A Bay Area-based government program set up to promote the building of low-income housing has instead legally issued a substantial percentage of its low-cost bond financing to high-end apartment construction, according to documents on the agency’s website. It calls into question why an agency program whose self-declared purpose is “to deal with the increasing shortage of affordable housing” has ended up funneling so much potential low-cost financing into housing that is clearly not low-cost. 

The affordable housing financing program of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) announces on its website that it has “successfully completed 53 affordable housing project financings” throughout California. However, close to half of ABAG’s affordable housing project financings in Alameda County went to seven mixed-used Berkeley facilities built by Berkeley-based developer Panoramic Interests. Eighty percent of the units in each of the seven Panoramic housing projects are market-rate rentals, far out of the financial reach of low-income renters. 

In addition, ABAG’s signed agreement with Panoramic Interests to sponsor bond financing for the Gaia Building specifically exempts ABAG from having to monitor whether Panoramic actually rents the affordable apartments to low-income tenants.  

In its bond funding contracts, ABAG defines affordable housing as housing that charges a monthly rent not in excess of 10 percent of the median monthly income for the area in which the housing is developed. For Alameda County, that means a monthly rent of approximately $650 for a family of four. 

No other developments in Berkeley besides the Panoramic projects received ABAG-assisted funding, and the $72 million in bond financing made available to Panoramic during the eight years of the program far overshadowed the $4.5 million in bond financing that went to all of Oakland in the same period. One possible reason for the politically-savvy Panoramic’s dominance of the local bond issuance is that in order to qualify for ABAG-issued bonds, a development project must be sponsored by a member of ABAG’s Finance Authority For Nonprofit Corporations. Any California public agency is eligible for membership in the Finance Authority, subject to approval by ABAG’s executive board. At least some of Panoramic’s ABAG bond projects were sponsored by members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. 

The tax-exempt government bonds are preferred by housing developers over non-government financing because of their lower interest rates. 

There is no evidence that Panoramic misled ABAG in applying for the loans, and Clarke Howatt, ABAG’s Director of Financial Services, insisted in a telephone interview that the financing project has been carried out in compliance with regulations of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which he says allows tax-exempt bond financing for housing developments so long as at least 20 percent of those developments are set aside for low-income residents. Berkeley “inclusionary” ordinance mandates that all housing developments put up in the city meet that 20 percent low-income set-aside. 

While ABAG-assisted affordable housing developments can be as low as 20 percent affordable, the ABAG bonds are often issued for the construction of the entire housing development, not just for the portion of that development which is affordable. In the case of the $15.4 million in tax-exempt bonds issued by ABAG for Panoramic’s Gaia Building in 2000 for example, the funding was intended for the construction of all 91 apartments in the facility. In practical terms, it meant that $12.3 million in the tax-exempt bonds that might have gone directly into the construction of affordable apartments in another project instead went to the 73 units in the Gaia Building that were not affordable. 

“I think you’re onto a good story,” said Berkeley Housing Director Steve Barton. “If you look at the ABAG program name, it says something along the lines of the ‘nonprofit housing development fund.’ And yet, virtually all of their funds go to for-profit developers. I have real questions about the appropriateness of how ABAG handles their program.” 

Barton said that he knew of one Berkeley nonprofit housing developer that “applied to ABAG and was turned down on the grounds that [ABAG] regarded the loan as riskier than lending to a for-profit developer.” 

Informed of the $72 million in Panoramic bond financing, Ian Winters, Executive Director of the Northern California Land Trust, said merely “wow.” The trust is a nonprofit Berkeley-based group that, among other things, builds low-income co-op and condominium projects of 10 units or less. The ABAG program “doesn’t seem targeted very well,” Winters said, “given that Berkeley’s Housing Trust Fund is about $4 million a year, and there’s five nonprofits who practically trip over ourselves trying to get that money.” Winters added that he’s not “that familiar with” the lending program. “I’d heard little bits about it, but it’s not something that we have applied for yet. I thought that the loans applied only to senior housing projects, which is something we don’t really do. If nothing else, it’s a really, really bad job of publicity.” 

Janice Weston, Housing Development Assistant with the nonprofit Community Development Corporation in North Oakland, said her organization was not aware of the ABAG bond program. “There are so many things going on that some of them just don’t come into your immediate purview, but that’s one that I’m not familiar with,” Weston said. “One of the problems with the nonprofits is that we often operate in a vacuum. So I don’t know about the ABAG program, but everybody else might know.” Weston said her organization currently has developed more than 50 low income housing units for sale and rental in Oakland. 

Todd Harvey, Housing Project Manager for the nonprofit Jubilee Restoration housing developers in Berkeley, said that he was aware of the ABAG bond program because Jubilee had worked with Panoramic on the ABAG bond-financed Acton Courtyard development. Harvey said he did not feel that ABAG should be responsible for getting out information on its loan programs to developers. “How we find out about any of this funding is research,” he said. “HUD didn’t come to us and ask us to apply for any of their programs. What we do is when we need money for certain programs, we would call up agencies and organizations and ask them what money is available. It’s up to the nonprofit developers to do the research themselves. And anybody who’s in the housing field knows all the sources of funding.” Harvey said that Jubilee intended to apply for ABAG bonds for its own future projects. 

Established in 1961, ABAG is the official planning agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay region. All nine counties and 99 of the 101 cities within the Bay Area are voluntary ABAG members, and one elected official from each governmental body serves as a delegate to ABAG’s General Assembly. The General Assembly representative for Berkeley is Councilmember Miriam Hawley. The representative for Alameda County is Supervisor Nate Miley, and the representative for the city of Oakland is Councilmember Jean Quan. 

ABAG is one of several public agencies that compete for a limited yearly state pool of this bond funding for housing projects. The pool is operated by the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC) of the state treasurer’s office. The money is divided into three separate pots: one for mixed income projects having 50 percent or less affordable housing units (such as the Panoramic projects), one for general projects having more than 50 percent affordable housing units, and one for rural projects. While the different types of projects never compete directly against each other, the financing for one pool of projects (such as those which require only 20 percent affordable housing) necessarily uses bond funds that could otherwise be allocated to fully affordable projects. 

According to Elissa Dennis, an affordable housing financing consultant with Community Economics, Inc. of Oakland, the mixed-income pool is important because the low-interest bond payments it provides give for-profit developers an incentive to build a percentage of affordable housing in projects that would otherwise be totally market rate. Dennis also said that the fact that no nonprofit Berkeley housing developers received ABAG bonds did not mean that those developers were being frozen out of the CDLAC market; she noted that they might have applied for and received CDLAC bonds using sponsorship from another government agency. 

Patrick Kennedy, the head of Panoramic, did not return a telephone call from the Daily Planet to answer questions in connection with this story.

FRIDAY, FEB. 13 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Therese McMillen, Deputy Director of Policy, MTC, “Solving Bay Area Transportation Issues” Lunch 

11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

Anarchist Crush Night at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, a reading room, library and commu- 

nity center in South Berkeley located at 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Kevin Danaher, Co-founder, Global Exchange and Anuradha Mittal, Director, Food First at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Donation $5. For more information call 528-5403. 

“Fostering or Frustrating Globalization” with Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, at 4 p.m. in 101 Doe Library, Morrison Library, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War” and “Imagine America” will be shown at 7 p.m. at the Kucinich for President office, 3362 Adeline, near Alcatraz. 420-0772. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m. 

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. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

Overeaters Anonymous meets every Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. Parking is free and is handicapped accessible. For information call Katherine, 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 14 

Valentine’s Day Walk along the pathways and attractions of Daley’s Scenic Park and UC Berkeley’s rapidly expanding Northeast Quadrant. Led by Jim Sharp and Berkeley Landmarks website creator Daniella Thompson and other local heritage experts. Please meet at 10 a.m., rain or shine, 3 blocks north of the UC Campus, at the top of the steps connecting La Loma Ave. with Virginia St. Plan on some stairs, hills, and off-pavement surfaces. For questions, please call Jim at 841-7271.  

“A Walk in the Garden” Colorful blooms are already on display in this Garden of California Native Plants at Aquatic Park. Meet outside the Cabin at the park’s southern entrance at 10 a.m. Aquatic Park EGRET egret@lmi.net or 549-0818. 

Fruit Tree Pruning Basics A hands-on class held in a Berkeley garden. General discussion on when to prune and when not to, maximizing and improving the quality of fruit production, different techniques and management styles, and specifics for different trees, with time for general tree pruning questions. Bring your own sharp hand clippers and branches from trees from your yard if you can. $10 for Ecology Center members, $15 others, no one turned away for lack of funds. Call for location 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Free Worm Composting Workshop Get the scoop on worm composting from the experts at the Alameda County Composting Program. Worm composting can be an especially good choice for apartment dwellers and others lacking yard space. Find out how to compost kitchen scraps into free, nutritious fertilizer using red wiggler worms. The class is geared for beginners but those who already compost with worms and need advice are welcome too. From 10 a.m. to noon at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. 548-2220, ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org  

The Beautiful Camellia Garth Jacober will talk about planting, care and pruning of these garden beauties. At 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Sunset Walk in Emeryville at 3 p.m. Turn off Hwy 80 at Powell St. exit, go west to Chevy’s off Frontage Rd. Rain cancels. For more information, call Vera at 234-8949. Sponsored by the Sierra Club Solo Sierrans. 

Residential Drainage Systems, a seminar for homeowners and builders, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Truitt and White Conference Room, 1817 Second St. Free, but reservations are required. 649-2674. www.truittandwhite.com/seminars 

Pee Wee Basketball for boys and girls ages 6 to 8 years begins this Sat. and runs for 6 weeks from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 1255 Allston Way. Fee is $25 for residents, $35 for non-residents. Sponsored by Berkeley Youth Alternatives 845-9066. 

God’s Beloved: A Workshop for LGBT Persons and their families and friends from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 2401 Le Conte Ave. Pastor Michal Anne Pepper will help participants identify how shame interferes with their relationship with God and how the bible is misused to create that shame. To register call 848-3788. www.uccbdoc.org 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. The class is taught by Rosie Linsky, who at age 72, has practiced yoga for over 40 years. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. For further information and to register, call Karen Ray at 848-7800. 

Kol Hadash Family Brown Bag Shabbat from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Though we are a little ahead of Purim, we will get to know Queen Ester who had the courage to rescue her fellow Jews in Persia. Please bring lunch for yourself and children, and finger dessert to share. Juice provided. 428-1492. kolhadash@aol.com 

SUNDAY, FEB. 15 

“Park Transformations to Come” Walk the location in Aquatic Park where Coastal Conservancy may fund safer trail connections and habitat plantings. Meet outside the Cabin at the park’s southern entrance at 2 p.m. Aquatic Park EGRET egret@lmi.net or 549-0818. 

Owl Pellet Mystery Party Learn what’s left over from an owl’s meal. We’ll discover the remains and you’ll go home with at least one more skeleton than you came with - guaranteed! From 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $4. 525-2233.  

Early Bloomers Leatherwood, currants, milkmaids and trillium are just waiting for you to admire on our trails. Take a hike to see them and learn their natural history. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

“Imagining Queen Califa” a family event with interactive activities, storytelling and music, in collaboration with The Art of Living Black Cooperative, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Nepal and The Philippines: Why are People’s Movements and Their Leaders Under Attack?” at 3 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

Tibetan Buddhism, with Sylvia Gretchen on “Meditations for Relieving Pain” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Feldenkrais Resources Open House from noon to 5 p.m. at 830 Bancroft Way at Sixth St. 287-5748. 

Eckhart Tolle Talks on Video, free gatherings at 6:30 p.m. to hear the words of the author of “The Power of Now” at the Feldenkrais Ctr., 830 Bancroft Way. 547-2024. EdScheuerlein@aol.com  

MONDAY, FEB. 16 

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthing at 1:15 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425.  

Health Care House Parties for Howard Dean & Measure A Alameda County for Dean is sponsoring informational gatherings at private homes to present Measure A, the health care initiative for Alameda county, and Howard Dean. Call 548-8414 or go to www.eb4dean/ 

houseparties for details on time and locations. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 17 

Tuesday Morning Birdwalk at the Albany Bulb, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Meet at the end of Buch- 

anan St. in Albany. Call if you need binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Vernal Pools: What? When? Where?” with Carol Witham, consultant on botanical and biological ecosystems of vernal pools of California and Nevada, at 1 p.m. at the Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. Free. Sponsored by the Berkeley Garden Club. 524-4374. 

Celebration of Black History Month, singing, dancing, jazz and poetry slam at 7 p.m. at BHS Little Theater. Sponsored by the BHS PTSA and the Parent Resource Center. 

Friends of Strawberry Creek meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Central Public Library Meeting Room, 2090 Kittredge St. Carole Schemmerling will talk about daylighting Blackberry Creek at Thousand Oaks School Park.  

“The California Budget Crisis: What Caused it? What are the Alternatives?” with Lenny Goldberg, California Tax Reform Association, at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 27th and Harrison Sts. Potluck social hour at 6 p.m. Sponsored by the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club. 99-PEACE. www.democraticrenewal.us 

“25 Years of Kindred with Octavia Butler” at 4 p.m. in the Morrison Room, Doe Library. Sponsored by the Center for African Studies. 642-8338. http://ias.berkeley.edu/africa/ 

“Mountaineering 101” at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Judaism, What is it all About?” an interactive lecture series with Rabbi Judah Dardik, at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays at Beth Jacob Congregation, 3778 Park Blvd., Oakland. 482-1147. www.bethjacoboakland.org 

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. 234-4783. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

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

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. 215-7672.  

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18 

UC Hotel and Conference Center Subcommittee of the Planning Commission meets at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

Tilden Explorers A nature adventure program to learn about our local amphibians, for ages 5 to 7 with an adult, from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Great Decisions 2004: “The Philippines” with Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, Editor, Pacific News Service and Filipina Maganzine, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. The Great Decisions program will meet Wednesdays through March 31. Briefing booklets are available. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in 255 Dwinelle, UC Campus. www.berkeleystopthewar.org  

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Hide-A-Way Café, 6430 Telegraph Ave. For information call Fred Garvey, 925-682-1111, ext. 164. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vig 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 

Amnesty International Berkeley Community Group meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1606 Bonita Ave., at Cedar St. Join fellow human rights activists to help promote social justice one individual at a time. 872-0768. 

THURSDAY, FEB. 19 

“Selling Out the First Amendment: The Collision of News, Entertainment and Politics” with John Carroll, Editor, The Los Angeles Times, in conversation with Michael Krasny, at 7:30 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Sponsored by The Graduate School of Journalism, The Goldman School of Public Policy and The Office of the Chancellor. Tickets are $5, available from 642-9988. 

Golden Gate Audubon Society, “Crossing the Frozen Roof of the World” Geographer Pam Flowers presents a slide show and talks about her 2,500-mile adventure across the North American arctic coast. At 7:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Free. 843-2222. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

“Tree Rings: Tales of the Past, Indicators of the Future” with Dr. Constance Millar of the U.S Forest Service, at 2:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of CA, 1000 Oak St., at 10th St., Oakland. Free. 238-2200.  

“Fabric of Hope” with Nike Davies, textile artist and painter from Nigeria, at noon in 220 Stephens Hall, Geballe Room, Townsend Center. Sponsored by the Center for African Studies. 642-8338. http://ias.berkeley.edu/africa/ 

Berkeley-Palma Soriano Sister City Association invites you to join our June Delegation on Culture, Spirituality and the Environment in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. Informational meeting at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Hall, 2180 Milvia St., 6th Floor Conference Room. For more information, call Francisco at 981-6817. www.geocities. 

com/berkeley-palma/ 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meeeting at 7:30 at the LeConte School, 2241 Russell St. 843-2602. 

“Update on Vista College” with Jacqueline Shadko, VP of Instruction, from noon to 2 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room, Albany Public Library, 1247 Marin Ave. at Masonic. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 841-2837. 

“What are the Kabbalah and The Zohar?” with Rav Michael Laitman at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Hillel Jewish Student Center, 2736 Bancroft Way. 845-7793. 

Simplicity Forum on self-esteem issues when pursuing the simple life at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, Claremont Branch, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 549-3509. www.simpleliving.net 

Exercise After 50 Berkeley’s Active Choices program, which offers people over 50 free “coaching” toward an exercise program, will be the focus of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Assn. meeting, at 7 p.m. at Live Oak Park Recreation Center, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Justine Kaplan will outline how these programs can help fight chronic diseases, from diabetes to joint pain or heart failure. For information see www.internettime.com/bpwa or call 524-4715. 

“People’s Health Movement” with Steve Miller, MD, President, Doctors for Global Health, at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-9460. http://ihouse.berkeley.edu 

ONGOING 

Family Activist Resource Center A small group of East Bay parents is meeting monthly to set up a drop-in center where parents and caregivers can come with their children and do their political work while their children are cared for in a creative, respectful and nurturing manner. For information on the next meeting, contact Erica at ericadavid@earthlink.net or call 841-3204. 

Valentine’s Gram by UC Choral Ensembles A quartet will travel anywhere within 1/2 mile of the UC campus, sing two songs in full harmony and deliver a long-stemmed red rose and a signed Valentine's Day card to your special recipient. You can schedule a 15-minute time slot for Friday, Feb. 13 between noon and 10 p.m. or Saturday, Feb. 14 between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. Prices are $25 for students and $40 for the general public. Call 642-3880 to reserve your time. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon. Feb. 17, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

City Council meets Tues., Feb. 17, at 7 p.m. with a Special Meeting at 6 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Berkeley Housing Authority meets Tues., Feb. 17, at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. ww.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/housingauthority 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Feb. 18, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/humane 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., Feb. 18, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Lisa Ploss, 981-5200. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/aging 

Commission on Labor meets Wed., Feb. 18, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Delfina M. Geiken, 644-6085. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/labor 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed., Feb. 18 at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/welfare 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs. Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Anne Burns, 981-7415. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/designreview  

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Prasanna Rasaih, 981-6950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/faircampaign 

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 19, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Peter Hillier, 981-7000. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/transportation?

CLOSE THE LOOPHOLES 

Dear Mayor Bates: 

City staff paycuts and mandatory time off (MTO) is a Bushy neo-con, neo-liberal concession and the wrong thing to do in an economic crisis. Are you going to be supporting big-box stores and labor abuse at Safeway and Albertson’s next? The neoliberals expect you to roll over as they gain more ground strategically in the US. Fortunately, history has shown that neo-liberal policies nearly always fail: remember Chile and Argentina? Well paid city staff help fuel a healthy local economy. Your recommended paycuts, and even the threat of paycuts by businesses that happily follow your bad example, will help to ruin our local economy. No paycuts or labor rule manipulations for city staff.  

There’s plenty of money in this community. Plenty of value that can be taxed to pay for necessary city services if both the federal and state governments are not providing the revenues needed for necessary city services. It’s a lie that there are more efficiencies to be made in this city. Most people in civil service social service jobs are working an equivalent of three jobs at once. This must end. The rich of Berkeley aren’t going anywhere. You and the Berkeley City Council have to tax the wealthy residents—both corporate and individual. Close all loopholes. You have to tax property transfers above a certain amount and come up with other direct ways of raising revenue. If balkers move to Texas or the wasteland of middle Amerika, plenty of high quality others will come to replace them. A stand needs to be taken somewhere about the right thing to do to maintain a civilized society that adequately provides an infrastructure for an evolving civilized city. This city leadership, as any city being victimized by poor-mouthing state and federal leadership, must take the reigns itself and adequately, pro-actively and compassionately provide for the well being and necessary public services for it’s remaining middle class and needy citizens. Unlike neo-liberal policies, these policies nearly always produce a higher quality of life for everyone. 

Mayor, please work hard to open up business planning to larger non-special interest public oversight. Firmly ban package stores, soulless department stores and big boxes. Employ the creativity of the residents of this city to enrich the local economy. I would think that we could effect a socioeconomic balance here in Berkeley. You’ve done better in the past. Do far better now for the people you are charged to help. We don’t need a turncoat neo-liberal like Jerry Brown in the City of Berkeley. We need Tom Bates, who over his long tenure brought much needed social improvements in over 200 pieces of legislation that significantly helped the poor and middle class to have a higher quality of life, even in the face of early neo-liberalism under Reagan as California governor. 

Frank Snapp 

Oakland 

• 

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST 

Dear Mayor Bates: 

Isn’t there some city rule or sanction prohibiting full-time Berkeley employees from sitting on city boards and commissions? A case in point, Brad Smith is a full time legislative aide for Linda Maio yet presides as the chairperson of the Waterfront Commission. This is a blatant conflict of interest, never more glaring than at January’s Waterfront Commission meeting when Brad introduced a motion to move $100,000 of Marina monies to downtown. The Berkeley marina must run in the black. They collect revenue from various restaurants, the hotel, the berths, the bait shop and the concessions. The money garnered in the Marina should stay in the Marina to repair the docks, paths, etc. Fortunately, the other commissioners voted his motion down. 

Susan Wengraf also serves on the Planning Commission as a full-time aide of Betty Olds. 

Could we please stop this illegal practice? It is a way for staff to rule the citizen comprised commissions. 

Jeanne Burdette 

FRIDAY, FEB. 13  

FILM 

Anthony Mann: “The Man from Laramie” at 7:30 p.m. and “Men in War” at 9:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa. 

berkeley.edu 

The 6th Annual Independent Film Festival (IndieFest), a world-wide blend of more than 100 independent films and videos, Feb. 13-15 at the Oakland Metro. Tickets are $9 for each screening; $7 for matinees. 415-820-3907. www.sfindie.com 

THEATER 

Actor’s Ensemble of Berkeley, “Helen of Troy (Revised),” written by Wolfgang Hiles- 

heimer, translated and directed by David Fenerty at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck. Fri. and Sat. through Feb. 21. Admission is $10. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Albany High School, “Grease” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Also on Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5-$10. 558-2575. 

Aurora Theatre, “Man of Destiny” by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Barbara Oliver at 8 p.m. Through March 7. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Yellowman” by Dael Orlandersmith, directed by Les Waters, 2025 Addison St. Through March 7. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Impact Theater, “Say You Love Satan” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Runs through March 13. 464-4468. www.impacttheater.com 

Independent Theater Projects, “Three One-Acts” performed and produced by Berkeley High students, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $4-$8 at the door. gcrane0601@hotmail.com 

“Roberto Zucco” by Bernard-Marie Koltès, directed by Kristenn Templeman, presented by Impromptu Theater and the Dept. of French at 8 p.m. at Durham Studio Theater, UC Campus. Also Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8-$15. ktemple@uclink.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Paco Underhill explains “The Call of the Mall: The Author of Why We Buy on the Geography of Shopping” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

A Night of Erotic Haiku hosted by Charles Ellik at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation of $5-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Youth Speaks Poetry Slam, for ages 13-19, at 7 p.m. at Youth Radio Cafe, 1801 University Ave. 841-5123. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Venice Baroque Orchestra, Andrea Marcon, conductor, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$56, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Hip Hop & Art for Change at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Flamenco Spirit with Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $45-$55 and includes dinner. 843-0662. www.cafedelapaz.net 

Eddie Marsh Trio, comtemporary jazz at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $10-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

“Bands Against Bush,” presented by Bay Area Arts Collective, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Psychokinetics, Sol Rebelz and Feenom Circle at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

My Bloody Valentine Bash at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Seventy at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Brian Melvin at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Tom Paxton, traditional and topical folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50 in advance, $21.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

La Verdad, salsa, at 7 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15, $10 with student i.d. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Monkey Knife Fight at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Frisk, Whiskey Sunday, Try Failing, Static Thought, at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 14 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Asheba at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568.  

“Wild About Books” storytime at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Helen S. French, “Cultural Convergence: The Nile and the Mississippi” solo metalwork exhibition at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Reception for the artist from 4 to 6 p.m. 843-2527. www.acccigallery.com 

THEATER 

Independent Theater Projects, “Three One-Acts” performed and produced by Berkeley High students, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Between Spruce and Euclid. Tickets are $4-$8 at the door. gcrane0601@hotmail.com 

FILM 

Anthony Mann: “El Cid” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Venice Baroque Orchestra, Andrea Marcon, conductor, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$56, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Trinity Chamber Concerts presents The Novello Quartet in a concert of romantic music for Valentine’s Day at 8 p.m. at 2320 Dana St. at Durant. Donation $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Valentine’s Day Cabaret with singers Rudy Guerrero, Elizabeth McKoy, Gail Simpson, and Wood- 

row Thompson, and an ensemble from Shotgun Players, at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $35 at the door. 925-798-1300.  

