Walking along a bustling section of Telegraph Avenue, Mayor Tom Bates, clad in beat-up sneakers and a pair of baggy, frayed blue jeans, intently watched the ground from beneath the brim of a cap pulled low over his forehead. 

Suddenly he stooped to pick up an apple that was wedged between the edge of the sidewalk and a Cyclone fence near Haste Street. 

“That’s what we call a ‘ground score’, ” said a homeless man walking alongside the mayor. The man high-fived the mayor, who then polished the small treasure on his shirt before slipping it into his pants’ pocket.  

“I’m going to save this for tonight,” the mayor said and returned his attention to the sidewalk. 

The scene might have been typical in the day of a homeless person. In this case, however, trailing 20 feet behind the mayor was a gaggle of reporters, photographers and cameramen making note of his every move.  

Bates, 65, was touring Telegraph Avenue as part of a 24-hour stint as a homeless person. During his time on the street, Bates slept in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, toured 15 homeless service centers and spoke to dozens of homeless people on city streets and in city parks. 

The mayor and his entourage finally set up camp beneath the trees behind the Civic Center around 9:30 Tuesday night. There, Bates used a public Porta-Potty that he described as a horrible experience, and was wakened around 2 a.m. by a Berkeley police officer who hadn’t been notified of the city-authorized one-night encampment. Usually the park closes at 10 p.m.  

Bates was joined in the park by about 30 people including his chief of staff, Cisco DeVries, and boona cheema, director of the nonprofit homeless agency Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency. BOSS Community Organizer Michael Diehl, who spent many years homeless and planned much of the mayor’s 24-hour itinerary, also spent the night in the park. 

Bates first promised to spend 24 hours on the street in the heat of a campaign debate last year, but in the five months since he won the mayor’s office, the trip turned into a mission of discovery.  

“I saw a lot of heart-breaking things,” Bates said. “I saw a mother with a 3-year-old baby and no place to go.” 

The mayor said that he tried to find out as much information as he could from the people living on the streets. 

“I had a lot of interchange with homeless people in the last 24 hours,” he said. “I asked them where they were from. I asked them what they did for a living, why they were homeless.” 

DeVries said it was a good time for the mayor to learn about the city’s homeless programs because cuts in state funding appear to be inevitable. He said, however, that preliminary city budgets don’t appear to include large cuts to homeless programs.  

Berkeley’s homeless population is difficult to track and currently no official head count exists. The city devotes $3 million to homeless programs, and the federal and state governments provide another $7.3 million for an annual total of $10.3 million.  

That money provides services for an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 people. 

Services in Berkeley include four shelters with 200 permanent beds for individuals and families, and an additional 75 temporary beds during the winter. There are four daytime drop-in centers and two multi-service centers.  

Of Berkeley’s estimated homeless population, 70 percent are adult, 75 percent are male, 20 percent are women with children and 61 percent are African-American, according to a fact sheet released by the mayor’s office. 

Bates kicked off his 24-hour stint with a dinner of mixed rice, broccoli and juice at the Trinity Baptist Church on Bancroft. He visited the Anne Carter Memorial Free Clothing Store at the Ecumenical Chaplaincy to the Homeless.  

He then toured the Berkeley Free Clinic before walking, with about 25 people in tow, to People’s Park. Bates sat on a plywood stage and bantered with a small group of homeless people for about 30 minutes before moving on to the UC student-run Suitcase Clinic on Dana Street.  

The clinic provides a variety of services including foot washing, chiropractic care and legal services.  

“I’m in total awe of this program,” Bates said. “The students do everything there from giving haircuts, to giving legal counsel to washing feet, which to me is one of the most humbling things possible.” 

Many service providers are concerned that coming budget cuts will decimate their programs and reduce their ability to care for the homeless.  

Bates said his one-night experience was valuable for better understanding the city’s homeless services and the people who use them.  

“Most of what I learned, I learned from talking to homeless people,” a bleary-eyed Bates said at a press conference at his final stop, the Center for Independent Living, on Wednesday afternoon. “I’ve taken in so much information it will take some time to absorb it and think it through.” 

He did suggest an immediate action that would not cost any money. He said he learned that it was critical to establish better coordination between existing homeless services. He said, for example, the attendants at the 80-bed Harrison House in West Berkeley should be better trained to deal with disabled clients, who are sometimes turned away because attendants lack basic knowledge about providing service to the disabled.  

Bates said his night gave him the impression that about half of the homeless are so by choice, and that the other half want to get off the street but are prevented by lack of support or substance abuse problems.  

“We have to find a way to help the 50 percent who want to get off the street, to get off the street,” he said. “I want to see a detox facility established somewhere in Alameda County to help these people.” 

During his tour Bates was often challenged by the homeless, who questioned the sincerity of his homeless stint. Some thought his night was an opportunity to get positive publicity for himself or perhaps a prelude to a crackdown by police or deep cuts to the homeless budget. 

A man calling himself “Breeze” said he’d been homeless for 30 years and had seen politicians pull similar stunts in the past.  

“Are you spending the night in a sleeping bag from the Free Box?” Breeze said, referring to a donation box where the homeless can find clothing and other items. “If you’re going to come out here with us, come out here with us.” 

Bates admitted that his night only allowed him brief insight to the condition of homelessness. “This was just a glimpse, a sip, a taste, but there was also a lot of reality,” he said. 

At the press conference, Bates denied his homeless night was a stunt and said there were no plans to cut services. Rather, he described himself as invigorated to work to maintain homeless services in the face of large budget deficits. 

“This was not about Tom Bates,” he said. “It’s about the people who are homeless, the casualties that walk our streets.” 

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 

548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. 496-6000, ext.135. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship www.bpf.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon, Francis U. Macy 

Co-Director, Center for Safe Energy, on the "The Growing Environmental Movement in Russia." Luncheon 11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50, Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations 526-2925, 665-9020. 

“War is a Coward’s Escape from the Problems of Peace,” a lecture by William Sloane Coffin, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, on Dana between Durant and Channing. $5 suggested donation. 

The War at Home: Organizing for Social and Economic Justice 

Conference at UC Berkeley on the war economy and how it will affect us all, from Friday evening through Sunday. Workshops include: Next Steps for the Anti-War Movement, Expanding Health Care Access, Immigrant Workers’ Rights, Defending Quality Public Education and more. Sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America. Cost is $20 - $50 in advance, $35 - $65 at the door. Registration opens at 5 p.m., Room 2050, Valley Life Science Bldg., UC Campus. For information on registration and location, call 415-789-8497 or www.dsausa.org/lowwage 

7th Annual Charles T. Travers Ethics Conference:  

Citizenship, Education, and Public Accountability, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lipman Room, 8th floor, Barrows Hall. Sponsored by UC Berkeley Political Science Dept., UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, and The Commonwealth Club of California. This one-day conference will explore the idea of responsible citizenship  

and the role of citizens in shaping public policy. http://ethics.berkeley.edu/conference/conference.html  

US Chemical Warfare: The Tragedy of Agent Orange 

with speakers Gerald Nicosia and Fred Wilcox at 6 p.m. in the Free Speech Cafe, Moffitt Library, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Free Speech Movement Cafe Educational Programs. 642-1056.  

lcushing@library.berkeley.edu 

Downtown Berkeley YMCA Family Night, with Free Ice Cream and Karaoke.  

Belt out a few tunes and build yourself a sundae! From 7 to 9 p.m. at 2001 Allston Way, free and open to the public. 848-9622. www.baymca.org 

Please join the Pilgrimage Project for Indiaquest, part of our global search among women of spirit for equitable, 

sustainable peace. The gathering will be held at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Common Room, 2451 Ridge Rd., Fri. April 25 

6:30 - 9 p.m. and Sat. April 26, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Registration on site $20 or contact Linda at benetlin@aol.com or Kate at 

kbemis@linfield.edu; or visit us on the web at http://www.thepilgrimageproject.org. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 

Berkeley Bay Festival at the Marina from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

The theme is environmental education and the Bay. A free event for all ages. Workshops, walks, canoeing class, bike rides. Build a solar cooker, explore the new pedestrian I-80 overpass and the Bay Trail, and check out the Shorebird Nature Center's straw bale building currently being built. 644-8623. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/marina/marinaexp/bayfest.html.  

Spring Plant Sale at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call 643-2755 for directions. www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden 

Kids’ Garden Club: Butterflies at 2 p.m. in the  

Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours, “Berkeley Verses: Exploring the Cal Campus and Its Poems,” led by Steve Finacom. $5 members, $10 non-members. For reservations call 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc 

Thumbs Up: Child Identification Project 

Free Child Identification Cards, for all children ages 18 months to 18 years at Eastmont Mall, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., sponsored by the California Correctional Peace Officers Assoc. and the California Youth Authority. For information call Rochelle O’Donnell 563-5361. 

Crop Circles: Quest for Truth, a documentary video will be shown with presenters F. Bogzaran and Michael Miley from 2 - 4:30 p.m. at 1744 University Ave. 845-1767. 

Small Press Distribution Open House. The only non-profit literary book distributor celebrates its 34th Anniversary with readings, browsing and food and drink, noon - 4 p.m. at its warehouse, 1341 7th St., off Gilman. 524-1668 x 305 or www.spdbooks.org 

The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) will be holding a GI Volunteer Training from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., at 630 20th St., Suite #302, Oakland, CA. We will be training military counselors to take calls from GIs and provide information on how to obtain a discharge or file a grievance. For more information call 465-1617. 

Spring Design Office Tour: The UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design Alumni Association will host a tour of design firms and artist's studios from 1-5 p.m. Locations are in the East Bay and San Francisco. Tickets are $20 for the general public, $15 for CED alumni and $5 for students. For information and registration see www.ced.berkeley.edu/news or call Lawrence Lawler 642-7459, or email lawler@uclink.berkeley.edu. 

Hitchhikers’ Rally, a benefit performance and pot luck for KPFA’s radio drama/documentary series “Hitchhiking off the Map,” at 7 p.m. at the Tea Party House in the Lake Merritt area of Oakland. Donation requested. Call 800-357-6016 for reservations and location details. 

Book Sale to raise funds for sending books to Sori Primary and Sori Secondary, in Sori, Kenya 10 a.m - 5 p.m. Also on the 27th. 3000 books, including the inventory of a closed used bookstore; quality books at garage sale prices. 1261 Campus Dr., (Go up Cedar to top, left on LaLoma, left on Glendale, left on Campus) For information call 769-7613 or SandyHodges@attbi.com 

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 

The Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland, at 8 a.m. For information call 544-8918. 

People’s Park 34th Anniversary Peace Party and Concert Celebrate the history of People’s Park with host Wavy Gravy, speakers Rep. Barbara Lee, David Hilliard, Ed Rosenthal, Michael Delacour and others. Music by Clan Dyken, The F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.S, Big Brutha Soul, Carol Denney, Country Joe and more. Food from Food Not Bombs and gardening with Roots of Peace. For information 390-0830. 

Berkeley Historical Society 25th Anniversary Celebration at the Veteran’s Memorial Building, 1931 Center St., from 3 - 5 p.m. Author/historian Richard Schwartz will give a lecture on "Landscape of Berkeley: Before Development." This is the last chance to see the Bishop Berkeley exhibit, curated by  

Steve Finacom: "'Time's Noblest Offspring' - George Berkeley and the naming of Berkeley, California." Admission free. Refreshments will be served. For information call 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc 

Permaculture Workshop on Greywater Systems, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Eco-House, 1305 Hopkins, on the corner of Peralta, near Gilman. Enter at Peralta gate. Donations on a sliding scale of $5 - $20, but no one turned away for lack of funds. For more information contact Katharine Jolda 465-9439. 

Yom Ha'Shoah sponsored by Kol Hadash, the Bay Area's only Jewish Humanistic congregation, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Dedicated to Holocaust Rescuers and Rescued, with three short personal stories. Call 415-507-0170 or 848-6137. or email KolHadash@aol.com 

TUESDAY, APRIL 29 

State of the City Address by Mayor Bates, at Longfellow Middle School Auditorium, 1500 Derby St., at Sacramento, at 5:30 p.m. If you have questions or need more information, please contact the Mayor's 

Office at 981-7100 or mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

The Reality of Public Power 

Panel Discussion 

Moderator: Reid Edwards, Director of Community Relations, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Panelists: Bill F. Roberts, Ph.D, President, Economic Sciences Corporation; Hal Concklin, Director of Public Affairs, Southern California Edison; Paul Fenn, Director, Local Power; Cynthia Wooten-Cohen, Energy Consultant. At 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. For reservations: 981-5435. energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Berkeley Camera Club 

Meets every Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 525-3565.  

www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

THURSDAY, MAY 1 

BOSS Graduation, Join the community for a very special Graduation honoring poor and homeless people who have achieved self-sufficiency and independence. The evening will include a cermeony, performance and a sit down dinner, 6 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel at the Berkeley Marina, 200 Marina Blvd. Tickets $50 each.  

To RSVP, call 649-1930. 

A Lot in Common, video documentary by Emmy award-winning producer/editor Rick Bacigalupi about the growth of community as neighbors, artists and others build and use the Peralta and Northside Community Art Garden Commons, at 7:30 p.m., at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar St. and Bonita. For information contact Rick Bacigalupi 415-282-0340. ALotinCommon@aol.com 

Bike Repair: Suspension  

Do it yourself! Part of The Missing Link Bicycle Co-Op’s 30th annual FREE lecture series, at 7:30 p.m. at Missing Link, 1988 Shattuck Ave. 843-7471.  

Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1 FM, holds public meetings for all interested people first and third Thursdays, 7 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190.  

FRIDAY, MAY 2 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 

548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. 496-6000, ext.135. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship www.bpf.org 

Sex, Lies & International Economics a film on alternative economics for women’s equality at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, a reading room, library and community center in South Berkeley located at 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. All events are free. 

540-0751. ww.thelonghaul.org 

ONGOING 

Activist Skill Class: Practical Skills for Difficult Times 

Tactics and strategies of activism with Karen Pickett and Phil Klasky. Classes offered through Merritt College, Tuesday evenings and Saturdays, beginning April 29 through May 24. To register call 548-2220 x 233. Classes at  

The Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Cooking and Baking Classes, offered by The Bread Project in conjunction with Berkeley Adult School. Contact Lucie Buchbinder at 644-1713 for more information.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Transportation Commission Pedestrian Subcommittee meets Friday, April 25, 3 p.m. at 2118 Milvia St., Third Floor Conference Room. Carolyn Helmke, 981-7062. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/transportation/default.htm  

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Monday, April 28, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Deborah Chernin, 981-6715. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/parksandrecreation/default.htm 

Solid Waste Management Commission meets Monday, April 28, at 7 p.m. at the Transfer Station, 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste/default.htm  

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thursday, May 1 at 7 p.m. at  

2118 Milvia St. 

Nabil Al-Hadithy 981-7461. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/environmentaladvisory/default.htm  

Public Works Commission 

meets Thursday, May 1 at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Jeff Egeberg 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks/default.htm

The only question unanswered at the end of “Surface Transit,” Sarah Jones’ one-woman show at Berkeley Repertory’s Thrust Stage, is “What’s that title all about?” Simple enough: It refers to the bus rides during which this New Yorker found sources for several of the characters she portrays so brilliantly.  

The performance is a skillful mix of different personas, seven in all. They vary wildly from an elderly black street woman to a white male supremacist; from a white European widow raising a child of mixed race to a streetwise young woman fending off a klutzy attempt to pick her up. There’s even an orthodox Jewish grandmother rocking sweetly away. 

Different as the characters are in sex, age and position in life, Jones is convincing as she morphs from one to another before your eyes. It’s no surprise that she has won as many awards as she has. 

Curiously, Jones does not want to be called an actress: She’s a “performer.” It’s a stance which has led the poor souls who write about her to such awkward circumlocutions as “playwright-poet-performer-activist.” Her position may be based on the fact that she has never studied acting or playwriting. (So? Neither did Shakespeare and his cronies.) Her talent for accents is based on years of mimicry. As a bi-racial and multi-ethnic child, she morphed into “whatever made sense” in her families’ different cultures. Later on, she honed her skills when she attended the United Nations International School in New York.  

But there is far more to Jones’ performance than accurate accents: her portrayals of a breadth of characters are mesmerizingly convincing. Young, old, they become real. Feminine as she is, her characterization of three male characters is unquestioningly male. It isn’t a woman behaving like a man; it’s three male characters. That’s all. Even though you’ve watched her make a few quick costume changes right before your eyes, she’s a male.  

She’s amazingly talented. 

Jones has written a script which is basically a feminist, liberal, anti-racist polemic; her messages are clear, but shown in situations with so much humor and understanding — even of the other side of the debates — that the evening is one of entertainment, not edification. 

Her presentation, for example, of a transit guard trying desperately to explain away his attempts to force sex on an unwilling partner could almost arouse sympathy for his ignorance of and obliviousness to his own behavior. It isn’t a situation that seems the stuff of comedy, but even here there is wit and a kind of bemused comprehension. But make no mistake: “Surface Transit” is feminist to the core. 

Perhaps one of the most delightful parts of the program is the portrayal of a teenage black girl at a bus stop contemptuously fending off the advances of an overly interested stranger. 

