Today’s announcement about Sudden Oak Death in Douglas fir and coast redwoods significantly raise the stakes,” Davis said in a statement Wednesday. “As a state, we will continue to tackle this serious economic and environmental problem but we need federal resources as well.”  

Additionally, the California Department of Food Agriculture announced Wednesday that it will restrict movement of coast redwood and Douglas fir from 12 California counties, including Alameda County, where the pathogen has been found. The restrictions already apply to the existing 15 plant species that are confirmed hosts. 

Researchers first discovered evidence of the pathogen on redwoods in January, but did not verify its presence until this week. 

UC Berkeley adjunct assistant professor of ecosystem science Matteo Garbelotto and UC Davis associate professor of plant pathology David Rizzo, the nation’s two leading researchers on Sudden Oak Death, made the confirmation after checking diseased trees in the wild and conducting tests in the lab. 

The scientists found infected redwood saplings in Jack London State Park in Sonoma County and Henry Cowell State Park in Santa Cruz County.  

They also found strong DNA evidence of diseased sprouts growing from the base of mature redwood trees in Marin, Monterey and Alameda counties – including a redwood tree on the UC Berkeley campus.  

Researchers first confirmed the presence of the problem on campus in November 2001, in other plant species. 

Garbelotto said that in recent months wherever researchers looked they found evidence in redwood trees, which suggests that the species has been susceptible to the pathogen for years. 

By contrast, researchers only confirmed its presence in one set of Douglas firs, in Sonoma County, suggesting that infection of that species may be new. 

Garbelotto also warned that there may have been something unique about the placement of the affected set of Douglas firs, found under a patch of heavily infected bay laurel trees. 

“We don’t know if there was something unique about that site that made the Douglas fir more susceptible to infection than in other areas,” he said.  

David Bischel, president of the California Forestry Association, an industry trade group in Sacramento, said timber companies have not yet found evidence of Sudden Oak Death on commercial land.  

Bischel said the industry’s chief concern will be preventing the spread of Phytophthora ramorum from urban and recreational areas to commercial logging territory. 

The organism spreads through cysts and spores that some of the affected species release during wet weather. The spores can travel in moist soil or through the air. People and animals can also track spores to uninfected areas. 

Ninety-five percent of the redwoods and 45 percent of the Douglas firs commercially harvested in California come from the 12 infested counties, according to Louis Blumberg, spokesperson for the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. 

Citizens who believe they have an infected tree on their property should not chop down a tree or add water or fertilizer to a tree’s base, Garbelotto said, as these practices might just exacerbate the spread of the infection. 

There is no known cure but initial research shows that chemicals used to treat a similar pathogen in Western Australia may have prevented the pathogen’s spread there. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Someone give Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington a job as a standup comedian. While his poem on Iraq was shoddily written and had poor meter, his comments concerning BCMTV brought the laughing lunatic in me to the forefront. The Daily Planet reported (Sept. 3) that Worthington said that if Berkeley implements the most restrictive censorship in the state its passage would send a message to other cities to do the same. Other cities have city councils full of adults who can make their own decisions, and we really should spend more time worrying about what happens in this city than in other cities that might decide to emulate, rather than maintain this Cold War era fear of the domino effect. Further, why is Mr. Worthington more worried about sending the wrong message to other cities than he is about sending the wrong message to children in Berkeley? Besides, is showing a bunch of naked people doing sexual acts expressing an opinion? And if so, what opinion? 

Your business is here, Mr. Worthington

An independent arbitrator ruled in favor of the local teachers’ union in a contract squabble with the Berkeley Unified School District over the new six-period class schedule at Berkeley High School. 

The ruling could force the district to dramatically reconfigure its high school schedule, which took hold last week at the start of the school year. But district officials hope to win the union’s blessing on the new schedule in exchange for concessions on other contract matters. 

Berkeley Federation of Teachers President Barry Fike said the union will likely go along with the district and agree to the six-period day in exchange for other concessions. Fike would not elaborate on the concessions BFT will pursue. 

“We certainly have some ideas,” he said. “[But] we don’t want to be rigid going into negotiations.” 

Negotiations start Monday and a second session is scheduled Sept. 12. 

The contract squabble is rooted in a February decision by the Board of Education to shift from a seven- to a six-period day at the high school starting this school year.  

Because the move allowed the school to cut a handful of teaching positions district officials called it a cost-saving measure for a cash-strapped district. The change also allowed the school to expand the length of classes from 45 to 55 minutes. 

But the union argued that the school board could not unilaterally move to a six-period day because the shift would violate its contract. The contract, which operates on a seven-period model, provides that teachers will instruct five periods, prepare during one period and supervise for a seventh period. 

The union contended that the move to a six-period day eliminated the supervision period, violating the contract and requiring formal negotiations. 

But the district argued that a “supervision period” could refer to any period of time, not just a traditional, full class period. Under this interpretation, the district could move to six periods, assign a teacher to supervise the front gate before school and still fall within the parameters of the contract. 

After the two sides failed to reach an agreement they went before independent moderator Morris E. Davis of Oakland on Aug. 2. 

That day Davis issued a preliminary ruling favoring the union. A final ruling, expected to mirror the preliminary finding, is expected soon. 

Associate Superintendent of Human Resources David Gomez said the district is prepared to abide by the arbitrator’s decision and looks forward to productive negotiations. 

“The district wants to continue to meet with the union in a non-adversarial mode,” he said. 

Gomez said the district does not have any proposals for contract concessions to offer BFT in exchange for support for the six-period day, and is curious to hear the union’s suggestions.

To the Editor: 

I was reading your Tuesday front page story about the ACLU warning to the City Council that the proposed ordinance censoring our public access channel is unconstitutional. My mind was blown, but not by what the ACLU said. The ordinance is clearly unconstitutional. How only a few complaining people are the cause of all of this hullabaloo is troubling.  

Although the fact that just two people actually complained to BTV about the two targeted shows puts the issue in a frame; it is giving the complaining people the power to limit free speech, which this ordinance does, that is unacceptable. But being the producer/host of the targeted Unlimited Possibilities and the sponsor of the targeted Susan Block Show, I knew how bad this ordinance is. 

What blew my mind is what Councilmember Betty Olds says in the article. It wasn't her admitting that “protecting the children” is just an excuse to get rid of shows she doesn't like. She has been quite up front about this. 

But my mind was blown when she made this outrageous statement: “When they bring a camera close to a women's crotch and try to insert a disabled man's penis into a vagina - if you don't call that bad taste, I don't know what is.” 

Wow! Disabled people making love is “bad taste”!? To get how offensive this statement is, substitute “black” or “gay” for “disabled” in her quote. She actually said that in Berkeley, with our large active sexy disabled community. It just shows how out of touch she is with the Berkeley community values. 

And Olds must have a very active imagination. I've racked my brain. But I can't remember such a scene in my show. Sure. I'm a disabled man. Sure. There is human eroticism on my show. But what Olds describes hasn't been on my show. And as far as I know, I've been the only noticeably disabled male appearing on Block's show. Enough to say, I haven't penetrated on BTV. Only in Olds' imagination. But I do plan to show for people such as Olds, the beautiful documentary by the famous Canadian film maker Linda Feesey about people with cerebral palsy as sexual beings. 

Frank Moore, 

Berkeley

Air pollution in west Berkeley is jeopardizing construction of a state-of-the-art homeless shelter and community space near Harrison Park. 

The pending 140-person Ursula Sherman Village project was put on hold earlier this year after the developer learned that repeated air monitor tests by the city’s Department of Toxics found high levels of Particulate Matter 10 in air at the site. 

City officials say that the pollution is caused by a nearby garbage transfer station and by automobile and train traffic.  

It can bring on asthma and other respiratory diseases in people living at the site. Users of adjacent sports fields have in the past raised health concerns.  

Delay in constructing the planned shelter stalls hundreds of homeless Berkeley families in their effort to re-enter society, said Boona Cheema, executive director of Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS), the nonprofit development group. 

“We will not put housing for the poor in a detrimental area, but there is no other place in the East Bay where we can do this,” Cheema said. “We have a crisis in this community.” 

The city has commissioned further air quality tests to make sure the readings at the site were accurate. However, if the latest readings stand, the project could be dumped. 

If it is built, however, the Village would be a “national model” for homeless shelters, Cheema said. 

The plan calls for three buildings: a renovated emergency care shelter at the site – the Harrison House, a transitional home for families – the Picante House, and a mixed-use community center and housing co-operative – the Village Center. 

The project would also include a three-step program aimed at getting residents back on their feet. 

New residents would enter the new Harrison House, currently a shelter with limited space, to get food, shelter and drug detox and have access to mental and physical counseling. 

The Picante House would serve as a transition center where residents would acclimate to increased responsibility. Here they would prepare meals and do domestic chores. 

Residents would then move into shared housing in the Village Center where they would live indefinitely in a supportive communal environment. They would work jobs outside of the Village to save money and to prepare for re-entry into society. 

The Village would house 140 residents including 45 children. All residents would have access to art, health and educational programs at the site. 

The project is both blessed and cursed by its location. 

Nestled in an industrial zone on city property, there is no nearby neighborhood organization that exists to oppose development. However, the lot is across from the Berkeley transfer station, a stopover for garbage on its way to landfills. Pollution there, with car emissions from nearby freeway traffic and trains, has contaminated the air, said Beck Cowoes of the Berkeley-based Ecology Center. 

Cheema said the dire lack of housing for Berkeley’s poorest residents should encourage finding a creative solution to the pollution problem. 

“Most of the affordable units built here are geared for people making just below median incomes, but there isn’t anything being developed for the very poor.” 

Cheema has already considered scaling down the project if the pending air quality reports turn out unfavorable. She may have to eliminate permanent housing at the Village Center. 

“I’m determined to build the village,” she said. “We’ve worked too hard and too long not see it through.” 

The city has given BOSS a favorable long-term lease as well as $650,000 toward construction. But the longer the air quality is in doubt, the higher BOSS’ expenses climb, Cheema said. Construction on the Picante House was scheduled to start this fall but has been postponed until spring. The delay has added to construction costs, she said. 

Meanwhile, BOSS stopped its fundraising drive because of uncertainty surrounding the project. BOSS has raised about $2.4 million of the estimated $6.6 million needed to complete construction. 

To the Editor: 

I just read your article on BTV's programming (Sept. 3) and I would like to point out a few things. 

Berkeley's proposed ordinance, if passed, would not be the most restrictive in the state. Many other cities in the stare flat out do not and will not allow programming like “Frank Moore's Unlimited Possibilities” and “The Dr. Susan Block Show.” Call the manager of the city of Pinole's community access channel. He can tell you how and why they don't allow this kind of programming. They have yet to be challenged in court. 

Why don’t you bring up the fact that most residents of Berkeley don’t know that we the tax payers are footing the bill for his crap? Should we pay for this crap? 

Dr. Susan Block and Frank Moore point out that their shows are the number one programs watched by Berkeley High Students and that they are doing the community a service. I believe it is still against the law to distribute material like this to minors. Where are the police in this? Who would they arrest, the city attorney for allowing this to go on? 

Have you watched the “worst” of these programs? Dr. Susan Block had one with women playing with themselves while urinating. (You see everything.) This show and others by Frank Moore clearly meet the FCC's definition of “obscene” material. Will the residents of Berkeley have to also pay any fines imposed? 

Call other cities and see how they keep control of their community access channels. 

Jim Hultman 

Berkeley

Berkeley police closed off traffic through the intersection of Ashby and Telegraph avenues for nearly two hours while they investigated a suspicious suitcase that turned out only to contain a sweater. 

The suitcase was reported at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday outside of a flower shop and police immediately cordoned off the area and restricted access to a nearby supermarket. 

Traffic was reopened at 8:24 p.m., police said, after “specially trained” officers found only a sweater inside the suitcase. 

No one in the area could provide information about the suitcase, though police are still searching for the owner.

The state Department of Fair Employment and Housing announced Tuesday that it has finalized a conciliation agreement with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory after an investigation based on a complaint filed in 1999 by nine Asian-American workers. 

The department said the laboratory will contract with an independent performance management expert who will examine the salary and promotion structure in place for engineers and scientists. Guidelines will be developed to ensure a non-discrimination policy and, one year after the guidelines are implemented, the lab's processes will be audited to verify whether or not the recommendations have been achieved. 

Specifically, the independent consultant will examine whether “racial stereotypes have been part of promotions, salaries, rankings and assignments,” the department said. 

Department Director Dennis Hayashi commended the laboratory on moving to reform its employment practices. 

“This agreement represents a true partnership between DFEH and the laboratory to ensure that any discrimination against Asian-Americans will be quickly and firmly addressed and resolved,” Hayashi said.

The Oakland Police Department's Homicide Division was at the scene of an apparent homicide Wednesday morning at the 1600 block of Adeline Street in West Oakland. 

At 7:15 a.m., patrol officers in the immediate area discovered a single victim with apparent gunshot wounds, a police spokesman said. 

A representative for the Alameda County Coroner's Officer reports that investigators were called to the scene at roughly10:30 a.m. 

Also Wednesday morning, Oakland Police questioned a man who attempted to shoot his wife but was tackled by her family members before he could pull the trigger. 

At the 2900 block of Fruitvale Ave. police arrived shortly after the 911 call at 10:36 p.m. and family members pointed out the husband's car as he left the scene. 

After a short pursuit, police took the man into custody for questioning. 

The man apparently tried to shoot his wife with a pistol but did not realize the weapon was on safety, police say. 

Before he could take the safety off, however, the woman's family members wrestled the gun out of his hands and forced him out of the house.  

Police say the pistol fired during the tussle but no one was injured. 

“It was a serious attempt,” said an Oakland police officer. “He was trying to finish her off.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gray Davis said Wednesday he will eliminate another 1,000 government jobs on top of the 6,000 already slated to be cut so that the “size of government reflects the revenues that are coming in.” 

Davis is set to sign the budget on Thursday, more than two months after the state spending plan was to go into effect. The $98 billion budget uses a combination of borrowing, program cuts and taxes to cover a record $23.6 billion deficit. 

The Legislature passed the budget Sunday after a two-month standoff over proposed tax hikes. 

Davis said Tuesday that he plans to “veto some additional money,” but he has not said how much it will be or where it will come from. He was asked by the Legislature to cut $750 million from state agencies and departments rather than programs. 

“I won’t have the specifics of it until late tonight or early tomorrow morning, but the bottom line is, this year’s budget will be less than last year’s budget,” Davis said Wednesday. 

State lawmakers say they are already gearing up for future budget battles. Last week, Controller Kathleen Connell said that revenue for June, July and August were below expectations, meaning the $23.6 billion deficit could jump to $27 billion before the state’s fiscal year is over. Critics have said this year’s budget does nothing to solve the future budget shortfalls. 

