The City Council laid the groundwork at last Tuesday night’s meeting for an austerity budget certain to dent city services and maybe taxpayer wallets as well. To do so, however, they had to run a gamut of senior citizens protesting proposed cuts to the city’s senior programs. 

With a $14.6 million dollar deficit looming over the next two years, the council approved a budget framework that calls for $9.2 million in budget cuts spread over 2004 and 2005. 

The council approved the broad framework of a plan that also calls for the use of reserve funds and the restructuring of employee retirement funds to close the budget gap blown open by rising employee benefit costs and declining state funding and local tax revenue. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz will present the City Council with a final budget plan May 4. The council is scheduled to approve next year’s budget on June 22, after two public hearings set for May 18 and June 8. 

Among the services slated for reduction in the preliminary budget proposal presented to the council by Kamlarz Tuesday night include: 

• Closing one of the city’s two fire truck companies ten hours a day, saving the city $500,000 next year. The proposal would leave the city short a second ladder truck, which city figures show is called into duty about 10 to 12 times a year.  

• Eliminating all 25 part-time school crossing guards, the Berkeley Guides, and Berkeley Escorts at a savings of $328,000 a year. 

• Closing public libraries on Sundays and some evenings and slashing one-quarter of the library budget for buying new books, videos and CDs, for a savings of $1.2 million. 

• Cutting 13 vacant police officer positions for a savings of nearly $2 million. 

• Eliminating a driver and reducing meals and services at the city’s three senior centers, for a savings of $136,000 in 2005 with further cuts up to $191,000 considered for 2006. 

It was the cuts to the senior centers that drew the ire of a group of about 30 seniors.  

“If they make the cuts they’re talking about, we won’t have a staff,” said Cecilia Gaerlan, who volunteers at the West Berkeley Senior Center. The protesters didn’t enter the council chambers until after Mayor Bates paid a visit and promised the council would try to seek new revenue to keep the programs running.  

“It can’t just be cuts,” Bates told the protesters. “People have to step up to the plate and help out.” 

In all Kamlarz proposed cutting 81 positions in Fiscal Year 2005, 69 of which are currently vacant. FY 2005 begins in July of this year. 

That didn’t sit will with Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who questioned how the elimination of vacant positions actually improved the city’s budget standing.  

“These are phantom positions,” he said. “This kind of creative accounting I think puts Enron to shame.” Wozniak also added concerns raised by the Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Organizations that staff costs needed to be addressed before considering new taxes. 

Kamlarz said that because many of the positions listed as vacant were being filled by temporary workers or by employees working overtime, the elimination of the positions did impact the budget. 

Kamlarz has penciled in an estimated $1.2 million in savings from staff givebacks for 2005. The city is negotiating with its unions on returning 3 percent of the city’s contribution to their retirement benefits for 2005, as senior management has already done. If those negotiations fail, Kamlarz says he will close down city government one day per month, which would yield a similar savings. 

Some of the cuts outlined in the budget will likely be restored if the council, as expected, passes a series of new fees totaling up to $2.6 million.  

The fees include a $1.5 to $3 surcharge attached to all telephone landlines and possibly cellular phones for use of 911 emergency service calls, rescinding seismic fee waivers for building permits, eliminating the option of performing community service for parking fines and implementing a $2 fee for paying city fines and fees over the Internet. The council voted unanimously to set a public hearing for April 20 on the fees for the 911 surcharge and the seismic waiver. 

Those may not be the only new expenses facing Berkeley taxpayers this year. The council voted 7-1-1 (Olds no and Wozniak abstaining) to ask staff to begin preparations for up to four ballot measures that would raise taxes by $4.2 million. If passed, the measures would include $1.2 million to preserve library services, $800,000 to restore funding to youth programs, $1 million for the city’s fund to maintain storm water drains and $1 million to maintain paramedic services. The taxes would come in the form of special assessments to property owners, except for the youth services proposal, which could be funded by a property transfer tax. 

The council opted not to consider a $700,00 tax for street lights, though the city attorney’s office will study the legality of combining street lights with storm water drains as a single infrastructure tax. 

Some city commissions could also soon feel the impact of the budget shortfall. The council voted unanimously to refer to commissions a staff report that calls for 22 of the 45 citizen commissions to meet less frequently. The commissions on aging, disability, civic arts, peace and justice and homelessness would be among 15 commissions to go from meeting every month to every second month. Others would meet quarterly, while the Solid Waste Commission would be combined with the Public Works Commission.  

The reforms would reduce 4,292 hours of staff time, according to the staff report, which also estimated the city spends more than $850,000 a year staffing its commissions. 

The number of commission meetings wasn’t the only thing the council was considering shrinking Tuesday. By a 5-3-1 vote (Bates Worthington, Maio, Breland and Spring voting yes) the council requested that the city staff study reducing the next mayor’s term to two years so that future elections would coincide with presidential elections when voter turnout peaks. 

In non-budget action at Tuesday’s council meeting: 

Satellite Homes non-profit senior housing development received a zoning reprieve. The council voted 8-1-1 (Olds no, Wozniak abstain) to exempt the 79-unit housing project at 1535 University Ave. from new zoning rules being established for the avenue. Satellite Homes argued that if they had to wait for the new regulations to move through the Berkeley permit process, they would lose out on a chance to win funding in February. The project is the fourth on University now exempt from the future zoning ordinance. 

The council voted unanimously to hold a public hearing April 20 on a proposal to set a flat fee rate of $1.50 for a two-hour parking period at the center street garage between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturdays to encourage more visitors to the farmer’s market. 

The council also denied 8-0-1 (Spring abstaining) the appeal against the Library Gardens housing and retail complex set to be built just west of the central library. Steve Geller staked his appeal of a use permit issued by the Zoning Adjustment Board on grounds that the developer was only required to provide 59 parking spaces for his tenants instead of the 105 he had planned. City staff countered that since Library Gardens includes some retail, city regulations required all of the 105 spaces offered.

After hearing from a substantial group of community members opposed to the use of police dogs by the Berkeley Police department, the Berkeley Police Review Commission (PRC) voted 6-3 Wednesday night to reject a plan to put two German shepherds on the force.  

Commissioners Jacqueline DeBose, Michael Sherman, Michael Sheen, William White, David Ritchie and John Sternberg all voted against the measure, while commissioners Annie Chung, Jack Radisch and Lucienne Sanchez-Resnik voted in favor. 

The issue isn’t over as yet, though. Councilmember Betty Olds says she will put the issue on the council agenda if no one else does, probably sometime in May.  

“I think it’s ludicrous not to,” she said. “I’m very much for it. I’d rather have the [police department] using a dog rather than shooting around,” to find a suspect.” Olds called it an “emotional issue” because “during the civil rights thing they used them to charge protesters.” She then suggested using bloodhounds instead of police dogs because “they won’t attack anyone.” 

Olds’ appointee to the PRC, Jack Radisch, was the most vocal proponent of the dogs. 

Prior to the meeting, Mayor Tom Bates was quoted in the Daily Planet as saying that a “as far as I’m concerned, if the PRC votes against it, it’s over,” doubting that the City Council would even take the matter up. And those opposed to the canine dog proposals are now claiming complete victory.  

“I feel a sense of relief,” said Andrea Pritchett of Berkeley’s Copwatch, a volunteer organization that monitors police activity. “I hope that this means that Berkeley really stands for the resolution of conflict instead of trying to deny there are problems. I hope the police understand that we are into community building instead of dividing.” 

One of the swing votes at the PRC meeting against the dogs came from Michael Sherman, who originally said he was leaning towards approving the plan. Sherman told meeting attendees that Tuesday, March 23 article in the Berkeley Daily Planet identifying him as a possible yes vote generated a number of phone calls and e-mails from people urging him to oppose the measure. That, plus a story in the San Francisco Chronicle describing an incident where a police dog attacked an innocent bystander, helped change his mind. 

“I was prepared to vote in favor of this decision,” said Sherman. He noted, however, that, “it is clear that a policy will not work if it does not have community support.” 

According to Lt. Dennis Ahearn from the Berkeley Police Department, the decision was not a surprise. “I don’t think there is a real sense of disappointment because [the police department] didn’t think the PRC would ever do it,” he said. 

According to Lt. Ahern, the department received e-mails and phone calls from all over the city in support of the dogs before the vote. However, it was only the opposition that showed up to the meeting to voice their opinion he said. Ahern added that, “I don’t think this is really representative of Berkeley.” 

The decision “leaves us without options that other departments have when dealing with armed suspects. I think people would agree it is more desirable to have a dog bite someone instead of having to shoot them.” 

The PRC, while congratulated for the vote, didn’t escape criticism from those who were disappointed that the issue even got as far as it did. 

“My thanks are to the people who showed up, the leaners had their mind changed,” said Carrol Denney, a well-known community activist. “But I am hesitant to thank the commission. It’s a sad comment on the political climate that it got this far.” 

No one denies that Dominique Reed is getting bullied. The question is, why is she getting punished for it? 

After “coming into her own” in elementary school, Reed has been living a nightmare in her first year at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. In her special education classes, bigger and older students quietly taunt her, in the hallways they push her and punch her, in the playground they steal her hearing aid and throw it as far as they can. 

After months of daily abuse, school officials finally took action: They confined Reed to a classroom during recess for her own safety. 

Vice principal for sixth graders Doreen Sing said school policy prevented her from commenting either on the decision to keep Reed indoors or the family’s complaints. Sing and Principal Kit Pappenheimer refused to reply to follow-up telephone calls asking to explain the school’s policies on bullying. 

Reed says she knows why she has become the number one target for the number one bully in her special day class—a special education anachronism the district plans to phase out—that mixes students with behavior issues with others with developmental disabilities.  

“He was messing with another kid who’s cross-eyed,” she said as she stared at the floor, her voice barely audible. “I said ‘stop messing with him.’ I’m tough, but now they mess with me.” 

Reed draws strength from 11 years of struggle. She stands perfectly straight, her stomach extended slightly beyond her chest. Her face is dominated by plump cheeks; her hair set back in tight braids that fall over the $3,000 hearing aid she now removes in the playground so no one yanks it from her ear.  

Reed is diagnosed with a hearing disorder that magnifies and distorts loud noises. She has suffered from the illness since birth but was only diagnosed three years ago, her mother said. Reed also takes medication for Attention Deficit Disorder. She has always scored low on standardized tests and except for a few blissful years at Malcolm X Elementary School has always had to battle bullies. 

Three times Reed tried to show her tormentors just how tough she was. Acting against the advice of the school, she fought back. Each time she was suspended along with the attacker. 

“There’s nothing I can do,” she said. “If I tell, nothing happens, and every time I defend myself I get suspended.” 

That doesn’t mean Reed has passively accepted her fate. Tired of being confined during lunch, she stopped going to her assigned classroom and returned to the playground. 

A few days later, she described the following incident. “He had me under his leg in a headlock, then he hit me in the back of my neck. I wanted to grab his head and twist it off,” she said.  

She tried to and was suspended again. 

After the fight, Andrea Reed, Dominique’s mother, spoke again with Vice Principal Sing and learned that her daughter had been confined indoors during recess for two months. Reed was furious that no one at the school informed her of the decision and that when Dominique stopped showing up no one bothered to retrieve her. 

“No one is taking accountability for this,” Reed said. “My daughter is getting picked on, hit, tagged, and no one at the school thinks it’s their responsibility to stop it.” 

“I’m at the breaking point right now,” said Larry Reed, Dominique’s father. “They’re sweeping it under the rug. “If I have to walk in the school every day and protect my daughter, I’ll do it. Maybe it will click in their heads that they need to do something.” 

Andrea and Larry Reed are hardly the first parents to charge the district with failing to protect their child.  

Laura Menard, the PTA parent advocate, said Berkeley Unified is good at implementing preventative programs and anti-bullying curriculum, but when it comes to dealing with actual chronic cases of abuse, it has no standard operating procedures, no system to report incidents, no standard forms to document and track cases, no accountability for teachers and staff and no plan to protect targeted kids so they feel safe in the schools. 

“I’ve never reconciled in my mind how the district, knowing what a kid goes through, could be so unconscionable to not have any type of a response plan,” she said. 

Berkeley High PTA Treasurer Matt Wong recalled a labyrinth of bureaucracy he faced when his child was suspended from King for defending himself.  

“If you’re a parent and your child is in danger, you don’t know who to turn to,” he said. “If we weren’t active in the district and didn’t know the right people, we wouldn’t have known what to do.” 

Wong raises a legitimate concern, said School Board President John Selawsky, who has been the board liaison on issues of school violence and bullying. He wants to centralize and codify district policies. “How do you have conversations on this when you don’t have the same programs in place at the schools?” he asked. 

In April, the school board is scheduled to discuss a plan to offer stipends to teachers and other staff to provide additional supervision during lunchtime, Selawsky said. The proposal is estimated to cost approximately $10,000 and would help supplement the work of school security officers, several of whose jobs were cut during the district’s budget crisis. 

Gerald Herrick, the district’s director of student services, insists more reforms are on the way. This spring Berkeley High is scheduled to make available incident reporting pamphlets giving students and parents precise instructions on who to contact when they fear for their safety. The pamphlet, pioneered by a parent safety committee, could soon be made available to middle schools as well, Herrick said. 

“I don’t deny that we have to put better systems in place to help document problems and follow up,” he added. “Right now every school does its own thing. Sometimes that makes it harder, sometimes that helps schools find solutions that work.”  

One policy that is uniform in the district is that any student who fights, even if it’s in self defense is suspended for at least one day. 

Andrea Reed said so far the solution King officials have offered is to transfer her daughter to another school—a resolution she has refused to accept. 

“Why should my daughter have to transfer to a school across town. She’s not the problem. If she leaves, they’re just going to pick on someone else.” 

Director Herrick said transferring the bully is especially difficult when it’s a special education student because that requires school and parent approval.  

He added that he wasn’t surprised that Reed was kept in at recess. The practice, called “time-out,” is commonly used by teachers to handle such problems, he said. That is just one of several tools at the district’s disposal to handle bullying. The school can also suspend students, offer them counseling or, if both the aggressor and the victim agree, they can enter conflict management. 

But, in cases of bullying, conflict management doesn’t work, no matter the circumstances, said Vivian Linfor, education programs consultant for the California Department of Education. “Bullying isn’t an argument or a disagreement, it’s a power play,” she said. “Having them meet on equal terms makes the bully that much more determined since he knows he has the power.” 

Linfor said California schools have done a poor job addressing issues of bullying and school violence, partly because of the emphasis now placed on test scores and partially because the don’t understand the problem. “Bullying is a different animal,” she said. You need some kind of system in place for dealing with it,” she said. 

At Willard Middle School, Vice Principal Tom Orput is working with parents on a system that would demand accountability. He has placed forms throughout the school that offer students the chance to discreetly alert school officials when they feel threatened. When the complaint is lodged, the vice principal will fill out a report with a case number to track the incident. 

“It will be like a police report,” said Orput. “Every time there is an incident it will get added to the report and we can’t close it until there is a final disposition.” 

School officials at King haven’t documented her complaints, Andrea Reed said. She claimed to have spoken to Vice Principal Sing more than 10 times about the violence against her daughter, but the only testimonial to her complaints in Dominique’s permanent record on file are the three suspension notices. 

“Instead of getting help, she’s getting a record for defending herself,” Reed said. “It’s setting her back.” 

Convinced the school couldn’t help her, Reed filed a police report in December and met with Sergeant David White of the Berkeley Police Department’s Youth Services Division. White couldn’t talk about the case, but after a particularly rough day in class, Dominique Reed is certain he paid a visit to the parents of the main bully. 

“[The boy] told everyone that my parents told the police on him, she said. “They surrounded me and got in my face and said they were going to hurt me.” 

Her biggest disappointment that day? That the police had only given the boy a tongue lashing. 

“I want them to take him to jail so he quits messing with me,” she said. 

ˇ

FRIDAY, MARCH 26 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Robert E. Brown on “The Power of Handshaking.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $11.50 - $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

“Literacy & Beyond!” Family Literacy Night Event at the Berkeley YMCA, 2001 Allston Way, between Shattuck and Milvia. From 7 to 9 p.m. Free and open to the community. 665-3271. 

Literary Friends meets at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to dis cuss “For a Future, Is it Possible’’ 232-1351. 

Old School Dance Party in support of Haitian grassroots organizations at 8 p.m. at Fellowship of Humanity Hall, 390 27th St & 411 28th St, between Telegraph & Broadway, Oakland. 465-9914. 

Report Back from Ven ezuela by the February delegation at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. 528-5403. 

Preparing for Surgery, Chemo, or Radiation Treatment? A workshop with Carolyn Janson from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Longs Drugs Wellness Center, 1941 San Pablo Ave. Br ing a friend or family member for free and they can learn how to support you in this process. Workshop fee is $45 and includes book and audio tape. To reserve a space call 925-825-4704. 

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

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Ent rance 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 

Kol Hadash the Bay Area’s only Jewish Humanistic Congregation meets at 7:30 p.m. fo r Shabbat at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. 428-1492. www.kolhadash.org 

Shekinah Sanctuary, a metatrance ecstatic prayer ritual using chants and movement at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission is $21. 883-0600. 

Overeaters Anonymous meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 27 

Felt Fun Make your own felt from the Little Farm’s sheep’s wool. Discover felting, spinning, shearing and more, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Carpentry Basics for Women An introduction to basic carpentry tools and skills for women with little or no previous hands-on experience. After a morning lecture and demonstration, you will build your own bookshelf unit (we provide the materials). Students are asked to bring their own hand tools. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat. and Sun. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $225. 525-7610.  

Urban Weed Walk Learn about the edible and medicinal uses of common weeds as Terri Compost leads a walk exploring the neighborhood around the Ecology Center. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

Wild About California Take a walk on the wild side amid California native p lants flush with spring growth with area horticulturist and native plant expert Nathan Smith. From 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $17, members $12. Registration required. UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

U sing Natives in Your Garden with Judy Thomas, Merritt College Horticulture Dept., at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Berkeley Biodiesel Collective celebrates the birthday of Rudolph Diesel with a biodiesel car show featuring doz ens of different vehicles along with demonstrations and information about biodiesel, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Civic Center Park. 594-4000, ext. 777.  

Northern California War Tax Resistance presents a workshop for people interested in protesting federal i ncome taxes being used for war. Topics will include: creative legal protests, refusing to pay all or part of federal taxes, and the possible consequences of this form of civil disobedience. From 9 a.m. to noon at Sacramento St. Co-Housing Common House, 22 20 Sacramento St. Sliding scale donation requested. For information call 843-9877. 

Spring Fling Contradance at 3 p.m. at Church of Good Shepard at 9th and Hearst. Music by Robin Flower and Libby McLaren. Cost is $7-$12. 482-9479. 

“Discovering Dominga” a s pecial screening of the PBS documentary of an Iowan housewife who discovers that she is the sole survivor of the massacre of her Mayan family in Guatemala, with the filmmaker Mary Jo McConahay in person at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison. Donations requested. 482-1062. 

Saturday Night Sing-Along for all ages. Bring your family, neighbors and friends for an evening of campfire classics, silly and serious songs, rounds and movement activities. At 7 p.m. at 1216 Solano Ave. at Talbot, Albany. Sponsored by the Albany YMCA. Cost is $3 for adults, $2 for children. 525-1130. 

Berkeley Copwatch Know Your Rights Orientation, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Free, donations accepted. 548-0425. 

