Berkeley students heading back to class Wednesday can expect cleaner, greener campuses, but when they step inside some school buildings rust and dirt will still prevail. 

“I think we’re making very good progress,” said district superintendent Michele Lawrence as she helped parents and students sweep clean the high school grounds Saturday morning. 

“When I arrived we had almost every safety issue imaginable: pipes sticking out, ruts in the sidewalk, holes in playgrounds, electrical problems.” 

Voter largess has been key to sprucing up the schools. In 1992 and again in 2000 voters approved ballot measures adding more than $300 million in new property taxes earmarked for school maintenance. 

The district has used the money to retrofit and remodel 14 of the 16 schools, and the crown jewel of the construction boom, the new King Middle School, was premiered for residents Saturday. After two years spent housed in portable classrooms, the school’s approximately 800 students will move into a totally remodeled building. Total price tag: $20 million. 

This winter, Berkeley High School students should reap their own benefits from the building boom. Two years in the works and eight months late, the new library, dining hall, gymnasium, and dance studio being built along Milvia Street is expected to be ready for students by the start of 2004. 

While some high school buildings will be state of the art, others remain in a state of disrepair. A walk from recently renovated Building G to untouched Building C feels like a trip to the wrong side of down. 

“This place is kind of funky,” said PTSA Facilities Committee Chair Bill Savidge leading a tour through the blighted building. He said the structure’s electrical system needs overhauling, the bathrooms require retrofitting, fixtures need to be replaced and some sinks don’t work.  

For high school seniors who entered the school just after the B Building burned down, the campus they will leave next year will bear little resemblance to the one they entered. 

This year the blacktop that has covered the ground where the B building stood will finally be ripped up in favor of a grass courtyard, the only sod on the entire 17-acre campus. Trees and seedlings will also be planted. 

Craigmont Elementary and King Middle School will also have new courtyards, said John Crockett, the district supervisor, who said progress should be evident to any visitor. “When I came to this district it was really bad,” he said. “We had weeds up to our necks on a lot of sites and 20 dead trees that could tip over.” 

Since he took over the job three years ago, the district has used money from the voter initiatives to help beautify the campuses by raising the district gardening staff from three to eight. 

But step inside the buildings and the remaining problems become evident, in large part because maintenance funds cannot pay for custodial needs. The district was forced to lay off two high school custodians this year, and maintenance dollars come from the district’s general fund, which is $5 million in the hole. 

New high school principal Jim Slemp complimented the staff on getting the buildings ready for the students, but acknowledged the school was shorthanded. “Things won’t get fixed as fast and there will be less preventative maintenance,” he said. 

Students helping to clean the campus Saturday said they didn’t expect the buildings to stay clean for long. 

“It gets really filthy,” said senior Nico Smith. “Some classrooms don’t get swept, it’s bad.” She and her friends, though reserved special disdain for the bathrooms. “They are disgusting, vile, repulsive,” said senior Christine Cutillo. “You’re lucky if you have paper.”

TUESDAY, AUGUST 26 

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets at 7 p.m. in 100 Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. Presentation by Max Elbaum, Founder, War Times Newspaper. For more information, please email info@berkeleystopthewar.org or visit www.berkeleystopthewar.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Charles Fitch will show travel slides. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets 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 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke Seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672 for information or check our web page, http://home.comcast.net/ 

~teachme99/tildenwalkers. 

Lawyers in the Library at 6 p.m. at the West Branch, University above San Pablo. 981-6270. 

Morris Dancing Workshop Learn the basics of an English ritual dance form that predates Shakespeare, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. at Oxford. Free and open to all. www.talamasca.com/berkmorris 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 

Free Lead-Safe Painting and Remodeling Class Learn how to detect and remedy lead hazards and conduct lead-safe renovations for your older home. From 6 to 8 p.m. at the South Berkeley Branch Library, 1901 Russell St. For information or to register call the Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at 567-8280.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

South Berkeley Mural Project Community members in South Berkeley are coming together to create a neighborhood mural on the side of the Grove Liquor Store on the corner of Ashby Ave. and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. At 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts Studios at 1923 Ashby Ave. For information please call 644-2204. 

Berkeley Food Policy Council meets at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. The Berkeley Food Policy Council (BFPC) is a coalition of residents, non-profit agencies, community groups, school district and city agencies to increase community food access and help build a healthy regional food system. For information call 548-3333.  

Berkeley CopWatch open office hours 7 to 9 p.m. Drop in to file complaints, assistance available. For information call 548-0425. 

Community Dances, 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 

Free Feldenkrais ATM Classes for adults 55 and older at 10:30 and 11:45 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut at Rose. For information call 848-5143.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 

40th Anniversary of the National Civil Rights March on Washington, most remembered by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, will be celebrated at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Hall, 2180 Milvia St. Residents who were present 40 years ago will reconfirm their commitment to the March pledge. Civil Rights supporters who could not attend the original event 40 years ago will be invited to take the Civil Rights pledge for the first time. For information contact 981-7170 or berkeleycivilrightsanniversary@yahoo.com 

Fiscal Management for Non-Profits, a technical assistance workshop offered by Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Alameda County Confer- 

ence Center, 125 12th St, 4th floor. For information contact Felicia Moore-Jordan, 268-5376. 

Great Paddling Destinations in Baja and No. California with Roger Schumann at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140.  

Berkeley Painters’ Critique Group meets to discuss new concepts and techniques with paint media at 6:30 p.m. at The Art Gym, 1717D Fourth St. 527-0600. www.geocities.com/berkeleypainters 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 29 

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. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 496-6000, ext. 135. www.bpf.org 

Tibetan Yungdrun Bon Institute Healing Retreat from Fri. through Sun. at the Dzogchen Community West Center, 2748#D Adeline St. For information call 526-2343. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 30 

Kids’ Summer Jam at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, with great entertainment for the whole family. Free. From 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Saturday Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Black August International Benefit for Haiti at 6 p.m. in the Berkeley Community Theater, Allston Way and MLK, Jr. Way. Speakers and performers include Amandia Poets, Avotcja and Modupue, Dr. Hatim Bazian, Chrystos, E. W. Wainwright and the African Roots of Jazz, Wanda Sabir, Sundiate Tate, and many, many others. Please bring a package of school supplies to support Haiti’s literacy campaign. 415-391-3844. 

Backyard Graywater Treatment Wetlands The Guerrilla Graywater People present a day-long, hands on workshop on designing and building small-scale graywater treatment wetlands. These systems use recycled materials and simple tools to create small wetlands that treat the water from a sink or shower for use in your garden. You will learn basic plumbing skills, methods of wastewater treatment, what plants to use in different situations, and how to design a graywater treatment wetlands for your home. We will be constructing a small treatment wetlands at a house in North Oakland. Cost is $15-$25, no one turned away for lack of funds. Call for location and more information  

428-2354.  

Alternative Materials: Cob and Strawbale Two natural building methods are currently undergoing renewed popularity. Cob is an ancient technique using a mixture of earth, sand and straw; it requires only simple handtools and can easily be shaped into imaginative structures. Strawbales are highly insulative and create an Old World character of thick walls and deepset windows. Workshop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610.  

Planting for the Shade, a free workshop with Aerin Moore, at 10 a.m. An introduction to a variety of perennials and shrubs that are suitable for varying amounts of shade and those that will extend your shade-garden color through summer and fall. Held at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 520-6927, 654-2484. www.magicgardens.com  

Ernest Callenbach and the Wild Buffalo of Yellowstone. Join author Ernest Callenbach and folks from the Buffalo Field Campaign as they talk about their efforts to protect America's last wild, free-ranging buffalo located in Yellowstone National Park, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. Free. 548-2220 x233. 

Bay Trail Bike Ride Join CESP, Friends of Albany Beach, Friends of 5 Creeks and the Bay Trail in celebrating the recreational opportunities that the newly established Eastshore State Park and the Bay Trail affords. Meet at 10 a.m. at Rydin Rd. near Central Ave. west of I-580, to ride from Albany through Berkeley to Emeryville, stopping to lunch at Dorothy’s Sea Breeze Café. Bring helmets, sunblock and plenty of water. Prepare for variable weather as winds tend to pick up along the shore. For more information, contact Susan Schwartz, 848-9358, or Tina Gerhardt, 848 - 0800, ext. 313. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 31  

Dignity Day at the Berkeley Bowl, a rally in support of workers who are seeking union recognition at 5 p.m. at 2020 Oregon St. For information call Kevin at 499-4694. 

Herb Walk Learn to identify and use many edible and medicinal plants that grow wild in the Bay Area. Meet at noon at the Strawberry Canyon Fire Trail head, below the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens on Centennial Drive. Call for directions. Cost is $6-$25 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. Sponsored by the Pacific School of Herbal Medicine. 845-4028. www.pshm.org 

Tibetan Buddhism, Abbe Blum on “The Tibetan Wheel of Life” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1 

Labor Day - Berkeley City Offices Are Closed 

Rainbow Berkeley 5th Annual Brunch, celebrating Berkeley's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans- 

gender, Queer, Intersex, and Questioning (LGBTQI) community. From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Hs Lordships Restaurant at the Berkeley Marina. Sponsorship is available at several different levels, call 548-9235 or email RB@tksvc.com. Individual reservations for the brunch are available online at www.eastbayvoice.org/tickets and in person at Boadecia's Books, 398 Colusa Ave., Kensington, 559-9184. Tickets will also be available at the door. Suggested donation is $10-$20.  

Back 2 School Youth Jam presented by South Berkeley Community Action Team from 1 to 6 p.m. in the Malcolm X School Playground.  

Berkeley Biodiesel Cooper- 

ative Orientation at 7:30 p.m. for those interested in biodiesel. Call for location. 594-4000 ext. 777. biobauerx@hotmail.com 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 6 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

ONGOING  

Vista Community College Program for Adult Education (PACE) Enrollment through Sept. 6. PACE is a college alternative for adults with job and family responsibilities.For information call 981-2864 or 981-2800 or email mclausen@peralta.cc.ca.us  

Free Smoke Detectors UC Berkeley and First Alert, Inc. have donated smoke detectors to be made available to City residents and UC Berkeley students who live off-campus. Applications for smoke detectors are available from the Environment, Health & Safety office of UC Berkeley, at any Berkeley Fire Station, or at the Fire Administration Office located at 2100 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. 981-5585.  

Free Energy Bill Payment Assistance The City of Berkeley has money to help low-income households pay their gas and electric bills. For applications contact the Energy Office at 644-8544. TDD: 981-6903. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/energy 

CITY MEETINGS 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Aug. 27, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/civicarts 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Aug. 27, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/com 

missions/energy 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Aug. 28, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning 

Charisma. That’s a word you don’t hear much lately, especially in connection with political candidates. Merriam-Webster offers two definitions: 

“1 : an extraordinary power …given…by the Holy Spirit…for good… 2 : a personal magic of leadership arousing…. enthusiasm for a  

…political leader.” 

Al Sharpton, who gave a sermon at Oakland’s Allen Temple Baptist Church yesterday, can lay claim to both meanings. In his youth he made a few mistakes, backed a few of the wrong horses, but in his maturity he seems to be one of the rather small number of political leaders who are now inspired, from whatever source, to make pretty good sense most of the time. 

Of course, that won’t get him much of anywhere in the presidential sweepstakes. When he appears on panels with the other candidates for the Democratic nomination for president, he usually gets off a few eminently quotable lines, but no one takes him seriously as a candidate. He deals with that, as he does many other things, with a quip: “They ask me why I’m running if I can’t win the nomination. Well, there are nine candidates, and eight of them are bound to lose, so ask the others why they’re running.” 

The theme of his sermon at Allen Temple was dealing with mockers like those he meets campaigning. The text was a passage from Matthew’s gospel in which Jesus, after he was captured by Roman soldiers, was crowned with thorns and hailed sarcastically as a king. 

Rev. Sharpton said that a lot of contemporary life seems to be a mockery of the accomplishments of the civil rights movement. He pointed out that George W. Bush’s whole career was an awful parody of the concept of affirmative action—admitted to college because of who his father was, ascending to the Presidency because of a “Supreme Court set-aside” instead of being elected. He took aim at Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly as examples of “negro amnesia,” a disease that causes you to forget how you got where you are. “Even our children,” he said, “sometimes mock us, when they say that thuggery is black culture.” 

It was, altogether, quite a fine sermon. Rev. Sharpton’s strategy for dealing with mockers is in the self-help tradition: “Even if you’re not responsible for being knocked down, you’re responsible for not getting up again.” 

He’s a realist, of course. At a press conference following the service he said that voters should vote no on recall, yes on Bustamante—standard pragmatic Democratic advice. He spoke of the urgent need for Blacks and Latinos to heal any rifts which may exist between them. No Democratic candidate for president, he pointed out, has gotten the majority of the white vote in a long time, so the Democrats need minority voters, who should insist on getting what they need in return. 

Everyone who cares about what is happening in the world today can use a little of Sharpton’s brand of inspirational talk, since world events often seem to be making a mockery of our efforts to achieve peace and justice in the forty years since the March on Washington. And if inspiration is needed, we’re going to have trouble getting it from most of the other Democratic candidates. 

Dr. Dean, by most accounts, gives a pretty good stump speech, but frankly, just for Berkeley consumption, his record on environment, gun control and capital punishment is less than inspiring. Kucinich is sincere, and right on most things, but his new-agey personal style is anti-charismatic for a lot of voters. And the rest of them are pretty indistinguishable from lots of other middle-aged white guys in suits, except for Lieberman, who’s dreadful. 

And Lieberman will campaign for Bustamante, his California chair. Now that’s really uninspiring, but we should probably take Rev. Sharpton’s advice and vote for Bustamante anyhow. So thanks, Reverend Al, for coming here to buck us up—we need all the inspiration we can get. 

Mel Gibson’s upcoming movie “The Passion” is already stirring up passions more than half a year before its scheduled release—which is not surprising, since it deals with the emotionally charged subject of the crucifixion of Jesus. The intensity of the debate recalls the firestorm sparked by Martin Scorcese’s 1988 movie “The Last Temptation of Christ.” 

But in a way, “The Passion” is the anti-“Last Temptation.” Scorcese’s film, which showed Jesus grappling with doubt about his mission and almost succumbing to the temptation of a normal life that included marriage to Mary Magdalene, drew the ire of religious conservatives and Catholics in particular. Gibson’s film is being championed by religious conservatives who charge that criticism of “The Passion” is driven by an antireligious animus. The controversy centers on the film’s portrayal of Jews and their role in Jesus’ execution. For centuries, the charge that the Jews had Jesus’ blood on their hands has been a driving force behind anti-Semitism. In Europe, “passion plays” depicting the suffering and death of Christ often provoked anti-Jewish violence. 

In 1965, the Second Vatican Council formally repudiated the belief that Jews, past or present, are collectively responsible for “deicide.” In recent years, Christians and Jews have worked together to rid passion plays of anti-Semitism. Some worry that after decades of progress, Gibson’s movie could be a throwback to the old prejudices. 

One reason for these apprehensions is that Gibson belongs to a “traditionalist” Catholic movement which rejects the 1965 reforms; his father, a prominent member of this movement, has been quoted as saying that Vatican II was the result of a Jewish-Masonic plot. Moreover, a favorable early report on the film, based on an interview with Gibson himself, said that the film script had drawn on the writings of Anne Catherine Emmerich, a 19th-century nun who described her purported visions about the last days of Jesus. Among other things, Emmerich claimed that the cross on which Jesus died was built in the Jewish temple on the orders of the high priest. (Only after the Simon Wiesenthal Center called attention to Emmerich’s virulent anti-Semitism did a spokesman for Gibson’s Icon Productions disavow her work as a source.) 

Gibson’s defenders argue that the movie is quite different from the script and is being condemned sight unseen. But Gibson hasn’t helped his case by limiting the preview screenings almost entirely to friendly audiences of political, cultural, and religious conservatives while denying access to critics, including such respected groups as the Anti-Defamation League. When a representative of the league finally saw the film last week, he stated that in its present form it was likely to fuel hatred and bigotry. Of particular concern is the reaction in countries where such bigotry is already a major problem—including the Arab world. 

Few people worry about an outburst of violent anti-Semitism in the United States. But in its own way, the attitude of some champions of “The Passion” is troubling. A few seem positively gleeful about the distress caused by the movie—and quite in-your-face about it. “I want to see any movie that drives the anti-Christian entertainment elite crazy,” conservative commentator Laura Ingraham has been quoted as saying. Others, including conservative Jews such as film critic Michael Medved, have blamed the hostile reception of the film on “liberal activists who worry over the ever-increasing influence of religious traditionalism in American life.” Medved, who has attended a screening of “The Passion,” clears the film of charges of anti-Semitism on the rather dubious grounds that it emphasizes Jesus’ Jewish identity by giving the part to an actor with Semitic features and having Jesus and the apostles speak their lines in Aramaic, the authentic language of ancient Judea. 

Meanwhile, some rhetoric on the right has implied that the controversy is a Jewish assault on a Christian film. The National Association of Evangelicals has warned that, given evangelical Christians’ strong support for Israel, Jewish leaders should not “risk alienating two billion Christians over a movie.” After criticizing the film, the Anti-Defamation League has received dozens of vile anti-Semitic phone calls and e-mails. 

The biblical account of Jesus’ life and death should not be sacrificed to political correctness. But the cry of political correctness can also become a cover for very real bigotry. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since this article was written, Gibson has agreed to include scenes in which some Jews don’t call for Jesus’s death.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 26 

FILM 

The Inquiring Camera: “Ashura: This Blood Spilled in My Veins” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Fragments From the War on Terror “Civilian Casualties,” a film by September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. A free film series co-sponsored by Ber- 

keley Peace Walk and Vigil. For more information see www.geo- 

cities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Summer Poetry, with Daphne Gotlieb, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Mediterranean Café, 2475 Telegraph Ave. Free, open mic, poetry, prose, short fiction, amateur and advanced artists welcome. 549-1128. 

Bruce Moody discusses his new book, “Will Work for Food or $,” about begging by the roadside, at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Maria Espinosa reads from her novel, “Incognito: Journey of a Secret Jew,” at 7:30 p.m. Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ilgi, a night of Latvian song, music and games at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 

FILM 

Excess of Evil: “The Blood on Satan’s Claw” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Converging/Diverging Faiths: Islam and Christianity from the Center,” an evening with Seyed Hossein Nasr and Houston Smith at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Co-sponsored by First Congre- 

gational Church of Berkeley, The Islamic Center of Northern California and Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Café Poetry and Open Mic hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donation requested. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Hawaiian Music’s Next Generation with Keoki Kahumoku, Herb Ohta, Jr., Patrick Landeza, and David Kamakahi, 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 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jules Broussard and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Third World, MC UC BUU at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Tele- 

graph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

The Supplicants perform at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 

FILM 

The Inquiring Camera: “A Grin Without a Cat” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, Curator’s Talk by Alla Efimova, at 12:15 p.m. in Gallery 2, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Marie Etienne reads from her story of an abused childhood, “Storkbites,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Marguerite Sprague discusses and shows slides of “Bodie’s Gold: Tall Tales and True History Froma California Mining Town,” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. at Rose. 843-3533. www.easygoing.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Omar Faruk Tebilek and Ensemble performs traditional Sufi, folk and contemporary music from the Middle East at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $20 in advance, $22 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

((sYncrosYstem)), all-acoustic global groove ensemble performs at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Grateful Dead DJ Night with Digital Dave at 10 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Boatclub, Moore Brothers, Yuji Oniki, Chicken on a Raft at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The Jessica Jones Quartet, jazz saxophone, 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 

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 29 

CHILDREN 

Why Wemberly Worried at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

FILM 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” at 7 and 9:25 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

Strictly Skills, a celebration of Hip Hop, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

2 Foot Yard, El Faye at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee Quartet and The Justin Morrell Group perform at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation $15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Rhonda Benin and Soulful Strut at 9:30 p.m. at Down- 

town, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound, jazz vocal and intrumental ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mike Silverman, aka That 1 Guy, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter, 2181 Shattuck at Allston. 843-8277. 

Allegiance, The Answer, Dead in Hollywood, Physical Challenge, Lahar 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. 

D’Amphibians, Monkey Knife Fight at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 30 

FILM 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” at 5 and 8:50 p.m. and “The Merchant of Four Seasons” at 7 p.m at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Guided Tour: Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at 2 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trinity Chamber Concerts, with pianist Ivan Ilic playing an all-German program, at 8 p.m. at Trininy Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Admission by donation, $12 general, $8 students, senoirs, disabled. No one turned away. 549-3864. 

Kotoja performs Afro-Beat at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson with Comfort Mensah at 9 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

African Drum Workshop with Wade Peterson. Beginners from 10 to 11:30 a.m., experienced from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at The Jazz House. Cost is $15-$25, and advance registration is encouraged. 533-5111. 

Desoto Reds, Rich McCulley Band, Continuous Peasant at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Mystic Roots, Serendipity at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

peAktimes, improvisational performance art, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Osvaldo Torres, Chilean singer,songwriter and storyteller, in concert at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $14 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mimi Fox Quartet at 9:30 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Pitch Black, Scurvy Dogs, Deadfall, Desolation, Look Back and Laugh 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, AUGUST 31 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Guided Tour of “Gene(sis)” at 2 p.m. at The Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808.  

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu  

FILM 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “The Marriage of Maria Braun”at 5:30 and 7:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Deaf Electric, electronic, turn- 

tablism, experimental music and visuals, at 7 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $6-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

2-on-2 Bboy/Bgirl Battle from 2 to 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Presented by Tomorrow's Chil- 

dren, this fast-paced contest of 2-on-2 bboy and bgirl artists offers a $75 prize for 2-on-2 winners aged 16 years and under, and a $150 prize for 2-on-2 winners 17 years and up. Performers include Sisterz of the Underground, The Greans, MachineGun Funk, and Robot Jones. Judged by Danny-Renegades and Karma-Flexible Flav/Zulu Kings. Cost is $5 for 16 years and under/$7 for 17 years and older. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Tang, The Latrells at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

AT THE THEATER 

California Shakespeare Festival runs until October 22. Performances this year will be Julius Caesar, Arms and the Man, Measure for Measure, and Much Ado About Nothing. Please call for performance dates and times. The Bruns Amphitheater, Orinda. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org  

Impact Theatre, “Impact Briefs 6: Shock and Awe,” an evening of ultra-short comedies, directed by Joy Meads. Runs to Sept. 27, at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Tickets are $15, $10 seniors and students. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Josh Kornbluth’s “Love and Taxes,” a tale of falling in love while wrangling with the Kafkaesque IRS. Runs through Sept. 14. Performances Wed. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 and 7 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $25-$40, available from 647-2949 or 888-4BRT-TIX. www.zspace.org 

Shotgun Players, “Mother Courage and Her Children,” by Bertolt Brecht, translated by David Hare, directed by Patrick Dooley. Runs Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. in John Hinkle Park, until Sept. 14. Show Sept. 13 is at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Free. 704-8210.  

www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBITIONS  

ACCI Gallery, “Space, Time, and Temperature” ACCI Members Exhibition, with Artists Paula Powers, Susan Putnam, Vee Tuteur, Dorothy Porter, Bill Shin, Vannie Keightley, Olga Segal and Peggy Yendell. Exibition runs Aug. 27 to Sept. 27. Opening Reception on Fri., Sept. 5th from 6 to 8 p.m. Gallery hours are Mon. - Thurs. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 1652 Shattuck Ave.  

843-2527. acciart@aol.com, www.accigallery.com 

Bancroft Library, “Towards A Sustainable Earth,” exploring the preservation of the American wilderness, the use of water resources, air quality, species survival, the development of alternative energy resources and urban development, and the cumulative effects of modern life on the environment in California and the American West. Runs Aug 21. - Nov. 21, Gallery hours are Mon. - Fri. 9 a.m - 5 p.m., Sat. 1 - 5 p.m. 642-3781. 