“The budget did little to address declining revenues and nothing on a permanent basis,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan policy research group. 

Assembly GOP leader Dave Cox said he plans to ask Democrats to allow an equal number of Republicans on the conference committees the produce the budget proposals, which he says would make it easier to negotiate a budget early on. 

“Most Republicans believe they are involved in the process too late,” Cox said. “It’s a situation where we have to get started as early as possible.” 

As part of the budget agreement, the Legislature will also create a committee of lawmakers to study ways to improve the budget process. 

LOS ANGELES — Bill Gates introduced Microsoft’s newest multimedia software in Hollywood on Wednesday, promoting his company’s bid to make its technology central to tomorrow’s digital home entertainment center. 

The Microsoft chairman took the wraps off a preliminary version of Windows Media 9, whose technical improvements make online video look more like television and boost audio quality. 

The launch is the latest salvo in an intensifying battle for control of the market for multimedia players, software that runs and organizes entertainment files on consumer PCs. 

The upgraded product represents Microsoft’s latest attempt to win the support of the entertainment industry and dethrone Seattle-based RealNetworks as the leading provider of media player software. 

RealNetworks held a slim lead in the market with 30.8 million home users in June, compared with 30.1 million home users of Microsoft players, according to the research firm comScore Media Metrix. The numbers do not include media players embedded in Web browsers. 

“This is a hugely significant release, but it’s not game over yet for anyone,” said Michael Gartenberg, research director of Jupiter Research in New York. “RealNetworks is not going home.” 

Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, said in an interview that Microsoft multimedia software is “emotionally unsatisfying” because it only plays content designed for the Windows standard.

SACRAMENTO — California teachers and health insurance companies are teaming up to get more kids enrolled in the state’s public insurance programs. 

The California Teachers Association and the California Association of Health Plans announced Wednesday they are launching an outreach campaign to let more low-income and minority families know about the state’s no-cost Medi-Cal and low-cost Healthy Families programs. 

Roughly 1 million California kids are uninsured even though their families are eligible for public insurance, said Walter Zelman, president of the California Association of Health Plans. 

“We have made some progress, but not enough,” Zelman said. “One reason, we realized, was that virtually all outreach programs — ours and those of others — were missing one major link: California teachers.” 

The associations hope to train teachers about public health insurance programs and provide materials that can be handed out to students and parents. 

The programs are open to low-income and working families that earn up to 250 percent past the federal poverty limit, which is about $42,000 a year for a family of four. Entire families can get medical, dental and vision coverage for about $30 a month. 

The campaign is funded by a $500,000 grant from The California Endowment, a health foundation formed when Blue Cross of California converted from a nonprofit into a for-profit company. 

Educators and health officials hope the one-year campaign will lead to healthier kids and better performance in school. 

“We can’t teach to an empty desk, but we also know every kid deserves a healthy chance to learn,” said Wayne Johnson, president of the California Teachers Association.

The city’s youth soccer teams began practices Tuesday. But league officials said that Berkeley kids who dream of being the next Pele or Mia Ham barely have room to stretch. 

The problem, they say, is overcrowded sports fields. As has become customary in Berkeley, multiple teams are crowding onto a single field for practice because a shortage of sports fields is cheating neighborhood kids out of the chance to play team sports, field advocates say. 

“We have a waiting list for kids trying to get into the league,” said Alan Fong, President of the Albany-Berkeley Soccer League (ABSL), which organizes 1,000 kids into 63 teams. 

At least 10 kids who wanted to join the league have not been admitted. 

Bearing the brunt of the field shortage, league officials say, are minority kids. 

During the mid-1990s the ABSL tried to recruit more black and Latino youth into its ranks. However, now that space is so restricted, that effort has slowed, said Tim Perry, former president of the ABSL. 

“It’s impossible to do outreach if there is no place for more kids to play,” he explained. 

Berkeley operates 14 sports fields. According to city officials, Berkeley’s field space is only one-fifth the amount of most similarly sized cities. During the busy spring and fall seasons, soccer, softball, baseball, football, lacrosse, rugby and ultimate Frisbee clubs all compete for precious turf. 

Everybody in the sports field tug-of-war ends up a loser, said Perry. “We could have 250 to 500 more kids in the league if we had the fields for them to play on,” he added. 

The main reason for the shortage of play space is the soaring popularity of girls’ athletics, said Doug Fielding of the Association of Sports Field Users. Since 1990, the number of Berkeley girls playing soccer and softball has risen from about 40 to 750, but the city has added only four new fields, he said. 

The problem, added Perry, is the dangerous practice of mixing different teams on the same practice field. “One year, we had a 10-year-old soccer team sharing a field with two adult rugby teams. It was an interesting and slightly scary contrast.” 

The field shortage is even worse in the spring, when baseball and softball leagues operate. According to Perry the 1,000-member fall soccer league shrinks to 600 in the spring because there are fewer available fields. Practices are also cut in half, from three to one-and-a-half hours a week because of overcrowding. 

The dearth of sports fields affects more than youth soccer, Perry said. Adult leagues often have to schedule games late at night to accommodate children playing during the evening, and pick-up games are stymied because fields are always in use.  

Berkeley public schools are also in a bind. The Berkeley High School baseball team plays its home games at San Pablo Park, about a mile from the school, because it lacks a suitable facility on campus. 

The periodic skirmishes between teams sharing space pale in comparison to the political clashes under way to build more fields. 

In 1999 the city opened Harrison Park at Fifth and Gilman streets. The park added four fields to Berkeley’s collection, but sport field advocates say that at least nine more are needed to meet the growing demand. 

Several years ago a plan to build a baseball diamond and permanent farmer’s market at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Derby Street was shot down by neighbors. Mayor Shirley Dean recently called for the project to be reconsidered. 

This year, a proposal by park planners to build five fields at the Albany Plateau in Eastshore State Park has angered environmentalists. According to Robert Cheasty of Citizens for an Eastshore State Park, the chosen site is better suited for informal recreation, and young children could disturb migratory birds that nest on the mudflats just north of the proposed fields. 

Cheasty and a majority of Berkeley City Council members propose that Berkeley join with nearby cities to purchase land owned by the Golden Gate Fields racetrack adjacent to Gilman Street and convert the land into athletic fields. But field advocates say there is no guarantee that the race track land will be purchased and converted into fields. 

“Every time we try to build fields, a group forms and says ‘No, not here,’ ” said Fielding, defending the inclusion of fields at the state park. “If they don’t get built at the state park, they may not get built at all.” 

Contact reporter at matt@berkerleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

I can understand why City Council members insist on building playing fields in Eastshore State Park even if the parks will destroy irreplaceable habitat. 

After all, the red wing blackbirds and Canada geese aren't a voting bloc and they don't spend money in Berkeley. Suggestion: Current usage of the Cesar Chavez dog park doesn't warrant its acreage. Dog owners seem to prefer less sterile environs like the Berkeley Meadow. Why not designate some of the dog park acreage for playing fields? They'd be just as windy as the ones proposed for the North Basin area but the habitat would be preserved. If not overturned now, the Eastshore State Park plan to destroy the small area left of the natural world at the western edge of Berkeley will be an extremely myopic decision, not to say tragic for the myriad species who live there now.  

Maris Arnold, 

Berkeley 

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 

Tuesday, September 3 

The Listening Post 

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

Wesley Student Center on Bancroft Way near Dana Dr. 

The Listening Post is a safe, non-judgmental, non-denominational place for students to talk about whatever may be on their minds, or weighing on their hearts. 

549-1244 

Free 

Opening of Classes 

Berkeley City Ballet 

1800 Dwight Way  

First day of classes at BCB. Classes Monday through Friday for children 5 and up. Student performers are invited to audition annual Nutcracker performance.  

841-8913 

Wednesday, September 4 

Green Party Meeting 

6:30 p.m. 

Grassroots House, 2022 Blake St. 

Discussion of the Berkeley races and measures as part of the Green Party of Alameda County endorsement process. All Greens are welcome regardless of Berkeley residency. 

http://cagreens.org/alameda/county  

Lecture: Hitching a Lame Horse to a Broken Wagon 

7 p.m. 

126, Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley Campus 

lecture on the the government’s attempt to link the drug war to the war on terror—featuring Sanho Tree from the Institute of Policy Studies. 

stopdrugwarnow@cs.com 

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 

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.berkeley.edu 

Free 

Saturday, September 7 

Watershed Environmental  

Poetry Festival 

Noon to 5 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Park 

A day of poetry, music and environmental activism. Exhibits. Open poetry readings.  

Strawberry Creek Walk starts at 10 a.m. at Oxford and Center streets. 

526-9105 or www.poetryflash.org 

Free 

Sick Plant Clinic 

9 a.m. to noon 

University of California Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 

UC plant pathology and entomology experts will diagnose what ails your plant.  

643-2755 

Free 

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. Event includes a health fair, food, prizes, live music and free insurance eligibility screening. 

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.solanostroll.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 

Prostate Cancer Lecture 

2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way 

Understand the risk of prostate cancer and how to detect early symptoms from a survivor. 

869-6737 

Free 

Tuesday, September 9 

Arts Education Network 

6 to 8 p.m. 

James Irvine Foundation Conference Ctr., 353 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza 

208-0842 

Berkeley Gray Panthers Home Owners Meeting 

3 p.m. 

1403 Addison St. 

All welcome. 

548-9696 

Free 

Tuesday, September 10 

Brown Bag Career Talk 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way 

Cynthia Weekly, Senior Recruiter with UC Berkeley Office of Human Resources will provide information on the process of seeking temporary and permanent employment at UC Berkeley. 

848-6370 

Free 

Michael Newdow: Lecture 

8 p.m. 

2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley Campus 

Michael Newdow is a Sacramento physician with a law degree whose case against the common procedure of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools fueled national uproar last summer.  

USE-SANE, sane@ocf.berkeley.edu, http://www.BerkeleySANE.org 

Free 

Wednesday, September 11 

One Year Later, a  

Peace Vigil and Meditation 

6 to 7:30 p.m. 

West entrance of UC Berkeley Campus near the corner of University Ave. and Oxford St. 

The Buddhist Peach Fellowship invites people of all traditions to bear witness to the continued suffering related to Sept. 11, 2002. 

223-0683, www.bpf.org 

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.  

Caterina Rando discusses her new book Learn to Power Think: A Practical Guide to Positive and Effective Decision Making 

Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. 

559-9184, www.bookpride.com 

Friday, September 13 

Lecture by Dr. Paul Farmer 

7:30 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church, 2640 Addison St. 

Dr. Farmer will speak on Health Care and Human Rights: Solidarity with the Haitian People. Benefit for Partners in Health. Music by Vukani Mawethu Choir. 

558-0371 

$5 to $15 donation 

Triumph is a feeling the current crop of Cal football players haven’t had in a while, and they savored it over the weekend following their 70-22 thrashing of Baylor to open the 2002 season. But by practice time on Monday afternoon, it was back to business. 

The Bears face New Mexico State on Saturday, a team that took 18th-ranked South Carolina to the fourth quarter before falling, 34-24. Although the Aggies aren’t a powerhouse, they should be a much more formidable opponent than hapless Baylor. 

“Everyone has realized that we should have won that game,” senior linebacker Matt Nixon said Tuesday. “Not to degrade our win, but we know this week will be a totally different ballgame.” 

Head coach Jeff Tedford got a huge win in his first game as the leader of a college program, but he has emphasized preparation for the next game rather than basking in the glow of victory. Even immediately after the game Tedford was subdued, complimenting his players and coaching staff and avoiding questions about his own role. 

Of course, winning is nothing new for Tedford, who helped turn Oregon into a national power before coming to Berkeley. His players, on the other hand, may need training in how to react to a dominating win, and that’s where Tedford has the greatest influence. 

“Football is a roller coaster,” Tedford said. “You have to keep on an even keel, you don’t want to get too high or too low.” 

The new head coach clearly wants to avoid the pitfalls of last year’s 1-10 debacle, when early lowlights led to complete collapses in nearly every game. He has stressed positive reinforcement since his first meetings with players and coaches. 

“We talked about that a long time ago, starting with spring practice,” Tedford said. “It was very evident that anytime they made a mistake their heads would go down. They lost a lot of self-esteem last year, which is to be expected when you have a season like that.” 

Tedford’s attitude has rubbed off on the majority of his players. Almost to a man, they say the new head man makes them want to play hard and believe in themselves. 

Nixon said the team’s new attitude would help even more in tough situations than in a game like the Baylor blowout. After all, it’s not too hard to keep your head up when everything’s bouncing your way. The true test will come when an opponent takes a lead on the Bears. 

“I think we’ve developed a sense of confidence,” Nixon said. “If [the Aggies] do get up early on us, we’re not going to lay down and let things pile up.” 

The Bears reflected their coach’s philosophy about on-field celebrations as well despite ample opportunities to play to the crowd. Freshmen Chris Mandarino, David Gray and Marcus O’Keith all scored their first collegiate touchdowns against Baylor, and cornerback Jemeel Powell and Nixon each returned an interception for a touchdown. But none spent much time hamming it up in the endzone, instead choosing to celebrate with teammates in the bench area. Of course, Nixon was probably happy just to make it back to the bench without falling over after his 102-yard return. 

“We discussed winning with class, not downgrading the opponent,” Tedford said. “It’s all about celebrating with your teammates. There’s no need to single yourself out just because you scored.” 

Mandarino, who made a seemingly impossible catch under a defender’s arm for his touchdown, said he nearly went full-on Terrell Owens before reining himself in. 

“I was pretty excited, and I almost went crazy,” he said. “It was my first game and my first touchdown, just an unbelievable moment.” 

While Tedford and the players were saying all the right things about moving past the Baylor game, there was an undeniable bounce in the players’ steps as they walked into Tuesday’s press conference. Senior quarterback Kyle Boller had a grin on his face the entire time he was in the room, a complete turnaround from his weary demeanor as last season wore down. 

“I’m excited. I wish we were playing tomorrow,” he said. “I’m just fired up, and it’s been a long time since I felt this way.”

The state Legislature passed a bill last week that would forgive a $1.16 million state fine that the financially-strapped Berkeley Unified School District owes for being late with paperwork. 

The legislation, sponsored by state Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, directs Berkeley Unified to spend the $1.16 million on consulting services and reform efforts within the school district. 

The bill now awaits the signature of Gov. Gray Davis, who vetoed similar legislation two years ago, arguing that it would set a dangerous precedent. But Aroner’s office negotiated the new legislation with the governor’s Department of Finance and expects Davis to sign it into law. 

“My presumption is, since the Department of Finance signed off on the bill... the governor will sign the bill,” Aroner said. 

The state fined the district $1.16 million after it failed to file a staff development form documenting several teacher training sessions by the state’s Oct. 31, 1999 deadline. The state required the form to reimburse school districts for the teacher development days. 