This scene includes a feminist hip-hop song, drafted as Jones’ rebuke to the relentless misogyny of the hip-hop scene. When it was banned from radio on the basis of indecency, she became the first performing artist to successfully sue the Federal Communications Commission. 

Wildly different as the production’s individual characters are, they’re linked by some incident in which they cross paths with the next one in line. It provides a continuity to the evening which is structurally satisfying as well as a means of conveying the play’s underlying messages.  

The best way to sum up “Surface Transit” is the fact that on the night this writer attended the performance, the audience, both male and female, gave it a standing ovation: a cheering, standing ovation.

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 

CHILDREN 

Harold and the Purple Crayon Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Century of the Self (Parts 3 and 4) at 4 p.m. Cry Woman at 7 p.m. and Marooned in Iraq at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $7.50 members, UC students; $8.50 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $10 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

The Handmaid’s Tale, fundamentalist Christians take over the U.S. and aren’t nice to women, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, at 8 p.m. at The Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Kathy Harrison reads from her memoir, “Another Place at the Table,” about being a foster mother, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St., a Cody’s evening for parents and teachers. 559-9500. 

www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Noon Concert 

Robert Kraig, violin, Rachel Teukolsky, violin, Eric Hsieh, viola, Hannah Hyon, cello 

perform Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1, op.7, in a free concert at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Doors open at 11:55 a.m. 642-4864.  

http://music.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Opera performs Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $38 adults, $33 seniors over 65, $16 children under 18, $10 students. 925-798-1300. 

www.juliamorgan.org 

Trinity Chamber Concerts 

Divertissements with the Collegium Musicum, Kate Van Orden & Anthony Martin, music directors. Music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and his enemies, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Suggested donation of $12 general, $8 students, seniors or disabled. 

549-3864. 

University Dance Theater, presents their annual performance at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8 - $14 available from 866-468-3399. For information contact 642-9925. genturc@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Lavay Smith & her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. with a show at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.   www.ashkenaz.com 

Orixa, Otis Goodnight & the Defenestrators, Dubphonics 

perform Rock, New Soul, Hip Hop at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Charlie King and Karen Brandow, extraordinary songs of ordinary people, at 7:30 p.m. in the Community Room of Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. Cost is $10-$25 sliding scale. 548-1645.  

Gabriel Yacoub, French folk fusion innovator performs at  

8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

John Foster, guitar and Zanzylum perform at the Jazz House, at 8 p.m. Minimum $10. 655-9755. 

Georges Lammam Ensemble 

performs music from Egypt, Iraq, and Saudia Arabia to benefit Friends of Deir Ibzia Summer Camp in Palestine, at  

8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.   www.lapena.org 

Danny Caron, Brenda Boykin and Friends perform at 9:30 p.m., at downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

The People, Sol Americana, Mister Q perform at 9:30 p.m., at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 

Holy Molar, Ex-Models, Scare Tactics, Cold Shoulder, City to City perform at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 

CHILDREN 

Bonnie Lockhart presents a  

morning of sing-along, play-along, move-along songs and music games, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $3 children, $4 adults. 849-2568.  www.lapena.org 

Dance Jammies 

A multi-generational event presented by Orches, a non-profit dance/art organization from 6 to 9:30 p.m. at 2525 8th St. 

Reservations advised. 832-3835. orches@earthlink.net 

Crowden Community Music Day, with concerts, instrument petting zoo, instrument workshops and more from noon to 5 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. 559-6910. www.thecrowdenschool.org 

Demystifying Shakespeare, a workshop for ages 10 to 14, taught by Erin Merrit from Woman’s Will Shakespeare Company, from noon to 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. Cost is $5-$10 sliding scale, scholarships available on request. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing Lost Boys of Sudan at 2 p.m., My Terrorist and For My Children at 4:15 p.m., Waiting for Happiness at 7 p.m. and Dark Side of the Heart 2 at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $7.50 members, UC students; $8.50 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $10 adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Annual Open Mike Poetry Reading takes place from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Allen Ginsberg Memorial Poetry Garden, at Milvia and Lincoln Sts. This year's themes are Peace, War and Humanity. All are all welcome. Come read a poem or two, written by you or a favorite author! For more information or to help, contact Steve Rosenbaum at 644-3971 or srosenba@socrates.berkeley. 

edu. 

Reese Erlich, co-author with Norman Soloman, will discuss their book, “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You,” at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, Cedar and Bonita. Sponsored by the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica. 669-1842. les@ix.netcom.com 

Robert Stone reads from “Bay of Souls” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Marco Marson reads from “Thinking Naked” at 2:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera performs 

Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $38 adults, $33 seniors over 65, $16 children under 18, $10 students, from 925-798-1300. 

www.juliamorgan.org 

University Dance Theater, presents their annual performance at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8 - $14 available from 866-468-3399. For information contact 642-9925. genturc@uclink.berkeley.edu 

En Pointe Youth Dance Company, middle and high school dancers perform The Little Match Girl and Falling Notes at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. at 3 and 8 p.m. Tickets $5. For information email enpointedance@yahoo.com 

Young People’s Chamber Orchestra, directed by Rem Djemilev, performs at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. 

Trinity Chamber Concerts presents Solstice, a female vocal ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St.  

Donation with suggested price of $12 general, $8 students, seniors or disabled. 549-3864. 

Roy Haynes’ Birds of a Feather, a tribute to Charlie Parker, with Kenny Garrett, alto saxophone, Nicholas Payton, trumpet, Christian McBride, bass, Dave Kikoski, piano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20, $30, $42. 642-9988. ww.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau 

Cajun dance lesson with Patti Whitehurst at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m. Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  www.ashkenaz.com 

View From Here, Hyim, Charles Cooper Quartet perform Groove, Urban Folk Rock, Jazz Hip Hop at 9:30 p.m. Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Anton Schwartz Quartet performs at 9:30 p.m., at downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

Barry & Alice Oliver perform 

traditional & contemporary folk at 8 p.m., at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 adv, $17.50 door. 548-1761. .www.freightandsalvage.org 

Fogo Na Roupa Carnival! 

Carnival with dance and Brazilian floor show featuring Carlos Acetuno’s Fogo Na Roupa, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.    www.lapena.org 

Hal Stein Quartet performs familiar standards and originals at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Tickets are $12, $15, $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

See Spot, Los Hulligans, Radio Noise at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8.  

841-2082. 

Replicator, Xiu Xiu, El Guapo, The Paperchase, The Yellow Press perform at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 

CHILDREN 

Building Experimental Musical Instruments from Salvaged Materials, a workshop for all ages, taught by Fran Holland of Tinkers’ Workshop, from noon to 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. Cost is $5-$10 sliding scale, scholarships available on request. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Same River Twice at 1 p.m., Woman of Water at 3:15 p.m., Bus 174 at 6 p.m. and A Peck on the Cheek at 8:45 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $7.50 members, UC students; $8.50 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $10 adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Annie Finch and Jennifer Michael Hecht at 7:30 p.m. at Cody's Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. $2 donation. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com, www.poetryflash.org 

Lee Nichol speaks on the “Dialog of Being” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Place. 843-6812. www.NyingmaInstitute.com 

Howard Rachelson reads from “Trivia Cafe” at 3:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble concert and benefit brunch at H’s Lordships on the Berkeley Marina, at 11 a.m. Tickets are $30 for adults and $18 for children and are available from Lori Ferguson 527-8245 or Lorij45@aol.com. 

East Bay Center for the Performing Arts and the Berkeley Arts Center join in celebration of our youth in a concert by music students at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. 

University Dance Theater, presents their annual performance at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8 - $14 available from 866-468-3399. For information contact 642-9925. genturc@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Treve Johnson, panoramic dance photograher with dance group Terrain presents a 

unique free show, Performance Peace. It begins at 12 noon at Western Sky Studios, 2525 Eighth St. at Dwight Way. Participants are asked to arrive at 11:45 a.m. to receive instructions. For more information, contact Lori Hope at 531-9099. 

San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir, Harry Carter, director, performs music of the Americas at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church,  

2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $15, seniors and students $10. 763-1453 or 763-3851.  

www.sfbaychoir.org 

Berkeley Opera performs 

Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $38 adults, $33 seniors over 65, $16 children under 18, $10 students, from 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra presents Under Construction: New works by local composers, conducted by George Thomson, hosted by Kent Nagano. A free concert at 8 p.m. at St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 841.2800. 

www.berkeleysymphony.org 

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance 

Series presents a Microfestival of Live Electronic Music featuring laptop solos by Patrice Scanlon, Bill Hsu, Scott R. Looney, Jeff Lubow and Tim 

Perkis, and a special duo performance by Kristin Miltner processing James Livingston's saxophone playing, at 8:15 p.m. at The Jazz House. Admission is free, donations accepted. 649-8744. acme@sfsound.org 

http://sfsound.org/acme.html 

Rose Street House of Music holds a benefit concert, at 7 p.m., for Rose Street, a volunteer-run Berkeley house concert featuring women singer/songwriters including Irina Rivkin and Rebecca Crump of Making Waves, Shelley Doty, Jamie Isman, Rachel Efron, & Elodie Sings! For information and location call 594-4000, ext. MUS or 687. 

rosestreetmusic@yahoo.com  

University Dance Theater, presents their annual performance at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8 - $14 available from 866-468-3399. For information contact 642-9925. genturc@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Krystian Zimerman, piano at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $30, $40, $52 642-9988. tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Benefit for Klez California 

with California Klezmer and Red Hot Chachkas from  

3 - 6 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10 - $20 sliding scale. 525-5054.   www.ashkenaz.com 

Dig Jelly, Roadside Attraction, The Anesthetics, Shaken perform Rock at  

9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $3. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Perfect Strangers perform hot traditional bluegrass at  

8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 adv, $16.50 door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

World Drum Clinic, hands-on African drumming clinic, at the Jazz House, at 10:45 a.m. Beginners at 11 a.m., experienced at 12:30 p.m. Cost: $15 - $25. Advanced registration is encouraged. To register, contact Matthew Winkelstein at 415-356-8593 or 510-533-5111. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Voices Lesbian Choral Ensemble perform songs from a variety of cultures and traditions, including jazz, folk, classical, and original works, at 4 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8 advance, $10 door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Allegiance, Embrace Today, Blue Monday, Lights Out perform at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra performs “Duke Ellington: 50 Years of Swing,” 

at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

MONDAY, APRIL 28 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Weather Underground at 7 p.m. and Stones in the Sky at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $7.50 members, UC students; $8.50 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $10 adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Shotgun Theatre Lab, presents “Fig Leaf: Tales of Truth and Transgressions,” an original tell-all cabaret at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Cost is $10. 704-8210. www.shotgunplayers.org  

Stagebridge and Berkeley Adult School present a lively original comedy “Senior Moments,” by James Keller at 2 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Ticket information and reservations are available by calling 444-4755. 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Philip Goldberg, Ph.D. reads from his new book “Roadsigns: Navigating Your Path to Spiritual Happiness,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

James Frey reads from “A Million Little Pieces” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Black Studies Book Group discusses “The New African American Man” with author Dr. Malcolm Kelly at 6 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players under the direction of David Milnes, with Olly Wilson guest conducting his work, “Call and Response,” with artwork by Mary Lovelace O’Neal in a free performance at 8 p.m., Hertz Hall, UC campus. Discussion to follow performance. 642-9988. 

Krystian Zimerman, piano 

at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $30, $40, $52. 642-9988. 

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

All Star Jam, featuring The Steve Gannon Band & Mz. Dee, at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $4. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Northern California Songwriters: Open Mic, a 

professionally judged original song competition, at 8 p.m.  

Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5.50 at the door. 548-1761. 

www.freightandsalvage.org24  

AT THE THEATER 

“28 Very Short Scenes About Love,” an ensemble performance conceived and directed by Linda Carr, Berkeley High School Performing Arts Chair. April 4 - 26. Fri., Sat. 8p.m. $15. Noh Space, 2840 Mariposa Street, SF 415-621-7078. 

www.28shortscenes.com 

www.theaterofyugen.org 

Aurora Theater Company 

“Partition” 

Written by Ira Hauptman, directed by Barbara Oliver. 

April 17- May 18. Wed. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. $32-$34. 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. www.auroratheater.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater 

“Surface Transit” 

Written and performed by Sarah Jones, directed by Tony Taccone. April 18 - May 18 

Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, (888) 4BRTTIX  

www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group performs “Mulatto,” by Langston Hughes. April 11 - April 27. Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance, $17 at the door. 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120. www.berkeleyrepertorygroup.org 

Shotgun Players 

“Vampires” 

By Harry Kondoleon, directed by Joanie McBrien. April 12 - May 10. La Val’s Subterranean 

1834 Euclid at Hearst. 

www.shotgunplayers.com 

DEEPEN COVERAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

 Thank you for Mr. Geluardi’s update on the “Battle for West Berkeley.” It is always good to know what is happening in our part of town. I hope the Planet will deepen its coverage of such subjects a bit further, however.   

Curiously, the article did not mention the West Berkeley Area Plan, the framework that theoretically guides public municipal policy on land use in West Berkeley. Was that because city officials aren’t paying any attention to it either?   

Any decision about how to revise Berkeley policy with regard to preserving a light industrial area and space for artisans and artists would best be developed in the context of a “plan” of some sort, one that considered and balanced the community’s various objectives. 

Yet, Berkeley’s charter city status means that its land-use plans wither faster than their ink dries — Berkeley’s plans have no bite, don’t have to be implemented, are rarely read and are immediately forgotten. So without a meaningful framework, don’t expect reasoned debate, objective facts and development of a serious public policy; instead we shall be served another display of raw political mud-wrestling, and you can bet it is richly funded by the same development interests who expect to profit from office construction in West Berkeley.   

 Howie Muir 

• 

NO TAXES FOR WAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The following is a letter sent to the IRS by a taxpayer who responded to the “Books not Bombs” ad in the Daily Planet. The pie chart Mr. Duran refers to can be found at: www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm. 

Dear Uncle Sam, 

In a fit of righteous jubilation — a most patriotic sentiment — I’m writing this morning to inform you of my refusal to pay the full amount of taxes you request from me today. I was born here and taught to love my country because it was the best country in the world. Reality shattered that illusion years ago, but the nightmare unfolding on Earth this year puts me at odds with this government in the most serious way possible. 

The United States is engaged in imperial roulette. Our leaders stoke fear while promising peace in the form of perpetual war — an absurd predicament that has been discredited by some of the finest human thinkers of all time, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Albert Einstein. The Bush Administration, armed with horrific systems of modern warfare, is the most corrupt regime in the world. From now on you should consider me unwilling to pay for the murder of even one man, woman or child perpetrated by these thugs. 

Terrorists kill taxpayers because taxpayers fund slaughter and mayhem in countries that spawn terrorists. It’s a vicious cycle, and each person whose dreams have been disturbed by massacre must work to stop it. According to the pie chart on page two of the 2002 1040EZ booklet, 18 percent of 2001’s taxes will pay for war. Research shows that this is a misleading figure. The amount of money spent on war represents something closer to 47 percent of federal income taxes you collect. 

I hereby withhold 47 percent of my owed taxes because I am unwilling to be a cog in your war machine. To pay such a tax, I would have to stand in opposition to the power that guides me, and I am unwilling to do so. Only a fool would mistake Bush’s lies for God’s truth. Where in the Bible does Jesus say that peace entails dropping laser-guided bombs on innocent people? I’m not a Christian, but I’m terrified by the realization that many of my fellow taxpayers, and our “leaders,” are people who call upon Christ while executing billion-dollar acts of murderous thievery. This hypocritical and bloodthirsty oil junta does not represent me, and I will not fund its most satanic and unforgivable deeds. 

    The taxes I withhold this year will be donated to a nonprofit organization that battles poverty in this country. Now, there is a war worth fighting. If you will be rational and submit to fighting only poverty (America’s deadliest enemy), and if you will redirect my tax dollars from programs of technological military supremacy to the development of economic justice in America, I will resume payment of my war tax with great haste.   

Gil Jose Duran 

• 

WELL REVIEWED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kudos to Betsy Hunton for her review of the play “Partition.” This play is one of the most profound theatrical experiences we’ve had in ages (and it’s funny).  

Too many reviewers write intelligently but miss the mark.  

Ms. Hunton is a rare reviewer that can actually understand and convey the essence of the play. 

Michael Mendez 

• 

SKATE PARK STATUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The following letter was addressed to Berkeley City Council: 

Why is the Berkeley Skate Park still closed? The Berkeley City Council needs to take a hard look at the costs and benefits of this closure and either decide to open the park or call for the demolition crews.  

The initial and continuing reason for the closure of the skate park is detectable but minuscule (and sometimes undetectable) traces of Chromium 6 in the expansion joints of the large bowl of the park. As I understand it, city staff is looking for someone to say this low level of Chromium 6 poses no short- or long-term health risk. But because no research has been done in this area, there’s no established health threshold. So city staff is taking what it feels is a cautious and prudent approach to the problem by shutting down the skate park. 

But we don’t live in a “no risk” world. Certainly not the skaters who regularly find skin and bone meeting the concrete and steel rails of the skate park. When skaters were attending the design meeting for the skate park, the place looked like an advertisement for orthopedic surgeons in Berkeley. Skaters on crutches, in ankle casts and wearing wrist casts were regulars. One of the primary reasons for building the park was to take these skaters off of traffic-filled streets, out from behind the buses belching their diesel fumes, and away from the carbon monoxide-filled parking garages. They were regularly getting $100 tickets from police and having their skateboards confiscated. And this is where they have again been sent since the closure of the skate park and while city staff looks toward a “no risk” solution.  