Berkeley Art Center, 19th National Juried Exhibition: “Works on Paper,” runs to Sept. 13. Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. Open Wed. - Sun. noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Berkeley Art Museum, Matrix 207: Anne Von Mertens “Suggested North Points,” hand-dyed and hand-stiched quilts, to Sept. 7.  

“Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Gennomics” featuring contemporary artists’ visions of a genetically modified future, August 27 through December 7.  

“Turning Corners,” an exhibition of five centuries of innovative art, through the summer of 2004. The UC Berkeley Art Museum is open Wed. - Sun., 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Admission $8, free to UC staff, faculty and students, and free for the general public the first Thurs. of every month, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808.                   www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Historical Society, “Focus on Berkeley” A photography exhibit by the Berkeley Camera Club, Berkeley High School students and community photographers in celebration of the City’s 125th Anniversary. Runs until Sept. 13. Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. Sponsored by the Berkeley Historical Society. 848-0181.  

Berkeley Public Library, “The Lighter Side of Crop Circles,” photographs by Ben Ailes. Runs until Aug. 30. First Floor Catalog Lobby, 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck. 981-6100. 

Graduate Theological Union Library, “Hand-crafted Books by Bay Area Artists,” Zea Morwitz, Mary Eubank, Nance O'Banion, Ted Purves, Susanne Cockrell, Karen Sjoholm, and Lisa Kokin. Each book is accompanied by a statement addressing the issues and process involved in the creation of the work. Runs until Sept. 30. Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541. 

Kala Art Institute, Kala Fellowship Exhibition, Part II Runs until Sept. 6. Call for gallery hours. 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org  

Lawrence Hall of Science, “Lego Ocean Adventure” The underwater world comes to life through role play and hands-on activities. Children learn how people eat, sleep, and work while living underwater as well as how scientists explore the ocean depths using unmanned rovers. Runs until Sept. 7. 

“K'NEXtech” Technology meets your imagination--without stumbling blocks. Construct models from colorful K'NEX pieces, which snap easily together, of whatever you can imagine. Or just examine the amazing K'NEX sculptures built by professional designers all made with more than half a million K'NEX pieces. Runs to Sept. 14. Lawrence Hall of Science is open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Cost is $8 for adults, $6 for youth 5-18, seniors and disabled, $4 for children 3-4, free for children under 3. Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive, above the UC Campus. 643-5961.  

www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

A New Leaf Gallery/Sculpture Site, “Four Elements of Sculpture: Fire, Air, Water and Earth,” Exhibition runs to August 31. 1286 Gilman St. Call for gallery hours. 527-7621. www.sculpturesite.com 

Red Oak Realty “Mixed Media,” by Stan Whitehead. Exhibition runs through Oct. 23, Mon. - Sat., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 1891 Solano Ave. 527-3387. 

Slater/Marinoff & Co., “All Animal Art” Forty photographers and artists have donated works to help fund the spay-neuter and food costs of the Milo Foundation’s work in finding new homes for abandoned dogs and cats. Exhibition runs until Aug. 31. Hours are Mon. - Sat., 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sun., 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. 1823 Fourth St. 548-2001. 

Sway Gallery, “Secret Summer” paintings, installations, collages, prints, drawings, and mixed media by Nana Hayashi, Greg Moore, Marc Snegg, Gab- 

rielle Wolodarski. Runs to Oct. 5. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. every day. 2569 Telegraph Ave. 489-9054.

AC Transit Bus drivers facing certain job cuts over the pending December elimination of 34 bus lines—nearly one in four—voted Saturday to stage a one-day weekday walkout, the date yet to be determined. 

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192, representing the drivers, will petition Alameda’s central labor council next week to sanction the work stoppage to protest potential layoffs and service cuts that union officials say target poorer neighborhoods. 

“The real issue is that service is being ripped out of Richmond, North Oakland and West Oakland,” said Local 192 President Christine Zook. 

After two pulic hearings in June, the AC Transit board slashed 34 lines and altered service on 37 others in order to close a budget gap that has spiraled to $50 million dollars in a $250 million dollar budget. The cuts amount to about 10 percent of all service, and will result in driver layoffs. 

Drivers are under contract through next summer, but union officials say the walkout will help call attention to service cuts they say most riders don’t even know about. 

“People don’t know this is coming, people are going to be waiting for a bus that won’t come,” said Zook. “If we pull service for a day, we can alert everyone now.” 

Zook said the walkout would protest AC Transit’s singling out of lines that serve poor communities. 

Berkeley survived the cuts relatively unscathed, she said, because the city has a lot of activists to bark at AC Transit officials, while other, less organized communities were hard hit. 

Berkeley did suffer losses in the last round of AC Transit cuts that took effect in June. Route 8 that ran from downtown Bart to the Berkeley Hills was eliminated and service to the Marina on Route 51 was canceled. 

Jamie Levin, AC Transit’s director of marketing and communication, called the union’s claims outrageous. “We have no choice but to evaluate [service cuts] on an efficiency standpoint,” he said. “If there are only 20 riders an hour we have no choice but to cut.” 

Many of the doomed routes serve outlying areas and feed into big lines that run down major thoroughfares. 

Transit officials say they hope eliminating these lines will improve efficiency, but Zook worries that if riders can’t get to the main lines, they will stop using the bus altogether. 

AC Transit is pleading with union officials not to pursue the work stoppage, fearing that any shutdown of service would only outrage customers and force them to find other forms of transportation. 

The vote to walk out comes amidst increasing tension between the bus drivers and transit officials. 

Recently some drivers started posting notices on fare boxes warning of future service cuts, some of which transit officials said were untrue. 

Levin pointed to a skull on crossbones he saw hung on a Route 43 bus stating, “this line is dead.” The line, however, is not slated for elimination. 

Other riders reported seeing fliers and handmade notes warning of line eliminations, including the Number 67 which serves Berkeley, and also has not been affected by the cuts. 

AC Transit included a note with every driver’s paycheck on Aug. 12, warning them that posting or handing out unauthorized fliers was prohibited. 

“This does more damage to the bus service,” Levin said. “It scares riders and it scares the public.” 

Service cuts alone will not plug AC Transit’s deficit. Beginning Sept. 1, fares for 10-ride passes will jump from $13 to $15 and monthly passes will increase from $50 to $60. Also AC Transit ended a pilot program giving free rides to poor high school and middle school students on their way to school. 

AC Transit’s money woes stem from decreased ridership, rising health care costs and the ailing economy. Forty percent of their funding comes from sales tax revenue, which Levin says is down 40 percent this year. Health care payments were up 28 percent last year and the number of riders slipped from 71.6 million in 2001-2002 to 68 million the following year. 

Zook lays much of the blame for the budget shortfall on the Metropolitan Transit Commission which she says shortchanges bus riders in favor of BART and Bay Bridge commuters. 

“We’re picking crumbs off the table,” she said. “If there were a five to seven-dollar bridge toll, we wouldn’t have transit funding problems.” 

The work stoppage may cause headaches for more than just bus riders. Union officials hope the labor council will persuade other unions to join in sympathy with the drivers. Labor council representatives refused to speculate on sympathy strikes. 

When UC Berkeley clerical workers staged a three-day walkout last year, unionized construction and delivery workers boycotted the campus. 

AC Transit riders polled Sunday in downtown Berkeley expressed sympathy for the drivers, but opposed any walkout.  

“They need to organize mini-buses or some other alternative so people can get to work, said Oakland resident J. Pierre. Would a walkout make her give up on AC Transit? “I don’t have any other way to get to work,” she said.

RUINOUS FIDDLING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This is to thank you for your reasoned, weighed, intelligent approach to Shakespeare in David Sundelson’s review of the California Shakespeare Theatre’s latest, “Measure for Measure” (Daily Planet, Aug. 15-18). A difficulty with any play is sustaining its integrity and assuring its accessibility over the years. When the years exceed 400, directors may fiddle with fundamentals. From Daniel Fish’s previous CDF production of “Cymbeline” and from his current SCT “Measure for Measure,” his modus operandi is ruinous fiddling. 

Too bad for the audience. 

Looking forward to more apt and pithy reviews by Sundelson. 

Mikel Clifford 

• 

THE FIRST MYTH 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

The Berkeley Daily Planet for Aug. 15-18 had an article titled “Five Myths About the Recall.” There is another myth which actually comes first. 

This prime myth is that a recall of the governor alone, somehow either also recalls the lieutenant governor or eliminates his constitutional right to succeed; and that this requires an interim “replacement elections” as part of the recall ballot.  

Democrats and even the courts have bought into this myth. It is apparently based on the Elections Code which has wording that such an election shall be held “if appropriate.” 

Vacancies in offices which have no elected replacement may be appropriately filled by an interim election. But the governorship is unique in having, standing by, an already elected lieutenant,” constitutionally empowered to become governor the instant the sitting governor is removed. The constitution thus prevents a vacancy in this highest office in California government. 

Courts will rue the day they allowed, contrary to the constitutional plan, replacement candidates’ names on the recall ballot for governor. The Supreme Court should rectify this and remove such names. The lieutenant governor still has the sole right to succeed. 

Henry P. Schroerluke 

• 

SCHOOL MOVE 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Regarding the Adult School move to Franklin: Our neighborhood is now in the hands of the very same school district staff and consultants who made drew up the original third-rate proposal and who alienated so many residents with their game-playing and their bumbling. 

The people who entrusted us to these functionaries—the superintendent and the school board—earnestly pledge that we will be listened to as the project moves along. We’ll see. 

There’s really no reason for district officials, who are now victorious after a bruising fight, to be gallant and creative. We have been put in the place they always wanted us—silence. It’s up to Superintendent Michele Lawrence to change that mindset, a tall order. 

As for the school board, that’s a more complicated story. Two board members—John Selawsky and Nancy Riddle—showed some signs of being able to think outside the district box. We’ll see if this means the board can go from being a rubber stamp for the superintendent and staff to performing an active checks-and-balances role for those who elected them. 

Unfortunately, here, too, the odds are not particularly good. There were many issues and details that the board could have questioned the staff and outside experts about. For the most part, they gave the staff a pass. 

Another sign that the board is not there yet was the bizarre Berkeley ritual of having someone—in this case, a slick consultant paid to help the superintendent finesse this issue—list for the record all the community meetings that officials had attended. The city council does this, too. It's embarrassing to watch. It’s like a church ritual that has lost meaning over time. It assumes, of course, that being there is the same as listening. So, instead of taking the vote and relieving our agony, the board members and superintendent sat there being told how much they care about community, and followed that with their own testimonials to themselves about how much they care. 

We’ll see. 

Jamie Day 

• 

SPRINT TRICKERY 

The following letter was addressed to City Councilmember Dona Spring.  

I was in a neighborhood meeting in June when Sprint plan to mount antennae on the roof of Starbucks at 1600 Shattuck Ave. was discussed. I have been following this issue as I receive e-mails from neighbors. In July I sent an e-mail to the councilors to express my opposition to the antennae. 

I work close to Etcheverry Hall on UC Campus. There are two Sprint antennae on the roof of this building. Last week I was in the food court by Etcheverry Hall waiting for my food when I was approached by a guy. He asked me if I wanted to sign a petition in order to have better cell phone coverage in the area. I asked him what area. The guy said this general area. I did not sign. I also saw him going door to door in the food court asking for signatures. 

I talked to the members of Radiation Free Gourmet Ghetto about Sprint petition. They told me Sprint has hired an agency to collect signatures all around the town by asking people if they want more coverage. They ask people by BART or downtown, etc., without telling them better coverage in what area. When the Sprint agent did not tell me what area I realized he was not familiar with the area. He asked me to sign while we were standing next to a building on the top of which there are two antennae. Do we need more coverage there? I believe this is entirely dishonest. Sprint is trying to cheat people and the City of Berkeley. We don’t want a corporation intrude into our community by trickery. 

Please discount all signatures to be presented by Sprint. They are collected by trickery and deceit. Also, please don't let corporations take over the City; deny permit to Sprint. 

Many thanks. 

Helena Bautin 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Accessible Pedestrians Signals project for safety of blind citizens, whose installation was approved by Berkeley City Council sometime ago, has been stalled. 

It would seem that some Public Works employees prefer the ‘domes’ at $15,000 per intersection over the 'bars' $500 per intersection installation investment which they think is safer for guiding and directing blind pedestrians through Berkeley downtown traffic. 

Continued current installations at corners could be fatal, since the 'domes' $15,000 guidance pieces have been placed in such a way that blind pedestrians might easily be misled into walking diagonally out into moving traffic. 

Now that the Traffic Engineering Department has willingly taken on and is ready to go ahead with the less expensive and more clearly designated pieces ($500 per intersection of 'bars' installations), let's hope there will be no further delay or wrangling among city employees as to which piece of sidewalk installation works better for safety of blind pedestrians, if not also for our City's budget. 

Arlene Merryman 

For Henry Jenkins, a professor of media studies at MIT, the video game Grand Theft Auto III is a bit like “Birth of a Nation,” the 1915 film that cineastes praise for helping create the basic grammar of the movies and simultaneously damn for celebrating the Ku Klux Klan. 

“In terms of what it does for games as a medium, Grand Theft Auto III is an enormous step forward,” says Jenkins. “It represents a totally different model of how games can tell stories and what you can do in a gamespace. It happens to be yoked with some sophomoric images of violence that a lot of us wish weren’t there.” 

Mary Lou Dickerson, a Seattle Democrat in the Washington State legislature, sees only the violence. Earlier this year, she sponsored legislation banning stores from selling or renting violent video games to anyone under the age of 17. The bill, signed into law in May, defines “violent” as “realistic or photographic-like depictions of aggressive conflict in which the player kills, injures, or otherwise causes physical harm to a human form in the game who is depicted, by dress or other recognizable symbols, as a public law enforcement officer.” 

Pushing the bill in her constituent newsletter, Dickerson cited five recent murders in California. “One of the six youthful murder suspects confessed their random killings were inspired by the popular game Grand Theft Auto III,” she wrote. “’We play the game by day, we live the game by night,’ he boasted to police.” 

“Birth of a Nation” faced censorship battles too. In those days, the courts held that the First Amendment didn’t apply to the movies, which were seen as a medium more for pie fights than for art. In other words, they were viewed the way video games are widely viewed today. In 2002 U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh ruled that video games are not protected speech. In June of this year, however, his decision was reversed by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

That doesn’t have a direct impact on Dickerson’s legislation--since it targets minors, not general audiences, it gets much more leeway under current jurisprudence. A more promising development took place in July, when U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik issued a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the Washington law, citing a series of free-speech concerns. “All of the games provided to the Court for review are expressive and qualify as speech for the purposes of the First Amendment,” Lasnik wrote. “In fact, it is the nature and effect of the message being communicated by these video games which prompted the state to act in this sphere.” 

But the issue is still legally contentious. Forward-looking critics such as Jenkins, and an increasing number of game designers, believe that video games can be art—and that laws like this could retard the new medium’s development. But many people regard them as toys at best and dangerous diversions at worst. As John Springhall put it in “Youth, Popular Culture, and Moral Panics:” “A new medium with mass appeal, and with a technology best understood by the young...almost invariably attracts a desire for adult or government control.” 

Video games date back to the early 1960s, but they didn’t become popular until Pong and Space Invaders arrived in the 70s, bringing the dreaded video arcade with them. A dark maze filled with nickelodeon-sized consoles, the arcade became a magnet for anxieties and urban legends. For fretful parents, they were a hangout for hooligans cutting class to play Pac-Man, losing hours and quarters that could be spent in the fresh air and wholesome sunshine. Worse, those spaceship-shooting toughs would become role models for younger arcade goers. Before you knew it, they’d be learning not just how to save a girl from Donkey Kong but how to smoke weed, play slots, and steal cars. 

The fear of arcades dates back to long before video games existed, as anyone familiar with the pool hall scene in “The Music Man” already knows. Any public space that appeals to kids but is not under constant adult supervision is going to inspire anxieties. If games, traditionally associated with sin, are involved, then those anxieties will be magnified. The current panic, though, focuses on games played not in public but in private, on the family PlayStation while mom or dad is upstairs. “We’ve gone through a cycle of moral panic that said, ‘Kids are playing it, we don’t know what it is,’” comments Jenkins. 

“Now we’re at the second danger point,” he continues, “when the medium begins to spread outward and attract more adults while the public still perceives it as mostly a children’s medium. Grand Theft Auto III was made, marketed, and rated for adults, but parents don’t know the game can be for adults.” So they buy the games for their kids without realizing what they’re getting. 

When the parents finally peek at the mayhem in the family den, the misunderstanding explodes. The result is wild rhetoric and ill-conceived laws that interfere not just with gamers’ fun but with an art form in its infancy. 

Jesse Walker is an associate editor of Reason.

For two young Berkeley documentarians, one of modern history’s most dramatic moments took on a new and unexpected reality when they set about collecting first-hand accounts of that day, four decades past, when Martin Luther King Jr. told the world he had a dream. 

“In school you just learn one story,” said Leslie Lewis, a 2002 Berkeley High graduate who filmed the interviews. “Everyone had a different perspective. The pieces didn’t all fit together. There were 250,000 stories that day.” 

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center of Oakland will present footage from interviews the pair videotaped last month of Bay Area residents who attended the rally where Dr. King gave his famous speech. 

For the young men, the project breathed new life into a tired tale. 

The King Center didn’t set out to make the film when planning this year’s tribute, initially figuring on a simple reception for the marchers. But when a board member told Center Executive Director Claire Greensfelder that she knew someone who had attended the March, Greensfelder decided it might be nice to get some quotes. 

She sent Daveed Diggs, who had taught writing and poetry workshops for the center, to do a couple of interviews. The talks went so well they decided to go ahead with the film, using a technology grant from SBC Pacific Bell and the filmmaking skills of Diggs’ BHS classmate Lewis, who had already composed several short films. 

Starting in early July, the pair, along with other King Center staff, sought out freedom march alumni using every tactic imaginable—they blanketed senior centers, churches and book stores with fliers, spoke at public events, and even posted an ad on craigslist. 

Their search netted a vibrant cross-section of 13 participants: whites and blacks, local natives and more recent transplants, political activists and civil rights novices. 

“This is a view of the march from a uniquely Bay Area perspective,” said Diggs, who conducted the interviews along with Oakland writer Tor Erickson. “We couldn’t get this type of diversity from any other place.” 

The interviews offered marked contrasts with the official school-taught history of the march. Several participants said they didn’t bother to stick around for the King speech, and many said they were more interested in the speech of John Lewis, then the head of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee. 

Others, mostly those active in the movement, said they hesitated to attend because the march seemed too mainstream. One marcher said he almost skipped out when he heard that Washington, D.C., workers were given the day off because he didn’t want to go to a protest endorsed by the mayor. 

“I was totally unconnected to the personal side of [the march],” Diggs said. “A lot of people thought they were wussing out by going to it.” 

No matter the background, every participant understood the march’s significance. “People were shocked at the amount of faces that showed up, said Diggs. “They knew the government would have to take notice of it.” 

For the documentarians, their summer project has left a lasting imprint. 

Diggs said that before he talked to the freedom marchers, he understood the march was important, but he had no notion of just how much and why. “Having seen all the documentaries and from what I was taught, I thought, yeah march on Washington…big deal. Now that I know the way the march has colored their lives, I’m much more interested in it.” 

Lewis agreed. “I can put myself in the middle of that march now,” he said. “It was interesting to hear someone talk about it in a real way. It brought it back down to earth.” 

The footage will be cut down to 35 minutes for the King event, but Lewis hopes to turn it into a full-length documentary. 

Diggs, a sophomore theater student at Brown, hopes to collect more oral histories, but he plans to include them in a performance piece rather than a film. 

The 40th Anniversary celebration of the freedom march will be held on Aug. 28 from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at the Lakeshore Avenue Baptist church in Oakland. The event also features a performance by the St. Benedict’s Gospel choir and the recitation of Dr. King’s writings on peace by Bay Area-native, Danny Glover. 

Berkeley will mark the anniversary with a 7 p.m. ceremony at Civic Center Park reaffirming the 1963 Civil Rights Pledge. Organized byy Darryl Moore, the program will feature march attendee Carole Kennerly, the first African American woman elected to the city council, NAACP national board member Denisha DeLane, Alex Papian of the Berkkeley NAACP branch, and Sean Dugar of the NAACOP Youth Branch, who also conceived the event. 

“Attending the march in 1963 wqas inspirational and empowering,” Kennerly said. We must never forget what we accomplished, even as we must acknowledge how far we have to go.” 

Copies of the Civil Rights Pledge will be offered in several languages, including Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

The Berkeley Public Schools NEVER received a “Report Card” from a State Agency but a report on how we can continue to improve our schools. Either the reporter or headline writer for the Berkeley Daily Planet did not attend the meeting where this report was presented to the School Board, or they purposely are trying to inflame our community against our public schools. 

The School Board meeting on August 13 started with an introduction from one of the leaders of the State agency, FCMAT, explaining the purpose and value of their report. The Daily Planet, in it’s article about this meeting, even quoted FCMAT leader Joel Montero, when he “stressed that the report’s findings do not constitute ‘ a report card’ on the district,” thus contradicting the headline for the article that was written in the Weekend Edition, Aug. 15-18, 2003. 

Mr. Montero went on to say that there are many positive, exciting, and good things the Berkeley Schools are doing and that the purpose of the report was not to document these things but to analyze those things that we think still need attention. This School Board, and community, in turn, welcomes all the help we can get to continue to improve our schools. The operative description of FCMAT’s two year stay in Berkeley is “to help us continue to improve.” We all know we can do a better job educating ALL students, but so can every school district in this State. We all know that Berkeley needs to improve the operational and fiscal aspects of our system, and we have been working on this for the past two years, and with the help of the analysis given to us by FCMAT we will be improving that much faster. 

The bottom line is to improve the educational program for children. FCMAT, the community, the school system, and, in my opinion the school board, are 

working together towards this end and this was completely missed by the Berkeley Daily Planet in its weekend Edition of Aug. 15-18. 

Terry Doran is a Berkeley Unified School District Board Member.

After four months of trying to organize a union, Berkeley Bowl employees and community supporters will take their campaign to the streets Sunday with a rally in front of the store to demand that management agree to begin negotiations. 

Employee organizers say a large majority of their coworkers have signed union authorization cards and they’re calling for a card check agreement which would allow a third party to verify that a majority of the roughly 250 employees have asked the Oakland-based United Food and Commercial Workers Butchers’ Union (UFCW) Local 120 to represent them. 

“We have a strong majority and the workers are ready to begin negotiating,” said Jeremy Plague, one of the UFCW organizers working on the campaign.  

UFCW Local 120 has demanded a card check rather than a traditional union election because they say that there a number of ways that an election can be delayed and drawn out. A card check agreement would grant the union immediate recognition. 

“If we filed for an election it could be nine months to a year before we even sat down to start bargaining,” said Plague. “We want them to recognize the union now.” 

Store management has resisted the move, supporting instead a union election. “A card check would not give an accurate appraisal of how the employees feel,” said store manager Larry Evans. 

Plague disagrees. “I personally believe almost everyone is in favor of the union. Those who aren’t just haven’t been educated.” 

The drive originally started because employees had complaints about a number of issues including low wages, the inability to obtain health insurance and a management system they say is rife with favoritism. 

“People get overlooked for raises all the time,” said Eric Feezell, a produce clerk. “I’m on a long list of people who didn’t get a raise for months, as opposed to other employees who have gotten several raises in just the past couple of months.” 