Berkeley Unified officials have acknowledged that the district’s staff was negligent when it failed to meet the deadline, but have long argued that late paperwork should not result in such a hefty fine. 

The Aroner bill, which passed the state Senate 22-10 Wednesday and the Assembly 60-18 Friday, assists school districts other than Berkeley Unified. It also forgives more than $700,000 in fines owed by the neighboring Emery Unified School District for its employment of two improperly certified teachers. 

The bill, AB 2859, also reduces the fines for any districts that in the future make the same mistake that Emery made. 

“The formula was way out of whack,” said Aroner. “Now the punishment fits the crime.” 

Aroner’s legislative director Hans Hemann said the Davis Administration’s recognition of the larger problems with the state’s formula for fines, laid bare by the Emery situation, contributed to its recent support for the bill. 

Previous attempts to deal with the Berkeley fine in isolation were not as compelling for the administration, he said. 

The Department of Finance did not return calls for comment. 

Berkeley Unified has already shelled out $580,000 in fine payments over the course of two years and is scheduled to pay the remaining $580,000 in the next two years. 

But if the Aroner bill becomes law, roughly $700,000 of the $1.16 million, including the money already paid to the state, would be redirected to the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team, a state-sponsored fiscal adviser that has been working with the Berkeley Unified School District since last fall. 

FCMAT would use the $700,000 to develop a five-year district improvement plan by July 2003 covering several areas: instruction, financial management, facilities management, personnel management and community relations. 

The district would use the remaining $460,000 to implement reforms, with FCMAT providing a report on implementation by June 2005. 

The district, despite millions of dollars in cuts, still needs to make about $3 million in reductions to balance the 2002-2003 budget. Because it is still in the process of tightening its belt, Superintendent Michele Lawrence said the district plans to keep FCMAT in place at least through the end of the year.  

If the Aroner legislation passes, Lawrence said the district could use funds previously allocated for fine payments to cover its FCMAT bill, improving the district’s overall budget picture.  

Ultimately, Lawrence said, a better budget picture will benefit students. 

“It is in the best interests of the children of Berkeley and the state for [Davis] to sign this bill,” Lawrence said. “Penalizing children for the failure of adults makes no sense.” 

Neither Lawrence nor FCMAT officials said they could provide an accurate estimate of how much money the district has spent on FCMAT services and how much might be saved if the Aroner legislation passes. 

Davis has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bill. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net

To the Editor: 

I am compelled to answer a response to my Aug. 21 letter “Be careful to classify a hate crime.” Mark Schickman's letter on Aug. 29 was particularly vitriolic. 

Mr. Schickman described me as a “veteran anti-Semite” who “takes a page from Nazi Germany.” 

I accept Mr. Schickman's right to an opinion, but he overstepped the bounds of reasonable public debate by publishing falsehoods that do nothing for the discussion and only serve to smear me. 

What incurred these remarks? I wrote that there should be standards for calling something a “hate crime” in order to maintain the term's integrity. Mr. Schickman's reaction, in the end, cheapens anti-Semitism and the horrors of the Nazi genocides. 

This is indicative of my original point. Mr. Schickman demonstrated why terms such as hate crime or anti-Semitic must be used cautiously. His loose use already diminished the significance of these terms. He compared me and my letter to the editor with Hitler's industrial killing machine. 

His words are not only a profound insult to myself, but to my many Jewish friends who themselves or whose family members have been victims of real anti-Semitism, not the kind tossed at those who disagree or criticize Israel. 

If he values truth he will publish an official apology to myself and those victims of real anti-Semitism for cheapening it. Or, he should try to substantiate his reckless and irresponsible claims. For the sake of those Jews who I have worked, studied, and lived with, I demand it.  

Will Youmans, 

Berkeley 

The worst fear of city planners, whose affordable housing plan was rejected by the state earlier this summer, may come true. 

A developer, who says the city’s rejected Housing Element doesn’t have to be followed, is threatening to use the courts to prove her point. The challenge could open the door for other developers to skirt Berkeley’s zoning rules. 

Lynda Hart and her mother are threatening the suit. They say that without a valid Housing Element the city must accept their proposed three-story, 16-unit apartment complex at 1155 Hearst Ave. Four of the planned units would be zoned for Section 8 affordable housing. 

In July, the Zoning Adjustment Board denied Hart’s plan.  

The board ruled that the street had been rezoned that year to prohibit new buildings taller than two-stories. Instead of redesigning the development, Hart and her attorney, Rena Rickles, say they will sue the city on grounds that California housing law forbids Berkeley’s zoning regulations to stop affordable housing. 

Hart said the city’s rezoning of her block after she submitted her plan amounted to an illegal constraint because a smaller development would have yielded fewer affordable units. 

Paul Shain, who lives behind Hart’s property, disagreed. He said rezoning the block corrected an anomaly that if not rectified would have encouraged more large apartment complexes, destroying the character of the neighborhood. 

Zoning officials also rejected Hart’s argument, asserting that the California law was designed only for cities that opposed affordable housing. 

Because Berkeley had laws requiring projects to include affordable housing and had produced more than its share of affordable units, the city did not have to approve Hart’s project, ZAB members said. 

But three weeks later, the California Department of Housing and Community Development rejected Berkeley’s housing element plan that aimed to meet the state-mandated goal of 1,269 affordable housing units, saying the plan contained too many development restrictions. 

Hart says the rejection of the plan will help her case. 

“Since they don’t have an approved housing element they don’t have a leg to stand on,” said Hart. 

Although Berkeley officials don’t agree with Hart’s interpretation of state law, Alexander Amoroso, senior planner with the Association of Bay Area Governments, said that without a valid housing element Berkeley is vulnerable to such lawsuits and has the burden of proving that it is meeting its quota. 

If a suit is filed, it will be the first challenge to city zoning regulations based on state housing law. A victory by Hart could usher in more lawsuits, but local developer Patrick Kennedy questioned the suits potential for an impact. 

“We do a lot developments so it’s never been productive to sue the city,” he said. 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Chris Kavanaugh's rebuttal to my letter regarding the city's housing policies admirably recited the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) doctrine, but the HTF is only one of several funding opportunities offered. In fact it's hard to tell how much the city receives in housing funds and where the money is going. Reading through the Housing Element, CAPERS and Redevelopment statements I see that two nonprofit housing corporations have been certified as self-monitoring and self-inspecting, and they receive the lion's share of city housing funds. Project-based Section 8 limits tenants' freedom to contact codes and inspections or other agencies regarding repairs since tenants who complain risk homelessness. Without the protection of the Good Cause Eviction Ordinance and an annual inspection program there is nothing to compel corporate landlords to maintain city funded properties. 

As a member of Redevelopment's PAC, my concern about the city's housing funds began when I noticed that the city's official housing reports mentioned only the Redevelopment Agency's 20 percent set-aside contribution, ignoring over $6.5 million in additional agency subsidies. One project with a final value of less than $403,000 received $411,207 in agency funds – more than the total required for the project. Agency contributions are credited to the HTF while others are simply omitted, such as $2.5 million-plus for the Rumford Plaza project and $650,000 for the UA Hotel. City- and agency-owned properties are listed “in danger of conversion to market rate” (a criteria for more funding) while a “covenant of affordability” was recorded on a three-foot parking easement. The HTF made a questionable “loan” to the Redevelopment Agency in 1997, which stayed with the HTF to administer. Though this $1 million has been repaid twice, it's still carried as agency long-term debt with more than $950,000 in added interest. The housing funds have more irregularities than space exists to print them. The PAC has repeatedly requested accounting for these funds over the last several years with no results. 

I stand by my original statements. Projects funded by the city need to be evaluated and monitored by an agency that doesn't have a financial interest in the properties. 

Rhiannon, 

Berkeley 

Former Alameda County Board of Education member Jerome Wiggins filed suit against Alameda County Superintendent Sheila Jordan and her husband, Larry Cooperman, alleging slander and libel in Alameda County Superior Court last week. 

Wiggins, who represented Berkeley and the surrounding areas before losing a re-election bid in March, claims that Jordan and Cooperman made a number of false statements that damaged his reputation. 

Wiggins, who told the Daily Planet three weeks ago that he planned to file suit, said one of his chief concerns is an Oakland Tribune guest column written by Cooperman last year. The July 2001 piece stated that Wiggins had a “previous arrest” in connection with a November 1988 scuffle with two opposition campaign workers. 

Wiggins acknowledged that the campaign workers made a citizens’ arrest after the 1998 incident, but says that it did not amount to a true arrest by the police department. 

Jordan said she had not yet been served with the lawsuit and declined to discuss any specifics but said that Wiggins’ claims are baseless.” I believe there’s no merit to his case,” she said. “His accusations I consider to be slander.” 

By filing suit Wiggins “opens the door to an investigation into his own background” that could prove damaging, Jordan said. But she declined to elaborate on what the investigation might reveal. 

Wiggins, who also names Alameda County and the county board of education in the suit, has not yet specified the amount of money that he will pursue in damages. But the suit states that he will seek compensation for damage to his reputation, “severe” mental pain and anguish, emotional distress, attorneys’ fees and loss of the pay and benefits he would have received had he continued as a member of the board. Wiggins contends that Jordan’s alleged slander contributed to his defeat. 

Wiggins’ lawyer, Steven Anthony of the Oakland firm of Anthony & Carlson, said it could be six months before a trial date is set. 

Jordan and Wiggins are bitter enemies. The pair engaged in a high-profile budget battle two years ago that was often personal, and this year Jordan contributed $10,000 to the campaign of Jacki Fox Ruby, who defeated Wiggins in March. 

Jordan and Cooperman, in campaign literature, newspaper columns and public statements, have argued repeatedly that Wiggins is a violent, dangerous figure. 

In the July 2001 Oakland Tribune column, entitled “Take situation seriously,” Cooperman wrote that Wiggins had threatened his wife and had “a previous arrest for politically motivated violence,” making reference to the November 1988 scuffle, which occurred when Wiggins served on the AC Transit board. 

Wiggins notified Jordan and Cooperman after the column ran, saying that the Berkeley Police Department had not arrested him in connection with the incident. But Jordan subsequently put out a piece of campaign literature just before the March 2002 Wiggins-Fox Ruby election that included a November 1988 headline from the UC Berkeley student newspaper: “Candidate held after early morning scuffle.” 

Wiggins said that Jordan implied in the piece that he was arrested, even though she knew he had not been. 

“They knew it wasn’t true and they chose not to deal with it,” Wiggins said. 

But UC Berkeley law professor Stephen Barnett, an expert in slander and libel, said Wiggins does not appear to have a strong argument. 

According to Barnett, Wiggins must show that the defendants made false statements with “knowing or reckless malice.” Barnett said Cooperman could make a strong argument that he did not make a false statement in the Tribune since there was a citizen’s arrest involved. 

Barnett added that the word “held,” which appeared in the campaign literature, does not necessarily imply arrest. Therefore, he said, it would be difficult to prove that Jordan and Cooperman made a knowingly false assertion about Wiggins’ arrest record. 

“I think the word ‘held’ is vague enough,” he explained. 

Wiggins also makes reference in the lawsuit to Jordan’s public assertions that his behavior bears “the mark of a domestic abuser.” Wiggins said those statements are clearly defamatory. 

“When you start making reference to criminal activity and domestic abuse, those are serious allegations,” said Wiggins, arguing that his reputation has been damaged. 

Jordan, dismissing the claims, said Wiggins’ suit is a politically motivated attempt to detract from her work as county superintendent. 

“Doing her job is her responsibility,” Wiggins responded, arguing that the suit is really about a public official using her stature to defame a long-time “public servant.” 

The Alameda County Office of Education has jurisdiction over 18 local school districts, including Berkeley Unified School District, and is directly responsible for six county education programs for “at-risk” students. 

The office is currently weighing Berkeley Unified’s 2002-2003 budget and has the power to approve it or send it back for revisions. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

80 is a fine age at which  

to jump from an airplane 

PITTSFIELD, Maine — To celebrate her 80th birthday, Irma DeTour wanted to do something fun. Why not jump out of a plane? After all, her husband had done it only a year earlier. 

DeTour, of Bangor, said her first parachute jump on Sunday was easier than she thought it would be. Most of her nine children, 28 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren were on the ground to watch her take the 10,000-foot leap. 

As she jumped out of the plane, instructor Dan Dyer wrapped his arms around DeTour so he could control the chute’s speed and rate of descent. They went into a 42-second free fall at about 120 mph before the chute popped open at 3,800 feet and slowed to about 20 mph. 

“I didn’t hear a peep out of her until the chute opened,” said Dyer. “Then she shouted, ‘I can’t believe I did that.’ ” 

DeTour and Dyer executed a perfect standing landing in front of her cheering family. 

How about stealing a car for a highway trip at age 8? 

AKRON, Ohio — An 8-year-old foster child clad only in pajamas stole a pickup truck and went on a 20-mile drive to visit his family, police said. 

The boy, whose name was withheld, was finally stopped Sunday by a motorist who could barely see the youngster over the dashboard. She flashed her headlights and pursued him at up to 80 mph to get him to stop. 

“At first, I thought it was a drunk driver, and as I got closer, I said, ’Either it’s a midget or I’m crazy and that’s a little boy,”’ said Debbie Turner. 

Turner said she got the boy to slow down by positioning her car in front of the pickup. 

The boy told his aunt that he missed his family and wanted to leave his foster home in Twinsburg. 

Why not climb  

Mount Rainier at 77? 

ASHFORD, Wash.— A 77-year-old has become the oldest woman to climb Mount Rainier. And she made the trip in only 19 hours — round-trip. 

“I just never thought I could do it,” Bronka Sundstrom said. “I’m an old lady.” 

Accompanied by two guides, Sundstrom set out from Paradise, elevation 5,420 feet, shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday. She reached 10,080-foot Camp Muir in three hours, 15 minutes. 

She took a short break, then four hours, 40 minutes later, she was at the peak’s 14,411-foot summit. 

Most climbers take six to eight hours to reach the summit from Muir. 

“What she did was incredible, and that’s what I wrote in the summit register,” said one of her guides.  

Sundstrom said she might well climb Rainier again next year. 

“It was just fun to see something that I never saw before,” she said. 

By Jennifer Coleman 

The Associated Press 

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gray Davis said Tuesday he would cut more than the $750 million he’s supposed to cut from a $99 billion budget that many are calling a stopgap measure. 

At a campaign stop in Los Angeles, Davis said he would “veto some additional money” from the budget approved by the Legislature Sunday after a two-month standoff over proposed tax increases. 

Davis declined to specify how much he would cut and where the cuts would come from, saying he would work with his budget advisers Tuesday afternoon. 