Kurt Ribak Trio at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The House Jacks, a cappella at 5 and 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Soukous and Afro-Muzika at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Valentine’s Day with Larry Stefl Jazz Quartet at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Tears in Your Beers Twangfest, featuring Loretta Lynch, the Belltachers and Nelly Bly, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation of $7-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Aya de Leon’s Valentine’s Day, a literary and musical celebration of love’s varied manifestations at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Flamenco Spirit with Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos at 5 and 8 p.m. upstairs and 6 and 8:30 p.m. downstairs at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $55-$65 and includes dinner. For reservations call 843-0662. www.cafedelapaz.net 

Bat Makumba, Brazilian dance at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

SoVoSó at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Eddie Gale, avant-garde jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $8-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

The Solution, Mushroom at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Ned Boynton Combo at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Reality Crisis, Rotary Beginners, Lebenden Totem, Deadfall at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 15 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4 for children, $6 for adults. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXIBITION OPENINGS 

Jewish Freemasons of the West, opens at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. and runs through July 8. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

THEATER 

Kent Actors, “Hep Ask Vardi (There Was Always Love),” a Turkish family saga at 6 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center. Tickets are $35-$48, $15 for children, available at the door.  

FILM 

Victor Sjostrom: “He Who Gets Slapped” at 4 p.m. and “Fire on Board” at 5:40 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with John Isles and Joseph Lease at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Anthony Dubovsky introduces “Jerusalem: To Know by Living” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Live Oak Concert Frances Blaker, solo recorder, music from the 12th to 21st centuries, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Admission is $9-$10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano, with Sergio Ciomei, piano, at 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $50-$250, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Organ Recital with Davitt Moroney playing works of Louis Couperin at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Donations gratefully received. 845-6830. 

The Don Robinson Trio plays the music of Glenn Spearman in celebration of his life and contribution to improvisational music from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6139. 

Counterfit, Park, Over It, Plans for Revenge at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

“Liberating the Diva Within” the ancient art of belly dance at 8 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph Ave. Tickets are $10 at the door. 237-2152. www.asata.net 

Taylor Eigsti Trio at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Noe Venable, contemporary folk, 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 

ACME Observatory’s Contemporary Composer Series with Fred Firth and KLiP Trio at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation of $8-$15 suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Amol Iz Given (A Time It Was) featuring Charming Hostess, Kugelplex and Tim Barsky at 7 p.m. at 1923 Teahouse. Cost is $7-$15 at the door. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

MONDAY, FEB. 16 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Marilyn Stablein introduces “Sleeping in Caves: A Sixties Himalayan Memoir” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Luc Houtkamp and Friends, experimental improvisors from the Netherlands, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation of $8-$15 suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

TUESDAY, FEB. 17 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Danielle Huber, Berkeley illustrator, solo show at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco Campus. Reception for the artist 6 to 8 p.m. at 111 Eighth St., San Francisco. 526-3861. 

THEATER 

“Baggage” A Palestinian traveler, stuck in a purgatorial airport, unpacks his memories of massacres and refugee camps, at 8 p.m. at Home Room, International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. Cost is $5. 642-9460. landerso@berkeley.edu 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Rememberance” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lynne Cox describes “Swimming to Antartica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Celebration of Black History Month, singing, dancing, jazz and poetry slam at 7 p.m. at BHS Little Theater. Sponsored by the BHS PTSA and the Parent Resource Center. 

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

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

www.thejazzhouse.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a showcase of ensembles at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18 

FILM 

Film 50: “Blackmail” at 3 p.m. and Video: They Might be Giants: “Tony Oursler” at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Christopher Phillips asks “Six Questions of Socrates: A Modern Journey of Discovery Through World Philosophy” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Travel Book Night with Bruce Wipperman introducing his Moon Handbooks to Mexico and Puerto Vallarta at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

Tim Ward will show slides and talk about his new book, “Arousing the Goddess: Sex and Love in the Buddhist Ruins of India,” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

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.starryploughpub.com 

Café Poetry and open mic, hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert with Philippe Leroux performing “M” at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra presents “Celebrating the American Choral Tradition,” the third annual Berkeley Choral Festival, benefiting the Musicians’ Pension Fund, at 8 p.m., at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Ticket are $10-$45, available from 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

The Anthony Paul and Brenda Boykin Band at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8:00 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jamie Laval, Celtic fiddling champion at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Attack, Blitzenhamer, and Dead Beat at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5.  

848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Nicole and the Sisters in Soul at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Jules Broussard, Bing Nathan and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Oba Oba Brazillian Jazz at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

THURSDAY, FEB. 19 

THEATER 

Central Works, “The Duel,” adapted from Chekhov’s novella, opens at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Runs Thurs. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through March 27. Tickets are $8-$20. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

FILM 

Victor Sjostrom: “Love’s Crucible” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Taro Hattori will present an overview of his recent work incorporating photography and multi-media installation at 9 p.m., Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

Joanne Harris reads from “Holy Fools” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. www.codysbooks.com 

Jacob Levenson explains “The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS and Black America” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Edward Hasbrouck gives advice in “The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

Mare Cromwell reads from “If I Gave You God’s Phone Number” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Steve Wasserman and Michael Larrain, followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. 526-5985  

Frances Payne Adler introduces her new collection of poetry and prose, “The Making of a Matriot” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mutabaruka, reggae dub poet, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Steve Poltz at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Cheryl Wheeler at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $18.50 in advance, $19.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Medicine Ball Band at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Savant Guard at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

?

The owners of the Claremont Resort and Spa announced on Thursday that they have an agreement to sell the fabled hotel to an Orlando-based real estate investment trust. 

The Claremont transaction is part of a $1.4 billion sales agreement for all the properties owned by its parent company, KSL Recreation Corporation. Included in the deal are resorts in Hawaii, California, Arizona and Florida. The buyer, CNL Hospitality Properties Inc., will assume nearly $800 million of debt owed by the Claremont’s parent company. 

Along with the property, CNL will also acquire a labor dispute that has ensnared the Claremont for nearly two years. The Oakland-based Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) union local 2850 have been running a general boycott of the hotel in an effort to force them to re-negotiate two existing contracts and sign a new contract for spa workers.  

Representatives from local 2850 said they are waiting to see who will officially manage the Claremont once the deal is closed. Before the sale, union representatives said they hoped KSL would not stay on as the property manager because of their poor treatment of workers.  

Claremont spokesperson Anne Appel said no immediate changes are expected at the hotel as the transaction is finalized. “It is business as usual at the Claremont Resort and Spa and we are looking forward to our relationship with CNL Hospitality Properties, Inc.,” she said. 

According to spokesperson Patricia Peeples, KSL expects to sign an interim management agreement with CNL when the deal closes. This would allow KSL to continue running operations at the Claremont and other properties. A similar agreement was signed in December when CNL bought the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego from KSL.  

The union is also involved in a labor dispute at the Hotel del Coronado and at several of the other properties CNL will acquire in the new deal. Concerning the Hotel del Coronado, Leslie Fitzgerald, an organizer with HERE local 2850 said CNL has not moved towards settling the dispute. 

According to KSL, the sales are needed to pay off its investors, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), which provided $536 million of KSL’s initial start-up funding back in 1993.  

Representatives from KKR could not be reached but according to researchers for local 2850, KKR is funded primarily by public pension funds, several of which are liquidating those accounts. 

CNL owns 130 hotels across the country. 

“[CNL] is a large corporation with a very small heart, just like KSL,” said Fitzgerald from local 2850. “If they don’t [negotiate at the Claremont] they will become a target just like KSL. It may be that they are willing to negotiate but that remains to be seen. We will do whatever it takes to win a fair contract for the Claremont.”  

›

Single-payer health care is an idea whose time has come. According to a Harvard Medical School study published Feb. 9 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of physicians favor single-payer national health insurance, far more than support managed care (10 percent) or fee-for-service care (26 percent). Despite this high level of support (including most members of such establishment organizations as the American Medical Association and the Massachusetts Medical Society), only a little over half (51.9 percent) of physicians were aware that their fellow doctors support single-payer national health insurance.  

The American public also is looking for fair, affordable, and reliable health care, finding the current shifting sands and rising prices frightening. Much of “managed care,” while classified as HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) does not provide health care at all (in contrast with a true health provider organization such as Kaiser that has its own hospitals, clinics, etc.). Instead, these managed care insurers control access to health care services through payment schemes that more and more function to withhold health care. These payment schemes deny coverage, transfer payments/costs to patients, and interfere with physician orders and treatment. True health maintenance organizations, such as Kaiser, have been squeezed in the economic vise of competition with so-called health maintenance insurance schemes that offer employers lower rates for poorer health coverage, while pushing costs onto patients.  

Although an initiative campaign to establish single-payer health care failed some years ago, and although Hillary Clinton’s complicated effort (which was not single-payer) in the early Bill Clinton presidency also failed, time marches on: Those who now are most profoundly concerned with health care, notably patients and doctors, have become increasingly appalled by the intrusion of insurance companies and their expensive bureaucracies. There is widespread recognition that these companies interfere with and often even deny health care delivery.  

California State Senator Sheila Kuehl has introduced legislation (SB 921) to establish single-payer health care insurance in California; both State Senator Don Perata and Assemblymember Loni Hancock are co-sponsors.  

Locally, Alameda County Measure A has been introduced to provide continuation of public health care services in Alameda County—this is essential and must be passed, to continue not only basic services for the poor but also essential emergency/trauma services for all. 

Single-payer health care is an issue whose time has come. Dr. Denny McCormick, a study author and researcher at Harvard Medical School commented: “The perception that physicians oppose national health insurance often serves to reinforce political barriers to health care reform. Our finding that a large majority of physicians actually support single-payer national health insurance could provide the impetus for national health insurance, particularly if physicians began to publicly advocate for their views.” The American public wants a health care system that is reliable, consistent, affordable, and available to all; single-payer meets those criteria.  

Let’s pass Alameda County Measure A on March 2, and let’s pass SB 921 in the California State Legislature. 

Judy Bertelsen, M.D., Ph.D. practices internal medicine and geriatrics at John George Psychiatric Pavillio in San Leandro.  

xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx. 

After 20 years in Berkeley schools, Kay Sims, special education teacher at Washington Elementary, has mastered the gentlest techniques for making children behave.  

“What does cooperation sound like?” she asks her class of eleven students neatly assembled on the classroom rug. “Cooperation sounds like quiet with one person talking,” she says slowly turning to a boy speaking out of turn. 

Sims’ classroom is sunny and inviting, its walls covered with posters and student projects.  

Her students—grades three through five—all perform at least two grades below their grade level. Instruction time can be trying for both students and teacher. During math class, a fifth grader insisted four times four equaled 18; his classmate, a fourth grader, asked the sum of five and 15, answered 25. 

Because special education students come from across the district to participate in the Washington program, the school has almost no shot at satisfying the No Child Left Behind law. Last year all 13 students opted out of standardized tests, causing participation levels to plummet below the 95 percent required by the federal law. Had the students taken the test, they risked dropping test scores below federally mandated proficiency levels. 

“We’re in a bind,” Kay said. If they take the test it pulls the school down. “If they don’t take it, it pulls the school down.” 

All of Kay’s students have gone through special education assessments: Though one is classified as mildly retarded, the rest have been diagnosed only with learning disabilities or behavior disorders. They have been placed in special education, not because of low I.Q.’s, but poor performance. 

Thumbing through the fifth grade standardized math test, Kay settled on a question that asks students to perform a series of multiplications and divisions. “There’s no way my kids could do this. This may be fine for some fifth graders, but most of my kids are still learning addition and subtraction.” 

Dave Griffith of the National Association of State Boards of Education said the special education requirements included in the 2002 law have caused good schools to be labeled failing. 

“We’re seeing this in a lot of different places,” he said. “You look at the law and it’s obvious they didn’t think this all the way through. There needs to be more wiggle room for schools who have these programs.” 

On the whole, Washington is a solid school. Since 2000 it has improved state test scores by 40 basis points from 689 to 729, though for two years its socio-economic subgroup failed to reach proficiency levels. Last year two Washington teachers won Prudential Teaching Awards for excellence, 

out of five awards given out in the district. 

In 2003 Washington students surpassed federal standards, with 31.9 percent achieving proficiency in English and 44.4 percent in math. But under No Child Left Behind, participation counts as well. If 95 percent of the entire student body or students from any statistically significant ethnic subgroup—African Americans, Latinos, etc—fail to take the test, the school fails. 

Under such stringent rules, it’s easy for a good school to flunk, but for Washington, failure is all but guaranteed. Since Washington has 130 African American students, according to district records, and all 13 students in the special education class last year were African American, the school could not have reached the 95 percent threshold.  

“We failed before our kids even took the test,” said Washington Principal Rita Kimball.  

Last year Washington didn’t fail solely based on its special day class. Participation rates for Latinos, English Learners and socio-disadvantaged students all barely missed the 95 percent threshold. 

But Washington Magnate School Coordinator Bruce Simon said getting an extra couple of those students to take the test wasn’t the issue: “Under African Americans we had 13 kids not take the test. That’s the special day class.” 

Janet Canning, a special education consultant with the California Department of Education, defended the federal guidelines, saying it was implemented to protect “at risk students” by pressuring schools to offer them highly qualified teachers and rigorous curriculum. 

In Berkeley, however, the practice has always been not to test students so far below grade level. 

“Our feeling is it’s immoral to give them the test just to meet a standard dictated by the federal government,” Simon said. 

But with the factors in place for a repeat of last year, Berkeley Special Education Coordinator Alan Joy said the district will now encourage parents of special education students to let their children take the tests, despite repeated concerns from parents that the tests are too stressful on the students. 

Federal rules allow special education students some leeway. Though they must take the test for their grade, they can get extra time or the opportunity to work through problems with an instructor. 

“The content hasn’t been taught to them,” Kay said. “I can break it down and adapt it to their level, but that’s not the test. It’s not a teaching tool.” 

?

We’re shocked, I mean shocked, 

at the boob on the tube, 

at the boob on the tube at the bowl. 

It’s the right boob I’m told, 

the boob on the tube, 

that was bared by the boor 

who danced with the bird 

with the boob that was bared. 

Not sorry was he 

for the boob that he bared, 

for it was not his, the boob that he  

bared, 

so sorry was she, yes sorry indeed, 

for her boob that he bared on the tube. 

But that wasn’t the only boob, 

not the only boob on the tube at the  

bowl. 

The far right boob on the tube, 

the tap dancing boob wasn’t bared. 

Oh we tried, yes we did, 

with our ad for to show 

how the far right boob sucks milk 

from our kids for his war, 

but the boobs at the top 

of the network, you see 

prefer boobs that suck milk 

to boobs that give milk. 

So now you are wondering 

what the moral might be 

of the boobs on the tube at the bowl. 

I’ll tell you of two, 

though you may find more, 

the point of the boob at the bowl— 

Number one: 

A boob on the tube is worth two on  

the Bush. 

Number two: 

Never give a sucker a second chance— 

re-defeat Bush in November.›

South Berkeley neighbors are starving for a pizza restaurant. But a Berkeley zoning ordinance is keeping ovens cold and espresso machines on ice at Spud’s, a trendy pizzeria planned for the corner of Alcatraz Avenue and Adeline Street. 

“I’m stymied,” said Andrew Beretvas, an Oakland restaurateur who has sunk $100,000 into a South Berkeley landmark only to get caught so deeply in Berkeley’s zoning morass that his landlord and chief financial backer is pulling out of the project. 

Beretvas hopes to turn a former guitar shop into a trendy restaurant, serving health-conscious pizza—highlighted by a potato recipe—salads, coffee and pastries. The 1910 building features cathedral ceilings, ornate columns and seating for 100. Hoping to appeal to a hip clientele, the shop would stay open until midnight, providing foot traffic in a blighted neighborhood often devoid of business activity after dark. 

His vision has captured the hearts of surrounding neighborhood groups, two of which have collected signatures on his behalf. 

“This is the type of business we’ve wanted here,” said Anne Healy, a retired UC Berkeley professor and member of the Lorin Neighborhood Association. “Finally we’d have something open late that would help get dealers away from our neighborhood, but the city just throws road blocks up all the time.” 

The chief obstacle, Beretvas says, is a zoning law triggering a city parking requirement when a business applies for a Change of Use Permit and its stringent application by the city attorney’s office. 

For Spud’s, this means the restaurant must provide 12 parking spaces at a building constructed about the time the Model T was introduced and in a neighborhood where even the most immediate neighbors say parking is not a problem. 

Beretvas says his quest to meet his parking requirement has been an exercise in futility. 

He had a deal with nearby Progressive Missionary Church—the only viable parking option within the 300-square-foot radius mandated by the city—but planners had to the pull the deal on the day it was to go before the ZAB because the city attorney’s office correctly noted it violated Berkeley law governing business dealings with nonprofits. 

That law was quickly changed, but the church then backed out when it learned Spud’s would serve beer and wine. 

Beretvas dropped the alcohol, but the parking deal fell apart a third time when the city attorney’s office ruled that, as in other cases throughout the city, the church would be required to sign a deed restriction guaranteeing to provide the 12 spaces, which the church contended would be an unacceptable restriction on its control of its parking supply. 

Planners came up with what they believed was a legal escape clause in the agreement, allowing the church to reclaim the parking spaces with only 30 days notice, but then Beretvas’ landlord and business partner Allan Cadgene, who had pledged $150,000 towards the project, pulled out. “I’m not putting money in to finance a restaurant if the church can kill it in 30 days and the city can rescind our use permit,” he said. 

This isn’t the first time rigid zoning ordinances have jeopardized South Berkeley business, said Alcatraz Merchants Association President and owner of People’s Bazaar, Sam Dykes. 

“The city is supposed to be friendly for business, but an empty storefront with young men hanging around outside isn’t the ideal situation,” he said. 

Berkeley Real Estate Agent John Gordon said restrictive zoning rules have left storefronts empty throughout the city because prospective merchants can’t provide parking. 

His negotiations to bring Peet’s coffee to the former Houston’s Shoes storefront on Shattuck Avenue have been hung up over the city rule requiring Peet’s to provide three deed-restricted parking spaces at a nearby garage. 

“No garage owner would agree to a deed restriction,” Gordon said.  

To skirt the parking requirement, Peet’s can ask the Zoning Adjustment Board for a waiver because downtown zoning rules gives the ZAB discretion over parking requirements for businesses in mixed use buildings. But under current zoning rules on Adeline, Beretvas must provide the parking, much to the frustration of Planning Director Dan Marks. 

“We don’t like making people jump through hoops to do business in this way,” Marks said, adding that the zoning code offered no flexibility to grant Beretvas a variance since he would have to show that his pizzeria was “a unique property, different from everyone else.” 

Marks is pushing for greater flexibility in zoning rules, advocated by the Mayor’s Task Force on Permitting and Development. The controversial body, with a strong pro-development bent, recommended making zoning rules more flexible, including offering parking waivers to business owners like Beretvas who can show an ample parking supply exists near their business. 

The city council will hear task force recommendation next week and prioritize them for the planning department to tackle over this year, Marks said. An amendment that could spare Beretvas his parking requirement could come within six months, he added. 

Beretvas, meanwhile, is hoping to get a business loan to keep his project viable. Tables, chairs and stools are already assembled in his cavernous space. He received a use permit by signing a three-month agreement with the owner of a soon-to-be developed empty lot and he said he could be open by April if he gets his long-term parking and financing problems settled. 

“This place is a slam dunk,” he said. “There isn’t a restaurant like this for a mile around. I’ve got to find a way to make this happen.” 

›

Faced with a lawsuit by Sprint Communications if the proposed new North Berkeley Sprint cellphone communications facility is not approved by the Berkeley City Council, the council blinked, took a step back, and gave itself another week to make its long-awaited decision on the controversial application. If the city council fails to take action next week, the Zoning Adjustment Board’s earlier approval of the project will automatically go into effect. 

Sprint wants to put a three-antennae booster facility on the roof of a commercial building on the Corner of Shattuck Avenue and Cedar Street in order to enhance its cellular service in the northern section of the city. A determined group of the proposed facility’s neighbors have been fighting the project, fearful that the antennae will cause harmful health effects. The city council has had the matter in its hands since April of last year, held a January 20th public hearing on the issue, and it appeared that they would be ready to vote on the matter at last Tuesday’s meeting. 

But on Feb. 5 the city council received a letter from Sprint’s Chicago-based lawyers pointedly noting that Sprint had proven its case for the facility, and City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque reported that her assistant met twice with Sprint representatives who indicated that they would sue the city if the application wasn’t granted. The council voted 5-2-1 (Hawley and Wozniak voting no, Shirek abstaining) to direct the city attorney’s office to bring back to the Feb. 17 city council meeting two alternative resolutions, one upholding and the other overturning ZAB’s approval decision. 

If the council seemed uncertain in the face of Sprint’s lawsuit threat, the council’s action later in the meeting concerning the LeConte traffic circle issue confused several observers. 

Last year, the city council approved five traffic-calming circles for the LeConte neighborhood, but that was before the city’s budget crisis hit. Councilmember Linda Maio introduced an item requesting that while keeping the city’s commitment to eventually build the five LeConte circles, there would be no action for two weeks while transportation department staff and the Transportation Commission investigated possible lower-cost traffic circle designs. But several councilmembers balked at the suggestion, particularly Maudelle Shirek, who represents part of the LeConte neighborhood. The city council then passed Councilmember Miriam Hawley’s motion to keep the city’s commitment to build the five LeConte circles, but to build them in the “most cost effective manner possible” and to have the city manager return in two weeks with a report on the availability of high-quality but lower-cost traffic circle designs (5-2, Shirek and Wozniak abstaining; Bates recusing himself). Unless traffic circles in LeConte are to be built within the next two weeks, it was unclear how the Hawley substitute motion differed from the original Maio motion. After the meeting, Maio expressed the hope that the city manager’s office could return in two weeks with a traffic circle design that could satisfy all sides. 

Councilmember Margaret Breland, who has been ill for several weeks, participated in the meeting by telephone.

By a 7-0-2 vote, the Berkeley Planning Commission accepted the proposed 25-member UC Hotel Complex Task Force Wednesday night, despite grumbling by some commission members that the entire commission should have picked the task force members from scratch or that the task force wasn’t even necessary at all. Planning Commissioner Jerome Wiggins, one of two commissioners to abstain on the acceptance vote, complained that the task force did not contain any residents of South Berkeley. Commissioners added an amendment leaving open the possibility of adding more members. 

The University of California has proposed building a 12-story hotel, conference center, and museum center on the downtown Shattuck Street block presently occupied by a Bank of America branch. 

Last Saturday morning, representatives of the University led Task Force members and other members of the public on a tour of the site, fielding questions about the project. 

The UC Hotel Complex Task Force now plans a public presentation of the proposed UC project at a February 18th meeting, to be held at 7 pm at the North Berkeley Senior Center. The public is invited to attend, ask questions, and make comments. 

—J. Douglas Allen-Taylor 

f

Attempted Bank Robbery 

Three men failed in their attempt to rob the Mechanics Bank at the corner of Hearst Avenue and Fourth Street Wednesday afternoon. Police spokesperson Kevin Schofield said the men fled the bank empty-handed and escaped in a brown station wagon but offered no further details about the incident. 

Swept Away 

Police were called to the 3100 block of Wheeler Street Monday morning to respond to a report that a man on a porch was hitting someone with a broom. Police detained the assailant and placed him on psychiatric detention. The victim suffered no injuries. 

Armed Robbery 

A man robbed a passerby at the corner of King Street and Alcatraz Avenue Monday morning. According to police, the robber brandished a knife and took the victim’s backpack before fleeing on a bicycle.›

Last year was not a year of garden variety corporate wrongdoing. No, the sheer variety, reach and intricacy of corporate schemes, scandal and crimes were spellbinding. Not an easy year to pick the 10 worst companies, for sure. 