Berkeley Bowl management has opposed the union by distributing flyers, holding anti-union meetings, and retaining Jackson Lewis, one of the largest and best-known law firms that represents management in labor disputes. 

Store officials have recently been caught twice in violation of federal labor law on anti-union activities. Berkeley Bowl General Manager Dan Kataoka posted a memo to all store employees stating the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that the Berkeley Bowl violated federal labor law by producing illegal statements from managers and by illegally spying on union activity. 

The unionization drive has won the support of many in the community and from public officials such as Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmembers Margaret Breland and Kriss Worthington.  

Worthington, always a keen supporter of labor, stresses how important it is for community involvement during union campaigns.  

“It’s not a question of being for or against the owners,” said Worthington. “But when a company grows you develop different dynamics, you develop reasons why people want a union.” 

Several employees participating in the drive said they feel the same. “Berkeley Bowl has outgrown itself,” said Eric Feezell. “If it were the old store where everyone knew each other you could solve things without a union. But when you have 200 plus employees it’s a different story.” 

Cory Abshear, a checker at the store, says Berkeley Bowl still has the mom and pop reputation but that it’s not run that way. “They pretend to know all of our names but they don’t,” she said. 

Everyone involved in the organizing drive stresses that they haven’t called for a boycott and they encourage residents to continue shopping at the Berkeley Bowl, saying that they want the store to continue to be successful while demanding that the store respect the work they do to ensure that success. 

“They make so much money,” said Abshear. “They can afford to give their employees good health care and wages.”

Dear Mayor Bates and Council, 

We have been disappointed to learn that yet another neighborhood has become completely disillusioned with city staff and Berkeley politics around this senseless drive to install more transmitting antennas in residential neighborhoods. Virtually the same thing happened to our neighborhood when we fought Nextel’s attempts to install an array of twelve 500 watt antennae on the Oaks Theater.  

We were told many times by city staff and our own Councilmembers that neither we nor Nextel could lobby them in any way while the appeal was pending, in order not to prejudice them. Then, at the hearing, one of Nextel’s lawyers grandly thanked the Council for meetings he had had with them in the previous weeks. We were amazed to learn that Councilmembers had been secretly meeting with Nextel staff at the same time they were instructing us that they would not even talk to us, the citizens of Berkeley. We subsequently learned that Nextel had also hired another attorney who lives in the Berkeley hills (and has long been active in the old BCA politics and current campaigns) to lobby the mayor and council.  

We learned that Nextel had very cleverly used their corporate lawyer to lobby the more moderate members of the council, and at the same time used this local “BCA” lawyer to lobby the more radical members of the council! All this at the same time that Berkeley citizens were instructed not to even talk to anyone on the Council! You can imagine how disgusted our neighborhood group was when we learned this. 

We also experienced the inexplicable bias that city’s planning staff and attorneys have against Berkeley’s citizens. Staff would not accept a single issue that we raised as valid, while supporting and endorsing everything that Nextel’s hired guns presented. Only the testimony of Nextel’s hired “experts” was accepted as valid, even though we discredited many of them. We all worked on our own time for the good of our community while Nextel’s representatives said only what they were paid to say. We found that our written objections were basically emailed to Nextel, and Nextel’s replies were cut and pasted into the city’s documents as though they were responses done by city staff. (After this happened several times, we suggested that the city should bill city staff time on the dispute to Nextel, since our own city employees were essentially acting as employees of Nextel.) 

The mayor and Council can be sure that even more of their neighbors and constituents will develop a sense of betrayal towards the city’s politicians, and contempt towards city staff, unless things change. We for example were actually very moderate and supportive of our city staff and politicians until we had the temerity to question their blind support of Nextel. The whole process was quite an education for us and for our neighbors.  

It’s even more ridiculous that the Council and city staff alienate whole neighborhoods over the issue of antenna placement. As we have established many times, based on testimony from telecom companies’ own engineers, these transmitting arrays can be installed in the industrial section of the city or on highrises downtown, and can provide essentially the same service from those locations. After Nextel was denied the Oaks Theater, they simply built their array on a commercial building along San Pablo Ave in Albany, apart from any residential neighborhoods. This site provided them the same coverage to the Berkeley hills as the proposed array on the Oaks. Sprint can do the same, and find an acceptable site that is not in the middle of a residential neighborhood. 

Finally, we cannot resist noting that the increased capacity that these companies seek is not for basic cell phone use. It’s to provide capacity so that cell phones can be used for web surfing, video streaming, music, gaming, and all the other relatively useless junk the companies are trying to market now.  

Why city staff and our own City Council would side with this industry against the citizens of Berkeley remains a mystery to us.  

Connie and Kevin Sutton are Berkeley residents.

1990s Immigration Battles Resurface in California Recall 

The special election in California, in which voters will decide whether or not to vote out Gov. Gray Davis and replace him with a successor, has unexpectedly become a forum for a re-airing of the angry immigration disputes that rocked the state in the 1990s. 

Groups that want to restrict immigration are enthusiastic about the elections because they feel immigration issues are returning to the forefront. Once the dominant topic of political debate in the mid-1990s, when former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson was in office, immigration had faded into the background of California politics. 

“We’re certainly glad to see immigration become more of an issue in the recall; it is something that has a huge impact and affects the budget crisis,” says Craig Nelsen, director of Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement, or FILE, based in Washington D.C. He told El Norte Digest that California can ill-afford the extra stress that undocumented immigrants put on public hospitals and schools. 

The National Review, a conservative newsmagazine, published an interview August 19 with former Gov. Wilson, now co-chair of the campaign of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wants to replace Davis. Wilson is known for promoting Proposition 187, which sought to cut off public services for undocumented immigrants. Schwarzenegger also voted for the 1994 proposition. Wilson told National Review: “187 would pass today, I think perhaps by a greater margin.” 

The Proposition 187 connection led Jorge Mújica, in an Aug. 15 commentary for bilingual weekly La Prensa-San Diego, to refer to Schwarzenegger as “Terminator 187.” 

N.Y. Latino neighborhood: Twice Struck by Blackouts 

While all of New York City suffered from the economic impacts of the blackout that affected parts of the east coast beginning Aug. 14, one heavily Latino part of Manhattan was particularly hard-hit. 

Washington Heights and Inwood, adjacent neighborhoods in an area that is the traditional home of the city’s large community of Dominican immigrants, are seeking financial relief from the state government of New York because they suffered from another crippling blackout in recent times, reports Spanish-language daily Hoy in its Aug. 19 edition. 

“No other community in the state of New York suffered more from the blackouts than Washington Heights and Inwood, which have suffered two major blackouts in less than four years,” said Adrian Espaillat, a Democrat and state assembly member from the area, according to Hoy. 

The neighborhood is “ground zero” for blackouts, State Senator Erik Schneiderman was quoted as saying. 

The politicians said they would ask for Gov. George Pataki to declare the neighborhood an “Empire Zone,” a special designation that would make businesses in the area eligible for cheap investment dollars and financial relief. New York authorities said the 18-hour summer 1999 blackout in Washington Heights was caused by worn out equipment in the electricity delivery system. 

Chicago-Area Boycott Against No-Match Letter Firings 

Latino groups and politicians organized a boycott against two Chicago-area companies that fired workers after receiving so-called no-match letters from the Social Security Administration, reports Chicago Spanish-language weekly La Raza. 

The no-match letters are sent out every year in an effort to inform of employers of possible irregularities with workers whose numbers don’t match those in federal records. Latinos are often affected by the no-match campaign because if they are undocumented, they often work with fake or stolen social security numbers. 

Latino rights advocates, however, say many Latinos fired as a result of no-match letters are legal workers that are the victims of bureaucratic mix-ups. 

Cook County Commissioner Robert Maldonado, who is one of several local politicians backing the boycott, says the legendary defender of migrant farm workers in California, Cesar Chavez, also used boycotts to defend workers’ rights: “It’s the only way to make them respect us,” Maldonado was quoted as saying in the Aug. 15 article. 

Latino groups have accused the government of stepping up the no-match campaign after the 9/11 terror attacks. They say the deluge of letters led to mass firing of workers, although the letters tell employers that they should not take immediate action and must first talk with workers and offer them an opportunity to set matters straight. 

The two Batavia, Illinois, companies being boycotted are Party Lite, which produces aromatic candles, and Suncast, which manufactures garden accessories, the paper said. Each has fired some 125 workers as a result of no-match letters. 

Latino Hip Hop: The Explosion of “Urban Regional” 

The fusion of Mexican regional music with hip hop has produced a new musical genre, “urban regional,” which has one foot on either side of the border, reports the Los Angeles Spanish-language daily La Opinión Aug. 19. 

While Latinos account for about 60 percent of all purchases of hip hop CDs in English, they have traditionally not entered this genre as musicians, according to the paper. 

The movement to combine traditional Latino sounds with hip hop, which has long been a strong force among young people in New York and Puerto Rico, is emerging from the underground scene and exploding in Los Angeles. 

Urban regional combines more traditional popular Mexican songs with hip hop beats. The popular genres that are used can include Mexican regional music, the country music of Mexico’s north, or more urbane romantic ballads that are also popular. 

The lyrics used are often a contemporary version of corridos, Mexican popular ballads that often deal with current events. The “urban regional” songs reflect on the lives of young Mexican Americans, and Latinos in general, often using slang and “Spanglish” to talk about love, politics and the struggle to survive in the less fortunate neighborhoods of the city. 

The trend, in a somewhat different form, has also spread to another mecca of Spanish-language music: Cuba. With rap quickly gaining popularity among Cuban youth, some experts think hip hop may now compete with the most popular of Cuban rhythms, salsa, which seemed to dominate the Cuban musical landscape until very recently, reports the Orlando bilingual weekly newspaper El Sentinel. 

Cubans in Seaworthy ‘51 Chevy Serenaded by Miami Radio 

Newspapers around the world followed the story of the Cubans that fitted out a ‘51 Chevrolet pickup truck as a seaworthy raft, and used it in an attempt to float away from their island to reach Florida, before being picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard. 

Now, a Miami Spanish-language radio station known for its on-air pranks has written a song in honor of the intrepid migrants, reports Miami Spanish-language daily El Nuevo Herald Aug. 20. 

Roughly translated, the song begins, “Since in Cuba the situation is so bad, that’s why I prepared the best truck at hand. A ‘51 Chevy was all I had, it’s the best ride I could find.” 

In parts of the song, which airs almost daily, the morning DJs at El Zol 95.7 FM also blast U.S. policy toward Cuba, including the so-called “wet-foot, dry foot” policy, which states that Cubans reaching U.S. soil are allowed to stay, while those caught at sea are turned back. 

Emilio Rodríguez, the show’s creative producer, wrote the song and he told El Nuevo Herald that he was angry because after repatriating the Cubans, the U.S. Coast guard sank the unique vessel. 

Elena Shore contributed to this report.

The moment California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante said he was tossing his hat in as a replacement candidate in the recall race, the buzz among blacks was that he was the guy who used the “N” word.  

Now that polls show Bustamante in a statistical dead heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace Davis if the recall passes, the anxiety about him has become even more intense among many blacks.  

In a February 2001 speech to a group of black trade unionists, Bustamante purportedly slipped and uttered the dreaded “N” word. When a handful of blacks in the audience stormed out in protest, Bustamante backpedaled fast and swore it was a slip of the tongue. He did profuse mea culpas and furiously waved his credentials as a staunch defender of immigrant rights, affirmative action and multiculturalism.  

He hasn’t changed. Unveiling his $12 billion revenue and savings plan to solve California’s budget crisis, Bustamante struck a populist tax-the-rich theme, deliberately sending an “I’m one of you too” message to labor, blacks and Latinos—the core Democrats.  

Bustamante also vigorously opposes University of California regent Ward Connerly’s initiative on the Oct. 7 California ballot—Proposition 54, which critics say would bar all state agencies from collecting racial data. Bustamante comes off as a solidly liberal, even left-leaning Democrat when his record is stacked against that of the cautious, centrist Gov. Gray Davis, whom blacks overwhelmingly backed during both his gubernatorial bids.  

But the anxiety among blacks about Bustamante is less about his careless slip than about the resurfacing of political tensions between many blacks and Latinos. The tensions publicly emerged in 2001, when Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa promised to weld the city’s now-majority minorities into a powerhouse multiethnic coalition that would be a model for racial peace and progress in L.A. and the nation. Villaraigosa got strong support from Latinos, Asians and Jews. But his multiethnic pitch didn’t win over black voters, who voted overwhelmingly for the eventual winner—a white centrist, James Hahn.  

The huge surge in Latino numbers and voting power, and the real prospect of Bustamante’s becoming the first Latino governor in modern California history, has made blacks even more afraid they will be further marginalized in California politics.  

It’s a legitimate fear. There are more than 2 million Latino voters in the state, and that number will soar by the 2004 elections. In Los Angeles, Latinos, who were no more than 10 percent of the voters a decade ago, are nearly 25 percent of the voters today. The state legislature has a 24-member Democratic Latino caucus (which has endorsed Bustamante). By contrast, the number of blacks in the state legislature has dwindled to six, and the districts they represent are all in or near South Los Angeles. And, Latinos are the growing majority in their districts. There are now as many Latino Republicans in the state legislature as blacks.  

Latinos hold one out of the six California seats in Congress. Three out of California’s four black congresspersons represent mostly South Los Angeles districts where they face the same bleak political future as the black state legislators. Latinos make-up the statistical majority in their districts and will soon be the voting majority. Though the black congresspersons can’t be termed out, they can be voted out. If they don’t deliver the goods to their majority Latino constituents they could be dumped from office within the next decade.  

But despite Bustamante’s support among core Democrats, he has a couple of problems. He can’t beat Schwarzenegger with Latino and labor votes alone. He will need a near rock-solid majority among black voters. They make up about 12 percent of the state’s voters and are even more hardcore Democrats than labor or Latino voters. In 2000, nearly 85 percent of blacks voted for the Democrats, compared with about 70 percent of Latinos.  

In addition to blacks’ trepidations about Bustamante, nearly 15 percent of blacks in California did vote for Bush in 2000, the fourth biggest black vote total the Republicans got from any state. If black voters view Schwarzenegger as a socially liberal alternative to the state’s diehard rightist Republicans, and if he makes a real effort to court them, it could spell peril for Bustamante.  

In informal surveys, blacks don’t express the reflexive hostility to Schwarzenegger as they do to other Republicans. But they will watch closely what he says and does about Connerly’s Prop. 54 race initiative. So far, Schwarzenegger has been as mute on that as on other crucial issues. If Davis continues his downward plunge in the polls, Bustamante’s stock will rise even higher among Democrats. That would include black Democrats too, if only it weren’t for that “N” word.  

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a political analyst and the author of “The Crisis in Black and Black” from Middle Passage Press.

Berkeley police say they are closing in on the man they believe severely injured fellow officer Ben Cardoza in a hit and run accident last week. 

“We have a good idea as to the identity of the suspect,” said BPD Police spokesperson Mary Kusmiss. She refused to divulge his name because of an ongoing investigation. 

Meanwhile, the department has announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the driver. The money is being offered jointly by the city and the Police Officers’ Association. 

The bloodstained white 1997 Chevrolet Caprice believed to be the hit-and-run vehicle was found early Friday morning after an anonymous tip led officers to the garage of a Hercules home. 

Police arrested an Oakland man at the house for helping to hide the vehicle, but said 35-year-old Kevin Lamont was not the driver, nor did he live at the house. 

Police inspected the car, finding bloodstains on the hood and dents which they believed were evidence that it struck Cardoza. 

Cardoza remains a patient at Alta Bates Medical Center, recovering from a compound fracture in his right leg, three broken bones in his right foot, and a gash on the inside of his right arm from his wrist to his elbow. 

“His spirits are good,” said Kusmiss, who visited him Monday. 

A five-year veteran of the force, Cardoza, 26, was riding his police motorcycle westbound on Ashby Avenue at Wheeler Street in response to a reported traffic accident when he was struck by a car heading south. 

Cardoza and his motorcycle were thrown an estimated 40-50 feet before ricocheting off a parked car and another oncoming car, according to BPD accounts of the accident.

“College Students Pay More and Get Less,” the newspaper headlines scream. I have discovered just how true this statement is. 

Back in January my friend Corrie and I applied to the Masters of Fine Arts program at San Francisco State University. 

The first indication that things might not go smoothly was when we were notified that our undergraduate transcripts had not arrived with our applications. We panicked. We had each paid to have the transcripts sent directly to the registrar’s office. It’s been 30 years since I attended college and I was worried that proof I had once been a student no longer existed. 

But when I called my alma mater I was assured that the transcripts had been sent. I called San Francisco State University and after going in circles a few times on the telephone tree I was told that “…your transcript is probably here somewhere. We’ll look around and if you don’t hear from us in a week or two then everything is okay.” 

No, I thought, everything is not okay. This is not what I expected to hear from the graduate school’s dean’s office. Corrie got a similar response.  

They must have found our transcripts because we didn’t hear from them again until we were accepted. More confusion set in. We received a long e-mail letter from the president of SFSU telling us that tuition fees had been raised. 

Then we got a packet of information in the mail with a list of classes and details on program requirements. It wasn’t clear that the course requirements and the classes available matched up but we thought we’d find out more when we attended graduate school orientation.  

Orientation took place last week in a room too small for the number of new graduate students. 

I had naively thought the registrar’s office would know how many people they had accepted and therefore provide enough chairs. A 30-page handbook was distributed, but there weren’t enough copies to go around. 

Those of us without a handbook were told we could download it from the Internet on our home computers or buy a copy at the bookstore for $3. Maybe, I thought, the current gubernatorial recall does have merit.  

Without a chair or the hand-outs, it was hard to follow the accompanying slide show. But since most of the information dealt with how to graduate on time, something I won’t be doing for at least three years, it seemed that I could worry about graduation later. After all, classes haven’t even started yet. 

We headed to the campus bookstore to buy our required textbooks but the cash register line was too long and we decided to go back another time. 

Then we went to the Student Services building to get our identification cards. That line was even longer. 

We hiked back to Corrie’s car which was parked many miles away. I hadn’t expected there to be enough parking spaces and there weren’t.  

“Jeez,” said Corrie as we barreled down 19th Avenue. “I thought they’d at least provide us with food at orientation, not to mention a seat and a handbook.”  

I looked over at Corrie and noticed for the first time what she was wearing. I had dressed for fog but Corrie was attired in real coed garb—sandals, a tank top with skinny bra straps showing underneath, and bell bottom pants that dragged on the ground. Her very flat belly was exposed where her shirt bottom and pant tops were supposed to meet.  

I looked down at my own Hush Puppy-like shoes. I had on pants that could only be described as “floods” and my button-down cardigan sweater suddenly appeared rather matronly. 

For the first time I had to wonder about what I had gotten myself into. Forget budget cuts, long lines, and missing handbooks. What I need to get through graduate school isn’t necessarily the right classes or a chair, but a smooth stomach and a better looking wardrobe.

California Gov. Gray Davis, in a surprise move, recently promised to approve greater legal rights for same-sex couples. While it is too soon to tell how this bold action will affect Davis’ chances in the recall election, governments and politicians around the world are finding it to their advantage to champion lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.  

Leaders of formerly totalitarian central and Eastern European regimes are striking down discriminatory laws against minorities and gays. In most cases, these countries must get rid of anti-sodomy and other persecutory laws in order to qualify for and enjoy the economic and political benefits of membership in the European Union.  

Croatia and Slovenia are taking matters a step further and creating laws that guarantee rights for same-sex couples. On July 25 the Croatian government became the latest country to offer legal and economic rights for homosexual couples on a national level.  

In Romania, however, politicians still have a hard time going public with their support for gay rights. With its application into the European Union pending, Romania repealed an anti-sodomy law it enforced until a year ago, but that’s as far as it’s willing to go.  

“Every time an election came around, the issue of repealing the sodomy law was postponed,” says Sara Moore, program associate for Eastern Europe/Central Asia at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in San Francisco. “In the West, LGBT rights can be debated openly. In many other countries, a liberal candidate will be more discreet in their handling of their openness to LGBT issues and is more likely to sneak it in later.”  

In Brazil, on the other hand, defending gay rights has become part of a larger movement to strengthen democracy and expand the rights of people of color and of mixed-race citizens. The government has long confronted prejudices in the multiracial and predominantly Catholic society, calling on constituencies like women and homosexuals to project strong voices on controversial issues such as AIDS. The Brazilian government is leading the charge in an extensive HIV-prevention campaign that uses openly gay spokespersons. Brazilians have elected transgender governors, mayors and lawmakers.  

In Mexico, Patria Jimenez, the first openly homosexual member of Mexico’s legislature, campaigned on a platform of greater HIV prevention and LGBT and human rights when she was elected in 1997. Her victory marked a turning point for Mexico—it weakened the stronghold of the ruling conservative National Action Party and firmly placed the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution’s agenda on the map. She and her party have pushed for AIDS prevention legislation previously stymied by the pervasive Catholic Church influence in government.  

Indeed, in Mexico, LGBT rights quickly became integral to a much larger movement against authoritarian rule. Today, a handful of openly gay members serve in the Mexican congress or are mayors or governors of Mexican states. Little is made of their sexual orientation, and they are seen mostly as liberal symbols of democracy.  

Last April, Mexico also became just the second Latin American country in addition to Ecuador to pass a national anti-discrimination law protecting sexual orientation. Today, single men are allowed to adopt children. The law is not portrayed as a way to further the rights of gay men, but rather as a way for children to have the fundamental right to a family.  

Traditionally conservative Singapore, too, is making a complete about-face. In June, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong gave the nod for gays to serve in government positions. Not too long ago, LGBTs were regularly rounded up in gay bar raids and their names and faces were published in the local newspaper to incur public humiliation. Today, the country’s growing gay-friendly tourist industry is reaping substantial returns and the government hopes to attract more gay foreign business people as well as those who left for freedoms of the West to boost the country’s lagging economy.  

It is still unclear how Singapore will reconcile its newfound acceptance of LGBTs with decades of censorship and discriminatory practices. Gay rights activists are also quick to point out that there is still an anti-sodomy law on the books that could be enforced at any time, especially if gays were to become overtly political.  

Still, in their effort to obtain greater economic and political gains, politicians in many countries are finding that pushing for gay rights can be a valuable, albeit self-serving, tool.  

Pueng Vongs is the editor of ncmonline.com, an association of over 600 ethnic media organizations founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service and members of ethnic media.

The headline of the Rio de Janeiro daily Jornal do Brasil put it most starkly: “Brazilian Peace Hero Dies in Iraq Attack.” 

The death in Baghdad of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the 55-year-old United Nations special representative in Iraq, has convulsed Brazil. 

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national mourning. Every flag in the country was lowered to half-mast; legislative sessions in Brasilia, the capital, were cancelled and devoted to commemorating his legacy. 

Beneath the grief, though, a raw nerve has been struck. Brazilians were exceedingly proud of Vieira De Mello’s stature as a peacemaker. He was widely seen as the favorite to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. Secretary General. His death in Iraq, as a result of a war and an occupation that much of the Brazilian population and its political leadership opposed, was treated as a cruel irony. 

Throughout the build-up to the Iraq war, Brazil’s government never deviated from its position that any action against Iraq should first be approved by the United Nations. The death of the star diplomat caused Brazil to revisit its role as a critic of the U.S.-led intervention. 

In an interview with Reuters, governing Worker’s Party foreign affairs chief Paulo Delgado praised Vieira de Mello for standing up to the United States: “He took a firm position with the United States, demanding that they re-establish water and electricity in Iraq.” 

In a deliberate snub of U.S. occupation forces, President Lula made a series of telephone calls and hastily dispatched a Brazilian Air Force jet so that Vieira de Mello’s body did not have to be transported out of Iraq on a U.S. military aircraft. 