“We will reduce the budget by a significant amount, we have a $24 billion shortfall that we are closing and we also have to think about the problems next year and the year after,” Davis said. 

Senate President John Burton, the Senate’s top Democrat, joined a chorus of critics, mostly Republican, of what they call a dangerous lack of permanent cuts to help stabilize the state’s budget in future years. 

Burton, of San Francisco, said Tuesday the long-overdue budget passed this weekend was only a “get-out-alive deal” and will result in a more difficult budget battle next year. 

But Davis, who plans to sign the budget Thursday, defended the budget, saying the spending plan was “the best we could do under extremely difficult circumstances.” 

Lawmakers approved the budget early Sunday morning, after they had battled over $9 billion in cuts. It calls for Davis to make $750 million in cuts from state agencies and departments rather than programs. 

Under the plan, another $285 million could be saved by offering longtime state employees an incentive to retire early. About $2.4 billion will be raised through new revenue, but not through vehicle or tobacco taxes, as previously proposed. 

“The average family is not going to see their taxes increase, either through the vehicle license fee or if they happen to smoke, they won’t be paying a whole lot for their cigarettes either,” added Davis spokeswoman Hilary McLean. 

As part of the budget agreement reached in the Assembly, Speaker Herb Wesson will create a committee of lawmakers to study ways to improve the budget process. 

Burton has proposed a commission of “outsiders, non-politicians to deal with this problem,” he said. 

This year’s budget didn’t include a permanent tax hike, such as the proposed tobacco tax increase, or a two-year fee increase, such as the temporary increase in vehicle license fees. Because of that, the future budget will have no new source of money and spending will have been trimmed to the bone to meet this year’s limits, Burton said. 

“The funding for the budget is only going to give us bigger problem next year. The only good news about that is that it may well force us to deal with a structural change in the budget,” Burton said. “Nothing’s going to help next year short of a miracle.”

SAN FRANCISCO — A Delaware bankruptcy judge has blocked the sale of Napster’s remaining assets to the song-swap company’s chief investor, Bertelsmann AG, marking the death of a deal that might have revived the service as a legitimate music-sharing network. 

Judge Peter Walsh made the ruling Tuesday, according to spokeswomen for Bertelsmann and Napster. Walsh cited conflicting loyalties by Napster’s top executive as the reason for killing the deal. 

Bertelsmann had sought to purchase the remains of the defunct Napster network for an additional $8 million after having already sunk $85 million into the Redwood City-based company to keep it afloat. Napster has been off line for more than a year. 

Suits by several record labels destroyed Napster. Those record companies also filed motions in the bankruptcy case, vigorously objecting to the sale of the company to Bertelsmann. 

Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers, a Bertelsmann veteran, said the judge’s decision likely will force Napster to change its reorganization effort into a Chapter 7 liquidation.

The exclusive Claremont Resort and Spa agreed last week to provide back pay to four employees it suspended earlier this year for distributing union literature at the hotel, according to union officials. 

The agreement was part of a larger legal settlement between the resort and the federal government’s National Labor Relations Board, which has the power to judicate labor disputes between private employers and unions. 

The resort is locked in a yearlong contract dispute with its food and beverage workers over wages, benefits and the unionization of 140 nonunion spa workers. It also agreed to not threaten or suspend employees for lawful, pro-union activity in the future. 

The National Labor Relations Board’s Oakland office was closed for the Labor Day holiday and could not confirm the specifics of the agreement. Both the hotel and the employee’s union, Local 2850 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, said that the NLRB agreement was the outcome of union charges of “unfair labor practices” against the hotel.  

Some charges, including a Local 2850 accusation that managers tried to bribe employees into stopping union activities, are not addressed in the agreement. The NLRB is expected to rule on the outstanding issues within a few months. 

Stephanie Ruby, secretary-treasurer for Local 2850, called the settlement “an important legal victory for the workers.”  

But Claremont spokesperson Denise Chapman downplayed the deal. She said it is illegal to threaten an employee for supporting the union and argued that the hotel has never engaged in the practice. Chapman said the hotel had no qualms about shunning a tactic that it never used. 

“It’s like asking a licensed driver not to run any red lights,” she said. 

But union members, who picketed outside the resort Monday in a Labor Day protest, said the hotel has intimidated employees – asking them to move when they are distributing union literature in lawful areas and confronting them when they speak to the press about contract negotiations. 

Chapman said the hotel is eager to ink a contract for food and beverage employees. She said the union has delayed the process by refusing to meet frequently with hotel negotiators. 

“We would like to see [the union] come to the table more regularly to get this resolved,” Chapman said. 

A NLRB finding issued in August supports Chapman’s claim. NLRB found that the union “failed and refused to meet at reasonable dates and times” with the hotel to negotiate a contract. The national board set a Nov. 13 hearing date to decide how it will act upon the finding. 

But Ruby said the union will fight the charges. She said the union has rejected Claremont requests for back-to-back negotiating sessions because it needs a day off after each session to consult with its membership about the latest developments. 

Ruby also said the hotel could eliminate the need for future sessions by sweetening its contract offer.  

“We find it laughable that the Claremont is complaining about this because we all know that it is in their power to settle this,” she said. 

At the last bargaining session, on Aug. 27, the hotel offered raises of 20 cents an hour each year during the three-year contract. The resort, which pays for union members’ health insurance plans, offered to continue its current health care payments and pay for any increases in health care costs of up to 6 percent per year. Employees would have to pay the rest. 

The union rejected the proposal. 

Though Chapman said the offer is a “reasonable” one during “tough economic times,” union officials said the 20-cent annual raise is not in line with other Bay Area hotels, which are offering 40-cent raises each year. They also said that requiring employees to cover excess health care costs would wipe out any proposed raise. 

Another issue is a Local 2850 effort to unionize 140 nonunion spa workers including massage therapists, nail technicians, hair dressers, and estheticians, who provide facials. 

The union wants to utilize a “card check” method, which would allow spa workers to join Local 2850 by signing authorization cards distributed by the union. The hotel wants an election by secret ballot. 

Union officials say the secret ballot method would allow the Claremont to intimidate spa workers and could drag out the process if the union was victorious and the hotel were to appeal the results. The hotel argued that the union can strong-arm the anti-union spa workers during the “card check” process. 

In June, City Council passed a resolution endorsing a union-led boycott of the hotel, and Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek was among some 50 protesters arrested during a march on the hotel.  

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Mr. Worthington's verse moved me to respond in kind... 

The Poet-Politician (with due apologies to Edward Lear) 

The Poet-Politician went to see 

The City Council of Berklee. 

He had a petition, outlining his position, 

That ‘twas published in the local Dailee. 

The Poet-Pol looked to the mayor above 

And sang when yielded the floor: 

“O lovely Mayor, O Mayor my love, 

Let us not, against Iraq, go to war, 

To war, 

To war! 

Let us not, against Iraq, go to war!” 

The Mayor said to the Pol-Poet, “Its true, I know it, 

How charmingly sweet you sing: 

‘Bring sanity back, don't attack Iraq!’ 

But how can you stop this thing?” 

So he sailed away, for a year and a day, 

To the land where foreign policy is decreed 

And there in a bog, the land of backlog, 

He found Washington, D.C. 

D.C. 

D.C. 

He found Washington, D.C. 

“Dear Mr. Rumsfield,” he said, “your plans must be repealed.” 

Said Rummy, “Of course I agree.” 

Hip hip hooray! He had carried the day, the Poet-Pol from Berklee! 

Here ends our fantasee, for foreign policy, you see, comes not from lyrical City Councilmen. 

They should focus, be clear, on problems 'round here 

Like finding us places to park, 

To park, 

To park, 

Like finding us places to park!  

Nathan Jones, 

Berkeley

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 

Tuesday, September 3 

The Listening Post 

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

Wesley Student Center on Bancroft Way near Dana Dr. 

The Listening Post is a safe, non-judgmental, non-denominational place for students to talk about whatever may be on their minds, or weighing on their hearts. 

549-1244 

Free 

Opening of Classes, Berkeley City Ballet 

1800 Dwight Way  

First day of classes at BCB. Classes Monday through Friday for children 5 and up. Student performers are invited to audition annual Nutcracker performance.  

841-8913 

Wednesday, September 4 

Green Party Meeting 

6:30 p.m. 

Grassroots House, 2022 Blake St. 

Discussion of the Berkeley races and measures as part of the Green Party of Alameda County endorsement process. All Greens are welcome regardless of Berkeley residency. 

http://cagreens.org/alameda/county  

Free 

Lecture: Hitching a Lame Horse to a Broken Wagon 

7 p.m. 

126, Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley Campus 

lecture on the the government’s attempt to link the drug war to the war on terror—featuring Sanho Tree from the Institute of Policy Studies. 

stopdrugwarnow@cs.com 

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 

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.berkeley.edu 

Saturday, September 7 

Sick Plant Clinic 

9 a.m. to noon 

University of California Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 

UC plant pathology and entomology experts will diagnose what ails your plant.  

643-2755 

Free 

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. Event includes a health fair, food, prizes, live music and free insurance eligibility screening. 

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.solanostroll.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 

Prostate Cancer Lecture 

2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. 

Maffly Auditorium, Herrick Campus 

2001 Dwight Way 

Understand the risk of prostate cancer and how to detect early symptoms from a survivor. 

869-6737 

Free 

Tuesday, September 9 

Arts Education Network 

6 to 8 p.m. 

James Irvine Foundation Conference Ctr., 353 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza 

208-0842 

Free 

Berkeley Gray Panthers Home Owners Meeting 

3 p.m. 

1403 Addison St. 

All welcome. 

548-9696 

Free 

Tuesday, September 10 

Brown Bag Career Talk 

Noon to 1 p.m. 

YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way 

Cynthia Weekly, Senior Recruiter with UC Berkeley Office of Human Resources will provide information on the process of seeking temporary and permanent employment at UC Berkeley. 

848-6370 

Free 

Michael Newdow: Lecture 

8 p.m. 

2050 Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley Campus 

Michael Newdow is a Sacramento physician with a law degree whose case against the common procedure of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools fueled national uproar last summer.  

USE-SANE, sane@ocf.berkeley.edu, http://www.BerkeleySANE.org 

Wednesday, September 11 

One Year Later, a Peace Vigil and Meditation 

6 to 7:30 p.m. 

West entrance of UC Berkeley Campus near the corner of University Ave. and Oxford St. 

The Buddhist Peach Fellowship invites people of all traditions to bear witness to the continued suffering related to Sept. 11, 2002. 

223-0683, www.bpf.org 

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.  

Caterina Rando discusses her new book Learn to Power Think: A Practical Guide to Positive and Effective Decision Making 

Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. 

559-9184, www.bookpride.com 

Friday, September 13 

Lecture by Dr. Paul Farmer 

7:30 p.m. 

St. Joseph the Worker Church, 2640 Addison St. 

Dr. Farmer will speak on Health Care and Human Rights: Solidarity with the Haitian People. Benefit for Partners in Health. Music by Vukani Mawethu Choir. 

558-0371 

$5 to $15 donation 

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 

Congressman Dennis Kuchinich Appearance 

7 p.m. 

Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley Campus, near University Ave. 

Chair of the House Progressive Caucus will speak. Keith Carson, Country Joe McDonald and performance artist Shelly Glaser will also be on hand. 

http://www.bfuu.org/rscongress 

$10 in advance, $12 door 

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 

OAKLAND — Miguel Tejada and the Oakland Athletics simply refuse to lose — even when the degree of difficulty gets higher and higher. 

Tejada got his second straight game-ending hit as the A’s matched the longest winning streak in AL history with their 19th straight victory Monday, beating the Kansas City Royals 7-6. 

David Justice homered and drove in four runs as Oakland overcame a 5-0 deficit and a terrible start by ace Barry Zito to equal the 19 straight wins recorded by the 1906 White Sox and matched by the 1947 Yankees. 

With their second straight victory in their final at-bat, the A’s recorded the fifth-longest streak in major league history and the third longest since 1900. 

With the bases loaded and the score tied at 6 in the ninth, Tejada drove a sharp one-out single through five drawn-in infielders. The hit sparked a replay of the raucous Coliseum celebration on Sunday, when Tejada’s dramatic three-run homer beat Minnesota. 

For the third straight day, the A’s streak seemed to be in serious jeopardy. In the fifth inning, Oakland trailed 5-0 and hadn’t managed a hit against Kansas City starter Runelvys Hernandez, while Zito had been battered by the Royals’ light-hitting lineup. 

But Oakland rallied with Justice’s two-run homer in the fifth and four more runs in the sixth, capped by Justice’s two-run single that put Oakland up 6-5. 

Kansas City tied it in the eighth and loaded the bases in the ninth, but Tejada turned Neifi Perez’s grounder into an inning-ending double play. 

With the pulsating Coliseum sensing another victory, Terrence Long led off the ninth with a triple to left against Jason Grimsley (3-5). The Royals intentionally walked Greg Myers and Ray Durham to load the bases. 

With five infielders stacked behind Grimsley, Kansas City got Long at home plate on Scott Hatteberg’s grounder — but Tejada, whose dramatic three-run homer won Sunday’s game, singled up the middle on Grimsley’s first pitch. 

A’s closer Billy Koch (8-2), appearing for the fourth straight day, got his second straight victory despite pitching into big trouble in the ninth. 

Zito wasted a chance to become the AL’s first 20-game winner with one of the worst starts of his outstanding career. He yielded 10 hits and five runs, leaving the mound in the sixth with his head hung low. 

Perez had four hits for the Royals, who had 14 hits and plenty of chances to put away the A’s. 

Zito’s troubles began with a bizarre play. Perez led off the third with a line drive into the left-field corner. Justice sprinted after the ball and leaped at the wall to catch it — but the ball hit the bottom of Justice’s glove and ricocheted over the fence, turning a probable double into a homer. 

Zito gave up a long homer to A.J. Hinch on his very next pitch. 

Carlos Beltran had a two-run single in a three-run fourth, keyed by an error by Tejada, as Kansas City took a 5-0 lead. 

Hernandez retired 12 of Oakland’s first 13 hitters and cruised into the fifth, when he appeared to throw a pitch at Jermaine Dye’s head. Dye glared at Hernandez, and on the next pitch, he beat out an infield single for the first hit. Justice followed with his 11th homer of the season. 

In the sixth, Hatteberg had an RBI double before Eric Chavez and Justice got run-scoring singles. 

Kansas City tied it in the eighth when Perez scored on Luis Ordaz’s double-play grounder. 

Notes: The Royals recalled OF Dee Brown from Triple-A Omaha. Brown, who made Kansas City’s opening day roster in 2001, had spent the entire season in Omaha, hitting .278 with 17 homers and 75 RBIs. ... A’s reliever Jim Mecir began serving his three-game suspension for hitting Chicago’s Royce Clayton two weeks ago. ... Mike Sweeney, who’s neck-and-neck with Bernie Williams for the AL batting lead, pinch-hit in the seventh with two runners on and two outs. He flied out to center. 