Center for Live Art, Art Auction and Gala from 7 to 11 p.m. at the Slingshot Gallery, 1721 63rd St. at Adeline. Donated art works include paintings, prints and sculpture by prominent Bay Area artists including David Ireland, Arthur Gonzalez, Lisa Lightman, and emerging artists Liz Walsh, Sean Ma cFarland, David Fought. Free. 835-3130. www.nclt.org/Liveart.htm 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., 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-membe rs of the club for $8 per class. To register, call Karen Ray at 848-7800. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 28 

Sunday Morn ing Birdwalk for beginning birders from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Fire and the Wildland-Urban Interface: Lessons from the 2003 Fire Season” with Jon Keeley, research scientist with US Geologica l Survey. Breakfast at 9:30 a.m. and talk at 10:30 a.m. at Trudeau Training Center, 11500 Skyline Blvd. Reservations required, pease call 925-376-6925 or email mimipete@pacbell.net 

Butterfly Club for ages 8 and up. Learn about these colorful insects, grow ing native plants and habitat restoration. From 1-3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Dog Walk with your best friend along the creek in Tilden Park. Meet at 2 p.m. at Lone Oak picnic site by Meadows Playfield. Bring water, leash, baggies and be prepared for mud. 525-2233. 

BHS Spring Workday from 9 a.m. to noon at Berkeley High. Pull weeds, including weeding the “Jungle” garden in front of the H Bldg, pick up trash, plant spring flowers in BHS colors of red and yellow. Bring work gloves, weeding tools, sunscreen, and hat. The PTSA and BHS Development Group provides bottled water, snacks, garbage bags and disposable gloves. 333-6097, 703-0279. 

Pat Bond Old Dyke Awards Ceremony at 3:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 C ollege Ave. Sponsored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights. 415-392-6257, ext. 321. 

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

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Amdo on “Entering the Bodhisattva Path” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sufi Dancing: Dances of Universal Peace from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 526-8944. 

MONDAY, MARCH 29 

Tea at Four Enjoy some of the best teas from the other side of the Pacific Rim and learn their cultural and natural history. From 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. Cost is $5 for residents, $7 for non-residents. Wheelchair accessible. 525-2233. 

“The Plight of Tigers in the Wild” with Anthony Marr at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. Sponsored by East Bay Animal Advocates. 925-487-4419.  

West Berkeley Community Meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. at Wells Fargo Bank, 1095 Universtiy Ave. Free and open to all West Berkeley neighbo rs. 845-4106. 

Labor Regulations and the Auto and Clothing Industries in Mexico with Dr. Huberto Juárez Núñez at 4 p.m. at CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

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

Baby Yoga Learn how to soothe your infant. Bring a pillow, blanket, mat and olive oil. At 11 a.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 8 83-0600. 

Yoga and Meditation for Children from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. at at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 883-0600. 

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

TUESDAY, MARCH 30 

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

Return of Over-The-Hills-Gang A n excursion for hikers 55 years and over. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Little Train parking lot. registration required. 525-2233. 

National Nutrition Month “Eat in Season” from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Derby St. at MLK. Cooking demonstrations, recipes and nutrition education. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Celebrating the Environmental Leadership of Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers’ Movement from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“The Truth About the Coup in Haiti” with Brian Concamon, Haitian human rights attorney and Lovinsky Antoine Pierre, Haitian human rights activist, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. Sponsored by the Haiti Support Group. 528-5403. 

“Blue Vinyl” a free screening of the documentary by Judith Hefland and Daniel Gold at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Central Public Library, 2090 Kittredge, 3rd floor meeting room. Sponsored by Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil. 

Creative Project Institute An event for inspiration, information and motivation for writers with author Elizabeth Stark and editor Nanou Matteson at 7 p.m. at Alaya, 1713 University Ave.  

Bolivian Archeology and Nationalism with José Luis Paz Soria, director of the Kallamarka Archeological Project in La Paz, Bolivia. He has also worked extensively with the Taraco Archeological Project. Please note this presentation will be in Spanish. At 4 p.m. in the CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Creativity, Healing, and Wholeness, a workshop on written and visual journaling as a path through cancer at 7 p.m. at Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. Oakland. Free, but please register. 526-0148. 

“Hiking the Pacific Coast Trail,” a documentary by Myles Murphy and Dale Brosnan, at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672.  

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. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Dr. Robert Raabi, botanist, will show flower pictures at 11 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31 

Tobacco Awareness Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Lower Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Tobacco Prevention Program. 981-5330. 

Nonviolent Conflict Transformation a workshop with Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, Kensington. Cost is $120, $60 for students and includes lunch and a comprehensive training manual. A limited number of scholarships are available. For information and registration, please contact Marilyn Langlois 232-4493, or Diana Young 655-8252. 

Berkeley Outstanding Woman Award will be presented to Sylvia McLaughlin in recognition of the work she has done to preserve the Bay and the East Bay shoreline, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Commission o n the Status of Women. 981-5347, 461-4665. 

Great Decisions 2004: “Public Diplomacy” with Emily Rosenberg, Middle east Peace Education, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

The Berkeley Forum “Peace vs. Empire” with Johan Galtung, father of Peace Studies, UN Consultant, Daniel Ellsberg, anti-war author, Michael Nagler, founder, Peace and Conflict Studies, UCB, Nancy Hanawi, co-chair, Peace and Justice Studies Association at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Road, Kensington. 925-376-9000. 

Re-defining Community, Re-creating Public Space with Keith Thomas, Julio Morales, artists and CCA professors, at 6 p.m. in Nahl Lecture Hall, Oakland campus, 5212 Broadway , at College. 594-3763. www.cca.edu/center 

Bayswater Book Club monthly dinner meeting to discuss “Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939” by Virginia Nicholson at 6:30 p.m. at Liu’s Kitchen restaurant, 1593 Solano Ave. 433-2911. 

Having Our Say: Children of Jewish - Christian Families Speak Join a lively conversation with a panel of people who have grown up in interfaith homes as they talk about what worked and didn’t work for them. From 7:30 to 9 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond JCC, 1414 Walnut St. Sponsored by Building Jewish Bridges: Outreach to Interfaith Couples. Cost is $5. For more information or to register call Dawn at 839-2900, ext. 347.  

“Holy Week Processions” with Bonnie Harwick, GTU Library Director, at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Parish, 2220 Cedar St. 848-1755. 

Fun with Acting Class every Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome, no experience necessary.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 1 

Livable Berkeley, an organization that advocates smar t growth and sustainable development, will host local architect David Baker at the Berkeley Central Library Community room at 6:30 p.m. For more information, visit www.livableberkeley.org 

“Fourth World War” a documentary produced by a network of independent media and activist groups on the inside of movements on five continents. At 8 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190.  

“Leadership and Ethics in an Age of Globalization” at 3:30 p.m. at the Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. 649-2422. 

Street Skills for Cyclists from 6 to 10 p.m. at Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave. Free, but pre-registration required. 433-7433. 

Free Reading Workshop for Parents of students in Pre-K and Kindergarten at 8 p.m. at Classroom Matters, 2607 7th St., Suite E. 540-8646. www.classroommatters.com 

“Whose House are You Living In?” an inter-active presentation by professional interior designer and author Diana Cornelius at 7 p.m. at the Claremont Resort, 41 Tunnel Rd. 743-3000, ext. 516.  

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

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. 

Free Income Tax Help is available on Tuesday mornings between 10 a.m. and 12 noon at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Ozzie Olson, AARP trained tax preparer is available by app ointment. 845-6830.  

“Freedom from Smoking” a free six-week smoking cessation program offered Mondays from March 29 for May 3, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Tobacco Prevention Program. To register call 981-5330 or email QuitNow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Find a Loving Animal Companion at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Adoption Center (open from 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday). 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Medical Care for Your Pet at the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society low-cost veterinary clinic. 2700 Ninth St. For appointments call 845-3633. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Spring Bulb Bonanza at the Botanical Garden, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.,to April 15, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berk eley.eduªs

Robin Kibby hasn’t forgotten the day last July when she walked into her first Berkeley planning meeting and spoke out against a proposed five-story apartment complex on University Avenue that would tower over the home she had recently bought.  

It was a humbling experience for the green-haired graphic designer. “I didn’t know what I was talking about,” said Kibby. “I didn’t realize all the factors that let the city to go forward with these supersized buildings.” 

Now more than six months and 500 hours of work later, Kibby, along with two neighbors and fellow planning novices, small business owner Kristin Leimkuhler and machinist Richard Graham, have launched a website that can make anyone an expert on Berkeley development. 

Their site, planberkeley.org, details pending developments along University and San Pablo avenues and offers simple explanations of the forces at work that often result in developments that are larger and bulkier than called for under local plans. 

“We wanted to paint a big picture of what’s going around University Avenue, so people can see the cumulative impact of the projects and get information about why it’s happening,” Kibby said. Before the website, she said, neighbors along University Avenue who were concerned about a development had to sort through complex language on the city’s website or go to the permit center and pour through development plans they didn’t fully understand.  

The website comes at a time when the stakes are particularly high for future development along University. In February the City Council asked staff to zone the street so that future buildings reflected the goals of the University Avenue Strategic Plan, adopted in 1996. That document envisioned moderately sized developments with courtyards above sustainable retail stores that included sufficient parking.  

But since the plan was adopted, the city has accepted a flurry of new mixed-use projects which include far more housing and less retail and parking than envisioned under the plan. Critics of the new buildings say developers have exploited city and state rules that reward the construction of high density, affordable housing projects to proceed with taller buildings that push towards property boundaries. 

The website, its designers hope, will give neighbors the knowledge and organizational tools to understand the zoning rules and density calculations—which the council is considering changing—and help them to decide for themselves what kind of development is appropriate in their neighborhood. 

“We want this to be an unbiased resource for the community,” said Leimkuhler. “Previously there was no information for residents to work with and act in an informed way.”  

Gathering the information was a Herculean effort for the trio that met in July at a meeting about a new development planned for University. From September through the end of January, they worked up to 20 hours a week, doing research in law libraries, pouring through documents on line and meeting face-to-face with city staff. 

“We hit it off right away. It was a labor of love and planning,” said Leimkuhler, who started by reading Dreamworks for Dummies and now volunteers 30 hours a week as the group’s webmaster. She had plenty of help from Kibby, who designed much of the webpage, as well as from Graham, who has followed development projects in the neighborhood for years. 

Fellow Berkeley residents gave them some background information on planning issues and some important tips on getting their website up and running, Leimkuhler said. 

The finished product is a clear and concise overview of Berkeley development. It lays out the pivotal issues facing development in the city, explains how state laws and regional agencies affect local development and gives updated information, including blueprints, on pending projects and development issues.  

“I think it’s great,” said Berkeley Planning Director Dan Marks, director of the website. Marks has worked with Leimkuhler to quickly respond to her requests for updated information. On Wednesday, Leimkuhler posted the latest zoning blueprint for University Avenue, well before the document appeared on the city website. 

Leimkuhler said all her work has not only given her a better understanding of city planning but a more balanced view of the planning staff. “We entered a climate of mutual suspicion,” she said. “Now I realize that the staff doesn’t speak with one voice. There are people there who are also frustrated with the current system.” 

Leimkuhler said she hoped to one day expand the website to include information on developments planned for other neighborhoods, but that time constraints and the lack of available manpower makes that impossible.  

Besides more volunteers, Leimkuhler’s only other hope is for more readers. So far only 67 people have visited the four-week-old site. “Considering all the work we’ve put in, that makes me feel terrible,” she said.  

The battle over development on University Avenue heated up Wednesday night when city planners presented proposed new zoning rules for the avenue at a public hearing of the Planning Commission. 

At the behest of the Mayor’s Task Force On Permitting And Development, the proposals were ordered by the City Council last month to align zoning rules on University to the 1996-adopted University Avenue Strategic Plan. But University Avenue area residents and one public official accused planners of devising a proposal that would encourage the same massive, housing dominated developments that the strategic plan seeks to avoid. 

“This is upzoning,” said Councilmember Dona Spring. “These buildings are getting taller.” 

Despite a strategic plan that calls for four-story buildings along retail nodes with apartments over ample retail stores and sufficient parking, a series of new developments have topped five stories and ballooned to their property limits.  

The culprit, University Avenue neighbors say, is the combination of a city ordinance requiring that any apartment complex with more than five units include affordable units and a state law that grants developers of mixed-use developments with affordable housing a 25 percent bonus.  

Residents of the University Avenue area present at the commission meeting wanted city planners to reduce the allowable heights of buildings so that when developers received density bonuses, the highest those developers could build would be to the limits set under the strategic plan. 

But in conversations with those residents following the meeting, Planning Manager Mark Rhoades said he didn’t interpret the request from council to include downzoning University. Rhoades said he was operating on the premise that density bonuses were not to be used as a tool to bring building heights up what is called for in the area plan.  

The proposal satisfies a state law that went into effect in 2002. The law, Rhoades said, specifies that any change to city zoning rules can’t decrease the area’s housing capacity unless the city compensates for lost capacity in a different district. 

The City Council has asked that the Planning Commission fast track the zoning changes back to them so that future developments believed to be coming down the pipeline would fall under their purview. Already four projects are making their way through the city permit process that are exempt from any zoning changes. Planning staff did not respond to most comments and questions at Wednesday’s meeting, but will provide more information at a second public hearing April 14. 

The Planning Department’s zoning proposal kept most allowable heights the same, but raised them for the seven identified commercial nodes, which include intersections where University crosses California Street, Acton Street, San Pablo Avenue and Fourth Street. At these intersections, allowable heights for mixed-use buildings would be increased from 40 feet to 50 feet, commercial buildings from 40 feet to 45 feet, and residential buildings from 35 feet to 45 feet. 

That didn’t sit well with the neighbors. “We want the envelope to be the strategic plan,” said Steve Wollmer. “Once the envelope is that large, there is nothing that can be done, and the extra space developers get comes out of the neighborhood’s livability.” 

Another concern expressed at the commission meeting was the viability of retail and parking at the new buildings. Since only developments that include housing and retail are eligible to receive density bonuses, Richard Graham of Plan Berkeley said much of the retail spaces in the new developments were mere tokens. They are too small to attract viable businesses and lacked sufficient parking attract customers, he said. 

Planning Manager Rhoades said the viability of the retail will come with increased residential density.  

Developers were also concerned about the zoning proposal, especially a requirement that buildings “step down” towards the back of the parcel so they don’t tower over neighboring homes. Amy Davidson, project manager for Affordable Housing Associates, said that their step down project at University Avenue increased building costs by $30 to $60 a square foot. “We can’t afford to do another project like this,” she said. “We would look to another area.” 

Chris Hudson, a developer formerly of Panoramic Interests, warned after the meeting that a proposal to forbid any housing on the ground floor, step down construction and other restrictions would make future developments infeasible. “What they’re proposing will stop private sector development on University Avenue,” he said. 

Residents living in towns along the river were ordered to evacuate by the National Guard. 

Just about everyone had left town, except for John, a great man of faith. “Those who flee are those of little faith. The Lord will save me,” John told his pastor, who had glided up to John’s front porch in a motorized boat. 

“John, please,” the pastor said. “Get on board. The river is rising fast.” Even with the water chest-high, John refused, leaving his pastor no choice but to speed off to safety. 

An hour passed and the water was up to John’s neck. Just then, an old man rowed by John’s house in a dinghy. The old man threw John a rope. “Grab the rope and I’ll pull you aboard,” the old man called out. 

But John waved him off. “O ye of little faith. God will save me and then you all will see how great He is.” 

Ten minutes later, the water line was just under John’s nose. Suddenly, a Coast Guard helicopter arrived overhead, dangling a hoist. “Grab the hoist or you will drown,” a crewman shouted. 

“Let me be. God will save me,” John yelled. After John drowned and ascended to heaven, he understandably had a bone to pick with the Lord. 

“Lord, I believed in you. I trusted my life in your hands. Why didn’t you save me?” 

God laughed. “John,” the Lord said, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter!” 

You recall the remarks made recently by a senior ranking Bush administration economist about the “outsourcing” of American jobs and how he thought such labor market dislocations were ultimately good for America—“in the long run,” of course. 

It sparked a predictable debate. In our “liberal” media, the “anti-globalization” protesters are lumped together with NAFTA-backing liberals, union-supporters, demagogues, cranks, communists and now Candidate Kerry, only to be ridiculed by conservative and liberal pundits alike. (See Thomas Sowell and Thomas Friedman columns if you want good examples of disdainful commentary about those who don’t share their faith in American style global capitalism). 

But despite our ignorance of the finer points made by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the New York Times ran an interesting article about free trade last week. The article, written by Challenge Magazine editor Jeff Madrick, noted that “free trade theory has a growing number of detractors, and one of their traditional concerns has understandably moved to center stage in this presidential election year. How much has the exporting of jobs to foreign nations contributed to the lack of jobs and the absence of wage growth in the current expansion at home?” 

Madrick first genuflects before the god of free trade theory, acknowledging how the theory “strongly support(s) the case for outsourcing,” drawing as it does on numerous economic studies, notably a 1972 study by Stephen Magee. 

Magee’s study purported to show that “the benefits of hypothetically eliminating all trade restrictions outweighed the costs of unemployment induced by international competition by a ratio of 100 to 1.” 

As it turns out, Magee “neglected crucial costs of job destruction, like the likelihood of displaced workers being paid a lower wage when they get new jobs,” according to a 2003 economic monograph assembled by three prominent economists at the Upjohn Institute. 

The Upjohn economists found a rather astonishing discrepancy between free trade theory and the reality of job destruction and its effects on workers. Though these economists remain advocates of free trade, Madrick reports, their “findings suggest at the very least that a sizable number of workers are inevitably hurt by free trade.” 

Bushenomics is based on the idea “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Of course, such a philosophy doesn’t bode well for those without boats. 

Come November, we can either press Kerry to throw working-class Americans an economic lifeline or we can be like John, who told his rescuers to go away because God will save us. 

The famous economist John Maynard Keynes once quipped: “in the long run, we’re all dead.” But, as one French economist put it, “Keynes is the one who is dead and we are caught up in the long run.” 

Sean Gonsalves is a reporter with the Cape Cod Times, where this story first appeared.

He’s the popular Democratic governor of a southwestern state, with the unlikely advantage of being an experienced international diplomat. He was born in California, but spent his childhood in Mexico City. He speaks real Spanish—not the spanglish kind—and has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. He’s a political moderate with charisma and charm.  

Those are some of the reasons why New Mexico governor, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former congressman and former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson Lopez is on everyone’s short list as a potential vice presidential nominee to accompany Sen. John Kerry on his bid for the White House. 

Though close to 60 people have been mentioned as possible running mates, Richardson is no doubt on Kerry’s short list. 

It’s not the first time he has been this close to the vice presidency. In 2000, he made no secret of his ambition to share the ticket with Gore, but was quickly dropped from contention after nuclear secrets were stolen from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and later found behind a copy machine. Richardson wasn’t exactly to blame for the security lapses, which over decades had become legendary within the Department of Energy, but because he was at the helm he was deemed responsible.  

Republicans in Congress, obviously nervous at the prospect of Richardson on the ticket, made a huge deal of the incident. This time, however, the issue has likely lost its ability to neutralize the governor.  

Democrats have already given Richardson a prominent position in this election cycle, as chairman of the Democratic National Convention that will nominate Kerry in Boston in July. He heads Moving America Forward, a political committee aimed at registering Latinos in Arizona, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada. 

Those states are precisely why Richardson is such an attractive choice for the VP spot: As the South goes increasingly Republican, Democratic strategy could shift to courting the Latino vote in the battleground states of the Southwest and even in Florida, where the non-Cuban, Latino, Democratic vote is growing fast.  