Brazil’s media republished lengthy interviews in which Vieira de Mello evocatively described the resentment welling up in the Iraqi population. He openly pushed for full Iraqi control of the country by 2004, a quicker training of an all-Iraqi police force and referred to the occupation as “humiliating” for Iraqis. 

In a turn of phrase that was repeated endlessly by Brazilian media, Vieira de Mello asked an interviewer to imagine what it would be like if U.S. tanks were rumbling through Rio: “I wouldn’t like to see tanks in Copacabana,” he said, referring to one of the city’s famous beach neighborhoods. 

He also was frank in describing his fear of being a target. Mentioning the tongue-in-cheek Brazilian saying that claims “God is Brazilian,” Vieira de Mello told the Jornal do Brasil that he hoped the saying meant God would offer him special protection. 

The conservative Estado newspaper noted that the U.S. military was responsible for providing security at the U.N. headquarters. Only days before the attack, the paper noted, Vieira de Mello personally complained to United Nations authorities that the security at the building seemed inadequate. 

The same newspaper, in a blistering Aug. 21 editorial, called the U.S. occupation of Iraq a “dead-end alley” and dubbed the entire Iraq campaign a “disastrous adventure” that had only succeeded in transforming Iraq “into a sort of Mecca for Islamic terrorism.” 

Germana De LaMare, columnist for the Rio de Janeiro daily O Dia, argued that the United Nations should now do more to show itself to be independent of U.S. interests. “The attack that took the life of one of our best diplomats shows that the situation in Iraq is becoming more complex, instead of settling down. ... The United Nations should begin to assume a more democratic profile, freer of the interests of rich nations.” 

That is exactly what may happen, since Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, has long lobbied for a permanent seat on an expanded, more inclusive U.N. Security Council, touting itself as the logical representative from Latin America, says Jaroslav Pribyl, editor of the San Diego, Calif.-based monthly Brazilian Pacific Times. 

Vieira de Mello’s death comes at a special moment for Brazil’s engagement with the outside world, he says. 

Brazil is shedding its recent past of military dictatorships, successfully consolidating its democracy and trying to project itself as a different kind of world power, one committed to a strong role for the United Nations and other multilateral bodies, as well as human rights and fair trade. 

Noting Brazil had recently obtained France and Britain’s support for its U.N. Security Council bid, Pribyl says: “It’s about time Brazil got that seat. I think Brazil has good momentum in establishing foreign policy influence, and Vieira de Mello’s example will strengthen its resolve.” 

Marcelo Ballve is an editor at PNS. He grew up in Latin America and has lived in Brazil.

The deadly bombing of the U.N. compound in Baghdad last week has spurred Arab commentators to gauge Iraq’s future with a combination of fear and cynicism. Many note bitterly that a war ostensibly against terrorism has in fact transformed Iraq into fertile ground for terror groups. 

“All Arab governments immediately condemned the U.N. bombing,” says Rami Khouri, editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beruit, Lebanon. But Arab public opinion was more revealing, Khouri says, ranging from “This is a terrible crime, but no surprise,” to the darker, “It was inevitable, given what the United States did with its aggressive army.” 

“There’s a ‘we told you so’ feeling among Arabs,” Khouri says. “We told you this would open up a Pandora’s Box of violence and instability in the region.” 

Columnist Jihad Al Khazen echoed the sentiment in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper. “The U.S. is now paying in Iraq the price for the lies it made up to justify the war,” he wrote. “U.S. presence in Iraq is like the story in the Torah of a house built on sand.” 

But Al Khazen concludes, “I am still convinced that Saddam Hussein’s regime could not have been overthrown had it not been for the American attack, and any future regime, except for a civil war, would be better... Damn that person who caused all this, that coward who wasted Iraq’s independence and ran away.” 

Jalal Ghazi translates and monitors Arab media for the “Mosaic News” program of WorldLink TV in San Francisco. He says the U.N. bombing and other recent attacks point to the unintended consequences of the U.S.-led invasion. 

“Before the occupation of Iraq, there was much state terror, but no active terrorist organizations in the country,” Ghazi says. “Now you can add Iraq to the list of areas of the world where terrorism flourishes.” 

Ghazi says that a whole host of groups, foreign and indigenous, are now attacking U.S. troops in Iraq. Rami Khouri agrees, saying, “Iraq has become to America what Afghanistan was to the Russians—an arena for anyone around the world who wants to fight it.” 

U.S. occupation of Iraq has brought two formerly bitter enemies—the supporters of Osama bin Laden and those of Saddam Hussein—together, Ghazi says. “They now have a common objective: the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Ironically, this is what bin Laden called upon his supporters to do before the start of the war.” 

The possibility that the U.N. bombing and the growing violence could hasten a U.S. withdrawal worries Ghazi. “I think a civil war could develop. Already, Shia Arabs in Iraq are being criticized by some Arab commentators because they’re not supporting the resistance.” 

Halim Al Aaraji, writing in Al Hayat, concurs, noting on Aug. 21, “The majority of Iraqis believe that if the Americans were to immediately withdraw, Iraq would head straight into disaster ... and pave the way for a potentially destructive civil war.” 

An Aug. 21 editorial in the Arab News, an English-language daily in Saudi Arabia, takes a different view. The U.N. attack will backfire on the perpetrators, which it guesses are Hussein loyalists upset at recent U.N. moves perceived as supportive of U.S. occupation. 

“When the history of the last stand of the Baath Party diehards comes to be written,” the paper writes, “the attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad will almost certainly be seen as their major mistake.” 

The editorial compares the attack to a soccer team foolishly kicking a ball into its own goal and concludes, “George W. Bush’s campaign to involve more countries in suppressing Baathist resistance in Iraq has probably just become a whole lot easier.” 

Nidal Ibrahim edits and publishes Arab American Business Magazine from Los Angeles, Calif. He says that while most Arab Americans have long recognized that the United States is involved in a guerrilla war in Iraq, “the U.N. (bombing) was something altogether unexpected.” 

Ibrahim says he’s spoken to Iraqi Americans who have traveled to Baghdad since Saddam’s regime ended. They’ve reported “a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction with the U.S.” among local Iraqis. 

It’s a sentiment common to Arab Americans, Ibrahim says. Whether accurate or not, he says, the feeling among many Arab Americans is that the United States has not prioritized the rebuilding of Iraq to benefit Iraqis, and that the Bush administration has squandered initial gratitude to U.S. forces for toppling Saddam. 

“It’s incredibly frustrating to sit here and watch it happen,” Ibrahim says. 

Khouri, the editor in Beruit, says he recognizes and is greatly saddened by a “degenerative situation” in Iraq all too common to the Arab world. “It’s more and more violence against more and more targets. The U.N. people are about as pure and noble as you can get.” 

Brian Shott, an editor at PNS, talked to Arab American commentators in California and the Middle East.

Berserkeley. I hate that word, the easy epithet with which benighted out-of-towners reduce our rich and varied local life—above all, our intense, grass-roots activism—to the antics of our most outlandish residents. If only there was somebody whose job it was to defend us against such slurs.  

Actually, there is: Barbara Hillman, the president of the Berkeley Visitors and Convention Bureau. 

As our city’s semi-official meeter and greeter, Hillman often finds herself politely nudging out-of-towners’ misconceptions closer to reality, albeit a reality envisioned by a seasoned hospitality professional.  

You might think that those in most need of a reality check would be travellers from abroad. But according to Hillman, it’s other Americans who are most likely to imagine that Berkeley is a place “where all of us walk around in tie-dye and smoke pot.” 

There was the man from Oregon who wanted to know “when the naked people came out.” And the travel writer from the Kansas City Star who went up to campus, saw people standing together and began relishing the thought that he had stumbled onto a demonstration—only to disappointedly discover that the crowd was waiting in line for theater tickets. 

Hillman also remembers the Arizona talk show host who did a live interview with her in the early 90s, when then-Berkeley City Manager Michael Brown had just been short-listed for the same position in Tucson. “He had me on hold,” Hillman says, “so while people were calling in, I could hear. People were saying, ‘Oh my God—somebody from Berkeley’s coming here.’ ‘So tell us,’ he said, ‘what are we going to expect if Michael Brown is hired.’ I said, ‘I really think you’re going to be disappointed. Because he wears a suit and tie to work.’” Replied her non-plussed caller: “He does?”  

Not that Hillman presents Berkeley as Anywhere, U.S.A. Her job, after all, is to let outsiders know that Berkeley is a special place—but not necessarily in the way they think. 

“We tell people that the Free Speech Movement is a very important part of Berkeley’s history. Telegraph Avenue and People’s Park are things that we will always have and be proud of. But Berkeley has evolved into a different place than it was thirty years ago.”  

How it’s evolved is something Hillman herself had to learn, even though she grew up a mere twenty minutes away in San Leandro. Indeed, when she was invited to be the founding president of Berkeley’s Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1992, Hillman initially turned down the offer.  

“I said, ‘What’s in Berkeley besides a University?’ Her attitude changed after she was persuaded to set aside her doubts long enough to come into town from Pleasanton, where she then worked and still lives, and meet with representatives of the City, the Chamber of Commerce and the local hotel industry. “I came in and chatted with them, and then I drove around, and I went: ‘Oh my gosh—this is like a gold mine sitting here that so many people don’t know about.’ And I took the job.” 

Eleven years later, she’s still a believer. “When you stop and think about the amount and quality of things that there are to do here in Berkeley, it’s phenomenal, especially for the size of the community. 

“There’s Tilden Park, the little quaint neighborhood shopping areas, the international market place around lower University and San Pablo. You can go to a shopping mall in Walnut Creek or Pleasanton, but Berkeley is just different. 

“We have all these independent bookstores; we have antique stores; we have artisan studios. Berkeley also has some of the best restaurants and cultural activities around”—attractions that, Hillman says, jibe with the current trend in cultural tourism.  

The Convention and Visitors Bureau’s mission is to promote Berkeley as a desirable destination for meeting attendees, known in the trade as “conventioners,” and leisure travelers. Its staff of three and $250,000 budget are supported by 1% of the 12% hotel tax paid by visitors staying at our lodging facilities. The other 11 percent goes into the City’s General Fund.  

Some readers may wonder why Berkeley needs to be promoted as a tourist destination at all. One reason is that bringing paying guests to town bolsters the local economy and culture. This year the hotel tax contributed over $2 million to the General Fund. 

And, Hillman says, “If we didn’t have the these people coming in and spending money, we wouldn’t have the Rep and the Symphony, because they can’t rely on just the locals’ business.”  

Each month about 500 people come into the Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Center Street office; about 100 call on the phone. Ninety percent of the walk-ins are first-time visitors to Berkeley. “It’s amazing what people ask you,” says Hillman.  

“They walk in with their luggage and say, ‘We just arrived, and we need a hotel.’ We say: ‘But it’s graduation week! There’s nothing!’ We help them find something—it could be out in Walnut Creek.” Other requests are easier to fill.  

“I just had a call from a woman today who was coming on Amtrak from Sacramento. She wanted to know what’s within walking distance of the station. I said: ‘It’s perfect. You’ve got Fourth Street. You can spend the afternoon shopping there and eating.’”  

The Bureau also helps individuals from out of town who need to organize major events from a distance. “A woman calls from New York and says, ‘My son’s graduating, and I have to have this party set before I come out in May.’ We got her into Café de la Paz. ‘My son is getting married; he and his fiancé go to UC Berkeley; but I’m in Virginia.’ We send them information about hotels; we mail them maps for all the guests and directions to the reception at the Brazil Room. When you stop and think, who else would help them with those kinds of things?”  

Then there are the “conventioners.” Berkeley hosts as many as 120 conferences in a year. Part of Hillman’s job is convincing meeting planners that the town would be a good place for their groups to convene. She briefs them about local facilities, lodgings, restaurants and diversions. 

When the prospective visitors are from somewhere east of the Mississippi, a basic geography lesson is often in order. “You get back past the Midwest,” Hillman says, “and people don’t realize how big California is. You say you’re in the East Bay, and they say, ‘The East Bay of what?’  

Once she was setting up the Berkeley booth at a travel industry trade show in Washington, D.C., when a woman came up, offered her business card and said: “I’m really interested in bringing my group and meeting. I need to be an hour from L.A.” 

Hillman replied, “By air, right?” 

“Oh no, no, no—within driving range,” said the woman. 

Pointing to a six-feet-by-four-feet photo of the Campanile silhouetted against the Bay, Hillman said: “See this? That’s San Francisco. We’re right across the Bay from that.” 

“No shit!” said the would-be visitor.  

Because her staff is tiny—Berkeley has one of the smallest Convention and Visitors Bureaus in Northern California—Hillman works closely with Conference Services at UC.  

“The University holds national and international conferences. Those people bring their spouses. Those spouses are wondering, what is there for me to do? I don’t want those people getting on BART and going to San Francisco on the first day. I want them to see that there’s enough to do here, whether it’s the shopping, Tilden, the restaurants, or taking in a show—and then going into San Francisco on BART.”  

The Bureau also collaborates with the Cal Athletic Department. “When a football game’s coming in,” says Hillman, “we usually send a letter and a packet of information to people out of the area—to the alumni association and the football team--welcoming them to Berkeley: ‘We understand you’re going to be playing the Bears here. If you need help with transportation or accommodations, let us know.’”  

The Colorado State University Alumni Relations Office was looking for a place where 400 Colorado Boosters could have a tailgate party before the Cal football game on Sept. 6. With her assistance, the Colorado fans are going to party at the Pyramid Brewery and then bus up to Memorial Stadium.  

“We are just damned lucky to have the University,” says Hillman. “Right after Sept. 11, San Francisco—the number one tourist destination in the country—was dead. The next week was the Cal football game against Oregon. Our hotels were full, because people could drive down, or if they did fly, it was only an hour or an hour and a half max. The weekend after that was the Washington State game. We were full again. Other cities weren’t.”  

But even the University’s draw can’t compensate for the blows the travel industry has recently sustained. Hillman ticked them off to me: Sept. 11, SARS, the ailing U.S. economy. Plus an (almost) only-in Berkeley crisis: the City Council’s opposition to the war in Afghanistan. As that gesture indicates, the town has retained its outspoken liberal character, a fact that can create challenges for its ambassadors at the Convention and Visitors Bureau.  

“I lost an employee over that [vote],” says Hillman. The Bureau was deluged with angry, often venomous messages. “’Why don’t you guys move to Afghanistan?’ ‘Go live with those pigs!’ It was so personal,” says Hillman.  

“’We come down from Sacramento; we take the train; we go to the Big Game; we eat here and there. We’re not coming anymore.’ Or, ‘There’s a group of us women who come once a month. We shop in Berkeley, and we have lunch. We’re not coming anymore.’ And I said: ‘You know, I’m really sorry that you feel this way. I hope you change your minds. You’re welcome to give your opinion, and I’ll pass it on.’”  

In fiscal year 2003, the hotel tax was down about a million dollars from the previous year. “That means less people are staying here and patronizing our businesses,” Hillman says. 

As befits her job description, Hillman looks on the bright side. She told me about the expanded visitors guide that will be out in January 2004, and the 90 travel writers from around the country who came to Berkeley last year at the invitation of the new East Bay Travel Consortium. 

At my request, she also offered some suggestions for making Berkeley more visitor-friendly: better public transportation, better visitor signage throughout the city—”When you’re going up University, you need signs that say “Telegraph” and “Gourmet Ghetto”—and more public restrooms. “You don’t see ‘For Patrons Only’ signs in any other cities.” The new public restroom in the Center Street Garage helps, but not enough.  

I leave Hillman’s office clutching the Bureau’s stylish packet of tourist information. The new brochure about the International Marketplace particularly whets my appetite; I plan to play tourist myself in the near future. In the meantime, I’m glad that we have Barbara Hillman and her staff to welcome people to town and guide them to its wonders. 

Berkeley’s Convention and Visitors Bureau has offices at 2015 Center Street (telephone 510-549-7040) and a web site at www.visitberkeley.com.

Over one hundred perfectly normal folks came out for the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society’s Annual Plant Show and sale Sunday, Aug. 24 at the UC Botanical Garden. 

Held during an uncommonly beautiful and sunny summer day, attendees from all over the Bay Area viewed exotic, prize-winning botanical specimens, won numerous raffle prizes and had the opportunity to purchase rare carnivorous plants.  

“It was fabulous,” said Shannan Hobbs, a volunteer propagator at the Botanical Garden. “I saw some things here that I’ve never seen before.” 

Indicating a tall and spindly plant with a head of foliage that could have been designed by Dr. Seuss, Hobbs proudly identified her prized purchase of the day. “I got a byblis here, one called a Rainbow plant.” 

The Rainbow plant will join 40 other carnivorous plants in Hobbs’s Oakland backyard. 

“We have a very mild climate, also Oakland water can be used directly because it’s very, very low particulate water. I filter it with a Brita filter but that’s not getting out much,” said Hobbs. “They’re a little fussier than some plants, but our climate is so mild a lot of them can grow here, especially the sarracenias [pitcher plants]. A lot of people don’t know how well they do here.” 

Hobbs first became enchanted with carnivorous plants as a teaching docent at the Botanical Gardens. “Not only do they have good novelty value, but they’re a great entree for teaching young people about plants. You can show them all these other adaptations that plants make. It’s a really good way to introduce them to other plants, subtler plants.” 

Some of the flesh-eating plants Hobbs propagates will be for sale at the Botanical Garden’s biannual Fall Plant Sale on Sunday, Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. 

Selma Rockett of North Oakland attended the show with her sister Barbara Alperen, who’s visiting from the Virgin Islands.  

“My sister has beautiful gardens,” said Rockett. “I thought that she would enjoy this and the [plants] are fascinating.” 

Rockett left with several carnivorous plants, a first for her own garden. 

Marvin Quick of Albany came with his adult daughter, Stephanie Quick. 

“My wife Doris has been collecting carnivorous planets for over ten years,” said father Quick. “We’ve got a lot … well, I should say we don’t have a lot compared to what most people have… we’ve got the standard backyard fare, but if you looked in our backyard you’d say, ‘Where did all these strange plants come from?’ But since we don’t have an actual hot house, there’re some things she can’t grow.” 

Rather than collecting carnivorous plants, daughter Stephanie Quick collects caudiciform succulents. 

“It’s another weird plant, like the baobab tree—that would be the most famous one. They can go dormant and then look like a gnarly stick so you get people saying, ‘Is that thing alive?’” she said, laughing.  

“It’s always fun to see people who are enthusiastic about stuff,” her father said. “You get a different sort of a person, and they’re much more active. You see guys that barely look like they’re out of their teenage years and they’ll have all these plants. They did it not because they had huge amounts of money but because they were able to figure out how to get a small plant and grow it.” 

One of those youngsters was Nick Johnson, a 14-year-old freshman entering Skyline High School. Johnson purchased several highly prized carnivorous plants during the Society’s rare plant auction. He currently cultivates over 100 different carnivorous plants, some in his bedroom and others outside in his backyard bog. 

“I really liked them but I didn’t really get into them until about two years ago when I found Peter D’Amato’s book, “Savage Garden.” I read that a couple hundred times and then I went up to his nursery in Sebastopol and it just kicked off from there.”  

With his mother’s approval Johnson has created a large bog in their Montclair backyard.  

“They’re beautiful, magnificent plants and Nick has been teaching me so much. I learn from him, constantly. It’s a wonderful thing for a mother to be sharing with her son,” she said.  

“He’s always had passions and this is his latest passion. He’s learning so much. He investigated how to build a bog garden on his own. He put the whole thing together and he truly made it on his own.” 

“I’m definitely interested in botany. It’s really rewarding seeing how the plants grow,” said the younger Johnson. “I want to do something [with plants] in my career. If I’m not working actually with them all the time, maybe something on the side.”  

Darryl Price of North Oakland brought his daughter Jessica to see the plants. They went home with two new insect-eating plants for their household.  

“I’ve been interested in carnivorous plants since I was a teenager,” said father Price. “I’ve had pitcher plants and Venus flytraps but I’ve never had these. This is in the Sundew family and this one is a bladder plant.” 

Jessica, who attends St. Martin de Porres Junior High School was not impressed. 

“They’re nasty,” she said. “They’re trapping spiders and ants and flies and bees. I really don’t like them. I like flowers.”  

Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society maintains a presence on the web at http://www.bacps.org. 

The UC Botanical Garden holds in annual Fall Plant Sale from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 28.  

For more information, call the Garden at 643-2755 or visit them on the web at http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/.

Berkeley lost a legend this week. Frank “Buddy” Spenger Jr. died of natural causes Sunday in the apartment in which he was raised, one flight above the seafood restaurant he helped make a Berkeley institution. He was 87. 

“It’s like the end of an era,” said local historian Stephanie Manning. “He was the last of the old school of Berkeley industrialists.” 

Buddy was the grandson of Johann Spenger, an immigrant from Germany, who settled in West Berkeley in the 1860s. Johann first made a living as a hook and line fisherman on Lake Merritt before eventually opening a clam stand at 1919 Fourth St. in 1890. 

Buddy’s father, Frank Sr., also a fisherman, welcomed the repeal of prohibition in 1933 by adding a restaurant and tavern, Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto, to the site. But it was Buddy who would become synonymous with the business, managing it from 1940 through 1998, when failing health and falling profits forced him to hand over control to McCormick & Schmick, a Portland, Ore. seafood restaurant chain. 

Like his father and grandfather, Buddy was drawn to the sea. As a sixteen-year-old fresh out of Berkeley High School, Buddy owned a fishing boat, the Marcella, named after his mother, and fished the Bay for halibut, striper and other fish to be sold at his father’s shop. 

By age 25, Buddy managed the restaurant, never relinquishing control until he was 82. 

“He’d work 14-16 hours a day, said his wife, Milly. “Every morning he’d get up at 6:30 a.m. to make the clam chowder.”  

Spenger’s hard work paid off. His restaurant was arguably the most famous seafood establishment in the Bay Area, attracting fish lovers from throughout the state, including celebrities such as Clark Gable, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. 

By the 50s Spenger’s claimed to serve roughly 3,500 pounds of fish daily, more than any restaurant west of the Mississippi. For years it paid more in taxes to Berkeley than any other restaurant. 

Though Buddy reveled in the famous faces that passed through Spenger’s, he remained a private person. “Buddy was a loner,” Millie said. The couple spent nearly all of their time together, making daily round trips to Tomales Bay where they harvested oysters, clams and mussels to be cooked at the restaurant. In his spare time, Milly said Buddy liked to fish in the waters off Tomales Bay and hunt ducks at a country estate in Colusa. 

Those who knew Buddy, remember him as a feisty, straight shooter, who above all else honored loyalty.  

Muriel Burnham, an 18-year employee at the restaurant remembered how the Spengers supported her when she needed to take two months leave to care for her ailing adult daughter. “They called me ten times to make sure everything was okay and said to stay as long as I needed.” Burnham was one of eight former employees who still work at the new Spenger’s. 

Retired Assistant Fire Chief Paul Burastero recalled Buddy taking a personal interest in members of his crew. “Whenever someone got promoted they’d have breakfast at Spenger’s and he’d show up and pat you on the back in his very direct way,” he said. 

Later Burastero got to know Buddy on a more personal level. When the restaurant closed temporarily in 1998, Burastero and other firefighters from the local station made frequent rounds to check on the Spengers out of fear that their apartment above the vacant restaurant would be prone to fires. 

It was a tough time for Buddy. He was suffering the effects of a 1995 stroke that impaired his ability to walk, his restaurant had been in steady decline for fifteen years under stiff competition from upstarts serving lighter “California cuisine” and he was witness to labor strife as his 150 union employees fought to keep their jobs under the new management. 