Well, that solution doesn’t seem very likely. So the Berkeley City Council ought to take a close look at the costs and benefits of this closure of the Berkeley Skate Park. They need to hear the facts from city staff, solicit input from the community the skate park was designed to serve and listen to all the tales of gloom and doom that will be offered by concerned but most likely uninvolved community members. Then they should either reopen the park with whatever liability disclaimers they need to post (and let city staff know that barring some profound change, the park is to remain open) or put a wrecking ball to the place. 

Doug Fielding 

• 

BALANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Just wanted to drop you an e-mail to say how much I loved reading the article “Cheering for the Intruders Among Us” by Zac Unger. As one of those who makes his living battling invasive species, I can’t say I agree with his science, but Unger’s article was entertaining to read. He reminded me that, as with so many other things in life, there is a balance between our ideals and the realities we ultimately must accept.  

Yes, I agree that invaders like oxalis in Berkeley neighborhoods are preferable to many other things that might take up space there (WalMarts, porn shops, etc.) On the other hand, I do think there needs to be places where we’ve done our best to protect (and perhaps, even reclaim) those plants and critters that thrived before the dominating influence of mankind.  

Modern society has given us lots of tremendous advantages. I, too, would look pretty scary in a loincloth, and I’m glad that I don’t have to share my commute with bumper-to-bumper buffalo. I enjoy the closeness of my neighborhood Starbucks and I’ve even been known to drop in a freeway-close McDonald’s or two. But the conservationist in me is happy that they don’t allow Starbucks in wilderness areas and that there are a few places where the buffalo still roam. Further, if I should ever decide to wear a loincloth, that there are places where I can wear one without worrying about sitting down in a bunch of star-thistle.  

Joel Trumbo 

Staff Environmental Scientist 

CA Dept. of Fish and Game 

Rancho Cordova 

• 

INVASIVE DAMAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I enjoyed reading Zac Unger’s lively cheer for weeds. Pulling and cutting invasives along our creeksides and waterfront over the past five years, I have also developed an appreciation for these worthy foes.  

Cape ivy, smothering and killing every other plant along many acres of our shorelines, providing virtually no habitat for wildlife, is the Zen plant, winning by yielding. Shallow-rooted and easily removed, it also breaks easily. Even a leaf that floats downstream can sprout, and stems can root after a year’s drying.  

Perennial pepperweed, choking the open flats where shorebirds probe (and San Francisco Bay’s flats are of worldwide importance for these long-distance migrants), scatters millions of seeds on wind and water. A fragment, eroded into salt water, can drift ashore months later and grow. Spiny yellow star-thistle, poisoning horses and making park walks painful, has been described as Mother Earth’s answer to overgrazing. 

But the reason for combating invasive weeds isn’t, as the article implies, chauvinism or nativism. Invasive species are an escalating worldwide problem resulting from the huge increase in population, world trade and travel — the same conditions that recently brought us West Nile virus and SARS. In India, our familiar garden lantana, a South American native, has made millions of acres useless for farming; in Africa, where California’s Monterey pines are drying up seasonal watercourses vital to farming and livestock, the problem is the same.  

A relatively few species, brought into new conditions, are able to spread explosively. Often this is because they come without the many pathogens and predators that check them in the community where they evolved. In other cases, they cross with relatives they otherwise wouldn’t have met. Or they find conditions where their survival tools instead let them take over — using up the water supply, changing the soil, or exuding chemicals that poison other plants. 

It is irresponsible to let loose a flood of such challengers — as crop experiments, as garden plants, as contaminants in seed — and then sit back and say “let nature run its course.”  

Volunteer weed warriors like me hope to keep some species from being overwhelmed too suddenly. We hope to keep some of the beauty and diversity that were the heritage of all humans. We have no answers, but we are at least obliged to try. 

Susan Schwartz  

• 

EUCALYPTUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What I find incredible about Mr. Unger’s paean to invading plants is not his admitted ignorance of gardening, but that he is an Oakland firefighter. Over 70 percent of the fuel in the cataclysmic Oakland fire of 1991 was Eucalyptus trees, many of which were killed the year before by a hard frost to which they were not adapted. Trees which fall down when burned. So tell me, if a 250-foot flaming Eucalyptus tree falls, and Mr. Unger is not there to see it, does it really set the neighbor’s house on fire? 

Debra Ayres 

Davis 

• 

PRO-NATIVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am responding to the entertaining article “Cheering for the Intruders Among Us.” The main point Zac Unger misses in his comparison between plants and people who move into our neighborhoods is diversity. People from other cultures bring their own views, mores, talents and inspirations. They add depth to our culture that we wouldn’t have otherwise. In contrast, the two plants he names, Eucalyptus and Yellowstar Thistle, do the opposite. They crowd out nearby plants until there is only a monoculture where they live. Just as I thrive by being part of our multicultural community, the local insect, bird and animal species thrive by having a range of plants in their ecosystem. Mr. Unger, it’s possible to be “pro-native” without being anti-immigrant.   

Invasive plants that come here are outside their native ecosystem. The insect and animal species that kept those plants in check in their original location are not here to balance the plants’ growth with the local natives that still compete with insects and animals. When the bottom of the food chain changes, it has effects all the way up. I don’t want to lose any more natives, plant or animal.   

Another point missed is that a garden of natives requires less water and less work. They’re used to our climate. They were here before we were gardening. 

Katherine Greene 

Employees of the East Bay Depot for Creative Re-Use voted unanimously to unionize this week, capping a year of turmoil at one of the area’s most storied nonprofit organizations. 

Workers have framed their struggle as a fight for the soul of the Depot, which has been providing Berkeley and Oakland residents with low-cost recycled art supplies — egg cartons, bottle caps and toilet rolls — for 28 years.  

Management, employees say, has strayed from the nonprofit mission of the organization — stifling employee creativity and moving toward a business-like model that is focused on furniture and other high-priced goods. 

“We don’t want to become a retail thrift store,” said Adriana Carrillo, who works for one of the Depot’s youth outreach programs. “We want to be a re-use store serving teachers and students and artists in the community.” 

Employees, who now make $8 to $15 an hour, also say their wages must be increased.  

But David Elliott, president of the Depot’s board of directors, argues that unrealistic wage demands, protests outside the store and an alleged worker slowdown are doing more to weaken the cash-strapped Depot, and its larger mission, than management ever could. 

“They can’t keep undermining the Depot if they really want it to go, if they’re really committed to the Depot and what it stands for,” he said. 

The Depot’s 16 full-time and part-time employees deny that a slowdown is in effect and emphasize that they have not called on customers to boycott the store. 

Elliott dates the Depot’s problems to December 2001, when former Executive Director Linda Rinna-Levitsky retired and a new director, Rae Holzman, took the reins. Holzman ran the Depot like a collective, according to Elliott, scuttling efforts to turn the store into a more business-like enterprise. 

Holzman said she inherited an organization that had been poorly run, and was already on shaky financial ground. “I wasn’t aware of how deep in trouble they were,” she said. 

The situation came to a head last summer when Holzman quit, a Depot supporter made a late payment and legal bills peaked in a fight with UC Berkeley over the store’s university-owned space on San Pablo Avenue. 

“Last summer was a turning point,” said Carrillo. “There had always been problems, but the crisis heightened everything.” 

The Depot eventually triumphed in its legal battle with the university, winning a four-year extension on the nonprofit’s lease at a reduced rent.  

But the summer’s financial crisis reverberated throughout the organization. Employees bristled at a request, later withdrawn, to forgo a paycheck. Members of the board had to lend the organization $12,000 to make up a budget deficit. And the Depot, making use of a grant from the Alameda County Waste Management Authority, brought in the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, a Catholic social services agency which runs several thrift stores, to consult on business operations. 

Workers saw it as another sign of business-like influence on the nonprofit. Management said it was an important step toward getting the Depot on sound financial footing and keeping it open in the long term.  

Indeed, as Elliott points out, a separate $40,000 grant from the Waste Management Authority is contingent on continued financial restructuring. 

“There are some real issues and problems over there,” said Bruce Goddard, public affairs director for the Waste Management Authority. “They have to maximize the retail.” 

Employees say the shift in tone has had a devastating effect on the creative, cooperative work environment that was in place under Holzman. 

“People who’d been there a long time had a lot of autonomy — we all worked as a team,” said Helen Jones, a part-time employee. “Then they started telling us we couldn’t do this or that.” 

Concerned about the perceived shift at the Depot, employees began meeting last summer and proposed intervention by a third-party mediator. The board rejected the request, arguing it was working on personnel policies that would resolve the employees’ concerns — which also included workplace safety and an ambiguous pay hike structure. 

The board’s rejection of mediation upset employees, paving the way for this week’s vote to unionize with the San Francisco-based International Workers of the World, which has also organized recycling workers in Berkeley. 

Employees say the process of formal contract negotiations, expected to begin next week, will provide some of the financial reform — on pay scale, health care coverage and other issues — that management craves. 

“It’s always felt like it’s a growing organization and it hasn’t been able to keep up with the growing,” said Chela Fielding, a teacher and outreach worker with the Depot. “It couldn’t continue to be a mom-and-pop operation. It couldn’t continue without structure.”

With a world-class, world-hopping conductor at its helm in Kent Nagano, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra enjoys a connection to the global music community that is rare for an orchestra of its size.  

The orchestra will make the most of this stature next Tuesday, April 29, with its third concert of the season at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus at 8 p.m. Demonstrating the vitality and diversity of new orchestral music today, the Berkeley Symphony will roll out a pair of world premieres by two “rising-star” composers from France and Korea, and will spotlight two renowned European instrumental soloists.  

Last season, young French composer Régis Campo made a splash in Berkeley when the orchestra presented the premiere of his work, “Lumen,” to great audience and critical acclaim. This time the orchestra will unveil a more substantial piece, his “Symphony No.1.” This work, Campo says, draws its inspiration from his first visit to California. 

Nagano and company also will introduce the American premiere of the “Violin Concerto” by Berlin-based Korean composer Unsuk Chin. Chin is at the forefront of a group of notable young composers who have emerged from Korea over the past two decades.  

Chin’s music is noted for its lyrical qualities and colorful instrumental combinations. She draws upon a range of influences from outside Western classical tradition, from jazz and pop to the music of Korean shamanic rituals. 

Nagano conducted the premiere of the “Violin Concerto.” The soloist will be Slovakian violinist Tibor Kovác. He is the principal second violin of the Vienna Philharmonic, and also pursues a noted solo career. 

The Berkeley Symphony also will perform two works by Mozart. Nagano will lead the ensemble in “Piano Concerto no. 24, in C minor,” written in 1786. It’s a work of great dramatic power, anticipating the stormy emotions of Beethoven and his followers. 

Mozart’s “Overture to Don Giovanni” rounds out the program. 

The symphony will spotlight local creativity this weekend, on their Under Construction concert series. This free program takes place Sunday, April 27, at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. Under Construction is a free concert series in which the orchestra does an open rehearsal and run-through of works-in-progress by Bay Area composers.  

The pieces are conducted by Berkeley Symphony associate conductor George Thomson, and Kent Nagano serves as host. After the performance of each piece, Thomson and Nagano lead a discussion between the featured composer, the orchestra and the audience. 

Tickets for Tuesday’s concert are $45, $32, $21. Call (510) 841-2800, visit www.berkeleysymphony.org, or purchase them at the door.

When the Berkeley Folk Festival takes place in a week or so, much will be made of the accessibility of the venue, a great improvement on the locations of the past. Much will be made of the sign language interpreters assigned to translate the main stage shows. People will marvel, at least privately, at finally having wheelchair-accessible bathrooms and an accessible stage. 

What won’t be mentioned is the campaign of retaliation against those who raised these issues over the course of seven years, a campaign in which even the current director acknowledges having participated. The private apologies hardly compensate those of us who were publicly attacked for years on end and deprived of opportunities to participate. But there is a much larger, much more important issue. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits retaliation against people who raise access issues, but the City of Berkeley and its council, its relevant commissions, its well-meaning officers and staff, and the festival staff and advisers all proved unwilling or unable to craft any way to protect those few who had the courage to attempt to discuss access-related difficulties. 

Long after the music has faded, the vitriolic efforts to discredit those who raised the issues will have left their mark not only on the people who were personally attacked, but also on a community terrified of raising the same issues for fear of receiving the same treatment. 

We can truly acknowledge having made progress when event organizers are willing to meet and discuss accessibility issues without resorting to blacklisting and retaliation, so that no one is afraid to raise the issues in the first place. 

Carol Denney is a folk singer and a Berkeley resident.

The struggle to maintain a delicate balance between arts and crafts, blue collar jobs and office development in West Berkeley has entered another chapter in its 19-year saga.  

The Planning Commission voted unanimously Wednesday night to hold a public workshop June 11, to air a variety of recommendations designed to slow office development and preserve light manufacturing, which includes arts- and crafts-oriented businesses, in the Multiple Use-Light Industry district, more commonly known as the MU-LI. 

Prior to the workshop, the Planning Department will mail notices to about 2,600 stake holders, among them property owners, artists, artisans, small-business owners and residents who have an interest in the district.  

The MU-LI is a diverse community predominantly characterized by light industry such as arts and crafts workshops and some manufacturing. In recent years, however, the district has seen a rise in office conversion and development, which light manufacturing supporters say threatens the district’s character.  

Corliss Lesser, a painter who lives and works in the Durkee Building, which has 17 units that are leased to artists, spoke in favor of the subcommittee’s report 

“I strongly believe zoning regulations should be looked at,” she said. “If zoning isn’t improved, artists and artisans will definitely be forced out like they were in Santa Monica and Los Angeles.” 

Durkee residents were recently put into a state of uncertainty about their future in the building. Wareham Development, which owns the Durkee, notified residents that their rent will be increased by an undisclosed amount next year after nearly 15 years of a rent control agreement with the city. 

Jane Williamson, a principle reason to ask to see records but permits generalized searches. It makes it a crime for librarians to report such searches. 

Berkeley civil liberties lawyer Jim Chanin said, "They can get anyone who ever used any library book and the library is  

prohibited under criminal sanctions from telling anyone about it. If that's not a definition of a police state, then I don't know what is," said Chanin, who is past president and a current board member of the Berkeley-Albany-Richmond-Kensington Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Other opponents, such as the Bill of Rights Defense Committee say that even if no records are actually searched, the threat has a chilling effect. 

Bowman Enrie regularly uses the library though he doesn't have a library card. He said the government "should mind its own business and get a clue." 

Sylvia Salgado came out of the library with a sack full of books. "Yes, I would care if they looked at my records. I came here from Colombia 28 years ago. There they can do anything — stop you when they want, search you when they want. 

"Now, it’s getting like that here.”

Almost four weeks after suspending me for participating in an antiwar demonstration, the San Francisco Chronicle this week officially fired me from my job as a technology reporter and columnist. I consider this punishment a violation of my rights as a citizen and as an employee, and I intend to fight it with all the means available to me. 

My union, the Northern California Media Workers (Local 39521, The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America), has already filed a new grievance over the termination of my employment, in addition to the grievance filed last month over my suspension and yet another dealing with Chronicle management’s unilateral modification of the paper’s ethics policy in the wake of my case. 

I also intend to file a complaint with the California State Labor Commission under Section 1102 of the State Labor Code, which unambiguously prohibits employers from interfering with the political activity of their employees. Specifically, Section 1102 says: “No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.” 

The code prescribes criminal penalties for violations of this provision, including imprisonment in the county jail for up to a year. 

Unfortunately, at least one media corporation in another state has managed to get around a similar law with the perverse argument that the First Amendment gives newspaper owners the right to limit the free speech of their employees. Whether the Chronicle will make a similar argument, and whether the California State Labor Commission will fall for it, I don’t know. But the code makes no exceptions — for journalists or anyone else — and I hope the commission will go by the words of the law, order the Chronicle to reinstate me, and apply the penalties the code calls for. 

At the time of my arrest last month, Chronicle policies did not ban participation in demonstrations. In fact, the paper’s ethics policy explicitly states that “The Chronicle does not forbid employees from engaging in political activities but needs to prevent any appearance of any conflict of interest.” Since my job was writing about personal technology, not politics and war, I saw and see no conflict of interest. 

Since my suspension, management has twice made unilateral modifications to the ethics policy. The most recent “clarification” imposed “a strict prohibition against any newsroom staffer participating in any public political activity related to the war.” But I wasn’t about to make Phil Bronstein my moral compass, so I’ve used much of my unexpected free time to take part in the continuing struggle against the war and the occupation of Iraq. I’ve joined in several mass marches, I was shot in the leg with a wooden dowel at the Port of Oakland on April 7, and yesterday I was arrested in civil disobedience outside the gates of Lockheed-Martin, the world’s largest arms manufacturer, in Sunnyvale. 