But Multinational Monitor Magazine cannot be deterred by such complications. And so, here follows, in alphabetical order, our list of the 10 worst corporations of 2003. 

Bayer AG 

2003 may be remembered as the year of the headache at Bayer. In May, the company agreed to plead guilty to a criminal count and pay more than $250 million to resolve allegations that it denied Medicaid discounts to which it was entitled. The company was beleaguered with litigation related to its anti-cholesterol drug Baycol. Bayer pulled the drug—which has been linked to a sometimes fatal muscle disorder—from the market, but is facing thousands of suits from patients who allege they were harmed by the drug. In June, the New York Times reported on internal company memos which appear to show that the company continued to promote the drug even as its own analysis had revealed the dangers of the product. Bayer denies the allegations. 

Boeing  

In one of the grandest schemes of corporate welfare in recent memory, Boeing engineered a deal whereby the Pentagon would lease tanker planes—767s that refuel fighter planes in the air—from Boeing. The price tag of $27.6 billion was billions more than the cost of simply buying the planes. The deal may unravel, though, because the company in November fired for wrongdoing both the employee that negotiated the contract for Boeing (the company’s chief financial officer), and the employee that negotiated the contract for the government. How could Boeing fire a Pentagon employee? Simple. She was no longer a Pentagon employee. Boeing had hired her shortly after the company clinched the deal. 

Brighthouse 

A new-agey advertising/consulting/ 

strategic advice company, Brighthouse’s claim to infamy is its Neurostrategies Institute, which undertakes research to see how the brain responds to advertising campaigns. In a cutting-edge effort to extend and sharpen the commercial reach in ways never previously before possible, the institute is using MRIs to monitor activity in people’s brains triggered by advertisements. 

Clear Channel 

The radio behemoth Clear Channel specializes in consuming or squashing locally owned radio stations, imposing a homogenized music play list on once interesting stations, and offering cultural support for U.S. imperial adventures. It has also compiled a record of “repeated law-breaking,” according to our colleague Jim Donahue, violating the law—including prohibitions on deceptive advertising and on broadcasting conversations without obtaining permission of the second party to the conversation—on 36 separate occasions over the previous three years. 

Diebold 

A North Canton, Ohio-based company that is one of the largest U.S. voting machine manufacturers, and an aggressive peddler of its electronic voting machines, Diebold has managed to demonstrate that it fails any reasonable test of qualifications for involvement with the voting process. Its CEO has worked as a major fundraiser for President George Bush. Computer experts revealed serious flaws in its voting technology, and activists showed how careless it was with confidential information. And it threatened lawsuits against activists who published on the Internet documents from the company showing its failures. 

Halliburton 

Having acquired the company which drafted plans for privatization of U.S. military functions—plans drafted during the first Bush administration when Vice President and former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney was secretary of defense—Halliburton is now pulling in billions of dollars in revenues for defense contract work. Halliburton now provides logistical support, ranging from oil to food, in Iraq. Tens of millions of dollars, at least, appear to be overcharges. Some analysts say the charges for oil provision amount to “highway robbery.” 

HealthSouth 

Fifteen of its top executives have pled guilty in connection with a multi-billion dollar scheme to defraud investors, the public and the U.S. government about the company’s financial condition. The founder and CEO of the company that runs a network of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imagery and rehabilitative healthcare centers, Richard Scrushy, is fighting the charges. But thanks to the slick maneuvering of attorney Bob Bennett, it appears the company itself will get off scot free—no indictments, no pleas, no fines, no probation. 

Inamed 

The California-based company sought Food and Drug Administration approval for silicone breast implants, even though it was not able to present long-term safety data—the very thing that led the FDA to restrict sales of silicone implants a decade ago. In light of what remains unknown and what is known about the implants’ effects—including painful breast hardening which can lead to deformity, and very high rupture rates—the FDA in January 2004 denied Inamed’s application for marketing approval. 

Merrill Lynch 

This company keeps messing up. Fresh off of a $100 million fine levied because analysts were recommending stocks that they trashed in private e-mails, the company saw three former execs indicted for shady dealings with Enron. The company itself managed to escape with something less than a slap on the wrist—no prosecution in exchange for “oversight.” 

Safeway 

One of the largest U.S. grocery chains, Safeway is leading the charge to demand givebacks from striking and locked out grocery workers in Southern California. Along with Albertsons and Ralphs (Kroger’s), Safeway’s Vons and Pavilion stores are asking employees to start paying for a major chunk of their health insurance. Under the company’s proposals, workers and their families will lose $4,000 to $6,000 a year in health insurance benefits. 

This article first appeared in Multinational Monitor Magazine.?

Thirty UC Berkeley graduate students are back in the running for a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship thanks to the intervention of the board that oversees the foreign study program. 

Last month the Department of Education, which oversees the Fulbright-Hayes program, denied consideration to the 30 UC students after a missed Federal Express pickup caused applications to be sent one day after the deadline. 

Announcing the compromise Tuesday, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board President Steven Uhlfelder said that students’ applications would be reviewed separately by the State Department, since the Department of Education had already disqualified them. 

“We’re not disagreeing with the Department of Education,” Uhlfelder said. “We just wanted to make sure the students had a fair chance.” 

The deal allows deserving Berkeley students to cite the award among their accomplishments, while placing the burden of funding on UC. 

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl praised Tuesday’s compromise as a “workable outcome to help the students,” adding the university hoped to reach a deal with Federal Express to help pay for the fellowships that last year ranged from $19,593 to $63,947. 

Susan Aspey, spokesperson for the Department of Education, said her agency would not reconsider its decision and continued to blame Berkeley for the snafu. “We continue to feel very sorry for the students whose applications cannot be considered for the Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral Program because of Berkeley's negligence,” she said.

They call themselves bloggers—creators of weblogs, otherwise known as blogs—and they’re realizing the writer’s age-old dream of instantaneous publication to a worldwide audience. 

The blogosphere, as bloggers call their cybernetic world, now numbers somewhere in the neighborhood of eight million sites, according to a recent estimate cited by the fortuitously named Scott Hacker, webmaster for UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. 

Two years ago, the estimate was 500,000. 

So just what is a blog? And what the heck does a blogger do? 

Beyond a web address and a collection of items—written, graphic, and sometimes, musical—that the blogger wants to share, Hacker says the main criterion is chronological ordering: The newest item sits at the top of the page, followed by the next most recent, and so on to the bottom of the web page. “Blogs aren’t like newspapers, where the most important stories are placed first,” he says. 

“Part of their popularity comes from their spontaneity,” Hacker says. 

Internet users can find a sense of community in the blogosphere, as sites often provide click-on links to similar blogs—and users can blog-roll from site to site in pursuit of their interests.  

Blogs are starting to make the news. Matt Drudge’s website (www.drudgereport.com) played a major role in whipping up opposition to Bill Clinton’s presidency, and Hacker points to the role of bloggers in forcing the mainstream media to focus on Trent Lott’s otherwise unreported remarks in praise of Strom Thurmond’s racist presidential run—coverage that ultimately forced Lott to step down from his post as Senate majority leader. 

Bloggers also kept alive the controversy over George W. Bush’s peculiar National Guard service, where the issue bubbled for months until boiling over into the corporate press after documentarian Michael Moore called Bush a deserter. 

But serious political blogs, though the most reported on by the mainstream media, are in the minority. And while many confine their observations to a single theme—politics, music, law, and the media—many others are more random, covering anything and everything that crosses the blogger’s mind. 

Content ranges from the serious to the sardonic, and site design varies from the lavishly produced to the simplest of bare bones style. 

Hacker says nobody’s quite sure when the form first arose. “I’ve seen examples going back to ‘94 and ‘95 back when the [World Wide] Web was being born.” 

Though some purists shudder at the thought, Hacker includes the posters at Livejournal.com—the phenomenally popular site where users can post online diaries—among the ranks of bloggers. 

A quick surfing tour of the blogosphere reveals that Berkeley’s a hotbed of blogging, hosting two of the country’s most influential blogs—appropriately, both political from a left/liberal perspective—and teeming with scores of other sites. 

So just how many blogs does Berkeley have? Hacker doesn’t know, nor does anyone else, but blogs are a natural fit for a town with a reputation for activism and filled with citizens with something to say. 

The website Berkeley Blogs (www.berkeleyblogs.org), devoted to the city’s weblogs, features a far-from-exhaustive list of categorized links to 44 weblogs, but a quick search engine foray leads to dozens of others that aren’t listed. 

But a couple of days’ worth of web surfing shows that the answer has to be in the hundreds. 

Besides the blogs he helps classes run at the school, UC’s Hacker runs one the city’s most sophisticated personal blogs, The Bird House (http://birdhouse.org/blog), a site that’s everything you’d expect from the fellow who runs the Internet presence for one of the country’s most respected journalism schools. 

Drawing about 1,500 visitors a day, Birdhouse is a pleasure to view, full of crisp, clear photos and nice clean type. What makes the site especially memorable for the visiting cybersurfer is the series of 13 entries grouped together under the heading TAXONOMY. Click on “Media,” and the blog instantly recreates itself, extracting all the entries focused on the Internet, television, films, and the press. Click “Family” and you learn about a toddler named Miles. Click “Politics,” and you find entries a lot of Berkeleyans would endorse. 

“Even so,” Hacker says, “most people go to the [unsorted] home page,” where the ordering principle is the standard chronological blog format. 

Most Berkeley sites aren’t as sophisticated, but they still qualify as blogs. 

For sheer entertainment value, try In Passing (www.inpassing.org), an anonymously posted blog memorializing weird and savory nuggets of conversation overhead at such public places as the line at Andronico’s on Shattuck Avenue, the sidewalk in front of Pegasus Books, and at a nearby table at Peet’s coffee. The distinctly surreal touch of many of the conversational nuggets makes the site a popular spot across the blogosphere. 

But no blog in Berkeley gets more hits than The Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com), a political site so popular with its vast audience that they coughed up the cash to send site founder Markos Moulitsas Zúniga—the site name derives from the last three letters of his first name—traveling around the country to cover the Democratic primaries. 

The site has drawn attention from national print and broadcast media, thrusting the non-doctrinaire blogger into rarefied heights. Rating site Blogstreet ranks The Daily Kos as the country’s sixth most influential blog. 

The site’s closest Berkeley rival is Brad DeLong’s Semi-Daily Journal (www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type), the blog of a UC Berkeley economist, ranked in 14th place. 

In terms of overall visits, The Daily Kos is the clear winner, collecting nearly 110,000 hits a day, compared with DeLong’s 8600. But DeLong packs the heaviest credentials, having served as an economic adviser to Bill Clinton, holding a professorship at UCB and writing prolifically for academic journals and Big Name Press (New York Times included). 

DeLong himself earned an unintentional accolade earlier this month when one of his journalistic critiques—a staple of his blog—provoked the ultimate expletive from Washington Post economics reporter Jonathan Weisman. After DeLong zinged his coverage of the new Bush budget as posted on the paper’s website, Weisman grumbled “Fuck Brad DeLong” in an e-mail he copied to the Berkeley blogger. “The first piece put on the web is slapped together as quickly as possible, and the guy for some reason doesn’t like me.” 

Needless to say, the intemperate e-missive quickly flickered through the blogosphere, provoking countless comments. 

The overwhelming majority of weblogs are personal, Hacker says. Most are high tech diaries, recording the musings of people who feel compelled to share something of themselves with the world. Two Berkeley examples are The Golden Blog (http://thegoldenblog.typepad.com/the_golden_blog), offering reflections and photographs reflecting the public life of Kathy Sierra, an eight-year Berkeley resident who plays fiddle with her band, Golden Bough, and Berkeley Crossroads (http://crossroads.berkeleyblogs.com), looking at the city through the eyes of a gay man who’s just come out. 

Beast Blog (www.beastblog.com) is a collaborative effort drawing its name from Pig Latin, “East Bay” being the way “beast” is said in that arcane childhood lingo. Thanks to a handy list on the page’s right-hand column, surfers can call up items by neighborhood (six for Berkeley, nine for Oakland); likewise for 14 categories of food. Nine entries describe places visitors can find free wireless Internet service.  

In the civic organization category, baha news (www.berkeleyheritage.com/weblog/blogger.html)—the Journal of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association—offers a pleasantly designed and well-illustrated look at some of the city’s endangered landmarks and the preservation efforts of BAHA and others. 

Then there’s the city’s own newsblog (www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/news/newsscan.asp), a digest of news items about the city assembled from print and electronic media. 

Armed with the free high-speed Internet service that comes with enrollment, UC students comprise a major force in Berkeley’s blogging community. 

Res ipsa loquitor (http://resipsaloquitur.blogspot.com) is a collaborative blog providing a forum for conservative UC students and alums, while the Angry Clam (http://angryclam.blogspot.com) features the political pronouncements of an anti-Bush conservative 

CalStuff: News About Berkeley (http://calstuff.blogspot.com) is the work of Kevin Deenihan, the techie who created the Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive, a favorite site for fans of the New York Times columnist. CalStuff focuses mainly on campus-related events, with the occasional foray into the larger Berkeley scene. [Note to blogger: the Daily Planet is back in business, so you might want to correct your links listing].  

Rebecca C. Brown and Tommaso Sciortino cover the campus with a satirical touch in CalJunket (http://caljunket.blogspot.com) while tackling national politics from a decidedly left-liberal perspective. Their site, frequently updated, competes with far better-known sites for timeliness and frequency of postings. 

Another student blog, Beetle Beat: Liberals Are People Too (www.beetlebeat.blogspot.com), seems to consist mainly of Aurora Drake’s none-too-kindly musings on the Daily Cal.  

If Six Was Nine (www.ifsix.blogspot.com) is a six-person collaborative blog—five with UC e-mail addresses—that covers the music scene, featuring nice lists of links to local and regional music venues and publications and the websites of a long roster of performers. 

Other student sites aren’t as accessible to most American surfer, appear in (among other scripts Chinese, Japanese, and Cyrillic characters. 

Berkeley High School boasts its own collection of student bloggers, including Rachel Rudy’s literate, perceptive Gwar Like Whoa (http://vilekeg.blogspot.com), Ram Dass Khalsa’s Life Is What Brought You Here (http://ohthatsucks.diaryland.com), Andy Moskowitz’s infrequently updated Toasty Kingdom ([http://s88215129.onlinehome.us), and Mischa Spiegelmock’s lavishly illustrated happiland.2y.net (http://happiland.2y.net). 

Blogs are here to stay, and they’re increasingly important. In this year’s election, candidates at all levels are exploiting the form (Dennis Kucinich’s blog is a creation of Berkeley blogger Henry Poole).  

But for most bloggers, a long-timer surfer might conclude, the main function the medium serves is to offer an unprecedented chance to be heard, to reach across the electronic ether and touch another life, however remote.

“Berkeley Cougars Blue, Gold and White, we’re here to take it all the way!” were the words that helped cheer the Berkeley Cougars cheerleading squad (part of the Berkeley Cougars youth football league) right into a national cheerleading competition held this past weekend in Las Vegas.  

The team, with girls ages 10-14, rolled past more than 100 regional competitors to make it to the competition and then fought through seven other teams in Las Vegas to place during their first trip to the tournament. 

At nationals the team competed in dance competitions instead of cheer competitions, all of which were choreographed by the girls and their coach. According to team member Aneka Patterson, one dance in particular—a hip-hop battle where the girls dressed in baseball uniforms and broke into teams— was the highlight of the competition that she speculates helped propel them into fourth place.  

“It was our first year at the competition and none of the teams thought we were good, they were like where is Berkeley at?” said Patterson, 13. “But we went out there and represented Berkeley and placed fourth our first time.” 

For over 25 years the Berkeley Cougars cheerleading squad has cheered on the Berkeley Cougars football team, part of the Police Athletic League (PAL) but never before made it to a national competition.  

Run by parents and volunteers, the team is self-funded and can often be seen practicing their routine down at Berkeley’s Frances Albrier Park. Coached by Maurice Harrison, who is also a member of Berkeley’s well-known Flaming Five Drill Team, the Cougars squad was on a grueling seven-days-a-week, two-hours-a-day schedule leading up to the competition. 

“It was hard, it was real hard,” said Patterson, who attends Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. “But it paid off. Every time we got tired, our coach was like ‘You’ll be tired at the competition too if you don’t practice.’” 

For Patterson’s mom, Kameka Goodwin, making it to nationals was a proud achievement both for her and for her daughter. 

“It was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe that after all the work it finally happened,” she said. For Goodwin, a single mom like several other team parents, the cheer squad has given her daughter a chance to participate in a positive team event that she says has been helpful for Aneka. 

“It’s been an outlet for her, so she doesn’t just end up hanging around,” said Goodwin. “It’s a good social thing for her as well.” 

For Patterson, the competition was only part of what she hopes is an extended cheerleading career. Currently in 8th grade, Patterson will be attending Berkeley High School next year but will not be allowed to cheer on their team as a freshman. She plans to cheer for the Cougars again, however, move onto the Berkeley High squad and eventually become a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders, her favorite team. Goodwin, her mom, while encouraging her to continue, says that in between Berkeley High and the Raiders will be a college degree where she said Patterson hopes to major in dance.  

The weekend’s successful performance was especially sweet because it came after defying an initial let-down that at one point left the team thinking they might not go.  

At a regional competition at Marine World in Vallejo only the younger part of the team—the “peewees”—qualified by placing first in one of their performances. The older group, the midgets, placed second and third, which kept them from a bid. 

But because the peewee team was two small to compete at nationals alone, and because the midgets were resolved to make it, both teams re-enrolled in a second regional competition together at Cal State Hayward. By placing high enough to score over 80 percent during all their competitions the combined team received a bid and packed their bags for Vegas. 

“The competition and the event built a lot of esteem [for the girls],” said Nachelle Gardner, the cheer squad director. 

Harrison, the team coach, said he was extremely pleased with the results and is in the process of recruiting girls for next year’s team.  

“Hopefully we’re going to go back and do even better next time,” said Harrison. 

›

Berkeley has blocked the start of construction on a permanent home for Vista College—more than 30 years in the making—due to a parking dispute with the Peralta Community College District.  

The city is withholding construction permits to Peralta—which counts Vista among its four member schools—for Vista’s new downtown campus at 2050 Center Street, said Mayor Tom Bates, until the district settles its parking mitigation fee with the city. 

The dispute concerns how much Peralta owes the city in parking mitigations for putting the six-story, 165,000-square-foot new campus right in the heart of downtown, where a 54-space parking lot once sat. 

Peralta has offered $3.6 million in mitigation fees, the amount originally requested by former City Manager Weldon Rucker. But two months ago, Bates said current City Manager Phil Kamlarz notified the district that a new survey put the tab closer to $6 million. 

While the two sides haggle, the city has blocked permits closing off parts of Center Street for construction, and Peralta’s general counsel is determining if the city can deny Peralta the permits. 

Without the permits, Peralta had to cancel excavation work for their building scheduled to begin last Monday, a Peralta source said, costing it $2,500 per day in contractor fees. Due to the permit delay and other hang ups, Peralta’s construction consultants have pushed back the scheduled opening of the building from fall, 2005 to January, 2006. 

“We’re kind of at an impasse right now,” said Vista President John Garmon. 

Bates, who has fought for decades to get Vista a home of its own and now finds himself holding up construction, blamed the district. “They’ve known about this all along,” he said. “We can’t help them until they resolve this issue.” 

As an institution of public education, Peralta claimed an exemption from city planning rules in designing their building, which under city guidelines would have required them to provide 208 parking spaces. 

To mitigate the increased parking need caused by Vista and the potential loss of two downtown lots, the city is considering paying an estimated $18 million to tear down and rebuild the 420-space Center Street garage at twice the capacity. 

Berkeley is also demanding it receive the parking money promptly, or at least get a guarantee that it will be paid. Garmon said the money is tied up in state construction bonds and that the state wouldn’t release the money until the building was ready for occupancy. 

That’s not good enough for Bates, who worries the construction money could dry up. “They’re saying they’re good for it but we want the money or some kind of assurance it’s going to happen.” Bates added the city would devote the entire payment to parking mitigations and not use it to plug the city’s estimated $9 million budget deficit. 

›

Berkeley has blocked the start of construction on a permanent home for Vista College—more than 30 years in the making—due to a parking dispute with the Peralta Community College District.  

The city is withholding construction permits to Peralta—which counts Vista among its four member schools—for Vista’s new downtown campus at 2050 Center Street, said Mayor Tom Bates, until the district settles its parking mitigation fee with the city. 

The dispute concerns how much Peralta owes the city in parking mitigations for putting the six-story, 165,000-square-foot new campus right in the heart of downtown, where a 54-space parking lot once sat. 

Peralta has offered $3.6 million in mitigation fees, the amount originally requested by former City Manager Weldon Rucker. But two months ago, Bates said current City Manager Phil Kamlarz notified the district that a new survey put the tab closer to $6 million. 

While the two sides haggle, the city has blocked permits closing off parts of Center Street for construction, and Peralta’s general counsel is determining if the city can deny Peralta the permits. 

Without the permits, Peralta had to cancel excavation work for their building scheduled to begin last Monday, a Peralta source said, costing it $2,500 per day in contractor fees. Due to the permit delay and other hang ups, Peralta’s construction consultants have pushed back the scheduled opening of the building from fall, 2005 to January, 2006. 

“We’re kind of at an impasse right now,” said Vista President John Garmon. 

Bates, who has fought for decades to get Vista a home of its own and now finds himself holding up construction, blamed the district. “They’ve known about this all along,” he said. “We can’t help them until they resolve this issue.” 

As an institution of public education, Peralta claimed an exemption from city planning rules in designing their building, which under city guidelines would have required them to provide 208 parking spaces. 

To mitigate the increased parking need caused by Vista and the potential loss of two downtown lots, the city is considering paying an estimated $18 million to tear down and rebuild the 420-space Center Street garage at twice the capacity. 

Berkeley is also demanding it receive the parking money promptly, or at least get a guarantee that it will be paid. Garmon said the money is tied up in state construction bonds and that the state wouldn’t release the money until the building was ready for occupancy. 

That’s not good enough for Bates, who worries the construction money could dry up. “They’re saying they’re good for it but we want the money or some kind of assurance it’s going to happen.” Bates added the city would devote the entire payment to parking mitigations and not use it to plug the city’s estimated $9 million budget deficit. 

›

My parents moved to an all-white East Oakland neighborhood in 1941, during the war. My father was a shipyard worker at Mare Island, and later an Oakland firefighter. Afterwards, my parents built a grocery store, which they operated for more than 40 years. Still, my parents were (and this must be said with lowered voice, and a narrowed glance, and one hand cupping the mouth) niggers, and in 1941, many white folks were still not quite certain what niggers would amount to or whether they might bring down the neighborhood. And so, in 1941, several of the good white folks got together and tried to keep the real estate agent from selling a home to my parents. They failed. In fact, other black folks followed, many of them first-time homebuyers who also joined the Oakland Fire Department. Discouraged, the good white folks emptied our East Oakland neighborhood, moving to San Leandro and San Lorenzo, or across the foothills to the then-almost wilderness valley of eastern Contra Costa County. And that’s how our part of East Oakland came to be mostly black, with a later flavoring of Latino. 

Two of the white kids who lived across the street from us later became police officers, one of them a highway patrolman. They’re probably too old to be part of this Operation Impact going on in the so-called “hot spots” of Oakland’s low-income black and Latino communities. But I often wonder how many grandsons of white folks who fled Oakland to keep from living next door to black folks have now returned to patrol our streets. Or how many of these officers—living in places like Antioch and Concord and Walnut Creek—grew up listening to neighbors’ tales about how first the niggers and then the Mexicans combined to ruin Oakland. And how much that colors their attitude towards the people they meet as they patrol. 

On the same day last week that I was writing a column on how the Operation Impact patrols had disappeared from International Boulevard, Oakland police announced that the program was being merely scaled back, not stopped. For those of you who missed it, Operation Impact involves roving patrols of CHP and Alameda County Sheriffs Deputies cruising the main streets in the high-crime areas of East, North, and West Oakland, supplementing the usual force of Oakland police. The project was put into effect in the last months of 2003 after Oakland’s murder rate skyrocketed during the first part of the year. 

“Oakland police are doing a great job,” Mayor Jerry Brown said, “but with the help of the California Highway Patrol we’re going to get a lot more done.” As always, the question is: more done of what? 