Still, Burastero said, Buddy remained spirited. “He was quite a feisty gentleman, very opinionated and likable. He was always coming up with opinions on politics.” 

Some of Buddy’s views, no doubt, would not jive with Berkeley progressive politics of today. But, according to family members, he remained a committed environmentalist, denouncing the pollution of the Bay, where he spent much of his youth fishing. 

He also respected Berkeley history and the history of the land where he spent most of his life. In 2000, when Spenger’s considered building a new parking structure, Manning asked that he first determine if the lot was above a shell mound, the traditional burial plot for the Ohlone Indians of the region. Manning said that Spenger could have fought paying for the study, but instead hired the most respected archeologist to do the work, which uncovered Ohlone remains.  

“He really respected his history,” Manning said. “ I think he really wanted to know what was under there.” 

Buddy Spenger is survived by his wife Millie; son Spanky Spenger; daughter June Ellen Lawal; stepson Robert Wolf; 11 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. 

The family asks that any donations in his honor be made to: 

Berkeley Firefighters Association 

Attn. Deputy Chief Orth, Station #6 

2100 Martin Luther King Way, 2nd Floor 

Berkeley, CA 94703

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22 

Caltopia 2003, a festival of fun, music and Cal Spirit, on Fri. and Sat., open to UC Berkeley students, staff, faculty and the community, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with events at the Recreational Sports Facility, Evans Field, Lower Sproul Plaza, and the Haas Pavillion. http://calbears.berkeley.edu/festival/  

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. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship 496-6000, ext. 135. www.bpf.org 

“Welcome to BHS” Reception for 9th Grade Families, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Little Theater on Allston Way. “Veteran” parents and students, along with high school staff, will be happy to answer your questions about life at Berkeley High. This is a great opportunity to meet people, get lots of information, and connect with BHS. Students are encouraged to attend with their adults. Please bring a dessert to share. Coffee, tea, and punch will be provided by the PTSA. For more information email boricuastylez13@yahoo.com or cpapermaster@earthlink.net 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23 

Berkeley High School Volunteer Workday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Enter on Allston Way, sign in at the information table, and pick a job to do. The main jobs are weeding, picking up trash, watering, sweeping, and planting. Please bring work gloves, sunscreen, hat, hoses, trowels, weeding tools, push brooms, dust pans, 4” to 1 gallon perennials or annuals in shades of red and yellow. We will supply bottled water, snacks, trash bags, and disposable gloves. For information email cpapermaster@earthlink. 

net or Calysto123@aol.com 

Caltopia 2003, see listing for Fri. http://calbears.berkeley.edu/ 

festival 

Summer Days and Nights in Albany, a small-town street fair, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on So- 

lano and San Pablo Aves. Features live entertainment including music, a lion dance, and jugglers. 525-1771. 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra will hold auditions during the first week in Sept., and will offer an audition clinic today at 9 a.m. For information please call Marion Atherton at 525-8484 or email manager@byoweb.org 

UC Berkeley Circle K Garage Sale fund raiser held by the UC Berkeley Circle K, a non-profit community service organization run by students. All money raised will go to Pediatric Trauma Prevention, and research for Lou Gehrig’s Disease. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Berkeley ACE Hardware parking lot, 2145 University Ave. 841-2756.  

The Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society holds its Annual Plant Show from noon to 4 p.m., at the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Many of the world’s most enthusiastic growers of these deadly (to insects), diverse and often stunningly beautiful plants will be displaying their best specimens. For information see the Society's web page at www.bacps.org or call the Garden at 643-2755. 

Alternative Building Materials: Cob and Strawbale workshop on two natural building materials, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cob is an ancient techni- 

que using a mixture of earth, sand and straw; it requires only simple handtools and can easily be shaped into imaginative structures. Strawbales are highly insulative and create an Old World character of thick walls and deepset windows. Cost is $75. Held at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 525-7610.  

SUNDAY, AUGUST 24  

Historic Kenney Cottage moves from 1725 University Ave. to 1275 University Ave. at 7 a.m. The Cottage, a prefabricated panel house whose design was patented by William H. Wrigley in 1881, may be the oldest existing example of this type of prefab construction in America. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association will offer coffee and doughnuts at the new site. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Herb Walk Learn to identify and use many edible and medicinal plants that grow wild in the Bay Area. Meet at noon at the Strawberry Canyon Fire Trail head, below the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens on Centennial Drive. Call for directions. Cost is $6-$25 sliding scale. Sponsored by the Pacific School of Herbal Medicine. 845-4028. www.pshm.org 

Equity in Affordable Housing, a public dialog hosted by The Oakland Coalition of Congrega- 

tions, from 3 to 5 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 27th and Broadway. For information call 625-9490. 

UC Berkeley Circle K Garage Sale See listing for Aug. 23.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 25 

“Cuba - What Next?” A Commonwealth Club panel, including three prominent Cuban Americans and a former U.S. mission chief in Havana, will re-examine trade and travel restrictions from noon to 1:30 p.m. at 595 Market Street in SF, with a reception at 11:15 a.m. Cost is $12 or free to students and Commonwealth Club members. For reservations, call 800-847-7730 or 415-597-6700. Co-sponsored by the International Diplomacy Council and the Pan American Society. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 6 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 26 

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets at 7 p.m. in 100 Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. Presentation by Max Elbaum, Founder, War Times Newspaper. For more information, please email info@berkeleystopthewar.org or visit www.berkeleystopthewar.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Charles Fitch will show travel slides. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets 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 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke Seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672 for information or check our web page, http://home.comcast.net/ 

~teachme99/tildenwalkers. 

Lawyers in the Library at 6 p.m. at the West Branch, University above San Pablo. 981-6270. 

Morris Dancing Workshop Learn the basics of an English ritual dance form that predates Shakespeare, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. at Oxford. Free and open to all. www.talamasca.com/berkmorris 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 

Free Lead-Safe Painting and Remodeling Class Learn how to detect and remedy lead hazards and conduct lead-safe renovations for your older home. From 6 to 8 p.m. at the South Berkeley Branch Library, 1901 Russell St. For information or to register call the Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at 567-8280.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

South Berkeley Mural Project Community members in South Berkeley are coming together to create a neighborhood mural on the side of the Grove Liquor Store on the corner of Ashby Ave. and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. At 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts Studios at 1923 Ashby Ave. For information please call 644-2204. 

Berkeley Food Policy Council meets at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. The Berkeley Food Policy Council (BFPC) is a coalition of residents, non-profit agencies, community groups, school district and city agencies to increase community food access and help build a healthy regional food system. For information call Penny Leff, 548-3333.  

Berkeley CopWatch open office hours 7 to 9 p.m. Drop in to file complaints, assistance available. For information call 548-0425. 

Community Dances, 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 

Free Feldenkrais ATM Classes for adults 55 and older at 10:30 and 11:45 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut at Rose. For information call 848-5143.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 

40th Anniversary of the National Civil Rights March on Washington, most remembered by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, will be celebrated at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Hall, 2180 Milvia St. Residents who were present 40 years ago will reconfirm their commitment to the March pledge. Civil Rights supporters who could not attend the original event 40 years ago will be invited to take the Civil Rights pledge for the first time. For information contact 981-7170 or berkeleycivilrightsanniversary@yahoo.com 

Fiscal Management for Non-Profits, a technical assistance workshop offered by Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Alameda County Confer- 

ence Center, 125 12th St, 4th floor. For information contact Felicia Moore-Jordan, 268-5376. 

Great Paddling Destinations in Baja and No. California with Roger Schumann at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140.  

Berkeley Painters’ Critique Group meets to discuss new concepts and techniques with paint media at 6:30 p.m. at The Art Gym, 1717D Fourth St. 527-0600. www.geocities.com/berkeleypainters 

ONGOING  

Vista Community College Program for Adult Education (PACE) Enrollment through Sept. 6. PACE is a college alternative for adults with job and family responsibilities.For information call 981-2864 or 981-2800 or email mclausen@peralta.cc.ca.us  

Free Energy Conservation Retrofits for Berkeley Residents CA Youth Energy Services is a nonprofit sponsored by the City of Berkeley that trains and employs high school students to provide conservation retrofits. Call for an appointment, 428-2357. 

Free Smoke Detectors UC Berkeley and First Alert, Inc. have donated smoke detectors to be made available to City residents and UC Berkeley students who live off-campus. Applications for smoke detectors are available from the Environment, Health & Safety office of UC Berkeley, at any Berkeley Fire Station, or at the Fire Administration Office located at 2100 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. 981-5585.  

Free Energy Bill Payment Assistance The City of Berkeley has money to help low-income households pay their gas and electric bills. For applications contact the Energy Office at 644-8544. TDD: 981-6903. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/energy 

CITY MEETINGS 

Solid Waste Management Commission meets Mon., Aug. 25, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/com 

missions/solidwaste 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Aug. 27, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/civicarts 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Aug. 27, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/com 

missions/energy 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Aug. 28, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning 

This issue of the Daily Planet is being to distributed to about 20,000 additional readers, including incoming students and their parents who will be attending the University of California’s “Caltopia” event. We’d like to welcome you to our city, and to say a few words about Berkeley present and past. 

First, a few statistics. Berkeley is densely populated, especially in the Flatlands (i.e. the non-Hills) where most students live. It’s the third densest city in the Bay Area—only San Francisco and South San Francisco are more crowded. If you come from Southern California, as many UC students do, you’ll probably experience a lifestyle adjustment. Parking, as you may have noticed, is hard to find. It’s better to leave your car at home, if you have one. The best strategy for getting around Berkeley is walking. Bicycles work for many, though there’s a lot of bike traffic too. Alameda-Contra Costa Transit, the bus company also known as AC, goes many places, even into San Francisco, and is somewhat reliable. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) goes to a few places too, but isn’t much help for getting around Berkeley. 

Berkeley housing is bi-modal. On one hand, our single family houses are increasingly expensive. The median home price here, $536,000, is the highest in Alameda County. But we have a lot of rental housing, in varying price ranges. Close to 1,000 new rental units have been built in Berkeley in the last few years, and for the first time in perhaps a generation “for rent” signs are appearing in windows around Berkeley. What that means is that when you leave the dorms (and you will eventually) you might be able to be a bit picky about what you rent, and you can negotiate somewhat with potential landlords. 

Berkeley offers good options for car-less shoppers. We have three farmers’ markets, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, all within walking distance of campus. The Sunday farmers’ market, by the harbor at Jack London Square in Oakland, is a pleasant excursion from campus on the #51 bus. 

We are also well supplied with that other staple of student life: books. In the Berkeley Daily Planet’s July book issue we listed more than 50 independent bookstores in the Greater Berkeley area, most of them reachable on foot or by bus. That’s not too surprising if you consider that the 2000 census found that about 8 percent of Berkeleyans over 25 have Ph.D.s, the third highest concentration in the country, after Cambridge and Ann Arbor. And you guys had to be pretty smart to be admitted to UCB. 

We’ve got lots of entertainment opportunities easily reached by students. Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley has five major movie houses. The Elmwood Theatre on College has second-runs with bargain prices, and the Pacific Film Archive on campus caters to film buffs. (Sadly, Berkeley’s Fine Arts Theater was demolished last spring for a housing development, though there are promises that it will return when the building is finished.) We have an abundance of unusual live theater. To name just two of many, the Aurora Theater on Addison Street downtown offers professional productions in an intimate setting, and the Shotgun Players, who do several challenging productions every year, have recently found a home in the historic Julia Morgan Theater close to campus on College. In addition to the traveling attractions showcased by Cal Performances at Zellerbach, Berkeley has low-cost music options of all kinds, including jazz, hip-hop, classical and folk. These can be found in the Daily Planet’s Arts Calendar. 

Just walking around is a good cheap entertainment option. For nature walks, buses will take you to the shoreline parks near the Berkeley Marina, or up in the hills to the East Bay Regional Parks, which also come right down to campus in Strawberry Canyon and Claremont Canyon behind the Clark Kerr campus. 

Berkeley experienced an architectural golden age in the teens and twenties of the 20th century, and its monuments are everywhere. Close to campus, the most widely known gem is Bernard Maybeck’s First Church of Christ Scientist next to People’s Park on Dwight Way, now overshadowed a bit by less lovely UC dorms. In addition to famous architecture, Berkeley has interesting history, much of it connected to the University of California. Telegraph Avenue and People’s Park still function as shrines to Berkeley in the sixties. We have a lot of living history, too. Some of the liveliest survivors of the social movements of the 20th century have retired to Berkeley, and can be found in our senior centers still debating the left sectarian issues of the 1930s. 

One of the most exciting things about living in Berkeley is that you don’t have to travel to see the world, because the world comes here. University Avenue is the major center for sari shops and Indian restaurants, but ethnic restaurants of every description ring the campus. Some of them advertise in the Planet’s Dining Out section, but there are many more to be found. 

One last thing: We’re proud to say that the Berkeley Daily Planet is one of a very small number of remaining locally-owned papers in the country. We can keep you in touch with what’s going on in Berkeley, especially off-campus. Just don’t look for us every day. Our name is a historic relic, a tribute to Superman’s paper, the Metropolis Daily Planet, but these days we’re on the stands in a box near you on Tuesdays and Fridays. The most widely read section of our paper (and most papers) is the opinion section, which is open to all kinds of writers. After you’ve been here a while, let us know what you think of Berkeley. We’d love to hear from you. 

Becky O’Malley is Executive Editor of the Daily Planet.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22 

CHILDREN 

Where the Wild Things Are at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

FILM 

Czech Horror and Fantasy on Film: “Invisible” at 7:30 p.m. and Shorts by Jan Svankmajer at 9:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Disinformation Film Series: “Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death,” at 7:30 p.m., at Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita. Donations requested. 528-5403.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Belle & Sebastian at 7:30 p.m. at the Greek Theatre, UC Campus. 642-0212. 

Near East Far West performs Balkan music at at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson with Lise Liepman at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Stephanie Bruce performs jazz-influenced originals at 8 p.m., at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $14 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Muriel Anderson, classical, folk, jazz guitarist, 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 

Paulo Bellinati and Harvey Wainapel, Brazilian guitarist and Bay Area sax/clarinet player, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Lisa B., with Murray Low and Alex Baum at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation is $12-$15 sliding scale. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Whore, Ramona the Pest, She Mob at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The Pitt of Fashion Orches- 

tra at 9:30 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Fast Times at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Neal Cronin’s World Beat Party at 8:30 p.m. at the 1923 Tea House, 1923 Ashby. $7-$15 suggested donation, no one turned away. 644-2204. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23 

SF Mime Troupe, “Veronique of the Mounties in Operation Frozen Freedom” addresses militarism and empire at 2 p.m. in People’s Park. www.sfmt.org 

FILM 

An Evening of International Animation at 7 and 8 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Can Dialectics Break Bricks?” at 8:30 p.m. at the Long Haul, a reading room, library and community center in South Berkeley located at 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm and Muse with Mack Dennis, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music in the Garden from 10 a.m. to noon at the 59th Street Community Garden, between Market and Adeline Sts. Come for an afternoon of improvisational song, poetry, harmony and rhythms with Sally Rademaker.  

Blues and Beer Festival from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Live music, micro-brewery beer, and crafts fair at the Saturday Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

The Dave Matthews Blues Band performs a free blues concert at 2 p.m. at the corner of Solano Ave. and Santa Fe St. 525-1771. www.davematthewsbluesband.com 

Orquesta La Moderna Tradición performs classic Cuban dance music at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Great Night of Rumi, celebrating the 13th century Persian poet with spoken word, music and dance, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Red Pocket, My Hero at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Adria, jazz CD release party and benefit for the Jazz House, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation is $6-$10 sliding scale. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

World Beat Party at 8 p.m. at The 1923 Teahouse, 1923 Ashby Ave., across from Ashby BART, between Adeline and MLK Way. Cost is $10. 654-1904. neal@nealcronin.com 

Will Bernard Trio, blues-tinted, electronic-tinged jazz at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Felonious at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0866. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

California Brazil Allstar Band at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Frank Jackson Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Thought Riot, Scattered Fall, Love Songs, Kadena, Eskapo 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, AUGUST 24 

SF Mime Troupe, “Veronique of the Mounties in Operation Frozen Freedom” addresses militarism and empire at 2 p.m. in Willard Park. www.sfmt.org 

FILM 

W. C. Fields: “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Guided Tour of Fred Wilson’s “Aftermath” at 2 p.m. at The Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808.  

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Front Row Festival, music, dance, improv, film from noon to 7 p.m. in the Downtown Berkeley Arts District. Featuring an outdoor mainstage and op- 

portunity to visit The Jazzschool, Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Rep's Thrust Stage and Nevo Education Center, Downtown Restaurant and Capoeira Arts Cafe. Children's art activities, food booths, arts and crafts, a wine and beer garden, and more! Admission to street festival free, admission to indoor venues is $5. Sponsored by the Downtown Berkeley Association 654-6346. www.downtownberkeley.org  

Cantus Magnus, directed by Richard Mix will present “Missa De Beata Virgine” by Josquin DesPrez, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6873.  

Where Art Meets Garden: Green Songs, songwriters with an ecological focus, featuring Sam Johnston, Nancy Schim- 

mel, Mokai and Green, from 2 to 5 p.m in the Peralta Com- 

munity Garden on Peralta St., between Hopkins and Gilman. 231-5912. 

Gypsy Kings at 5 p.m. at the Greek Theatre, UC Campus. 642-0212. 

People Love Pie at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $3. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Duck Baker, folk and jazz fusion guitarist, 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 

Palenque performs Cuban Son at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

MONDAY, AUGUST 25 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jim Hightower returns with his latest commentary, “Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country and It’s Time to Take it Back,” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10, free with purchase of the book, and are available at Cody’s. Sponsored by Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express, theme night: Jobs, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave.  

TUESDAY, AUGUST 26 

FILM 

The Inquiring Camera: “Ashura: This Blood Spilled in My Veins” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Fragments From the War on Terror “Civilian Casualties,” a film by September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. A free film series co-sponsored by Ber- 

keley Peace Walk and Vigil. For more information see www.geo- 

cities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Summer Poetry, with Daphne Gotlieb, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Mediterranean Café, 2475 Telegraph Ave. Free, open mic, poetry, prose, short fiction, amateur and advanced artists welcome. 549-1128. 

Bruce Moody discusses his new book, “Will Work for Food or $,” about begging by the roadside, at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Maria Espinosa reads from her novel, “Incognito: Journey of a Secret Jew,” at 7:30 p.m. Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Ave. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ilgi, a night of Latvian song, music and games at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 

FILM 

Excess of Evil: “The Blood on Satan’s Claw” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Converging/Diverging Faiths: Islam and Christianity from the Center,” an evening with Seyed Hossein Nasr and Houston Smith at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Co-sponsored by First Congre- 

gational Church of Berkeley, The Islamic Center of Northern California and Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Café Poetry and Open Mic hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donation requested. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Hawaiian Music’s Next Generation with Keoki Kahumoku, Herb Ohta, Jr., Patrick Landeza, and David Kamakahi, 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 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jules Broussard and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Third World, MC UC BUU at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Tele- 

graph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

The Supplicants perform at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 

FILM 

The Inquiring Camera: “A Grin Without a Cat” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4 members, UC students, $5 UC faculty, staff, seniors, disabled, youth, $8 adults. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, Curator’s Talk by Alla Efimova, at 12:15 p.m. in Gallery 2, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Marie Etienne reads from her story of an abused childhood, “Storkbites,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Marguerite Sprague discusses and shows slides of “Bodie’s Gold: Tall Tales and True History From a California Mining Town,” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. at Rose. 843-3533. www.easygoing.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Omar Faruk Tebilek and Ensemble performs traditional Sufi, folk and contemporary music from the Middle East at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $20 in advance, $22 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

((sYncrosYstem)), all-acoustic global groove ensemble performs at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Grateful Dead DJ Night with Digital Dave at 10 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Boatclub, Moore Brothers, Yuji Oniki, Chicken on a Raft at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The Jessica Jones Quartet, jazz saxophone, 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 

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

AT THE THEATER 

Impact Theatre, “Impact Briefs 6: Shock and Awe,” an evening of ultra-short comedies, directed by Joy Meads. Runs from Aug. 22 to Sept. 27, at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Tickets are $15, $10 seniors and students. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Josh Kornbluth’s “Love and Taxes,” a tale of falling in love while wrangling with the Kafkaesque IRS. Runs through Sept. 14. Performances Wed. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 and 7 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $25-$40, available from 647-2949 or 888-4BRT-TIX. www.zspace.org 

Shotgun Players, “Mother Courage and Her Children,” by Bertolt Brecht, translated by David Hare, directed by Patrick Dooley. Runs Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. in John Hinkle Park, until Sept. 14. Show Sept. 13 is at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Free. 704-8210.  

www.shotgunplayers.org 

Teen Playreaders, “Bizarre Shorts,” a festival of brief and absurd dramas for a mature audience. Sat., Aug. 23 at 7 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda. 981-6250. 

EXHIBITIONS  

Berkeley Art Center, 19th National Juried Exhibition: “Works on Paper,” runs to Sept. 13. Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. Open Wed. - Sun. noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Berkeley Art Museum, Matrix 207: Anne Von Mertens “Suggested North Points,” hand-dyed and hand-stiched quilts, to Sept. 7.  

“Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Gennomics” featuring contemporary artists’ visions of a genetically modified future, August 27 through December 7.  

“Turning Corners,” an exhibition of five centuries of innovative art, through the summer of 2004. The UC Berkeley Art Museum is open Wed. - Sun., 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Admission $8, free to UC staff, faculty and students, and free for the general public the first Thurs. of every month, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808.                   www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Historical Society, “Focus on Berkeley” A photography exhibit by the Berkeley Camera Club, Berkeley High School students and community photographers in celebration of the City’s 125th Anniversary. Exhibition runs until Sept. 13. Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. Sponsored by the Berkeley Historical Society,  

848-0181.  

Berkeley Public Library, “The Lighter Side of Crop Circles,” photographs by Ben Ailes. Runs until Aug. 30. First Floor Catalog Lobby, 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck. 981-6100. 

Graduate Theological Union Library, “Hand-crafted Books by Bay Area Artists,” Zea Morwitz, Mary Eubank, Nance O'Banion, Ted Purves, Susanne Cockrell, Karen Sjoholm, and Lisa Kokin. Each book is accompanied by a statement addressing the issues and process involved in the creation of the work. Exhibition runs until Sept. 30. Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd.  

649-2541. 

Kala Art Institute, Kala Fellowship Exhibition, Part II Runs until Sept. 6. Call for gallery hours. 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org  

A New Leaf Gallery/Sculpture Site, “Four Elements of Sculpture: Fire, Air, Water and Earth,” Exhibition runs to August 31. 1286 Gilman St. Call for gallery hours. 527-7621. www.sculpturesite.com 

Red Oak Realty “Mixed Media,” by Stan Whitehead. Exhibition runs through Oct. 23, Mon. - Sat., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 1891 Solano Ave. 527-3387. 

Slater/Marinoff & Co., “All Animal Art” Forty photographers and artists have donated works to help fund the spay-neuter and food costs of the Milo Foundation’s work in finding new homes for abandoned dogs and cats. Exhibition runs until Aug. 31. Hours are Mon. - Sat., 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sun., 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. 1823 Fourth St. 548-2001. 

Sway Gallery, “Secret Summer” paintings, installations, collages, prints, drawings, and mixed media by Nana Hayashi, Greg Moore, Marc Snegg, Gab- 

rielle Wolodarski. Runs to Oct. 5. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. every day. 2569 Telegraph Ave. 489-9054.

Welcome to Berkeley! 