Whatever happens with my union grievances and my complaint to the labor commission, I intend to continue exercising my constitutional rights and my moral obligation, as I see it, to oppose the Bush Administration’s reckless and illegal imperial adventures. Someday I may have grandchildren who ask my daughters what our family did in the face of this madness. At least they’ll be able to say we all tried to make our voices heard — my wife and both of my daughters have also been arrested in civil disobedience this month. And I’m glad to know they won’t have to say I just stood on the sidelines for fear of retaliation from my employer. 

Henry Norr is a Berkeley resident. 

Rumors that Planning Director Carol Barrett has resigned her post swirled around City Hall Thursday.  

While the City Manager’s Office made no official announcement about the resignation and Barrett did not return calls to the Daily Planet, the city of San Marcos, Texas, posted an announcement on its Web site Thursday that City Manager Dan O’Leary had hired Barrett as its new Director of Planning.  

Barrett came to Berkeley from Austin, Texas, in September 2001. The two cities had stark differences in their planning processes. Austin was coming off a 10-year growth spurt during which the city grew by nearly 200,000 residents.  

Berkeley, which is already built up, had a 10-year growth spurt of exactly 136 people according to the 2000 Federal Census.  

Barrett took over at a time when there was both heavy pressure to create more housing in Berkeley and intense resistance to development. The resistance came from vocal and knowledgeable neighborhood groups who worried tall, dense, infill development would alter the character of their neighborhoods.  

The city’s Planning Department consists of about 70 full-time employees and is budgeted at about $9 million annually. Planning Department divisions include Toxics Management, Current Planning and Building and Safety.  

According to the San Marcos Web site, Barrett will take over a planning department with 15 employees and a budget of $577,000.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Cleveland), one of nine Democratic candidates for president, blasted the Bush Administration over the war in Iraq and insisted that his shoestring candidacy has a chance during a UC Berkeley appearance Wednesday. 

“I think, on the whole range of issues, I will be able to consistently demonstrate real alternatives to the other candidates,” said Kucinich, who called for universal health care and major reductions in defense spending. 

But analysts say Kucinich, who has lagged in the polls, has little chance of winning the Democratic nomination next year. 

“He has no money and no real organization to speak of outside the Bay Area,” said UC Berkeley political science professor Alan Ross. “What I think he can do is, in the debates, bring up issues that other candidates won’t.” 

Kucinich finished last in an April Field Poll of California Democratic voters, with only 8 percent saying they would be inclined to support him. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry led the pack, with 43 percent of voters supporting him, and Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman was a close second with 42 percent of voters backing him. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 5.8 percent. 

Kucinich, the keynote speaker at a day-long, anti-war teach-in, said the Bush administration’s world view has spawned violence. 

“This administration is committed to a view of the world that makes war inevitable — us versus them,” said Kucinich. “The alternative is a politics which understands the essential interconnectedness of all peoples.” 

Kucinich, in an interview after the speech, said he would deal with “rogue states” like Iraq and North Korea by including them in discussions of world security, rather than launching wars. 

“We cannot put any nation outside the world community,” he said. 

“That’s absurd,” said Ben Barron of the Berkeley College Republicans. “There were 12 years of diplomacy, there was a 12-year attempt at sanctions to end Saddam Hussein’s regime and it didn’t work.” 

Kucinich got a largely warm reception from the roughly 300 students, professors and activists who packed Leconte Hall to hear him speak. 

“I think it’s really encouraging to have someone talking about real alternatives,” said Sarah Harling, a UC Berkeley student. 

Harling said she voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election, but would cast a ballot for Kucinich next year. 

Others in the crowd were less pleased with the Ohio congressman. One student tried, unsuccessfully, to win explicit statements of support for slavery reparations and pardons for jailed American Indian activist Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of murdering a police officer. 

Kucinich said he was not prepared to make statements on Peltier or Abu-Jamal. He said the government should greatly expand the services it provides to blacks, but stopped short of calling for reparations in the form of cash payments or land.

SUSPICIOUS MINDS 

Me, I hate to go cynical, I really do, but it’s hard not to get suspicious when a politician ends up with the same result he originally advocated, but for exactly opposite reasons. 

Like when the President proposes a federal tax cut because we have a national budget surplus and then, when the national budget surplus disappears, proposes a tax cut not in spite of the fact that we no longer have a national budget surplus, but because of the fact that we don’t have the surplus. That one, of course, was easy for everyone (except my good Republican friends) to see. 

Less easy to follow is the thread of state Sen. Don Perata’s advocacy of a state takeover of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). That takeover is pretty certain after the Senate Education Committee voted this month to loan OUSD $100 million, with the schools being run by a state-appointed administrator until the money is paid back. 

Some background, for those who haven’t been following: 

Last year, OUSD Superintendent Dennis Chaconas discovered that the district was running a deficit, which is not allowed under state law. There’s no agreement on exactly what led to the deficit, although Chaconas and School Board President Greg Hodge have said that one major cause was the old computerized accounting system that failed to account for all the costs in a huge teacher pay raise (it was the new accounting system put in place under Chaconas’ watch that detected the deficit). In January, Perata announced that he was introducing a bill for a state loan, stating that “(u)nder (existing state) law, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction … must assign an administrator to run the district until the loan is repaid and the district is solvent. The school board becomes advisory, its legal authority suspended in favor of the state administrator.” He blamed the fiscal crisis on what he called “cooking the books” by a “previous business manager.” 

What Mr. Perata didn’t say — but which some folks remember — is that four years ago he called for exactly the same remedy (a state takeover of the Oakland schools) but for entirely different reasons. 

Back in 1998, the senator called for the firing of then-Superintendent Carol Quan because of Oakland’s habitual low student test scores, on-campus crime, discipline problems and substandard textbooks and instructional technology. He also cited poor fiscal management, but poor fiscal management in 1998 terms didn’t mean overspending the budget, but rather a bloated downtown bureaucracy and not enough money for direct-education things like teacher salaries and counselors. And if the OUSD School Board didn’t fire Quan, Perata said he would — guess what? — sponsor a bill to have the state take over administration of the Oakland Public Schools. In fact, at the time, he said he was already drawing up such legislation. 

Carol Quan, you may remember, resigned under pressure from Perata and Jerry Brown, and the School Board hired Oakland Assistant City Manager George Musgrove to run the schools until a full-time superintendent could be found. But when Brown tried to pressure the board to make Musgrove the permanent superintendent, they balked. Presumably working under the assumption that a big-city school superintendent ought to have some experience as a school superintendent, the OUSD board hired Dennis Chaconas. 

Still with me?  

While Mayor Brown fussed and fumed over the Musgrove rejection, Perata got pointedly quiet on the Oakland school issue during the first year or so under Chaconas. We’ve come to expect that from the senator, who tends to get distracted with other things once an issue stops breaking his way, leaving supporters and protégés to clean up the public mess and catch the hell (see Raiders, Oakland). That’s one of the reasons Perata is sometimes called the California version of the Teflon Don. 

Perata did surface briefly on the Chaconas issue back in early 2000, during another period when the OUSD was being threatened with a state takeover over charges that Oakland might owe the state $12 million for possibly overstating its daily attendance figures (the matter was settled, obviously without a takeover). Chaconas had nothing to do with the attendance problems, since he was only just then in final negotiations with the Oakland School Board to get the job. But given the situation at the time, Perata criticized the board for offering Chaconas a guaranteed three-year deal. “If all this is as bad as auditors indicate and there is no way to prevent a state takeover,” he told the Chronicle’s Matier & Ross column, “then you have just bought this guy a couple years on the beach.” Interesting how this state takeover thing keeps resurfacing, each time for different reasons. 

In any event, Chaconas skipped the beach. Instead, he stayed in Oakland and, by all accounts, helped lead a turnaround in the Oakland schools in all of the areas where Perata had expressed concern. Teacher salaries went up, as did student test scores. Some of the bureaucracy got cleared out at the 2nd Street headquarters. In schools like Castlemont High — crime-ridden and low-achieving and almost given up as a lost cause in recent years — the turnaround during Chaconas’ tenure from dejected despair to some measure of hope is clearly visible. But because of faulty bookkeeping — put together in part by a “top” fiscal manager sent over from the Alameda County Office of Education and approved in audits by both the county and the district’s own outside auditor — the Oakland schools are almost certain to be taken over by the state. 

After the state Senate Education Committee vote that came close to sealing the Oakland schools’ fate, a group of OUSD elected officials, administrators, teachers and parents met on the steps outside the capitol building and put much of the blame for the imminent state takeover on Perata’s shoulders. 

“Perata could have prevented it, if he’d wanted to,” one parent activist said. 

Did Perata want a state takeover of the Oakland schools? It’s a valid question to ask. An even more interesting question might be, did he want it as far back as 1998? 

Don’t mind me, though. I’m just being suspicious. 

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is an Oakland resident.

Each night, the computer at Berkeley's downtown library erases everything that happened that day on its 50 Internet terminals. Titles of several thousand or so books returned that day disappear from the borrower's record. Once a month, the names of anyone who took out a particular book, whether "Winnie the Pooh" or "Das Capital," vanish as well. 

Regular record-purging is part of the library's defiance of the supposedly anti-terrorist U.S. Patriot Act, which lets the FBI and other agencies freely investigate the reading habits of library users. 

The FBI sent a speaker to a library panel discussion in February but so far hasn't asked to see any records, library director Jackie Griffin said in an interview this week. 

If they do, she said, "I would have to consult with the city attorney and decide, according to the circumstances, what to do. 

“I don't want to spit in their eye, but if they serve me with a subpoena, I certainly have the support of my board of directors, my staff and the city, not to honor it," Griffin said. 

Resistance to the Patriot Act — which opponents say does more damage to civil liberties than it does to terrorists — has been increasing. 

A survey of 1,500 libraries completed in February by the University of Illinois, reported that 444 had been approached for information by the FBI or other agencies. Some 219 libraries cooperated and 225 refused, the survey said. 

Nationwide, 91 communities, including Berkeley, have passed resolutions urging municipal employees and residents not to cooperate with government inquiries that violate civil liberties. Similar resolutions have been passed in Oakland, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond, San Francisco and Mill Valley. 

Some 83 congressmen, including Rep. Barbara Lee (D-9th District), now are cosponsoring the Freedom to Read Protection Act, introduced in March by Rep. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) 

Sen. Orrin Hatch, (R-Utah), the Patriot Act's staunchest supporter, recently withdrew a measure that would make the act permanent. It is now due to expire in 2005. 

Running 342 pages and titled the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act", the Patriot Act was passed by Congress Oct. 25, 2001, six weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center. 

It passed the House 357 to 66 with nine not voting. Rep. Lee voted against it. 

It passed the Senate 96 to one with three not voting. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein voted for it. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) cast the only "no" vote. 

The act expands existing government surveillance powers by removing certain Constitutional restraints. One provision allows the government to secretly arrest non-citizens and hold them indefinitely without charge or access to an attorney. 

In the case of libraries, it doesn't require "probable cause" or a specific reason to ask to see records but permits generalized searches. It makes it a crime for librarians to report such searches. 

Berkeley civil liberties lawyer Jim Chanin said, "They can get anyone who ever used any library book and the library is  

prohibited under criminal sanctions from telling anyone about it. If that's not a definition of a police state, then I don't know what is," said Chanin, who is past president and a current board member of the Berkeley-Albany-Richmond-Kensington Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Other opponents, such as the Bill of Rights Defense Committee say that even if no records are actually searched, the threat has a chilling effect. 

Bowman Enrie regularly uses the library though he doesn't have a library card. He said the government "should mind its own business and get a clue." 

Sylvia Salgado came out of the library with a sack full of books. "Yes, I would care if they looked at my records. I came here from Colombia 28 years ago. There they can do anything — stop you when they want, search you when they want. 

"Now, it’s getting like that here.”

9 p.m.  

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates arrives at the homeless encampment in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park behind City Hall. He earlier had his first homeless experience, the plain meal you can buy for a quarter at Trinity Church on Bancroft Avenue. Bates paid his quarter and ate his food. 

There are activists and homeless people waiting in the park, but mostly reporters — 15 to 20 of them, all the TV stations, even a stringer from the L.A. Times. 

9:15 

The night begins roughly. Activists greet Bates with a rendition of “He's a Jolly Good Fellow” but a rumble emerges from the gathered homeless. It becomes a rough chant: “F— the Mayor — he ain’t doin’ nothin’.” 

“J.C.,” who operates a Catholic Worker food van in Berkeley, muses as he prepares coffee. “You can always piss on somebody, but it’s a lot better to slap him on the back and give him a push in the right direction. 

“Sometimes, the harder road is the better.” 

9:30  

Bates, not perturbed, is speaking with several homeless people, surrounded by TV cameras, photographers and reporters. Because of the crowd, it’s hard to tell the topic, but it appears to have something to do with funding of homeless services. 

One of the homeless participants, “Jerome,” 55, says afterward, “I don’t feel he really got the gist of the situation.” 

Catcalling has died away. Many of the homeless people, in fact, have gone to sleep. 

Unlike Bates and the activists, who later stretch out openly, the homeless are hard to see. They huddle on benches or behind bushes or up against walls, all bundled in dark blankets or sleeping bags. 

Organizer Bob Mills explains that homeless people come to legalized campsites like this one simply to get a full night’s sleep. Generally, they’re awakened and told to move on by police. 

If the police don’t find them, Mills said, the park sprinklers will at two or three a.m. They’ve gotten him few times.  

9:45 

KTVU, Channel 2, zeros in on Bates and reporter John Sasaki asks: “You’ve been out here five and one-half hours. What have you actually learned?” 

Bates seems to have reached some inward decision. “This is not acceptable,” he says. “We have to do more.” 

9:50 

Boona cheema, director of Berkeley-Oakland Support Services, which organized the campsite, remarks, “He’s getting an awful lot of good press from you guys.” 

Red Szakas says he tries to sleep in the park where the campsite is occurring but is usually wakened every night. 

“I try to hide inside a bush, but I get rousted three or four times a week,” he said. “I’m kept awake two or three hours. You got to shake ‘em. If they tell you to leave the area, they mean it.” 

Yukon Hannibel, dressed in dark clothing, says he’s learned to hide too well to be rousted. “I just hope the mayor will see the need for a permanent homeless campsite,” he said. 

Establishing a site is in fact the main reason for the Bates camp out. Cheema says there’s not enough money to shelter the growing number of homeless and that it is inhumane to torture them with sleep deprivation. 

10:15 

Bates faces his first homeless crisis. There aren’t any bathrooms at the campsite. 

Cheema asks the night City Hall custodian to ask Bates to open City Hall’s public bathrooms. “Otherwise, I’ll go behind a tree. I’m serious,” cheema says. 

10:19 

Bates resolves the crisis, telling the custodian to open the bathrooms. 

11:15 

After talking to his wife, state Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, in Sacramento, Bates crawls into a sleeping bag. He knows the practice of covering one’s head to keep body heat from escaping. He wears a hood and wraps himself in the top of the sleeping bag. The night is cold. 

1:40 a.m. 

Berkeley police roust the campsite. Cheema gives this account: “An officer came at 1:40 and said, ‘What’s going on here?’ Tom stuck his head out and said, ‘I’m the mayor. We have a permit.’ 

“ ‘Well, can I see the permit?’ the officer said. 

“Tom didn’t actually have one and said, ‘Well, we have permission from [City Manager] Weldon [Rucker].’ 

“ ‘Weldon’s the one who keeps telling us to roust you out of here,’ the officer said.”  

The officer left. The sprinklers didn’t go on that night. 

10:10 

There are still so many photographers in the park that some begin taking pictures of each other. Bates poses for numerous group photos. 

“How are you doing?” someone asks. 

“I’m getting a little tired,” Bates says.

Back when the war on Iraq was but a gleam in Paul Wolfowitz’s eye, back when the French and Germans stood in solidarity with their American friends, back just days after Sept. 11, I stumbled into Caffe Venezia looking for some kind of sustenance. 

Jeff Wizig, the general manager, stopped to ask how everything was, and we ended up talking. Jeff and I talked openly about our dread, our grief and our hope. I left feeling heartened that even though the world had changed, I still could depend upon the kindness of strangers. 

More than likely, you’ve celebrated a birthday or anniversary at Venezia already. Open since 1980, its festive dining room, an artful creation of a Venetian piazza (complete with fountain, balconies and changing clothesline), lends itself to merry-making, as does its full bar.  

“I see Caffe Venezia as a place where people can enjoy good food with friends and family in a fun, exuberant setting,” says owner John Solomon. “We’re passionate about Italian food. Virtually all the pasta is made in-house, and all the sauces are from scratch, using only the freshest ingredients.”  

What you might not know is that Venezia now offers a completely revamped lunch menu, as well as an awfully good Sunday brunch. I’ll start with the brunch, as that’s my particular jones. 

Refreshingly, no huddled masses, yearning for a table, greet you on the sidewalk, as Venezia accepts reservations — awfully nice when the weather is inclement and you have relatives in tow. The customary eggs and pancakes are available, but with some nice touches. For example, Venezia’s delightful take on Eggs Benedict features eggs on roasted portobellos with white truffle oil. Instead of the usual oatmeal, you can order semolina porridge with medjool dates, sunflower seeds and ginger. I loved the Dutch Baby, a slightly crisp crepe served with baked apples and brown sugar, while a companion raved about his smoked salmon, caramelized onion and chive fritatta. Prices are very reasonable.  

