Page One

PROVOCATEUR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

LA Weekly and Nation magazine contributor Marc Cooper apparently relishes playing the role of political provocateur. His commentary (“Five Myths About the Recall,” Daily Planet, Aug. 15-18) dismissing the Green Party of California as a factor in the election gravely underestimates the party’s established statewide infrastructure and political potential. 

Apparently Cooper is unaware that the Green Party holds 63 elected offices across California, including the mayors of Santa Monica, Sebastopol, Menlo Park, Arcata, Vice Mayor of San Luis Obispo and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ presidency among other offices. 

In 2002, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Miguel Camejo achieved California’s highest third party vote in 68 years—since the 1934 election. Camejo’s vote total represented a 400 percent increase over the party’s 1998 gubernatorial results. 

Significantly, the Green Party received unprecedented vote totals across a broad swath of Northern California: From Humboldt County to Santa Cruz County, the party captured from 10 to 17 percent of the vote in a dozen counties, including a historic 15.5 percent—second only to Gray Davis—in San Francisco. 

If the Green Party of California chooses to enter into an electoral alliance with another strong, progressive candidate prior to the Oct. 7 recall election, I would submit that Cooper’s smug assertions about the party’s influence and viability will be seriously tested.  

Chris Kavanagh 

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BASTARDIZED BARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I totally agree with writer David Sundelson (“Tarting Up Shakespeare Mars a Lively Comedy,” Daily Planet, Aug. 15-18) about the horrible practice of tarting up Shakespeare. I recently saw “Comedy of Errors” at the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival. The actors spent most of their time riding bicycles and scooters up and down the aisles and on the stage. Directors seem to feel they must do something new in spite of the fact that the power and beauty of the language is lost. 

Another problem is that American actors seldom get he voice training that English ones do. They aren’t taught to project. The result is that when the play is outdoors, the actors, especially the women, shriek their lines. 

Nancy Ward 

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A TRULY DAILY PLANET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ben Bagdikian is right about your putting out “one hell of a good community newspaper.” I just wish we could see it six (even five) days a week—but I realize it all has to do with economics. 

You did mean “hail,” and not “hale,” in your Roman farewell salute for Michael Howerton, didn’t you? 

Isabel Escoda 

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A MODEST CAMPAIGN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hats off to J. Douglas Allen-Taylor to be the only guy in Berkeley who can smell bigotry in our city, as exemplified in the Gary Coleman for governor article.  

Here we have the City of Berkeley which stands foremost in the nation for equality and lack of bigotry and bias, and possibly the foremost newspaper standing for the same, and brother Allen-Taylor, by God, ferrets out potential bigotry.  

When Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal,” which saw the end of Irish starvation by eating plump Irish babies, I thought we all knew that he was using irony and satire to make a serious point. Not so Allen-Taylor, who, having read Swift’s proposal, would have submitted an article to the Dublin Times, decrying this horrible solution to starvation as cruel and insensitive....and an example of English bigotry and pro-cannibalism. 

Robert Blau 

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SADNESS, OUTRAGE 

Thank you so much for J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s well written article about the Gary Coleman exhibition in the East Bay Express . He caught my feelings of both sadness and outrage at their printing such a regressive thing.  

Rachel DeCarlo 

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BUYING VOTES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Yesterday I got my check for $400. It came from the IRS, and it has “Tax Relief For America’s Families” printed across the bottom. That’s a lie. 

First of all, consider the cost of sending such a check to every taxpayer who claimed a dependent child exemption in 2002. Second, think about how many ways the administration could have provided the same amount of relief to the same people at far less cost. Finally, consider that either Deujkmajian or Wilson pulled the exact same stunt, sending a state refund check for $60 or so to everyone in order to purchase a better rating. This isn’t wisdom or benevolence, it’s a Republican campaign mailer sent COD. 

I can use the money of course—I’m out of work at the moment. 

Paul Mackinney 

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OCCUPATION OF IRAQ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent massive electricity blackout experienced in New York City, the Northeast and Ontario, Canada, may give a brief taste to millions of North Americans of the 24/7 misery that Bush has unleashed in Iraq with his invasion and continuing occupation of that country. Bush has managed to turn Baghdad, Basrah and other Iraqi cities into living hellholes. 

Most every day, we hear about the awful summer desert heat, the lack of air-conditioning, the lack of electrical power, the lack of water and the lack of personal security. Even the supposed “democracy,” “freedom” and “liberation” that Bush has trumpeted are all hollow shells at best.  

Bush’s recent upbeat assessment of the Iraqi situation is as phony as his several stated lies about why we had to invade Iraq in the first place.  