In its story on the first four months of Operation Impact, the Oakland Tribune reported that “the CHP arrested almost 600 people for various crimes [during the patrols], issued 1,564 traffic citations, towed 908 vehicles and seized six guns and 12 stolen cars.” Since there’s no way to evaluate what the “various” means in “various crimes,” there’s no way to assign any meaningful inference to the 600 arrests. Were these people stopped in the commission of serious crimes, or were they people picked up for bench warrants because they’d missed a child support payment? Only the CHP knows. The 1,500 traffic citations is equally mystifying: Are we talking about ticketing dangerous speeders and redlight-runners, or are these mostly expired tags and bad tail lights? Given what we can reasonably surmise about attitudes towards dark Oaklanders by at least some CHP officers (see the first two paragraphs of this column), can we rule out that much of what CHP is crowing about as operational success is merely harassment? 

But, finally, for an operation that was specifically designed to put a dent in Oakland’s handgun-driven murders, the finding of only six seizable guns amidst all this police activity seems a waste of resources. 

That’s borne out when we look at Operation Impact’s reported impact on crime in our city. The Tribune says that during the four-month life of the program, minor crimes in Oakland were down 28 percent from a year before. Okay. Good enough, though nobody knows if Impact was the actual cause. Serious crimes (homicide, robbery, and assault), on the other hand, were down only six percent. Further, one has to be careful about comparing murders in Oakland at the end of 2003 with murders at the end of 2002, since the 2002 end-of-year murders involved an aberrational killing spree by a group called the Nut Case Gang who boasted that they shot people in some cases solely in order to increase the number of Oakland murder victims. And with Operation Impact in operation, there have been 17 murders so far in the first six weeks of 2004, more than double the number of the same period in 2003, a three-murder-a-week rate that would top 150 killings if continued for the whole year. Operation Impact, therefore, hasn’t had much impact on the one problem it was supposed to address. 

In November of 2002, Oakland voters liked the idea of putting 100 more police officers on our streets as a response to the rising murder rate, but rejected the accompanying funding measures that would have made the hiring of those 100 officers possible. Mayor Jerry Brown’s measures were so poorly put together, and the campaign for them was so poorly organized, that to this day nobody can be quite certain why they lost. 

I’m glad it did, though. Councilmember Larry Reid is fond of calling Oakland’s murders “insane,” which is his way of saying, I suppose, that he doesn’t understand why the murders are happening. That lack of even an attempt at understanding by most Oakland public officials has led to this idea of merely flooding Oakland’s streets with police officers. Whether those officers are OPD or CHP or Alameda County deputies, it hasn’t provided a solution. Perhaps the time has come for us to have a public discussion as to why, and what’s next to be done. 

RACIAL CRITERIA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last week the Daily Planet reported on the Berkeley School Board’s decision to adopt a new student assignment plan (“Despite Lawsuit, School Board Adopts Racial Criteria,” Feb. 6-9). I was simply floored at the inability of the board majority to think outside the box and their willingness to toss our children’s money away. Currently the district is being sued by the Pacific Legal Foundation for its alleged illegal insistence on using race for school assignment. It is a lawsuit similar to one the PLF pursued in Southern California. In that case the PLF won. Most legal experts expect they will win the one against Berkeley as well. A pro bono lawyer is defending the BUSD. All other expenses come out of the district’s general fund. When the PLF wins, Berkeley may be held responsible for the PLF’s legal expenses. Where will this money come from? Class size, field trips, teacher’s salaries, library books? 

A diverse committee of BUSD staff and parents examined alternative approaches to achiving integration. They came to the board with a plan which uses socio economic factors in lieu of race. They believed if adopted the schools would be at least as integrated as the current system. If the board embraces the committee’s plan, the schools will no longer continue to flout the law. The case for using socio- economic factors for achieving integration is based on progressive ideals and achieves the goals of both equity and racial integration. The plan the board did adopt is a multi-step process which includes race. 

The school board is about to approach the citizens of Berkeley to ask us to renew the parcel tax known as BSEP, which provides 10 percent of the BUSD budget. How can they do that when they are frivolously embracing a discretionary lawsuit which may well cost the district untold sums of money? Boggles the mind. 

Please call the school board and let them know what you think.  

Janet Huseby 

• 

LEADERSHIP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

July 1, 2004, will mark the mid-point of term of Ms. Fox-Ruby’s tenure on the Alameda County Board of Education. Let’s look at the record of Ms. Fox -Ruby since her election in March 2002. Based on her record she has failed to address the significant challenges at the county office of education. 

She has supported budgets that provide for increased public relations activities over resources to support classrooms in the court school system and community schools operated by the county office. The majority of the students served by these county operated programs are males of African-American and Latino descent. 

Over the last two years the test scores at the Alameda County office have declined more than any other county office in the Bay Area. As a former educator and teacher she has done nothing to ensure the right’s to these students to a quality education is addressed. 

She along with the Jordan-led majority have refused to implement the recommendations of the Alameda County Grand Jury with called for among other things, open and public debate on issues. 

During these tough fiscal times facing school districts including especially Oakland USD, which is one of two districts in her trustee area under the control of the state, she voted to give County Superintendent Jordan a 66 percent salary increase, which was the largest salary increase of any publicly elected official statewide. 

This coming after only six months in office and after Ms. Fox Ruby received substantial campaign contributions and political support from the 

benefactor of her vote for the salary increase County Superintendent Jordan. 

Despite public outrage and a board resolution by Trustee Cobb to reconsider the salary increase, the Jordan-led majority, for which Ms. Fox-Ruby is a member, refused to change it. 

This is the type of leadership you have on the county board of education, a representative that is “bought and paid for” by County Superintendent Jordan and not a representative of the voters of Trustee area one.  

Jerome Wiggins,  

former member  

Alameda County Board of Education 

• 

INTOLERANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Tuesday evening, those who went to hear Daniel Pipes speak on the UC Berkeley campus were treated to a specter which would have sent Mario Savio spinning in his grave and appalled all those who believe in the right of free speech. While I am at odds with some of what Dr. Pipes believes, like many others, I wanted to hear what he had to say. Unfortunately, that was difficult as Pipes was incessantly interrupted by catcalls from Students for Justice in Palestine, members of the Muslim Students Association, and swill spilling from various constituents of KPFA’s Berkeley-left “Amen Corner.” 

Ironically, by attempting to keep Pipes from speaking, the pro-Palestinian minion in the process virtually ratified Pipes’ contention that strident Islamicists signify a gross intolerance of those who differ with themselves. Unsurprisingly, the first person to be expelled was the leader of the SJP, Snehal Shingavi. Mr. Shingavi gained national notoriety by asking that only those who agreed with him ideologically attend his class on Palestinian literature. More recently, he was sanctioned by UCB for violating the student code of conduct. 

Mr. Shingavi and his ideological soul mates make a shambles out of everything Mario Savio, the FSM, and indeed the Constitution stand for. Hence, because they so overtly trample on the rights of others, may I suggest that Mr. Shingavi along with all those who attempted to disrupt last night’s talk, be expelled posthaste? Their actions are antithetical to everything an institution of higher learning should stand for.  

One last disturbing matter—thoughout the evening, there were innumerable cries that “Israelis are Nazis” (never mind that it is only major Palestinian groups who are calling for genocide). This subtext of anti-Semitism was punctuated by the final expulsion of the evening, that of Joseph Anderson. Because he is a minority man in hyper-sensitive Berkeley, Mr. Anderson’s frequent rants against Israel are often cut a great deal of slack. But he left virtually foaming at the mouth, screaming at the audience what a good percentage of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators clearly feel: “You’re all a bunch of filthy Jewish liars.”  

Alas, as shown at the Pipes’ lecture, bigotry certainly has neither ethnic nor color boundaries. 

Dan Spitzer 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was fortunate to hear Daniel Pipes speak at UC Berkeley Tuesday night. He was a brilliant speaker and a very tolerant and composed gentleman. He had to contend with a large audience of Moslem students and other Pro-Palestinian sympathizers.  

Their outrageous bad behavior, e.g. continuous interrupting his speech with raucous shouting and chanting “racist, racist” etc., was reminiscent of the German Facist Youth of the Hitler era. 

They had hopes of blocking him from speaking altogether like they did to Netanyahu a few years ago. But the campus police were wonderful in controlling them ultimately and removing most of them before the evening was over. 

Their bad behavior lent proof to Daniel Pipes warning of the radical Islamists’ design and threat to destroy Western culture and Judeo Christian philosophy. 

Aubrey Lee Broudy 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

What’s this negativity about 21st century marriages? 

These are modern times and our marriage laws must be broadened. The Massachusetts courts have ruled that tow men or two women have the right to legally marry. 

Great! Now is the time to develop modern 21st century marriage laws. 

To hell with Bush and the right wing religious extremists. 

Our new laws must allow three people to marry. Three is company, what a wonderful family foundation this will make. Our modern houses are big enough, our king-sized beds are big enough, let’s move forward. The kids would always have one parent at home. Every family needs two wage earners. If one parent dies there would never be a single widow. 

Think of this! Every kid would have three mommies, three daddies, two mommies and one daddy, or two daddies and one mommy. Hopefully, our family, Judy, Megan and I will enjoy a legal marriage. 

How wonderful California will be! 

Our 21st century marriage laws will solve California housing problems because we will need 1,750,000 fewer homes. One minor problem, our building codes must require three car garages. 

Sidney Steinberg 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

We now not only have “Hardballs” on TV but also “Creampuff!” 

In his interview of the president, Tim Russert was strangely silent when Bush just rambled on, repeating himself and finally declared that “being able to produce dangerous weapons is the same as possessing them.” 

At that point, Russert might have asked whether Bush was declaring his intention to wage preemptive war on the whole world, since nearly all countries are capable of producing poison gas, nerve gas and dangerous biological weapons.  

Max Alfert 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

At the end of a recent ABC News with Peter Jennings a few days ago after the New Hampshire primary, Diane Sawyer had a segment in which she revealed that the microphone used by Howard Dean in his Iowa Scream Speech was an unusual, very rarely used type which hugely amplifies and somewhat distorts the human voice. This mike also cuts was back on the sound of an excited, noisy crowd. She recognized this mike as one used by her only a few times in her long career, when addressing noisy audiences. It was a different shape and size from a standard microphone. 

She thought that the over seven hundred replays of this incident, which shook the confidence of many voters, even those strongly committed to Dean, and caused people to see him as angry and out of control, was a result of the microphone’s effect. It may also explain why those who were actually at this event didn’t see what the fuss was about. Ms. Sawyer also noted that the amplified mike was held “way too close,” because Dean thought it was an ordinary mike, which may have added to the distortion and magnification. 

It would be sad if Dean loses ground because of a technical glitch not of his own doing. It surprises me that I have not seen any reports about this disturbing revelation. 

Nancy Langert 

Cecilia Bartoli’s first concert in Berkeley in 1991 was to a half-empty Hertz Hall. Since then she has rocketed to superstardom (commanding fees of $60,000 to $80,000) and is second only to Pavarotti as a successful classical recording artist. Her Vivaldi recording sold over 500,000 CDs—a phenomenal number for a classical disc of unfamiliar music. In the rock world that would be equivalent to a triple platinum album. Her Gluck Aria album was a comparable worldwide bestseller.  

Bartoli returns to Berkeley this month to perform three recitals on the West Coast, in Los Angeles on Feb. 8, La Jolla on Feb. 11 and here in Berkeley at the Zellerbach Auditorium on Feb. 15. After that she will go to Chicago, Ann Arbor, Washington D.C., Carnegie Hall, and Boston, appearing in concerts featuring the music of Salieri from her newest hit recording.  

That means eight concerts in the month of February alone, with lots of grueling winter travel between them. She has been singing approximately 30 concerts and two operas a year. Her appearances are sell-outs, and two biographies have already been written about her. 

What makes Cecilia run? Money? Hype? Devotion to music? Depending on which connoisseur you talk to, the answers will vary wildly. But it is far more likely that she is compelled to perform by her inner artistry. One has only to watch her sing to realize that some divine necessity is urging her on. The audience has the distinct sense of eavesdropping on a kind of private musical ecstasy. She exudes urgency and rapture. She enters the stage seemingly bursting with the joyous anticipation of making great music for both herself and her audience.  

Bartoli is responsible for bringing a Mediterranean flavor back to the Italian vocal music of the 18th century. Her lush, many-hued, vibrato-filled tones contrast sharply with the straight-toned and effete singing style of the English Baroque School that has recently come to dominate this repertoire. She showers forth confetti-streams of coloratura, blazes through octave leaps and produces from the barest vocal attack, a spellbinding messa di voce that ranges from deep quietude to intense forte. By this invigorated approach she has elevated The Italian Anthology of Song from a rote musical primer to scintillating music fare. Upon hearing her imaginative renditions of these basic songs, which generations of voice students have used as rudimentary exercises, one finds her re-fashioning of them a revelation. Not content to stay with familiar repertoire, she has searched out forgotten manuscripts and has revived interest in Gluck and Vivaldi, and, more recently, rescued the much-maligned Salieri from undeserved oblivion.  

She has even sung Mozart! For many decades most Italian school singers (including Callas) have shied away from Mozart because of the affected style of singing that had become de rigueur. That particular tone quality is disembodied and ethereal, accentuating the use of falsetto to suggest a sort of prepubescent innocence. Italian vocalists generally prefer a more sensuous and complete vocal sonority. Consequently, in Italy Mozart operas have become the domain of artists from northern Europe and America. But Bartoli’s more full-bodied approach has opened new realms of interpretive possibilities. She even dared to make her Met debut in the comic role of Despina in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte: a very non-diva choice for an Italian superstar.  

Bartoli’s career is built on an esoteric repertoire: 18th century music and a handful of operas of that period. The voice is not operatic: It is smallish, and easily swallowed in the larger venues (like the Met and San Francisco), especially when accompanied by a full orchestra. Hence her repertoire is essentially limited to Rossini and his predecessors.  

One of Bartoli’s most impressive skills is her immaculate articulation of fast passages, which she achieves by rapid-fire separate attacks on each note. This ancient Bel Canto technique can be heard, for example, perhaps to an exaggerated degree, in the recordings of singers like Lily Pons. This vocal method, though failing to provide great volume, gives the singer the ability to sing large clusters of notes at roller coaster speed. This Bartoli does with unabashed derring-do. 

The machine behind the phenomenon known as Cecilia Bartoli consist of her mother, who is her sole voice teacher; her backers, producers, and advertisers from Decca records; her master-mind manager Jack Mastroianni; her boyfriend and collaborating musicologist, Claudio Osele; and her high-powered New York publicist. Thanks to Robert Cole, director of Cal Performances, who took a chance on an unknown in 1991, Bartoli returns often to Berkeley. Those fortunate enough to have tickets to the sold-out performance on the Feb. 15 will hear a trail-blazing singer at the pinnacle of her fame.  

Olivia Stapp is an opera singer and stage director who has had a long international career. 

“If a life of wine, women and song becomes too much, give up the singing.”  

—Anonymous  

There’s something about clinking glasses filled with a red liquid that sets a sexy scene for Valentine’s Day. Gazing over a brimming goblet at a lover’s face primes us for romance. Assuming these aphrodisiac qualities create the craving, it’s no wonder red wine historically flies off the shelves during February.  

There are many passion-driving qualities wine possesses. Wine makes us giddy with youthful energy; causes us to say sappy things and mean them; magnifies a sensual moment; and makes everything taste better. It’s pretty amazing how a thoughtfully chosen bottle of wine can increase the pleasure of a simple Valentine’s meal tenfold, no matter what the cost.  

For some, pink champagne is the quintessential Valentine’s Day wine, romantic for its tiny stars floating to the top, soft color and rarity. To attain the famous rose color, a small amount of pinot noir wine is added at the blending stage after the first fermentation. Not much of this is around, so it’s pricier than most sparklers. But a nice bottle of red is equally sensual, with its warming, languorous effect.  

But why wine’s romantic reputation? There are plenty of theories, but one is that society crafted it so. Wine descriptors are rife with romantic adjectives like silky, smooth and velvety, and winemakers are treated as artists since they pour their heart and soul into each bottle. No other edible item reflects its producer’s personality as much as a bottle of wine. But I think it’s really that wine gives you that ultra-relaxed, open-to-anything buzz that’s different from most alcoholic beverages.  

So whether you’re creating a meal or treating that special someone to a night on the town, remember it’s not the price that counts, it’s the love in the bottle.  

Recommended Wines  

Justin 2000 Cal Italia ($14): Smooth-talking Italian grapes like Sangiovese define this yummy light blend from California’s Central Coast. The endless black cherry flavor will wiggle its way into your sweetie’s heart.  

1999 Sterling Three Palms Merlot ($45): Absolutely fabulous wine that will knock your honey’s socks off...and maybe something else. Sexy, intense fruit—a cornucopia of flavors with red berries, grapes and plums. Not for the faint of wallet.  

Cinnabar 2000 Mercury Rising ($18): A Bordeaux blend, this fruit-forward, ripe cherry, delicious juice will definitely make the mercury rise. The flavors grab your tongue and don’t let go. Truly a bargain.  

Liparita Cellars 2001 Sauvignon Blanc ($18): If your honey prefers whites, here’s a Napa Valley beauty that loves food. Loaded with uncharacteristic creaminess, this Sauvignon Blanc has perfectly balanced acids and a melon aroma that will romance anyone.  

Nicolas Feuillatte Brut Rose Champagne ($38): A full-bodied, dry and intense French rose Champagne. You can’t run from the titillating dried cherry aroma and rich, smooth feeling on your tongue. This one might be suitable for belly-button shots.  

Bonny Doon Framboise, Infusion of Raspberry ($12): For something sweet and fun for your fun sweetie, try this whimsical wine from Bonny Doon. Rich, and chock-full of raspberry essence, this sensational wine is a steal.  

A new gourmet food court will soon occupy the empty space at 1509 Shattuck Avenue that has sat empty for almost two years after the Dale Sanford electronics store moved out. The project, which will house take-out spin-offs of some of Berkeley’s more well-known restaurants, is meant to bolster business and add another touch of flavor to an area well known for its food.  

“We’ve been looking at what the community needs,” said Soheyl Modarressi, the building manager, longtime city developer and North Berkeley resident. “Rather than just having another clothing store we wanted to bring in some more excitement.” 

Already signed up to move in are Kirala, south Berkeley’s well known sushi restaurant and Cesar, the popular tapas-bar started by ex-Chez Panisse manager Richard Mazerra, who has agreed to help Modarressi as a consultant for the project. On the waiting list are a number of other restaurants that are trying to meet the qualifications Modarressi and Mazerra have set out for the food. Other shops the pair are currently considering include a rotisserie and chocolate store. Several local wine producers have also been approached about possibly creating a small co-op space.  

“We’re not going to rent to just anyone,” said Modarressi. 

Accompanying the food stands will be a larger section also run by Cesar that will offer other products from Spain, which according to Mazerra is the new hot spot in Europe. Besides offering olive oil, spices and vinagers, the shop hopes to have a big selection of cured meats, especially jamons, or cured ham.  

“Spain is coming on big time,” said Mazerra. “People didn’t even know what tapas were until recently.” 

The take-out option is a spin that promoters hope will appeal to residents who have never had that option at their favorite restaurants. Customers accustomed to Kirala’s long lines will now be able to pop into the court, buy their sushi (which will be made fresh) and take it home. Those caught up in the growing tapas craze will be able to do the same. Modarressi and Mazerra are considering plans for a garden area in the back with a possible fountain and garden store. The area which used to be the delivery dock for the electronics store is envisioned as an urban park according to Mazzera. 

Modarressi, who has lived in North Berkeley since the ‘70s, says he has a vested interest in maintaining the spirit of the area known for its high quality food. With the Cheeseboard on one side and Chez Panisse on the other, and the original Peet’s coffee up the hill, the food court is meant to complement these restaurants by adding extra options to draw customers. 

Because the store will only be take-out with no sit-down options Modarressi did not have to apply for a restaurant permit, avoiding the hassle of acquiring parking which is close to impossible to find in the area. Instead a retail use permit, like the one originally granted for the building, was all he needed. 

Neighboring restaurants are happy to see plans for a new food spot. Lisa Bruzzone, a member of the Cheeseboard Co-op, said she had not heard any specifics about the court but was thrilled to have more food in the area.  

“We’re delighted to have more activity in the neighborhood to keep it more alive,” she said. 

Bruzzone, who has been with the Cheeseboard for years and has seen the transformations the North Shattuck area has gone through, hopes the new court will enliven an area that, while not in a decline, is not what it used to be.  

Back in the late 1970s, according to Bruzzone, North Shattuck was the premier spot for restaurants and specialty food products. In the meantime, while the restaurants have survived, several of the food stores have gone out of business, including Pig By the Tail and Chacuterie. 

According to Heather Hensley, director of the North Shattuck Business Association, the food court idea was chosen and encouraged over several other ideas as a way to do exactly what Buzzone would like to see.  

“Food will always be the strong point of the area,” said Hensley. “They [the North Shattuck restaurants and cafes] spearheaded the food revolution [in Berkeley] and we want to make sure they can continue to compete.” 

Modarressi, who has also led other development projects including the Oxford Center building west of the UC Berkeley campus, stresses his commitment to the North Shattuck community and says his motivation for the project sprang from the same desire—to revitalize the area. 

“We are very slow moving developers that committed to the long-term,” he said. “We’re not aggressive. We are going to keep [the project] very local and manage it in a way that will serve the community.” 

February weekends may be chilly, gloomy, and gray in the Bay Area. But even if you don’t have the time or the means to jet off to Hawaii for a respite, you can still find some tropical magic only a bridge away from Berkeley at the San Francisco Orchid Society’s 2004 Pacific Orchid Exposition, Feb. 19-22. 

The exposition has been held for 52 years and is one of the Bay Area’s biggest and most showy garden-themed events. It is held at the Festival Pavilion, an old military pier gracefully converted into event space at Fort Mason Center on the northeast corner of San Francisco’s Marina District. 

Orchids aren’t just corsage flowers. Some 750 orchid genera contain at least 25,000 species, and there are tens of thousands of cultivated hybrids. Hundreds of varieties—and an estimated 150,000 plants--will be on display and for sale at the exposition. 

Orchid plants can be as tiny as a fingernail or as big as a wine barrel. Some species bloom singly, others in cascades of hundreds of flowers. And although many orchids do require hot house conditions, many others can be quite content in a sheltered corner of an East Bay garden, even in the winter. 

Quite a few temperate or upland species and varieties bloom reliably and do just fine outdoors year-round in most parts of Berkeley. They include cymbidiums, many masdevallias and epidendrums (sometimes called “reed orchids”), some dendrobiums (especially those from Australia) and some odontoglossums.  

Orchid blossoms range from near true-blues through reds and oranges to white and brown; shapes and patterns are some of the most intricate found in nature. We’ve come home in past years with orchids with vivid pink candy stripes, polka dots, purple/green flowers, and chocolate or vanilla scents. 

My personal favorites include the masdevallias, small plants with striking up-side-down V-shaped flowers in colors from white to purple to butter yellow. They start popping into bloom around now, even after a cold winter outdoors. 

If you go to the show, allow time to wander through the commercial grower and orchid society exhibits. Spectacular blooming orchids, foliage plants, and non-living props (this year the theme is “The Art of Orchids”) form dazzling displays packed with hundreds of flowers or individual specimens of prizewinning size, rarity, or condition. Many hobbyists bring their best orchids from home to show off here. 

Beyond the displays you’ll find booths for more than 60 growers and sellers from as near as Richmond and Alameda and as far (in most years) as Southern California, Hawaii, Thailand and even Central America. A few orchid-related items are for sale (pots, growing media, tools) but mostly it’s plants, plants, plants. 

Most growers specialize, and some only sell direct to the public a few times a year at shows like this. Prices are often surprisingly low for the quality of plant offered. Some purists market only species orchids, the rarer and odder the better. Others promote colorful hybrids they’ve created themselves.  

There are wall displays of alluring tropical vandas, tables loaded down with prime cymbidiums (including space-saving miniature varieties), bevies of brilliant phalaenopsis (typically known as the moth orchid), and legions of ladyslipper orchids.  