Don’t forget your student body cards: Flashing one at most of the box offices around Berkeley will give you a significant cut in the cost of a ticket for some of the best live theater productions in the Bay Area. You’ve landed in a place that a distinguished director, Lillian Groag, described as having “a pool of the best actors in the United States.” The local theaters are eager to get you to see what they produce. And most of it is first-rate.  

Naturally, they’re glad to have anybody buy a ticket, but they’re making a specific effort to bring in people from your generation. It’s important enough to them to cut their revenue in order to get you into the theater.  

Sure, theater people are notoriously idealistic but their interest in getting you and your friends to see what they have to offer isn’t all altruism. They want to get you hooked. Maybe you’d better be warned: live theater can be addictive. Once they get you get turned on, there’s a good chance you’ll still be toddling into theaters when every hair you have left has turned white.  

That’s what they have in mind. A while back, theater people woke up to the fact that films and television had taken over the audiences that had supported the theater for centuries. Young people just didn’t think about going to live theater. Theater audiences were aging. If there wasn’t some kind of action, the stage, the whole heart of the dramatic world, was literally going to die along with their audiences.  

Voila! Cheap tickets for students arrived. Some places even have date nights. Bring a party to one of the best theaters around and you’ll get a free ticket. Idea after idea is being developed to encourage younger people to come and enjoy. Believe me, you’re welcome.  

And they very much hope you’ll be coming back for the rest of your life. 

Here’s a brief introduction to the theaters in the immediate area. Berkeley has such an active theatrical scene that it can keep you busy on almost every weekend of the year. In addition to the theaters that will be mentioned here, the UC Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies, is offering both Mainstage and Student Workshop productions that will be well worth your time—and won’t kill your pocketbook. The city theaters and the UC departments sometimes draw on each other for their mutual enrichment. This list is limited to theaters outside the campus and within the City of Berkeley. 

The Actors Ensemble of Berkeley 

Actors Ensemble doesn’t need to give a student discount; they charge everybody a flat $10. The oldest group in Berkeley, they will perform in the Live Oak Theater at 1301 Shattuck Ave. (at Berryman) in Berryman Park. Their season will open with “Camping with Henry and Tom” (That’s Thomas Edison and Henry Ford) showing on Friday and Saturday evenings, Oct. 24 through Nov. 22. It’s American history taken the easy way. 

The Aurora Theater 

The Aurora is located at 2071 Addison St., a half-block from the Downtown BART on Shattuck Avenue. Half–price tickets for seniors and students half an hour before performances. There are also free tickets for students for previews. Director Tom Ross says that the theater is definitely developing programs with younger audiences in mind. He is directing “Lobby Hero” which he describes as “an outrageous comedy” playing Nov. 14 through Dec. 21. He expects that it will particularly appeal to that audience. Barbara Oliver, the Artistic Director who is one of the founders of the theater, will direct the UC production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Getting Married” on the weekends of Nov. 14 and 21 at the campus Durham Studio Theatre. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre 

Berkeley Rep, at 2025 Addison St., next door to Aurora, is a 35-year-old Berkeley institution. It now has two theaters, immediately adjacent to each other: the Thrust Stage, wtih 400 seats, and the Roda Theatre, a 600-seat proscenium theater. Special rates for students and for people under age 30. They also have special “nite/OUT” evenings for Lesbian /Gay/Bisexual/Transgender audiences which includes the performance and a reception with food, drink and music at $43 a ticket. The Rep won a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1997, and attracts outstanding actors from around the country for their seven annual productions. 

California Shakespeare Theater 

Headquartered in Berkeley, but performing in a beautiful outdoor setting just east of the Caldecott Tunnel, the Bruns Amphitheater is set up to be a terrific evening quite aside from the performance. Look at www.calshakes.org for directions. They provide bus rides to the site for people who take BART. CalShakes includes other plays besides Shakespeare in their season, and provides free lectures, discussions and a multitude of other goodies associated with the current production. Inquire about reduced student rates by calling the box office at 548-9666 or 548-3422. Go early and take your lunch with you. 

Central Works 

In Berkeley, never get the idea that the price of a performance has anything to do with the quality of the production. This group is one of the many who have built their reputation (excellent and innovative) while performing in a room at the Berkeley City Club. They create their own plays by taking ideas from Shakespeare—only the old guy would have trouble recognizing the relationship when they’re through. They frequently have “Pay what you can” performances.  

Impact Theater 

“Impact Briefs 6: Shock and Awe,” a set of short and funny pieces, is now playing at La Val’s Subterranean Theatre—the basement of La Val’s Pizza Restaurant, about half a block up Euclid from UC’s North Gate. Don’t let the location turn you off: lots of the Berkeley theater companies have spent good time there. The company bills itself as “Theatre for People who HATE Theatre” and their target audience is 18 to 35. They say that they’re dedicated to keeping their ticket prices down to the cost of a movie ticket. Try them out at www.ImpactTheatre.com.  

Shotgun Theater 

Right now, Shotgun Theater is producing a smashing production of Brecht’s “Mother Courage”—for free, Saturdays and Sundays in John Hinkle Park at 4:00 p.m. until Sept. 14. (The Sept. 13 performance will be at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts at 2640 College Ave.). Call 704-8210 to find out their pricing policy for the coming season when they’ll settle into the Julia Morgan Center for an extended stay. 

Transparent Theater 

The Transparent Theater is a young and innovative group located at the northeast corner of Ashby Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, across the street from the BART parking lot. Thursdays are “Pay What You Can Night.” Their first production for the season is “No Ghost Hamlet” which will play Oct. 17 through Nov. 23. In this production, there is no ghostly material; Hamlet is a woman whose relationship with Ophelia is a lesbian love affair and the whole thing is backed by “a furious rock sound track.” 

Sound innovative enough to you? 

Despite vehement opposition from neighborhood activists and City Hall, the Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday night to move its Adult School from a dilapidated building on University Avenue to an old elementary school site just a few blocks away. 

The vote came after months of heated meetings, a strongly worded letter from City Manager Weldon Rucker and more than an hour of testimony from opponents and supporters Wednesday night—including a rare appearance by a City Councilmember. 

“To get along with your neighbors or anyone else, I think you have to work with them,” said Councilmember Margaret Breland, addressing the school board. 

“I want the...neighbors to know that I’ve weighed this many, many times in many different ways,” said school board Director John Selawsky, before the vote. 

But neighbors of the current Adult School and the old City of Franklin Elementary School on Virginia Street, where it is slated to move, stormed out of the meeting after the vote, declaring that the school board had failed to listen to their concerns. 

“They just steamroll over what other people say,” said Connie McCullah, an Adult School neighbor. “I think it’s very insulting.” 

McCullah and others say the Adult School is a good neighbor and bristle at talk of moving the school district’s administrative and maintenance operations to the University Avenue site, once it is vacated.  

Those who live near the Franklin site say they are worried about an increase in traffic, parking and crime, among other things, once the Adult School moves to their neighborhood. 

Now that the project is approved, one resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said neighbors may tap funds they have raised for a lawsuit against the school district. 

The district plans to select a construction company for a $6.5 million overhaul of Franklin by Oct. 15, with work to begin Nov. 1. Officials hope to finish the project in time to move the Adult School to Franklin in time for the 2004-2005 school year. 

City Manager Rucker raised concerns about the move in a July 29 letter. Citing district studies, arguing that the move is part of a broader building swap that would, among other things, relocate the district’s administrative headquarters to University Avenue once the Adult School leaves. 

Rucker pointed out that the district, in its environmental review of the project, is required to address the impacts of the “full” project and not just one segment. The district’s failure to discuss the future of the University Avenue site, he wrote, meant the environmental review was not valid. 

District officials have made it clear in recent months that they do, indeed, plan to move their administrative headquarters to University Avenue. The top brass currently works out of Berkeley’s Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, but the district’s $1-per-year lease on the building expires in 2009 and the city, which owns the structure, wants it back. 

But district officials argued Wednesday night that there are no solid plans for the University Avenue building and that the environmental review, as a result, did not need to include a discussion of its future. 

About 20 teachers, students and administrators from the Adult School showed up at the board meeting to voice support for the move, telling stories of poor lighting, a broken heating system, inadequate wiring and an antiquated telephone system at the current site. 

Adult School Principal Margaret Kirkpatrick said the school has to buy phones at flea markets because modern models don’t work with the old system. 

George Coates, who teaches a public speaking class at the Adult School, said the program needs a new building as a sign of respect for the institution, which provides English as a Second Language, dance, literature and financial planning courses to more than 1,300 students per day. 

“It’s leaky, it’s creaky, it’s depressing,” he said. “The letters on the front of the building are falling off—people think you can’t spell.” 

School board Director Nancy Riddle, who voted for the project, said she did not find arguments about a broken-down building compelling. The district planned to overhaul the University Avenue site whether the Adult School moved or not, she noted. 

But Riddle said she was concerned that the Adult School would have to move twice if it was to remain in the University Avenue building—once to a temporary home during construction, and then back again. 

Kirkpatrick said two moves would have destroyed the cohesiveness of the school community. 

“If we don’t have this permanent move...I just don’t see how the program can stay as viable,” she said. 

Neighbors said they were concerned about the welfare of the Adult School, but were not convinced that the move made sense for the program. They said district officials listened to this complaint and others at community meetings, but did not truly weigh neighbors’ concerns. 

“The district blew a chance to show that it was really turning over a new leaf,” said Phyllis Orrick. “This signal tells me that it will continue to be business as usual. This does not bode well for the health of the institution.” 

School board Director Shirley Issel said the district and the neighbors ultimately had “irreconcilable differences.” But ultimately, she said, the Adult School move would benefit the neighborhood. 

“I sincerely believe that the worst problem facing the [Franklin] neighborhood is the prospect of an empty site,” she said. “You could have no better neighbor than the Adult School.” 

The final vote was 4-0. Director Terry Doran was absent, dealing with a family emergency.

ANTENNA VIOLATION 

Some city offices are not acting according to local ordinances. Neighbors in North Berkeley have recently discovered that the Planning Department has been violating sections of the Berkeley Telecommunications Ordinance, which states that the department must keep a map and inventory of all existing and proposed wireless telecommunication sites in the city. 

Neighbors of 1600 Shattuck Ave. are fighting antennae planned by Sprint and requested the Planning Department inventory in July 2003. The department did not have an inventory at all and only began preparing one in late July. Neigbors finally examined Aug. 18, finding it incomplete and not in compliance with the ordinance. For instance, it has no information regarding Sprint’s proposed wireless antennae at 1600 Shattuck. 

These antennae were installed without a permit in early June. The neighbors do not know whether these antennae are operating, but they tend to believe that they are. The reason is that the neighbors use an RF detector that shows power densities larger than safe levels when it is pointed toward 1600 Shattuck. Even if the antennae were not operating, the detector reveals an alarming fact: The radiation coming from Downtown Berkeley, the UC Campus, and LBNL is already beyond the safe levels. 

Shahram Shahruz 

• 

URBAN DESIGN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After traveling to Europe and admiring its intimate, narrow streets, John Kenyon brings back one recommendation to Berkeley: Buildings on commercial streets should be set back from the sidewalk, so trees can be planted in front of them (Daily Planet, Aug. 19-21).  

Yet these setbacks would widen streets visually, giving them even less of the intimate feeling of European streets. Better alternatives are ordinary street trees or the trees-in-parking that we have on University Avenue in downtown. These narrow streets visually, giving them a more intimate feeling and slowing traffic.  

The shopping streets that Kenyon enjoyed in Europe do not have setbacks, nor do the shopping streets that people like most in the Bay Area (such as, College Avenue in Rockridge).  

In fact, New Urbanist designers, such as Andres Duany and Victor Dover, have created development codes that forbid setbacks from the sidewalk on commercial streets, to give them the feel of traditional shopping streets.  

Charles Siegel  

• 

FRANKLIN SCHOOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Franklin School was an excellent school about 50 years ago. Many of our children attended the school, for this area was occupied by mostly young parents at the time. 

Most of that generation of active parents are now deceased. But we have a new generation of young parents with a new generation of children. We need to maintain Franklin School, for we will certainly need it again. 

Asline R. Jones 

• 

BUSTAMANTE BOOSTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a Democrat who favors the recall to remove Gov. Davis for the following reasons:  

1. Davis spent $10 million of his campaign money to skew the Republican primary towards the weaker candidate, thus forfeiting his claim that the last election for governor was “fair.”  

2. After several years in which the Republican minority in the State Legislature has blocked all deficit-reducing budgets, Davis still has not shown the leadership to campaign for reducing the necessary approval majority from 67 to 55 percent.  

3. Following the energy crisis, Attorney General Bill Lockyear fought FERC and the big energy companies for restitution while Davis kept silent, unwilling to take the political risk.  

4. Cruz Bustamante has the experience and the program to lead California effectively out of this $38 billion mess.  

Bruce Joffe  

Piedmont

Berkeley’s nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) may be reaching out to the homeless, but workers say they are shortchanging their own employees. 

Union officials charged this week that BOSS has improperly frozen annual 3 percent pay hikes and increased employee co-payments for doctors’ visits and prescription drugs without seeking worker approval. 

“We understand there’s financial problems with every agency, but you have to talk about things,” said Chris Graeber, business representative with the Inglewood-based California Professional Employees, Local Union #2345, which represents 85 cooks, counselors and office workers at BOSS. About 20 to 30 percent of employees are former clients, according to the organization’s human resources chief, Paul Sedler. 

In the midst of contract negotiations this week, the union announced that it had filed unfair labor practices charges against BOSS last month with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for making “unilateral” changes to the wage structure and health care program.  

BOSS officials, facing a dip in private grants and public funding this year, say the changes were necessary to cope with an unprecedented $112,000 deficit for the fiscal year that ended in June. 

“I’ve been a union supporter all my life and will continue to support a union at BOSS...but I can’t grow money,” said BOSS Executive Director boona cheema. “We’re going to give as much as we can give without being in a position next year where we have a higher deficit and we have to shut down programs.” 

BOSS, which serves 3,000 homeless in Berkeley, Oakland and Hayward, has already cut loose a pair of Oakland programs—one for homeless teenagers and one for parolees—in the face of declining funding. In both cases, other agencies took over the programs. 

Cheema said BOSS has also issued a handful of layoff notices to union members, chopped three managerial jobs and reduced administrative salaries to deal with the fiscal crisis. cheema herself took a 10 percent pay cut and now makes $86,589 annually, according to BOSS’s human resources department. 

Kenneth Ko, supervisory attorney with the NLRB’s Oakland office, said his office has not yet heard BOSS’s response to the union charges, filed in two separate complaints July 23 and July 24, and has made no determination. But he said the workers appear to have a strong case. 

“If you’re talking about a situation where there’s a recognized union, generally there’s a requirement to notify and bargain with a union,” Ko said. 

The NLRB will collect evidence from both sides, decide if the charges have merit and seek a settlement if they do, according to Ko. If BOSS declines to settle, the case would go before an administrative law judge, probably this fall, he said. 

BOSS, which provides housing, health care and education for the homeless, has an annual budget of $8.5 million. About 80 percent of its funding comes from government sources, including about $800,000 from the City of Berkeley. 

Labor strife might seem like an odd malady for BOSS, a 32 year-old icon of Berkeley liberalism. But the agency is not alone. The Berkeley Bowl grocery store—known for its endless bins of organic fruit and dreadlocked cashiers—is facing an upheaval of its own, with workers pushing to unionize. 

Terri Dunn, a BOSS fiscal specialist who is on the union’s negotiating team, said the organization has generally treated its employees well, but has overstepped its bounds with its recent maneuvers on pay hikes and co-payments. 

The cost-cutting measures “probably can’t be helped” in the long run, she said, but the organization should bargain with the union, which has been in place since 1993. 

Before this year, workers paid nothing for doctors’ visits or prescription drugs. But BOSS’s health care provider, Kaiser, raised co-pays for prescription drugs to $5 on Jan. 1. 

BOSS agreed to swallow the co-payment until July 1, when the workers’ last, three-year contract expired. Starting Sept. 1, under a new plan management decided to join—without union approval—prescriptions will cost employees $10 and co-pays for doctors’ visits will jump to $15. 

Melissa Leonard, a case manager with BOSS, said the hikes will have a serious impact on her family’s finances. Leonard, a wheelchair user, said she has five active prescriptions and must visit a physical therapist once a week. 

“In order for me to work and keep up my physical stamina, I have to go every week,” she said.  

Leonard’s husband and three children, including a son who must see a neurologist four times a year, are also on her plan. 

But the costs will only be an issue if she keeps her job. Leonard said she recently received a layoff notice and is waiting to see if she will be able to “bump” a less experienced worker out of a job, as the union contract allows, and stay employed. 

If she loses her job, Leonard said, her family will probably go homeless. 

“I feel they’re treating us unfair,” she said. “We’re the frontline staff, we’re the ones who keep BOSS running.”

“Let us be honest and ask, at the outset, what it is that we wish to achieve? We have all been impotent in changing the past behaviour and human rights record in Iraq. Let us therefore redouble our efforts to make sure that we are not powerless now. Let us seek results. Let us make a difference a real difference for the people of Iraq. I cannot think of a more noble and worthy cause.” 

Sergio Vieira de Mello, the man who spoke these words—a man I knew and admired—died Tuesday in the bombing of the United Nations Headquarters in Iraq.  

Any death by violence is very sad, but the violent deaths of people who devoted their lives to helping others are truly tragic. 

The world lost more than human lives when that bomb went off Tuesday. The world lost people of passion and compassion, people who put lives of comfort and security aside to live and work in tense and dangerous situations to help others. 

Sergio Vieira de Mello was a human rights advocate who spent the past 30 years working for the United Nations, trying to solve the world’s most difficult humanitarian situations. I met him in the late 1980s when the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was trying to deal with the forced repatriation of Vietnamese boat people from Hong Kong. I was the United Nations officer at Whitehead Detention Center in Hong Kong, a maximum security compound run by the Hong Kong Government, holding 24,000 Vietnamese who did not want to return to Vietnam under any circumstances. 

The U.N. had a mandate to protect the refugees, but the British and Hong Kong governments did not consider them to be political refugees, and refused to grant them asylum or permission to stay. 

The British plan was to take the Vietnamese, by force if necessary, load them onto airplanes in the middle of the night, and fly them back to Vietnam. The Vietnamese in Whitehead and the other detention centers in Hong Kong, were panicked, distraught, and began a series of desperate self-immolations and self-mutilations—sometimes resulting in death—in order to avoid being forcibly returned to Vietnam.  

It was an impossible, unwinnable human rights situation. 

As the head of the Asian Region for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sergio was the only diplomat who could help mediate the ugly situation. For those of us working in the detention centers, advocating for the Vietnamese, yet having to live with the horrifying violence, Sergio’s calm, compassionate diplomacy was the assurance we needed to keep on working. 

The United Nations did not win, and by 1997, when Britain handed Hong Kong back to Chinese rule, all the Vietnamese had been sent back to Vietnam. 

Equally horrified at the situation of housing refugees in maximum security detention centers was a New York attorney, Arthur Helton, who came to Hong Kong in the late 1980s to write about the plight of the Vietnamese, and to advocate for more humanitarian policies. 

I met with Arthur several times, as he urged me to document the human rights violations I witnessed every day. He was a mentor and teacher as I prepared my first report on the subject of arbitrary detention of refugees for the United Nations. 

Arthur never stopped pushing for more effective responses to humanitarian crises, particularly those involving refugees and displaced people. He was representing the Council on Foreign Relations and was scheduled to discuss the humanitarian situation in Iraq with Sergio in his office at the United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad at 4:30 p.m.—the time the bomb went off. 

Sergio and Arthur, and the others who died with them, were extraordinary people. Working in the field, in places of great humanitarian need, is a calling to which many may aspire, but few can handle. Living outside one’s country is not easy, but living and working in a situation of personal danger, physical hardship, and extreme emotional stress is very difficult. 

Sergio was one of those unique United Nations employees who spent the majority of his 30 years in the field. From Cambodia to Kosovo to East Timor, Sergio was a tireless advocate for human rights. In September of 2002 his exemplary career was acknowledged with his appointment as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He was Kofi Annan’s choice to represent the United Nations in the difficult situation in Iraq, even if it meant taking a leave of absence from his post as High Commissioner in Geneva. 

Sergio was not a supporter of the invasion of Iraq by the United States, but the United Nations had to be there to assist in the reconstruction, and to advocate for the Iraqi people’s human rights. And Arthur came to Baghdad to assess the scope of the humanitarian needs, to determine what could be done to foster justice and human rights. The deaths of Sergio and Arthur are tragedies, but they died for the noble cause they pursued so passionately.  

Let us now redouble our efforts for peace and human rights, as Sergio asked. 

Anne Wagley worked in refugee and humanitarian relief in Asia for ten years before moving to Berkeley. She works for the Berkeley Daily Planet.

The City of Berkeley and the Downtown Berkeley Association will mark the grand opening of the Downtown Arts District with a celebration Sunday Aug. 24 on the 2000 block of Addison Street, between Milvia Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

Events will include an outdoor stage with performances by well-known bands such as Mingus Amungus, an indoor stage with live music and theater performances, as well as arts, crafts, children’s entertainment and food. 

The Addison Street Arts District was financed in part by Measure S, a voter approved bond issue, and has become a nationally recognized model for art-based downtown revitalization. 

A dozen projects have already been installed in the area, including two major sculptures, one near the entrance of the district and the other at the nearby BART station. 

Upcoming projects include an installation of more than 120 iron and ceramic poetry panels that will be placed in the sidewalk with poetry selected by poet laureate Robert Hass.  

Events run all day from noon to 7 p.m. Some are free and the rest can be accessed with a $5 all-day pass. For more information and a full schedule of events, see the insert in today’s Daily Planet.  

—Jakob Schiller

People who adopt do so for a variety of reasons, but the bottom line is that nearly all adoptive parents love their adopted children like their own offspring.  

As a white foster and adoptive mother with a black daughter, I’ve learned that in transracial adoption, love is not necessarily enough. 

Transracial (or transcultural) adoption means placing a child of one race or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group. In recent years, international adoptions from other countries have become common—particularly among well-to-do white couples. These adoptions can cost tens of thousands of dollars, as they usually entail trips to the adoptable child’s country of origin, not to mention lawyers’ and adoption agencies’ fees. 

It is a source of frustration to me that relatively few parents willing to adopt outside their own race will not, or do not consider domestic adoption through county or local foster care agencies (which costs nothing). 

I became a certified foster parent in 1999; not because I was interested in adoption (I was already a contented single mom to a Caucasian son, then nine), but because I recognized that there was a dire need for good foster families. I wanted to help others, and I wanted to help myself spiritually and psychologically by embarking on a venture where I could make a difference. 

I didn’t count on falling head over heals in love with my first foster child, a two-year-old who had been abandoned by her troubled parents. Their rights were soon terminated. I thought long and hard about adopting her, and in the end my heart won out. In the meantime, and to this day, I’ve cared for over a dozen other foster children—a myriad of ethnicities and circumstances—for periods ranging from two days to several months. 

My daughter’s adoption was finalized two years after she was placed in my home, but the learning curve began the day she arrived. I had to learn how best to parent a child whose skin is many, many shades darker than mine; who, in others’ eyes, could not possibly be my biological daughter.  

I think it's extremely important for any transracial or transcultural family to become familiar with the culture and history of their adopted child's country or ethnic background. 

In my case, it means reading or rereading books by such authors as Ralph Wright, Alice Walker, or Aliona Gibson’s quintessential Nappy: Growing Up Black and Female in America. 

It means acquiring multicultural children’s books, multicultural dolls, and movies with black heroes and role models. 

It means talking about black pride and racial issues as soon as my daughter can understand. 

It means cultivating more friendships with African Americans, and it means ensuring that my daughter stay in ethnically diverse schools and communities.  