There are other interesting potential VP’s on Kerry’s short list, such as Sen. John Edwards, the smart, attractive, populist campaigner who gave Kerry a run for his money in the presidential primary. But if the question is, “Can you carry your state and help carry other states outside of the nominee’s reach?” then many experts say Richardson is the better choice. No one knows for sure if Edwards or anyone else can help Kerry win anywhere in the South.  

Choosing Richardson over a Southerner would challenge the traditional wisdom that no Democrat can win the White House without being from the South or having significant support there. It would signal a strategy shift, a gamble on building more support in the Southwest, where Latinos are a growing presence.  

In 2000, Gore carried New Mexico by 366 votes and lost Arizona and Nevada. California and Texas are foregone conclusions—the first for the Democrat and the second for the president—but in a close race the smaller states could be the key to victory.  

Richardson could help defeat the effort by Bush and his political point man Karl Rove to garner 40 percent or more of the Latino vote. The idea of voting for a half-Mexican who could be a heartbeat away from the presidency would be tempting for most Latinos across the nation. 

Richardson has some potential downfalls: his enthusiastic support for the North American Free Trade Agreement , for one. While in Congress, Richardson was a key vote-getter for NAFTA on behalf of the Clinton administration, back when Democrats were running as centrists and not populists. That puts him at odds with many Democrats from the heartland, who feel the pinch of jobs fleeing overseas and who espouse a more protectionist attitude.  

Choosing Richardson for vice president could also alienate African Americans, who have expressed support for Edwards. Also, the black community has voted against Latino candidates in some local and state races, when they feel their political power is being undermined by the new largest minority. Few African Americans will vote for Bush, but they may abstain if they feel unrepresented in the Democratic ticket. 

On the other hand, African Americans may cast their ballots for anyone if they dislike the incumbent enough. In California’s recall election, blacks supported Cruz Bustamante at a higher rate than Latinos. 

Richardson predicted in 2000 that, “if not this time, for sure next time” there will be a Latino on the Democratic ticket. He insisted then that America was ready for such a revolutionary proposition. 

Perhaps 2004 will do the trick. Even if Richardson does not become Kerry’s right-hand man, most people who know the governor know he would love another position in a potential Kerry administration: secretary of state.  

Pilar Marrero is a political columnist and news editor for La Opinion in Los Angeles.e

Two black men were sitting in the dark on the brick wall across from our house the other night. It was late, in the middle of that odd, late-winter heat spell of a few weeks ago. A police officer rolled around the corner in his car, saw the men, was immediately suspicious. Normally there’s nothing going on down our street that causes a police presence late at night, but lately the police have been hot-spottin’ out here, checking through the area to make sure nothing’s going on. The cop slowed down to a stop in front of the two men. One of the men turned and said in a low voice to the other, “Watch him shine his light over here.” And so the cop did, pointing his piercing spotlight into the two black men’s eyes, blinding them. They squirmed and squinted, ducking their heads a little and putting up their hands against the glare. They knew better than to look away. You want to really arouse a cop’s suspicion? Try to get out of the way when he’s shining a light in your eyes. That’s a quick trip to the back of the police car. 

I’ve often wondered why cops do that—shine their light directly in a suspect’s eyes. Me knowing nothing about police work, I’d shine the light somewhere around mid-chest, where you could watch the movements of their hands, or pockets from which weapons might come. It’s an old basketball trick. Don’t worry about the head. It goes where the body goes. 

Then again, the face might be the key. Back in the South, in the old days, there used to be a crime called eyeball rape, looking at a white woman with lust, for which many a black man was jailed or hung. “Getting sassy” was an offense, too, back then, though not one that ever made it on the books (“sassy” coming from the term “to ridicule” from the Mende folk in Sierra Leone, by way of Carolina, one of the many African words that made it, unacknowledged, into American English usage). I do remember in Carolina that there was a place on the traffic ticket marked “Attitude” with boxes for “Good,” “Moderate,” and “Poor” for officers to check and then judges to consider when giving out your fine. But, anyhow, those days are long gone… 

I think, for cops, it may be a power thing, shining their lights in a suspect’s eyes. Intimidation by blinding. Something like a pin in chest. If the suspect turns and flees, he’s clearly done something wrong, and chased down and caught. If he stands and winces in the light, he’s submitting to the cop’s authority, acknowledging the cop’s ability to hold him—without even touching him—until the cop decides to let him go. It’s the perfect nonviolent assault, leaving no marks, and, therefore, no possibility of consequences to the cop. None of those brutality allegations. 

(And if you don’t think shining a bright light in someone’s eyes is an assault, try walking down Telegraph or San Pablo avenues one night, flashlight in hand, turning it on random people that you pass. See how long it is before you get yourself arrested. Or, more likely, assaulted. In the not-non-violent way.) 

Anyhow, back to the night in front of my house. 

Like a cobra staring down its prey, the cop held the two men in his bright glare for a moment. Then, without a word, the light clicked off, and the police car rolled away, slow, down the block towards Allen Temple. The police officer didn’t say anything to the men. He’d made his point. He was watching them. If they were up to something, they needed to get their asses up and moving and not be there when he got back. 

I don’t know who the police officer was that night. We get a lot of that out here in the flats of far East Oakland, faceless, nameless cops, roaming through our streets. They come and go like wraiths. We never know who they are, or where they live, and we can only discern why they’re out here by watching the news or reading the paper. They never stop and introduce themselves. 

I don’t know who the police officer was that night, but I do know who one of the men was, sitting on the brick wall across the street from our house. His name is Frank. His mother lives in the house over there; it’s her brick wall on which the two men were sitting, talking, getting some cool night air in that recent heat spell. 

I don’t know how long Frank’s family has been living in that house. Thirty years? Forty, maybe. They moved in sometime during the years I was gone. Frank doesn’t live at the house across the street any more, but he’s always over there. He’s a Vietnam veteran, I think, though it’s nothing we’ve ever talked about. Mostly, we talk sports. He’s a Raider fanatic. He calls me a Raider Hater. We often meet in the street between the houses when I’m leaving for work or coming home. During football season we can be out there for a half-hour or more. 

In the mornings, he comes over to cut his mother’s lawn and pick up the trash that the passersby have left during the night. On Monday nights he puts out the garbage bins for his mother, and more often than not, he’ll come across the street and put out ours, too. Once, when my mother had to be rushed to the hospital, he watched the house for us. It’s that kind of neighborhood. He’s that kind of person. I don’t know who that cop was that night. But I know who Frank is. 

If you’re looking for a dramatic ending to this story, there isn’t any. Frank didn’t get shot, or put in jail. The policeman never came back. All you have is a cop rolling through our block, checking out suspicious black men, putting them in their place. A fairly typical night in our neighborhood, in Oakland, at the millennium’s turn. 

In a recent debate at Oakland City Council over his tenant eviction ordinance, Oakland Councilmember Larry Reid remarked that the American Civil Liberties Union doesn’t live in East Oakland. Cut out the first word and the last, and the man is onto something. 

ˇ

In our March 19 story on the death of Berkeley music teacher Anne Crowden, the Daily Planet reported a March 28 musical reverie in her honor to be held at the Crowden School. Sallie Arens, Crowden School Board chair, has informed the Planet that the perf ormance, which is intended to create a DVD, is closed to the public. 

The story also gave an incorrect address for the Crowden School. The correct address is 1475 Rose St. ›

JOHN KERRY 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

If Devaki Chandra (Letters, Daily Planet, March 23-24) wants to argue that John Kerry would be an improvement over George W. Bush, far be it from me to suggest otherwise. A kinder and gentler distortion of the historical record remains a distortion nonetheless. 

If John Kerry had really wanted, in October 2002, to authorize the use of force in Iraq “as a last resort and with international cooperation” as Chandra claims, he could have voted for the Levin amendment which would have authorized military action “pursuant to a new resolution of the United Nations Security Council,” rather than voting against that amendment and for the main resolution which instead granted one of the least qualified presidents of all time an unprecedented blank check. 

Any “voter who follows the news” and has access to the Internet can go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ to see the text and roll call votes of the 107th Congress, second session recorded in cyberspace for posterity. (The Levin amendment, S4862, was voted down on Oct. 10, the main resolution, HJ114, passed on Oct. 11.) 

The sooner Senator Kerry owns up to his complicity in the Bush-Cheney administration’s botched invasion and occupation of Iraq, the better off he, and America (including Berkeley), will be. 

Drew Keeling 

• 

POLICE DOGS 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

What makes a police dog a unique and valuable resource for the community is the fact that a dog is an intelligent tool. Unlike a weapon, a police dog can protect an officer one day and greet school children the next. Anyone doubting the value of German shepherds as dependable working partners ought to visit the Guide Dogs for the Blind campus in San Rafael. A Berkeley canine unit would be no nearer Bull Connor’s version of crowd control, than the fire department’s fire hoses are.  

As a veterinary nurse, I have drawn blood samples from police dogs and cleaned their wounds. I’ve found them to be well-behaved patients in the exam room and the subject of eager curiosity in the waiting room.  

Jane Townley 

• 

PEACEMAKER 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Mike Vukelich’s tongue-in-cheek letter praising Bush as a peacemaker and “great leader” was hilarious (Daily Planet, March. 23). In these trying times as we watch in horror as the soulless, heartless demons in charge rape the planet, distribute our hard-earned dollars to their cronies, and fatten on the blood and hope of struggling people all over the world, it’s important to pause now and then for a chuckle. Thanks Mike. 

Pamela Satterwhite 

• 

PLACEMENT TESTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I would like to respond to Ms. Toni Martin, who wrote an editorial on the “bias in math placement tests” at Berkeley High School (“Private School Students Face Bias in Math Placement Test,” Daily Planet, March 23-25). You are sadly making a big deal about nothing. First off, honors geometry is not for just anybody. Having taken the course, I can assure you that the jump between honors algebra and geometry is biggest conceptual leap that a student will ever make at BHS. The math department is certainly justified in making it hard to get into that class. Secondly, your comparison to the Spanish department is flawed. Foreign language has no honors program. No classes are taught at a faster pace than others, as is the difference between honors and regular math. Foreign language is based only on the amount of knowledge possessed by the student, not the student’s capacity to learn. 

As for the science department, their entrance tests were only in place as an exercise to weed out the students who weren’t committed to AP sciences by eliminating students who weren’t willing to commit the time to take the test. The pass rate was close to 100 percent. 

Honors Geometry has no obvious benefits. The math department head tells me that a full 70 percent of the regular geometry students who take the placement test for Honors Algebra II pass. During my college application process, I learned that you get no grade boost from Honors Geometry. All I got from Honors Geometry was more homework and a useless tutoring requirement. 

Is the test itself fair to private school students? Probably not. Will failing to take Honors Geometry ruin your child’s chances of getting into a top rate college? Definitely not. Judging by your parting allusion to racism in the system, I am betting that you are just bitter that your child will have to be exposed to regular BHS students instead of the bleached environment of an honors-track classroom. 

Alex Weissman 

Senior, Berkeley High 

• 

MIDDLE EAST 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Many of our nation’s newspapers have been kind enough to sum up in one sentence the true purposes of Hamas. “Hamas wants to destroy the Jewish state and replace it with an Islamic one” (Palo Alto Daily, March 23). Bingo! Hamas simply wants to obliterate Israel and genocide its 5.6 million Jews. Sound familiar? It’s what the Sudanese Arabs have been doing to black African Christian and Animist Sudanese for 20 years. 

In the stirring words of Hussein Massawi (former leader of Hezbollah) “We are not fighting you (Israel) because we want something from you. We are fighting you because we want to destroy you” (quoted in Fouad Ajami, Dream Palaces of the Arabs). 

Abdul-Azziz Rantisi (number two Hamas leader) said something similar: “There is no room for a Jewish State in Palestine”. And just in case there was any doubt as to intentions, the deceased Sheikh himself prophesied: “We will destroy Israel...even if we must do it one Jew at a time”. 

Yet critics suggest that Yassin’s execution postpones negotiations. Where do they think negotiations can begin? Should Israel offer that the Arab terrorists kill only half the Jews? 

Some commentators say that the execution will generate further hatred? Hamas already wants every Jew dead. What would “further hatred” look like? Killing them twice? 

Others assert that it will do “...nothing to advance the cause of...peace”? There is no “cause of peace” when all Hamas wants is Israel’s total destruction. 

Some “senior law enforcement agents” think that Hamas has never before targeted the USA. False. Remember the three CIA agents killed when their car hit a mine while on their way to give Fulbright scholarships to Gaza teens? Remember the dozens of Americans, tourists and students and residents of Israel, killed along with Israelis in the 18,000 terror attacks since Sept. 13, 1993? Remember Yassin’s fiery rhetoric from his quadriplegic’s wheel chair as early as 1996: “When we are done with Israel, we start on the U.S.A.!” 

Some think that world leaders are right in condemning Israel for executing the number two Palestinian terrorist with the blood of hundreds on his hands? Every other nation, including the U.S.A .and U.K., does the same thing to those designated as enemies of the State, in time of war. The British assassinated Nazis after World War II, and eliminated IRA operatives in Northern Ireland. The U.S.A. used a drone to assassinate six al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen in November of 2002. When the complicity of Libya in the Lockerbie attack was confirmed, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Gaddafi’s palace in April of ‘86, missing him but killing his infant daughter. Regarding that bombing, President Reagan said: “As a matter of self-defense, any nation victimized by terrorism has an inherent right to respond with force to deter new acts of terror...(and show)...that there was a price to pay for that kind of behavior” (Washington Post, April, 1986). 

Or, to put it more succinctly: appeasement emboldens the aggressor. Hypocritical and shortsighted Israel-bashing appeases the aggressor, condemns the victim, and gives succor and support to those who seek to finish what Hitler started. 

David Meir-Levi 

Menlo Park 

• 

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

The Gray Panthers of the East Bay believe, as does the average American, that the best way to hear the voice of the people is through democratic elections.  

The recent election in Spain was a democratic process and the people there rejected the government that had supported President Bush.  

Now we find people here challenging the validity of the vote. It is maintained by many of them that the Spanish were frightened into voting as they did by the terrorist attack.  

This may be so. However, there were massive protests by Spaniards against war in Iraq, surveys indicated the Spanish people were overwhelmingly against the war, and the Spanish government ignored those who protested. So, one can also conclude the voters were angry at the government.  

But, let’s put all that aside and consider this question. Shouldn’t we honor a democratic process in another nation even if we don’t like the outcome?  

Joel Brooks  

Margot Smith, Co Convener,  

Gray Panthers of the East Bay  

• 

IDENTITY AND ETHNIC STUDIES 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

As a former Berkeley High School Identity and Ethnic Studies teacher, I write this letter in response to the article “Identity and Ethnic Studies Survives School Board Vote” (Daily Planet, March 12-15). I have always hoped to raise my children in Berkeley and send them to Berkeley public schools. But what I read in this article was frightening, to say the least. And your coverage of it, quoting only the opponents of the course, seemed extremely biased. 

The ignorance expressed in your article was laughable. I wonder how many of the opponents have actually read the curriculum in its most recent—now three year old—iteration. The funny thing about Bradley Johnson is that he never even took IES—he took the old ethnic studies/social living course, which was revised for a reason. Has he taken the time to research what the class really is, or has he been too busy crafting his argument/proposals? It seems he has become quite the conservative prodigy, following in the footsteps of political figures such as Ward Connerly, Arnold Schwarzenegger and George W. Bush, who use fear-mongering tactics to push their respective agendas. In this day and age, I wouldn’t be surprised—if Bradley were a student school board member in Fresno, that is. Something else strikes me as odd: Just who is this student who has talked to Johnson about “violent actions” he is contemplating from sitting in an IES class? Is this student a friend of Johnson’s? Did Johnson report this student who was contemplating these violent actions? Especially in his position, doesn’t he have the ethical responsibility to do so? No, I doubt this conversation (at least in the serious context Johnson implied) really took place, for this would imply that the student school board member would be putting his fellow students’ safety at risk. More likely, Johnson is taking a page from the book of right-wing rhetoric that is becoming increasingly dog-eared in our political climate.  

But let’s say this exchange really did happen. I wonder what Johnson would say to a student who contemplated violent acts after reading Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl? Or if a student who believed in creationism contemplated violent acts after learning about evolution? Would he propose eliminating English? Or science? Maybe he would introduce a compromise to make these subjects elective, so that there would be more room for students to learn and teachers to teach what they like. 

I call on Berkeley students, parents, teachers and board members: Don’t let the conservative element continue to dominate this dialogue with its uninformed and irresponsible diatribe. Instead, let us have a meaningful discussion about the value of this important course.  

Wayne Au 

Madison, WI  

• 

SIERRA CLUB ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

If you’re a Sierra Club member living in Berkeley, you should have received your national ballot for the Sierra Club Board of Directors. Most years voting can be a ho-hum affair if you don’t know the candidates or issues involved. This year, however, a lot is at stake. As an active Sierra Club volunteer, I am very concerned about efforts to take over the board by an anti-immigration slate.  

The background: Annually 750,000 Sierra Club members vote for five candidates for the 15-member national board of directors. This year a slate of five candidates wants to take over the board to re-direct traditional club priorities of clean air, clean water and parks, open space protection and energy conservation into anti-immigration issues. (For information, go to www.groundswellsierra.org.)  

I and other mainstream Sierra Club members are supporting five experienced and diverse activists who will put their loyalty to the club above personal agendas and who support the club’s traditional values. They include: Nick Aumen, Everglades restoration scientist and former club treasurer; Dave Karpf, recent director of the club’s student coalition; Jan O’Connell, club treasurer and fundraiser in our beat-Bush effort; Sanjay Ranchod, delegate to the Kyoto global warming negotiations; Lisa Renstrom, former foundation trustee, and former chair of the club’s fundraising efforts. 

I urge all club member to vote in the Sierra Club election for the above five candidates. 

Helen Burke 

• 

HYPOCRITES 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Once again, the international community is applying the double standard to judge an action taken by the Israel Defense Forces against a terror organization whose explicitly stated goal is to obliterate the Jewish state.  

Since September, 2000, Hamas has been the leading Palestinian terrorist organization taking responsibility for more than 50 suicide attacks, all under the “spiritual guidance” of Sheikh Yassin. 

We in the United States cannot afford to participate in this double standard while we hunt down the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. Is it not one of the primary responsibilities of a sovereign nation to protect its citizens? How can we be such hypocrites? 

Lorri Arazi 

Oakland 

• 

GLAD FOR THE BIG BANG 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Your article on creationism (“Local Activists Face Off in Creationism Debate,” Daily Planet, March 23-25) reminded me of a conversation I had with my 7-year-old grandson the other day. 

He asked me if I believed in God. I said no but I could be wrong, that many people did believe. His other grandparents certainly did. He thought for a moment, then said, “I guess I don’t believe in God but I’m sure glad we had the Big Bang.” 

Nancy Ward 

• 

MAKING PEACE 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Today, the Associated Press reported that Palestinian terrorists gave a boy $22 to blow himself up. The boy, described by his own family as “slow” was caught after crossing over into Israel. Where is the outrage? 

The world’s leaders challenged Israel when the leader of Hamas was killed this week. However, Hamas is a group that is on nearly every nation’s list of terror organizations.  

Will these leaders also call for Palestinian terror groups to stop exploiting children for their cause? 

Let’s face it. Courage isn’t found in those who exploit kids in the name of the Palestinian cause. Courage comes when two parties sit down at the table, like previous leaders in Egypt and Jordan did, and try to make peace with Israel. 

Dan Cohen 

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When Tom Bates was running for mayor, he never said that, if elected, he would ensure that Shirley Dean’s supporters would take over the Planning Commission. But that’s exactly what just happened.  