The weekend show follows a 6:30–10:00 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, “Gala Benefit Preview,” costing $35 at the door ($30 in advance). The preview is worthwhile if you want first crack at the best orchids, or just want to enjoy something different on an evening out.  

Gala benefits include a modest prize drawing (you have to be present to win), free finger food (sometimes of indifferent quality and limited quantity), wine from some two dozen vineyards, a souvenir wineglass, and musical entertainment. 

Weekend general admission is $11, or $8 for seniors (65+) or disabled visitors. Children under 12 get in for free, except on opening night. Hours vary slightly; Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m..  

For information regarding shows, tickets, parking and directions, go to www.orchidsanfrancisco.org, or call (415) 665-2468. Parking can be difficult, but there’s a free shuttle from a remote lot, and you can also park at the Marina Green and walk in, enjoying the spectacular north waterfront setting. 

›

It’s hard to leave this event without at least one orchid. If you’re going to buy, here are some basic tips: 

• Before going on an impulse buying spree, take a quick stroll around the sales area. Chances are that several growers will have similar selections of (and perhaps different prices for) the particular plants you’re interested in.  

• Don’t let a spectacular flower seduce you without finding out something about its needs and care. The sellers will usually tell you candidly if the plant you covet will be happy—and likely to re-bloom—in your home conditions (or your mother-in-law’s).  

• Take advantage of the expertise here among the sellers and other orchid aficionados wandering around. Chat, collect advice and handouts, and make sure you get a tag identifying the species or hybrid you’re purchasing. 

• Use the free “orchid hotel” check area (but don’t lose your claim tag!). You’ll have to park purchases there anyway if you want to go back for another look at the exhibits. 

• Feeling thrifty? Many vendors cut prices Sunday afternoon. That perfect $45 plant you coveted may now be gracing someone else’s windowsill, but a quite suitable sibling might still be had for $15 or $20.  

• Many of the orchid vendors are from the Bay Area and periodically have open houses or special sale events at their greenhouses and nurseries. Ask when they might be open and what they’ll feature for sale in coming months.  

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In an abrupt about-face, developers of the largest housing complex ever planned for the city center have agreed to build 124 underground public parking spaces to partially offset the loss of the Kittredge Garage. 

The decision, relayed in a letter to city planners that was made public last week, has turned the plan’s chief detractors—downtown merchants—into supporters and bolsters its chances for approval by the Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) when it revisits the plan in two weeks. 

The proposal was enough to sway the Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA), a merchant group which organized opposition to the proposal at January’s ZAB meeting. “It’s the best we can hope for,” said DBA Executive Director Deborah Bahdia. 

Outgoing DBA President Rauly Butler said judging from the January hearing, he expected the ZAB to approve the project on Feb. 26. “It was pretty darn obvious how pissed off they were with [the developers] for not having the parking,” he said. “I think they read that and figured it was more cost effective to put the parking in than risk delaying the project another year.” 

Last month ZAB commissioners refused a use permit to TransAction Companies insisting they needed to offset some of the parking losses facing the city when they demolish their 375-space Kittredge Street Garage—25 percent of all downtown parking spaces—to make way for the 176-unit housing complex. 

TransAction Senior Vice President John DeClerq had been negotiating with the Berkeley-Albany YMCA for three months to jointly finance one level of underground parking with special privileges for Y members, but when negotiations broke down he opted to build the parking himself. 

DeClerq suggested that further studies showed the 124 underground parking spaces—expected to cost between $7 and $10 million—might not be quite the money pit he initially believed and that the cost of further delays in obtaining his use permit could jeopardize the project. 

“We did a new analysis and a fresh look came up with fresh answers,” DeClerq said, adding his offer hinged on speedy approval from the ZAB, either at the scheduled hearing on Feb. 26 or shortly thereafter.  

TransAction’s change of heart, came just eight days after their attorney Allan Abshez wrote a stern letter to city officials warning that if they proceeded with further delays or attempts to hold TransAction responsible for maintaining the city’s parking supply it would assume “liability for unlawful delegation of its police power authority.” 

While ZAB commissioners refused to speculate on their vote, Commission Chair Laurie Capitelli said, “We certainly communicated to him at the last meeting we wanted to see the loss of the parking structure mitigated and it seems like he’s moving in that direction.” 

The new plan calls for 240 spaces on one ground floor and underground level, with 110 spaces reserved for tenants and commercial vehicles and 130 for the general public—about a third of the current garage’s capacity, but enough to meet the average peak time demand, according to DeClerq. 

The Y remains lukewarm on the proposal. CEO Larry Bush said he didn’t know if his group would support the new plan and cast doubt that it would help fund the parking, saying, “We’re just going to live life as it comes.” 

When first proposed in 2000, Library Gardens included two levels of underground parking to replace the garage, but cost overruns scuttled the plan, which DeClerq reintroduced in 2002 with housing for about 280 tenants, but no parking. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 10 

Tuesday Morning Birdwalk at Tilden’s Vollmer Peak, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Call if you need binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Willow Rescue” Descendants of the shoreline’s original willows are being returned to health through ivy removal at Aquatic Park. Meet outside the Cabin at the park’s southern entrance at 10 a.m. Aquatic Park EGRET egret@lmi.net or 549-0818. 

Mini-Rangers at Tilden Park Join us for an afternoon of nature study, conservation and rambling through woods and waters. Dress to get dirty and bring a healthy snack to share. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. For ages 8-12. Fee is $6 for residents, $7 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

“Hiking the 60-Mile Diablo Grand Loop” with Seth Adams, Director of Land Programs for Save Mount Diablo at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“A History of the Environmental Justice Movement” with Juliet Ellis, Executive Director of Urban Habitat, at 7 p.m. at the GTU Dinner Board Room, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2560. 

Writers’ Room Coach Training is offered from 7 to 9:30 p.m. for volunteers who would like to help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills. To attend please call Terry Bloomburgh at 849-4134 or email Bloomburgh@sbcglobal.net 

“Evolutionary Biology and Some Aspects of African History” with Wilmot G. James of The Human Sciences Research Council in Cape Town, South Africa, at 4 p.m. in 652 Barrows Hall. Sponsored by the Center for African Studies. 642-8338. http://ias.berkeley.edu/africa/ 

“Judaism, What is it all About?” an interactive lecture series with Rabbi Judah Dardik, at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays at Beth Jacob Congregation, 3778 Park Blvd., Oakland. 482-1147. www.bethjacoboakland.org 

Handwriting Analysis with Kabbalistic Graphologist Yaakov Rosenthal, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Co-sponsored by Chabad of the East Bay and the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center.  

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. 234-4783. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11 

“Migrations at Dusk” Black-crowned night herons leaving their willows in Aquatic Park cross paths with great egrets coming to roost above the Cabin. Meet outside the Cabin at the park’s southern entrance at 5p.m. Aquatic Park EGRET egret@lmi.net or 549-0818. 

Great Decisions 2004: “The Media and Foreign Policy” with Prof. Ben Bagdikian, UCB Grad. School of Journalism from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. The Great Decisions program will meet for eight Wednesdays. Briefing booklets are available. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“Back in the Day” A Black History Celebration, featuring Miles Perkins, leader of the “Mingus Amungus Jazz Band,” and the Fantastic Steppers Tap Group, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

“Which Candidate?” The Berkeley Gray Panthers of the East Bay is sponsoring a debate to help senior citizens decide which candidate they might support in the March 2 Democratic Primary, at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 548-9696. 

Police Review Commission Community Forum on the proposed Berkeley Police Department (BPD) canine program. BPD would like to implement a canine unit using “find and bark” dogs. The dogs would be used primarily to increase officer safety in searching for violent suspects and to increase efficiency in finding missing persons. At 7 p.m. at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in 255 Dwinelle, UC Campus. www.berkeleystopthewar.org  

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 

Prose Writers Workshop Meets 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut, at Rose. 524-3034. 

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

THURSDAY, FEB. 12 

“Bayshore Cleaning” Bring renewed life to tidal plants by helping remove storm debris from the bay shoreline in Aquatic Park. Meet outside the Cabin at the park’s southern entrance at 10 a.m. egret@lmi.net or 549-0818. 

Introduction To Sustainable Landscape Design Create an environmentally friendly oasis in your yard using the principles of sustainability. We will cover the fundamentals of design, installation and maintenance of a sustainable landscape. Use of native plants, recycled materials, water conserving techniques and pest control will be discussed. From 7 to 10 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $35. To register, call 525-7610. 

“Environmental Justice Law and Policy” with Luke Cole, Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, Jerilyn Lopez-Mendoza, Environmental Defense Fund, and Will Rostov, Communities for a Better Environment at 12:45 p.m. at Boalt Hall, UC Campus. sarale@uclink.berkeley.edu 

“Children Soldiers” with Sarah Williams, Rotary Peace Scholar, at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-9460.  

Death Row Survivor Juan Roberto Melendez Colon, who survived almost 18 years on Florida’s death row for a crime he did not commit, will speak at 4 p.m. at Boalt Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by National Lawyers Guild, Prisoners Action Coalition, La Raza Law Students Association. 486-2860. 

Benefit for Dennis Kucinich with Oakland’s Gerry Tenney, Ithaca’s Will Fudeman, and Berkeley’s Betsy Rose, songs of struggle and peace at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 415-927-2004, ext. 80. 

East Bay Mac User Group Meet Other Mac users F2F. Q & A session for all levels, software demos, tips, presentations and give-aways! Meets from 6 to 9 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St. www.expression.edu 

FRIDAY, FEB. 13 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Therese McMillen, Deputy Director of Policy, MTC, “Solving Bay Area Transportation Issues” Lunch 

11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

Anarchist Crush Night at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, a reading room, library and community center in South Berkeley located at 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Kevin Danaher, Co-founder, Global Exchange and Anuradha Mittal, Director, Food First at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. For more information call 528-5403. 

“California Bounty” a gala for Children’s Community Center Preschool from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church at One Lawson Road in Kensington. Silent and live auction items include vacation packages, dinners, original artwork, clothing, toys and more from the best businesses in the Bay Area. Dinner and live music. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $12.50 or for $15 at the door. Proceeds benefit Berkeley’s Children’s Community Center Preschool— the oldest cooperative preschool in the West. For more information call 527-7654 or go to www.cccpreschool.org 

“Fostering or Frustrating Globalization” with Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, at 4 p.m. in 101 Doe Library, Morrison Library, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War” and “Imagine America” will be shown at 7 p.m. at the Kucinich for President office, 3362 Adeline, near Alcatraz. 420-0772. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m. 

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. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

Overeaters Anonymous meets every Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. Parking is free and is handicapped accessible. For information call Katherine, 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 14 

“A Walk in the Garden” Colorful blooms are already on display in this Garden of California Native Plants at Aquatic Park. Meet outside the Cabin at the park’s southern entrance at 10 a.m. Aquatic Park EGRET egret@lmi.net or 549-0818. 

Fruit Tree Pruning Basics A hands-on class held in a Berkeley garden. General discussion on when to prune and when not to, maximizing and improving the quality of fruit production, different techniques and management styles, and specifics for different trees, with time for general tree pruning questions. Bring your own sharp hand clippers and branches from trees from your yard if you can. $10 for Ecology Center members, $15 others, no one turned away for lack of funds. Call for location 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Free Worm Composting Workshop Get the scoop on worm composting from the experts at the Alameda County Composting Program. Worm composting can be an especially good choice for apartment dwellers and others lacking yard space. Find out how to compost kitchen scraps into free, nutritious fertilizer using red wiggler worms. The class is geared for beginners but those who already compost with worms and need advice are welcome too. From 10 a.m. to noon at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. 548-2220, ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org  

The Beautiful Camellia Garth Jacober will talk about planting, care and pruning of these garden beauties. At 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Sunset Walk in Emeryville at 3 p.m. Turn off Hwy 80 at Powell St. exit, go west to Chevy’s off frontage road. Rain cancels. For more information, call Vera at 234-8949. Sponsored by the Sierra Club Solo Sierrans. 

Residential Drainage Systems, a seminar for homeowners and builders, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Truitt and White Conference Room, 1817 Second St. Free, but reservations are required. 649-2674. www.truittandwhite.com/seminars 

God’s Beloved: A Workshop for LGBT Persons and their families and friends from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 2401 Le Conte Ave. Pastor Michal Anne Pepper will help participants identify how shame interferes with their relationship with God and how the bible is misused to create that shame. To register call 848-3788. www.uccbdoc.org 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. The class is taught by Rosie Linsky, who at age 72, has practiced yoga for over 40 years. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. For further information and to register, call Karen Ray at 848-7800. 

Kol Hadash Family Brown Bag Shabbat from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Though we are a little ahead of Purim, we will get to know Queen Ester who had the courage to rescue her fellow Jews in Persia. Please bring lunch for yourself and children, and finger dessert to share. Juice provided. 428-1492. kolhadash@aol.com 

SUNDAY, FEB. 15 

“Park Transformations to Come” Walk the location in Aquatic Park where Coastal Conservancy may fund safer trail connections and habitat plantings. Meet outside the Cabin at the park’s southern entrance at 2 p.m. Aquatic Park EGRET egret@lmi.net or 549-0818. 

Owl Pellet Mystery Party Learn what’s left over from an owl’s meal. We’ll discover the remains and you’ll go home with at least one more skeleton than you came with - guaranteed! From 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $4. 525-2233.  

Early Bloomers Leatherwood, currants, milkmaids and trillium are just waiting for you to admire on our trails. Take a hike to see them and learn their natural history. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

“Imagining Queen Califa” a family event with interactive activities, storytelling and music, in collaboration with The Art of Living Black Cooperative, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Nepal and The Philippines: Why are People’s Movements and Their Leaders Under Attack?” at 3 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

Tibetan Buddhism, with Sylvia Gretchen on “Meditations for Relieving Pain” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Feldenkrais Resources Open House from noon to 5 p.m. at 830 Bancroft Way at Sixth St. 287-5748. 

Eckhart Tolle Talks on Video, free gatherings at 6:30 p.m. to hear the words of the author of “The Power of Now” at the Feldenkrais Ctr., 830 Bancroft Way. 547-2024. EdScheuerlein@aol.com  

MONDAY, FEB. 16 

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthing at 1:15 p.m. every Monday at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425.  

ONGOING 

Family Activist Resource Center A small group of East Bay parents is meeting monthly to set up a drop-in center where parents and caregivers can come with their children and do their political work while their children are cared for in a creative, respectful and nurturing manner. For information on the next meeting, contact Erica at ericadavid@earthlink.net or call 841-3204. 

Valentine’s Gram by UC Choral Ensembles A quartet will travel anywhere within 1/2 mile of the UC campus, sing two songs in full harmony and deliver a long-stemmed red rose and a signed Valentine's Day card to your special recipient. You can schedule a 15-minute time slot for Friday, Feb. 13 between noon and 10 p.m. or Saturday, Feb. 14 between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. Prices are $25 for students and $40 for the general public. Call 642-3880 to reserve your time and date. 

Valentine Day Weddings The Alameda County Clerk-Recorder’s Office is pleased to announce that the office will be open Valentine’s Day, Sat., Feb. 14 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. to issue marriage licenses and perform wedding ceremonies. The office is located at 1106 Madison Street, in Oakland. The fee for a marriage license is $79, which includes one certified copy. The fee for a ceremony is $50 (cash or checks accepted). Interested parties should make an appointment. 272-6362.  

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra misses its alums! As our nation’s second oldest youth orchestra, based in Berkeley, YPSO is in possession of a treasure trove of memorabilia dating as far back as 1936. To preserve and share these photographs, letters, programs and other interesting materials YPSO is creating a Digital Online Museum. If you participated in the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra please contact David Davis at davisde@yogashorts.com or 543-4054. 

Did Your Family Live in Berkeley from 1890 to1925? This spring the Berkeley Historical Society is opening an exhibit on early Berkeley Bohemians, artists, poets, writers, musicians, photographers and other creative folks who lived in our city 1890-1925. If your family was here then, check your photo albums and other records to see if you have any photos or personal accounts of these activities. If so, we would like to try to include this information in our exhibit. If you can help, please contact Ed Herny, co-curator for this exhibit at 415-725-4674 or by e-mail at edphemra@pacbell.net  

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Feb. 11, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Paul Church, 981-6342. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/disability 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Feb. 11, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., Feb. 11, at 7 p.m. at 2090 Kittredge. Jackie Y. Griffin, 981-6195. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/library  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Feb. 11, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed, Feb. 11, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Barbara Attard, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/policereview 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Feb. 11, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti. 644-6376 ext. 224. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., Feb. 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs, Feb. 12, at 6:45 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/health 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Feb. 12, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning 

Perhaps you saw my sign reading “City of Berkeley: Hands Off My Equity!” and “It's the Disclosure Stupid—First-Time Homebuyers Assistance Program is a Predatory Loan!” during the last city council session. I was voicing indignation at the silence of city government to questions about deceptive lending practices perpetrated within the former Berkeley program entitled First-Time Homebuyers Assistance Program, wherein 29 West Berkeley first-time homebuyers unwittingly handed the city a blank check to the equity accrued in their homes. Only now is the city admitting that these loans are investments, and also not the assistance they purport to be.  

Over the past six years, the city of Berkeley has been clandestinely siphoning off nearly half a million dollars of our equity. The city has unduly profited by omitting accurate and timely disclosures of bewildering loan terms to financially unsophisticated, gullible first-time homebuyers. These predatory lending tactics are known in banking circles as contract knavery and price gouging, and usually are inflicted upon underserved minority communities. This practice makes a mockery of the meaning of “assistance.”  

As in this case, unscrupulous lenders devise a loan with a hidden profit incentive wrapped in altruistic packaging that claims to be for the benefit of the borrower. We FHAP homebuyers were led to believe that the city’s high-cost secret investment loans were low-cost financing assistance for low-income families.  

Ordinarily when taking out mortgages, borrowers receive full disclosure within a few days of application—this is in accordance with state and federal laws that are meant to assist consumers in evaluating the complex credit terms involved. None of those laws appear to have been followed during the city of Berkeley's first-time homebuyers' program, which greatly contributed to the confusion of the borrowers, allowing the city to secure its lucrative equity-grabbing deal.  

When I participated in the program, I did not receive the loan terms until the close of escrow. Buried in a thick stack of legal documents were predatory terms the city never disclosed during its buyer education sessions. Included among the onerous clauses, I discovered later, were those requiring surprise future balloon payments from by then elderly owners who will have finally paid off their first mortgage after 30 years. Based on their loans’ historic performances, the city could easily demand hundreds of thousands of dollars from them by then.  

This belated disclosure deprived me of any opportunity to evaluate the terms privately, with counsel, prior to having to sign the loan. Given the amount of disclosure the city claims occurred, it’s remarkable that none of it exists today. Clearly the city’s disclosures do not meet professional standards of lending procedure and government accountability. It is also clear that at a time of historically low mortgage rates and rising equity, the city concocted these loans to bring a much higher return than simple interest alone would bear, but nowhere is the loan described as an investment. No information was offered regarding equity going up 150 percent in Berkeley every decade for the last 30 years (according to the city’s own data), or that city staff was monitoring these equity increases throughout the program. One family, for example, currently owes $81,000 for their five-year-old $20,000 FHAP loan. This is more than half the home’s $140,000 purchase price, scoring the city a hefty 400 percent profit, since the principal loan came from a HUD grant that cost the city nothing! My own $20,000 FHAP loan skyrocketed to $50,000 within four years’ time, amounting to a usurious 44 percent yearly interest rate.  

Berkeley’s FHAP loans continue to balloon—perhaps as high as 30 times over the cost of market-rate financing—all the while hiding their high cost. These balloon payments will most certainly lead to the loss of our houses in order to pay off these Draconian city loans. Housing Director Stephen Barton, Acting City Manager Phil Kamlarz and others in Berkeley city government are quick to assert, “All of the applicants were fully informed of all of the terms and conditions of the loan.” Relying entirely on staff assertions that cannot be verified independently, they offer a long-winded story of how borrowers supposedly were verbally disclosed repeatedly. However, it is evident that the disclosure was inadequate based on the city’s sizeable profits. Common sense supports that cognizant borrowers would not willingly have overpaid by up to four times the loan amount, unless systemic comprehension problems existed about the city’s terms.  

Unlike some first-time buyer programs where participants are helped with securing primary financing, credit repair, home repair, and locating a home, the city’s program was only available to those with resources already. Mr. Kamlarz writes in his report to the city council, “The goal of the program was to help low-income buyers who could not otherwise afford to do so to purchase their first home.” However, the program was only available to borrowers with “a clear credit history”, who were required to “obtain a mortgage loan from a private commercial lender” for the full purchase price of the home, minus the $20,000 HUD-financed loan. It was the borrowers who were considered a safe bet—with credit good enough for professional bank underwriters to be comfortable lending them up to $180,000, and who made down payments of up to $43,000—that were victimized under this program. Since the repayment amount is based on the current house price and not the owner’s original contribution, our down payments have also gone to the city.  

In response to inquiries regarding this unjust and problematic program, the city has chosen to dismiss us as ungrateful, disparaging homeowners, adding insult to injury. Berkeley’s FHAP borrowers were not destitute people, as Mr. Kamlarz implies, but simply low-income families seeking to purchase homes. Even without the city’s involvement, such high-qualified borrowers most assuredly could have obtained the $20,000 at drastically less cost than the 200-400 percent returns the city demands.  

The City of Berkeley’s profits are grossly out of proportion to its funding assistance. We call upon the compassionate citizens of Berkeley to demand accountability from city government. Please contact your councilmember and the mayor and tell them that predatory lending has no home in Berkeley. Further information can be obtained by e-mailing to fhap@pacbell.net, or by calling 757-5401. We need your help in bringing an end to the city of Berkeley’s First-Time Homebuyers Assistance Program that has kidnapped and held for ransom our dreams of homeownership, turning our American dream into a nightmare.  

Kent Brown is a longtime Berkeley resident.

TUESDAY, FEB. 10 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

UC Berkeley Annual Faculty Art Exhibition, reception from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Worth Ryder Gallery, 116 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. Exhibition runs to March 5. 642-2582. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Resist the Present: Yvonne Rainer and Lee Anne Schmidt” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Helen Knode and James Ellroy present Knode’s debut novel, “The Ticket Out,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Writers’ Workshop with Rhys Bowen discussing “How to Write a Successful Mystery Series” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

The Whole Note Poetry Series, with Annalee Walker and Paradise, and open mic, at 7 p.m. at The Beanery, 2925 College Ave., near Ashby. 549-9093. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Midnite performs reggae at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $17 in advance, $20 at the door. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

www.thejazzhouse.com 

Warsaw Poland Brothers, Monkey and The Connected at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

California College of the Arts Alumni Exhibition “Advance to Go” Reception 6 to 8 p.m. at 5212 Broadway, Oakland. Exhibition runs to March 6. 594-3712. 

FILM 

Film 50: “The Phantom Chariot” at 3 p.m. and Video: They Might be Giants: “Bill Viola” at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Madeline Albright talks about “Madame Secretary” at 12:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Gary Snyder reads from “Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems” and “Practice of the Wild” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 

Café Poetry and open mic, hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donation requested. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land” with author Donna Rosenthal at 7:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0327, ext. 112. 

Stephen Altschuler introduces us to “Hidden Walks in the East Bay and Marin: Pathways, Yesterdays and Essays” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose. 843-3533. 

Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet read from “Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

4th Annual Erotic Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik, featuring Aya de León and Roger Bonair-Agard, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10, $7 with student i.d. 841-2082.  

Ben Jones reads from his Civil War novel, “The Rope Eater” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert Young Musicians Program at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Gypsy Spirit, “Journey of the Roma” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$38, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

“Back in the Day” A Black History Celebration, featuring Miles Perkins, leader of the “Mingus Amungus Jazz Band,” and the Fantastic Steppers Tap Group, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. 981-5170. 

Ragas and Talas, classical Indian music open jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Midnite performs reggae at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $17 in advance, $20 at the door. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

John Reischman and The Jaybirds, bluegrass and new grass at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jules Broussard, Bing Nathan and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Patrick Greene Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Quiksand, Smith Point and Down Boy at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $4.  