Fans of adult-oriented public access television may not have to adjust their bed times after all. 

A City Council proposal that would permit sexually-explicit programming on the city’s two community TV stations to air only after midnight is unconstitutional and must be dropped, said the American Civil Liberties Union in a letter to the city last week. 

Adult programming is permitted to air between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. as is recommended by the Federal Communications Commission and followed by nearly every public access station in the country. 

Berkeley’s proposal, which would move shows later and provide screening of programming, violates the First Amendment, wrote ACLU attorney Ann Brick.  

In trying to protect children, the law would deny adults access to constitutionally protected programs, she said. 

Instead of moving the shows to a later time, Brink wrote, Berkeley should encourage parents to request that cable operators block the stations or provide parents with a device that allows them to block offensive shows. 

Complaints from residents about some public access shows led council to vote 5-3 in support of stricter restrictions. The ordinance will go into effect after a second affirmative vote scheduled for Sept. 10. 

The two shows most criticized are “Frank Moore’s Unlimited Possibilities” and “The Dr. Susan Block Show.” Susan Block is shown at 10:30 p.m. Fridays and features a lingerie-clad sex therapist whose guests have included women masturbating and provocatively touching one another.  

The ordinance would direct the station’s operator, Berkeley Community Media, to install a commission to judge the decency of programming when a viewer complains. 

Shows deemed to provide no literary, artistic or political merit and that appeal only to sexual interest and offer offensive depictions of sex would be banned until midnight. Council must approve the framework devised by BCM for grading its programming before it can take effect. 

Brink wrote that placing the burden on BCM to determine the value of its programs would put undue pressure on the media group to curtail artistic expression. 

“This aspect of the ordinance is almost sure to chill First Amendment expression, thereby frustrating the very purposes for which BTV was established,” she wrote. 

Brian Scott, BCM Media Director, said he would be uncomfortable as the final arbiter of “indecency.” 

“As soon as we make that decision we lose the trust of the community and people call us censors,” he said, adding that if the ordinance passed, he would ask City Council to form a commission to rule on complaints. 

Scott said only two residents have complained to him, but Councilmember Betty Olds defended the ordinance, saying that she had received eight to 10 complaints in the past six months about the Susan Block show. 

“When they bring a camera close to a women’s crotch and try to insert a disabled man’s penis into a vagina – if you don’t call that bad taste, I don’t know what is,” she said. “[The ordinance] isn’t just [to protect] children. Other people want to view public television and they don’t want to see it there.” 

But Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who opposes the ordinance, said that if Berkeley implements the most restrictive censorship policy in the state its passage would send a message to other cities to do the same. If council passes the ordinance, the sexually explicit shows could remain on air until council approves a committee to judge the programming. 

But an attempt to move the shows to after midnight only could embroil the city in a lawsuit. 

Frank Moore, a performance artist who includes nudity in some of his shows said his show was not “indecent” and that if the committee found otherwise, he would sue the city. 

The ACLU has sued the city previously. In the most recent instance, the organization was successful in making Berkeley repeal Measure O, a 1994 ballot initiative that prevented homeless from lying on sidewalks. 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Dan Krauss's article “New school principal tackles old problems” (Aug. 31) incorrectly blames difficulties at Longfellow last year on “rampant staff infighting” and problems with “controlling the staff.” The teaching staff as a whole behaved with professionalism and was part of the solution, asking for help from the district to prepare for this year's schedule changes, not the problem. 

As a parent volunteer at Longfellow for the past three years, I greatly respect the school's dedicated, highly-skilled teaching staff. They have worked long and hard to bring the benefits of an arts and technology magnet school to all of Longfellow's students. I would like to thank them for providing my son with a sound, enriched education as he starts high school this year. 

Meanwhile, the Arts Magnet grant “sunsetted” at the end of my son's second year. Budgets were further slashed for this year. Longfellow administrators were constantly “putting out fires” – floods in the supply rooms of the newly remodeled building and in the new gym; no substitute teachers available to teach classes when teachers were absent; inadequate staffing to supervise yards and halls; and many more.  

I am encouraged by the reports of positive teacher response to principal Cheung's efforts so far. I hope the district central administration will help her to provide an organized, supportive environment where teachers can continue to teach, without the distractions of a continous crisis. 

Sue Dickey, 

Berkeley

To the Editor: 

Dan Krauss's article “New school principal tackles old problems” (Aug. 31) incorrectly blames difficulties at Longfellow last year on “rampant staff infighting” and problems with “controlling the staff.” The teaching staff as a whole behaved with professionalism and was part of the solution, asking for help from the district to prepare for this year's schedule changes, not the problem. 

As a parent volunteer at Longfellow for the past three years, I greatly respect the school's dedicated, highly-skilled teaching staff. They have worked long and hard to bring the benefits of an arts and technology magnet school to all of Longfellow's students. I would like to thank them for providing my son with a sound, enriched education as he starts high school this year. 

Meanwhile, the Arts Magnet grant “sunsetted” at the end of my son's second year. Budgets were further slashed for this year. Longfellow administrators were constantly “putting out fires” – floods in the supply rooms of the newly remodeled building and in the new gym; no substitute teachers available to teach classes when teachers were absent; inadequate staffing to supervise yards and halls; and many more.  

I am encouraged by the reports of positive teacher response to principal Cheung's efforts so far. I hope the district central administration will help her to provide an organized, supportive environment where teachers can continue to teach, without the distractions of a continous crisis. 

Sue Dickey, 

Berkeley

SAN FRANCISCO — There’s a beautiful sound emanating from the San Francisco 49ers’ locker room as a new season approaches. It’s the sound of silence, of Steve Mariucci and Terrell Owens getting along. 

Nobody knows how long this tune will play in San Francisco, where the 49ers’ coach and their All-Pro receiver have spent the past two seasons in a rocky, adversarial relationship that’s been one of the few blemishes on one of the NFL’s more remarkable revivals. 

Owens’ outbursts against the team on issues ranging from celebrations to passes to basketball — and Mariucci’s inability to defuse a situation faced by coaches in every sport from time to time — were a distraction for the young, deep, powerful team built by Mariucci, Bill Walsh and general manager Terry Donahue. 

But a new season has brought a well-publicized detente. Both Mariucci and Owens are focused on pushing the 49ers past the St. Louis Rams in the NFC West — and perhaps to their sixth Super Bowl. 

“We had to put those things aside if we want to win a championship,” said Owens, who caught 93 passes for 1,412 yards and an NFL-best 16 touchdowns last seasons. “It was a big deal, but I think it’s over now.” 

After two seasons in the bottomless pit of salary-cap purgatory, the 49ers leaped back to the league’s upper echelon last season, going 12-4 with a rebuilt roster. Of San Francisco’s 22 starters last season, 20 returned this summer. The 49ers signed safety Tony Parrish and Pro Bowl guard Ron Stone to replace the two who were dropped. 

“We thought that when we kept our own players in the offseason, and when T.O. and Steve were able to bridge that gap, we thought we had a chance to be a pretty solid team,” Donahue said. “That’s always been our plan — to build well, and then retain what we built.” 

They’ve come a long way from last January’s season-ending playoff loss at Green Bay. After that game, Pro Bowl center Jeremy Newberry reportedly was involved in a confrontation with Owens that had the receiver on the phone to his agent, demanding to get out of San Francisco. 

Emotions have cooled considerably since then — and the 49ers finally have realized they’ve got much more to gain by sticking together. A murderous five-game preseason schedule, including a trip to Japan and a stretch of three games in 10 days, also seems to have improved the team concept. 

“I like the chemistry on this team,” Mariucci said. “I like the talent level we have. We’re a more confident team than we were at this point last year. We’ve really expected a lot from a young team.” 

With silly personality conflicts finally in the background, the 49ers can get down to the serious business of catching up with the Rams both on the field and in the standings. 

A year of experience and togetherness should help the entire roster, which was a patchwork collection in each of the past three seasons. Some of the question marks from 2001 — Garrison Hearst, Dana Stubblefield, Zack Bronson — are expected to be key factors in San Francisco’s success. 

Hearst and Kevan Barlow should make for a powerful ground tandem for a team that’s usually among the NFL’s rushing leaders. Owens and Jeff Garcia didn’t get much time to work on their games during the preseason, but both expect to be ready for the opener on Thursday night at the New York Giants. 

“We think we know what we have in this offense,” said Garcia, coming off his second straight Pro Bowl season. “We’re comfortable being together out there, because we’ve been together mostly for three years now.” 

On defense, San Francisco’s rapidly improving unit hopes to build on its remarkable late-season run in 2001, when it posted three shutouts in the final six games. 

The additions are Parrish, a capable replacement for Lance Schulters, and two rookies who will be backups. The 49ers drafted CB Mike Rumph in the first round, adding another set of fleet feet to compete with the Rams’ potent attack, and linebacker Saleem Rasheed has impressed coaches. 

The 49ers largely stayed pat in the offseason, a luxury not recently enjoyed on a roster that was churned up in the last five years. San Francisco hopes experience, not addition, is the secret to improvement from a 12-4 campaign that had its fans dreaming of a return to postseason glory. 

“This team has to be better than last year’s team to have any sort of a similar record,” Mariucci said. “We have a tougher schedule. We have to be better in order to be a contender.” 

Members of public radio station KPFA fear that delays in their mother network’s return to Berkeley are ominous signs that another power struggle is emerging on the radio network’s governing board. 

That struggle, some members say, will play out as the Pacifica Foundation board writes new bylaws for the tattered, five-station network. 

"The question is ‘Is power going to be in local boards or is it going to be centralized?’ " said Curt Gray, KPFA advisory member and an advocate for stronger local control. 

Gray and others are concerned that a new alliance of interim executive board members will secure central control of the network. On Friday the alliance pushed through a vote to keep the Pacifica headquarters in Washington D.C. It says further cost-analysis must be done in spite of a March decision to move to Berkeley by the end of the year.  

Meanwhile, some local members are worried that the alliance will try to broaden its power in the new bylaws. 

The need for new bylaws stems from a court settlement last December that ended a destructive two-year feud between two factions on the Pacifica board. The court ordered the formation of a 14-member interim board, drawing from both factions, to create new bylaws to govern the operation and organization of the network.  

In addition to KPFA, Pacifica holds licenses for stations in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington D.C. 

KPFA members speculate that if the board had enough votes to keep the headquarters in Washington, D.C., it may also vote to maintain power at the national level instead of shifting control to the local level. 

“If the coalition that derailed the move back to Berkeley holds and they write the new bylaws, that is more worrisome,” Gray said.  

If central control is established, Gray said KPFA could lose say in its programming and be forced to take on a more moderate political tone. The station’s sovereignty was at the heart of the 1999 controversy. 

From 1999 to 2001 the Pacifica board of directors was engulfed in a bitter fight that nearly drove the network to bankruptcy. The board’s attempt to seize programming control from station managers resulted in mass protests and lawsuits in Berkeley. Successful litigation by dissident board members ultimately led to the dissolution of the board. 

KPFA supporters hoped the interim board would quickly return Pacifica to Berkeley after it fled to Washington D.C., amid protests in January 2000. They also wanted the interim board to implement reforms to curb the executive board’s power over its stations. 

Several members of the interim board, however, don’t share KPFA’s positions. 

Board member Roy Robinson is calling for a strong executive board, to be directly elected by foundation members and to have power over local advisory boards at each station. Robinson’s executive board would consist of two representatives to be elected by members of each of the five stations, as well as five “at-large” board members to be elected by a two-thirds board majority. 

On the contrary, board member Carol Spooner, who led the drive to return Pacifica to Berkeley, seeks to decentralize power by giving authority to the five local advisory boards and eliminating a single executive board. The local boards would consist of 18 representatives – six to be elected by the stations’ staff and 12 to be elected by station members – the same system currently in place at local station KPFA. The local boards would set up three executive board committees to oversee programming, budgeting and general affairs. 

Some KPFA supporters fear that Robinson’s plan is too similar to the former bylaws that they say encouraged abuse in past years. For example, Robinson’s proposal to include five “at-large” members on the executive board, as was the practice under the previous bylaws troubled many KPFA supporters. 

“The big problem with it [the last board] was that people in authority were insulated and didn’t have a clue,” said Gray, adding that the “at-large” members did not even have to reside in a city served by a Pacifica station. 

The board is scheduled to further discuss the bylaws at its next interim board meeting Sept. 20.  

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

No proof has been provided that Iraq has nuclear weapons mounted on launchers aimed at the United States or troops massed on its borders or has developed deliverable weapons of mass destruction. No case can be made that a war against Iraq is justified for the self-defense of the United States. The question of weapons inspection non-compliance should be a matter for the United Nations. 

A pre-emptive war represents a major and dangerous change in U.S. foreign policy. It also sets a terrible precedent for other nations. Pre-emptive war cannot become a universalized principle lest disaster and chaos result. There are questions yet to be asked and answered about many matters including the potential loss of life on all sides, the financial cost of a war and its aftermath, and consequences for the future of Iraq.  

Presumably, Baghdad, a huge city filled with innocent civilians, must be a major objective of attack. Accidentally or not, we have seen the deaths of too many noncombatants in Afghanistan in recent months as the result of poor targeting and decision-making. How many more civilians will die? What is the reasonable chance of success in this war? How long would it take to rebuild destroyed areas? Can the United States effectively carry out regime change? 

A war against Iraq would be illegal, immoral, and wrong. I urge the editors to work to bring these questions and the voices of those opposed to the war to the American people so that they may know more than the line being promoted by certain elements in the administration. 

Carolyn Scarr, 

Berkeley 

Gay Berkeleyans say they have it pretty good. They live in a progressive town and have access to a mecca of gay life – San Francisco. Yet many say that the geographic and demographic advantages create a problem: a lack of a one cohesive community. 

“There are lots of gay people here, but it’s not as social as I thought it would be,” said Sarah Weinberg who moved from Sacramento to Berkeley seven years ago expecting to find more social outlets for gays. 

Some gay residents, though, are trying to create closer ties. 

On Monday gay advocate group Rainbow Berkeley hosted its fourth annual Berkeley Brunch, a celebration of Berkeley’s gay community. Billed as the grand finale of East Bay Pride Week and held the last week of August, the brunch has swelled from a few dozen participants in 1998 to more than 200 this year. The event was held at the Berkeley Marina. 

“This [brunch] is a great way to bring people together,” said Paul Nelson of Berkeley. He explained that because Berkeley is so close to San Francisco and has a large gay population there hasn’t been much need for gay residents to consolidate as a single community. 