It means learning how to do cornrows and letting go of my self-consciousness about browsing the aisles of stores that sell black beauty products.  

It means confronting my own prejudices and stereotypes—by not crossing to the other side of the street if an unfamiliar black man is walking toward me, or by accepting that Black English is only an alternative to the way I speak.  

It means learning that race is an issue: that even though some people’s ideal would be for a colorblind society, understanding that this attitude can prevail from a position of white privilege is paramount.  

It means finding humor in the face of misguided comments, like the one at Andronico’s last year: “Oh, are you baby-sitting?” 

Or more difficult to swallow, it meant believing that my decision to adopt across racial lines was the right one after a black acquaintance who objects to transracial adoption filed a bogus complaint against me. 

At a Juneteenth celebration my daughter and I went to a couple of months ago, I was one of only a handful of white attendees. My now six-year-old child  

rocked and rolled in the inflatable jump tent, munched on pizza, and bugged me for cotton candy. When another child about her age noticed me nearby and asked her dubiously, “Is that your mom?” my daughter replied in a confident voice, “Yeah!” 

It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last, that she’s asked that question. 

It might be delusional on my part to assume she’ll always be so accepting of me. But I know I’ll do everything I can to instill in her a sense of pride—in herself and her culture, and pride in our transracial family. 

Because for me my daughter is a gift, and I feel privileged to be her mom. Love is only the beginning of what I hope we’ll share as she grows.  

Annie Kassof is a Berkeley resident. 

A former Berkeley schools employee who allegedly doubled as a hooker pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge of soliciting prostitution. 

Sharon Williams, 37, a former activities director for the Berkeley Unified School District’s Independent Study program, entered her plea in Alameda County Superior Court and is scheduled for an Aug. 27 pre-trial hearing. 

Williams was arrested Aug. 13 by an undercover Oakland police officer after he arranged for a one-hour sex session for $250, according to Oakland Police Department spokesperson Officer Danielle Ashford. 

Oakland police say they set up the sting after getting a tip about a steady stream of men filing in an out of an apartment in Oakland’s Rose Garden neighborhood near Lake Merritt. 

Ashford said Williams had been leasing the apartment for about a year and did not appear to live there. 

“When [the undercover officer] got there he found the apartment was very sparsely furnished and it appeared that no one stayed there at night,” she said. 

Oakland police say Williams told the arresting officer she needed the money to supplement her school income, but Williams has denied the account. 

Berkeley school officials have indicated that Williams resigned in June.  

—David Scharfenberg

Berkeley Police are asking the public’s help in locating the hit-and-run driver who fled after striking a motorcycle officer Wednesday on Ashby Avenue. 

The officer, Ben Cardoza, 26, was in good condition Thursday morning after surgery, but no arrests have been made in the case, police said. 

The motorcycle officer was driving westbound on Ashby Avenue at 12:42 p.m. Wednesday with his lights and sirens on when a white sedan, described as a late-1980s Chevrolet Caprice Classic, broadsided Cardoza’s Harley-Davidson before fleeing the scene, according to police and witnesses. 

Cardoza told the California Highway Patrol (CHP) Thursday morning that he got a good look at the motorist, describing him as a black male in his early- to mid-20s. 

Police are treating the incident as a felony hit-and-run. 

Paramedics took Cardoza, a five-year veteran of the force, to Highland Hospital in Oakland, where he was diagnosed with a compound fracture in his right leg, three broken bones in his right foot and a large gash in his left arm, according to Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Officer Kevin Schofield. 

Cardoza got out of surgery at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, police said. 

“He’s doing well,” said Schofield who visited Cardoza, a personal friend, Thursday morning. “He was looking pretty beat up...[But] he’s looking forward to getting back to work and getting right back on his motorcycle.” 

Cardoza was on his way to an accident involving a car and a motorcycle about 10 blocks away at Ashby Avenue and Mabel Street when he was hit. 

Police have pulled out all the stops to find the person who struck Cardoza. CHP and every available Berkeley officer swarmed the crime scene Wednesday afternoon, as a CHP patrol plane flew overhead and police pulled over several white sedans, coming up empty.  

CHP and Berkeley police asked for the public’s help at a Thursday afternoon press conference in Oakland and six officers, from both departments, stopped drivers on Ashby Avenue and handed out flyers. 

“When someone goes flying and the guy doesn’t have the integrity to stop, that’s the kind of guy you want to find,” said CHP Traffic Officer Chris Konstantino, who was doling out flyers. 

According to witness accounts, the suspect came to a stop at the corner of Wheeler Street and Ashby Avenue in South Berkeley, and then pulled out and struck the officer, Ziese said. 

Justin Rosenthal-Kambic of Pleasant Hill was driving westbound on Ashby Avenue behind Cardoza when he saw the collision. He said it appeared that the bike may have struck the car. 

“It seemed pretty bad,” said Rosethal-Kambic. “It seemed like the bike just fell apart.” 

Another witness, who described himself as a Downtown Berkeley businessman but asked to remain nameless, had harsh words for the car driver. 

“As we approached the intersection, some a------- came...really fast and hit him really hard,” the witness said. “It was a really horrific impact. To say it was airborne may be an exaggeration. But it was off the ground.” 

Ziese said Cordoza nearly had a head-on collision with another vehicle as a result of the collision. 

Berkeley Captain Douglas Hambleton described Cardoza as a dedicated officer who has focused on reducing drunk driving. The officer recently won a $200,000 grant from the state’s Office of Traffic Safety to help curb the problem, Hambleton said. 

Schofield said Berkeley police brought parts of the car to a Richmond auto parts distributor who identified them as pieces of a 1987 to 1990 white Chevrolet Caprice Classic. But police say the parts are sometimes used on other General Motors cars from that era. 

Schofield said the vehicle likely has front end damage, concentrated on the left side of the car. 

CHP is the lead agency in the investigation. Berkeley police turn over major injury cases involving their own officers to CHP to ensure an independent investigation, Schofield said. 

Anyone with information should call CHP at 450-3821 or (888) 301-4247. 

Daily Planet reporter Matt Artz contributed to this report.

Every college campus ‘cross the country is infested with street-side greasy spoons and fast food-product storefronts. Fortunately for Cal students, North Berkeley is also home to the California cuisine revolution, which features fine locally produced foods at reasonable prices.  

If you’re one of those folks who’s not human until they’ve had a cuppa joe, ideally a café machiatto with a fresh-baked, still hot pecan “snail” breakfast roll—both for just $3 total; and if you want to enjoy your java at a sidewalk café table sharing news of the day with many of Berkeley’s most interesting and famous folks, the Cheese Board’s morning café is for you. While the “cheese” part of the internationally renowned Cheese Board is closed Mondays and doesn’t open ‘til 10 a.m. the rest of the week, that doesn’t stop several hundred folks from stumbling in for their “wake up” sacramental every weekday morning. Even when the Cheese Board ain’t open for cheese, the worker collective members still manage to get up extra early to bake fresh snail rolls and scones and muffins and breads and brew fresh coffee and steam up all sorts of specialty drinks Monday through Friday from 7 a.m.-10 a.m. Then it’s over. Unless you want cheese. Located at 1504 Shattuck Ave. in North Berkeley.  

Nearby resides the original Peet’s Coffees and Teas, birthing place of the Neo-American barista movement. Stop by the corner of Vine and Walnut to see where Starbucks stole their best ideas and in the process created the new world java-order. Fresh coffee ground and brewed all day long. Also close by is the North Berkeley French Hotel. A nice place to stay and not too expensive, but the best part of the French Hotel is it’s café downstairs, a great place to people watch, study or just sip coffee. Ask Angelo to decorate your cappuccino with one of his trademark foam creations. 

If you’re still there around 11:30 a.m., the Cheese Board Pizza Collective opens for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Not only do they make the finest, fresh baked vegetarian pizza you’ll find anywhere, the Pizza Collective also features the hottest free live jazz show you’ll find short of the jazz boat nightclubs floating on the River Seine—without the expense and trouble of flying to Paris. Scat singers, piano and vocals, piano and bass, trios, quartets—it’s all happening here and it’s totally free. The crowd on the listening from the sidewalk is often larger than the crowd inside chowin’ down. If you’re a jazz fiend, this is the hot spot for what’s cool in jazz (and of course, they have great pizza). 1512 Shattuck Ave. in North Berkeley, open 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 4:30-7 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. 

After all that eatin’ you’re probably suffering a little energy slump. Fortunately Masse’s Pastry Shop is close by and Wednesday through Monday you can get a cappuccino and a cappuccine, or maybe a fresh fruit tart, or one of their pastry filled cannelloni to perk up your energy level. When you see another one of their incredible bridal cakes leaving the shop you know you’ve made the right decision. Forget school and order a special cake to celebrate your decision to become a local food critic! Masse’s makes cakes for every occasion. Recently they baked a cake for Chevrolet’s 50th anniversary of the Corvette with spun sugar Corvettes. For a UC neurologist’s celebration they made a cake that looked like a human brain. And of course they make wedding cakes—Paul and Marsha Masse’s favorite was a three-dimensional pirate ship with billowing sails. Traditional wedding cakes are actually la specialité de la maison, but why limit yourself? Located at 1469 Shattuck Ave. in North Berkeley, open from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. every day but Tuesday. 

Sometimes you need a little food to go with your sugar. If you like sushi good and cheap and if you like your décor over-the-top plastic and tacky, featuring life size figures of Betty Boop and Godzilla, palm trees and god knows what else dripping off the ceiling and hanging off the walls, Party Sushi at 1776 Shattuck Ave. is your jungle in the dining department. The food is delightfully inexpensive: two pieces of Nigiri from $1.75 to $3.45, with most around $2; three pieces of sashimi from $1.95 to $3.75, averaging around $2.50. They also serve reasonably priced teriyaki plates, tempura rolls, party platters, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and desserts. The food’s fresh, tasty and inexpensive but the décor is the kicker—it’s hilarious. Open 5:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m., closed Tuesday. 

Some folks won’t eat meat. Some folks won’t even eat anything derived from an animal. I’m not one of those folks but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying a great vegan meal. Cha-ya Vegetarian Japanese Cuisine at 1686 Shattuck Ave. offers food so good you’ll forget that it’s politically correct and good for you, too. No faux meat products here—they’ve mastered the art of making vegetables taste both filling and delicious. Kozara (small dishes) from $4 to $5; sushi from $3 to $4; udon and soba noodle plates from $6 to $8; and full on combination dinner plates from $13 to $17. This place is tiny, so don’t bring a big crowd. And expect to wait a bit. But it’s worth it. Open 5 p.m.-9:30 p.m., closed Monday.  

For great beer and burgers everyday of the year, Triple Rock Brewery and Alehouse at 1920 Shattuck Ave. near University Avenue can’t be beat. The game is playing (any game) on the large screen TVs hanging from the ceiling, there’s shuffleboard in the back, and there’s peace and quiet upstairs on the rooftop garden. This place is easily big enough to accommodate the entire slate of clowns and candidates currently running for California governor (remember to recall whoever wins) plus the Rock has great beers in nearly every style, fresh brewed on premise and on tap. Student pricing is the rule here.  

Got a hot date and want to pretend you’re a great cook? Stop by Gregoire Take Out Restaurant at 2105 Cedar St. at Shattuck ten minutes before she shows up and serve her four-star-quality, cooked-to-order, fresh French food. We’re talking Freedom Food here, the kind of freedom that allows you to dash home from school at the very last minute and still be able to pull off a full blown dinner without raising a sweat. There’s no place like Gregoire. After calling in your order you can pick up everything including appetizers and desserts and drinks and have it on your table just few minutes after you get home. Chef Gregoire Jacquet, formerly of SF’s Ritz Carlton, uses fresh, locally grown, organic, natural ingredients in his daily selection of 12 different entrées that includes everything from red meat to fish to vegetarian. Try the marinated Montana New York steak in anchovy butter ($16) or the baked Sea of Cortez scallops in puff pastry torte with tomato sauce ($15). And don’t forget dessert—the bread pudding ($3.50) is to die for. It ain’t the cheapest but it’s certainly the best. Open 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. for lunch and 4:30 p.m.-9 p.m. for dinner. Closed Sundays. Call 883-1893 to order in advance. 

When mom and dad are picking up the tab, or if you’ve decided to pop the big question, or if you’ve just been accepted to Boalt or Hastings Law School with a full scholarship, there’s only one place to go: Chez Panisse. Frankly you can’t afford it otherwise. Downstairs dinner with wine averages $100 to $150 a person but then again this place is world famous for it’s food. Upstairs, the café runs a little cheaper but it’s never inexpensive. After all, this is the restaurant that Alice Waters built, the very birthplace of California cuisine. Reservations nearly always required. Located at 1517 Shattuck Ave. 548-5525.

I still remember the taste of my first scone. It was in 1969 at a bed and breakfast in the south of England. Like my first kiss, the scone was a bit dry but, nonetheless, a thrill. 

Alas, when I returned to Berkeley, a decent scone was not to be found. There were, however, other charms that kept me here. Cars that screeched to a halt the instant I stepped out in a crosswalk, affordable rents and home prices, and pretty co-eds who greeted my stares with smiles. Then, of course, there was the weather, one gorgeous, sunny day after another, with me allergy-free. Whether my Brooklyn-bred immune system was too confused or too happy to make trouble, I wouldn’t know. But being able to enjoy a beautiful day without itchy eyes and a dysfunctional sneeze alarm was rapturous. 

In 21st century Berkeley, polite drivers are scarce, the co-eds pay me scant attention and I don’ t have to tell you about the cost of housing. However, the miraculous procession of sunny, allergy-free days persists and scones are ubiquitous—with Berkeley surely in the running for Scone Capital of the World. 

For those new to the city and ensconced residents less avid in their pursuit of scones than myself, below are several of my favorite scone purveyors. 

Sconehenge Bakery & Café 

Sconehenge patrons generally show up for the Mexican-influenced, homestyle breakfasts and lunches and the major portion of the bakery’ s business is wholesale (look for their stuff at the Berkeley Bowl and other markets). However, below a big blowup photo of the Neolithic Stonehenge monoliths (who stand not far from the site of my scone initiation), there is a case of baked goods for onsite consumption or takeout. Scan the case for scones and there will usually be a few of the fruit and berry persuasion that won’ t disappoint. Yet, more often than not, I’ ll sample one of the whole wheat creations, which lets me indulge somewhat guilt-free. 

Cheese Board Collective 

Any list of what makes Berkeley Berkeley would certainly have the Cheese Board near (or at) the top. A worker-owned collective, its roots go back to the fall of 1967, following the Summer of Love. Together with its comrade in comestibles, the Pizza Collective, the Cheese Board worker-owners continue to provide the masses with countless varieties of cheese, sensational sui generis pizzas, superb breads and sweet treats, including superior scones. On their pastry racks, you’ ll regularly find their trademark currant, oat and corn-cherry scones, as well as a scone of the day, featuring such wonders as pear-ginger and chocolate chip. If you’ re plagued by ambivalence, I suggest to simply seize the scone that looks largest. 

Nabolom Bakery 

Another of Berkeley’ s worker-owned collectives, Nabolom was founded in 1976 and has hung on through various travails as an Elmwood neighborhood treasure. Nabolom is perhaps most famous for its transcendent challah, consciousness-raising cinnamon twists and legendary cheese danishes, but the collective does offer an assortment of excellent scones definitely worth a try. Specialties include blackberry, blueberry lemon, cranberry orange and a unique graham scone, rumored to be the sacrament of a local sconehead cult. 

Phoenix Pastificio 

Particularly renown for its artisan pastas, pasta sauces and popular, lunch-only restaurant, the Phoenix also carries a distinctive selection of breads and quality pastries. And, inspired perfectionist that he is, Eric Sartenaer, Master of The Phoenix, doubtless left no scone unturned in his search for a specimen worthy of his establishment. What he’ s presented us with as his signature scone is a deluxe line of hazelnut concoctions which clearly rise to the high standards of Gourmet Ghetto gastronomes. 

Fourth Street Scones 

The Fourth Street shopping district is Berkeley at its classiest. But, although I belong to the shop-a-phobic class, I will frequent Fourth Street for the noshing and people-watching possibilities. On Fourth, my two habitual scone suppliers are Bette’ s-To-Go (the takeout annex of Bette’ s Oceanview Diner) and The Pasta Shop. 

Want to experience a Berkeley moment of bliss? Transport yourself down to Fourth and buy a copy of the “American Splendor” anthology at Cody’s, pick up one of Bette’ s classic currant scones or a cornmeal blueberry scone at The Pasta Shop (or maybe both), get a cup of Peet’ s brew of the day (be sure to bring your own ceramic mug, preferably bearing the logo of a surviving dotcom), snag a prime spot to sit and savor the schadenfreude of East Coasters’ tsuris. 

Cheese Board Collective: 1504 Shattuck Ave., 

549-3183 

Nabolom Bakery: 2708 Russell St. (near College), 

845-2253 

Phoenix Pastificio: 1786 Shattuck Ave., 883-0783 

Sconehenge Bakery & Café: 787 Shattuck Ave., 

845-5168 

Bette’ s-To-Go: 1807 Fourth St., 548-9494 

The Pasta Shop: 1786 Fourth St., 528-1786

Starting college is adventure enough without the added complications that come from mastering the ins and outs of a strange new community. We just don’t know the spots: where to get the best slice of pizza, who’s got the best vinyl selection, or where to find the best three-dollar breakfast. 

Since I’m something of a newcomer myself, the powers that be at the Daily Planet teamed me up with a Berkeley veteran, photographer Erik Olsen, who gave me an insider’s look at some favorite hangouts and resources. 

Call it an insider’s guide of sorts. 

Food of course is usually the main concern. And, like any good college town, Berkeley has a variety of good, cheap places to eat. 

For breakfast try Café Durant. Open since 1987, Café Durant is the regular’s spot. Many Café Durant habitues have been coming for years, drawn to the incredible variety on the menu and the price. Besides the traditional egg-and-toast breakfasts, the cafe also offers things like fresh strawberry and honey crepes, and a plate called the Breakfast Deluxe, which comes with fruit salad, two banana and chocolate chip pancakes, a strawberry banana crepe and a veggie omelet, all for $5.25. Readers of the UC’s Daily Californian have voted Durant’s the city’s leading breakfast spot for eight straight years.  

Across the street from Café Durant, La Val’s Pizza holds the unofficial title as Berkeley’s prime Game Day spot. With a large screen TV, lots of space, some of the best pizza in town and beer on tap, the place is packed for Cal football and basketball away games. Besides pizza, the menu offers an encyclopedic array of sandwiches, Italian food, burgers, fries, barbeque and salads that serve between 10 and 20 people. Packed with video games and toy dispensers, La Val’s begs people to be loud and rowdy.  

When it comes to pizza however, nobody beats Zachary’s deep dish Chicago style pizza, with one restaurant on Solano and the other on College. Zagat’s, the well-known restaurant review guide, tells its readers: “Dishing up the best stuffed pizza this side of Chicago (some argue, in the universe), the widely popular Italian twins inspire fierce loyalty from pie partisans.” To say that they’ve won their share of awards is an understatement. The walls are covered from floor to ceiling with plaques and rave reviews from some of the Daily Planet’s lesser rivals like the San Francisco Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal, all attesting to Zachary’s undeniable dominance. The pizza takes a while to cook, and the place is packed on Friday and Saturday nights but management encourages you not to get discouraged. They’ve devised a system where you can order your pizza, go next door and peruse through one of two well-stocked used bookstores, and by the time you get a table, your pizza is ready, fresh and hot. And to add the perfect Berkeley touch, the owners have deeded the restaurant to their employees, making Berkeley’s best pie a truly cooperative offering. 

If you’re into healthier eats, but still on a budget, try Café Intermezzo on Telegraph. The menu itself isn’t very big but you can’t go wrong. Everything is fresh including the thick, dense homemade bread, and their claim to fame are salads so big you usually can’t finish them. 

Time is always something a student never has enough of, so if you want something quick, good and affordable, the new sandwich shop Grub n’ Go is the place. Located just south of campus on Allston, Grub n’ Go has a variety of hot sandwiches including the turkey and cranberry, made with turkey they roast themselves in the back of the shop. Started by Cal Alumni, Grub ‘n Go is the easy, healthy and smart alternative to the conventional quick lunch. 

Late night food spots are like cult classics in college towns. The number one late night eatery in Berkeley is the Smokehouse on Telegraph. Open until 1:20 a.m. Monday through Saturday, they offer burgers, chill cheese fries and milkshakes tasty enough to attract lines of customers that last until closing time. They also offer a mean veggie burger.  

At some point you are going to have to study. Instead of locking yourself in the library, try a coffee shop. There are several around campus but one in particular stands out. Brewed Awakening on Euclid Street north of campus is one of the largest and offers all varieties of coffee, smoothies, fresh juices, and sandwiches. With exposed brick walls, a high ceiling, large tables that facilitate group meetings, and wireless internet, Brewed Awakening has inspired great work, including several books that list the cafe in their authors’ acknowledgments. There is no time limit and always an open table. Owners Samir and Georgette Nassar take pride in making the shop as comfortable as possible. The service is quick and the couches are soft, making the shop what Samir calls, “the student’s home away from home.” 

And for those of you who avoid eating so you can spend your money on vinyl and CDs, Berkeley has two premier record stores. Between Rasputin and Amoeba, both on Telegraph Avenue, you can find almost anything. Both have deep vinyl crates, great reggae sections and Amoeba has one of the best jazz collections around. Both promote local labels, and both have great used sections. Music lovers, you’re in luck. 

And last but not least, a suggestion for all who appreciate good art. Instead of having blank, ugly walls in your dorm rooms, drop by Reprint Mint on Telegraph, the largest print and poster shop in the country. The selection is incredible and the prices are affordable, with stacks of larger prints and posters under $15.  

There are of course more places than can be listed, especially concerning Berkeley’s great selection of local bookstores. Check out Cody’s Books and Moe’s Books, both on Telegraph. Between the two you can’t go wrong. Should your tastes incline toward the New Age and mystical, there’s Shambala Books on the same block, while just across the street Shakespeare and Co. offers the best in used and rare volumes.  

Most of these places are within walking distance of campus. Zachary’s is a little farther away but worth the trip. Most restaurants have menus packed with items under $6 and many have items under $5. See below for a list of addresses. 

Once, when I was in my early 20’s, I borrowed a friend’s Camaro, drove it out to a country road and took it up to 100 miles per hour, not for any special reason other than to find out what it felt like to go 100 miles per hour. It was not an experience I have ever felt the need to repeat. I don’t do roller coasters or bungee jumps, either. Speed, I have discovered, is not one of my addictions.  

But speed—particularly in its most easily accessible urban form, the speeding car—is addictive, and we ought to keep that fact in mind as we go about making social policy and trying to keep our streets safe.  

Driving around the East Bay this summer, it’s hard to miss the increasing incidents of speed-related activity, mostly by our young folk. Often you’ll see them punch the pedal and take off as if somebody flipped a switch inside their heads, roaring down International or San Pablo Avenue for blocks and blocks, whipping around in the parking lanes to pass the cars in front, springs bouncing, arms waving, music blasting, tires throwing rocks in their wake. Sometimes in groups of twos and threes, it looks like a rolling party, or a parade. I’m sure it’s infectious for certain other young folk. It can be awfully scary for many of the rest of us.  

The Oakland police, bless their hearts, have in recent years tended to blame things combining speed and cars in that city on the sideshows or “sideshow-related activity,” whatever that is, which tends, therefore, to overlook the driving force behind their own colleagues gearing up for the thrill and rush of high-speed chases after those high-speeders. So perhaps we ought to look for other aggravating factors.  

One is our advertising policy. An oddity of American society is the special interest we often take in encouraging our friends and neighbors to purchase items for the use in activities that we thereafter expressly discourage and/or forbid (I’ll wait while you read that over again, if you need to).  