On March 10, the Planning Commission held its annual election of officers. Harry Pollack was elected chair with the votes of the Dean supporters on the commission—Susan Wengraf, David Tabb and Tim Perry. Pollack was nominated by former Dean supporter and current Tom Bates appointee David Stoloff. The two progressive commissioners who were present, Gene Poschman and myself, abstained.  

In 1998 Pollack donated $150 to then Mayor Dean’s successful bid for re-election. Dean appointed him to the Planning Commission in June 2002. After Dean’s defeat by Bates, Pollack was re-appointed to the Commission by Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who had just beaten Bates’ candidate Andy Katz for the District 8 City Council seat.  

Next at the March 10 meeting, Stoloff was nominated for Planning Commission vice-chair by Tabb, a leader in Dean’s political vehicle, the Berkeley Democratic Club (BDC), and Councilmember Betty Olds’ appointee. Stoloff was then elected vice-chair with votes from Perry, Pollack, Stoloff, Tabb and Wengraf. Poschman and I voted no.  

While Stoloff supported Bates in the 2002 mayoral race, he donated $400 ($250 in the regular election, $150 in the runoff) to Dean’s 1994 mayoral campaign and $50 to her 1992 District 5 City Council run. Voting for both Pollack and Stoloff was Wengraf, another BDC leader, sometime Dean campaign manager, and aide to Councilmember Olds.  

The real shocker here, though, is that the day before the commission election, Councilmember Margaret Breland, one of the council progressives, called her Planning Commissioner, John Curl, and told him that she was replacing him that very day with Tim Perry. Curl, one of Berkeley’s most reliably progressive and public-spirited citizens, had been one of the most diligent members of the Planning Commission since coming on in June, 2001. Tim Perry, on the other hand, had been an ardent supporter of Shirley Dean’s 2002 re-election bid. Perry contributed $250 to Dean’s 1998 campaign. In 1994 he and his wife Linda gave Dean $350 ($100 in the regular election, $250 in the run-off). Perry’s earlier, five-month stint on the Planning Commission as District 5 Councilmember Mim Hawley’s initial appointee had ended after some of Hawley’s constituents and others complained about his rudeness at commission meetings. Hawley replaced Perry with David Tabb.  

Tom Bates would have us believe that none of this matters because his election inaugurated an era of good feeling between Berkeley progressives and Shirley Deanites. “We don’t have any sides,” he asserted in his first State of the City address. “We have problems; we have points of view; we work together as a team.”  

It’s true that council meetings have become more cordial. But anyone who believes that the new collegiality on the council or off it (I’m thinking of the recent fundraiser held for the mayor by BDC regulars Betty Olds, Maggie Gee, Mim Hawley and Harry Weininger) is proof that there are no longer “sides” in Berkeley politics should consider the differences between David Stoloff and the progressives on the Planning Commission.  

In his 16 months on the commission, Stoloff, a former UC planner, has aggressively fronted for the university, doing his best to fend off any challenge to UC’s authority and will. By contrast, the progressives on the commission have tried to get UC to respect the needs of Berkeley and its citizens. Where the progressive commissioners have sought the widest feasible public participation in the planning process, Stoloff has repeatedly tried to curtail citizen input. In February of 2003, he unsuccessfully attempted to keep members of the public from engaging in dialogue with UC representatives at a commission workshop on the Southside Plan. At the commission’s Feb. 25 meeting, Stoloff first pronounced “unnecessary” the 25-member citizens’ task force on the university’s proposed downtown hotel and conference center. He then did not vote to approve the task force membership and meeting schedule.  

Finally, there is Stoloff’s involvement in John Curl’s ouster. Stoloff has said that he knows who called Breland and asked her to pull Curl, but that he is “not at liberty” to name names.  

For progressives, the recent events at the Planning Commission are a disaster, and the worst is probably yet to come. That disaster is the work of many hands, but the person who bears the lion’s share of the blame is Tom Bates. The mayor has told John Curl that he had nothing to do with Breland’s replacing him on the commission with Tim Perry. At some level, then, Tom Bates recognizes that what happened was wrong. What he doesn’t seem to have grasped is that even if he didn’t call Breland or know anything about the machinations that resulted in Curl’s ouster, he is deeply implicated in that wrong.  

For over a year, Tom Bates has blown off many private complaints about David Stoloff’s unrestrained advocacy of UC, his hostility toward citizen participation and his habitual alliance with the Dean supporters on the commission. The mayor’s indifference to these appeals suggests that he shares his Planning Commissioner’s views of democratic process and land use policy, at least as these things concern the city’s biggest and most expansionary landowner, the University of California. Those are essentially the views of Shirley Dean—carried to extremes that Dean may have dreamed of but never voiced, much less realized.  

Like myself, many Berkeley progressives saw Tom Bates as an alternative to Shirley Dean and worked very hard to help him beat her in 2002. If he maintains his public silence about the Deanite takeover of the Planning Commission and his commissioner’s role in that takeover, progressives should start wondering how much of an alternative to Shirley Dean Tom Bates is after all.  

Zelda Bronstein is a member of the Berkeley Planning Commission.

The University Avenue Association (UAA) applauds the City Council and the Planning Commission for doing the zoning overlay for the University  

Avenue Strategic Plan. Many of our members were pleased to participate in the development of the plan.  

In the next 10 years thousands of new residents will be living on University Avenue. It would be short sighted not to anticipate and plan for the services they will need. It is the need for housing and housing alone that is driving current planning. Let’s work together to plan a vibrant retail environment for the people who will live in the housing.  

The UAA is concerned that the current development model on the avenue is not conducive to retail development. As has been noted by Planning Department staff, there has been a trend on the part of developers towards adding a token amount of retail to get the extra floor given to mixed-use projects. Furthermore, the trend is towards having, at most, enough retail parking for a few employees.  

It is important that the Planning Commission move beyond theories of transit oriented development and look at the facts on the ground. Strong retail centers on University Avenue need a mix of small and large retail spaces that serve both regional and local needs and have parking for customers. The strongest demand is for large spaces with higher ceilings. Projects underway or being planned (at 1725 and 1885) on University Avenue between Martin Luther King and Sacramento will eliminate four large retail spaces with approximately 25,000 square feet of retail and 90 parking spaces. The new projects will include 6,700 feet of retail with no parking for retail customers. The developers of the Tune-up Masters project (1698) have made a credible effort to provide workable retail but offer no customer parking. The Satellite Senior project at 1535 will have 6,000 square feet of commercial space but it will be used as office space.  

Zoning rules have a strong influence on retail development and we would like the commission to use its charter wisely. The University Avenue Association requests that the Planning Commission join merchants and neighbors in walking a portion of the Avenue. We also request a meeting with the commission along with both Planning and Economic Development staff to discuss the role merchants will play in the new “village.” Two issues that we would like to review are how to plan for the thousands of new residents who will be living on the avenue and how to approach nodal development.  

The “nodes” described in the University Avenue Strategic Plan are there for only one purpose: to take a long avenue and concentrate retail in certain defined areas. Allowing projects to be one floor higher than in non-node areas was only a step in facilitating achievement of the goal. The proposed zoning changes codify the extra floor while leaving retail rules the same in both node and non-node areas. Our goal should be to develop retail services as the cornerstone of a less car dependent dense infill community. Must we fight just to save what we have?  

Kirpal Khanna is the president of the University Avenue Association.,

At 29, Iowa housewife Denese Becker went to Guatemalan to re-discover her past. She knew she was returning to dig up the roots of a horrific story that left both her parents dead, making her an orphan at the age of 9. What she didn’t know was that her trip would spark a movement to expose the perpetrators of one of the bloodiest events in Guatemalan history, and to help bring them to justice. 

Denese Becker is one of the few survivors of a massacre in the Guatemalan village of Rio Negro. 

Becker’s story was recorded by two Bay Area journalists who followed her for three years. Mary Jo McConahay and Patricia Flynn’s intensely personal and overtly political documentary of that journey, Discovering Dominga, will be shown in Berkeley on Saturday, March 27, as part of an exclusive viewing to help celebrate the 125th anniversary of St. Joseph the Worker Church. The documentary has already aired on PBS as part of the Points of View series. The movie documents Becker’s trips to her home country as she helps the community re-open the history of the murders committed by an American-backed Guatemalan army. 

Becker, now a manicurist in Iowa with an American husband and two children, begins to sift with perfectly primped hands through the dirt of a story that only she can connect. A Guatemalan-born American, Becker combines within her own life the two countries that helped tear apart the community she came from.  

“I knew this was a dream story because it could get the issue out there with an American at the center,” said McConahay, a journalist with San Francisco’s Pacific News Service. With an American protagonist, people in the United States feel an immediate connection, she added. McConahay is the co-director of the film and the person who originally found Becker. “But if it works at all, it’s because we care about Denese, and in caring about Denese we come to care about Guatemala.”  

The documentary’s director, Patricia Flynn, is an award-winning broadcaster and has produced public affairs programming and documentaries for public television and radio for more than 20 years. She was a producer for the PBS documentary series In Search Of Law And Order, and for Religion & Ethics Newsweekly on PBS. She lives in San Anselmo. 

Beginning in 1954, Guatemala suffered in the violence sparked by an American-backed coup that ousted a democratically elected government and set the country into a whirlwind of instability. In 1982, as part of a raid on so-called “insurgents” who refused to leave their land to make way for a World Bank-funded dam, the Guatemalan army entered the village of Rio Negro and killed hundreds of people, including 70 women and 107 children. The raid that killed Becker’s immediate family was one of several that left an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people dead. 

After the massacre, Becker was adopted by an American family and grew up with only faint memories of the event. Though she married and had two children, she could never completely leave the past behind her. Eventually, after she found that she still had family in Rio Negro, she decided to return. 

She comes back to a tremendous welcome, with the whole town turning out to greet her as she arrives. Initially, it is a festive event. But as time goes on, the community begins to share its secrets with her, and she is drawn more and more into the fight for justice the community has decided to take on. 

Their struggle is sparked by a United Nations Truth Commission report that finds the Guatemalan army responsible for 93 percent of the total war crimes during the years of violence and unrest surrounding the coup, and declares the killings a genocide. The community makes the fight their own, and with Becker’s help creates a landmark human rights case against the Guatemalan military.  

Along with Becker’s story, according to McConahay, the film has served to re-expose an issue that was left to fade into history.  

“It makes me look around and see the people who just arrived, that they carry stories from their homeland,” said McConahay. “[It helps us see] the interconnectedness of this country and its affects elsewhere.” 

At a politically charged time, with the war in Iraq and the coup in Haiti, McConahay and Flynn agree the movie also delivers a message that is easily applied elsewhere. 

“As we think about Iraq, Americans will have to face a reality that Denese’s story so poignantly illustrates: that the wounds of war do not heal when the bombing stops,” write both directors in a letter posted on the PBS site. 

“How many Deneses are being created in Iraq and Haiti,” said McConahay. “In Guatemala 50 years ago it was bananas, today in Iraq it’s oil. I don’t like to speak in such broad strokes but let’s be honest with ourselves.” 

After testifying as one of the witnesses for the human rights case, Becker and the surviving people of Rio Negro are pushing for a trial in Guatemala. They want the court to hear the case in their country instead of the Hague. 

“They want more than a judgment,” said McConahay. “They want to use [the case] to build the justice system.” 

“Discovering Dominga” will be screened at St. Joseph the Worker this Saturday, March 27, at 7:30 p.m. The church is located at 1640 Addison St. and the event is free. For more information call 482-1062. The film’s first theatrical release will be at the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael on April 14. For more information about the film, contact Mary Jo McConahay at mcconahay@pacificnews.org. For more information about the legal case against the Guatemalan government, visit www.justiceforgenocide.org.

Traditional country music is played on acoustic instruments like mandolins, not wailing pedal steel guitars. That fact alone puts its practitioners so far outside the genre’s mainstream Nashville stronghold that they might as well live in, well, the Bay Area. That’s just fine with Berkeley’s very own home grown country music legend Laurie Lewis—she’s been an outsider most of her life. “Even though I’ve grown up in a city, I’m a country girl,” says Lewis. “Farms in Berkeley? You bet!” 

A musical jack of all trades, the 1968 graduate of Berkeley High and a member of the school’s Hall of Fame sings and writes songs and plays the guitar and violin. A fixture on the Bay Area roots music scene since the late ‘70s, in 1986 she hooked up with mandolinist Tom Rozum. Together they’ve recorded three albums including their latest, Guest House. The duo will roll out the new offering with concerts tonight (Friday, March 26) and Saturday, March 27 at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage at 8 p.m. Joining Lewis and Rozum will be bassist Todd Sickafoose, guitarist Scott Huffman and surprise special guests. 

The key to Lewis and Rozum’s sound is the acoustic instruments. In addition to the guitar, mandolin and violin, the ensemble’s members strum a banjo and string bass to give their songs an authentic flavor. “We really love the sound of the acoustic instruments and the fact that you don’t need to take people’s heads off with huge volume. You can just take out an instrument and sing your songs.” 

Guest House, while paying homage to the pair’s bluegrass and early country influences, also throws in a little social commentary on songs such as Bad Seed. A song about reaping what you sow, Lewis interprets it as a lament about some of the more questionable genetic experiments being done on the world’s food supply. “That’s my personal take,” she says. “Once you put a song out into the world it’s going to mean whatever it’s going to whoever hears it and that’s what it means to me.” 

The rest of the album includes loves songs and freewheeling classic ditties such as Old Dan Tucker, the heartfelt saga of a man too late for dinner who proceeded to wash his face in a frying pan and comb his hair with a wagon wheel. 

Lewis started playing in bluegrass bands during the burgeoning traditional country scene in the late ‘70s with bands such as the Good Ole Persons, one of the first all-women bluegrass groups. She thinks the music may be experiencing another wave of popularity. 

Traveling across the country and abroad half the year to perform to sold out audiences, Lewis credits public radio stations for introducing many to her style of country—one not found on commercial radio. “The music that I play is not palatable to advertisers,” she says. “It doesn’t sell whatever it’s supposed to sell. And yet, what is really great is that we’ve been able to travel around and make a living.” Adds Lewis, who closed up her violin shop at age 36 and became a full-time musician, “I feel so incredibly lucky.” 

While Lewis is grateful for the airplay she gets on stations like KPFA, she realizes non-commercial radio can’t carry the entire music education burden. Since Lewis benefited from the Berkeley Unified School District’s outstanding music programs during her years as a student, she’s more than a little concerned about the present decline of music education, and not just because it might hamper the career of someone like herself.  

“I think it’s very important to have kids exposed to music,” says Lewis. “There’s a great empowerment in the ability to entertain yourself. That’s what playing music is first and foremost about. The less that becomes a part of everyday life the more we’ll just turn to pre-packaged entertainment from the outside which is going to stifle our creativity as a people.”

Most home buyers know they should get a mortgage pre-approval letter from a lender before they begin seriously shopping for a home. But the reasons for this advice aren’t always clear, and buyers sometimes are dismayed by the amount of paperwork involved. Here is some of the reasoning behind the advice:  

1. A pre-approval letter is more reliable than a pre-qualification letter. Getting a pre-qualification letter is easy. Ask your real estate agent to put you in touch with a mortgage broker or lender. You must provide some basic financial information, then wait a few minutes for the letter to come through your fax machine. Getting a “pre-qual” from a website is just as easy. Enter some information, click “submit” and voilà. A pre-approval letter, on the other hand, involves verification of the information. Rather than taking your word on faith, the lender will ask for documentation to confirm your employment, the source of your down payment and other aspects of your financial circumstances. Granted, a pre-approval is more time-consuming (and possibly more stressful) than a pre-qualification The additional due diligence is exactly why the pre-approval carries more weight.  

2. You’ll know how much money you can qualify to borrow. Most home buyers have a rough idea of how much they would feel comfortable paying every month on their mortgage. However, there’s no quick-and-dirty way to translate that monthly payment into a specific maximum mortgage amount because other factors—down payment percentage, mortgage insurance, property taxes, adjustable interest rates and so on—are part of the calculation. And, you might not be qualified to borrow as much as you think you should be able to borrow, depending on your income, your debts and your credit history.   

3. You’ll have more leverage in negotiations with the seller. Sellers prefer to negotiate with pre-approved buyers because the sellers know such buyers are financially qualified to obtain the financing they need to close the transaction. A pre-approval letter is an especially favorable point in a close multiple offer situation. And, you might feel more confident about making an offer with a pre-approval letter in hand and the knowledge that you'll be able to obtain a mortgage.   

4. Your real estate agent will work harder on your behalf. A pre-approval letter signals to your real estate agent that you’re a well-qualified buyer who is serious about purchasing a home. The increased likelihood of a closed sale—and a commission—will naturally motivate your agent to devote more time and energy to you.  

5. A few caveats: Pre-approval letters aren’t binding on the lender, are subject to an appraisal of the home you want to purchase, and are time-sensitive. If your financial situation changes (e.g., you lose your job, lease a car or run up credit-card bills), interest rates rise or a specified expiration date passes, the lender will review your situation and recalculate your maximum mortgage amount accordingly.  

Russ Cohn is president of CohnsLoans in Albany and Berkeley.›

Pour one or more tablespoons of olive oil into a microwavable glass bowl. Peel and slice several garlic cloves into the bowl, cover with a plate, and microwave until soft, two or three minutes. Meanwhile, toast thick slices of sourdough bread. Spread the toast with the garlic-oil mixture. Top with slices of ripe and juicy beefsteak tomatoes, season to taste with salt and pepper, and start the day feeling very well pleased with life. 

One can get away with planting garlic in early spring in Berkeley if one has no desire for any part of it besides green tips, not a bad idea at all. Green tips are speedily grown in March, just when we crave spring greens, and make a pleasant change from green onions, adding sparkle to salads and sauces with less strength than the mature bulb. Simply separate a bulb into cloves and set a dozen of them into a one-gallon pot of potting soil. Because the bulbs will not mature, little space is needed. Water if the earth becomes dry. In a week green shoots will appear, and harvesting can begin soon after.  

For bulbs, buy a red or white garlic bulb, preferably organic. Separate it as above into cloves. A fat bulb will yield about thirty cloves. Set these into the ground in mid October, in rich soil if you can, pointy end up, just below the surface and about three inches apart. Cover them with a light mulch. Then forget about them. Do not, ever, water them. Winter rains take care of juvenile needs, and they will ripen while Berkeley’s two seasons change from wet to dry. Dig them in June. Keep them in a dry place until their tops have completely withered. This takes about two weeks. Now they are ready to use. What vegetable could be easier, or more rewarding? 

If anyone is new to garlic, peel and cut a clove in half and drag the cut ends around the inside of a glass bowl. The garlic will impart its addictive aroma to any leaves tossed therein. For aficionados, recipes are numerous. Practically anything becomes edible when mixed with olive oil, garlic and salt. The following recipe, one of my summer favorites, is terrific for hungry breakfasters. 

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FRIDAY, MARCH 26 

CHILDREN 

Cat in the Hat will be at Barnes and Noble at 10:30 a.m. 644-3635. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Crimes of the Heart” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen, at 8 p.m. and runs through April 11. 647-2917. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Central Works, “The Duel” a new play adapted from Chekhov’s novella, 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 

Everyday Theater, “The Bright River,” a show by Tim Barsky, at 8 p.m. at the Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. Also Sat. March 27, and April 1-3. Tickets are $12-$20 available from 644-2204. 