“There is no set community here,” he said, contrasting Berkeley to his native St. Louis, where he said gays were better organized and more cohesive. 

Nelson noted that if gays wanted to get together in Berkeley there is only one establishment that caters to them –The Pacific Center, a gay community center. But when it comes to cafes or bars, the nearest options are in Oakland or San Francisco, he added. 

To remedy the lack of social options, Ted Gartner of Rainbow Berkeley has formed a Berkeley gay social club called Gspring, which holds potluck dinners. “We’re trying to get people in Berkeley aware of it,” he said. “The goal is to let people know we have a community here.” 

Vernon Theiss, a Berkeley artist said that getting more bars and cafes was not as important as events like Monday’s brunch, which cut across social circles within Berkeley’s gay community. 

Pointing to a table full of gay seniors, he said, “What we need more than anything is to combine generations to come together and open their hearts to the community.” 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net

Cat has more toes than  

any other cat 

OAKLAND, Maine — Mooch the cat has nine lives and 28 toes. 

Bob and Becky Duval say the large, yellow feline has more toes than any other cat in the world. The Duvals have submitted evidence they hope will earn Mooch a place in the Guinness Book of Records. 

“This is your 15 minutes — suck it up,” Bob DuVal said to Mooch as the feline struggled out of Becky Duval’s lap. 

At the couple’s home, a nervous Mooch padded defensively across the kitchen floor, avoiding visitors and the clicking camera. 

Those who manage to catch a glimpse of the cat before he dashes off are stunned when they see his toes. 

“Usually, their first remark is, ’Oh, my God, look at that cat’s feet — what’s wrong with him?”’ Becky DuVal said. 

DuVal said he was listening to the radio last week and heard about the world record for most toes on a cat, currently held by Paddles, a black cat in Ennismore, Ontario, who has 27. 

“Mooch has 28 claws,” Becky DuVal said Friday. “He has 28 pads, but two of the pads are partially fused.” 

Mooch’s big feet have an advantage in Maine. 

“They’re good snowshoes,” Bob DuVal said.

Gates donates $28 million  

for diaphragm study 

SAN FRANCISCO–The University of California at San Francisco announced this week that the world's wealthiest man and his wife have given the school $28 million to study whether a diaphragm can prevent HIV. 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing the money to UCSF's Women's Global Health Imperative so it can conduct a randomized trial with 4,500 women in South Africa and Zimbabwe, where one-third of the population is infected with HIV. 

Study director Nancy Padian said, "[The women’s] enthusiasm to use a product that did not require negotiating with their male partner was overwhelming.'' 

Diaphragms are a form of birth control that cover a woman's cervix, which is considered a “hot spot'' in terms of susceptibility to HIV infections and other sexually transmitted diseases, according to Padian.  

Although there is no proof that using a diaphragm will prevent HIV, she said the study is promising because it could give women a chance to protect themselves with something other than a condom. 

Three Salinas men killed  

in apparent gang shooting 

SALINAS — Three Salinas teenagers were killed outside an apartment complex in what police said appeared to be a gang-related shooting. 

Police have no suspects in the Sunday evening shooting, Salinas Lt. Henry Yoneyama said. He identified the victims as Alexis Ramirez, 17, and Andres Garcia, 17; the identity of an 18-year-old man was withheld pending notification of relatives. 

The teenagers were hanging out in a driveway when someone began firing — police say they have some witnesses but need others to clarify what happened. 

“We believe that the incident is gang related and we’re investigating it from that perspective,” Yoneyama said. 

Wine auction raises money  

for children of vineyard workers 

SONOMA — The Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction, a little brother to the better-known Napa Valley Wine Auction, raised $586,000 for a variety of charities. 

The take was just off last year’s $592,000. 

The 10th annual auction at the Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa drew about 650 people Sunday to bid on some of wine country’s finest products. 

Of the total haul, $60,700 will help finance health care policies for uninsured Sonoma Valley children. 

“Many of the poorest people in the valley are the children of those who work in our vineyards,” said Mike Nugent, former chairman of the Sonoma Valley Community Health Center. “It’s a nightmare for undocumented children.” 

Organizers said the auction has raised about $3 million since it began in 1993. The Napa Valley Wine Auction raised $6 million in June. 

Davis campaigns across state, Simon says he’s ready 

Thirty six hours after the Legislature handed him a two-months-late state budget, Gov. Gray Davis switched into campaign mode Monday and toured California with labor leaders, seeking to paint challenger Bill Simon as a threat to workers. 

“The race really begins now,” Davis said as he winged from Burbank to Livermore on a private jet chartered by the same unions that have helped bankroll his re-election bid. 

Simon also spent the day stumping across the state, telling audiences Davis was a bust as governor. 

“We’re going to talk the truth about Gray Davis’ record and we’re going to talk the truth about Bill Simon’s vision for California,” Simon said at a Labor Day picnic at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. “We are going to talk about how Gov. Davis has failed as a governor.” 

Davis seized on a tradition of kicking off political campaigns on Labor Day, leading other Democratic candidates for statewide office on his first campaign-style tour since the day after Simon won the GOP nomination in March. 

He addressed charged-up gatherings of hundreds of painters, teachers, hotel workers and others, warning that Simon would siphon off some of the rights Davis has helped them gain since he took office in 1999. 

“Mr. Simon wants to undo four years of progress,” Davis said in Los Angeles at the opening of a new University of California, Los Angeles labor center. “Let’s send a memo to Mr. Simon: ’Mr. Simon, you are not going to rollback anything.”’ 

Labor unions — including police and fire organizations — have contributed more than $10 million to Davis since he took office, according to spokesman Roger Salazar. 

Smokey Bear revamps message  

to fit new policy 

PORTLAND, Ore. — Smokey Bear, the lovable World War II-era icon of forest fire prevention, is back on the scene with a new Web site, a new message, and a Gen X competitor. 

The Forest Service mascot, who turned 58 on Aug. 9, has become more serious — and scarier. His new message, “Only you can prevent wildfires” — as opposed to “forest fires” — reflects the rising dangers faced by homeowners living closer than before to areas that are vulnerable to flames. 

The creators of the original poster bear, the Forest Service and the Ad Council of America, decided to revamp Smokey’s kid-friendly message after studies found average adults didn’t think they would ever start a wildfire. Most also believed wildfires occur hundreds of miles from population centers, although the movement of people toward the wild has changed that.

LOS ANGELES — With labor unrest looming at West Coast ports, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told thousands of union workers Monday to “stand your ground.” 

President Bush, who has been considering possible federal intervention in case of a walkout, “wants to make an example of you,” Jackson said during a Labor Day picnic in a Wilmington park a few miles from the Port of Los Angeles. 

Mayor James Hahn sent the president a letter Monday urging him to stay out of the conflict between 10,500 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shippers. 

“Federal intervention at this critical juncture is not needed and may well exacerbate the dispute,” Hahn wrote. 

The contract for workers who handle trade at 29 major West Coast ports expired July 1. Both sides had kept goods flowing with short-term extensions but the latest extension expired Sunday. 

Without a deal, dockworkers could stage work slowdowns as early as Tuesday. Shipping lines that employ the dockworkers have threatened a lockout. 

The ports handle more than $300 billion in trade annually, and a work stoppage would ripple through an already fragile American economy. 

Talk of a strike or a lockout was the main topic as union workers ranging from dockworkers to pipefitters to schoolteachers joined in the solidarity rally. 

“If there is no contract, there will be no business as usual at California’s ports,” said Jerry Acosta, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO. 

On average, a full-time longshoreman earned $80,000 last year and a full-time foreman averaged $167,000, according to maritime association records. 

The sticking points for a new contract are arbitration, new technology that could costs jobs and health benefits. 

When workers in New York declared the first Labor Day in 1882, they dedicated it to the economic and social achievements of American workers and celebrated it with parades and speeches. But today, for many retail and restaurant workers, Labor Day will be just another business day. 

“People love to shop on Labor Day, so we’ll be pretty slammed,” said Amy Stephens as she pawed through a pile of vintage clothing Friday at Buffalo Exchange on Telegraph Avenue.  

Stephens, manager of the vintage clothing store, said the shop would keep its normal Monday hours and has even scheduled extra staff for the expected crowds. 

At the Crepevine on College Avenue it’s a similar story. The restaurant is doubling its wait staff to accommodate an anticipated extra demand. Saku Densmaa, a waitress, said that she didn’t really want to work on the holiday but has to. 

“I don’t get any extra pay, but it will be busier, so I’ll get more tips,” Densmaa said. Asked whether the day holds any significance for her, she wrinkled her nose and thought. “Not really,” she said. “Usually it’s just a day off.” 

At Cody’s bookstore, the registers will also be ringing. Store employee Tataya Goto said Labor Day is quite different from celebrations in his native Japan. There, he said, workers still parade and rally in the streets during their labor holiday. Goto, though, is working today. 

Some are happy to be at work. Vick ‘Sonny’ Sing, a shift manager at a 7-11 store on Telegraph Avenue has decided to stay behind the counter today, even though the store’s manager told him he could knock off with vacation pay. 

“I get time and a half, a bonus and a free lunch,” Sing said, smiling. “People who live around here will be out. On Telegraph, almost everything is open.” 

Proprietors who are closing shop today say it’s because of a lack of traffic. 

Sophie Mahdavi, who runs Euclid Flower Shop, a block north of the UC campus, said her business is greatly affected when the university is not in session. 

“Food and drink business is different,” she said. “People need to eat. They come out and get their coffee, but they rarely buy things. Flowers last only two days. I can lose a lot of money.” 

Across Euclid, Hummingbird Café is also closed. 

“We’ve tried to stay open on Labor Day in the past, but it wasn’t worth it,” Jamal Fafes, Hummingbird’s owner, said Friday. “Nobody is around. Nothing. We don’t even get 20 percent of our normal business.” 

Fafes’s decision to close on Labor Day isn’t purely economic, however. It’s a chance to take a rare vacation, he said. 

“The kids don’t want to work anyway, and I have a newborn child at home and would rather spend the day with him,” he said. 

At Brennan’s on Fourth Street, Kim Kenny was busy Saturday evening pouring pints for thirsty customers at the restaurant. “They’ve always been closed for Labor Day,” she said. “We’re union, but I don’t think that matters. It’s just standard policy.” 

A union member, Kenny stated pointedly that the holiday was created to honor workers. But she said, “it really doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t mind working. Our customers … really take care of us.” 

On the door of novelty houseware store Maison d’Etre in Rockridge, a sign advises passersby to “take a day off from Labor.”  

Fred Womack, the owner, has personal reasons for closing his store. 

“I take my holidays when I can. This store is open seven days a week, and I’m usually here at least five or six days,” he said. 

“If I stayed open I could probably make some money,” he added. 

But the statement came with a shrug, and Womack is opting instead to follow the advice on his sign.

To the Editor: 

Thank you for your articles on pedestrian events. My family has been very concerned about how dangerous our streets have become for everyone. People are driving more recklessly in city streets. Two pedestrians were killed by cars in our neighborhood in the past year. 

We look forward to voting for the pedestrian safety measure on Berkeley’s ballot in November – even though we will have to pay additional taxes of $25 annually for 10 years. This is a small amount to pay to make walking safer for everyone including seniors citizens, children and pets. 

Deborah Green, 

Berkeley

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 Ave. 

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

the prestigious Valitutti Award for non-fiction.  

549-2970 

Free 

Tuesday, September 3 

The Listening Post 

11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. 

Wesley Student Center on Bancroft Way near Dana Dr. 

The Listening Post is a safe, non-judgmental, non-denominational place for students to talk about whatever may be on their minds, or weighing on their hearts. 

549-1244 

Free 

Opening of Classes, Berkeley City Ballet 

1800 Dwight Way  

First day of classes at BCB. Classes Monday through Friday for children 5 and up. Student performers are invited to audition annual Nutcracker performance.  

841-8913 

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 

Free 

Discussion: “Why We Call  

Ourselves Butch?” 

7 p.m. 

Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. 

This group is for self-identified butch women. New members are welcome. 

559-9184 

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 

Sick Plant Clinic 

9 a.m. to noon 

University of California Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 

UC plant pathology and entomology experts will diagnose what ails your plant.  

643-2755 

Free 

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. Event includes a health fair, food, prizes, live music and free insurance eligibility screening. 

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.  

Free

Big plays and the breaks. Two things the Cal football team hasn’t gotten much of in the past few seasons. But on Saturday against Baylor, the Golden Bears got both in spades. 

Cal pulled off a trick play for a score on the game’s first play and scored back-to-back defensive touchdowns on the way to a 70-22 win over Baylor at Memorial Stadium, kicking off the Jeff Tedford era with the second-most points in school history. 

In a game filled with Cal highlights, none were more spectacular than senior linebacker Matt Nixon’s 102-yard interception return for the Bears’ fourth touchdown of the game. Baylor drove down to the Cal five-yard line, but when Baylor tight end Shane Williams got open on a crossing pattern near the goal line he bumped into an official just as quarterback Greg Cicero released a pass for him. Williams got his hands up late, and the ball bounced right into Nixon’s hands in the end zone. 

Nixon took off down the right sideline with fellow linebacker Calvin Hosey paving the way with a block on Cicero. Nixon was untouched until Baylor wide receiver Reggie Newhouse caught him 65 yards down the field. Newhouse dove in front of Nixon, who pulled off a hesitation move that left the speedy wideout grasping at air. After getting started again, Nixon rumbled the remaining yards with no one near him. 

“Linebackers aren’t supposed to run that far,” Nixon said after the game. “I was so tired, I just wanted to lay down and let the offense get back on the field.” 

But the Cal offense wouldn’t get onto the field for another few minutes, thanks to another interception return for a score by cornerback Jemeel Powell. He broke hard on Cicero’s next pass and took it out of receiver J.T. Thompson’s hands, then juked past Cicero for a 26-yard touchdown. That made the score 35-0, the most points ever by a Bears team in a single quarter and more points than the Bears mustered in a game last season. Cal tacked on two more touchdowns in the second quarter and took a 49-7 lead into the locker room. 

“To have 49 points in the first half is remarkable in any college game,” said Cal quarterback Kyle Boller, who threw for 213 yards and three touchdowns. “It’s like a high school score.” 

Baylor didn’t look much better than a high school team, stumbling through the contest with sloppy turnovers and poor execution. Cicero threw three interceptions in nine pass attempts before being yanked after Powell’s score, and replacement Aaron Karas wasn’t much better, throwing a pick and fumbling three times. The Bears looked like a team that had just met each other as confusion reigned on both offense and defense. But 10 touchdowns is nothing to scoff at, no matter who the opposition, and Cal wasn’t apologizing for their demolition of their Waco namesakes. 

“Nobody felt sorry for us last year. They just came out there to cut our throats,” Powell said of the 1-10 fiasco in 2001. “It feels good to be on the other side of that.” 

