“We are challenging the memory that Black Panthers were brutal, the memory that they were violent, and the memory that they were criminal,” said UC Berkeley professor Percy Hintzen at a lecture Sunday. -more-

Frank Rich, the longtime New York Times drama critic, couldn’t seem to find anything good to say about Harry Kondoleon’s “The Vampires” when it appeared 14 years ago in New York. Judging by the production of Shotgun Players that opened Saturday night at La Val’s Subterranean, it looks as if Rich was just having a bad night. -more-

TAX REFUND -more-

Among Berkeley’s few remaining original downtown residences is the John M. Doyle House, located at 2008 University Avenue. It was built as a duplex with a workshop in 1890; the storefront facade was added in 1947, but the Victorian house has remained in the rear. -more-

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TUESDAY, APRIL 15

City Council’s effort to rename a major Berkeley street in honor of labor leader Cesar Chavez may be headed for a bump in the road. -more-

Pinball machines, beer and pizza stand guard while below, in the dungeon of La Val’s Pizza Parlor on Euclid Avenue, Berkeley’s 10-year-old phenomenon, The Shotgun Players, launch their latest theatrical offering: Harry Kondoleon’s “The Vampires.” -more-

The following letter was sent to Chancellor Robert Berdahl in response to a protest held April 9 at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza: -more-

As the world watched, spellbound, the spectacle of massive looting in the cities of Iraq, the tragedy proved particularly wrenching for those whose lives have been devoted to the study of the ancient land considered the cradle of Western culture. Hardest to bear were scenes of looting at Baghdad’s Iraqi National Museum, until Friday home to one of the world’s greatest collections of antiquities. -more-

Nothing could be more indicative of America’s innocence abroad than the outraged statement by one of the officers in Operation Iraqi Freedom. -more-

TUESDAY, APRIL 15 -more-

A woman walking her dog along the Point Isabel Shoreline in Richmond Monday discovered the decomposed body of a woman at water’s edge, about a mile from where the body of a full-term male fetus was found the day before. -more-

On April 18, I and other stunned neighbors from the Benvenue and Willard neighborhoods watched in dismay as eight members of City Council voted swiftly and mercilessly to destroy a fine old apartment building at 2500 Benvenue Ave. at Dwight Way. This building is just one part of the expansion plans of the American Baptist Seminary of the West. However, much to the community’s relief, the council also voted 6-2-1 to require an Environmental Impact Report (ERI) for another part of the project, a proposed massive new building slated to replace two historic homes. The purpose of the entire project is in question, since the seminary has only 40 full-time students and currently rents half its space to UC Extension. -more-

It’s a classic switcheroo — a four-way building swap that is leaving West Berkeley residents a little dizzy. -more-

A group of teachers and parents at Jefferson Elementary School are pushing to rename the building, citing concerns with Thomas Jefferson’s slaveholding past. But critics, including some parents, call the move shortsighted. -more-