848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

THURSDAY, FEB. 12 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“The Drawing Room” at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Reception for the artists from 6 to 8 p.m. Exhibition runs to March 25. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

THEATER 

“The Vagina Monologues” at 7 p.m. Fri and Sat. at 155 Dwinelle, UC Campus. Tickets are $10. All proceeds from our production will be going to NARIKA, a help referral line for South Asian women and children in abusive situations. 

FILM 

Victor Sjostrom: “Masterman” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Tom Odegaard and Diana Q., at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985 

Bell Hooks discusses “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Mammals, trad rad, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Benefit Concert for Dennis Kucinich at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

A Touch of Soul at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Davis Redford Triad, Appreciation at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

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

Crater performs modern jazz at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $7-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Savant Guard at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 13  

CHILDREN 

Strawberry Shortcake Valentines Day Party at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

FILM 

Anthony Mann: “The Mann for Laramie” at 7:30 p.m. and “Men in War” at 9:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa. 

berkeley.edu 

The 6th Annual Independent Film Festival (IndieFest), a world-wide blend of more than 100 independent films and videos, Feb. 13-15 at the Oakland Metro. Tickets are $9 for each screening; $7 for matinees. 415-820-3907. www.sfindie.com 

THEATER 

Actor’s Ensemble of Berkeley, “Helen of Troy (Revised),” written by Wolfgang Hilesheimer, translated and directed by David Fenerty at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck at Berryman. Fri. and Sat. evenings through Feb. 21. Admission is $10. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Albany High School, “Grease” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd. Albany. Also on Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 for students and seniors, $10 for adults. To reserve tickets call 558-2575. 

Aurora Theatre, “Man of Destiny” by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Barbara Oliver at 8 p.m. Through March 7. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Yellowman” by Dael Orlandersmith, directed by Les Waters, 2025 Addison St. Through March 7. For ticket information call 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Impact Theater, “Say You Love Satan” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Runs through March 13. 464-4468. www.impacttheater.com 

Independent Theater Projects, “Three One-Acts” performed and produced by Berkeley High students, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $4-$8 at the door. gcrane0601@hotmail.com 

“Roberto Zucco” by Bernard-Marie Koltès, directed by Kristenn Templeman, presented by Impromptu Theater and the Dept. of French at 8 p.m. at Durham Studio Theater, UC Campus. Also Feb. 14 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8-$15, available at the door. ktemple@uclink.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Paco Underhill explains “The Call of the Mall: The Author of Why We Buy on the Geography of Shopping” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

A Night of Erotic Haiku hosted by Charles Ellik at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation of $5-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Youth Speaks Poetry Slam, for ages 13-19, at 7 p.m. at Youth Radio Cafe, 1801 University Ave. 841-5123. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Venice Baroque Orchestra, Andrea Marcon, conductor, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$56, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Hip Hop & Art for Change at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Flamenco Spirit with Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $45-$55 and includes dinner. 843-0662. www.cafedelapaz.net 

Eddie Marsh Trio, comtemporary jazz at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $10-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

“Bands Against Bush,” presented by Bay Area Arts Collective, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Psychokinetics, Sol Rebelz and Feenom Circle at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

My Bloody Valentine Bash at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Seventy at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Brian Melvin at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Tom Paxton, traditional and topical folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50 in advance, $21.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

La Verdad, salsa, at 7 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15, $10 with student i.d. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Monkey Knife Fight at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Frisk, Whiskey Sunday, Try Failing, Static Thought, at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 14 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Asheba at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568.  

“Wild About Books” storytime at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Helen S. French, “Cultural Convergence: The Nile and the Mississippi” solo metalwork exhibition at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Reception for the artist from 4 to 6 p.m. 843-2527. www.acccigallery.com 

THEATER 

Independent Theater Projects, “Three One-Acts” performed and produced by Berkeley High students, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Between Spruce and Euclid. Tickets are $4-$8 at the door. gcrane0601@hotmail.com 

FILM 

Anthony Mann: “El Cid” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Venice Baroque Orchestra, Andrea Marcon, conductor, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$56, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Trinity Chamber Concerts presents The Novello Quartet in a concert of romantic music for Valentine’s Day at 8 p.m. at 2320 Dana St. at Durant. Donation $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Valentine’s Day Cabaret with singers Rudy Guerrero, Elizabeth McKoy, Gail Simpson, and Woodrow Thompson, and an ensemble from Shotgun Players, at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $30 in advance, $35 at the door. 925-798-1300.  

Kurt Ribak Trio at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The House Jacks, a cappella at 5 and 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Soukous and Afro-Muzika at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Valentine’s Day with Larry Stefl Jazz Quartet at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Tears in Your Beers Twangfest, featuring Loretta Lynch, the Belltachers and Nelly Bly, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation of $7-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Aya de Leon’s Valentine’s Day, a literary and musical celebration of love’s varied manifestations at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Flamenco Spirit with Yaelisa and Caminos Flamencos at 5 and 8 p.m. upstairs and 6 and 8:30 p.m. downstairs at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $55-$65 and includes dinner. For reservations call 843-0662. www.cafedelapaz.net 

Bat Makumba, Brazilian dance at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

SoVoSó at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Eddie Gale, avant-garde jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $8-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

The Solution, Mushroom at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Ned Boynton Combo at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Reality Crisis, Rotary Beginners, Lebenden Totem, Deadfall at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 15 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4 for children, $6 for adults. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXIBITION OPENINGS 

Jewish Freemasons of the West, opens at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. and runs through July 8. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

THEATER 

Kent Actors, “Hep Ask Vardi (There Was Always Love),” a Turkish family saga at 6 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center. Tickets are $35-$48, $15 for children, avalable at the door.  

FILM 

Victor Sjostrom: “He Who Gets Slapped” at 4 p.m. and “Fire on Board” at 5:40 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with John Isles and Joseph Lease at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Anthony Dubovsky introduces “Jerusalem: To Know by Living” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Live Oak Concert Frances Blaker, solo recorder, in a concert of music from the 12th to 21st centuries, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Admission is $9-$10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano, with Sergio Ciomei, piano, at 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $50-$250, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Organ Recital with Davitt Moroney playing works of Louis Couperin at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Donations gratefully received. 845-6830. 

The Don Robinson Trio plays the music of Glenn Spearman in celebration of his life and contribution to improvisational music from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6139. 

Counterfit, Park, Over It, Plans for Revenge at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

“Liberating the Diva Within” the ancient art of belly dance at 8 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph Ave. Tickets are $10 at the door. 237-2152. www.asata.net 

Taylor Eigsti Trio at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Noe Venable, contemporary folk, 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 

ACME Observatory’s Contemporary Composer Series with Fred Firth and KLiP Trio at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation of $8-$15 suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazz- 

house.org

After recently agreeing to discontinue a shirt many found anti-Semitic, the Urban Outfitters clothing store on Bancroft Way is in the spotlight again after introducing a shirt that reads, “Voting is for old people.” 

Several local residents, including Andy Katz, who ran for city council during the last election, have called the store to complain about the shirts and ask that Urban Outfitters stop carrying them. 

Several months ago the store agreed to discontinue a shirt that read “Everyone Loves A Jewish Girl” embellished with money signs that several local and national Jewish groups said was offensive. In a recently issued statement, Urban Outfitters said they now reproduce the shirt with the same phrase but without the money signs. 

The company refused to comment on the latest brouhaha but residents say the decision to promote the shirt’s message is offensive and misguided, especially with two big elections coming up. They say it only adds to the growing problem of low voter turnout among young people. 

“This is a bad message to be sending to young people,” said Katz who recently sent out an e-mail asking people to call and complain to the store. “There is a major primary coming up and we have a president and a government who are asking young people to foot the bill for long term problems.”  

Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org, one of the organizations trying to turn voters out across the board said the young voters should absolutely be the group with the highest, not the lowest voter turnout, calling the shirts a failed attempt at humor. 

“[The youth] should be the group most likely to vote because they are going to be around the longest,” said Blades. Pointing out MoveOn.org’s own shirts, “Voting is not a spectator sport,” she said.  

“The message ‘voting is for old people’ is kind of telling,” said Anu Joshi, the vice president of external affairs for UC Berkeley’s student government and a member of the on-campus Youth Vote coalition. “Young people don’t think about voting at all.” The numbers speak for themselves, she said, with 20 percent of the registered electorate between the ages of 18-24 turning out during the last presidential election. 

She and others, who have pledged to not let the same thing happen in the upcoming election, say the problem is that politicians tend to shy away from issues that engage the college community such as tuition, financial aid, and family planning for the youth. 

“Politicians don’t really talk about youth issues so there is no incentive to vote. [But] because we don’t vote we’re not a threat [voter] group,” she said.  

There is also a disconnect at a local level, she said, even though the students make up a large percentage of Berkeley population. She does however, credit both Councilmember Kris Worthington and Mayor Tom Bates for their efforts to engage the campus. 

Eric Anthony, president of the Cal College Democrats, a partner in the Youth Vote coalition said he found the shirts “repulsive.” Anthony and other Youth Coalition volunteers are currently out on campus registering students every day to try and increase voter registration, but said they are waiting for the general election before they start another large-scale effort like the one they ran during the recall. 

That registration effort, which ultimately helped stop Proposition 54, was representative of the power the young voting block holds, said Joshi, with droves of students registering because the proposition threatened issues that would affect students directly. 

Anthony points out another issue that will affect students, Proposition 56, is on the upcoming ballot and hopes there is a similar push from students but he’s not holding his breath.  

“[The youth] don’t think their vote means anything,” said Anthony. 

Katz and others hope enough public pressure will help force the store to discontinue the sale of its latest controversial shirt. The number to call for customer complaints is 1-800-959-8794, and the store is open between 5 a.m and 5 p.m. Pacific time.  

CORRECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Betsy Hunton in her review of Helen of Troy writes that Helen ran off with a Greek Prince. 

He was not Greek, he was Trojan. And Menalaos did not want an excuse to go to war with Greece; he was Greek. 

It’s hard to see how the writer could have seen the play without realizing this. 

Nancy Ward 

• 

McNAMARA’S FOG 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Andrew Lam’s comments on The Fog of War, (“‘The Fog of War’ Leaves McNamara Unscathed,” Daily Planet, Feb. 3-5) are right on target. McNamara is indeed “living a kind of self-deception,” and his formidable intelligence works hard at creating his self-delusion. I have not seen the complete film yet, only the clips shown at Zellerbach on Feb. 4, but I did hear McNamara speak there. He was quick to insist that his discussing Iraq would be off the subject, yet he was quick to veer off the subject into endorsement of actions sure to soften a basically hostile Berkeley audience: higher taxes for health care (applause) and education (applause). 

Asked why, when he became convinced that the Vietnam War was wrong, he did not speak out, he answered that in his position in the government, he might have endangered American lives. Yet in the film, he describes with tears in his eyes the grief of a World War II pilot at the death of his tail gunner, a grief answered by General LeMay with an assurance that the tail gunner had died to save many other thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. Apparently McNamara can make no connection in his mind between this comment and the possibility that his speaking out about Vietnam, while possibly killing his power in the administration, and hypothetically costing some immediate deaths among Americans in Vietnam, might very well have saved the lives of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese. 

Asked again about Bush and Iraq, he said that his comments would not be appropriate, that, rather, it was our job as citizens to mobilize our opposition, write, call our representatives, and so on; in fact he more than once went into rather a pep talk about our doing so. Let me get this straight. McNamara felt that when he was in the highest reaches of government, making policy, it was his duty to stick to a policy he knew was wrong. And he is telling us that it is our duty to organize, mobilize, agitate to defeat a government policy that is wrong. (As if there hadn’t been worldwide protests a year ago.) And he says it in a building that stands on the very ground where in October, 1965, we mobilized for a teach-In followed by the first massive march against the Vietnam war—which went on killing people for another 10 years. 

Like a casting director assigning roles for a new war movie? 

Like a salesman describing a new video game? 

No, like a prophet without sin, telling us we must stop the killing. 

I left, docile as the rest of the audience, but the next day I woke up thinking of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and I wondered what kinds of brilliantly designed locks McNamara keeps on the room in his unconscious where the monstrous image of his role in those millions of deaths is horribly revealed. 

Dorothy Bryant 

• 

DOWNTOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last weekend’s commentary piece (“Downtown Berkeley: Who’s Minding the Shop?” Daily Planet, Feb. 6-9) stated downtown should be “worthy of Berkeley and appeal to the entire community.” However the author disparaged long time residents such as myself who believe downtown should not be just large concrete buildings but should include a touch of nature for the well-being of all nature, including ourselves. She disparaged me as a “creek freak” because I believe UC’s proposed new hotel next to Strawberry Creek should not ignore it. 

The author also complains that Berkeley High students are no longer “reasonably contained” as if they are not part of the “entire community” It strikes me they are a vibrant part of our community and should not be out of sight and out of parks and out of mind. 

Bill Walzer 

• 

TRANSPORTATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for your articles on planning in Berkeley. We in Berkeley have serious problems with transportation. The taxi voucher system for elderly and disabled is poorly administered—we at the Gray Panthers office hear frequent complaints about the limited times services to obtain vouchers are available and the chipping away of the funding, which means there are fewer vouchers and they cost more. One Gray Panther commented that her check took three months to clear! That is money lost to the city. 

We need serious planning for everyone’s transportation. Here in Berkeley we have a wonderful theater district, however, the car-less, elderly and disabled who use public transportation cannot access it because many AC Transit routes were discontinued, and many AC Transit services after 6 p.m. were cut. That means that the car-less, the elderly and disabled cannot go to these wonderful arts events because there is no transportation there and home after 6 p.m. 

Those moving to the many new apartment buildings built along Berkeley’s transportation corridors must use cars—there is no provision for grocery or staple shopping nearby, and public transportation ceases after people return from work. Moreover, provision for parking downtown is being cut back, so that those who drive and wish to shop and attend the theaters downtown don’t have a place to park.  

Lack of parking and transportation could be the death knell for downtown businesses and the arts centers. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, the deaths of down towns without parking has been documented across the nation, when malls filled this need and stole their business. 

I hope that the City of Berkeley will quickly implement a broader vision for our future transportation needs. If it doesn’t, I can see horrendous traffic jams on our streets, a deserted downtown, and a declining tax base. 

What we need is a Berkeley jitney system along the major traffic corridors, available user friendly public transit to all the neighborhoods, and a voucher system for the elderly and disabled that will meet their needs. We also need small shops with produce and staples near the new apartment buildings so that cars will be less necessary. All this requires planning! 

Margot Smith 

Berkeley Gray Panthers  

• 

SHASTA FIRE STATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Our neighborhood was selected for the site of the replacement of the Shasta fire station. I am not able to comment on the working and storage space requirements. However, this building will tower over the residences in the neighborhood. The living areas in this new station will occupy at least 3,000 square feet in order to house a crew of three. Even in the hills, 3,000-square-foot residences are a rarity. Is this really necessary? 

Lisa Brunet 

• 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m writing to voice my dismay at the closing of the Berkeley Extension’s English Language Program. I’ve been following the developments with interest.  

This is what I understand. I understand that the program has an international reputation for excellence and has been successfully teaching foreign students for 30 years. I understand that the school is profitable and that the students contribute more than 2.5 million dollars yearly to the local economy. 

I also understand that the program’s teachers are the only ones at UC Extension that are allowed to work full time, qualifying them for benefits. And just prior to the shut down, the program filed a suit with the Public Employee Relations Board citing unfair labor practices. 

According to Dean Sherwood the school is being shut down because it doesn’t fit into his strategic plan. Let’s see. Spreads international good will, profitable, contributes to the local economy. Shut the school down. How strategic is that? I’m no fool. He doesn’t want to pay benefits.  

What is even more troubling to me is that the dean is sacrificing an established institution with dedicated educators. He is sacrificing profits. And he is tarnishing the reputation of Berkeley in the world community.  

This is bad judgment. It’s arrogant and shortsighted. 

In an era where institutions of higher learning should be leading the way in international relations, Berkeley is locking the door and turning out the lights. We should be reaching out rather than isolating ourselves. What better way is there to build bridges than to encourage tomorrow’s leaders to study English at Berkeley. 

Kevin Numoto 

Oakland 

• 

SKEWED FACTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The account of the School Board’s Feb. 4 vote regarding a new student assignment plan (“Despite Lawsuit, School Board Adopts Racial Criteria,” Daily Planet, Feb. 6-9) has skewed several important facts evident to anyone who was present. An essential feature of the new plan is that it is “race neutral.” Race was considered along with several socio-economic factors in creating a composite socio-economic category map of the city. But the plan does not give any consideration to race in its formula for assigning students to schools. If Ward Connerly’s “race blind” initiative on the recent ballot had passed it would have had no impact on this plan. 

I don’t know how the painstaking discussion, written narrative and charts get translated into the juicy-sounding headline “Board Adopts Racial Criteria.” 

Board member Shirley Issel surprised the board and audience with an exhaustive enumeration of objections. Her shots were in many directions but it was clear that her principal objection was not that race had been considered in the formulation of the map. Judging from her remarks she favors a socio-economic scheme using only a criterion of low family income, “free and reduced lunch” eligibility. That approach has been tried in some cities and was among the many scenarios and combinations modeled by BUSD in its quest for a viable plan. 

If the new plan had been voted down or tabled on Feb. 4 then the calendar would have dictated that students be assigned to schools this year by the old integration plan which used race as a primary criterion. 

Bruce Wicinas 

• 

WASTED REPUTATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When UC Berkeley responded to the SARS epidemic last year by banning certain students from its English language programs, the outcry from the excluded was so large that it changed the administration’s minds. Such is the eagerness with which students from around the world wish to take courses at Berkeley, though hundreds of other institutions offer similar programs. 

When I was in Japan, I worked part time for a unit of a university that sent Japanese students to English language programs in the United States. The two most popular destinations were UC Berkeley and UCLA. I can still remember the dreamy eyes of the students as we held information seminars about Berkeley’s program. In fact, it is through this work that I myself became interested in Berkeley. 

The sudden announcement to close down the English Language Program is, in my mind, a huge step backward for UC Berkeley, a step that could cost its hard-gained name recognition in the world. It took 30 years for the program to build its reputation to a point where 3,000 students from 50 countries attended last year. In a sense, UC Berkeley has been getting millions of dollars in free worldwide advertisement as these students spread their experiences after they returned from Berkeley. 

With the fees for international students increasing from $16,000 a year to $24,000 a year in the last two years, Berkeley is already at a disadvantage in enrolling international students. Now, it is entirely closing down the popular and accessible English Language Program. Not only will Berkeley lose at least 3,000 international students in a year, it is at the threshold of losing its international status and a part of its unique culture that comes from the presence of such a diverse population. 

The outcry that Berkeley heard from excluded students last year was the product of the admiration that it has gained through the years. It is shocking and devastating that the university would think that it can get rid of this widely popular program with a stroke of a pen and only a few months’ notice. 

Takeshi Akiba 

UC Berkeley student 

• 

THANKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As we prepare to move back into our kindergarten and first grade classrooms following the flood at Malcolm X School, the Annex Wing teachers would like to take this opportunity to thank the BUSD maintenance staff for their care of our rooms. The job was immense. Wallboard, cupboards, and carpets all had to be removed and replaced. Each day, as more and more damage was discovered, it was immediately scheduled to be fixed. We appreciate that teachers were frequently included in discussions of the timeline and in on-site walk-throughs. Our rooms are now back in order and clean up work is focused on the rest of the lower floor which also sustained significant damage. The BUSD maintenance staff did a terrific job! 

We are, of course, hoping that the city and the district are taking steps to make sure major flooding doesn’t occur again in the next rainstorm. The flooding was not just a problem for the school, but also for the many neighbors who had flooded basements and cars on Ellis Street, east (uphill) of the school. We hope the city and the district will work together to investigate the causes of the flood and then jointly take the necessary steps to avoid this from happening again. 

Cynthia Allman, Candy Cannon, Hazelle Fortich, Dyanthe McDougal,  

Kathleen Richerson, Louise Rosenkrantz, and Kai Shen 

Malcolm X School 

Friday was a tear-filled day at Berkeley High. Tissue boxes lined the steps to the Community Theater where students—some slumped against the building, their faces cupped in their hands—gathered to mourn the passing of classmate Nic Rotolo. 

On Thursday night, Rotolo, a Berkeley High junior, and hockey player with the San Jose Junior Sharks, collapsed on the ice while his parents and four grandparents watched from the stands. His mother, Christine Rotolo Stevenson, rushed to the rink and held him in her arms, but Rotolo, 17, never regained consciousness. He was pronounced dead at 8:50 p.m. at San Jose Medical Center. 

The Santa Clara County Coroners Office said the cause of death is still pending the results of further tests, but Rotolo’s parents said medical examiner Judy Melinek believed Rotolo, a robust 6-foot-2-inch, 215-pound defenseman, likely died of commotio cordis.  

The medical rarity occurs when a blunt blow to the chest disrupts the heart’s rhythm and is not detectable by an autopsy. When it strikes, the ailment is nearly always fatal, according to a report by Dr. Michael Vincent, though had a heart defibrillator been available within a minute after Rotolo collapsed, his life might have been saved.  

His parents said film of the game showed he collapsed seven seconds after an opponent’s shoulder smacked into his chest while Rotolo was applying a check.  

Conrad Stevenson, Rotolo’s step-father remembered his step-son as a “great kid who loved life. He was a totally funny guy, a total goofball and he loved hockey.” 

Rotolo started skating as a three-year-old at Berkeley Iceland and worked his way up to the Junior Sharks, an elite youth team that crisscrosses the western United States and Canada. 

Two of his grandparents had flown in from Texas for the rare home game, Stevenson said, which the Sharks needed to win to advance in a league tournament. 

Jolyn Overton, a close friend, said Rotolo was in especially high spirits on the day he died. “He had a really great day Thursday,” she said. “His grandparents were here and he had gotten an A-plus on his Spanish exam.” 

Rotolo lived in Berkeley with his mother, step-father and step-sister Raven. He also had a step-brother Paolo Brooks, a fellow Berkeley High student. Brooks was so upset by his step-brother’s death that on Friday he broke his hand punching a school locker, said his mother Natashya Brooks.  

Rotolo, who was born in Walnut Creek, spent most of his childhood in Piedmont before moving to Berkeley as a ninth grader when his mother remarried. 

At Berkeley High, he befriended a tight-knit crew of about six classmates who spent most of their time watching movies, playing hockey, football and lacrosse, and battling with water balloons and air pressure guns. 

“We were all aggressive with each other, putting one another through physical pain,” Overton said. “Since Nic was so much bigger than everyone, we just took turns picking fights with him.” 

Though Rotolo cast an imposing presence, with his size and love of hard-edged punk rock, the variety not played on mainstream radio, his friends described him as a fun-loving, demonstrative and caring person, who didn’t fit the mold of a jock.  

Overton recalled one evening stopping by Rotolo’s house at a time when she was dealing with personal issues. “We talked the whole night,” she said. “You knew he would never tell anyone what you said. He would just listen and always try to help make you feel better.” 

Stevenson broke the news to his friends Thursday night. On Friday, with the help of some teachers and parents, they set up a memorial that celebrated his unique, offbeat spirit. 

Plastered on the glass exterior of the Community Theater were a series of pictures of Rotolo, bare-chested, offering a different engaging facial expression in each shot. 

On two fold-out tables sat an empty bottle of Guinness beer with one lily inside, a blown-up picture of Rotolo, middle finger extended and sheets of construction paper covered with messages written by classmates. 

Though it’s hard to be well-known at 2,700-student Berkeley High, Rotolo’s death shook students beyond his small band of close friends. Several of the most emotional testimonials scribbled on the paper came from students who misspelled his name. 

“Thanks for all the good times, RIP Superman,” read one message. 

Rotolo, who aspired to play college hockey in New England, was a fitness guru, friends said, often running with the lacrosse team and working out regularly at the YMCA. 

He joined the Junior Sharks at their inception four years ago and played for various teams in their program. 

His coach Derek Fisher said of him: “He was a quality human being with a strong head on his shoulders. It was wonderful just to watch how he played the game and the enjoyment and learning he took away from it.” 

In honor of Rotolo, Southwest Youth Hockey League Commissioner Ron White announced the championship trophy in his division-Midget Tier 1- would be renamed the “Nic Rotolo Memorial Trophy.” 