The new fixed-price lunch menu is one of the best deals in town. Soup or salad, a choice of three entrees and a beverage will set you back a mere $8. A recently offered Insalata di Rucola, arugula and mushrooms tossed in sherry vinaigrette with fried onions, pancetta and sieved egg, had me wanting to lick my plate. A neighboring table gushed over their Pesce San Pietro, a St. Peter’s fish served with pinenut-lavender butter, while I savored my orecchiette with garlic sausage, grilled yellow tomato, chili flakes, marjoram and ricotta salata.  

Solomon founded the “How Berkeley Can You Be” parade, an opportunity, he says, “for Berkeley to celebrate itself and to realize we have more in common with one another than against.”  

He met his wife, Lois, in People’s Park in 1969, and has given one-third ownership of the restaurant to three longtime employees. He also kindly gave me the coveted Malfatti recipe.

Two top-ranking school officials announced this week that they will be leaving the Berkeley Unified School District in the coming months. 

Jerry Kurr, associate superintendent of business, will leave in May; David Gomez, associate superintendent of human resources, will leave in June to take the reins as superintendent of the Santa Paula High School District in Ventura County. 

“It’s been a wonderful experience,” said Gomez, who has been with Berkeley Unified for three years. “I’m very impressed with the commitment the community has to public education.” 

Gomez’s new job will be a 10-minute drive from his wife and son in Ventura. 

Kurr, who could not be reached for this article, took over Berkeley Unified’s troubled business office last year after serving as a consultant to the district. He helped ease the transition to a new accounting system. 

Gomez said Kurr likely will return to consulting. 

Eric Smith, the well-respected Deputy Superintendent of Business Services for the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education, will take Kurr’s place on May 5. 

Smith will inherit a district with a 2003-2004 deficit of at least $3.8 million. 

“That’s part of the attraction — the challenge,” Smith told the San Luis Obispo Tribune. “Obviously some things need to be cleaned up, but I like doing that.” 

—David Scharfenberg

Bank robbery by note 

On Tuesday at approximately 2 p.m., a man stood in line at the Citibank at 2000 Shattuck Ave., and then approached a teller with a note. The teller was unable to read the entire note, but did see the word “Robbery” written among the text.  

The suspect then fled the bank with an undisclosed amount of money.  

The suspect was described as a black male in his late forties to early fifties, 5 feet 6 inches with a dark complexion, mustache and skinny build. He had wavy shoulder-length hair, thick plastic rim eyeglasses and wore a black motorcycle jacket and dark pants. 

Police vehicles tires slashed 

On Wednesday night a McKinnly Street resident, who lives near to the Berkeley Police Station, was smoking a cigarette on his porch around midnight when he heard a “rush of air.”  

He looked toward the street and noticed a male suspect kneeling near the rear tire of a white police van and then he heard the click of what sounded like a lock-blade knife.  

The suspect then headed west on Allston Way and the witness called police.  

When officers responded — from across the street — they found that four cars had slashed rear right tires. 

Two of the vehicles were official police vehicles, one was the personal vehicle of a police officer and the fourth belonged to a McKinnly Street resident.

ROME — My host in Rome, a retired professor of nearly 80, surprised me by proudly telling me about the peace marches she had recently attended. “I lived through the bombing of Hull during World War II,” she said of her home town in England. “That experience left me very intolerant of the whole notion of bombing people.” 

Her perspective wasn’t hard to find during my recent trip to Italy (nor during a short detour through Switzerland). Indeed, mainstream Italian newspapers like La Repubblica and Il Giorno ran stories that disapprovingly compared America’s bombing of Baghdad to the Allied bombing of Milan and Dresden during the 1940s. 

Italians may have elected the right-wing government of Silvio Berlusconi, which rhetorically supported the Bush administration’s war and recently agreed to send 3,000 Italian soldiers to help police post-Saddam Iraq. But anti-war sentiment ran high in famously polarized Italy, and opponents decorated much of the country with their symbol, a rainbow flag featuring the slogan “Pace” (Peace). I saw whole apartment buildings draped with these flags, flying from windows and balconies. 

Italians adapted the same symbol to jewelry (which several front-line employees of my U.S.-owned airline unapologetically wore to work) and clothing. Leading me to her car, my host grabbed a rainbow umbrella that matched those I’d seen in many other hands. A minor chance of rain had been forecast, but I sensed she carried it under clear skies, too. 

I found a corresponding rainbow of opinion about the war and about U.S. intentions in the European press. If the U.S. media tends toward Mars, European newspapers occupy a broader spectrum of the solar system. Unlike the model of objectivity to which North America’s regionally dominant newspapers have aspired since an early 20th-century backlash against yellow journalism excesses, most populous European countries still have a thriving tradition of multiple national papers, many of them proudly partisan in their affiliations with political parties from right to left. 

In Italy, that spectrum starts with the rightward-leaning Libertà, which trumpeted the discovery of Saddam’s airport bunker with the banner headline, “Saddam Robbed Infants’ Cribs to Build Himself Golden Sinks!” On the left, it runs to the socialist daily l'Unità, whose title plate now bears a Pace rainbow flag opposite the attribution “founded by Antonio Gramsci” (the 1920’s Italian revolutionary leader who opposed Mussolini’s rise, and for whom a major street is named in almost every city). There’s also a Communist daily, Il Manifesto, which has a more sober layout and is — ironically — Italy’s most expensive paper. 

The partisan papers run some items that you might expect. L'Unità had large headlines that proclaimed “Baghdad in Chaos,” declaimed the looting of Iraq’s national museum and library and trumpeted U.S. troops’ killing of three journalists in a Baghdad hotel. It also had a front-page reprint of a “Dear America” letter from Canadian author Margaret Atwood, recounting her early enchantment and recent disillusionment with U.S. behavior. 

What’s more surprising is that mainstream dailies carry items you wouldn’t find in their U.S. counterparts. France’s centrist Le Monde, for example, ran (on April 3) a similar front-page critique of U.S. conduct by Mexican author Carlos Fuentes. During the week of April 7, both Le Monde and Italy’s correspondingly earnest mainstream daily, La Repubblica, ran full-page articles that traced the Iraq war’s origins back to neoconservative intellectuals in and around the Bush administration. La Repubblica’s version even embedded little “baseball card” graphics to help readers sort out the likes of Richard Perle, the Heritage Foundation think tank and the American Spectator magazine. 

The following week, each paper had a similar full-page dissection of Rupert Murdoch’s Anglo-American media empire and its role in distributing “pro-war propaganda.” On April 15, La Repubblica followed up with a front-page essay playfully scrutinizing the worldwide interventionism of “The Trotskyists in the White House.” 

British papers range across a similar ideological spectrum, from right-wing national tabloids (the screamingly pro-war Sun) to left-wing tabloids (the staunchly anti-war Mirror). In between, perhaps the most interesting daily is the left-leaning broadsheet The Independent. Its April 2 front-page article trumpeted staff reporter-commentator Robert Fisk’s discovery of missile fragments that incriminated U.S. forces in the notorious killing of 58 civilians at a Baghdad market. On April 5, a front-page editorial defended Fisk against U.K. Foreign Minister Geoffrey Hoon’s criticism of him in Parliament. 

Bay Area readers used to regularly receive Independent copy — including Fisk’s widely respected dispatches from war zones. That was before the Examiner and Chronicle each terminated the Independent reprint contracts they’d inherited from the Hearst Examiner. 

Today, all the British dailies are busy chronicling the fallout from explosive documents that the right-wing Telegraph discovered inside the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. The memos suggest that an anti-war legislator within Tony Blair’s governing Labour Party received secret oil-trading contracts from the Iraqi government that yielded him at least $600,000 a year. The legislator, George Galloway, says they’re forgeries.

The Berkeley Public Library is facing a budget deficit that could result in reduced hours of service, staffing cuts and outdated library resources. 

Library officials are scrambling to avoid the cuts by asking City Council to increase the library parcel tax and consider putting a bond measure on the ballot in 2004. 

Without additional taxes, the library will face a shortfall of nearly $2 million by fiscal year 2004-2005 — about 20 percent of its overall budget. Unless additional resources can be found, the shortfall would force Central Library to shave off nine service hours a week and would reduce hours at the four branches by 14 hours a week starting in September. The library already has implemented a hiring freeze for non-essential jobs. 

In addition, starting in July, the materials budget, which updates books, CDs and videos, will be cut in half, according to library Director Jackie Griffin. 

“As the budget stands right now, it’s like a puzzle,” she said. “How do you maintain materials and keep staff when you don’t have enough money to do either?” 

Griffin has requested that City Council raise the Library Parcel Tax by 36 percent, which she said would eliminate the budget deficit and stabilize the library for many years to come. 

“I think there are positives about it because in bad economic times, the library is used more than any other time,” Griffin said. “You can always go to the library to borrow a book or take out a video for your kids.” 

The council has authority under the Library Relief Act of 1988 to increase the parcel tax according to either the Consumer Price Index or the Personal Income Growth Index. The council has, in the past, adjusted the parcel tax to meet the CPI, but never the Personal Income Growth Index, which would have amounted to 36 percent over the past 14 years. 

Under such a parcel tax increase, an owner of a 1,600-square-foot house would pay $65 more in property taxes, according to the Berkeley library’s calculations. 

According to Cisco DeVries, Mayor Tom Bates’ chief of staff, the mayor wants to help but is concerned a retroactive tax hike may be illegal. 

City Councilmember Gordon Wozniack said whether or not the retroactive tax hike was permitted, he was uncomfortable with the idea. 

“I find it a little like changing the score after the game is over,” he said.  

According to Griffin, the other possibility is putting a bond measure on the ballot in 2004. However, she said it could hurt the library’s stock of books, CDs and videos, if that was the case. 

“We couldn’t go back and buy all the materials we didn’t because of lack of money,” she said. “It would be like putting a Band-Aid over a hole that will exist forever.” 

The council will consider the budget issues during its overall budget discussions and two scheduled public hearings that will take place in City Council Chambers prior to final approval of the city’s budget on July 30.

TUESDAY, APRIL 22 

We’re Getting There: Transportation and the Environment in Berkeley, with Matt Nichols, of the City of Berkeley Transportation Office, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. For reservations call 981-5435. 

energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

“My Life as an Unabashed Liberal,” lecture by Stephanie Salter, columnist and reporter for the SF Chronicle, on the role of liberalism in American politics, at 7:30 p.m., College Preparatory High School at 6100 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $10. Call Bruce H. Feingold at 925-945-1315 for information. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 525-3565.  

www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Lawyers in the Library at 6 p.m. at the West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

Gaia Sculpture Unveiling. Four Architectural Sculptures celebrating Earth Day, will be unveiled at 5:30 p.m. at the Gaia building, 2116 Allston Way, by Khalil Bendib, sculptor, and Patrick Kennedy, owner, Panoramic Interests. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 

Cesar Chavez Breakfast & Award Ceremony, hosted by the East Bay Cesar Chavez Committee of the United Farm Workers, celebrating the new Cesar Chavez postage stamp and honoring leaders with Legacy Awards, will be held 8 - 10 a.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $25. 525-5054.  www.ashkenaz.com 

Ira Glass, host and founder of the NPR program, This American Life, will speak at  

8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC campus. Tickets are $18, $22, $28. 642-9988. 

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Peace Spirals: Somatic Expressive Dialogs for peace, community and mindful action, with Jamie McHugh, RMT and guests, 7 - 9 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck at Cedar. Please RSVP to peacespirals@aol.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. $90 cash prizes. Cost is $7 at the door, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. 

Community Dances in Berkeley, traditional English and American dances, 8 p.m. every Wednesday, $9; 7 p.m. first Sunday, $10. Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St., 233-5065. www.bacds.org 

THURSDAY, APRIL 24 

Town Hall Meeting on 

neighborhood disaster resistance and community sustainability, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the San Pablo Park Community Center, 2800 Park St. For information, call Carol Lopes 981-5514. 

Take Back the Night March against rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence in our community. Come hear speakers, enjoy live music, browse the resource fair and share your thoughts at the open mike. Rally at 4:30 p.m. on the UC Campus at Upper Sproul Plaza rain or shine. Contact information: Danna Yaniv at 204-9139. dyaniv@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder Physicians for Social Responsibility and founder Nuclear Policy Research Institute, will speak on “The New Nuclear Danger — George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex” at 7 p.m. in the Chevron Auditorium, International House, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Chancellor’s Office, co-sponsored by Depts. of Public Policy, Public Health and the World Affairs Council. 642-4670. kander@socrates.berkeley.edu 

Bicycle Touring Information at 7:30 p.m., free lecture covering tools, routes, camping and more, at The Missing Link, 1988 Shattuck Ave. 843-7471.  

Job Search 101, an interactive workshop on strategies to jump start your job search. 1:30 - 5 p.m. Cost is $35 for YWCA members, $45 for non-members. Preregistration required. For information call 848-6370. YWCA Turning Point Career Center, 2600 Bancroft Way. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 

548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue gathers at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome. 496-6000, ext.135. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship www.bpf.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon, Francis U. Macy 

Co-Director, Center for Safe Energy, on the “The Growing Environmental Movement in Russia.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations 526-2925, 665-9020. 

The War at Home: Organizing for Social and Economic Justice, conference at UC Berkeley on the war economy and how it affects us all. Workshops from Friday evening through Sunday. Sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America. Cost is $20 - $50 in advance, $35 - $65 at the door. Registration opens at 5 p.m., room 2050, Valley Life Science Bldg., UC Campus. For information on registration and location, call 415-789-8497 or 

www.dsausa.org/lowwage 

7th Annual Charles T. Travers Ethics Conference: US Chemical Warfare: The Tragedy of Agent Orange 

with speakers Gerald Nicosia and Fred Wilcox, at 6 p.m. in the Free Speech Cafe, Moffitt Library, UC Campus. 642-1056. lcushing@library.berkeley.edu 

“War is a Coward’s Escape from the Problems of Peace,” a lecture by William Sloane Coffin, at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, on Dana between Durant and Channing. $5 suggested donation. 

Citizenship, Education and Public Accountability, a one-day conference exploring the idea of responsible citizenship and the role of citizens in shaping public policy. Lipman Room 8th Floor of Barrows Hall, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. http://ethics.berkeley.edu/conference/conference.html  

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 

Berkeley Bay Festival at the Marina from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

The theme is environmental education and the bay. A free event for all ages. Workshops, walks, canoeing class, bike rides. Build a solar cooker, explore the new pedestrian I-80 overpass and the Bay Trail and check out the Shorebird Nature Center’s straw bale building currently being built. 644-8623. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/marina/marinaexp/bayfest.html.  

Spring Plant Sale at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call 643-2755 for directions.  

Kids’ Garden Club: Butterflies at 2 p.m. in the Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tours, “Berkeley Verses: Exploring the Cal Campus and Its Poems,” led by Steve Finacom. $5 members, $10 non-members. For reservations call 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc 

Small Press Distribution Open House. The only non-profit literary book distributor celebrates its 34th anniversary with readings, browsing and food and drink, noon - 4 p.m. at its warehouse, 1341 7th St., off Gilman. 524-1668 ext. 305 or www.spdbooks.org 

The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors will hold a GI Volunteer Training from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 630 20th St., Suite 302, Oakland. We will be training military counselors to take calls from GIs and provide information on how to obtain a discharge or file a grievance. For more information call 465-1617. 

Hitchhikers’ Rally, a benefit performance and pot luck for KPFA’s radio drama/documentary series “Hitchhiking off the Map,” at 7 p.m. at the Tea Party House in the Lake Merritt area of Oakland. Donation requested. Call 800-357-6016 for reservations and location details. 

Book Sale to raise funds for sending books to Sori Primary and Sori Secondary, in Sori, Kenya, 10 a.m - 5 p.m. Also on the 27th. 3000 books, including the inventory of a closed used bookstore; quality books at garage sale prices. 1261 Campus Dr., (Go up Cedar to top, left on LaLoma, left on Glendale, left on Campus) 

SUNDAY, APRIL 27 

The Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland, at 8 a.m. For information call 544-8918. 

People’s Park 34th Anniversary Peace Party and Concert. Celebrate the history of People’s Park with host Wavy Gravy, speakers Rep. Barbara Lee, David Hilliard, Ed Rosenthal, Michael Delacour and others. Music by Clan Dyken, Big Brutha Soul, Carol Denney, Country Joe and more. For information 390-0830. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Citizens Budget Review Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Phil Kamlarz, 981-7006. http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/budget/default.htm 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/civicarts/default.htm  

Energy Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo 981-5434. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy/default.htm  

Mental Health Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the Mental Health Clinic, 2640 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Harvey Turek, 981-5213.  

Planning Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/planning/default.htm  

Police Review Commission meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Barbara Attard, 981-4950.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview/default.htm 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley/default.htm  

Zoning Adjustments Board 

meets Thursday, April 24, at 7 p.m. at City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.  

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning/default.htm  

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Monday, April 28, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Deborah Chernin, 981-6715. 

Solid Waste Management Commission meets Monday, April 28, at 7 p.m. at the Transfer Station, 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/solidwaste/default.htm  

School Board meets Wednesday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers. Queen Graham 644-8764 or Mark Coplan 644-6320. 