The folks at Toyota, normally a sedate bunch, have taken to running television commercials where they speed a Camry down empty highways, every once in a while turning backward circles. The country roads of my youth being far away in both space and time, there are at present no empty highways in the proximate vicinity down which to speed a Camry. But that’s not the concern of the folks at Toyota, is it?  

At the corner of International and 73rd Avenue, a half a block from the spot where Breeona Mobley died in a high-speed single car collision last spring, there’s a billboard of a car half-tilted to one side next to one of those cans of power drinks that so closely resemble a can of malt liquor, in appearance if not in potency. Down the street they have another billboard, this time featuring a boxer throwing a punch. Throw back a couple while you low-ride and fight. Now that’s a message that’s needed in our inner cities.  

But while we’re giving our young folks a wink and a shove with the one hand, we’re slowly squeezing them with the other.  

To appreciate both the beauty and the genius of the East Bay’s streets as they were originally intended, you’ve got to wait until late at night—after 3 a.m., preferably—during the week, when the traffic thins and the cities are mostly asleep. You can cruise from Albany to Hayward, first down San Pablo and up the long boulevard south of Oakland as it changes from International to East 14th and then, finally, to Mission. Put a little old school traveling music on the CD player (my preference is War’s “City Country City”) and there’s scarcely a red light or another car to slow your way.  

But that was before the population explosion and the car boom of the 50’s, and how many of us can go out cruising at 3 a.m.? Take that same route in the daytime and it’s like driving a forklift down the aisles of a factory—an endless creep broken up by a succession of long stops. Drive in the left lane and invariably, the car in front of you blocks the lane to make a left turn. Swerve over to the right and there’s a UPS truck stopped, or someone waiting for another car to leave their parking space. Or the Oakland choke, somebody just stopped in the car to chat with a friend on the sidewalk.  

It’s frustrating for 50 year-olds. No wonder some of these kids want to speed up, weave through traffic, run red lights, zip around in the bicycle lanes to get a few cars ahead.  

Am I excusing speeding on our city streets? No. I’m only saying that in the same way that cause precedes effect, solution follows understanding of cause. Just something to think about, on a warm East Bay night in August as the cars speed by up on International.

In a joint operation with U.S. Customs officers and Postal Inspectors, Berkeley Police raided an apartment at 1710 Ward St. Thursday afternoon, seizing five and a half pounds of hashish and nearly $8,000 in cash, according to Berkeley Police Narcotics Detective Jack Friedman. 

Police estimated the street value of the drug at $500,000. 

Customs officers discovered the concentrated marijuana plant resins stashed inside toffee candy packaging shipped to Berkeley from an address in the Netherlands, then alerted Postal Inspectors and Berkeley Police. 

A postal carrier then delivered the shipment to the apartment, and Berkeley Special Enforcement Unit officers armed with a search warrant entered soon afterwards, seizing the cash and drugs. 

Two residents of the apartment were arrested and booked into City Jail on multiple charges of importation and possession of controlled substances and conspiracy. 

The drugs were packaged in shrink-wrap and then hidden inside commercial toffee wrappers. 

“If not for the hard work and diligence of the U.S. Customs Service and Postal Service Investigators, this would not have been possible,” said Detective Friedman.

TUCSON, Ariz.—As the number of undocumented, would-be migrant workers found dead in the deserts of the Southwest since last October climbs into the 100s, why does a multi-million dollar European clothing company want me to dress like a Spanish-speaking laborer?  

Earlier this summer, as I read news reports of deadly crossings along the U.S.-Mexican border, I caught a preview for the new fall line from Diesel, the Italian clothing company, on display at one of its New York flagship stores. Mannequins dressed in gray-blue and green uniform-like garments stood with shovels and pickaxes at their sides and stacks of burlap sacks at their feet. Spelled out in the lower left-hand corner of the window was the line’s title: “Trabajadores,” Spanish for “workers.”  

I tried to piece it all together.  

Though Diesel’s jeans are made solely in Italy, many of its other garments are manufactured overseas, where offshore production zones (in Mexico, Guatemala and Taiwan, for example) provide the benefits of low taxes, low wage standards, lax regulations and limited unionization. That meant that some of the workers who had stitched and sewn the clothing in the window had probably labored in countries where they really would be called “trabajadores.” And then there were the hundreds of thousands who have left such jobs in Latin America and migrated to cities like Chicago, Omaha, New York, Rome, and Madrid, where chances are they’re still called “trabajadores.”  

Borrowing (or co-opting) real-life “looks” and marketing them to the masses is standard fashion fare. Remember the ripped-jeans heroin addict and the baggy-pants gangster looks from the 1990s? It’s been hip to look poor for a few years now. But why the toiling attire? I went inside the Diesel store to dig up more.  

“Personally, I think it’s about Communism,” the Diesel sales rep whispered to me. “The shovels, the drab colors, the similar styles for men and women. It’s all very equal. It’s, like, celebrating the worker.”  

Possibly. After all, Diesel clothes, as the company’s subhead proclaims, are “For Successful Living.” But the last time I checked, washing dishes, digging ditches, and sewing garments -- the jobs that trabajadores often do -- weren’t considered glamorous. More important, the illegal status of many immigrants means they are easily exploited and grossly underpaid. If we really want to celebrate the trabajadores, we’ll have to do a lot more than dress like them.  

So maybe this was some new utopian vision. According to the downloadable press pack available on its Web site, Diesel views the world as “a single, borderless macro-culture.” Maybe the sales rep was right. Maybe we are all equal. Or maybe, as advertisers know so well, we just want to pretend we are.  

A few years ago Diesel put out a series of advertisements that aimed to turn everyday media representations of Africa (poverty, AIDS, civil war) upside down. The ads showed black models (hence, Africans) in Diesel clothing frolicking at luxurious parties á la bella gente. Superimposed on the images were faux newspaper headlines reporting strife and financial collapse in America and Europe.  

The point? I’m not sure, but in 2001 the campaign won the Grand Prix for Press and Poster Award in Cannes.  

It’s the kind of advertising that tricks consumers who have a certain dose of social consciousness. It banks on the fact that some of us will eventually relax our commitments to justice in exchange for hip-ness. That we’ll see the drab worker clothing and fall for it: “Sweatshops are sooo passé. Workers unite!”  

The UHC Collective, an organization based in Manchester, England, that makes political art and propaganda, doesn’t agree. They’ve run “subvertisements” mocking Diesel (”Die Sell,” they call it) and hope that the advertising strategies of companies like Diesel will eventually backfire. As one UHC member wrote in an e-mail message, “They sell ‘anarcho-styled’ clothes, so why not take them at their word and organize a mass shop lift? If companies are going to dabble in these kinds of politics they’ll get what’s coming to them.”  

Perhaps. More likely, people will simply buy the “Trabajadores” clothing without much thought. Even if the ads do create a stir, in the end, the success of such campaigns comes from the fact that eventually shoppers forget the controversy and simply remember the brand name.  

After a few weeks the fall preview display came down, leaving me to wait until September to see what comes of the “Trabajadores” line. In the meantime, I wonder if we’re truly moving toward Diesel’s borderless world of cultural equality. Or, to paraphrase a character in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” we’re all equal—but some of us are more equal than others.  

If you’re looking for sports, Berkeley and the surrounding East Bay offer a host of opportunities. And while definitions of what constitutes a work-out vary—from just “a walk in the park” to a full blown adventure—there’s no end to the activities available near campus. 

Here’s a brief list of resources for newcomers and for those who have been here for a while but are just now gearing up to get off the couch. 

Cal Adventures 

Cal Adventures provides information, instruction, trips and rental equipment for students and the general public in the following activities: backpacking, snowshoeing, climbing, wilderness medicine, skateboarding, rafting, sailing, sea kayaking, swimming, boating, and windsurfing. 642-4000 or www.oski.org. 

East Bay Regional Parks 

The hills just above the campus are laced with miles of trails for hiking, running, horseback riding and mountain biking. Closest of the East Bay Parks to campus is Tilden, offering all of the above, plus swimming, fishing, rollerblading, and golfing. Wildcat Canyon and the Nimitz Way, both located within the park, provide some of the best trail activities and are easily accessible from the university. From the trailhead at Inspiration Point off Wildcat Canyon Road, the first two miles of Nimitz Wayare paved, making for an excellent, challenging course for rollerbladers and a smooth, car-less trail for bicyclists. It’s also the starting point for some wonderfully hilly mountain bike loops. Nearby Lake Anza features swimming and fishing, and Tilden Park Golf Course (848-7373), at the intersection of Grizzly Peak and Shasta Road, is an 18-hole course with driving range, putting green and teaching pro. 562-PARK or www.ebparks.org.  

Aquatic Park 

Frisbee Golf and Par Exercise courses are both available at this city park located on Bolivar Way at the foot of Bancroft Way, along with water skiing, canoeing, and rowing in the mile-long lagoon. This is the place to catch the Pedestrian Bike Bridge across I-80 to the Berkeley Marina and Cesar Chavez Park. 644-6530 or www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/parks/parkspages/aquaticpark. 

Cesar Chavez Park 

Located north of the west end of University Avenue, this former city dump (no kidding!) provides wonderful opportunities for strolling, biking, rollerblading, fishing and kiting. With beautiful views of San Francisco, Marin and the Golden Gate, this is a great place for easy workouts or just relaxing. The relatively flat, 1.25 mile trail around the perimeter of the park is a gentle, paved course for those who don’t want to work up too much of a sweat. The park is also a great place for Frisbee throwing, dog walking and picnicking. Just south of Cesar Chavez is the Berkeley Marina with more gorgeous views and a 3000-foot pier that juts out into the Bay.  

Berkeley Ironworks 

Believe it or not, the East Bay has a hosts of rock climbing opportunities, all located near campus. One of the very best resources available is Berkeley Ironworks at 800 Potter St. at Seventh Street. This indoor rock climbing gym provides 14,000 square feet of vertical and horizontal man-made walls, rental equipment, instruction and pro-shop. Open seven days a week, day use and memberships are available, as well as an extensive weight room, spinning and yoga classes and saunas. The folks behind the desk can dish out more information than anyone else on outdoor climbing opportunities, including top roping at Cragmont and urban bouldering at Indian Rock and under the freeway pass on Golden Gate Avenue. 981-9900 or www.touchstoneclimbing.com. 

Berkeley Iceland 

Located within walking distance of campus at 2727 Milvia St., this old-fashioned rink provides open skating, hockey, broomballl and lessons. Thursday night is College Night and it’s only $6 (including equipment) to skate between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. 647-1620 or www.berkeleyiceland.com. 

Oakland Ice Center 

An easy BART ride from Downtown Berkeley, Oakland Ice Center is located just one block from the 19th Street BART Station at 519 18th St. Open skating, speed skating and pick-up hockey games are all available but hours of operation vary so call or check their website. 268-9000 or www.oaklandice.com.

Although best known for his mid-to-late 19th century landscape design work on the East Coast, Frederick Law Olmsted created his first residential subdivision in Berkeley, centered on Piedmont Avenue—the first of his signature curvilinear parkways with divided roadbed and landscaped median.  

Olmsted’s name entered the designer’s pantheon when he and architect Calvert Vaux won the 1857 competition to design Central Park in New York City, and Olmsted supervised the park's construction until the outbreak of the Civil War.  

As the designer of Manhattan’s dominant landscape feature, and the author of numerous articles, Olmsted was highly sought after, and he took a position as supervisor for the Mariposa Mining Estate in California in 1863. 

Among the projects Olmsted worked on during the two years he was in California were the plans for Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Trees, Mountain View Cemetery and the College of California. 

In 1864, Trustees of the College of California asked Olmsted to prepare plans for their new campus and an adjacent residential subdivision on land they had purchased four years earlier. A private school based in Oakland, the college merged in 1868 with the newly created University of California. 

Although Olmsted’s plan for the campus grounds was not realized, the residential subdivision, called the Berkeley Property, was laid out and graded. The area lies between College Avenue on the west, Prospect Street on the east, Dwight Way on the south and Strawberry Creek on the north. Piedmont Avenue (formally Piedmont Way) is the main divided roadway bisecting the residential subdivision and is the most clearly defined surviving feature of Olmsted’s 1865 plan for the College of California.  

While Piedmont Avenue is a curvilinear street, with a planted median, rounded corners, and a large garden circle at Channing Way, Olmsted's street design merges and blends with the existing grid pattern of the streets to the west. 

By the first decade of the 20th Century Piedmont Avenue was lined with impressive houses designed by prominent architects and set in lush gardens. Although today these homes are mostly used for student housing, the appearance of the street, with its green median and some remaining overhanging trees, retains many of the qualities Olmsted envisioned. Today there are plans to replant the two-block medium between Bancroft and Channing that has become an impromptu and unsightly parking strip for UC’s fraternity row.  

Piedmont Avenue is Olmsted’s first divided residential boulevard design. His plans for Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, the Buffalo Parkway system, and Boston parkways had their beginnings here. 

During the next thirty years Olmsted designed hundreds of parks and residential subdivisions where the most important element was the preservation, enhancement, and use of natural features. Olmsted’s legacy can be seen in residential subdivisions across the country.  

Piedmont Way was designated California Historical Landmark No. 986 in May of 1989. A plaque was placed at the intersection of Bancroft and Piedmont in 1990. It is also a city landmark.  

Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny is author of the book “Berkeley Landmarks.”

While Berkeley merchants offer an incomparable range of recorded music from Electronica & House to Dvorak and Vivaldi, serious students can find instruments, sheet music and some of the most obscure ethnic titles. 

Tupper & Reed on Shattuck Avenue has been in business for 80 years, originally in the Tudor building next door—a City of Berkeley Landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Current partner Wayne Anderson began working at Tupper & Reed in 1969 when he was a graduate student in music at Cal, and now uses extras of his 200,000 sheet music titles as wallpaper to decorate his display window walls. 

With only three successive owners, Tupper & Reed sells, rents, and repairs a wide range of instruments, including electric guitars and drums in the basement, where 15 music instructors teach beginners to advanced musicians in seven sound studios. Well known musicians who have either studied or taught there include Lenny Pickett of the Saturday Night Live Band; Mike Wolfe, who played with Cal Tjader and served as musical director of the Arsenio Hall Show; jazz pianist Rodney Franklin; and Chris Solberg, who has played with Santana and Chris Izaak. 

Forrests Music on University was founded by Dutch and Kate Forrest on Kittredge Street. Current owners John and Marilyn Goebel were Forrests repair technicians, and they still feature woodwind and brass instruments, especially oboes and bassoons, saxophones, trumpets, bagpipes, Klutz harmonicas, or anything else one can blow through. Several instructors give lessons (including drums) at Forrests, all instruments are for sale or for rent, and every employee plays woodwinds.  

Across University and down a little is the Bazaar of India, “the first Indian store on University.” Kirpal Khanna founded his shop in 1971, and has been President of the University Avenue Association (UAA) for the past six years. While Khanna offers all things from India, he sells and repairs hundreds of instruments including varieties of sitar, tabla, sarod, harmonium, dholak, tamboura, and santoor. 

Instructors teach tabla and harmonium every Friday from 4:00-6:00 p.m. Classes cost $20 per hour, and you must bring your own or a borrowed instrument. 

Bazaar of India also offers CDs, cassettes, DVDs, instruction books, and sheet music, and repairs instruments on site. Recognizable musicians who have frequented Bazaar of India include Ali Akbar Khan and Zakir Hussain. 

Back down the north side of University is a true Berkeley treasure, Ifshin’s Violins, in a two-story brown shingled renovated bungalow. Everything at Ifshin’s epitomizes excellent taste: the restored pine floors, Oriental rugs, an unusually fine collection of vintage international posters featuring violins and violin artists, and, of course, violins. Owner Jay Ifshin studied violin making in Salt Lake City, Utah and Bozeman, Montana, and worked for the store’s previous owner. All sales people play bowed string instruments with Bay Area symphonies or groups. 

Violin experts or beginning learners will find the best Jay Haide student instruments, as well as the occasional Stradivarius. While Ifshin’s has 2,000 violins available for rentals, seven violin makers create Baroque violins in the back for serious players. Thought to be largest on the west coast, this unique shop also carries violas, cellos, basses—and no guitars. Also on offer are lessons, repairs, accessories, gadgets, and Suzuki sheet music. 

Reid’s Music, founded in 1945 by Melvin and Betty Reid, is West Coast headquarters for gospel music CDs, DVDs, videos, gospel music books, and gospel sheet music. David Reid’s uncle, Paul Reid, was the first religious DJ on the West Coast at KDIA and KRE. 

Reid’s focuses on the “Black church experience,” providing choir robes, bibles, song books and church supplies, as well as African American music, blues, and jazz. 

Harder to find but well worth the trip is Boaz Accordions. Boaz and Judy Rubin opened their accordion shop in 1995, after Boaz apprenticed accordion building and repairs with the legendary Gordon Piatanesi. A lifelong musician, Boaz once worked as a machinist and has the patience for the painstaking work required to make the instruments that make almost everyone smile. 

Boaz carries piano accordions and chromatic button accordions in addition to diatonic button, Tex-Mex, Cajun, Irish, Concertina, folk, and Bandorian accordions for tango music. The Rubins’ signature accordion is the famous, top-of-the-line Armando Bugari from Italy. 

KPFA’s Larry Kelp is an “accordion freak” according to Judy Rubin and a frequent visitor. Boaz prefers the “old-fashioned way of doing business”—in person—since accordion selection and playing is so personal.  

Boaz holds Wednesday night drop-in beginners classes at 7:00 p.m., and features CDs, books, music, accessories, stands, and “workshops with visiting geniuses.”  

A final note: Besides the chains, some independent bookstores sell recorded music including Half Price Books, Music, and Magazines at 1849 Solano Ave.; Pegasus Fine books & CDs at 1855 Solano Ave. and 2349 Shattuck Ave. Moe’s Books, at 2476 Telegraph Ave., offers a good selection of new and used sheet music as well as a few carefully selected CDs. 

Sunday August 24th 2003 

Downtown Berkeley's Frint row Festival 

wwwdowntownberkeley.org

Most of the 220 Berkeley teachers—about a third of the total faculty—handed pink slips in March will be back in their classrooms when school opens Wednesday, administration officials said. 

“The numbers are great,” said district spokesman Mark Coplan. Only eight of the 220 teachers remain without jobs. 

For the second straight year, the board—operating under state mandate—had to notify teachers whose salaries the district couldn’t guarantee for the following year. 

Statewide about 10,000 teachers were given notice last March when the California Legislature delayed passage of the state budget, leaving school districts across the state unable to budget for teaching positions because they didn’t know how much money they would have at their disposal. 

The layoff notices damaged morale and sent some Berkeley teachers into open rebellion. At Washington Elementary School, where 13 of 19 teachers were pink-slipped, faculty posted pink signs on their windows on which they wrote “pink slipped teacher.” 

Now, according to a school administrator, all of the teachers are back. 

Union officials said the notices were unnecessary because the actual number of job cuts were in line with teachers retiring or leaving the district.  

“People are happy to have their jobs back, but it affected morale throughout the spring when teachers were preparing for exams,” said union leader Barry Fike. 

Not all of the teachers asked back decided to return. Coplan could not provide exact figures, but said some teachers had already accepted jobs in other districts or left the profession. 

Berkeley schools will employ about fifty fewer teachers this year, reflecting a steady drop in enrollment—about 500 students in the past two years, according to Coplan. 

For most students, fewer teachers won’t mean larger classes, but ninth-graders will see a dramatic increase. 

The district pulled out of a federally subsidized program this year that aimed to limit class size to no more than 20. Budget shortfalls left the district unable to pay for its share of the program, Coplan said. 

Ninth grade classes should now average about 30 students per classroom. 

Class overcrowding remains an issue throughout the high school, said incoming principal Jim Slemp. “In some classrooms it will be impossible for every kid in class to have a desk,” he said.

If your parents are springing for tuition and room and board during your first semester at Cal but not for a Honda Element, don’t be bummed—Berkeley’s many public transportation options combined with the city’s bicycle friendly atmosphere make driving seem so 20th century you might even consider joining the Green party.  

The time-honored choice for the wheel-less student has always been the bus, and Berkeley is no exception--especially when it’s free. As part of Cal’s “Class Pass” program, all enrolled students can ride AC transit anytime, anywhere gratis. All you have to do is pick up a “Class Pass” at Cal’s photo ID office located in the student union. AC transit estimates that Cal students take three million trips a year on its lines. 

Affectionately referred to as “Aunt Clara” by locals, AC Transit gets its name from the counties it serves, Alameda and Contra Costa. The AC lifeline for most Cal students is the legendary 51. It stops right in front of Sproul Plaza for service to Downtown Berkeley and points north. Just a block south on Durant you can catch the 51 as it heads south to Oakland. Another popular choice for students is the 40 line that makes its way to Oakland via Telegraph Avenue. 

If you’re out clubbing, AC Transit offers its owl service from 1 a.m. to 5 p.m. nightly, but the buses only run once an hour. There is also an owl bus from San Francisco into downtown Oakland.  

Nearly all AC Transit buses are equipped with easy-to-use bicycle racks mounted on the front of the bus. You can bring your bicycle along any time of day without an extra fare or permit. 

For more information on AC Transit services, schedules, routes and fares, visit their website at www.actransit.org. 

You probably already know about Berkeley’s other public transportation option, BART. But, did you know that the rail line passes through its three Berkeley stops entirely underground because of the insistence of Berkeley officials at the time BART was being designed in the early 1960s? No other Bay Area city can make that claim and few are as well served by the transit line. 

BART stops in Berkeley near the Oakland border on Ashby between Adeline and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way; in downtown Berkeley at Shattuck and Allston Way; and in north Berkeley along Sacramento between Virginia and Delaware.  

One-way fares to and from all the Berkeley stations are a reasonable $1.15. A one-way fare to downtown San Francisco from the downtown Berkeley station is $2.75 and $5.15 to the new San Francisco Airport station. At $1.75 BART is also an affordable option for getting to the Oakland airport—just get off at the Coliseum station and take the bus shuttle service to the nearby airport.  

The only downside to BART is that it shuts its gates at midnight, but if you make it to the station before then you won’t turn into a pumpkin, as trains continue to run past midnight.  

Bikes are also welcome on BART, but not during commute hours or on crowded cars. The Downtown Berkeley station is particularly bike friendly and offers a free, attended bike parking lot weekdays from 7:30 to 8 p.m. For more information visit BART’s website at www.bart.gov/. 

With its relatively flat terrain, most of Berkeley is readily accessible by bike. Thanks to several dedicated bike lanes near campus, it’s also a safer option than in other communities. However, it’s not like a Critical Mass rally everyday out on the streets of Berkeley either. Cycling is not allowed on campus (remember to walk your bike) and the Berkeley police have been known to pull over and cite bicyclists that fail to stop at stoplights.  

While bikes have gotten more technologically advanced and pricier in recent years, there are still two-wheeled bargains to be had. Downtown Berkeley’s venerable Missing Link bike store offers not only a wide selection of new street and mountain bikes, but used ones they’ve refurbished as well. Prices on used bikes range from $150 to $300. And, if you just need a bike for the day, rentals are available from $25 to $35. For more information, visit the store’s website at www.missinglink.org. 

If you absolutely have to get somewhere by car, Cal’s radio station KALX 90.7 FM offers the “Ridefinder”--a unique alternative to renting a car or borrowing your roommate’s hatchback. The Ridefinder, read everyday at 3 p.m. by the on-air DJ, is a listing of rides being offered and requested by KALX listeners. A name and phone number is given, then it’s up to you. The service is mostly used for people needing longer rides such as to Los Angeles.