Since his death, Rotolo’s friends have spent much of their time at his mother’s house to grieve with the family. “I’ve realized there’s going to be a tremendous amount of people who miss him,” his mother said. “I’m in shock of his death, but I’m also in shock of how many people loved him.” 

Charitable donations in Rotolo’s name can be made to the Iglehart Wilderness Foundation, which gives underprivileged children opportunity to explore nature and the Norcal Rep Club Youth Hockey Program. 

A memorial will be held at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Community Theater. 

After a week’s vacation, the city council returns tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 11) to its continuing task of closing a projected $10 million shortfall in the upcoming city budget. City Manager Phil Kamlarz has set up a series of 5 p.m. non-voting working sessions on various aspects of the budget, scheduled to continue through the end of March. 

Also this week, on Wednesday night, the Planning Commission will receive its subcommittee report on the formation of the UC Hotel and Conference Center Complex Task Force. 

Tonight’s city council working session will focus on ideas for raising new revenue, including suggestions listed as “parking fine payment changes” and a possible November tax increase ballot measure. 

At the request of Councilmember Linda Maio, the council will discuss a controversial budget-cutting proposal at its 7 p.m. regular meeting: a recommendation to defer construction on any new $25,000 traffic circles in the city, and instead investigate lower-cost designs that are already in place in other cities. Members of at least one community group, the LeConte Neighborhood Association, have been lobbying councilmembers to keep the present traffic circle construction schedule in place. 

Also for its 7 p.m. regular meeting, the council has scheduled the long-delayed vote on the Sprint wireless communications facility proposed for the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Cedar Street. The council held a public hearing on the facility last month, but held off voting on Councilmember Dona Spring’s motion to deny Sprint’s permit in order to give the company more time to submit information proving that the proposed facility is needed. The council has had the Sprint matter in its hands since April of last year, after neighbors appealed a decision by the Zoning Adjustments Board to grant the permit for the facility. Much of that time was taken awaiting a report from an independent evaluation of the project. 

On Wednesday night, the Berkeley Planning Commission will get its first look at the membership of the 25-member task force set up by the commission to “monitor, review, and make recommendations about the University of California’s proposed hotel and conference center project” on the Center-Shattuck-Allston-Oxford block site presently occupied by a Bank of America branch and several UC structures. Mayor Tom Bates said this week that while he believes that the membership of the task force is “balanced,” he continues to feel that the implementation of the task force should be delayed until he completes negotiations with UC over how much regulatory control the city will have over the building of the complex. 

The Planning Commission will also begin discussions Wednesday night on changing the city’s zoning code to bring it into compliance with the University Area Specific Plan. At present, the zoning code allows larger developments than would be permitted under the plan. The city council had set a March 16 public hearing on a proposed moratorium on mixed-use, above-three-story developments in the University Avenue area until the zoning code changes were put in place. But this week, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque and City Planning Manager Dan Marks told members of the city council’s Agenda Committee that they would not now recommend such a moratorium. Both Albuquerque and Marks said that because state law only allows a 45-day moratorium to be imposed once, without extension, there was a danger that such a moratorium would end before the zoning code changes were made, and a developer could take advantage of the loophole by applying for a permit during the interim. Marks told the Agenda Committee members that the council would have enough time to enact a moratorium in the event a developer applied for a permit to build a larger project in the University Avenue area while the code changes were still being considered.

Berkeley resident and convicted child molester Kenneth Parnell was convicted Monday on charges of trying to buy a 4-year-old boy. 

Parnell, 72, was arrested in West Berkeley last January after he allegedly offered an informant $500 to deliver him a boy for sexual purposes.  

After deliberating for about two hours, the jury found Parnell guilty of solicitation to commit a crime, trying to buy a person and attempted child theft. Under the state’s three strikes law, Parnell could face life imprisonment. 

Parnell was convicted of kidnapping a 7-year-old Merced boy in 1972 and a 5-year-old Ukiah boy in 1980. He was paroled to Berkeley in 1985 after serving five years in state prison. 

—Matthew Artz 

Bay City News contributed to this report.

There may still be a glimmer of hope for the 30 UC Berkeley graduate students denied consideration for prestigious Fulbright-Hayes fellowships when their applications were mailed after the competition’s deadline. 

Steven J. Uhlfelder, chairman of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, has scheduled a conference call of board members for Tuesday (Feb. 11) to see if anything can be done to assist the Berkeley students. 

“We’re just going to try to receive the facts and see if there’s anything we can do,” Uhlfelder told the Daily Planet Monday. 

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl, hailed Uhlfelder’s intervention, saying in a prepared statement that, “The purpose of the board is to make certain that all students have fair access to the competition...That, of course, has been our purpose in pursuing this all along.” 

Last month, the Department of Education disqualified UC Berkeley’s 30 applicants after their applications arrived postmarked one day after the Oct. 20 deadline. UC Berkeley officials contended the applications were scheduled to be mailed on the deadline day, but Federal Express never picked up the packages. 

Uhlfelder said the board had never reviewed decisions of the Department of Education during his three years of service, but in the case of the Berkeley students, “We need to make sure everyone feels they were treated fairly.” 

Fulbrights are among the most prestigious and generous scholarships offered to graduate students seeking to do research abroad, allowing recipients to propose their own budgets and include money for spouses. 

Last year, half of the UC Berkeley’s 30 applicants received grants ranging from $19,593 to $63,947, according to the university.

Ronald White, 45, of Berkeley was arraigned in an Oakland courthouse yesterday on three counts of carjacking and three counts of kidnapping for robbery. He was referred to a public defender and denied bail, said Deputy District Attorney Mike Nieto. 

Berkeley Police arrested White on Thursday in connection with four carjacking and robbery cases targeting women drivers from November through February. Police said ATM photographs and testimony from victims led them to White. 

All of the cases involved lone female drivers, forced at knifepoint to surrender control of their car, police said. In three of the cases the victim was forced to withdraw money from bank accounts at ATM machines. In the other case, the victim was sexually assaulted. 

Police said White surrendered himself peacefully after relatives alerted him that investigators planned to speak with him about the crimes. 

—Matthew Artz

Whether Kevin Cooper is ultimately put to death in San Quentin State Prison or not, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has missed a historic and unique opportunity to mount the bully pulpit to enlighten and lead. 

Kevin Cooper’s case, like so many, illustrates the unreliability of jury verdicts for death: sloppy police work, inconsistent statements by witnesses, evidence destroyed or never presented to the jury, and lingering doubts about his guilt. There are simply too many places for human error or malice to intervene and taint the process of taking a human life. Because of these predictable errors of a fallible system, more than 100 people who once were counting down the days and hours on death rows across the country have been freed as wrongly convicted. Is it possible that Kevin Cooper is among them? With an error rate that high, how can we trust that he is not? 

Besides the moral questions that seem only to be asked in church, the governor could have talked practicality, nuts and bolts economics. The death penalty is hugely expensive. In this time of fiscal crisis, Schwarzenegger might have used the context of a clemency hearing to examine what it has cost the people of the state to bring this one man to this day, solely for the purpose of executing him. 

A study done in Illinois—where the rate of error so offended another pro-death penalty, Catholic, Republican governor, George Ryan, that he first declared a moratorium on its use, then cleared death row through clemency and commutation as he left office—found that it costs about a million dollars a year for each person sentenced to death. There are more than 600 condemned prisoners in California, the largest death row in the nation. What would a moratorium on executions, starting with Kevin Cooper, save the state in resources that could strengthen local police and fire departments, schools and parks, libraries, services for the disabled? Why not raise the question? 

Schwarzenegger could have pointed to his European birth, and opened a discussion about why we, alone among western nations, allow the state the ultimate power of life and death. His native Austria, in fact, was the first country to urge the United Nations, through the Commission on Human Rights, to take up the issue of the death penalty as a human rights violation. That was in 1968. Is the death penalty a violation of basic human dignity, as the South African Supreme Court has declared? Isn’t the discussion worth having? 

As a religious Catholic, Gov. Schwarzenegger might have publicly acknowledged that Pope John Paul II declared in his encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (The Gospel of Life) that, as a practical matter, executions cannot be justified in modern times. That was in 1995. What are the teachings of the great religions of the world on this subject? That, too, would be a worthy question to pursue. 

This governor could have reached across old party lines through his wife’s membership in the Kennedy clan to question why both assassinated Kennedys, John and Bobby, opposed the death penalty, as their surviving brother Ted still does, and why that opposition may have attenuated in Maria’s generation. Our governor might have raised this apparent anomaly in the course of a deeper discussion about a life-and-death matter. 

One could argue that only a Republican governor could take a principled stand on the death penalty, the Democrats being too fearful of being branded soft on crime. But this particular governor’s opportunity went far beyond the “only Nixon could go to China” model. Among sitting governors, Schwarzenegger is unique. He is bigger than life, a huge movie star whose enormous popularity has nothing to do with politics. 

California’s governor had the unique opportunity to speak and act on principle regarding the execution of Kevin Cooper. Because of who he is, he would have risked little by doing so. Instead, without even the benefit of a hearing, public or private, he denied clemency in two summary sentences, concluding about the man whose life we are about to snuff out: “He is not a case for clemency.” 

The governor not only refused to spare a human life, he also chose not to expend any of his immense political capital to raise questions and open an overdue discussion about the morality and efficacy of the death penalty, a discussion that other politicians have shown they have no stomach for. In so doing, he has shown himself to be just another politician. 

Michael A. Kroll founder of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. and currently an editor of The Beat Within, a writing program for incarcerated youth. 

It’s hard for most people to get their brains around a $521 billion deficit. Most of us have a hard enough time envisioning a million dollars, let alone a billion—which is, of course, a thousand million. Try to think about 521 thousand million dollars—which is next year’s budget deficit—and your mind just closes down. A kind of numbness sets in.  

Still, I want you to concentrate on a very practical question. Who’s going to lend the government that 521 billion dollars? In point of fact, it’s going to be the foreigners and the wealthy Americans who buy treasury bonds. And of course, eventually, we—you and I and our children—will have to pay that money back. There was a time not long ago in American history when the nation’s richest citizens helped finance the government by paying a high percentage of their incomes in taxes. Under President Dwight Eisenhower, for example, the highest marginal tax rate was 90 percent. Now, America’s richest citizens finance our government primarily by lending it money.  

Not to worry, though. The president promises to cut the budget deficit in half over the next five years. But here’s the catch. You’ve heard of balloon clauses in loan agreements, haven’t you? A balloon clause says you start out paying back a little bit and then your payments increase until you’re walloped with huge payments later on. The president’s budget is like that. The really big-ticket items hit more than five years from now, starting in 2009.  

Here’s one example. The White House admits that the 10-year cost of the new Medicare drug benefit will be more than half a trillion dollars. But what no one’s saying is that most of this kicks in after 2009, when the baby boomers begin retiring and taking advantage of the drug benefit.  

Or consider the tax cuts. If they’re made permanent, as the president wants, the loss of revenues over the next 10 years will be five and a half trillion dollars. And here’s the kicker: Most of this occurs after 2009. That’s because the tax cuts start out relatively small and grow.  

By the year 2014, according to recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the president’s budget will have added more than 10 trillion dollars to the national debt. And most of this happens after 2009. So cutting the deficit in half over the next five years doesn’t mean all that much, even if the promise is kept. Did you hear me? Ten trillion dollars. That’s ten thousand billion. Ten trillion dollars is just about the value of everything that everyone in this nation produces in an entire year.  

Ten trillion dollars—with the biggest balloon clause in the history of the world.  

Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, is professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis and the author of Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America, out in May from Knopf. He is teaching at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy spring semester. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a report on the New California Media association’s first national poll of Latino reaction to Bush’s immigration proposals. The public opinion survey was sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation and conducted by Bendixen and Associates. 

Latino reactions to President Bush’s new immigration proposal are mixed. The proposal has significant backing but has so far not translated into increased election year support for the president.  

Latinos demonstrated a high level of awareness that an immigration proposal was made by President Bush’s administration. Once respondents received more information however, opinions about the proposal changed, with opposition increasing.  

A large majority of respondents (74 percent) said they had heard of the proposal, which centers on a temporary worker program that will match undocumented workers living in the United States and potential workers abroad with jobs.  

When first asked, a significant number of Latinos were aware of the plan and supported it (42 percent), while a lower proportion (20 percent) were aware and opposed it. The rest (38 percent) either were not aware of the plan or did not have an opinion.  

Opposition to the plan doubled once respondents were informed that “most” temporary workers would have to return to their home countries.  

With the additional information, respondents became evenly divided between those (45 percent) who opposed the plan, and those (45 percent) still supporting it.  

This is how the Bush proposal was described to the poll respondents:  

Let me tell you about President Bush’s immigration proposal. It would grant working undocumented immigrants in the United States temporary legal status or work visas for three years. The work permits or visas would be renewable for an additional three years. After that, most of those in the program would have to return to their native country.  

Respondents were questioned between Jan. 20 and Jan. 26. President Bush announced his immigration proposal to the nation on Jan. 7.  

The survey involved a scientifically selected, nationally representative sample of 800 Hispanic/Latino adults who could choose to be interviewed in either Spanish or English. Before being asked for their immigration status respondents were assured the interview was 100 percent confidential. The poll has a margin of error of +/- three percentage points.  

Reactions to Proposal Details 

Latinos found a lot to like in the Bush proposal. A majority of respondents said they thought it was a good idea that temporary worker participants would receive comparable credit for their social security deductions in home country retirement systems (79 percent); that temporary workers would be protected by labor laws like the minimum wage (81 percent); that temporary workers would be able to travel back and forth to home countries (83 percent); and that they would be allowed to bring members of their immediate family with them if they earned enough money to support them (78 percent).  

The respondents were also asked to consider different specific criticisms aimed at the Bush proposal and say whether they agreed with these criticisms. Two criticisms resonated the most: a majority of Latinos (58 percent) said it was a valid criticism that the Bush plan does not guarantee a permanent residency visa or U.S. citizenship to undocumented immigrants that receive the proposed temporary legal status. A larger majority (63 percent) said it was a valid criticism that President Bush does not care about immigrants and that his plan is only aimed at getting Latino votes for 2004.  

Also, the majority of respondents said they agreed with criticisms that the plan would give too much power to employers and lead to workplace abuses, and that it would create a second-class group of workers like the “bracero” program of the 1950s.  

Latinos responded more positively to an alternate immigration proposal, which was discussed next. An overwhelming majority of Latinos (85 percent) said they supported a different immigration policy proposed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that would allow undocumented immigrants a way to earn legalization and become U.S. citizens.  

That plan is similar to a bipartisan proposal introduced Jan. 21 while the poll was being conducted by Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and minority leader Sen. Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat.  

When asked to choose between President Bush’s plan and the Hispanic Caucus plan, a wide majority (75 percent) said they thought the Hispanic Caucus plan was better and a small proportion (16 percent) preferred the Bush plan.  

President Bush and the 2004 Election 

Before being asked specifically about the immigration proposal, a majority of Latinos polled (53 percent) gave President Bush positive job ratings, rating his job as “good” or “excellent.”  

After being polled on the immigration proposal, Latinos who were U.S. citizens and thus eligible to vote were asked whether they would support President Bush in the upcoming presidential elections.  

A third (31 percent) said they would vote for President Bush. A higher number (48 percent) said they would choose the Democratic Party candidate.  

The results were the same for the 396 Latino registered voters surveyed; a similar number (51 percent) said they would vote for a Democrat, while about a third of the respondents (30 percent) said they would vote for President Bush.  

Bush’s approval rating among Latinos and the percentage of Latinos intending to cast votes for him in 2004 did not show improvement over figures from recent national surveys completed before the immigration proposal was announced.  

A New York Times/CBS poll conducted in July 2003 found that 52 percent of Latinos thought Bush was doing a good job.  

A Pew Hispanic Center poll conducted Dec. 8-11, 2003 found that 46 percent of Latinos gave President Bush a favorable job rating; 27 percent of Latinos said then that they would vote for Bush. A follow-up Pew poll conducted Jan. 2-4, shortly after the capture of Saddam Hussein found that 54 percent of Latinos gave Bush a positive job rating. In that survey, thirty-seven percent of Latinos said they would vote for Bush, while 48 percent said they would vote for a Democrat.  

President Bush won 35 percent of the Latino vote in the 2000 presidential elections. Among Latinos, immigration ranked fourth as a concern, with less than one-fifth (15 percent) of respondents naming it as the most important issue. It ranked behind jobs and the economy (30 percent), education (26 percent) and health care (20 percent). Terrorism was the most important issue for 51 respondents (6 percent).  

A majority of respondents (73 percent) said they thought it important that President Vicente Fox of Mexico had endorsed the proposal at the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, Jan. 12-13. A majority (82 percent) also said that it was important that President Bush participated in the summit.  

Registered Voters/ Undocumented Immigrants 

For registered voters, the most established portion of the Latino population, levels of support and opposition did not vary as much after receiving additional information on the proposal.  

Initial reactions among Latino registered voters who had heard of President Bush’s proposal were slightly less enthusiastic than that of all Latino respondents: one-fourth (24 percent) said they opposed the plan; a relatively low number (35 percent) said they supported it.  

Once the registered voters received the additional information, opposition increased (47 percent) and support increased slightly (42 percent).  

Upon first being asked undocumented immigrants who said they had heard of President Bush’s plan were largely (58 percent) in favor of it and a smaller percentage (19 percent) opposed it.  

Once the undocumented immigrant respondents were given more information and were told that “most” of the workers in the program would have to return to their home countries after work terms expired, results changed: a higher number of the undocumented (50 percent) now said they opposed the plan.  

Support decreased significantly, although a significant number (42 percent) of undocumented immigrants, the least established sector of the Latino population, still said they supported it.  

The rapid rise of John Kerry’s presidential campaign is causing grave concern in the Republican Party’s upper management. Although GOP. leaders denigrate him as a “Massachusetts liberal,” invoking doom-laden memories of Michael Dukakis, such glib chatter only provides a temporary relief from their worries. 

If he wins the Democratic nomination, Mr. Kerry will pose certain challenges that aren’t so easily solved: He’s a decorated war veteran, a hunter and a politician who doesn’t hesitate to fight back when attacked. Those qualities distinguish him from the soft targets that Republicans enjoy hitting most. 

Caustic assessments of the senator’s personality and character began to leak out last year, only to subside when his prospects seemed to dim. Now emergency experiments in Kerry-bashing are again on the front burners, boiling up unwholesome little pots labeled Botox, French-looking, rich wife, special interests, Jane Fonda, high taxes and, of course, liberal, liberal and liberal. 

The results to date aren’t impressive. In recent national polls, the lines marked “Kerry” and “Bush” have crossed—with the former rising and the latter descending. But bad news only inspires the inventive elves in the Republican war dungeon to more strenuous effort. Ed Gillespie, the former Enron lobbyist who serves as chairman of the Republican National Committee, is test-marketing their latest products. 

Some are obvious duds. When Mr. Gillespie harks back to 1972 for evidence that Mr. Kerry is “weak” on defense, as he did in remarks the other day, he invites questions about what George W. Bush was doing in those days. (And what young Mr. Bush was supposed to do but didn’t, like showing up for duty in the Air National Guard.) As the Bush twins might say, let’s not go there. 

Naturally, the Republicans will pay close attention to the senator’s four-term voting record, which offers plenty of material for creative misinterpretation. The objective is to tarnish Mr. Kerry’s national-security credentials and place the nation on orange alert against his candidacy. 

In that vein, the R.N.C. chairman has scolded Mr. Kerry for his alleged zeal to decimate the intelligence and defense budgets. He says that in 1994 and 1995, the Senator tried to slash intelligence funding by more than a billion dollars. 

Why would the Massachusetts senator, then serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee, question the massive, classified intelligence budget? With colleagues from both parties, he was then seeking to recover a substantial amount that had been squirreled away during the previous five years by the National Reconnaissance Office—the highly secretive satellite-intelligence agency whose strange fiscal practices were a scandal in Washington. 

On Sept. 29, 1995, Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who chaired the intelligence committee, rose on the Senate floor to explain why he and other members were seeking an unusual amendment to the intelligence authorization bill. According to Mr. Specter, they were seeking “to address concerns about financial practices and management at the National Reconnaissance Office …. These amendments address an issue that the committee first identified in 1992 but which has received a good deal of press attention in the past several days and has raised questions about the National Reconnaissance Office’s financial management practices. It has been alleged that the NRO has accumulated more than $1 billion in unspent funds without informing the Pentagon, CIA, or Congress. It has been further alleged that this is one more example of how intelligence agencies sometimes use their secret status to avoid accountability.” 

Vast sums have been spent on intelligence activities during the past two decades, but were they spent wisely or squandered? Such questions are even more pertinent now than when Mr. Kerry first began to ask them. More than 10 years ago, he demanded that higher budgets should include greater accountability. 

“If intelligence is the valuable commodity that I contend it is in this very uncertain world, a world of new threats but from which the old nuclear threat has not completely faded, then it ought to be amply funded,” he said in 1993. With the end of the Cold War, defense budgets were declining, but Mr. Kerry argued that intelligence should be restructured rather than cut. He had investigated the Panamanian drug dictator Manuel Noriega and exposed the criminal Saudi bankers at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. 

In the Senate, Mr. Kerry wasn’t quite alone in questioning Pentagon waste. Every year, his close friend John McCain reads a list of the worst defense pork projects aloud on the Senate floor. Despite their differences on some issues, Mr. McCain has said he feels “unbounded respect and admiration” for his Massachusetts colleague and fellow Vietnam veteran—an endorsement that sounds more heartfelt than the Arizonan’s more formal backing of his old enemy, Mr. Bush. 

No, Mr. Kerry isn’t an easy target or a simple caricature. He won’t sit in a tank wearing a helmet three sizes too big, either. 

Joe Conason writes a weekly column on politics for the New York Observer. His most recent book is Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth.

When my computer crashed last week I did what I always do in the face of calamity, which is to immediately admit defeat and then begin to mope nobly. When my previous computer crashed a year ago I hired a geek to extract the information from the hard drive and then I threw the entire thing away. No computer, no crash. 

Life can be deliciously simple sometimes. My wife thought it was a bit of a drastic solution, but the computer was almost a year old anyhow, and probably obsolete, though it did have a pleasing, retro 2002 look to it. 

This time though, getting a new computer was not an option. I dread calling tech support because they always ask so many pesky questions, like what kind of computer I’m using. Is it too much to ask that these people know everything? 

The first thing he asked was what operating system I’m running. By some quirk of luck, I knew that one, and I started to feel as if I might actually have some mastery of this situation. I’d breezed right through the questions about my name and telephone number and I was clearly poised for great things. Until he asked if I had any hubs or routers between the computer and the modem. That one stalled me out. It’s certainly possible. I mean, there are a lot of wires and cords under the desk. And Cheerios as well. Yup, lots of Cheerios down there, though I do understand that these have no data processing function of their own. 

Eventually we ascertained that I either do or I don’t have hubs and/or routers, and then he dropped the bomb on me. 

“We’re going to have to do a Power Cycle,” he said.  

I was crestfallen; this was unmitigated disaster. I had plans for the day, plans for actual face-to-face contact with actual face-possessing human beings. But now, clearly there wouldn’t be time, what with the Power Cycle and all. 

“I want you to reach behind your modem,” he said. “There’s a button that says ‘on/off’ and I want you to press it.”  

I followed his commands precisely, knowing that any small deviation on my part had the potential to lead to accidental global thermonuclear war. That’s just the power of computers, and I’m a man who can respect that.  

“After you turn the modem off, wait 10 seconds and turn it back on.” 

I did that. 

“Try it now,” he said. “Is your computer working now?” 

I called tech support for that? It worked of course, but did we have to get all techno and give it a name like Power Cycle? What do they call it when I swat the screen with the back of my hand—a digital-pixel realignment maneuver? 

In general I tend to use psychology to solve technological problems. If you act cool, like you simply don’t care, the problematic device will lose interest in tormenting you. Lately the remote control for my stereo has been less than helpful, so I end up mashing the play button until my knuckle aches. (Why I need a remote for my stereo isn’t a bad question—I’m never more than six feet from the thing, and besides, it lives right next to the cookies, which makes going there fairly pleasant.) The more I fret though, the more obstinate the stereo becomes. Better to sneak up on the thing. Oh my, is that a remote control in my hand? Not that I care one way or the other, but if I should happen to casually press play, I wonder what might happen? Works every time—never let the machine see you sweat. 