For daily updates on the miserable situation in Iraq, please check the new website, www.occupationwatch.org/. 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland  

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LUNATIC LEADERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s August. I’m back from vacation. Checking the email. “What’s this? The extreme heat wave caused by global warming is shutting down nuclear power plants all over Europe?” 

What kind of nincompoops are running this planet? That their main answer to global warming is to produce nuclear power plants—which are disabled by global warming? Do the people who run the world think at all? 

Read my lips, world leaders: Space Ship Earth cannot afford to be driven by lunatics who have absolutely failed driver training and have no idea how close they are to crashing us all into a brick wall. 

It is time for the more rational among us to dump the George Bushes and Osama bin Ladens of the world—as well as the various members of the Billionaires’ Club whose only goals seem to be to create Swiss bank accounts and to buy bigger and better war toys at the expense of everyone else. 

It’s time for the human race to dump its lunatic leadership, learn to drive with care and to keep their eyes on the road ahead. 

Jane Stillwater 

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GREEN PATCH BLUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The proposal to move the Adult School to Franklin is infested with things that don’t make sense, but one of the strangest is this: How can a group of elected Berkeley officials even consider paving over the last remaining open green space on San Pablo Avenue for miles either way and filling it up with cars? 

The green patch at Franklin doesn’t look like much, but it’s a breezeway for the neighborhood, an absorber of traffic noise and, for kids who climb the chain link fence, a playground. In addition, the open space at the eastern end of the site is important for the people who live there, and most of it will be filled with cars most of the day. 

Instead of shoving the Berkeley Adult School into this space with a plan that lacks all creativity, the school district should make the current BAS site a better campus and use the Franklin site for something that could include an enhanced community green space. That’s the kind of thing this city stands for. Does the school board? 

Jamie Day 

Phyllis Orrick 

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CIVIL RIGHTS PLEDGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We still have a dream! 

We remember the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. 

We remember the struggle it took to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the 1963 National Civil Rights March on Washington. We remember the Civil Rights Pledge which helped many to commit themselves to march, vote and work for jobs and freedom for all. 

We realize that legislation and litigation which grew out of the March helped reduce discrimination and partially opened the doors of opportunity to schools, businesses and government. We realize too that there is still a long way to go to full equality. 

We see some of those doors slammed in our faces by Propositions 209, 187, and the new threat of Prop. 54’s attempt to ban information on racial discrimination. 

We represent the resumption of the Civil Rights Pledge. High school and college students and people of all ages are now signing the Civil Rights Pledge.  

We represent an approach to the 40th Anniversary as the time for a fitting tribute to those who were there, who are re-committing themselves to the pledge. We see it as equally fitting to welcome new generations, young and old, to become part of history by taking the Civil Rights Pledge now. 

The Pledge can be taken in Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Yiddish, and Youthspeaks! Other languages can be added by request to 981-7170 or berkeleycivilrightsanniversary@yahoo.com. 

Over 100 community leaders on the 40th Anniversary Host Committee, and the Berkeley NAACP invite you to come on Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. to Berkeley City Hall for this wonderful event. 

Darryl Moore  

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LENDING LIBRARY LOST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Tool Lending Library used to be a joy to use. Pete and his crew were friendly. They always had a smile. They were patient. They explained how to use a tool, how to get something repaired. They were the best of “reference” librarians. And I never minded waiting in line, because I knew when it was my turn at the counter, I would also get their wonderful, competent, service. Often, I preferred getting tools from the Tool Lending Library (even with their three day limit, having to reserve popular tools, etc.) rather than renting them from a commercial place, because Pete and his crew always made sure I had all the parts, the tool worked and worked well, and answered all my questions so I felt competent using the tool. For a woman, it was very empowering.  

Now, Pete and his crew are gone! Replacing them are surly, unfriendly staff, who not only don’t smile, they barely look up. I’ve been told by the library management that the City Attorney ruled that Pete and his crew were out of line because they could not legally give advice because they lacked a contractor’s license. And the staff now has been ordered to not give tool library patrons any advice, which I’m sure is contributing to the surliness. “I will look surly, to head off any question you may even be thinking of asking.”  

What idiocy! What the library should have done is encourage Pete and his wonderful crew to get their contractor’s licenses in order to continue this great service. Instead, in a case of bureaucracy not being able to think out of the box, this service has been terminated, there’s surly staff, and the library has lost wonderful employees. I feel really sad, since Pete was the creative passion that led to the development of the Tool Lending Library in the first place.  

The Tool Lending Library needs to change its tack.  

Yolanda Huang