For those of us who have a less than impressive background in mathematics, Aurora Theater Company’s world premier of Ira Hauptman’s “Partition” may seem a bizarre selection — perhaps even off-putting. Wrong. Very wrong indeed. This is one terrific theater evening. Despite the odd title (it’s a mathematical concept) and a plot based on the true story of a couple of early 20th century mathematical geniuses, it’s a play which grabs you from the beginning and takes you through an often funny, but moving and deeply human experience. 

Rahul Gupta plays Ramanujan, a largely self-taught clerk in India who, in 1913, wrote letters full of his mathematical theorems to three famous British mathematicians. Two threw the letters away unopened. The third, Cambridge professor G. H. Hardy (here played by a marvelously constrained David Arrow), concluded that the results “must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them.” 

While it may not be startling that Aurora has cast a group of highly talented actors, it seems little less than miraculous that they were able to locate an actor as gifted as Gupta, who is of Indian heritage to boot. His portrayal of the naive mathematical genius, Ramanujan, is so warm and so complete that one longs to see him in another role to find out if what he has created here is indeed nothing but acting. 

Through Hardy’s intervention Ramanujan was brought to Cambridge, a world so alien that it might as well have been Mars. What Hardy could not have expected was the fact that — at least in this play — in addition to extraordinary differences in cultural behaviors, the two men embodied extremes in basic thought processes. The intensely reserved and totally left-brained Hardy’s attempts to corral Ramanujan’s intuitive approaches to behavior, as well as to mathematics, are at once both amusing and doomed. Eventually those efforts lead to a rupture between the two men from which they both suffer great pain. 

The relationship between these two men, who could not possibly have been more different, is mitigated by the presence of a professor of humanities, Billington, superbly embodied by award-winning actor Chris Ayles. It is Billington who comprehends the human cost in Ramanujan’s eagerness to please Hardy, as well as the danger to the foreigner’s health in his obsession with work. Billington sums up the relationship when he says to Hardy: “You’re raising a child.” 

Perhaps an even greater leavening force in the initial parts of the play are the appearances of the Indian goddess, Namagiri. She, of course, is seen only by Ramanujan, in his prayers or dreams. Played by the lovely young Rachel Rajput, Namagiri is amusingly maternal in her relationship with Ramanujan. There are delightful scenes between them in which she scolds him for neglecting his health, cooks dinner and shows him how to fold his blankets. As the play darkens, she tries to save him from the obsessive work she says is killing him, but finally chooses to leave. 

Another supernatural force at work is the malicious ghost of the 17th century French mathematician, Fermat, (Julian Lopez-Morillas), best remembered for his “last theorem.” After a lifetime of perfectly proven theorems, Fermat has tormented generations of mathematicians by leaving one unfinished with a marginal note that he had a “perfectly charming” proof of the theorem — only there wasn’t enough room to write it down. In the play, he first announces that the whole thing was a scam, and later claims that he’s just forgotten the answer.  

It is the question of Fermat’s theorem that becomes Ramanujan’s last obsession. He is fascinated with the problem and despite the anguish and objections of Billington, of his goddess, even of Hardy, he works. Knowing the potential cost to himself, he works. 

As the audience left, one woman remarked: “I think every professor at Berkeley ought to be required to come here. I’m going to bring my husband if I have to drag him in chains.”

TUESDAY, APRIL 22 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Decay of Fiction at 7 p.m. and Comandante at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Gerald Nachman reads from 

“Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Robert Kaplan reads from his new book, “The Art of the Infinite: The Pleasures of Mathematics,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Nik C. Colyer reads from “Channeling Biker Bob Lover’s Embrace” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bandworks performs at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 

525-5054.  www.ashkenaz.com 

Maeve Donnelly with Steve Baughman, Irish fiddler and guitar accompanist, perform at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23 

FILM 

Film 50 showing Do the Right Thing at 3 p.m. (sold out). S.F. International Film Festival showing Too Young to Die at 7 p.m. and The Man of the Year at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Azar Nafisi reflects on her novel, “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Berthold Madhukarson Thompson reads from “Odyssey of Enlightenment” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Noon Concert 

The UC Department of Music Gamelan Ensemble, Gamelan Sari Raras, directed by Heri Puranto, performs in a free concert at Hertz Hall, UC campus. Doors open at 11:55 a.m. 642-4864.  

http://music.berkeley.edu 

Bandworks performs at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Rory Block performs country blues and tradition-based originals at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

THEATER 

Stagebridge and Berkeley Adult School present a lively original comedy, “Senior Moments,” by James Keller at 2 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Ticket information and reservations available by calling 444-4755.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 24 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing Doing Time at 7 p.m. and Our Times at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Carolyn Merchant, chancellor’s professor of environmental history, philosophy and ethics at UC Berkeley, will discuss her new book, “Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Patrizia Chen will talk about growing up in Livorno, Italy, after WWII and her new book, “Rosemary and Bitter Oranges: Growing Up in a Tuscan Kitchen,” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Poets Gone Wild with Adele Foley, Gary Young and Morton Marcus at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

THEATER 

Stagebridge and Berkeley Adult School present a lively original comedy, “Senior Moments,” by James Keller at 2 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. Ticket information and reservations are available by calling 444-4755.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

UC Jazz at Noon free concert on Lower Sproul Plaza. 

Youssou N’Dour performs, mixing elements of Senegal’s traditional percussion and soulful vocals with Afro-Cuban rhythms and strains of American jazz and funk, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC campus. Tickets are $20, $30, $40. 642-9988. 

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Planet Grooves with DJ Omar perform at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Spank, DJs: Solarz from Groove Conflux perform Hip Hop R&B House at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Bryan Bowers, autoharp hall-of-famer, performs at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Judith-Kate Friedman pre-sents an evening of music and poetry with Evelie Pasch, Avotcja, Raymand Nat Turner of Upsurge!, Edie Hartshorne, Doug von Koss and more, in a benefit for Songwriters Works elders and youth songwriting projects at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Reserved seating ($18 - $36 sliding scale) available through www.songwritingworks.org or 548-3655. General admission is $12, $10 seniors and students. 849-2568.   www.lapena.org 

Kris Delmhorst, Hot Buttered Rum String Band perform at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 25 

CHILDREN 

Harold and the Purple Crayon Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing The Century of the Self (Parts 3 and 4) at 4 p.m. Cry Woman at 7 p.m. and Marooned in Iraq at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

The Handmaid’s Tale, fundamentalist Christians take over the U.S. and aren’t nice to women, based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, at 8 p.m. at The Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Kathy Harrison reads from her memoir, “Another Place at the Table,” about being a foster mother, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. A Cody’s evening for parents and teachers. 559-9500. 

www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Noon Concert 

Robert Kraig, violin, Rachel Teukolsky, violin, Eric Hsieh, viola, Hannah Hyon, cello perform Bartok’s String Quartet No. 1, op.7 in a free concert at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Doors open at 11:55 a.m. 642-4864.  

http://music.berkeley.edu 

Friday Afternoon Hang, an afternoon of free jazz with the Brubeck Institute Quintet, from 5 - 7 p.m. at the Jazzschool. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Berkeley Opera performs Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $38 adults, $33 seniors over 65, $16 children under 18, $10 students. 925-798-1300. 

www.juliamorgan.org 

Trinity Chamber Concerts 

Divertissements with the Collegium Musicum, Kate Van Orden & Anthony Martin, music directors. Music by Jean-Baptiste Lully and his enemies, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Suggested donation of $12 general, $8 students, seniors or disabled. 549-3864. 

University Dance Theater, directed by Marni Thomas Wood, presents their annual performance at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8 - $14 available from 866-468-3399. For information contact 642-9925. genturc@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Lavay Smith & her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna, at 8 p.m. with a show at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.    

www.ashkenaz.com 

Orixa, Otis Goodnight & the Defenestrators, Dubphonics 

perform Rock, New Soul, Hip Hop at 9:30 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Charlie King and Karen Brandow, extraordinary songs of ordinary people, at 7:30 p.m. in the Community Room of Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. Cost is $10-$25 sliding scale. 548-1645.  

Gabriel Yacoub, French folk fusion innovator performs at  

8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

John Foster, guitar and Zanzylum perform at the Jazz House, 3192 Adeline St. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show at 8 p.m. Minimum $10. 655-9755. 

Georges Lammam Ensemble 

performs music from Egypt, Iraq and Saudia Arabia to benefit Friends of Deir Ibzia Summer Camp in Palestine, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.   www.lapena.org 

Danny Caron, Brenda Boykin and Friends perform at 9:30 p.m. at downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

The People, Sol Americana, Mister Q perform at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 

Holy Molar, Ex-Models, Scare Tactics, Cold Shoulder, City to City perform at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 

CHILDREN 

Bonnie Lockhart presents a  

morning of sing-along, play-along, move-along songs and music games, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $3 children, $4 adults. 849-2568.  www.lapena.org 

Dance Jammies, a multi-generational event presented by Orches, a nonprofit dance/art organization from 6 - 9:30 p.m. at 2525 8th St. 

Reservations advised. 832-3835. orches@earthlink.net 

Crowden Community Music Day, with concerts, instrument petting zoo, instrument workshops and more from noon to 5 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. 559-6910. www.thecrowdenschool.org 

FILM 

S.F. International Film Festival showing Lost Boys of Sudan at 2 p.m., My Terrorist and For My Children at 4:15 p.m., Waiting for Happiness at 7 p.m. and Dark Side of the Heart 2 at 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 for members, UC students; $5 for UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth; $8 for adults. 642-1412. 

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Crop Circles: Quest for Truth, a documentary video will be shown with presenters F. Bogzaran and Michael Miley from 2 - 4:30 p.m. at 1744 University Ave. 845-1767. 

READINGS AND 

LECTURES 

Annual Open Mike Poetry Reading takes place from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Allen Ginsberg Memorial Poetry Garden, Berkeley Arts Magnet at John Greenleaf Whittier Elementary School, Milvia and Lincoln Sts. This year’s themes are Peace, War and Humanity. Come read a poem or two, written by you or a favorite author. For more information or to help, contact Steve Rosenbaum at 644-3971 or srosenba@socrates.berkeley.edu. 

Reese Erlich, co-author with Norman Soloman, will discuss their book, “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You,” at 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church, Cedar and Bonita. Sponsored by the Coalition for a democratic Pacifica. 669-1842. les@ix.netcom.com 

Robert Stone reads from “Bay of Souls” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. 

www.codysbooks.com 

Marco Marson reads from “Thinking Naked” at 2:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera performs 

Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $38 adults, $33 seniors over 65, $16 children under 18, $10 students, from 925-798-1300. 

www.juliamorgan.org 

En Pointe Youth Dance Company, middle and high school dancers perform The Little Match Girl and Falling Notes at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. at 3 and 8 p.m. Tickets $5. For information e-mail enpointedance@yahoo.com 

Young People’s Chamber Orchestra, directed by Rem Djemilev, performs at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. 

Trinity Chamber Concerts presents Solstice, a female vocal ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Donation suggested $12 general, $8 students, seniors or disabled. 549-3864. 

Roy Haynes’ Birds of a Feather, a tribute to Charlie Parker, with Kenny Garrett, alto saxophone, Nicholas Payton, trumpet, Christian McBride, bass, Dave Kikoski, piano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20, $30, $42. 642-9988.  

Tom Rigney & Flambeau, 

Cajun dance lesson with Patti Whitehurst at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m. Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

View From Here, Hyim, Charles Copper Quartet perform Groove, Urban Folk Rock, Jazz Hip Hop at 9:30 p.m. Blake’s on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. 

www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Anton Schwartz Quartet performs at 9:30 p.m. at downtown. 649-3810.  

www.downtownrestaurant.com 

Barry & Alice Oliver perform traditional and contemporary folk at 8 p.m., at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 advance, $17.50 door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

AT THE THEATER 

“28 Very Short Scenes About Love,” an ensemble performance conceived and directed by Linda Carr, Berkeley High School Performing Arts Chair. April 4 - 26. Fri., Sat. 8 p.m. $15. Noh Space, 2840 Mariposa St., SF 415-621-7078. 

www.28shortscenes.com 

www.theaterofyugen.org 

Aurora Theater Company presents “Partition,” written by Ira Hauptman, directed by Barbara Oliver. April 17- May 18. Wed. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. $32-$34. 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. www.auroratheater.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater 

presents “Surface Transit,” 

written and performed by Sarah Jones, directed by Tony Taccone. April 18 - May 18. Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, (888) 4BRTTIX  

www.berkeleyrep.org 

Black Repertory Group performs “Mulatto,” by Langston Hughes. April 11 - April 27. Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. and Sun. 2:30 and 5 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance, $17 at the door. 3201 Adeline St. 652-2120. www.berkeleyrepertorygroup.org 

Shotgun Players present “Vampires,” by Harry Kondoleon, directed by Joanie McBrien. April 12 - May 10. La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid at Hearst.

THANK HEAVEN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank Heaven! 

Mayor Tom Bates heads the most pro-development Berkeley City Council ever, and during his short tenure has ushered in procedures which control and limit democratic process. With the Rules Committee, proposed condensation of commissions and Mayor's Permit Streamlining Task Force, the council is redesigning Berkeley for the benefit of their political machine and not for the well-being of the people who live here. 

I make up songs sometimes when I’m working in my garden. My latest is timely and the melody is from the show tune “Thank Heaven!”: 

Thank heaven, for council recess! 

Those recesses get longer every year! 

Thank heaven, for council recess! 

The stress is so much less when they’re not here. 

Those plans to build the Flatlands to the hilt 

They’re even planning buildings where there’s buildings built, 

Thank heaven, thank heaven, thank heaven! 

Thank heaven, for council recess! 

If you’ve noticed City Council meetings end earlier recently, and you thought that was an improvement, think again. Special budget sessions of the council occur at 5 p.m., hours before the regular televised council meetings at 7. This makes it very difficult for citizens to “follow the money” unless they have a computer with “video streaming” and they know what to watch and when. 

So I say, thank heaven the council is on a five-week-long spring recess! 

Merrilie Mitchell 

• 

PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Neighborhood residents are right to say the city should reject the plan to remove parking from the west side of San Pablo between Delaware and University during peak hours “to improve traffic flow and capacity.” 

This plan almost seems as if it is calculated to hurt Berkeley. It makes it easier for people to drive to Emeryville to go shopping, and it makes the University/San Pablo neighborhood a less attractive place to shop. 

Experience shows that the improvement in traffic flow will only be temporary. Within a few years, traffic will increase to fill the added capacity -- for example, because more people will drive out of Berkeley to shop.  

Experience also shows that this plan will hurt businesses in this neighborhood. Their customers use this parking. Even more important, this parking is necessary to create a pedestrian-friendly environment. New Urbanist planners have shown that removing on-street parking makes the sidewalks much less comfortable for pedestrians, because it speeds up traffic and because the traffic is right next to the sidewalk. Parked cars make the sidewalk feel safer by acting as a buffer between traffic and pedestrians.  

It is surprising that Berkeley is considering this plan when other cities are doing just the opposite: restoring on-street parking to help revive neighborhoods.  

Walter Kulash, the traffic engineer of Winter Park, Fla., turned that city’s main street from a failing suburban strip mall into a popular shopping street by adding on-street parking and by changing the zoning to require new buildings to face the sidewalk. Other New Urbanist planners and traffic engineers are doing the same thing, and they agree that restoring on-street parking is a key to reviving shopping streets.  

Can it be that Berkeley’s traffic engineers are ignorant of the new thinking in their own profession?  

The University/San Pablo commercial neighborhood is beginning to revive, but it still has many vacant storefronts and one vacant, undeveloped lot. Removing parking for even a couple of hours a day could end this neighborhood’s revival.  

Let’s not sacrifice this neighborhood to the sort of 1950’s traffic engineering that is totally discredited today.  

Charles Siegel 

• 

TOO PC 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Napa Valley Wine must have a lasting and enduring mental effect on you people in California. Although a local issue, I believe that everyone should remember one point about Thomas Jefferson. 

If Jefferson wasn’t around at the time of our country’s founding, you probably would not have the right even to think of taking his name off that school. Judge him not by our time and standards, but by his time and his accomplishments overall. 

I guess trade schools named after Ottmar Mergenthal should be renamed because he is of German ancestry and we wouldn’t want to offend anyone affected by World War II. Even though he lived decades before this and was an American citizen as well. 

I am just sick and tired or all this Political Correctness Garbage. 

 Bill Metzger 

Baltimore, Md.   

• 

NOT RELEVANT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please inform Marguerite Hughes that she needs to find something to do other than to rally behind changing the name of this school. Thomas Jefferson’s owning slaves is as relevant as her depiction of herself as an African American. Neither of these points makes a difference in the history that this man has left behind him. 

Shame on her and on the others who put themselves into relations with those who were held in slavery. One should not judge us by the sins of our fathers — especially a founding father. Find something better to do that is cost effective and not so selfish. 

 R. Klein 

Seattle, Wash. 

• 

DEBATING HISTORY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If the Jefferson School community (what is that, exactly?) and the school board feel that a change of the school’s name would help the children, then so be it. It is ironic (or maybe it’s appropriate) that the change is proposed for a school known for the inclusion and support of all its students and named after a man who sowed the seeds of destruction of his own society, a man who helped start in motion our ever-widening sense of what human dignity means. 