The problem, I think, is that even the simplest of modern technologies have far outstripped my ability to understand them. I once heard Bill Gates say that he wants computers to be as commonplace and non-threatening as toasters. What technophobe grandma would say “I’ve just never figured out how to use these newfangled toaster things; I’ll always prefer using a granite slab heated over a coal fire.” Gates’s dream sounds like a hell of a goal, until I admit that I don’t fundamentally understand the toaster. I get the general principal: Bread goes in, heat comes on, toast comes out. Voila, we have ze magique. But how it all happens is a mystery. I learned about electricity in that high school physics class where we diagrammed ohms and volts and learned that a lever is really the same as a pulley which is really the same as an inclined plane. But c’mon. Toast is coming out of my wall socket? Now that’s crazy talk. 

The comfortable balance, for me, is that I don’t ask too many questions or make unreasonable demands. Don’t I get toast more often than not? Consider it a blessing. Isn’t my e-mail account up and running at least half the time? I’m a lucky, lucky man. I try to think of these modern complexities not as providing more things that can break, but as offering more potential solutions. After all, you can’t Power Cycle two sticks together and have any hope of getting fire, now can you? 

Zac Unger is an Oakland firefighter who lives in Berkeley. His book Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman will be published by Penguin on March 8. He had to send this column twice; the first was lost to—yes—a computer error. 

When the subject is book publishers, “small” rarely means “insignificant.” Try “independent” and “adventurous”—vital terms in an era when most big publishers have become conformist corporate citizens. 

It was bad news, then, when Berkeley’s Creative Arts Book Company went out of business last year, especially since Creative Arts was unusually willing to publish fiction, which is risky financially. 

But there’s good news for book lovers, too: Some 15 independent presses remain in Berkeley, and most seem to be flourishing. 

Small presses deliver variety: music, politics, travel, spirituality and religion, law, Californiana, alternative medicine, Asia and the Pacific Rim, personal development—just a handful of the subjects of books published here each year. 

Quality is generally high, and in the case of some presses, so is quantity. Sometimes, it seems, small doesn’t exactly mean small. 

Consider Berkeley’s Wilderness Press, in business since the late 1960s. Their current list contains some 150 books, along with a scattering of titles they distribute for other publishers. It’s also a great source for maps. 

The press’s location is distinctly urban, in West Berkeley across Harrison Street from the currently padlocked Berkeley Skate Park. 

There I met with Laura Keresty, WP’s marketing director, and with Thomas Winnett, publisher emeritus and founder of the press. As Tom filled me on the history of his company, I recognized it as a virtual textbook case of how a small press can become a big success. 

First, you need a book that people want to buy. In 1967, in Berkeley, that meant a guide to hiking and backpacking in the Sierra, and Tom had written one, Sierra North (now in its eighth edition). There being then no other book like it, Sierra North wasn’t attractive to cautious established publishers, so Tom published it himself. After all, he already owned a publishing company, Fybate Lecture Notes, well known to UC Berkeley students of the ‘50s and ‘60s, especially those too lazy to get up for class. 

Note-takers were dispatched to the university’s big lectures, producing notes which Fybate then printed up and sold. Tom told me that he carefully read and edited every page of every set of notes. 

The same care went into the writing and editing of Sierra North, and the first run of 2,800 copies quickly sold out. 

Other books soon followed. Pacific Crest Trail California was phenomenally successful and now exists as a set of three volumes. Slain by the ready availability of photocopying, Fybate eventually closed, but Wilderness Press kept growing at the rate of six to 12 new titles every year. Current bestsellers include 101 Hikes in Northern California, by Matt Hein, Jerry Schad’s 101 Hikes in Southern California, and Meditations of Jon Muir. And owing to changing conditions along trails and in parks, older books must be constantly revised. 

Some diversification has occurred over the years. Wilderness Press has urban books, such as Berkeley author Gail Todd’s Lunchtime Walks in Downtown San Francisco and Adah Bakalinsky’s Stairway Walks in San Francisco, now in its fifth edition. (Watch for news of Stairway Walk Day, on May 22.) 

There’s been geographic expansion, too. Though Marketing Director Keresty identified California as their base and the Sierra as their core, Wilderness Press has moved into publishing guides covering the Northwest and Nevada. Their catalog also includes works she described as “geographically neutral,” such as Carole Latimer’s Wilderness Cuisine and John Vonhof’s Fixing Your Feet. I wouldn’t dare leave civilization without both. 

New writers are encouraged to submit proposals. See www.wildernesspress.com for details on submissions and for much else. 

Another Berkeley publisher, Kelsey St. Press, has taken a different road. In the words of one of its founders, Rena Rosenwasser, “We decided to stay small and do what we do well.” What they do, and have been doing for 30 years, is publish poetry by women. 

Among women’s presses specializing in literature, Kelsey St. is one of the oldest and most respected anywhere. 

There were six co-founders. Two—Rena Rosenwasser and Patricia Dienstfrey—remain fully engaged, and I caught up with them and a relatively new associate, Sonya Philip, at a Berkeley café. They gave me the history. 

In 1970 Ballantine Books published a major anthology, San Francisco Poets. Not one woman was represented. Nor did the male poets in a poetry workship of the time, composed of both genders, seem to understand what the women were trying to do.  

Inspired by the women’s movement, Rosenwasser, Patricia Dienstfrey, and four other poets purchased an ancient letterpress, installed it in the basement of the Dienstfrey home on Kelsey Street, and taught themselves how to use it. 

Their first book, published in 1974, was Neurosuite, by the Italian poet Margarita Guidacci, translated by Marina La Palma. Since then, Kelsey St. has published two to four volumes annually, usually in runs of a thousand copies, all of which eventually find a home, either in people’s houses or in public and university libraries. 

Though its headquarters has moved to another location in Berkeley, and the printing is now out-sourced, the guiding spirit of the enterprise has scarcely changed. This nonprofit press produces beautiful books, with great attention paid to design, at prices that even poets can afford. 

That is a constant, as is continuous innovation. 

In the ‘80s, according to Rena Rosenwasser, “considerations of language and form became more central to what we chose to publish,” so that explicit “message” became less so. In the following decade, Kelsey St. developed its Collaboration Series, books which vitally combined the energies of poets and visual artists. One particularly stunning example would be Endrocrinology (1997), with poetry by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and images by Kiki Smith.  

Funding comes and goes. At the moment, with the virtual dismantling of the California Arts Council, it seems just about gone. But Kelsey St., with its mixed staff of old hands and energetic apprentices, is here to stay. Recent publications include poetry by Yedda Morrison and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, essays by Barbara Guest (with drawings by Laurie Reid), and poems/images by Cecilia Vicuna. For more on these and for the complete list of titles, see www.kelseyst.com.

What happens when two expert female humorists get together and collaborate? Hilarity!  

Sylvia comic strip creator Nicole Hollander, and columnist Regina Barreca, have put their pretty little feminist heads together and written The ABC of Vice: An Insatiable Women’s Guide, Alphabetized, (Bibliopola Press/$10.95). This half-cartoon, half-text sassy, slim paperback covers the important issues of life, dishing dirt on topics such as: Adultery (“When involved in adultery, women will often get parts of their bodies waxed more often than they vacuum the rug.”); bras (“Cute bras look cute as long as they do not actually touch your person.”); penis envy (“Isn’t it a good thing… that it isn’t on his face?”); and youth (“As you grow older you are never tempted to buy orange lipstick no matter what the magazine writers say.”).  

In town to promote The ABC of Vice and visit with friends, Hollander gave a reading at Black Oak Books, dined at two of her favorite restaurants, Saul’s and Chez Panisse, and indulged in one of her obsessive-compulsive passions: buying shoes at Rabat on Fourth Street.  

A Chicago native and resident, Hollander spends about six weeks a year in Berkeley, seeking shelter from the miserably cold Midwest winters. “Chicago in February is terrible,” she says. “After working all morning, I love to walk down to Shattuck Avenue for a treat at noon. The gardens here are wonderful and the plants are enormous, not like the little things we have in Chicago. Everything smells good.” 

Her love affair with the East Bay began in 1966, when, after a divorce, she moved to Berkeley, learned how to drive, and taught art perspective at Laney College. She also subbed at a day care center, clerked at a toy store and was an art instructor at Live Oak Park Recreation Center.  

Hollander attended the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and graduated with a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from Boston University. She had no intention of becoming a cartoonist, but while working as a graphic designer (one of her assignments was to create matchbox covers), she participated in the re-design of a feminist magazine. “I started doing illustrations and it turned into a comic strip… It was the atmosphere at the time that helped my work evolve. I didn’t want to be a cartoon artist, I wanted to be a great painter.” 

But 22 years and more than 20 books, calendars, day planners, and a variety of t-shirts and coffee mugs later, Hollander and her alter-ego, Sylvia, are still taking on the political issues of the day and the daily grind of womanhood. Hollander transforms news and events into a feisty, dynamic strip that is distributed to more than 80 newspapers around the country, including the Daily Planet. On her website, www.nicolehollander.com, Hollander has said of her life’s work, “On one hand, I have one of the best careers in the world: a chance to mouth off about everything and draw while I am in my pajamas. . .on the other hand, having to come up with a strip six days a week every week with no vacation, there is always the possibility that I won’t come up with an idea.”  

But it’s obvious from Hollander’s smile, laughter and prolific output that she doesn’t really have any trouble with inspiration, and that she loves what she does. As she and Barreca say in The ABC of Vice under the letter U for Unconditional Love: “Even unconditional love has conditions.”

A female Berkeley High student tried to jump to her death at school Tuesday, according to police. The student was not seriously injured and was taken to a local hospital, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Kevin Schofield, who didn’t have further details at press time of what police have classified as an attemped suicide.  

One source said the girl jumped from one of the two balconies atop the new food court that is still under construction. Peter True, editor of the Berkeley High Jacket, said a parent also told him the girl jumped from the balcony and that she suffered a broken leg.  

The balconies are a decorative feature of the new food court that is designed to look like a Roman forum. According to district lore, former superintendent Jack McLaughlin insisted they be included with the final plan. 

—Matthew Artz

The most startling thing about Berkeley breweries is how many have disappeared. In the 1990s, entrepreneurial beer fans believed that beer and micro-brewing was a quicker route to success than learning the intricacies of winemaking and distribution. As with books, distribution was the key. 

Local survivors provide great contrasts in approaches, but have a common love of beer and the fun surrounding it. 

Triple Rock at 1920 Shattuck Ave. (west side, north of University Avenue) is the baby of brothers John and Reid Martin, created in 1985 out of their love for beer, brewing, and “classic American taverns and dive bars.” Overcoming fears of a “factory” in downtown Berkeley in 1984 and getting seven variances to zoning codes, the Martins had been making beer in college, and brewed their first batch on Shattuck on Christmas, 1985. The second batch was made on New Years’ Day. “[These were] the only two days the construction crews weren’t in the way,” although carpenters contributed to the taste testing process.  

As the fifth brew pub in the country, Triple Rock first opened as Roaring Rock brewery. Losing lawsuits for name conflicts to Rolling Rock owner Latrobe Brewing Co. of Pennsylvania, John and Reid changed their pub’s name to Triple Rock. Serving as founders of the Berkeley Beer and Music Festival, the Martins now own Twenty Tank brewery in San Francisco, Big Time Brewery in Seattle, Jupiter across from the BART station in Berkeley, and operate the Bear’s Lair Pub on campus.  

Triple Rock head brewer Christian Kazakoff and assistant brewer Bradley Robbins make seven-barrel batches, which translates to about 1,700 pints a day, and you can watch the whole process through internal windows while sipping and munching on fairly decent brewpub food. Seasonal ales and lagers are your best bets, such as Resolution Ale, Punched in the I.P.A., or their flagship ales such as Pinnacle Pale Ale, Red Rock Ale, Black Rock Porter, or Stonehenge Stout. Triple Rock also features “English-style” cask conditioned ales, naturally carbonated in a cask stuffed with a sock of hops and aged for two weeks before being pulled through English beer engines, resulting in lighter carbonation and a warmer ale than those drawn through a standard tap. Don’t miss the Monkey Head Arboreal Ale on Thursdays only. Sample a flight or try the hard ciders. 

Triple Rock “cuisine” features T-Rock burgers, Angus served with house coleslaw, or fries as a “substitute” for additional $1.50. Grilled chicken sandwiches, a Bruschetta Rock with mushrooms, pesto, and provolone on sourdough baguette, and Philly Cheese Steaks are also available, all under $7.00. Nachos, cheese or garlic fries, baked potatoes, nachos, and salads are all served on the wooden table tops carved into by 25 years of students. The upstairs beer garden is small but cozy. Use Triple Rock’s games to play cards, checkers, chess, cribbage, scrabble, dice, dominoes, and backgammon. 

Triple Rock’s brother brew pub, Jupiter (2181 Shattuck Ave.), at which Brad Robbins produces about four kegs of seasonal, whimsical brews daily in an 1890s building decorated in what John Martin calls “Beer Gothic.” Featuring bronze-colored pressed tin, old Gothic church lights hang from the ceiling and pews “from the St. John’s Presbyterian Church (now Julia Morgan Theater) line the walls.” Jupiter also features a two-level beer garden in back, which presents jazz at least three nights a week.  

Jupiter serves better large name beers, as well as local brews such as Boont Amber from Anderson Valley and Twist of Fate Bitter from Moonlight Brewing, as well as 12 beers made in the company’s tanks in San Leandro and at Triple Rock. Jupiter’s food is a good notch up from Triple Rock’s, featuring wood-fired oven baked pizzas, pomegranate chicken skewers, rib tips, and good salads. Jupiter’s second floor offers tables around a woodstove, a 1950s bowling game, and an old pinball machine.  

Pyramid Alehouse (901 Gilman St.) is Berkeley’s largest surviving brew pub, producing a whopping 130 barrels per brewing cycle, which still qualifies it as a microbrewery. Started by five Seattle investors, Pyramid just bought Portland Brewing Co., already owned Thomas Kemper Brewery and Thomas Kemper Soda Company, and operates Pyramids in Berkeley, Seattle, Walnut Creek, and Sacramento. 

Particularly compared to Triple Rock, which still has the feel of years of cigarette smoke absorption, Pyramid is clean, shiny, glistening, and glaring with spotlights. Two televisions relay the latest Cal sports (when they’re telecast), the vast brew tanks are locked behind closed doors (tours daily at 4 p.m.), and their beers and sodas are Kosher and contain no caffeine. A highly professional-looking gift shop and the whole aura feel like large microbreweries in Washington, although the food is better here than at any brewpubs I’ve experienced in the Northwest. 

Pyramid shows second-run movies on its outdoor screen in the parking lot in good weather, to which beer added creates a keg-party atmosphere.  

Pyramid’s pub offers a $4.95 Kids Meal with lots of choices that include Thomas Kemper’s root beer, vanilla cream, organ cream, black cherry, and sandwiches and burgers with fries. The onion soup was actually very good ($4.95), and the Caesar salad dressing was excellent, although some of the chopped romaine had brown edges. Most guests ordered the mounds of onion strings, marinated in Beatnik White Ale and fried in buttermilk batter, and served with chipotle ketchup. Wood-fired pizzas are popular, as are the burgers, and wide variety of sandwiches, and soups. 

Oh yes, the beer and ale. The Tilted Kilt is a must try, as Pyramid’s current seasonal feature through mid-April. Grizzly Peak Porter, Apricot Ale, and Black Fog Nitro Stout are popular. Try the Brewer’s Rack of five samples ($5.95). Wines range from Beaucannon and Coppola Chardonnays to Chateau Julien Cabernet and Ravenswood Zinfandel. Kids of all ages can experience sugar delight in a Thomas Kemper Soda Sampler of four tasters ($2.95). 

A very important stop on any brewery crawl is the second floor Takara Sake USA (708 Addison St. at Fourth Street), “now the oldest sake brewer in the country, having opened in 1978. Takara follows a long tradition, succeeding Japan Brewing Company, which opened the first sake brewery in the U.S. in Berkeley in 1902. 

Sake brewing parallels beer brewing in that both processes start with grains that have no fermentable sugars in their original states. Sake uses a mold spore that occurs naturally on rice that converts the starch in the rice to sugar, creating a starter called rice koji.  

Takara has an elegant tasting room and museum on the second floor of its pale green building, with stairs or elevator options. The museum is a must-see, and features antique sake equipment showing the worn wooden tools used in Japan when the whole process was done by hand. 

Follow the hostesses’ advice on the order in which to try some of Takara’s 15 sakes, and watch your intake. The Nigori unfiltered sake, made in small batches, is close to a home brew sake. Also sample Ginjo or Sho Chiku Bai sake, Takara’s flagship sake.  

Visit Takara for the experience, calming music, and interesting design, the latter featuring reclaimed wood, granite-finished tile made from recycled bottles representing rice paddies, and the blue glass lines representing rivers through the paddies. Do not miss the “Song of the Sky” kinetic sculpture created in 1998 by Susumu Shingu.

Here’s a really radical thought. How about voting for John Edwards in the presidential primary? 

Clouds of steam, as I write this, are rising above the Berkeley Hills, coming out of the ears of Dean supporters. From Baja Rockridge and Southside Berkeley, the shrieks of Kucinich’s people fill the air. Edwards, with that corn-pone accent and blow-dried hair? Even Kerry, with his patrician craggy face and somber mien, would be better than just another pretty face from the South. 

Naysayers might just take a look at Edwards’ official senatorial website. Here’s today’s release: 

“Senator John Edwards on Wednesday pressed President Bush to revoke a White House report that said sending American jobs overseas will somehow help the economy in the United States. 

‘What planet do they live on?’ Senator Edwards asked.” 

Good question. Previous releases were good stuff too: “SENATOR EDWARDS CALLS FOR HEARING ON FBI SURVEILLANCE”; “EDWARDS SLAMS PRIVATE-SCHOOL VOUCHER PLAN”—both from way back in November, when no one much was even listening to him. And these releases are on his Senate site, directed at the home folks back in North Carolina, not on his presidential site, presumably aimed at a national audience which might be more liberal. 

One good thing about Edwards is that he’s a very successful trial lawyer. That’s right, a trial lawyer. It’s fashionable in some circles these days to dis trial lawyers—aren’t they the guys who beat up on Dr. Kildare? If you happen to know anyone who’s been the victim of serious medical malpractice, as I do, that criticism rings a bit hollow. 

My old friend George Lakoff has been making a big stir in the academic/political crossover market with his suggestion that liberals would do a lot better if they learned to frame issues for popular consumption. For example, in a January interview on the Buzzflash website, George talks about the way the Bushies framed the debate on taxes by using the expression “tax relief.” He points out that the phrase evokes many things: “That taxation is an affliction that we have to get rid of, that it’s a heroic thing to do, that people who try to prevent this heroic thing are bad guys.” And bingo, liberals lose again.  

(For the purposes of today’s editorial, we will ignore those on the left who tried to re-frame “liberal” as a bad word, except to say shame on them.) 

Plaintiffs’ attorneys, especially very successful ones like John Edwards, must be masters of the framer’s art. Victims of corporate malfeasance can be made to look like liars and cheats by a skilled corporate defense attorney, and it’s the job of lawyers like Edwards to make sure that juries aren’t fooled. It’s no wonder he’s good at telling voters how Bush has been fooling Americans.  

And another reason Edwards is attractive: He’s never been anywhere near Yale. I know, there are now crackpots on the Internet who see a sinister conspiracy in the fact that John Kerry and George Bush both went to Yale. Right, but so did Howard Dean, and Bill and Hillary, not to mention KPFA’s own Larry Bensky, and make something of that if you can. But still. The semiotic significance of going to an elite college like Yale should not be discounted. People who go to such institutions spend a formative period of their lives in close contact with many fellow students who were born on third base and thought they hit a triple. It’s probably been good for John Edwards’ character that his undergraduate education was at North Carolina State (close to home, less expensive even than the University of North Carolina). Man of the people and all that—it still counts for something in an era where America is fast being divided into the haves and the have nots. 

“We live in a country where there are really two different Americas—one for all those families who have everything they need whenever they want it, and then one for everybody else,” Edwards has been saying in his stump speech. “It doesn't have to be that way. You and I can change that.” For those of us who still remember Michael Harrington’s earth-shaking 1962 book about poverty, The Other America, which was the genesis of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, this sounds like the old time religion.  

And if “everybody else” listens to that message and votes for Edwards, he might just be able to win the presidency, because “everybody else” is much more than 50 percent of the electorate. 

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Berkeley Daily Planet. 

On Saturday, one of those brilliant northern California sunlit February days, I went along on a downtown walking tour sponsored by the Planning Commission’s task force on UC’s hotel proposal. A couple of the participants gave a mini-lecture on the elegant moderne printing plant on Oxford (threatened with demolition), where the U.N. charter was printed and David Brower met his wife. The historic tidbits in their account whetted the appetite of one of my fellow walkers, a young man recently graduated from Boalt who has enthusiastically taken up the Berkeley activist tradition. “Why,” he said, “are there no walking tours of famous historic sites from the ‘60s and ‘70s, like the place where Patty Hearst was kidnapped?”  

Is that history? The Patty Hearst kidnapping? Well, it must be, though it seems like last week’s news to me. His question set me thinking about news from my lifetime as history, and wondering what I can tell younger people about recent history while I can still remember it.  

People the age of my young friend probably don’t even recognize the catch phrase from the Watergate scandal, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” That’s a good one to learn about, because it deserves permanent recycling, and is quite applicable to the current president in particular. The question of what our leaders know about what they’re doing is one of the central political questions in every era.  

Robert McNamara’s appearance here last week reminded me of how much people like me knew about what was going wrong in Vietnam, years before McNamara and his ilk claim they found out about it. How could that be true? When I started working against the Vietnam War in 1964, I was 24 years old, living in the Midwest, wife of a graduate student, raising babies and editing a medical newsletter. He was a corporate hotshot turned Washington politico. How could he have been so out of touch, when I, and people in the hinterlands like me, knew exactly what was going on? (Dorothy Bryant, in this issue, explores what his moral obligations might have been when he did find out.) 

Fast forward to 2004. How can George W. Bush have the nerve to go on television to say that he’s SHOCKED, SHOCKED to learn that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction? Wait a minute; didn’t a hundred thousand of us march down Market Street with big signs before he started the war to tell him that? In Ann Arbor in 1964 we were relatively few and far from the centers of power, but in 2002 the naysayers were many, ubiquitous and vocal.  

In the ‘60s, the politicians who claimed not to know what was going on were Democrats. Our Democratic congressman brought a junior State Department honcho to Ann Arbor, long about 1966, to meet with party faithful and explain why our Democratic president knew what he was doing in Vietnam. We hooted him down, and by 1968 both the congressman and President Johnson were gone.  

It could happen again. This time it’s the Republicans who are starting to question their guy. Kevin Phillips, once a Nixon aide, is the loudest defector from the current Republican folly, but others are warming up. Columnist George Will, in the past a reliable shill for the Republican party, said in his most recent column that “once begun, leakage of public confidence in a president’s pronouncements is difficult to staunch.” What did George W. Bush know about what was actually happening in Iraq, and when did he know it? Or even more alarming, maybe he STILL doesn’t know what’s going on there. His erstwhile friend Mr. Will reminds us that even last May, after the war, President Bush said, “We found the weapons of mass destruction. You know, we found biological laboratories.” No, we did not, says columnist Will. 

There used to be a deodorant commercial with the tag line “Even his best friends won’t tell him that he has Body Odor.” Even Dubya’s best friends seem to be telling him recently that something stinks about the Iraq war.  

• • • 

And now, back for a moment to the hotel proposal. My tour group included many thoughtful citizens, some of whom I know to be good writers. The Planning Commission’s task force is holding a public forum to discuss the plans on Feb. 18. Between now and then, I’d like to invite people who went on the tour to write short commentary pieces describing what they saw that the public should be thinking about before the forum. If we get enough submissions, we’ll devote an extra commentary page to them. 

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Daily Planet.