Tedford managed a compliment for Baylor, saying they were “well-coached,” but later admitted the lopsided win didn’t tell him a whole lot about the quality of his own team. 

“We’re going to play a lot tougher teams in the Pac-10, which I think is the most competitive conference in college football,” he said. “We’ve got a long, hard road ahead of us.” 

Tedford made an instant impression on the crowd of 27,185 with a trick play to start the game. On the first play from scrimmage, tailback Terrell Williams went in motion to the right, settling in behind two receivers. Boller threw an overhand lateral to the sophomore, who proceeded to heave the ball downfield to a wide-open David Gray, a true freshman wide receiver who lined up at tight end for the play. Gray was at midfield without a player within 25 yards and spun around to catch the ball. He nearly lost his balance making the catch, then stumbled while getting started toward the end zone. Last season, any Cal player in that situation undoubtedly would have fallen down, but not on Saturday. Gray recovered and went in for a 71-yard touchdown on his first college play. 

“I was like, ‘if I fall, I’m going to hang myself,’” Gray said. 

Tedford said the opening gambit was more than just a simple play-call. 

“We wanted to start things off with a bang and get the fans into it,” he said. “We’ve been planning that play for the last two weeks.” 

Tedford was certainly successful in winning the hearts of the Golden Bear faithful. Chants of “We love Tedford!” rang through the student section late in the game, along with “We want 70!” as their team drove toward its final score. True freshman Marcus O’Keith gave them what they wanted with a 2-yard run with four minutes remaining in the game.

The Pacifica Foundation radio network, slated to return to Berkeley this year after fleeing amid controversy two and a half years ago, may not be coming home as soon as thought. 

The foundation’s board of directors voted 7-4 by conference call Friday to postpone its return from Washington D.C. until the board can study how much the move will cost. Saturday’s decision overrides a March decision in which the board voted 7-2 in favor of returning to Berkeley. The board has 14 active members but several have missed recent votes. 

Berkeley was home to Pacifica, the operator of Berkeley-based radio station KPFA, for more than 50 years. However, in January 2000 the foundation moved to Washington when local listeners and staff became enraged about the board sacking popular KPFA employees and trying to moderate the station’s political views. 

In addition to KPFA, Pacifica also holds licenses of community stations in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington. 

Although Saturday’s vote only delays the planned move to Berkeley until further discussion at the board’s next meeting Sept. 20, Berkeley activists worry that more is at stake. 

“I think some of them want to stop the move entirely,” said Robbie Osman, the host of a KPFA music show and member of Friends of Free Speech Radio, which has offered to help pay moving expenses for Pacifica’s return to Berkeley. 

Carol Spooner, the interim Pacifica board secretary, and a leader in the drive to relocate Pacifica to Berkeley, said the effort is hindered because the 14-member interim board has a disproportionate number of members from Washington. 

Six board members are from Washington, she said, and five of those members are on record opposing this year’s relocation to Berkeley. Board members from Los Angeles and Berkeley support returning Pacifica to its former home, but the Houston and New York delegations are undecided, she noted. 

The preponderance of Washington representatives stems from a court settlement reached last December that ended more than two years of infighting between two competing factions on the previous board. Both factions selected five members to the new board, and the five local stations each selected one member. The five board members selected by the previous board’s majority faction, which long battled KPFA, are all from Washington. 

Pacifica’s return to Berkeley appeared certain after the March vote. But two weeks ago, six board members asked for a conference call to suspend the move until further discussions regarding cost. 

KPFA/From Page 1 

Jabri Zakiya, the interim board treasurer and Washington-based board member, estimated that returning to Berkeley could cost Pacifica several hundred thousand dollars. Pacifica is presently about $1.1 million in debt, and some board members have questioned whether the foundation has sufficient funds to switch headquarters this year. 

But, Spooner said Zakiya’s estimates were “reckless and irresponsible.” She noted that he listed packing and moving expenses somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000, but that estimates from two shipping companies were both under $5,000.  

The issue of returning Pacifica to Berkeley may be opening a rift on the interim board. 

In addition to opposing the move on financial grounds, Washington-based board member Rob Robertson alleged that two supporters of relocation, Leslie Cagan and Pete Bramson, support the move to Berkeley because they are indebted to Berkeley-based Friends of Free Speech Radio (FFSR) for funding their lawsuits against the former board. 

Robinson also likened FFSR’s offer to raise money to pay for the move to a corporate donation to politicians. 

Spooner said debate about Pacifica’s future home threatens to damage the foundation. 

“We desperately need a chief financial officer, but we don’t know if the position will be for Berkeley or Washington,” she said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington fears that keeping Pacifica in Washington, could limit the influence of Berkeley listeners. He noted that the legal victory that led to the dissolution of the prior board and the insertion of the interim board were based in California corporate law, which is kinder to worker-initiated lawsuits. 

Had Pacifica been licensed in Washington, Worthington said, it may have won the legal battles and proceeded with its plan to moderate KPFA. 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net

To the Editor: 

It was very encouraging to read letters by Mayor Shirley Dean in support of playing fields (Forum, Aug. 28) and by windsurfer/kayaker Jim McGrath (Forum, Aug. 30) in support of water access. Finally, some voices of reason are being heard. 

But there is an interesting intersection of the sentiments expressed in the two letters that may not be immediately apparent: Water-borne recreation fulfills many of the same goals as playing fields, and can often do it more economically while serving a broader range of participants. Consider the cost of a single playing field: $2.2 million per field to develop and many tens of thousands every year to maintain. Compare to the cost of a dragon boat: $16,000 for a top-of-the-line model, and only a few thousand per year to maintain the support equipment. The surface of the water requires no grading, mowing, fencing or pest control. Both the field and the boat serve about 20 kids at a time. Similar economic advantages can be demonstrated to varying degrees for youth programs based on kayaks, windsurfers, rowing shells, small sailboats and outrigger canoes. 

Perhaps more important, water-based recreation offers new opportunities for the kind of young person who is not attracted to the culture of field sports. These kids are being bypassed by traditional school athletics programs, but their recreational needs are at least as acute. Boating in its various forms can open a new world of outdoor physical activity and team competition. 

Also lost on many park advocates is the relationship between non-motorized boating and environmental advocacy. These activities are a breeding ground for the future stewards of the Bay, and our shoreline will be in much better hands if we encourage, not limit, the ability of people to float on the waters of the Eastshore State Park rather than just look at them. This implies some structures, some docks, and some parking near the shoreline in various places – but it does not mean that the open space value or the natural setting of the park has to be significantly compromised. 

The Eastshore State Park is an urban waterfront, not a wilderness upland, and water access should be the defining theme. Let's not paint it with the wrong brush. 

Paul Kamen, 

Chairperson, Berkeley 

Waterfront Commission

What might sound like every student’s dream – a school day with fewer classes – turned out to be less than exciting to returning Berkeley High School students last week. The familiar seven-period schedule has been reduced to six, but the school day is no shorter. In fact, for some it’s longer. 

In addition to six new periods of 56 minutes, replacing seven 45-minute periods, many electives, like drama, art and journalism, are now offered only after and before school. 

“Kids are at school longer now, sometimes until 4:00 p.m.,” said Arose, a senior. 

The so-called “enhancement period” courses, taking place before and after the required “core” classes, are optional and open by student choice. 

“We call it a six-period day, but, in reality, it’s an eight-period day,” said Berkeley Parent-Teacher Association President Derick Miller. 

Instructional time in the new six-period day is roughly equivalent to that in the old seven period day, noted School Board Director Terry Doran. 

The schedule change at the high school is part of the school district’s plan to balance a $6 million deficit for the coming fiscal year. Superintendent Michele Lawrence announced last year that the school district faced a possible takeover by the state if it was unable to reduce costs.  

Lawrence said the schedule change will save the district $800,000. 

Students had mixed reactions to the change during their first three days of school. Some were less than thrilled about the schedule, which for some, made the day drag on. 

“They’ve made up a bunch of new rules, and the school day lasts longer,” said Danielle, a senior. 

Other students said they encountered scheduling problems in the first days of school, but did not think the switch to a six-period system was to blame. 

“This year is especially bad because they cut a bunch of classes and restructured the schedule,” said senior Rachel Most. “But it still feels pretty normal. I think there are problems like this every year.” 

Even though the new system went into effect without any unforeseen problems, some were not convinced it made for a better learning environment. 

“It’s more difficult to provide options if you’re restricted,” said Miller. “Having all the general classes in periods one through six and all the extra classes in periods zero and seven spreads everything out in an unnatural way.” 

School Board President Shirley Issel mentioned the elimination of “gaps,” periods in which a student does not have any scheduled classes, as one of the benefits of the new six-period system. Berkeley High School recently adopted a formal policy against schedule “gaps,” for security reasons, according to Doran. 

“There’s a requirement that students fill all gaps in their schedules first,” said Miller. “So if a student wants to take orchestra and AP science, which are offered in zero and seventh periods, he would have to fill all the gaps in between first.” 

In contrast, Issel pointed out that the system was beneficial in that it enhanced the amount of time teachers spend in front of students. 

“This allows us to put more emphasis on a common core, classes like English, history, science, and art,” said Issel. “There might be fewer classes but those that are offered will be better for all kids. It’s sort of a ‘less is more’ principle.” 

Doran said that 30 different “enhancement period” sections were available, with space for 900 students to enroll. Since many sections had not met their enrollment capacity, Doran believed that all students got the classes they wanted. 

“Most students were only taking classes for six of the seven periods, anyway,” he said. “Overall, the impact of the change was pretty minimal.”

To the Editor: 

I have worked with LA Wood for more than a year and a half on CEAC (Community Environmental Advisory Commission) both during his term as vice-chair and my own, and can speak with some experience to Mr. Wood's experience and qualifications to run for City Council in the 4th District. LA is a concerned, informed citizen. He shows a great deal of tenacity, care, and attention to detail in his dedication to community issues. He is an honest man, one who is willing to stand up for his beliefs, and who is committed to the citizens of Berkeley. When I heard that he was running for City Council, I was thrilled. LA has tackled social issues ranging the gambit of Berkeley politics, and I can whole-heartedly endorse him as an excellent choice for City Council. Members of the 4th District have the rare chance to vote for a person who displays both compassion and dedication when they cast their votes. If only every city in the nation were so lucky to have individuals who bring such a wide range of interests as well as unparalleled commitment, combined with a relentless desire to see the common good of every citizen brought to the table, this country would be a wealthier place. 

LA Wood represents the finest choice available to the vote for City Council in his district, and without a doubt I endorse his candidacy for this position. 

James Bianco,  

Berkeley

After handing out a proverbial carrot to student riders this August – in the form of lower bus rates for youth – AC Transit swung its stick at the rest of its estimated 235,000 patrons. 

System-wide fare hikes, including the 12 bus lines that traverse Berkeley, went into effect Sunday to help offset the transit agency’s $17.6 million budget deficit. The price of an adult fare, for ages 18 to 64, increased 15 cents to $1.50. Fares for seniors went up from 65 cents to 75 cents.  

The new rates make AC Transit buses some of the most expensive in the state. The national average adult rate for a one-way city bus trip is $1.09, according to the American Public Transit Association. 

“I knew it was changing today,” said Maria who was waiting for a bus on San Pablo Avenue. “I’m not happy about it, but at least I won’t be dropping any more dimes.” 

Subscribers to AC Transit’s 10-ride book and 31-day pass will experience less severe fare hikes. The price of a 10-ride book, now an electronic pass, will increase from $11.50 to $13. 

The discount rate will go up from $5.50 to $6.50. The 31-day pass for adults will increase just a dollar, from $49 to $50, while the same pass for seniors and the disabled will go up two dollars to $15. 

Commuters taking the bus across the bay are the most adversely affected. A single transbay ticket now costs $3, up from $2.50 and more expensive than a comparable BART ride which ranges from $2.50 to $2.70. The new 10-ride transbay pass is set at $26 for adults, while the 31-day pass costs $85. 

In addition, AC Transit rolled out its new one-day pass Sunday. Priced at $5 for adults and $2.50 for youth and seniors, the pass provides unlimited rides for any one day and is good from the time of purchase until 3 a.m. the following morning. 

Students, ages 5 to 17, who make up approximately a quarter of AC Transit riders are the big winners in the recent fare changes. A single student fare dropped from $1.35 to 75 cents Sunday. 

In August, AC Transit reduced the price of the student 31-day pass from $27 to $15. In addition, after months of pressure from student advocates, the agency offered free passes to the roughly 33,000 disadvantaged students who qualify for free lunch programs in Berkeley and other cities served by the transit agency. About 2,000 Berkeley students are expected to qualify for the two-year pilot program.  

The student fare reductions are a gamble for the agency in the throes of a budget crisis. Transit officials hope the reduced student monthly pass will entice 8,900 new riders, increasing revenues and subsidizing the free passes provided to disadvantaged students. 

A combination of declining sales tax revenues, state funding and fare returns during the recent economic downturn has landed the agency in a $17.6 million budget shortfall. 

To offset the deficit, AC Transit has also initiated a November ballot measure, which if passed, will net approximately $7.5 million for the agency by slapping a $24 tax on property holders from Richmond to Hayward. The ballot initiative must be approved by two-thirds of the electorate to take effect. 

If the ballot measure fails, transit officials warn that a service reduction is likely. The agency will cover its budget for the current fiscal year but “beyond that we’re in serious trouble financially,” said Jim Gleich, deputy general manager of AC Transit during an earlier interview. 

In 2000, voters passed Measure B, a sales tax hike to help fund the agency, but according to transit officials the expected $304 million in increased funding hasn’t materialized. 

“The economy, being stalled as it is, has caused sales tax revenues to be lower than what was projected a year or two ago,” said AC Transit spokesperson Mike Mills last July.

Doctor loses custody of hippo 

ESCONDIDO – A doctor who kept a rare pygmy hippopotamus in his back yard for a decade before it was seized by authorities defended his treatment of the animal and claimed critics were spreading lies about him. 

Arthur Stehly, 63, said he always kept a variety of unusual animals, including emus, ostriches, deer, goats, tortoises, pheasants and camels, while his 10 children were growing up. 

He said the hippo, which had a skin condition that caused it to bleed, was well-fed and happy. But the hippo did not like to use its 3-foot-deep pond in the winter, Stehly said Friday. 

“Then she would get scaly skin,” he said. “She would scratch it on the side and bleed a little, but it wasn’t bad.” 

No charges were filed against Stehly for keeping the animal. The hippo was seized eight months ago, but Stehly has not spoken about the incident until now. 

The 500-pound hippo, which has been kept at an animal rehabilitation center in Escondido, is being moved to Black Beauty Ranch, a refuge in Texas where it will have grass, shade trees and a large pool. 