In any case, this is just part of a larger, ongoing debate over how to see and teach history, how to open it up for our children without dumbing it down. It’s an important debate and a natural one for a progressive city. But we need to find a better forum to talk about these things above and beyond the latest flap over curriculum, particular teachers or school names. The way it is now, we end up divided and exhausted, each side whispering about the other side’s perfidy. We can do better. They’re watching us. 

James Day 

• 

STAND STRONG 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If the Democrats agree the 2000 presidential election was stolen, as Maureen Farrell states (Letters to the Editor, April 15-17), and Gore won by more than 500,000 votes, why remain silent? Why wasn’t the Supreme Court decision challenged by Democratic Party lawyers? 

Also, I don’t understand Farrell’s statement that the Dems and Greens should reconcile.  They never conciliated in the first place. The Dems never came to the Greens at any point during the election to offer the Greens anything for their votes. Silence is all we get from the Dems on progressive issues raised by the Greens. Instead, the Dems attempted to attract more Republican votes with a centrist platform. Maybe they will reconsider next time around.  

The Republicans have hijacked our democratic system and they are flying it into the towers of civil rights and legality. Unless the Democrats can stand up strong to this gang of terrorists, they will steal the next election just like they stole the last one. 

In the meantime, I am sticking with the Greens.  

Andre Hicks 

• 

SAVE A TREE 

Editors, Daily Planet:                                                        

The following letter was addressed to Mayor Tom Bates, the Berkeley City Council and the Berkeley School Board: 

I watched with dismay as many trees were cut down to make room for the new Berkeley High School building. Only one on the building’s street perimeter — a good sized oak on Allston just west of Shattuck — was saved, and for well over a year I’ve been concerned about how construction methods have threatened to doom it. 

During grading in an early phase of construction, extra soil was mounded around the lower trunk instead of being hauled away. The contractor may not have been aware that a mature tree cannot tolerate having its soil level significantly altered: This change will almost certainly lead to an untimely decline and likely an early death. 

Now recent construction beneath and around the tree has further and dramatically worsened its prospects for survival.  

For your information, I am not an arborist, but had a landscaping business for 14 years and have an advanced degree in ecological horticulture. 

But first, someone with authority has to decide it is worthwhile to save the tree. I hope you agree that it is. I would welcome your ideas on how to proceed, as well as the opportunity to talk about it, by phone or in person, or even to visit the site with anyone concerned, including the contractor or a school district oversight officer. 

Donna Mickleson 

The Berkeley Daily Planet encourages Letters to the Editor. Please send them to opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com, or by mail to 3023A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705.

Berkeley ferry service moved one step closer to reality last week when state Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland) released his long-awaited plan to fund a host of local transit projects with a $1 toll hike on seven Bay Area bridges, including the Bay Bridge. 

The plan, which must win approval from the legislature and Bay Area voters, would increase tolls from $2 to $3 in July 2004, pouring money into two new ferry routes — one connecting South San Francisco to San Francisco, and the other running between San Francisco and a terminal in either Berkeley or Albany. 

The proposal would expand the commuter ferries serving San Francisco to seven lines. Ferries now dock in Oakland, Vallejo, Sausalito, Tiburon and Larkspur. 

Local ferry supporters hailed Berkeley’s inclusion in the Perata plan, conjuring images of wind-swept jaunts across the bay. But opponents raised environmental concerns about the proposal and said the millions set aside for ferries would be better spent on inner-city bus service that would serve more people. 

“Ferry service is really for upper-income people to enjoy — the ones who can afford to buy the $3 glass of wine and sit in the fantail of the ferry,” said Norman La Force of the Sierra Club. 

Linda Perry of the Berkeley Ferry Committee, a local advocacy group, called ferries “the people’s yacht,” noting that the state has pledged to keep fares on par with the price of a BART ticket from Berkeley to San Francisco, which currently costs about $3. 

“This is about increased options,” she said. “It’s not going to be elitist.” 

The Perata bill would set aside $79 million to pay for eight new vessels and a makeover of the San Francisco terminal. The legislation also would provide $12.6 million annually to operate the new ferry routes.  

The Perata package, which also would strengthen BART’s Transbay Tube and boost AC Transit service on Telegraph Avenue, has widespread support from highway and public transit advocates. Perata announced last week that a recent poll showed two in three Bay Area voters backed the plan. 

The bill, which must be approved by a majority of voters, is scheduled for the March 2004 ballot. 

If the bill passes, the San Francisco Bay Water Transit Authority would conduct studies on several possible terminal sites in Berkeley and Albany. The top contender is the Berkeley Marina, with construction proposed for 2009 and service to begin in 2010. The city would have to pay the $12 million terminal price tag. 

Some elected officials have raised concerns about the economic viability of a new ferry route, given the recent collapse of Richmond ferry service, and the environmental impact of hundreds of cars pouring into the marina, which abuts the new Eastshore State Park. 

“The average person — if you say ‘ferries’ — they think only of the positives,” said City Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “But environmentally and financially, they have not proven to be very positive.” 

La Force, of the Sierra Club, said the 600-spot parking lot that a terminal would require would be ugly and counterproductive to the supposed environmental benefits of the ferry. 

“We don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate to build parking lots for cars to drive down to the ferry when we should be working to get people out of their cars,” he said. 

Ferry advocates argued that driving to the terminal and taking a 22-minute boat trip would create less traffic and pollution than driving across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. 

Heidi Machen, spokesman for the Water Transit Authority, added that the city could reduce fares or provide priority seating for commuters who take public transit to the terminal. 

Still, La Force said the money allocated to ferries in the Perata bill would be better spent increasing BART or express bus service. 

“You’re foisting on people a high-cost system that’s not going to carry a lot of people,” he said.  

Ferry supporters argued that ferries will draw commuters who might not be willing to take a bus.  

“We want people to use mass transit,” said Ezra Rapport, a Perata aide. “We’re looking to be practical.” 

The Perata bill funds just two of the seven new ferry routes the Water Transit Authority has proposed. Machen said the agency will seek additional county and federal money to fully fund a 10-year, $646 million plan that would include service to Treasure Island, Hercules-Rodeo, Richmond, Martinez-Antioch-Pittsburg and Redwood City. 

Perry, of the Berkeley Ferry Committee, said commuter boats will be more than a way to get people to work: “It’s a way to get people out on the water and connected to this Bay that is such an important part of our lives. Their time has come.”

If U.S. leaders wish to avoid making a costly mess of their adventure in Iraq, they should do two things right away: First, ignore the intellectual pay-per-view service from prominent Anglo-American Orientalist scholars, and second, get to know a Middle Eastern port. 

Seaports and inland port cities have always been the place where Middle Eastern cultures thrived. An irony of the Anglo-American attack on Iraq, code-named “Operation Freedom,” is that the earliest documented use of the word freedom comes from the second millennium B.C. Iraq — ancient Mesopotamia. 

Scholars like Patricia Springborg have documented how ancient values of what she calls “the Oriental Prince” — commercial contract rights, state-individual relations and many others — were born and bred in the ancient Middle East and spread to influence Greece and Rome, Byzantium, the Islamic realm and finally Renaissance Europe and the modern Western world. 

People in the Middle East, especially in port cities, have played by the same rules for the past 5,000 years, constantly establishing new power relationships that define people’s lives and nations’ conditions. Now that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his troops have, as expected, successfully attacked, liberated, conquered Iraq, they must negotiate with all sorts of people whom mainstream America might casually refer to as “Middle Eastern-looking types.” 

In ancient times and modern, the port city — including sea and inland ports bordering vast deserts, such as Baghdad, Damascus, Apeppo, Amman, Jeddah and Cairo — has always excelled at two things: making the commercial deal and calmly absorbing the incoming impulses, values and interests of powers from afar, even when carried on the wings of conquering armies. 

American media informs us that Rumsfeld has been reading about Roman conquests and their consequences. Here’s a footnote for him to ponder: In the second century A.D., at the Greco-Roman city of Jerash in Jordan, along the southeastern frontier of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, the Romans used their immense power to make the locals “modern.” Rome introduced the concept of the representative city council. Still inscribed on the seats of the North Theater, where the council met, are the names of the representatives in the city-state of Gerasa (Jerash). 

It would appear that Rome achieved its purpose to modernize and civilize the locals, by giving them a quasi-representative government in a Roman-style institution. But look closely and you find that in this ancient desert port town, the inscribed names represent the local Arab and Semitic tribes that formed Gerasa’s indigenous demography, economy, social system and power structure. Rome wanted to give our ancient counterparts a city council, and our Middle Eastern-looking counterparts ended up turning it into an Oriental confederal tribal assembly. 

Similar things happen today: most modern Arab parliaments that copied European models have been turned into tribal or religious jamborees, reflecting the strongest indigenous Middle Eastern forces of identity and 

power. 

That’s what happens in ports, especially our ports that have operated without interruption since the start of human civilization. People make deals. Middle Eastern-looking types are very good at negotiating relationships with powerful foreign army commanders, making them feel at home, even wanted. The locals show little resistance in the face of impressive foreign power, bending just enough to make the system work, and perhaps making a buck or a dinar in the process. 

“Yesiree, General Franks, I’d love to have my own parliament and free press, thank you very much. Excuse me for a moment, though, while I round up some of my cousins to run these nifty new institutions you’re leaving us before you return home. Yes, of course they speak very good English. Yes, we’d love to learn to play softball. And by the way, we’ll need a few million dollars a week to, well, to secure the perimeter, just like we learned from you as we became free and modern. Please have that check transferred to my account every two weeks. Thank you, General. Another cup of tea?” 

The monumental exercise of American military power we have just witnessed in the desert and the air will now be replaced by a very different human power relationship: urban wiliness. Deals will be made, and made again. Money will change hands. Individuals and groups will compete for power. A new parliament will be formed. The tribes will get their checks every two weeks. The British and Americans have already started appointing tribal leaders and traffic cops. 

The port never sleeps. It hasn’t since the middle of the fourth millennium B.C. Keep your eye on Mesopotamia. 

Rami G. Khouri is a political scientist and executive editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon.

The death rate for Alameda County residents is declining, but disparities in health based on race persist, with African-Americans ailing and dying at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population, according to a recently released report discussed Monday by Alameda County health officials and community group representatives. 

“It is very clear that the African-American community has a health crisis,” said Woody Carter, executive director of the Bay Area Black United Fund, at a Monday press conference on the report’s findings. 

The Alameda County Health Status Report 2003 shows that African-Americans in the county, like blacks nationwide, suffer disproportionately from poor health. African-Americans in the county have the highest rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, homicide, AIDS, chlamydia, asthma, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and prostate cancer. It also showed that black children are less likely to get immunizations. 

The death rate is an age-adjusted calculation of the ratio of deaths in a given population. According to the new report, there were 709 deaths per 100,000 people in Alameda County during 2000, a decrease from 916 deaths 10 years earlier. In 2000, there were 1,156 deaths per 100,000 African-Americans in the county. 

The 2003 report comes three years after the county released a similar study on health trends. The previous report, which brought to light the deterioration of African-American health between 1990 and 2000, touched off a county-wide effort to address the reasons for the disparity between African-Americans and other groups. Since then, government officials and community-based groups have worked together to develop strategies to address the problem, including convening the first annual African-American Health Summit and holding four community public health forums to educate the community about health dangers and gather solutions to the problem. 

Berkeley has similar disparities. A 2001 report showed that the death rate was nearly three times greater for African-Americans than for whites, compared to 1.5 times greater for blacks nationwide and in Oakland. 

That year the death rate in Berkeley was 381. Among the city’s African-American population the death rate was 944. 

Poki Namkung, director of the Berkeley Health Department, said that health inequities might be greater in Berkeley than in Oakland due to economic conditions.  

“We don’t have a large professional African-American middle class in Berkeley” as in Oakland, she said.  

In response to these disparities, which captured the attention of health advocates in Berkeley after the release of a similar report in 1999, local officials developed “community teams” that meet with individuals and families in their homes to encourage them to adopt more healthy lifestyles.  

The city is also tackling the high incidence of low birth rate among African-Americans. The rate of low birth weight among African-American babies recently fell from four times that of white babies to just three times. Namkung credits two state-funded programs: one conducts outreach at fairs and churches urging women to quit smoking and improve their diet, and the other deals with substance abuse problems. Another program aimed at the problem provides pregnant women with a support group that allows them to meet with a midwife. 

The preventative approach to the health crisis is also being adopted at the county level. Arnold Perkins, director of the Alameda County Health Department, said it’s clear that inequality in economic and educational opportunity is the cause of the health disparity and that increasing access to health care should be a priority. He said some of the most effective solutions to the problems can be implemented with little or no money. 

“If we change our diet and exercise it makes a major difference,” he said. “We are not asking you to expend any additional dollars. What we’re talking about is changing our lifestyle.” 

Perkins said the county, in partnership with community groups, will launch a campaign in the fall that aims to encourage physical fitness and nutrition. 

Carter said focusing on preventative strategies empowers individuals to take their health into their own hands, which is especially needed at a time of budgetary constraints. 

David Scharfenberg contributed to this article.

While our news is flooded with discussion of war, dangerous attacks on our safeguards for clean air, clean water and public lands are under way and receiving unacceptably scarce news coverage. Let it be known that the environment is being threatened by the current administration. We are in a state of orange alert on the environment. 

In the early 1970s, environmental protection policies were strengthened as the environmental movement was supported and encouraged by the administrations in office. 

Laws limiting industrial pollution to air and water, such as the national Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act, were put in place to protect public health and the environment, and millions of acres of wilderness were legally protected from logging. 

Since Bush has taken office, environmental issues not only have been neglected, but the administration has been weakening previously established environmental protection policies. Never before has an administration so blatantly favored corporate over public interests.  

The Clean Air Act’s New Source Review (NSR) program requires old coal- and oil-burning power plants — which emit 10 times more pollution than modern power plants — to install state-of the-art pollution controls whenever they make major pollution-increasing additions. The administration today has been persuaded by oil, coal and utility lobbyists to propose a weakening of the NSR that would endanger public health and environmental cycles. 

Another issue being debated is the protection of public lands. Thirty years of study, two years of rule making and 600 public hearings went into the construction of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that would shield 58.5 million acres of wild forests from most logging and road building. The Bush administration has listened to the timber, oil and gas industries, and the rule is again open for alterations. Though 2.2 million people have voiced support for the roadless rule, it is the corporations to whom the administration is heeding. 

Our water is also under attack. The national Safe Drinking Water Act was altered in March, raising the legal level of arsenic allowed in public drinking water. 

In all of these cases, the interests of industries have been favored; companies are permitted to discharge more pollutants, and their responsibilities to clean up after themselves are loosened. These propositions make up Bush’s environmental policy. 

Let’s look at the effects of these alterations. Soot and smog pollution from industries is already responsible for tens of thousands of asthma attacks every year and the destruction of wilderness through acid rain. The weakening of the NSR would cause unacceptable increases in death and disease, and environmental damage. Our national forests would be drastically reduced in size if changes to the Roadless Conservation Rule are passed. And allowing more toxins to remain in drinking water by rolling back on the Safe Drinking Water Act threatens public health and safety. 

This administration’s obvious ties to corporate leaders are giving companies dangerously powerful influence in policy making. Since it is our air, water and wildlife at stake, it is imperative we voice our opinions on these issues and urge the administration to protect the American people and environment instead of listening to corporate lobbyists. 

April 22 is Earth Day, a national holiday created in 1970 as a day of celebration for our environment. This year’s goals will be to defend our environmental protection policies by informing the public and helping people to voice their opinions. On the UC Berkeley campus from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and at the Crossroads Dining Facility from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., there will be Earth Day events such as Eco-Chats with professors, letter-writing and chances to learn more about environmental issues. 

Now is the time to get involved. Let’s speak up for public interests and demand protection of our environment. 

Julia Beers is a UC Berkeley freshman and CalPIRG member.

The nearly 20-year battle over the identity of West Berkeley likely will flare up again Wednesday night when the Planning Commission considers setting a public hearing on zoning protections for light manufacturing, artist studios and artisan work shops.  

The commission will consider holding a public hearing on a subcommittee report that calls for increased restrictions on office conversions and a reassertion of zoning protections for light manufacturing and arts- and craft-oriented businesses.  

The West Berkeley Multiple Use Light Industrial district, or the MU-LI, is characterized by former manufacturing facilities now converted into workshops and studios. 

The area has a wide diversity of uses but is most known for artisan businesses such as cabinet makers, printers, glass blowers, fabric printers and jewelry makers.  

The issue has long divided both the Planning Commission and the City Council. 

Proponents of restricting offices say the district is in danger of losing good jobs and a vibrant cultural tradition. 

Opponents argue that the restrictions are too severe and don’t allow flexibility for future economic development.  

“This is coming to us again simply to keep offices out,” said City Councilmember Miriam Hawley. “It’s silly because nobody wants to develop offices now anyway because of the poor economy. Although it would be nice to have that option in the future should light industry leave the city.” 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington argued that the West Berkeley artists and artisans are a vulnerable group and easily could be forced out by developers who see large profits in converting light industrial space into offices.  

He added that manufacturing jobs have grown in the district. 

“I am very much in support of protecting manufacturing jobs and passionately supportive of protecting artists and artisans,” he said. “Artists contribute enormously to the cultural vibrancy of Berkeley and they are an important element of what makes Berkeley a fascinating and unusual place.” 