Hillside Players “Tangled Tales Three: It’s Not Easy Being Smee” a comic journey into The Enchanted Forest for the whole family at 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $7, $4 for children, students and seniors. 384-6418. 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Fall Down Get Up” by Naomi Newman, directed by Ben Yalom at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $18-$28 available from 415-285-8080. www.atjt.com 

Un-Scripted Theater “Imrov Survivor” at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, and runs to April 3. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.un-scripted.com 

FILM 

Chantal Akerman: “The Captive” at 7 p.m. and “Night and Day” at 9:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed discusses “Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

8th Annual Teen Poetry Slam East Bay Semi-Finals at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Open to any teen between 13-19 years old. Tickets are $10 general. To register call 415-255-9035, ext. 21 or email slam@youthspeaks.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

pickPocket at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum perform roots Americana at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Vision Walker CD Release Party at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenez. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Zigaboo Modeliste and the New Aahkesstra at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10, $8 with student i.d. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

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

“Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip Hop,” written and performed by Aya de León, at 8 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph. Tickets are $10. 451-1932. 

Crater, Good for Crows at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com  

Anton Schwartz, jazz saxophone quartet, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Reorchestra, modern dance grooves, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

The Fleshies, The Restarts, Born/Dead, Monster Squad, Strung Up at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Harris Eisenstadt Ahimsa Orchestra at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $8-$10. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

SATURDAY, MARCH 27 

CHILDREN 

“Chantecleer and the Fox” at 2 p.m. at Calvary Church, 1940 Virginia St. Tickets are $25 general, $20 senior/student, $65 family special including activities for ages 4-12, refreshments and show. 415-491-0818. www.chaucertheatre.org 

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

Los Amiguitos de La Peña Creative Movement Together at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Building Experimental Musical Instruments Workshop from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

Asheba, Caribbean music, at 3 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $3-$5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Parent/Child Dance Class and Open House from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Haas Pavilion, Mills College, Oakland. 644-3629. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Crimes of the Heart” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Fall Down Get Up” by Naomi Newman, directed by Ben Yalom at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $18-$28. 415-285-8080. www.atjt.com 

EXHIBITIONS OPENINGS 

“Breeder's Choice,” a visual inquiry into the world of pedigree dog breeding, with Lauren Davies at the Kala Gallery from 5 to 7 p.m. 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. 

“It’s All About Location” with Sherrod Blankner, Patrick Marquis, and Ed Monroe. Reception from 7 to 9 p.m. at Fourth St. Studio. Exhibition runs to April 15. 1717D Fourth St. 527-0600. 

FILM 

The Case for Pavel Jurácek: “The End of August in the Hotel Ozone” at 7 p.m. and “A Case for the Young Hangman” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

8th Annual Teen Poetry Slam East Bay Semi-Finals at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Open to any teen between 13-19 years old. Tickets are $10. To register call 415-255-9035, ext. 21 or email slam@youthspeaks.org 

“Chaucer’s Stories Simply Retold for the Children” with Velma Bourgeois Richmond, Prof. of English, Holy Names College, at 2 p.m. at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St. Followed by a slide show. For ticket information call 415-491-0818. www.chaucertheatre.org 

Berkeley Youth Art Festival with Rhythm and Muse Young Poets at 7 p.m., open mic sign up at 6:30 p.m., at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Nederlands Dans Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $38-$64 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Yukimi Kambe Viol Consort, interpretations of Rennaissance music at 8 p.m. at St John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-25, available from 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

“Twin Harps” with Cheryl Ann Fulton and Diana Stork at 7:30 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave. in Kensington. Tickets are $12 at the door. 526-9146. 

Berkeley Youth Art Festival with Flute Fest at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

Jewish Music Festival “ Philly Klezmer Swing Dance Party” at 8 p.m. with a dance lesson by Steven Weintraub at 6:30 p.m. at The Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-0237. 

“Chanticleer and the Fox,” a musical at 4 p.m. at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St. For ticket information call 415-491-0818. www.chaucertheatre.org 

Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound featuring Frank Martin, Jami Sieber, Joey Blake and David Worm at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Misturada, Latin jazz quartet at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

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

Maya Azucena performs soul and funk at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10, $8 with student i.d. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

“Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip Hop,” written and performed by Aya de León, at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph. Tickets are $10. 451-1932. 

ACME Observatory’s Contemporary Composer’s Series with Toshi Makihara with Steve Adams and Jon Raskin, and Wade Matthews at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Admission free, donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

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

Mark Growden, Whore, Three Piece Combo at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Joey Keithley, punk pioneer, at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St., Oakland. Donation $5. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, roots Americana at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Feisty Females in the Round at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Collective Amnesia at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Bekka’s Frogland Orchestra, tribal avant funk, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Le Scrawl, Voetsek, Jewdriver, Lux Nova, Slit Wrist at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

CV1, reggae and jazz-improv, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Chemystry Set with special guests Sunfire Pleasure at 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $8. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

SUNDAY, MARCH 28 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Roberta Almerez, works in an eclectic mix of media. Reception from 1 to 4 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Crimes of the Heart” at 5 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Fall Down Get Up” by Naomi Newman, directed by Ben Yalom at 2 and 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $18-$28 available from 415-285-8080. www.atjt.com 

Hillside Players “Tangled Tales Three: It’s Not Easy Being Smee” a comic journey into The Enchanted Forest for the whole family at 2 and 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $7, $4 for children, students and seniors. 384-6418. 

FILM 

The Case for Pavel Jurácek: “Jester’s Tale” at 3:40 p.m. and “Ikarie XB-1” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Guided Tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Kirk Lumpkin reads from his new book of poetry, “In Deep,” at 4 p.m. at the Ecology Center Bookstore, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. www.ecologycenter.org 

“A Walking Tour of the Arts” at 2 p.m. at the Christian Science Church, 801 Magnolia Ave., Piedmont. Part of Alameda County’s “Art is Education” initiative. 594-2643. 

Poetry Flash a celebration for “Appetite: Food as Metaphor, An Anthology of Women Poets” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Nederlands Dans Theater at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $38-$64 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Schools Performing Arts Showcase from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Community Theater at Berkeley High School. 644-8772. 

Berkeley Broadway Singers “Pennies From Heaven” at 4 p.m. at St. Augustine’s Church, 400 Alcatraz Ave. Free admission, donations accepted. 604-5732. www.berkeleybroadwaysingers.org 

The Dunes perform North African music at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mary Black and Ledisi in a benefit concert for Parental Stress Service, at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland’s Paramount Theater. Tickets available through Ticketmaster. www.MaryBlackAt 

TheParamount.com 

Left Turn No Signal, creative jazz improvisers, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations of $8-$15 suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Brian Joseph, contemporary folkster, 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 

John Schott and Ben Goldberg at 4 p.m. at Spasso Cafe, 6021 College Ave. at Claremont.  

MONDAY, MARCH 29 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeffrey Hollender, one of the leaders of the Corporate Social Responsibility movement, introduces “What Matters Most: How a Small Group of Pioneers is Teaching Social Responsibility to Big Business” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express Theme Night: Women in Your Life, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

Ana Maria Spagna introduces her new book of essays, “Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging and the Crosscut Saw” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Julian and Jonathan Khuner perform songs by Schubert, Schumann and Barber at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-5190. 

TUESDAY, MARCH 30 

FILM 

Chantal Akerman: “With Sonia Wieder-Atherton” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Kala Fellowship Artists Paul Catanese and Cynthia Innis at 7 p.m. at Kala Gallery, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

Dawn Prince-Hughes discusses “Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Spanning the Strait: Building the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge” a slide show and lecture by John V. Robinson at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

Kate Wenner reads from her new novel, “Dancing with Einstein” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

R. Larry Wilson, author of “Silk and Steel: Women at Arms” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

“All The World Is In It: The Musical Universe of East-European Jews” at 7 p.m. at the Dinner Boardroom, in GTU’s Hewlett Library. 649-2482. 

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

Maryann Price & Naomi Ruth Eisenberg at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazz- 

school at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277.›

“Here comes the big scream,” said Kate Obenour. Just outside the garden at Arts Magnet, Rupert Lopez, the reading teacher, stood on one side of the fence holding a long hose. On the other side was a large crowd of students, almost everyone in the yard. Mr. Lopez flipped the nozzle and a fan of water sprayed over the kids. The scream rose. “Yesterday, I heard that scream three blocks away while I was home for lunch,” said Kate. The kids were now waving their arms, and jumping up and down, begging for more. “Are we having fun or what?” asked Kate. 

The big scream has been happening at Arts Magnet since Kate revived the garden at Arts Magnet Elementary School, some seven years ago. “Before we revived the garden, there weren’t hoses or anything out here,” she said. Kate Obenour is a lawyer with the firm Miller, Clark, Calvert & Obenour, located across from Berkeley High School. Starting when her daughter was in third grade at Arts Magnet, Kate has been volunteering every Wednesday, working with students to build the garden, island by island. On many a Wednesday, she’s joined by another parent, Kim Shaefer, who is head of Arts Magnet’s PTA.  

Each garden island is surrounded by concrete or asphalt. There are the day lilies and the bird bath right in front of the school. Three foot strips of irises, fruit trees, and flowering bulbs line both sides of the walkway along the east side. Across the asphalt yard, in a corner next to the jungle gym, are a dozen small raised beds with carrots, chard, cabbage, kale, peas, lettuce, and other vegetables. Kate grows enough pumpkins in the fall to make pumpkin pie for the whole school. Once a year, she makes salad fixings for 300 kids. All of it comes from the garden, except for the dressing. 

The school calls these gardens “Kate’s Gardens,” but Kate titles herself “Chief Weeder.” Dressed in jeans, a purple “Dirt First” T-shirt, a big straw hat and boots, Kate says that when she comes she’s dressed for survival. “Got to keep up with the kids when I’m here.” On Wednesday morning, she fills her wheelbarrow with tools and supplies. On the very top, she puts two chickens into a cat carrying case, and wheels all of it three blocks to school. The two chickens, Queenie, a crested polish bantam, and Sultan, a bantam originating from Iran, roam free on Wednesdays. When the first group of students come out, they receive a chicken anatomy talk. They see Queenie’s blue ears and her brown eyes. They pat her feet. They touch her nails. When it’s time to weed, Kate plops Queenie into a garden bed, and urges the students to dig up the weeds and look for worms. The students, with great gusto, dig up the entire bed, hand feeding roly polys and earthworms to Queenie. Soon, the entire bed has been weeded. For a snack, they pull and eat carrots from the garden. While washing off the dirt, they loudly complain about how disgusting the dirty carrots are and then eat every carrot and ask for more. 

The next group of students move into the Poetry Garden, a garden built with a grant from the City of Berkeley to honor Alan Ginsburg who lived on Milvia Street, across from the school, once upon a time. In one corner stands a pond with goldfish and mosquito fish. Kate deftly hands the students plastic cups and asks them to see if they can catch a fish. While they’re at it, she asks each student to scoop out one handful of leaves or garbage that may have drifted into the pond. So, students practice catch and release without realizing they just did a chore.  

Six years ago, Kate and students hand dug the hole for the pond. “Those students are now sophomores at Berkeley High,” she said.  

Over by a large piece of granite, Kavanedeep, a fourth grader says, “We planted this last year, me, Jamail, Elliott and Rashaad,” and carefully tip-toed around the still baby plants. Other students are quietly listening for lizards or checking the passion vine for Red Checker butterfly eggs. 

Kate’s daughter is at Berkeley High, and her son’s in college. When asked what motivates her to continue as the chief weeder at Arts Magnet, Kate said, “I love gardening with kids... Can you imagine what Berkeley will look like in 20 years, all the beautiful gardens from the kids we’re teaching?” 

Back in the vegetable garden, two kindergartners have come in to pet the chickens. “Look,” Kate says, “Sultan has five toes. Can you count to five?” And they both count loudly and vigorously. “Is she ready to lay an egg?” they ask. “Looks like she’s thinking about it,” Kate answered. In the meantime, another lunch shift of students have arrived in the yard. Rupert Lopez turns on the hose. The big scream rises into the warm air.  

The Police Review Commission could sign off Wednesday on a controversial plan to welcome two German shepherds to the Berkeley Police Department—the first crime fighting dogs in the city since the 1930s. 

“I thought we were going to reject it, but now I’m not so sure,” said Chairperson Jon Sternberg, one of four commissioners to publicly oppose a police department proposal to establish a canine unit. 

Police want the German shepherds to help them track down armed suspects hiding in cordoned off blocks or buildings and to help them search for missing people.  

With a decision scheduled for Wednesday’s commission meeting, opponents need one more vote to stop the plan in its tracks. Otherwise it heads to the council with the blessing of the commission responsible for reviewing police conduct. 

Four commission members (David Ritchie, appointed by Linda Maio, Jack Radisch, appointed by Betty Olds, Lucienne Sanchez Resnik, appointed by Miriam Hawley and Michael Sherman, appointed by Dona Spring) are believed to be leaning toward support of the proposal, while a fifth member, Annie Chung, the appointee of Mayor Tom Bates, is a wild card. 

“I think she’s feeling pressured to vote yes, but I heard she might abstain or not even show up,” said one person close to the commission. Chung could not be reached for comment. 

Bates supports the canine unit, but said he hasn’t given Chung marching orders for the crucial vote. Without the support of the commission, Bates doubted the City Council would even take up the proposal. “As far as I’m concerned if the PRC votes against it, it’s over,” he said. 

That the PRC would even consider sending dogs on patrol has infuriated some of its members. “I think it’s a sin. We have so little money, how can we rather spend it on dog food than food for seniors,” said Commissioner Jacqueline DeBose, an appointee of Maudelle Shirek. DeBose is joined in opposition to the canine proposal by Chairman Sternberg, appointed by Margaret Breland, William White, appointed by Gordon Wozniak, and Michael Sheen, appointed by Kriss Worthington. “The PRC should be ashamed,” DeBose added. “I don’t know how anyone can not remember Bull Connor sending the dogs on marchers in Alabama. It wasn’t that long ago.” 

BPD Capt. Stephanie Fleming has tried to allay fears. The dogs, she said, would be trained to bark, not bite, and would never be used for crowd control or demonstrations. 

“These are ‘bark and hold’ dogs,” she said. “They’re not the same as what some other police departments are using.” 

“Bark and hold” was popularized in the 1990s to help cities fend off liability lawsuits against dog bite victims, said Peace Officer Standards and Training Senior Law Enforcement Consultant Mario Rodriguez.  

According to Rodriguez, dogs are trained to corner a suspect, then bark and growl at him until the officer arrives. He said the key to the program is the skill of the officers handling the dogs.  

The new method has made canine units more palatable for several Bay Area cities, including Oakland and San Francisco, which both reintroduced units to positive reviews since Berkeley’s ban. 

“We catch so many guys we otherwise wouldn’t have and they really do find kids in the woods,” said Oakland Police Lieutenant Lawrence Green. 

Currently when a situation calls for a dog—about 25 times per year—the BPD must contact Oakland, BART or Richmond canine units. Depending on the availability, said retired BPD Lieutenant Bud Stone, help arrives hours late or not at all. 

“It’s a huge pain,” he said. “I’ve sat for hours at locations waiting for Richmond dogs. When they weren’t available we had to send the SWAT team in blind.” 

Most cities the size of Berkeley have a canine unit, including liberal communities like Santa Monica and Santa Cruz, police said. Police insist that shepherds are best suited to handle the varied types of police work Berkeley requires. 

Berkeley did away with police dogs in the 1930s as a cost-cutting measure. Various efforts to reintroduce dogs were met with sharp opposition that led to an outright ban in 1997, modified by the City Council in 1982 to allow use of other cities’ dogs in special circumstances.  

The current use of police dogs in Berkeley is one factor that has Commissioner Michael Sherman leaning in favor of the proposal. “If we’re going to have dogs, I’d rather use dogs that we have control over how they’re trained,” he said.  

Opponents of the plan dominated the floor at three public hearings held earlier this year by the PRC. Police counter that most neighborhood watch groups and neighborhood organizations polled have voiced support for a canine unit. 

The current proposal was hatched during a 2002 meeting between Mayor Tom Bates and the Berkeley Police Association, said Lt. Dennis Ahearn at the first public hearing. 

Berkeley police would use $30,000 from a county forfeiture fund that typically goes towards equipment to start up the program. The dogs and their two BPD handlers would undergo up to 380 hours of state certified training. Annual upkeep is estimated at $15,000. 

When it comes to addressing civilian fears, “bark and hold” dogs seem to excel. Kevin Allen, director of the San Francisco Office of Civilian Complaints said his office had received one dog bite complaint in the last three years. 

That doesn’t mean a canine unit doesn’t pose some financial risk for the city, said Dave Schlosser, a former New York Police Department Canine Unit detective, who said he gets 15 calls a year to testify against cities in police dog bite cases. 

“More times than not someone is going to get bit,” he said. “If the guy just stops, the dog just barks, but if he runs, the dog’s going to run and the dog’s going to bite, and if the guy tries to free himself, the dog’s going to bite harder.” 

Bruce Praet, a former canine officer, who now defends cities from police dog bite suits, said he negotiates about 10 settlements a year in the “$5,000 to $10,000” range for innocent bystanders accidentally bitten by police dogs. He predicted Berkeley would face about two such lawsuits per year. 

Those opposed to the plan stressed the city’s risk to liability lawsuits during a budget crunch. “These animals are going to take somebody’s job away,” said Berkeley attorney and former PRC Commissioner Jim Chanin who has represented police dog bite victims.  

“If [the police] do this, I’ll be watching and waiting,” he said. “They’ll use them at their peril.”›

With signs in their hands, buttons on their bags and plenty of sunscreen smeared all over their exposed areas, Berkeley residents turned out en masse Saturday in San Francisco for a protest march marking the one-year anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq. The protest was also organized to voice continued opposition to the U.S. occupation of that country. 

“We’re here so that people don’t forget, we’re here to remind people that money is still going to fund the war and people are dying while cuts to services are taking place here,” said Chandra Hauptman, a Berkeley resident. “What kind of peace have we brought?” 

On a bright and warm first day of spring, Hauptman was among an estimated 50,000 people who walked from Dolores Park in the Mission District to the Civic Center. Filling the streets as they went, protesters carried signs, sang and danced along the way. Eventually they gathered on the lawn in front of City Hall as part of the largest anti-war demonstration here in the Bay since the height of the Iraqi invasion last year. 

Coordinated demonstrations were held in 250 cities across the United States. Millions of other demonstrators participated around the world.  

While the war in Iraq was the dominant theme, other issues also made their way onto signs and into chants, including the recent U.S.-supported coup in Haiti, the upcoming presidential election, the occupation of Palestine, and gay marriage.  

At the Civic Center, a variety of speakers—including political activists, actor Woody Harrelson, and a number of elected officials—addressed the crowd . 

According to Andrea Buffa, the Peace Campaign coordinator for Global Exchange, marching on the Iraq invasion’s anniversary was meant to send a message to global leaders about continued world-wide opposition to the war. Global Exchange was one of the organizations that helped organize Saturday’s event, 

“A world-wide protest makes you feel like you can make a difference. Getting on the streets helps people not feel so isolated,” Buffa said. 

Laura Venturi, 13, who attends Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, marched with her mother and put it bluntly about George Bush, by far the favorite political target during the march. “The only reason he is president is to piss people off,” she said. 

Wearing a mask and sign around her neck that read, “It’s time to unmask this bloody war,” Venturi was one of many who used the march to creatively express her opposition. 

“[The war] doesn’t make sense,” she said. “He said there were weapons of mass destruction, and there weren’t. I just don’t like him.” 

“One year later we have to keep showing the public that we’re here. We have to put it in the public face,” said Melodie Venturi, Laura’s mother. “[The Iraqi occupation] has become a hidden war. It’s not in our daily lives, but it’s something that I think about every day.”  