Trip ends short 

SANTA CRUZ – A 67-year-old Montara man has given up his quest to float across the Pacific Ocean in his homemade raft – at least for now. 

Andrew Urbanczyk and his redwood raft were hauled into Santa Cruz Harbor on Friday. 

He was headed to Japan or Hawaii or wherever the winds would take him. He traveled with a cat and a couple dragonflies on his 40-by-20-foot, two-masted raft. “The Nord” was seven huge redwood logs lashed together with rope. 

Urbanczyk, a world-class sailor who has set records sailing solo across oceans, said he will try to make his trip again after he builds a smaller raft. 

Urbanczyk left Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay a week ago. He gave up his quest after circling around in nearly calm seas 60 miles off Santa Cruz. 

Cops cheat on promotion exam 

SANTA ANA – Results of a police promotion exam were tossed out after officials discovered that some of the 107 officers taking the test had an advance look at the questions. 

The City Attorney’s Office was investigating how the questions on an exam given to officers seeking promotions to corporal were leaked. 

After the city completes its probe, the case will be turned over to the department’s internal affairs division, Mario Carona, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Police Department, said Friday. 

Any officers who were found to have cheated could be fired, demoted or reprimanded, he said.

Arson suspected in grass fire 

VALLEJO — The Vallejo Fire Department says a three-alarm grassfire that scorched more than 50 acres near the Carquinez Bridge on Friday might be the result of arson. 

Fire spokesman Bill Tweedy says investigators are still probing the cause of the blaze, but it is suspicious in nature. 

The fire, which was reported shortly before 2 p.m. Friday, was fanned by 10-15 mph winds up a hillside above Interstate Highway 80 just north of the Carquinez Straights. 

There were no reported injuries but several structures were threatened at one point. 

Firefighters from Benicia, Crockett, Cordelia, American Canyon, Suisun City, Contra Costa County and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection assisted Vallejo fire crews in combating the fire. 

Rape treated as hate crime 

PALO ALTO— In an attack being called a hate crime a 15-year-old girl allegedly was raped at a drug store Friday. 

Palo Alto police said Sanjay Nair, 18, who is Hindu, allegedly made comments while raping the Muslim girl, leading police to label the attack a hate crime. 

The attack occurred in the basement bathroom of Longs Drug Store in Palo Alto. 

The girl was treated at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center before being released Saturday morning. 

A manager at the store said Nair had been suspended because he had reportedly sexually harassed the girl verbally. 

Nair is being held without bail in Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose on charges of false imprisonment, rape, hate crimes and sexual battery. 

Traffic police out on Labor Day 

Bay Area law enforcement authorities said today they have arrested 277 people for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs so far this Labor Day weekend during their coordinated anti-drunken driving campaign, called Bay Area AVOID.

SACRAMENTO – Lawmakers passed a two-months-late budget early Sunday morning and approved a last-minute array of bills ranging from construction defects to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants as the Legislature ended its 2002 session. 

The $99 billion budget closed a $23.6 billion deficit through a combination of spending cuts and new revenues — which legislative leaders took great pains to not call new taxes — and required Gov. Gray Davis to make $750 million in cuts from government operations, not programs. 

Four Republicans joined 50 Assembly Democrats in voting 54-26 to pass the budget, but that vote was put on hold pending Senate action on a related constitutional amendment proposal on infrastructure spending. 

But one long-debated and heavily lobbied issue — limits on companies’ abilities to sell customer’s financial information — died in the session’s final minutes, as its Senate sponsor, Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, persuaded the Senate to kill a version of her original bill amended by the Assembly earlier in the evening. 

The Senate adjourned at 12:26 a.m. Sunday, and the Assembly followed at 1:31 a.m. 

Legislators also approved bills Saturday that let insurance companies offer discounts for some customers, but a state Senate committee struck down a bill that aimed to keep Hollywood film projects in California by giving incentives to production companies. 

A “right-to-repair” bill under negotiation for nearly a decade was sent to the governor Saturday, after homebuilders and lawyers compromised on ground rules for fixing construction defects in single-family homes and attached condominiums. 

The bill by Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, gives homebuilders the chance to fix problems before lawsuits are filed. It also lets homeowners sue for problems such as sagging roofs and faulty chimneys before they cause damage instead of after. 

Proponents said it will help jump start the condominium construction market and will result in more affordable housing in a state with one of the nation’s lowest homeowner rates. 

Legislators hope the measure will keep unhappy home buyers out of court and return insurers to a construction industry they have largely abandoned in the last decade. 

The Senate’s 33-6 vote sent the bill to Gov. Gray Davis. 

During the afternoon, Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson said he had reached a deal with Assembly Republicans to pass a $99 billion state budget, two months late and just hours before the Legislature was set to end its session. 

Four Assembly Republicans supported the budget, giving the majority Democrats the two-thirds majority they needed to pass it. The final vote was 54-26 with Republicans Dick Dickerson, Mike Briggs, David Kelley and Keith Richman joining all 50 Democrats to support it. 

The budget features about $2 billion in cuts and directs Davis to cut about $750 million from government operations, not programs, on top of $7 billion in cuts already proposed in May. It would cut 1,000 state jobs by the end of next fiscal year and encourage longtime state employees to retire by sweetening the state retirement package. 

The plan also would effectively reduce the minimum amount of money the state must spend on K-12 schools by $700 million. 

It also includes a semantically appealing solution to the issue of tax increases: About $2 billion in measures that add new money to the state treasury. Lawmakers have called these “revenue enhancements” to avoid calling them tax increases and appeal to Republicans and their constituents. 

But the deal abandons some major tax increase plans put forth by Davis — an increase in the state vehicle license fee back to 1998 levels and an increase on the state excise tax for cigarettes. 

Other bills approved by the Senate Saturday included a measure inspired by the recent Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies. 

A bill by Assemblyman Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco, and Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy, would require companies to disclose more information about their directors and officers to the public, including their compensation, stock options and fraud convictions. 

It would also force a company to reveal any bankruptcy filings and violations of federal security and state laws, as well as establish a restitution fund to assist victims of corporate fraud. 

The Senate also voted 30-0 to approve a bill to let insurance companies discount rates for customers who maintain coverage, even if they switch insurers. 

Consumer advocates said it would result in higher costs for previously uninsured motorists, and vowed to sue to overturn the bill if it is signed by the governor.

SACRAMENTO – California consumers will not gain any new financial privacy protections this year, despite three different attempts to pass such a bill on the last day of the legislative session. 

A turbulent debate over the issue culminated on the Assembly floor Saturday, as lawmakers first killed a bill by Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, that would have allowed consumers to prohibit companies from sharing their financial information. That bill was then amended, passed the Assembly and then slaughtered in the Senate, after Speier called the new version a “sham.” 

The Assembly narrowly voted 34-36 Saturday afternoon to kill Speier’s original bill, which was the strictest of the three measures. 

Shortly afterward, Assemblyman John Dutra, D-Fremont, proposed amendments to the bill, which were backed by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans who opposed the previous version. The amendments would give customers the ability to prohibit companies from sharing their financial information with non-affiliate companies, while Speier’s version would have applied to affiliate companies as well. 

Dutra said the bill still would have been the strongest privacy law in the country and could have been much stronger if the two had worked together. 

“Keep in mind, mine got 49 votes (in the Assembly). Hers got 34 (votes),” Dutra said. “Regardless of what she said about how much more beneficial it would have been, it’s not beneficial if you can’t enact it into law.” 

Speier and consumer activists said the amendments weakened the bill to the point it would not offer consumers enough protection. 

Dutra previously had plans to introduce an entirely new bill but reportedly had trouble finding a Senate author, forcing him to “hijack” Speier’s bill without her approval. With Speier retained as the bill’s author, she attempted to remove the bill from the floor, only to have supporters of the new bill counter with a vote to override her request. 

The bill passed the Assembly in a 49-12 vote. 

Speier, however, promised to “take it up and kill it after exposing it for what it is.” She was successful: The bill got just one vote.

UC Berkeley is offering its first course taught entirely over the Internet this year. 

“Gems and Gem Materials” is an undergraduate course that is offered by the earth and planetary science department. It targets non-science majors who want to satisfy their physical science requirement. 

Taught by professor Jill Banfield, the course will post all of its materials – from quizzes to texts to video presentations – on the web.  

The site, located http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~eps2/, is open to everyone. 

Banfield and her teaching assistant will be available to meet face to face with students during office hours, and students must show up in person to take the midterm and final examinations, but most of the interaction will take place through e-mail. 

While the UC Berkeley Extension school already offers online courses, and some classes at UC Berkeley incorporate the Internet into studies, this is the first course to completely abandon the confines of a building. 

Physics professor Robert Jacobson, who reviewed the course materials as part of the academic senate panel that approved the course's test run, says that the course could be just the tip of the iceberg for cyber-education at UC Berkeley but adds that there are still many lessons to be learned. 

“Changing the way we teach is a progression, we have to learn what works best and what doesn't,” Jacobsen said. “I think this has started the snowball rolling.” 

Statistics professor Philip Stark, who is assistant in education technology for the university's Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs, said that the university supports using technology when appropriate, but added that technology will never fully replace the classroom. 

The favored method, he said, is as part as a “hybrid” approach that incorporates technology to supplement lectures and other personal interactions between professors and students. 

“Neither the administration nor the faculty think that a UC Berkeley undergraduate education should consist of sitting in front of a computer in lieu of face-to-face contact with an instructor,” Stark said.  

“As I see it, Berkeley is a research university, and this course is an experiment – it's research into teaching – to see how well the approach works.”

A Berkeley-based nonprofit group announced the availability this week of a second edition of its free guide that provides information to disabled people trying to navigate sites around San Francisco. 

Access Northern California's 32-page guide includes information about accessing more than 150 hotels, public transportation locations, shopping centers, museums and restaurants. Staff members visited each place included in the guide to inspect such features as bathrooms, roll-in showers, parking lots and accessible entries. 

Director Bonnie Lewkowicz said, “Access information is often inaccurate, unreliable and hard to come by, making it difficult for people with disabilities to travel.” 

Comments are meant to be detailed and frank so people living with disabilities can know exactly what they should expect when visiting a particular location, the group said. 

One such comment reads, “Path of travel from the street to the entrance is rough paving.” 

The guide can be viewed at the group's Web site, www.accessnca.com, or a free copy can be obtained by calling the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau at (415) 391-2000. 

Large print versions and audiocassettes are available.

WALNUT CREEK — The chief nursing home and hospital inspector in Contra Costa and Alameda counties was fired for what the state Department of Health Services called an “inexcusable neglect of duty,” the Contra Costa Times reported. 

Other reasons cited for the firing of Gilbert Martinez, 52, of Oakley, include dishonesty, misuse of state property, conflict of interest and embarrassing his employer, according to State Personnel Board records. 

Martinez has appealed the dismissal, said Richard Burton, his lawyer. 

“He’s being accused of things at this time that have yet to be proven,” Burton said. 

The records, released at the request of the Contra Costa Times, indicate Martinez was fired from his $71,000 a year job on Aug. 14. 

The records allege Martinez worked for a company owned by his wife that offered consulting services to nursing homes. They also allege he used his state-owned computer to access sexually explicit Web sites during normal business hours. 

Burton said the state has no proof a conflict of interest existed between Martinez and his wife, and it has denied his requests to produce evidence that Martinez used his computer to look at pornography.

VALLEJO – Two men are in custody and police are looking for a third in connection with nine East Bay bank robberies that have occurred since July. 

According to a police statement, 31-year-old John Cullum of Iowa was arrested on Thursday and charged with three robberies that occurred in Solano County. Authorities in Contra Costa and Alameda counties are also said to be filing robbery charges against Cullum. 

Also arrested was Vallejo resident Derrick Mapes, 23, who is charged with driving a getaway car during one of the robberies, police said.  

Vallejo resident Royce Gipson, 33, has been identified as a third suspect but he has not been taken into custody. 

Police allege that Cullum has been living in area motels since April but started robbing banks on July 25, when he hit the Bayview Bank on Tennessee Street. After that, they said he committed additional robberies in Pinole, Richmond, San Leandro, Fremont and Albany. 

In all of the robberies police said the suspect would demand money from bank tellers after giving them a note that indicated he had a gun. No gun was ever seen, however, and there were no injuries in any of the robberies. 

Multiple police departments worked with the FBI on the case until investigators received a break in the case following a robbery that occurred Aug. 28 at the Mechanic's Bank in Pinole. A witness to that robbery was able to provide a partial license plate number to police who connected it with a vehicle that had been registered at several area motels. 

A surveillance operation was set up based on that information and, with the use of surveillance photos taken at several of the robberies, police arrested Cullum.

OAKLAND – The Labor Day weekend was no break from the violence that is patterning this year as one of the bloodiest in Oakland’s history. 

Sunday night, a 26-year-old woman was shot and killed by a former boyfriend at her home on the 1700 block of 23rd Ave, according to the Oakland Police Department. The suspect later phoned the department and turned himself in, police reported. 

The shooting represents the 76th homicide in Oakland this year, significantly more than the number of homicides at the same time last year. 

Later Sunday night police responded to another shooting on the 5100 block of West Street in west Oakland. The incident was not fatal, and the male victim, whose name was not immediately released, was reported to be in stable condition at Highland Hospital. 

On Saturday evening, a 17-year-old Oakland man was shot to death on the 900 block of Mandela Parkway, police reported. No suspects have been identified. 

On Friday night, Georgia McIntyre, 68, of Oakland was killed after being hit by a motor home that had been stolen from a dealership in south Oakland, according to police. No suspects have been identified. 

-Compiled from staff and wire reports

OAKLAND— Transit officials are taking a look at a new mass transit system that would use small trams instead of trains and would look similar to a freeway with rest areas. 

Projections of low-cost construction and overwhelming convenience have seemed unrealistic in the past. But the idea has finally caught the attention of BART and the Port of Oakland. It would be used primarily around Oakland International Airport and as a feeder to BART for hard-to-reach locations such as Alameda. 

Based on a concept called Group Rapid Transit, the system involves dozens of electronically powered and computer-operated “trams” to take passengers direct to their destination. 

Instead of having one large train stop at many stations, the group rapid transit concept calls for many small trains stopping at few stations. 

“Some people look at (it) and say that is Jetsons-type stuff and we don’t need to waste money on that,” said Richard Lu, a senior analyst in BART’s research and development department. “It is so new that nobody wants to look foolish, but given the politics and demand out there for new connections, we thought that it was worthwhile to at least take a look.” 

The cost of construction has been estimated at $10 million a mile, compared with BART’s $100 million a mile. 

Alameda-based CyberTran Inc. developed and tested a prototype of a tram that can be used on the system. The firm also has developed computer models of how the system could work in the San Francisco Bay area.