In 2001, the commission, after a bitter process, recommended that City Council approve a temporary moratorium on office development in the district. The council, after months of consideration and requests for clarification from the divided Planning Commission, enacted on June 12 a one-year moratorium by a narrow margin over the objections of the city manager.  

The moratorium expired last December. A Planning Commission subcommittee compiled a report that calls for more permanent restrictions on office development. 

Planning Commissioner Susan Wengraf said she wants a report from the Planning Commission before a public hearing.  

“I think it’s a very disorganized and confusing report,” she said. “We need some data and we certainly need to hear from all the stake holders, property owners and the unions.” 

Commissioner Zelda Bronstein disagreed. “This is a 15-page report with nearly 70 pages of supporting addendums,” she said. “This report is certainly ready and the best way to hear from all the stake holders is to hold a public hearing.” 

The Planning Commission meeting will be held at the North Berkeley Senior Center Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m.

The Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County will host an open house on Sunday, April 27, from noon to 5 p.m. Susan Parker, writer-in-residence at the center in 2001, offers a preview of the event. 

Head north over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and then turn south onto Interstate 101. Get off at the last exit before the Golden Gate Bridge and make a sharp left. It looks as if you’re about to get back on 101, but just before the entrance veer right and go up a very steep hill. You are entering the Headlands, a magnificent part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area located just across the bay from San Francisco. 

The view as you drive up the road, clinging to the vertical cliffs, is spectacular. On clear days you can see all the way to Mt. Diablo and Mt. Hamilton. On foggy afternoons, of which there are many, you can barely distinguish the road in front of you. Drive slowly and cautiously. This is a windy, treacherous route. At the crest of the hill the road narrows. You’ll pass by many old military installations and crumbling bunkers, remnants of the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, and the Cold War. Go as far west as you can to the final lookout. When it is sunny you can see south to Pacifica, north to Pt. Reyes, west to the Farallon Islands and beyond. If it’s thick with mist, you’ll hear the mournful call of the foghorns.  

Head back down the road and park in the Point Bonita’s pullout. Hike down the trail. You will be surrounded by sharp drop-offs on either side, but don’t be alarmed. The scenery only gets more magnificent as you continue along the path, through the narrow, damp tunnel and out to the suspension bridge that leads to the historic lighthouse. When you’ve had enough, indicated by goose bumps on your flesh resulting from the awesome view or swirling fog, tramp back up the trail and continue on the road, past the decommissioned Nike installation, now turned into a YMCA camp. You’ll come to a pristine white chapel, set among the eucalyptus and pine, which has been converted into a fine little museum. After your visit (admission is free), turn right toward Headlands Center for the Arts. You have reached our final destination.  

Headlands Center for the Arts is a sanctuary for artists from around the world. Run as a nonprofit out of buildings once owned and occupied by the United States Army, the center hosts practitioners of many disciplines. Dancers, writers, poets, filmmakers, photographers, composers, musicians, performance and installation artists use the old barracks, gymnasium and officers’ quarters as studios.  

Three years ago I had the pleasure of staying at this facility. It was a wonderful, exciting experience. And it was an especially poignant place to be during the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The Headlands Center for the Arts is literally a bastion of military defense turned into a place of creativity and healing. Not to get all fuzzy and warm, but can you think of a more meaningful venue in which to promote art, beauty and inspiration, than in a site once occupied by the United States Armed Forces? 

While in residence I met an environmentalist who was creating bird sanctuaries out of old gun batteries, a designer who made a giant tea cozy-like cover for a now defunct Nike missile, an installation artist building alternative housing for the homeless, a carpenter making dance floors on abandoned fuel storage structures. Someone was counting hawks as they flew by on their migration to South America, a performer was constructing a moveable cart in which to bring street music to the Tenderloin, a sculptor was creating a piece that blended with the waves and tides at nearby Rodeo Beach. 

On Sunday, April 27, from noon to 5 p.m., the Headlands Center for the Arts is hosting an open house. Drop by. You will be amazed, inspired and moved by what can be accomplished when people think thoughtfully and creatively in a backdrop once used as a place to prepare and guard against war.

The Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble has earned international recognition over the past few summers touring European music festivals. 

The band was named best high school jazz band in the country at the Monterey Jazz Festival earlier this month. Rafa Postel, who plays the trumpet, and Soren Godberson, who plays guitar, also picked up best soloist awards at the festival.  

The band is gearing up for a fund-raiser brunch on April 27 at H’s Lordships on the Berkeley Marina from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Proceeds will help with the band’s expenses to travel to scheduled appearances at jazz festivals in Vienne, France and Montreux, Switzerland, this summer. 

Representatives from the Vienne Jazz Festival invited the band after hearing its performance in Monterey on April 5. The band is returning to Montreux for the third year. The band’s relationship with the Switzerland festival began five years ago when Bill Lutt, a former Berkeley High student and current president of World Projects International, a musician travel agency, suggested that the band submit an audition tape. 

While at these international jazz festivals, the Berkeley High jazz musicians will rub elbows with some of the biggest names in jazz and hear some of the greats perform live. 

The ensemble’s Parent Support Group handles much of the organizing and planning. Many of the parents praised band director Charles Hamilton, leader of the program for 21 years, for the ensemble’s continued success. 

Larry Kelp, a band parent, said Hamilton’s choice of repertoire was a large factor in the recognition at various competitions. 

“He lets the students excel as individuals instead of telling them what to do,” Kelp said. 

For details, contact Lori Ferguson at (510) 527-8245. 

Attempted golf cart theft 

On Friday night, a security guard on the grounds of Bayer corporation in west Berkeley noticed a young man behind the wheel of a golf cart maintenance vehicle. When the guard questioned the driver, he said that he was helping his father, who he claimed was a Bayer maintenance employee.  

The guard was suspicious and watched the young man drive to the west side of the complex where four other youths jumped on. The guard, now accompanied by another guard, pursued the cart west on Bancroft Street until the boys jumped off the cart and ran on foot.  

The guard was able to tackle two of the suspects, both of whom were under 18 and both of whom live in the Berkeley hills.  

Dropped gun 

On Saturday Drug Task Force (DTF) officers recognized a 26-year-old Berkeley resident who was wanted on felony warrants. The suspect saw the officers and began to run. As one of the DTF officers pursued the suspect, a large silver-and-black revolver fell out of his clothing.  

The officer retrieved the gun and continued the pursuit. Later, a group of officers arrested the suspect after finding him curled up underneath a deck.  

The suspect was in possession of seven rocks of cocaine and marijuana. He was booked on five felony charges and one misdemeanor.

BART travels to airport in June 

After decades of planning and months of delays, BART announced last week that it will open its extension to the San Francisco Airport on June 22. 

Local commuters, who will pay $5.15 to reach SFO from the Downtown Berkeley BART station, have heard announcements like this before. 

In 1997, when BART broke ground on the extension, which includes four new stations on the Peninsula, officials predicted the trains would roll south by the end of 2001. But construction delays, caused in part by a couple of endangered snakes, pushed the date back to late fall 2002. 

BART officials have postponed the start date twice since then. But with construction finally completed and only tests remaining, they insist the June 22 date is a firm one. 

The extension, which departs from the current southern terminus at Colma, includes stops in South San Francisco, San Bruno, at the airport, and in Millbrae. 

BART commuters will be able to hook up with Caltrans at the Millbrae station and travel further south along the Peninsula.  

Professor wins fellowship 

UC Berkeley geography professor Michael Watts, who is researching oil, politics and violence in Nigeria, was named a Guggenheim fellow earlier this month. 

Watts, who declined to discuss how much money he won, said he will use his fellowship dollars to travel to Nigeria and complete a book on crude oil in the West African nation. 

“At this moment in history, in which oil and war appear daily on the front pages of every newspaper around the world, it is critically important to fully understand the long and bloody history of oil and its fundamental relation to imperialism and the making of the modern world,” he said. 

Watts is focusing on the political and environmental history of the Niger Delta, which has produced $300 billion in oil revenues since 1958 but remains largely ungovernable because of conflict between local ethnic groups, the government and oil companies. 

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, established in 1925, provides fellowships for professionals in all fields but the performing arts. This year the foundation selected 184 winners from a field of 3,200 applicants and awarded a total of $6.7 million. 

County looks to build green 

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors is moving toward adoption of a “green building” ordinance which would require environmentally friendly construction of county buildings. 

The ordinance, sponsored by Supervisor Keith Carson, requires contractors to demonstrate that 50 percent of construction waste would be re-used or recycled. The bill also calls for public buildings to meet environmental standards, set out by the U.S. Green Building Council, on water conservation, energy conservation and indoor air quality. 

Final adoption, expected next Tuesday, could increase construction costs in the short term, but county officials predict long-term savings. 

“The county’s investment in green building will result in significant savings in building operation, maintenance and improved indoor air quality,” said Wendy Sommer, senior program manager for the Alameda County Waste Management Authority. “In the long run, this ordinance will save taxpayer money.” 

—David Scharfenberg

For the last two years I’ve been watching the woman across the street plant and replant her garden every couple of months. It’s about 50 feet long and eight feet wide and has gone through so many iterations — from Japanese to xeriscape to tasty herbs — that she now has to truck in fresh soil every time she changes her mind. 

The poor lady spends hours out there; as far as I can tell she doesn’t have a job and she can’t possibly have time for any friends with all of that potting and repotting. The one constant is that she’s losing her battle against weeds, and losing it decisively. Shock and awe after every rain. 

And I have to admit that I’m rooting for the enemy. Her most troublesome weed is that little oxalis flower that dominates the median strips and side lots of Berkeley. These little flowers team up into great splashy swarms of yellow. It’s colorful, non-spiny and requires no care whatsoever. Who says it has to be a weed? In the front yard across the street I’d much prefer a sea of yellow to the standard detritus of a garden undergoing renovation. 

I, for one, am firmly in favor of disorder when it comes to plants. Don’t get me wrong, I love a nice garden. Or rather, I love it when my neighbors have gardens that I can appreciate through my window without actually having to waste a perfectly good Sunday in the pursuit of mulch. But for my money, there’s nothing as enjoyable as a good weed-infested, overgrown, vine-creeping patch of chaos. 

Now here’s my dirty secret: not only do I love weeds, but I feel downright friendly toward invasive species. Bring me your vibrant, your strong, your huddled masses yearning to drop seed! Plants are just plants, they don’t spend much time on nostalgia or morality. It’s the gardeners who do all of the hand wringing over whether a certain bit of green is supposed to be there. 

Around here native plants are like the Holy Grail, like fragile little movie stars that we have to coax and coddle so they’ll take up residence in our neighborhoods and we can bask in the sheer plantness of them. There’s this belief in Berkeley that if we can just get back to how vegetation used to be, then somehow everything will be all right. 

A lot of my friends are plant biologists and they spend hours decrying the eucalyptus invasion. But I can’t help myself; I grew up here and I’ve always loved the smell of those trees and the way they filter the late afternoon light on the fire trail above Strawberry Canyon.  

I didn’t even know I was supposed to hate them until I was well into my twenties. True, it’s always nice to have a new (and hopeless) problem to be miffed about, but would Berkeley really be Berkeley without eucalyptus? 

If you’d never seen them before, you’d have to admit that yellow star-thistles have their own amazing architecture, those soft yellow petals cheek-to-jowl with malevolent spike-balls that would make a gladiator proud. And the smell of wild fennel? A kid couldn’t ask for more than to have entire hillsides smell like licorice. 

There’s no such thing as native vegetation. Everything came from somewhere and it’s on the way to someplace else, just like most of us. A friend of mine who works for The Nature Conservancy went to a grade-school in Oakland to give her standard lecture on the evils of invasive species. She told me she didn’t have the heart to finish when she saw the looks on the faces of all the immigrant kids in the back row. Just a bunch of weeds. 

I’ve always found it amusing that a university town that prides itself on being on the cutting edge of social change is so up in arms about the creeping evil of vegetable progress. At some point the local powers-that-be decided that it was time to freeze history. Molten Big-Bang plasma isn’t quite the look we’re going for, but oak woodlands will do just fine. The artichoke thistle has to go, but the two-bedroom bungalow is swell. People wax nostalgic over the good old days, when buffalo thundered down Interstate 80 and cougars dragged small children off the playgrounds at the Montessori. I’m pretty content to sit back and let nature run its course. Naturally. Of course it’s also possible that I’m just covering for the fact that I don’t look good in a loincloth. 

Zac Unger is a Berkeley resident and an Oakland firefighter.

The Berkeley Unified School District, in a cost-cutting move, is planning a major overhaul of its Independent Study program next year — shrinking year-long courses to a semester and cutting teacher-student time up to 50 percent. 

School officials and several Independent Study teachers say the proposal marks a thoughtful way to erase a roughly $200,000 program deficit while retaining the overall quality of the program, which serves about 170 students, most of them high school age. 

But opponents, including an outspoken teacher and a handful of parents and students, say the program will not be able to maintain its integrity in the face of cuts. 

“That’s just a bunch of hogwash,” said Independent Study math teacher Pam Drew. “You don’t cut instructional time in half and still maintain a sound program.” 

Students in the 11-year-old program receive several hours of one-on-one instruction from certified teachers every week, but do much of their course work at home.  

Independent Study draws a range of upper-level athletes and musicians who want free time for practice, children with emotional or learning difficulties and students who simply want to escape the anonymity of Berkeley High School. 

The district is proposing the cost-cutting moves in the context of a 2003-2004 budget shortfall of at least $3.8 million. The Board of Education already has issued pink slips to over 200 of the district’s teachers and scaled back its library and music programs.  

The board has not yet made a decision on the Independent Study restructuring, but at least one school board director said the changes make sense. 

“Every program in the district is under a microscope because of our budget problems,” said Director Terry Doran. “That program ... has not been living within its budget.” 

Doran said he is confident that the new configuration will work. But critics say the proposed cuts will gut the program. 

“It’s a pretty cynical proposal,” said Michael Burr, parent of a high school senior in the program. “I wonder if they’re going to be able to provide anything substantive if they go to this system.” 

Sara McMickle, program coordinator for Independent Study, said the proposal represents a great compromise between district officials, who need to cut costs, and teachers, who want to maintain the integrity of the program.  

McMickle suggested that the changes will actually inspire some positive, innovative changes in the program. 

“It’s kind of exciting,” she said.  

Next year, McMickle said, the program will probably offer less one-on-one instruction and move to more small seminars.  

Through meeting with several students at once, teachers will be able to minimize the cuts in teacher-student face time required under the new plan. 

Michael Denker, a French teacher, said meeting with two students at once is actually preferable when it comes to language instruction. 

“They can have someone besides the teacher to hear and bounce stuff off of,” he said. 

Art teacher Regina Woodard added that the financial solvency offered by the plan will create a greater sense of security for Independent Study staff and students. 

Students had mixed reactions to the planned shake-up. 

Shamiya Henesley, a senior, responded well to the proposed shift from a semester to a quarter system — with students taking fewer classes at once, but finishing them in half the time. Still, she was concerned about the reduction in one-on-one instruction time. 

“I like it one-on-one,” she said. 

Senior John Burr was more pointed. 

“They’re going to destroy” Independent Study, he said.  

“It seems like it’s going to move [away] from providing a decent alternative to the high school.”

During the 19th and early 20th centuries public transportation was built by private entrepreneurs with the anticipation of future development and population growth.  

Only three years after the University of California opened its first campus in Berkeley in 1873, Francis Kittredge Shattuck and James Barker convinced Leland Stanford to lay a spur track of his Central Pacific Railroad (in 1885 the Southern Pacific) into central Berkeley.  

Shattuck not only anticipated future population growth, but positioned himself to direct and take economic advantage of that growth. In 1876 the University of California had only been open for three years and had a student body of 310 and a teaching staff of 38. Hardly enough total population to justify the capital outlay of building a rail line. 

Although Berkeley’s first electric streetcar lines were operating in 1891, there were still many old fashioned horse drawn trolleys and steam driven railcars on four different sized tracts. In 1893, Francis Marion “Borax” Smith (famous for his “20 Mule Team” borax products), inspired by C. P. Huntington who successfully held a monopoly on the interurban streetcar lines in Los Angeles, began to purchase all the private streetcar lines in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  

By 1903 Smith had unified and modernized these companies and then expanded them into a coordinated transit system that eventually included ferries and was called the Key System. The AC Transit System that today operates in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, established by voters in 1960, is the legacy of the Key System, as is Key Route Boulevard that traverses Albany and El Cerrito.  

As Smith was creating his transit system, he also was buying large tracts of farm and ranch lands through his Realty Syndicate for subdivision and development. He also partnered with various developers and created a network of companies.  

When the Key System streetcars began running on College Avenue in 1903, the farm land along the route was subdivided for housing and small commercial districts. The Arlington Line was extended to Kensington in 1912, opening up that grazing area for development. Buses began to replace streetcars in Berkeley as early as 1921, but the trains continued to run until the late 1940s.  

The Bay Area Electric Railroad Association was formed in 1946 to preserve and interpret the history of electric railroads. At the Western Railway Museum and Archive Center at Rio Vista Junction in Solano County (www.wrm.org) a visitor not only can see historic electric streetcars, but also take a ride on them.  

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