Four months after a tax revolt stopped plans to ask property owners to dig a little deeper, the City Council will have to decide yet again just how much it wants to test taxpayer largess. 

Tonight (March 23), City Manager Phil Kamlarz—armed with the latest tally of a $10 million looming General Fund deficit for fiscal year 2004-05—will recommend at a 5 p.m. special meeting that the council “strongly consider” placing ballot measures in November. The proposed ballot measure is expected to seek as much as $4.9 million in city services at a cost of $122 per year to the average homeowner. 

The council is scheduled to discuss and possibly vote on Kamlarz’ recommendations at its regular 7 p.m. meeting. 

Although neighborhood groups have already voiced opposition, some on the council didn’t wait for the latest budget report to hit their desks to call for new revenues. 

Mayor Bates, along with Councilmembers Miriam Hawley, Linda Maio and Kriss Worthington want the council to consider a November ballot initiative asking voters for $800,000 to fund youth services expected to be cut from the General Fund.  

The trio are still working out the details with the Berkeley Unified School District, which is considering renewing a tax measure of its own—The Berkeley Schools Excellence Project—that raises $10.5 million for school music programs, libraries and one out of every six teachers. At a meeting on the proposed school district tax measure Wednesday, the vast majority of participants favored going to voters for more money this November. A decision to put BSEP on the November ballot could sway the city to forgo a youth services ballot initiative, Worthington said. 

If either initiative reaches voters’ touchscreens this November it might have plenty of company. With the General Fund too deep in the red to dish out subsides to other parts of the budget, the City Council could ask voters to foot the bill for keeping those other city funds solvent. Among the council’s considerations include $1 million to maintain paramedic services, $700,000 for street lights, $1 million to maintain storm water drains, and $1.2 million to preserve library services. 

That would be too many new taxes and not enough time for public input, the Berkeley Association of Neighborhood Organizations announced Saturday. In a statement issued to the council, the group pledged to fight any new property taxes with the same ferocity they showed last November against a failed $7 million parcel tax. 

“So long as our taxes remain so high and since your work with respect to the wealthy nonprofits and the city employee contracts is not satisfactorily completed, we will oppose and work to defeat all of the new tax measures you are floating, even though we may like some of the services they are intended to support,” the statement read. 

Taxes are only part of the city’s strategy to reign in its deficit. At the 5 p.m. working session, Kamlarz will also present a plan to raise revenues as much as $2.6 million per year with a series off fee hikes. The biggest money maker would be a 911 surcharge for all telephone landlines and possible cellular phone lines, netting the city between $1.5 and $2 million. Other recommendations include eliminating the option for citizens to perform community service for parking fines, rescinding seismic fee waivers for building permits and implementing a $2 fee for paying city fines over the Internet. 

Kamlarz stressed taking a multi-year approach to tackle the deficit which, if not reigned in, is projected to hit $19.4 million in 2009. In addition to calls for new revenues, Kamlarz is recommending the city use $1 million of its reserves for the upcoming fiscal year and cut general fund programs by $7.2 million.  

Time is of the essence for both the council and staff. Tuesday’s discussion will guide the staff in presenting the council with a proposed budget by May 4—the third meeting after the council returns from its spring recess. Public hearings will follow on May 25 and June 25. The final budget is scheduled for adoption on June 22 and the deadline to approve ballot initiatives for November is scheduled for July 20. 

The flurry of proposed ballot initiatives is not limited to taxes. At its 7 p.m. regular meeting tonight, the council will discuss a proposal from Councilmember Worthington to align mayoral elections to presidential elections, a period when voter turnout is highest. To align the two elections, Worthington proposes granting only a two-year term to the winner of the 2006 mayoral election. 

The council will also consider changes to its own rules of procedure. After the agenda committee struck some of their more controversial proposals last month, including denying free council packets to the media, the council will consider a series of reforms. Among them are holding lengthy public hearings on Thursdays, granting the city manager “ministerial action” for urgent matters when the council doesn’t meet for two consecutive weeks, and granting the council more leeway in expanding or shortening public comment time. 

Councilmember Dona Spring offered a competing proposal that would allow any councilmember who attended agenda committee meetings to have a vote. Currently only Mayor Bates and Councilmembers Maio and Hawley are voting members of the committee. 

In an agenda item listed as “time critical,” the council will hear an appeal to the use permit granted to Library Gardens—a planned 176-unit housing and retail development slated to rise just west of the main library.  

Steve Geller contends that by designating 105 parking spaces to residents, when zoning rules requires the developer provide them with just 59 spaces, the complex runs contrary to the city’s goal of transit friendly development in the downtown. 

Brian Maxwell, founder of the Berkeley-based PowerBar corporate empire and a major benefactor of UC Berkeley, died Friday of a heart attack after collapsing on the steps of the San Anselmo post office. Maxwell was 51. He is survived by his spouse and six children. 

“He was the most generous person I’ve ever met,” said Tom Oliver, who worked for Maxwell at PowerBar and later at Coolsystems Inc., a Berkeley company that develops and markets technology for treating sporting injuries. Oliver is CEO at Coolsystems, and Maxwell was chairman of the board. 

“Financial success didn’t change him,” said Tanya Clark, who worked for Maxwell as PowerBar’s sports marketing manager. “He had tremendous passion and authenticity, and he always had time to listen to employees and customers.” 

Maxwell and his spouse Jennifer, a nutritionist, were inspired to create what became the PowerBar as a quick energy pickup for athletes after exhaustion forced him to drop out of a marathon. The couple launched the company in 1987, building it into a corporation with global reach, including subsidiaries in Canada and Germany. Eventually, 13 years after its founding, they sold PowerBar to Swiss-based Nestle for $375 million. 

The Maxwells moved to Marin County several years ago, though Brian had been spending at least two days a week in Berkeley at Coolsytems, Oliver said. “He was very much a hands-on chairman.” 

Coolsystems is a startup company that designs and makes cooling and compression devices for soft tissue sports injuries which have been sold to 70 universities, 110 NFL players, 37 NBA stars, and more that 50 professional sports teams, as well as physical therapy clinics. 

Maxwell was also involved with two other firms: KINeSYS, which manufactures a sunscreen for athletes in endurance sports, and the Active Network, an online service that helps athletes locate and register for sporting events and provides online training and discounts on equipment. 

Born in London, Maxwell grew up in Toronto. Even after moving to the United States in 1971 to attend classes at UC Berkeley, he ran under the Canadian flag in distance races. For several years, Maxwell was ranked as one of the world’s leading long distance runners. 

Maxwell came to Berkeley on a track scholarship, setting school records and lettering during each of his four years. He graduated in 1975, receiving a degree in architecture and the school’s Brutus Hamilton Award as outstanding student-athlete. 

Two years later, Track and Field News ranked him the world’s third-best marathon runner, the same year he finished third in the Boston Marathon. He was named to the Canadian Olympic Team in 1980, but did not get to compete after Canada joined the U.S. in boycotting the Moscow events. Maxwell did get to the Olympics, leading the Canadian team onto the field at Salt Lake City for the opening ceremonies in 2002. 

Maxwell met Jennifer while she was a student at the university, studying nutrition at the College of Natural Resources and running on the school’s track and cross country teams. She graduated in 1988. 

With their financial success, the Maxwells became major benefactors of their alma mater. In February, 1998, the pledged $5 million to UC Berkeley—$3 million to fund the Haas Pavilion and $2 million to improve academic life. 

In 2002, the Maxwells endowed a chair at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health for research in maternal and child health. That same year, the Maxwells paid all the costs to replace the damaged artificial turf at the university’s Kleeberger Field, saving the athletic facility from closure. The university renamed the facility the Maxwell Family Field in the couple’s honor. 

The Maxwells also donated money to the chancellor’s discretionary fund and funded environmental programs at UC’s Bancroft Library and biology programs within the College of Letters and Science, said UC Senior Public Information Representative Sarah Yang. 

Vice Chancellor for University Relations Donald McQuade offered a formal statement: “Brian Maxwell's life and dedication to UC Berkeley exemplify the highest standards of charitable good will and spirited advocacy. From his exuberant court-side cheering at Cal basketball to his determined support of building a world-class program in track, Brian seized every opportunity to champion excellence in athletics and academics. His legacy is everywhere evident at Cal. . . Brian's sudden death is a stunning loss for the entire Cal family, and we offer our deepest condolences to his wife, Jennifer, and to their six children. His stalwart spirit and unsurpassed dedication to Cal will always inspire us.” 

UC officials and friends of the Maxwells are organizing a local memorial service. 

“He was really an amazing spirit,” said Debbie Pfeifer, who worked for Maxwell as communications manager at PowerBar and as public relations officer for one of Coolsystems product lines. 

“He was really competitive and a natural marketer, but he also encouraged people to spend more time with their families. At PowerBar, people worked hard when they were at the office, but they went home at night and they didn’t come in on the weekends because that’s how he wanted it,” Pfeifer said. “He was really unusual that way.” ›

TUESDAY, MARCH 23 

Tuesday Morning Birdwalk at Briones, Bear Creek Road entrance parking lot, to see woodpeckers, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Call if you need binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Wilderness Weekends: Camping and Backpacking in the Bay Area and Beyond” at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Copwatch Film Screening, “These Streets Are Watching” at 9:15 p.m. at Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. in Oakland. Cost is $5. 814-2400. 

Dine Out for African Aids Orphans Unicorn Pan Asian Cuisine is donating 25% of its proceeds today to the rural Uganda Golomola Village AIDS orphanage. Co-sponsored by ACT UP East Bay & Priority Africa Network. Unicorn is at 2533 Telegraph Ave. Reservations recommended. 841-4339.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Charles Fitch will show travel slides at 11 a.m. 845-6830. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. 215-7672. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24 

Tilden Explorers A nature adventure program to learn about racoons and skunks from 3:15 to 4:45 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. For 5 to 7 year olds. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Great Decisions 2004: “Reform in the Middle East” with Dr. Laurence O. Michalak, Vice Chair (ret.) Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UCB, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925.  

“Prospects for Peace” with Stephen McNeil, regional director for Peace Building, American Friends Service Committee, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

Academic Quiz Bowl, featuring high school teams, at 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. 644-0861. 

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 Novices welcome. Experienced facilitator. Community sponsored, no fee. Meets 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut. 524-3034. 

“A Conversation with Artists on the Image of Christ ” at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Parish, 2220 Cedar St. 848-1755. 

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

Free Feldenkrais ATM Classes for adults 55 and older at 10:30 and 11:45 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut at Rose. For information call 848-0237.  

THURSDAY, MARCH 25 

Residential Green Building and Remodeling Learn about healthier building materials, how to lower your utility bills, reduce home maintenance and minimize remodeling construction waste. From 7 to 10 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $35. 525-7610.  

Amazon Rainforest Slideshow Join us for a slideshow presentation showing images of completely wild and undeveloped regions of the Amazon jungle with Rainforest Action Network volunteer Larry Landry at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free. Donations accepted. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

Types of Home Care & What to Consider, with Pat Brown, RN, at 2 p.m. at Longs Drugs Wellness Center, 1941 San Pablo Ave. To register call 841-8466. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 26 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Robert E. Brown on “The Power of Handshaking.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $11.50 - $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

“Literacy & Beyond!” Family Literacy Night Event at the Berkeley YMCA, 2001 Allston Way, between Shattuck and Milvia. From 7 to 9 p.m. Free and open to the community. 665-3271. 

Literary Friends meets at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to discuss “For a Future, Is it Possible’’ 232-1351. 

Old School Dance Party in support of Haitian grassroots organizations at 8 p.m. at Fellowship of Humanity Hall, 390 27th St & 411 28th St, between Telegraph & Broadway, Oakland. 465-9914. 

Report Back from Venezuela by the February delegation at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. 528-5403. 

Preparing for Surgery, Chemo, or Radiation Treatment? A workshop with Carolyn Janson from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Longs Drugs Wellness Center, 1941 San Pablo Ave. Bring a friend or family member for free and they can learn how to support you in this process. Workshop fee is $45 and includes book and audio tape. To reserve a space call 925-825-4704. 

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. 

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

Kol Hadash the Bay Area’s only Jewish Humanistic Congregation meets at 7:30 p.m. for Shabbat at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. 428-1492. www.kolhadash.org 

Shekinah Sanctuary, a metatrance ecstatic prayer ritual using chants and movement at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission is $21. 883-0600. 

Overeaters Anonymous meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 27 

Felt Fun Make your own felt from the Little Farm’s sheep’s wool. Discover felting, spinning, shearing and more, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Carpentry Basics for Women An introduction to basic carpentry tools and skills for women with little or no previous hands-on experience. After a morning lecture and demonstration, you will build your own bookshelf unit (we provide the materials). Students are asked to bring their own hand tools. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat. and Sun. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $225. 525-7610.  

Urban Weed Walk Learn about the edible and medicinal uses of common weeds as Terri Compost leads a walk exploring the neighborhood around the Ecology Center. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

Wild About California Take a walk on the wild side amid California native plants flush with spring growth with area horticulturist and native plant expert Nathan Smith. From 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $17, members $12. Registration required. UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Using Natives in Your Garden with Judy Thomas, Merritt College Horticulture Dept., at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Spring Fling Contradance at 3 p.m. at Church of Good Shepard at 9th and Hearst. Music by Robin Flower and Libby McLaren. Cost is $7-$12. 482-9479. 

“Discovering Dominga” a special screening of the PBS documentary of an Iowan housewife who discovers that she is the sole survivor of the massacre of her Mayan family in Guatemala, with the filmmaker Mary Jo McConohay in person at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison. Donations requested. 482-1062. 

Saturday Night Sing-Along for all ages. Bring your family, neighbors and friends for an evening of campfire classics, silly and serious songs, rounds and movement activities. At 7 p.m. at 1216 Solano Ave. at Talbot, Albany. Sponsored by the Albany YMCA. Cost is $3 for adults, $2 for children. 525-1130. 

Berkeley Copwatch Know Your Rights Orientation, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Free, donations accepted. 548-0425. 

Center for Live Art, Art Auction and Gala from 7 to 11 p.m. at the Slingshot Gallery, 1721 63rd St. at Adeline. Donated art works include paintings, prints and sculpture by prominent Bay Area artists including David Ireland, Arthur Gonzalez, Lisa Lightman, and emerging artists Liz Walsh, Sean MacFarland, David Fought. Free. 835-3130. www.nclt.org/Liveart.htm 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., 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. To register, call Karen Ray at 848-7800. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 28 

Sunday Morning Birdwalk for beginning birders from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Butterfly Club for ages 8 and up. Learn about these colorful insects, growing native plants and habitat restoration. From 1-3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Dog Walk with your best friend along the creek in Tilden Park. Meet at 2 p.m. at Lone Oak picnic site by Meadows Playfield. Bring water, leash, baggies and be prepared for mud. 525-2233. 

Pat Bond Old Dyke Awards Ceremony at 3:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Sponsored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights. 415-392-6257, ext. 321. 

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

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Amdo on “Entering the Bodhisattva Path” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MARCH 29 

“The Plight of Tigers in the Wild” with Anthony Marr at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. Sponsored by East Bay Animal Advocates. 925-487-4419.  

West Berkeley Community Meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. at Wells Fargo Bank, 1095 Universtiy Ave. Free and open to all West Berkeley neighbors. 845-4106. 

Labor Regulations and the Auto and Clothing Industries in Mexico with Dr. Huberto Juárez Núñez at 4 p.m. at CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

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

Baby Yoga Learn how to soothe your infant. Bring a pillow, blanket, mat and olive oil. at 11 a.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 883-0600. 

Yoga and Meditation for Children from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. at at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 883-0600. 

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 

“Freedom from Smoking” a free six-week smoking cessation program offered Mondays from March 29 for May 3, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Tobacco Prevention Program. To register call 981-5330 or email QuitNow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Open Auditions for children for Woodminster Summer Musical March 27-28, and adults April 3-4. For information call 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

Dance and Fitness Classes at the Berkeley YWCA start in late March, sign up now at 848-6370. www.ywca-berkeley.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Mar. 23, at 7 p.m. with a Special Meeting at 5 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Budget Review Commission meets Wed., Mar. 24, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7041. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/budget 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Mar. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533.www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/civicarts 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Mar. 24, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Carol Lopes, 981-5514. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Mental Health Commission meets Wed., Mar. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at 2640 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Harvey Turek, 981-5213. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/mentalhealth  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Mar. 24, 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. Mar. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Barbara Attard, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs. Mar. 25, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning 

Three times in the last two weeks, hours-long power outages blacked out large sections of downtown Berkeley, angering merchants and raising concerns among city officials. Almost a thousand downtown electricity customers lost power twice in separate incidents over the course of two days. 

“All three times, we had to close,” said Edward Holman, a partner in Eudemonia, the game store/gaming space/cybercafe at 2154 University Ave. Eudemonia customers can engage in online gaming through the store’s two dozen state-of-the-art gaming computers, “and since we had a lot of computers up and running each time, the outages were rather hard on us.” 

City Energy Officer Neal De Snoo said he’s been in regular contact with Pacific Gas & Electric, which maintains the city’s electrical system. “We’re looking into it,” he said, “and in the past, PG&E has been responsive to putting in long-term fixes.” 

When a series of outages hit the downtown and Telegraph Avenue business district in winter 1997-98, “we undertook a meeting of business people and PG&E representatives. They undertook an improvement program and put in long-term fixes.” 

A study of those earlier failures placed the blame on a number of causes. 

“We’re talking to PG&E, and they’re telling us that underground cables have been shorting out. We may be holding another meeting with them and with business people,” De Snoo said. 

Brian Swanson, a spokesman for the utility, said PG&E representatives will meet with Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington and business owners Thursday at Worthington’s request to discuss electrical service reliability. 

The first outage on March 8 was the smallest, interrupting service to 381 customers near the intersection of University Avenue and Milvia Street between 3:29 and 5:42 p.m. Swanson blamed the outage on a tree. 

The second outage came six days later and was caused by a transformer failure. The outage began at 6:52 p.m. and lasted until 8:12 p.m., cutting service to 964 customers from Martin Luther King Jr. Way east to Fulton Street between Cedar Street and Bancroft Way. Crews restored power by linking customers to another circuit. 

The third and most severe outage followed at 3:37 on the afternoon of March 16, after an underground lead cable failed because of a combination of age, the extra burden caused by the linkage to customers in the earlier outage, and heavy use caused by unseasonably high temperatures. 

The March 16 failure blacked out service to the same 964 customers who had lost power on March 14, plus an additional 2,825 in two areas—the first from Addison Street south to Allston Way between Milvia Street and Shattuck Avenue and the second from Bancroft Way south to Stuart Street between Telegraph Avenue and Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve. 

Service was restored to 2,825 customers at 5:24, and to the remaining 964 at 11:38 p.m. 

The utility is in the midst of a long-term project to replace all the antiquated lead cable, PG&E’s Swanson said. 

Asked about the impact of the electricity failures on local merchants, Downtown Berkeley Association Executive Director Deborah Badhia said she wasn’t sure how to respond. 

“On the one hand, it’s good to let people known that we’ve been having problems with the electrical system, but on the other hand, business owners are worried that reports might discourage customers from coming.” 

Businesses which suffered losses because of the outage are eligible for damages from the utility, said Badhia. For information, see the utility’s website at www.pge.com and click on “claims.”

Confusion over a special education fund has plunged Berkeley schools back into debt and left district officials and the administrator of the fund trading accusations of blame. 

Berkeley Unified had penciled in approximately $5.3 million for its 2003-04 budget from the Special Education Local Plan Area—a public agency that pools and distributes state, federal and county special education funds for groupings of school districts. But Berkeley Unified recently discovered that because of a $1.3 million shortfall in the fund, Berkeley is now facing a $867,000 deficit. Berkeley, like all districts in California, is required by law to allow SELPA to manage its special education funding. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence said the district plans to make further, undetermined cuts, rather than carry the deficit over into next year’s budget. 

David Wax, Director of SELPA Northern Alameda County Region, said Berkeley Unified should have known better than to budget for $5.3 million, the dollar figure slated for Berkeley in 2003-04 as its base amount. Last year, Wax said, Berkeley was scheduled to receive $5.3 million in SELPA money, but the district ended up with just $4.1 million because of declining enrollment and other revenue adjustments. This year was bound to be worse, Wax added, because the state didn’t pass on a cost of living adjustment to its contribution to the fund. 

“I’d like to know who promised them $5.3 million in revenue,” he said. “It wasn’t me.” 

Berkeley Unified’s Director of Fiscal Services Song Chin-Bendib blamed the confusion on SELPA’s inability to give the district realistic numbers in a timely manner. The district didn’t receive the actual figure until December, she said, after it had already completed its first interim budget report. She defended her decision to rely on the original $5.3 million figure. “We have to rely on written documents,” she said. 

Berkeley Unified appears to be the only district challenging SELPA’s numbers. Margaret Romero, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services for Albany Unified said SELPA’s projections “appeared right.” 

But that doesn’t mean the districts have confidence in SELPA’s accounting. Last year SELPA overfunded Berkeley, Piedmont, Albany and Emeryville at the expense of Alameda, Romero said. 

The year before that mix up Piedmont and Albany mistakenly were given a chunk of Emeryville’s share, Romero said. And this year, Chin-Bendib said she found errors in SELPA’s formulas that netted the district an extra $20,000. 

Wax, who doubles as the director of special education for the Alameda County Unified School District, refused to comment on the series of accounting errors. 

On Wednesday top district business officials will meet with Wax to pour over the funding formulas. “We couldn’t make heads or tails of their numbers,” Romero said. “So now we’re getting together to make sure everything is kosher.” 

With the battle over teaching evolution in America’s schools erupting yet again, two Berkeley activists stand at the vanguard of the opposing sides on the legal, legislative, and mass media battlefields of the nation. 

At the forefront of the fight to reinstate the image of a divinely created humanity in public school textbooks and the public imagination stands Phillip Johnson, emeritus professor of law at UC Berkeley. Speaking of that nationwide effort, Johnson says, “My fingerprints are on it.” 

Leading the effort to keep creationism out of public schools is Eugenie Scott, a physical anthropologist and Berkeley resident.  

Scott has headed the Oakland-based National Center for Science Education since 1987, the year the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws mandating textbooks give creationism equal time with evolution. Four years later, Johnson entered the fray with the first in a series of anti-Darwinian books. With Darwin on Trial—“which,” he says, “has sold a few hundred thousand copies and has been translated into a few languages”—the Berkeley legal scholar established himself as the leading advocate of what he calls Intelligent Design. 

Johnson’s efforts are being funded by Roberta and Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., the couple to whom he dedicated his second book (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds). Heirs to the Home Savings of America fortune, the Ahmansons are Christian Reconstructionists, a sect who have been accused of believing that their co-religionists should impose a reign of biblical law in America that would demand death for non-Christian proselytizers, adulterers, gays, witches and rebellious children. 

While the law and public policy have favored Scott’s side in recent years, repeated polling has revealed the United States as the most religious nation on earth. According to a 1991 poll of the U.S., 16 European countries, Israel and the Phillipines conducted by the International Social Survey Program, only in Poland and the Philippines were more people convinced of the existence of God than in America. Americans led in belief in miracles, hell, and the devil–and only the Irish topped the Americans in belief in heaven. In no other country besides the United States did a smaller percentage of the populace accept evolution as a fact (the now-defunct East Germany topped the list of evolutionists, followed by Great Britain and West Germany, all with more than twice the rate of America.) 

Repeated polling also shows that belief in evolution rises with education and income level. 

Johnson’s creationist views are being challenged by who he calls the “high priests” of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), “the entire scientific hierarchy which has a tremendous interest in maintaining belief in a naturalist, materialist creation story and who say your only source should be the mandarins of science.” 

In October, 2002, the AAAS board declared that “the lack of scientific warrant for so-called ‘intelligent design theory’ makes it improper to include as part of a science education.” And in a Feb. 9 letter to Ohio state officials, NAS President Bruce Alberts declared that “Intelligent Design is not scientific because its ultimate tenet that life on earth is the result of some intelligent being is scientifically untestable and therefore cannot be invalidated through scientific means.” 

Johnson’s greatest obstacle is that Intelligent Design hasn’t made the slightest headway in the scientific literature. 

“Nobody is using Intelligent Design in applied science,” Scott says. “Nobody’s using it to understand scientific phenomena, which is the only purpose of a scientific theory. They’re not being accepted in the scientific community.” In addition, Scott adds, no public schools have yet mandated teaching Intelligent Design. 

“They’ve had more success in getting pieces in newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post,” Scott acknowledges. “It sounds much more attractive than Young Earth creationism.” 

But the real battle lines are drawn around the nation’s schools, where Scott has another ally in Berkeley. 

To Molleen Matsumura, who serves on the national board of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSC), the classroom evolutionary battle is but one skirmish in a broader cultural war, in which the struggle over faith-based initiatives is an even greater concern.  

While creationism remains the standard in the increasingly cash-strapped public schools, moves to implement school vouchers at the national and state levels could move more students into taxpayer-funded religious schools, where Darwin is banned and Bishop Ussher reigns. “This is the real battleground,” Matsumura says. 

AUSC also worries about federal judicial nominations, “because a lot of these [church/state] issues get decided in the courts,” Matsumura said. 

And it was in a courtroom, during the first great multimedia “Trial of the [20th] Century,” that the most famous battle between science and creationism was waged when Dayton, TN, public school teacher John Scopes was prosecuted 79 years ago for the “crime” of teaching Darwin. 

While the law under which Scopes was convicted was revoked in 1967, it took a federal court ruling two years ago to end Bible classes in Dayton’s public schools. 

For more information on the web, see the National Center for Science Education’s site at www.natcenscied.org, the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture at www.discovery.org/csc/ and Americans United for Separation of Church and State at www.au.og. 

›

Now that my husband Ralph is home from a 51-day stay in Kaiser’s ICU, there are some things I need to catch up on. I took our car to the mechanic for a tune-up, and our dog to the veterinary clinic for the same.  

“Are you brushing Whiskers’s teeth?” asked the vet.  

“No,” I said with a trace of guilt. During our last check-up together, Whiskers and I were given a mini toothbrush and a tiny tube of canine toothpaste. The vet instructed me to brush Whiskers’ teeth, particularly the back molars everyday, but I had ignored him. I brush my own teeth and my husband’s teeth. It’s about all the daily dental hygiene I can handle.  

But now my lack of attention to Whiskers’s mouth was coming back to haunt me. The doctor shook his head in frustration as I reflected on the ghost dogs of my past. Back when I was a kid I don’t remember anyone ever brushing their dog’s teeth.  

Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs in the 50s and 60s, my family owned big dogs: Shepherds, Boxers, Dobermans and Great Danes; dogs with monstrous barks and enormous slobbering tongues; canines who scared the milkman, threatened the mailman and responded to names like King, Ace, Mickey and Mack. We didn’t brush their teeth. We threw them bones.  

In our family we called diminutive designer dogs like Whiskers, punting dogs: dogs that were only good for kicking around. We didn’t mess with wimpy little mutts. We had dogs with official papers and family trees that went back to the Mayflower.  

Our dogs were never allowed to sleep in the house, not even on the coldest winter nights. They roughed it outside in a huge doghouse with an extensive chain-link fence surrounding an exercise “pad” that gave them plenty of room to move. Our dogs didn’t squirm. They paced.  

So imagine my dismay when, several months after Ralph’s accident, a miniature Schnauzer was placed gently on my lap, a present from a friend. “Try this,” said the gift-giver. “She’s better than therapy. You won’t need Zoloft anymore.”  

Accompanying the perfume-smelling fur ball was a seven-month supply of puppy chow, a pink plastic toy, canine combs and brushes, a sheepskin dog bed and a book entitled How to Train Small Dogs. The pooch’s name was Misty. “That has to go,” I said when no one was listening.  

Ralph renamed her Whiskers. I stopped combing her curly hair and soaking her in perfume. I took her for long walks in my neighborhood.  

Slowly I’ve begun to appreciate her small charms. Her turds are minuscule. She fits into my crowded house quite well. She doesn’t eat much, but she barks like a son-of-a-bitch, and even though it is more of a high-pitched squeal than a low menacing woof, she sounds vicious and ready to tear apart, limb by limb, anyone who dares to threaten me. When we walk by schools, children flock up against the playground fence, begging me to stop and let them pet her. Elderly men and women pause from their gardening to tell me about their own pets. Homeless people with shopping carts give us a wide berth, and delivery men ask if she bites.  

I got rid of the fleece-lined dog bed. Whiskers really didn’t enjoy sleeping in it. She prefers to curl up with me in bed, wrapping her furry body around my neck, emulating those coats old ladies used to wear to church, foxes clenching tails, head to ass.  

I looked up from my revelry to see the veterinarian petting Whiskers. “She’s a good dog,” he said, “but she’s got bad teeth. This could cost you a pretty penny if you don’t start brushing today.”  

“Give me another toothbrush,” I demanded. He’d said the magic words.  

Now I sit in my living room, tiny toothbrush in hand, scrubbing Whiskers’ back molars, grateful that she isn’t Ace, King, Mickey, or Mack. She wiggles in my arms, a little ball of unruly curls who is saving me a bundle in therapy bills. Brushing her teeth is the least I can do in return.  

Girl Scout Justice 

Berkeley police believe they have arrested the boy who robbed more than $100 from a Girl Scout Troop selling cookies on a Berkeley street corner.  

On Friday police arrested a 16-year-old Berkeley resident who they suspect swiped Troop 3983’s cash box, while two accomplices staged a fight in front of the girls at Center Street and Shattuck Avenue Monday evening.  

Police charged the boy with one count of grand theft, a felony. He was later released to the custody of a parent. Police have not caught the two accomplices. 

Armed Robbery 

Four men robbed a Berkeley resident on the corner of 10th and Hearst streets early Sunday morning, police spokesperson Kevin Schofield said. The victim was on foot when a gray car approached, and four men jumped out. One man had a gun and demanded the victim’s wallet.  

South Berkeley Robbery 

A man robbed a 17-year-old Berkeley resident of his cell phone Tuesday night at the corner of Ashby Avenue and California Street. Police spokesperson Schofield said the robber punched and kicked the victim until he surrendered the phone. 

Purse Snatch 

A woman had her purse snatched on the 2000 block of Stuart Street Saturday evening, Schofield said.  

FOR KERRY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing in defense of Senator John Kerry’s voting record that has been called inconsistent. His Senate voting record is to me a sign he voted based on the evidence available to him. His vote in October 2002 to authorize the president to use military force was with the caveat that the force must be used as a last resort and with international cooperation regarding Iraq. Senator Kerry then voted against the $87 billion appropriation in Iraq be-cause it was not clear from U.S. allies that that much was needed. The French, at least, were saying that training and rebuilding of infrastructure need not cost as much as $87 billion, if contracts were open to more companies than Halliburton.  

Similarly, Senator Kerry’s vote against military spending in the 1990s was against measures that would enhance defense contractors, as op-posed to providing for troops and veterans.  

Senator Kerry’s voting record is consistent to a voter who follows the news. It would behoove the electorate to elect a leader who is willing to respond to new evidence issues of national importance.  

Devaki Chandra 

• 

ELECTION RESULTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation I heard this morning [March 15] a British editor agree with an American call-in who opined that appeasement never works. The implication is that the Spanish vote and troop withdrawal from Iraq after the Madrid holocaust will be “Neville Chamberlain-like” appeasement of al-Qaeda. 

Bush and Blair will of course embrace this interpretation this interpretation of Spanish revulsion to their non-war, unsubstantiated “preemptive” massacre in Iraq. But I wonder about John Kerry. Could the tardy U.S. troop scramble out of Vietnam be called “appeasement?” Wasn’t it rather a well-deserved defeat by forces we had very unjustifiably viciously attacked? 

I hope something has been learned from Vietnam: when a war is wrong, or at least the side we are supporting is wrong, the right thing to do is get out of that war as quickly as possible, and with as little harm as possible to both sides in the conflict.  

Bravo for the Spanish voters! 

Judith Segard Hunt 

• 

FOR BUSH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My number one reason for endorsing President Bush for re-election is his overwhelming commitment to world peace. 

After we were attacked in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush knew his role here in America is to protect us from terrorism and tyranny. President Bush has accomplished this by his honest, brilliant, and courageous leadership. 

However our fight for world peace and our fight against terrorism and tyranny will never end. Terrorists are planning attacks every minute of the day and they will never stop. How lucky we are to have President Bush as our leader instead of Gore. Kerry would be worse. During the past 20 years Kerry has been on every side of every issue. 

Our economy today is the most prosperous economy ever known on earth. Here in California most people live in $400,000 houses, drive $20,000 cars and spend $3 for a cup of coffee or pack of cigarettes, and eat half of their food out. Retail sales and home construction are at record highs. 

President Bush is not only a great president, he is the greatest world leader of the 21st century. 

Mike Vukelich 

El Sobrante 

• 

POOL REPAIR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Before the Berkeley High School north pool room is rendered uninhabitable by the gaping roof leaks, so that not even the intrepid of the 300 disabled south pool users can safely pass through on the way to the men’s showers and restrooms, can we do some planning? 

This summer is the best time to replace the north pool roof, so winter rains can be excluded next year and so interior remodeling can take place. Now is the time to prepare specs and refine the detail drawings to produce a better result than the south pool replacement. 

We know the purlins and ledgers have rotted, for example, and need replacement, as well as the roof sheathing boards. Marine plywood would resist high humidity that will doubtless persist. 

I’d like to suggest the council and school board each select one person and give them the power to decide what to do, and organize a meeting between them and a pool committee person for one hour, to finalize a spending plan for the unspent warm pool fund, about $150,000. I suggest Lew Jones, Rene Cardinaux and Josephine Arasteh. I suggest a new roof at north, 2 or 3 new doors including frames, repair south windows and north pool windows, wall cleaning, rust removal, more spalled concrete repairs, epoxy painting of concrete and steel wall columns and trusses, remove ducts at north, and repair or remove conduit. We need this work done before next winter. 

Terry Cochrell 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

How ironic. Just when our Food Service Department is being praised in the New York Times for it’s collaboration with Alice Waters of Chez Pannise; just when our lunch programs at Willard and Longfellow are taking off because of a new menu of fresh, nutritious and good tasting food; just when Berkeley High School will open a huge, new cafeteria with fresh, nutritious, good tasting food with many organic components; and after the BUSD cut out soda pop and junk food snacks from all it’s schools years ago; a hand full of Berkeley residents are asking the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury to investigate our food programs, according to the March 16-18 edition of the Daily Planet. 

The Berkeley School’s Food Services Department has not lost $2.1 million dollars over the last three years, as these people contend, but has found all the discrepancies in previous Food Service budgets and given our community a dose of reality therapy in regards to the challenges of supplying quality food to children with a grossly inadequate budget. Simply put, the budget supplied by the Federal food subsidy program is not sufficient. 

With a completely new administrative team making realistic analyses of food services; budgets that more accurately described the program; the watchful eyes of a citizens committee; a reorganized food service department; and the collaboration of folks like Alice Waters of Chez Pannise, Zenobia Barlow from the Center for Ecoliteracy, and Bert Lubin, head of the Pediatric Department of Children’s Hospital; and other food advocates; we now may be able to find the way to provide wholesome, nutritious, healthy food for our students. A grand jury investigation will not help us find this way. 

Terry Doran 

Berkeley School Board Member 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

You may already have heard that virtually all of the video equipment at Berkeley Alternative High School was stolen just before Christmas. As you can imagine, the students and staff were distraught, as this equipment was essential to many important academic and extracurricular projects.  

Thanks to generous donations by several organizations and individuals, though, the video production program at BAHS is already back up and running. I am writing on behalf of my students and colleagues to thank the community in general and the following organizations in particular: 

Berkeley Public Education Foundation, with special appreciation for Trina Ostrander’s invaluable help in making the rebuilding process a success. 

Berkeley High School Development Group, for supporting education at Berkeley’s other public high school. 

Le Conte Elementary PTA, for their willingness to support high schoolers’ work with elementary-aged kids. 

Nancy Riddle, School Board member, for organizing a donation by the company for which she works, Monster Cable. 

Beyond the gratitude we feel for the equipment itself, we appreciate the fact that the community demonstrated their support for our school through 

their generosity. That support means a great deal to all of us at BAHS. 

Philip Halpern 

English Teacher 

Berkeley Alternative High School 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Do people write silly sophomoric essays posing as theater reviews  

when they obviously know next to nothing about directing, acting, stage  

design, Ibsen or his great work Ghosts, now in a stunning production at  

Berkeley Rep? 

People do. But must newspapers publish them? 

Toni Mester 



GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: The petition to open a Grand Jury investigation of the Berkeley School’s Food and Nutrition Services Program (FNS) is absurd. As a school food director of 27 years (eight with Berkeley Unified) I have a firm understanding of both school and food services financial management and program regulations. 

The continuing deficits are based on school board actions, not illegalities or mismanagement. Whether the three years of red ink is $1.1 or $2.4 million, some perspective as to the cause of this deficit is needed. 

In the 1950s Berkeley enacted a Needy Meal Over-ride Tax adding supplemental funding for school food services based on the number of free and reduced price meals served to students. With the school finance reform of the late 1970s this funding stream was diverted to Sacramento for apportionment back to the district.  

Unfortunately this funding change came without a guarantee that the money would be used to feed children. Though this roughly $500,000 a year in revenue is still based on the number of subsidized meals served, the recommendation from the Fiscal Crisis Management Advisory Team (FCMAT) to maintain these revenues in the General Fund of the district was adopted by the Board of Education in 2002.  

The purchase of new equipment and repairs to facilities are not allowable expenditures under the National School Lunch Act. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent by the district for capital outlay expenses for the cafeterias, particularly at Berkeley High School. Some of these expenditures were to be covered by the insurance settlement from the Berkeley High fire. Under the watchful eyes of FCMAT, these dollars were diverted to cover over-expenditures by the General Fund even though the Board was advised that it was an improper use of Food Service funds. 

Measure BB, the Maintenance Assessment Tax, specifically excluded only one BUSD program, Food and Nutrition Services (FNS). Now, FNS pays for maintenance that the citizens of Berkeley have generously provided for all other district programs.  

Some board policies, regardless of merit, have had a negative fiscal impact on FNS. With funding based on number of meals served, the staffing of small schools creates very high labor costs for the program. The policy that prohibits the district from purchasing milk from dairies where cows have received Bovine Growth Hormone has created a situation where two of the four major milk suppliers in the area are excluded from bidding for the district milk business. I estimate that this lack of competitive bidding alone adds over $25,000 a year in food costs. 

We can have anything we are willing to pay for. The district can serve scratch-cooked, organic meals if funding can be found. Likewise we can reduce class size with additional funding.  

I have been very impressed by the new international food courts at Willard and Longfellow middle schools. It is not Chez Pannise but with a budgeted food cost of less than $1 a meal, FNS has demonstrated a willingness and ability to make positive changes. I await the opening of the new food court at Berkeley High. 

Grand Jury probes should be retained only for the purpose of investigating illegal activities. I have not heard of allegations of grand theft or embezzlement. If you don’t like the policies of the Board of Education you can vote them out. Time, money and energy spent on frivolous investigations is better spent on improving the educational opportunities for the children of Berkeley. 

Dan F. Lee 

It’s spring again, time for math placement tests at Berkeley High. The math department requires that any Berkeley student who did not attend a Berkeley public school in eighth grade take a placement test which measures their knowledge of Algebra I as taught in the Berkeley Middle Schools in order to earn a place in Honors Geometry. Students coming from a Berkeley Middle School are allowed to enter Honors Geometry if they achieved an A or B in Honors Algebra I and have the recommendation of their teacher. 

Since the children taking the test are coming from many different schools, which used different textbooks for Algebra I, it is often difficult for them to pass a test based on the BUSD curriculum. The math department will not tell parents what percentage of the students who take the test pass, but the year my youngest child took it, I heard that it was five percent. A friend who teaches at one of the most respected private schools in Berkeley estimates that it is 15 to 20 percent. Does it make sense that only 20 percent of students coming from selective private schools can do the work required in Honors Geometry? Of course not. What we have is a situation where students who received an A in Honors Algebra and have the recommendation of their teacher at Prospect-Sierra, or St. Pauls School, and score above the 95th percentile on standardized math tests, are placed in regular geometry. 

How is this fair? Well, the math department says that BUSD students take a test to get into Honors Algebra, which is similar. This is nonsense. The test that the students in BUSD take, in the comfort of their own classroom, not in the intimidating and foreign environment of BHS, can’t test knowledge of algebra, because the students haven’t had algebra yet. The only fair way to administer a placement test for Honors Geometry would be to require that all eighth graders go to the high school and take the same test, no matter where they attended middle school.  

The more logical course would be to accept the A and the recommendation of the algebra teacher, no matter where the students attended middle school. When my oldest son entered BHS, in 1996, that was the policy. The math department contends that too many students had trouble with Honors Geometry under that system. In other words, they feel it is preferable to keep qualified students out of the course rather than risk phone calls from worried parents. They don’t allow students to drop back to regular geometry. Contrast their rigidity with the flexibility of the Spanish department at the same school. They allow students to choose the level of Spanish they take in ninth grade themselves, and change after a few weeks if it’s not working out. 

The math teachers I have consulted maintain that there is little relationship between how a student performs in algebra and how that student performs in geometry anyway. Geometry is a detour in the math curriculum, much easier for some students with a good sense of spatial relationships. The head of the math department at BHS is fond of saying that only students who love math should take the honors curriculum. Would that we all lived in her world, where we only have to study what we love. I don’t love math, but I had to take calculus in order to become a physician. I had to take it in college, and struggled mightily, because I had a weak math background in high school. If you had told me that I would be a doctor when I was a freshman in high school, I would have laughed. Concerned parents know that strong math preparation in high school is a prerequisite for many careers. 

Many of us had the opportunity to hear the educator Pedro Noguera speak recently at a fundraiser for the Berkeley Schools Foundation. He advised us to look within our own district for the solution to problems where children are denied opportunity. I have mentioned the Spanish department. The science department at BHS can also serve as a model for the math department, since they recently did away with the tests they used to require for students to take AP science classes.  

Students should be allowed to achieve at the highest level they can. The math department consistently discourages achievement. When my second son entered BHS in 1999, he passed the placement test by one point. The math teacher grading the test on the spot advised him to take regular geometry anyway, “Because students from St. Pauls don’t do well in Honors Geometry.” He made an A in the course and received a state award for excellence in geometry on a standardized test. 

Finally, we parents who pay taxes for public schools and yes, BSEP taxes also, yet commit the sin of sending our children to private school, may deserved to be punished by the math department. But our children don’t. It broke my heart to watch my daughter lose confidence in herself as a good math student because she didn’t pass the placement test. All the rhetoric coming from BHS about closing the achievement gap rings hollow when a black girl who is an A algebra student and scores in the ninety-ninth percentile in math on standardized tests is denied access to the honors curriculum. 

Dr. Toni Martin is a physician, writer and mother of three BHS students: class of 2000, class of 2003 and class of 2006. 

r

I receive messages from below, rather than from above. The sidewalk speaks to me in shades of olive green. Sound like a Berkeley story? Berkeley and beyond …  

To get to my office I must step over “The Frankenstein Project” sprayed in green capital letters on Piedmont Avenue’s sidewalk. Who made these words? Why? When? Intrigued, and clearly having too much time on my hands, I wondered whether archaeology might help answer these questions. Though archaeology is usually concerned with artifacts past and underground, many of Berkeley’s artifacts are not so much underground as underfoot—and they converse actively with the present. Sprinkled on sidewalks from north Shattuck to south Telegraph, east Centennial Drive to west University Avenue, are over 60 spray-painted “sidewalk statements.” I hesitate to use “graffiti” because these statements blur distinctions between art and graffiti. 

Graffiti as Artifact 

For many people the distinction between art and graffiti is clear—authorized versus unauthorized marks. But people also acknowledge Jean-Michel Basquiat’s SAMO and Keith Harding’s pop graffiti as art that migrated from the street to galleries and markets in the 1980s. And what of the political, personal and pensive stencils on sidewalks the world over? The world underfoot is noisy with social commentary like “Who would Jesus bomb?”, regulatory notices like “Walk Bikes,” and irony like “Nothin’s Wrong.” Existencilism. People also scrape, stick and embed messages in sidewalks, marking their environments. Whatever semantics we use, both “art” and “graffiti” remain definitively “artifact” and represent social information. That “The Frankenstein Project” was truly a project became clear after a year wandering Berkeley’s streets, chancing upon the same precise green capital letters that commented pithily on their surroundings. At an intersection, “Anthropologists Convention” suggests Telegraph Avenue’s suitedness for people-watching. Similarly, “About Face” dismisses a newsrack, “Study Project” turns the tables on UC campus, “Indian Rights” broods by a bookstore, “All The Things That We Are In The Sky” mocks/praises a church, and “HQ” at the main post office perhaps alludes to the Unabomber’s letterbombs. These statements suggest an awareness of place and history that goes beyond “vandalism” and which are worthy of further consideration. 

An archaeology of Us 

So, I wondered whether archaeology—a surveillance of people, places, and artifacts past—would help make sense of “The Frankenstein Project?” In other words, if archaeology is so good at studying “them,” may it not also be used to scrutinize “us”? Six archaeological techniques proved fruitful. First, dating. In three instances, green words occur on top of new sidewalks. Courtesy of the City of Berkeley, we know these sidewalks were laid in 1995 and 1997. The words cannot be older than the cement—a terminus post quem in archaeology-speak. Second, interviews with people on and off street determine that these words are variably remembered as appearing 18-34 months ago. Third, recording techniques like photography with ultra-violet film expose words worn by grime and time. Fourth, stylistic analysis shows the 67 statements found so far use the same spray pattern with letters 250 to 400 mm tall and around 25 mm thick. Fifth, a reading of the “text” groups negative identifications like “I Am Not A Toy” and “Not Roy” (with reversed “R”) and definitive declarations such as “I Am Orion” and “I Am A Samurai.” “Tony Curtis” outside a theater suggests an older person or film buff. Does “Fourteens Can Do” tag a gang affiliation? Interestingly, the author(s) use English and U.S. spellings with “Theatre” and “Savior.” Sixth, mapping site distribution suggests a focus on activist churches, “official” buildings and businesses with few private residences, parks or public spaces (other than the sidewalk) targeted. These techniques cannot explain enigmas like “Mens Viking Al Anon Meeting Go Homo Sapiens,” “Surfer Continuum Nine” or why the color green is favored but they do provide the spectral outlines of a possible author. A homeless person? An alcoholic’s spouse? A wacky Berkeleyan? Art happening? Myself in some surrealist hoax?  

Public Ethics 

Is it at all important to know who did it, knowledge having consequences? In the Bay Area “graffiti” is a misdemeanor with a $500 maximum fine. Sixty-seven sites potentially equals $33 500 —so “Frankenstein’s” identity is a sensitive issue, made more so by knowledge that the project is still active. On Friday, April 13, at least seven new sites were created. “No More Al Anon Meetings,” “Credence” and “There Is No Treaty” suggest a new, angrier phase. Hopefully city officials will distinguish between “statements” like these and “vandalism”, which costs the US economy $200 million and Berkeley $250,000 annually (Daily Planet, June 28, 2000). Likewise, property owners tempted to remove words from the foundation that supports the city’s history might think twice. Some erasure attempts perversely accentuate the words by leaving negative removal stains. These and similar sidewalk statements are neither “ephemera”—many outlast the buildings and causes on which they comment—nor are they insignificant. “Archaeologies of us” help place contemporary material cultures in perspective and can give voice to people whose choice or circumstance relegates to the mainstream’s margins. In an increasingly regulated world in which public space is also contested space, popular visual culture is a significant source of creativity, critique and humor. So next time you go somewhere in town, take to the sidewalk; it may be one of the year’s most interesting journeys.  

Sven Ouzman is a Fulbright scholar in the UC Berkeley Anthropology Department.

Is sewing the next big thing?  

That thought was prompted last week by the sight of 11 teenagers who’d chosen to spend their spring break learning to sew at Berkeley’s Stonemountain & Daughter Fabric Store.  

They’d come from Drew School, a 95-year-old, 250 student private college preparatory school in San Francisco. Each year at this time, all regular classes at Drew stop for a week, and everyone participates in DEALL: Drew Education for Active and Lifelong Learning. Students choose from one-week classes posted by teachers in an online catalog. This year the subjects ranged from horseback riding to cartooning, and the venues from close to home to as far away as Japan.  

The sewing class was the idea of Drew teacher and Berkeley resident Shane Carter. Carter, 31, teaches history at Drew and, on Fridays, an elective cooking class. “I think anything that has to do with self-sufficiency is important,” she says. Knowing how to cook and sew help “make you a confident adult.” She added, “I don’t see a line between teaching them how to sew and teaching them how to do algebra.” Indeed, to sew well, she observed, you have to “understand spatial relationships.” Laying out a pattern involves parallel lines and other geometric concepts.  

Carter feels comfortable teaching cooking, but because she taught herself how to sew, she “never learned how to do it methodically” and needed to find somebody else to each the class.  

Last fall she asked Stonemountain owner Suzanne Steinberg to set up the course. Steinberg recruited teachers from Stonemountain’s sewing school and reserved the store’s airy upstairs classroom and its sewing machines for the week of Drew’s Spring Break. The cost was $10 an hour, which worked out to about $250 per student. Financial aid, says Carter, was factored into the price. Students provided their own fabric and notions. The class size was limited to 12.  

To Carter’s delight it filled up, and a handful of would-be students, including a few boys, even had to be turned away. The class met Monday through Friday from 10 to 4, with a lunch break. Seated at her or his—one guy’s—own machine, the students followed lead teachers Alice Elliot and Rosa Fajimi through the basics: choosing and preparing a pattern, following the directions, laying out the pattern pieces, cutting and marking the fabric, how to use a sewing machine, assembling the garment, fitting and finishing (seams, buttonholes, closures, hems).  

By the end of the week, everyone had made a drawstring skirt or pair of pants. Some students had embarked on a second project of their own choosing—pillows, a beach bag, a hoody, a dress. A few want to become fashion designers; others want to make their own clothes or fix things that they’ve bought. All were enthusiastic about the class.  

“The best thing about sewing,” said Sophia, 18, “is instant gratification. It takes awhile, but at the end, you can say: Wow! I have this piece of clothing; I can put it on and wear it. I finished my skirt yesterday, and I wore it last night out to dinner.”  

Many of the Drew students had altered garments or made bags, pillows and other small things. Few had used a machine or a pattern or had the benefit of expert instruction.  

“I’ve sewn before, but I’ve never done clothes,” said Sylvia, 15, as she worked on a dress with spaghetti straps. “It’s really cool. I’ve made quilts and bags, but I can’t really use them for anything except decoration.”  

Teacher Alice Elliot praised the Drew students. “This group is particularly great—really motivated, friendly, respectful—and excited to sew.”  

That doesn’t surprise Stone-mountain & Daughter owner Suzanne Steinberg. “We’ve seen this trend happening for the past few years. This is an incredibly technical and creative generation. They love making things, and focusing on fashion and on clothing. It skipped a generation or two. They’re combining the new technology”—recent innovations in sewing machines and tools that have make it easier to make clothes that look professional—“and the old ways of sewing.”  

For Steinberg, teaching teenagers how to sew is an investment in her business’s future. “Our industry was strong when home economics was taught in the schools. Now home economics is out of schools, but girls still want to learn how to sew.” Two weeks after Drew School called, she was contacted by another high school that wanted to do a sewing class in the same week. She dreams of creating an after-school program for students from Berkeley High which, she notes, is just three blocks away. “This is a really good example of how business and community can work together with the schools and fill a vacuum.” In any case, teenagers are welcome to take Stonemountain’s regular sewing classes.  

Asked why he chose to take the sewing class, Drew student Devon Hayden, 17, said, “I thought it would be cool to make your own clothing.” Did it turn out that way? “Yeah, it’s radical.”  

›

TUESDAY, MARCH 23 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rachel Cohen describes “A Chance Meeting” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

Judy Wells and Dale Jensen at 7 p.m. at the Beanery, 2925 College Ave. 549-9093. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Empyrean Ensemble, featuring pianist Amy Dissana-yake, at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $20 available at the door. www.berkeleychamberperform.org 

Jewish Music Festival featuring the music collections of S. Anskky and Moshe Beregovski at 7:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $10-$15. 848-0237. 

Courtableu at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Alex Bordei, pianist and accordionist, performs at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. Ave. 981-5190. 

Club Mekon, an evening of song and readings, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $15. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

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

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

www.thejazzhouse.com 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24 

CHILDREN 

Jazz/Art, for the whole family, with Lisa di Prima and the Don Robinson Trio at 3:30 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

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

Paul Waldman will discuss “Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn’t Tell You” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Nederlands Dans Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $38-$64 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Aphrodesia and Sila at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Swing Mine at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Austin Willacy, Beth Waters, contemporary folk at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Taarka, gypsy jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Swamees, Atticus Finch, Little Cat Z and the Voom at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

THURSDAY, MARCH 25 

THEATER 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Fall Down Get Up” by Naomi Newman, directed by Ben Yalom at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $18-$28 available from 415-285-8080. www.atjt.com 

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival, “Queen of the Gypsies, a Portrait of Carmen Amaya” at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8 general, $6 students. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robert Newman introduces his new novel “The Fountain at the Center of the World” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Alice Medrich describes “Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales From a Life in Chocolate” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. www.codysbooks.com 

Khalil Bendib, Muslim-American humorist, reads from his new book, “It Becomes Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It” at 7:30 p.m. at the North Branch Public Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6256. 

Ira Steingroot describes “Keeping Passover” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Word Beat Reading Series with Ralph Dranow and LisaAnn LoBasso at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. 526-5985, 205-1749.  

“Can Hip-Hop Save the World?” A discussion with Boots Riley from The Coup on personal responsibility in art, activism, and community, at 7 p.m. at Vista Community College Annex, 2075 Allston Way at Shattuck. Sponsored by Club X. Free, refreshments provided. For further information, contact clubxatvista@yahoogroups.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Nederlands Dans Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $38-$64 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jewish Music Festival “Kinetic Klezmer” with Elaine Hoffman Watts, percussion, and her daughter Susan Watts Hoffman, trumpet, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Tickets are $10-$15. 848-0237. 

George Mann and Julius Margolin, with a special appearance by Faith Petric, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. Suggested donation $5-$10. 

The Kambe Consort, two short concerts, each followed by a viewing of “Fine Japanese Mezzotints” at 7:30 and 9 p.m. Admission, by reservation only, is by donation, a minimum of $10.00 is requested. Schurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. 526-1236. www.scriptum.com 

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

The Dave Matthews Blues Band, a benefit for the Homeless Action Center at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5 and up. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Jim Page, political folk singer, at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St., Oakland. Donation $5. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

Joshi Marshal Project at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

Chris & Cassie Webster with Scott Nygaard at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Tiner-Schoenbeck-Phillips Trio, The Wind Trio of Alphaville at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations of $8-$15 suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

FRIDAY, MARCH 26 

CHILDREN 

Cat in the Hat will be at Barnes and Noble at 10:30 a.m. 644-3635. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Crimes of the Heart” and “Alarms and Excursions” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen, at 8 p.m. and runs through April 11. 647-2917. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Central Works, “The Duel” a new play adapted from Chekhov’s novella, 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 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Fall Down Get Up” by Naomi Newman, directed by Ben Yalom at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $18-$28 available from 415-285-8080. www.atjt.com 

Hillside Players “Tangled Tales Three: It’s Not Easy Being Smee” a comic journey into The Enchanted Forest for the whole family at 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $7, $4 for children, students and seniors. 384-6418. 

Un-Scripted Theater “Imrov Survivor” at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, and runs to April 3. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.un-scripted.com 

FILM 

Chantal Akerman: “The Captive” at 7 p.m. and “Night and Day” at 9:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed discusses “Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

8th Annual Teen Poetry Slam East Bay Semi-Finals at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Open to any teen between 13-19 years old. Tickets are $10 general. To register call 415-255-9035, ext. 21 or email slam@youthspeaks.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

pickPocket at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum perform roots Americana at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Vision Walker CD Release Party at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenez. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Zigaboo Modeliste and the New Aahkesstra at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10, $8 with student i.d. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

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

“Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip Hop,” written and performed by Aya de León, at 8 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph. Tickets are $10. 451-1932. 

Crater, Good for Crows at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com  

Anton Schwartz, jazz sazophone quartet, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Reorchestra, modern dance grooves, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

The Fleshies, The Restarts, Born/Dead, Monster Squad, Strung Up at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 27 

CHILDREN 

“Chantecleer and the Fox” at 2 p.m. at Calvary Church, 1940 Virginia St. Tickets are $25 general, $20 senior/student, $65 family special including activities for ages 4-12, refreshments and show. 415-491-0818. www.chaucertheatre.org 

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

Los Amiguitos de La Peña Creative Movement Together at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Building Experimental Musical Instruments Workshop from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

Parent/Child Dance Class and Open House from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Haas Pavilion, Mills College, Oakland. 644-3629. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Crimes of the Heart” and “Alarms and Excursions” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Traveling Jewish Theater “Fall Down Get Up” by Naomi Newman, directed by Ben Yalom at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $18-$28. 415-285-8080. www.atjt.com 

EXHIBITIONS OPENINGS 

“Breeder's Choice,” a visual inquiry into the world of pedigree dog breeding, with Lauren Davies at the Kala Gallery from 5 to 7 p.m. 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. 

“It’s All About Location” with Sherrod Blankner, Patrick Marquis, and Ed Monroe. Reception from 7 to 9 p.m. at Fourth St. Studio. Exhibition runs to April 15. 1717D Fourth St. 527-0600. 

FILM 

The Case for Pavel Jurácek: “The End of August in the Hotel Ozone” at 7 p.m. and “A Case for the Young Hangman” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

8th Annual Teen Poetry Slam East Bay Semi-Finals at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Open to any teen between 13-19 years old. Tickets are $10 general. To register call 415-255-9035, ext. 21 or email slam@youthspeaks.org 

“Chaucer’s Stories Simply Retold for the Children” with Velma Bourgeois Richmond, Prof of English, Holy Names College, at 2 p.m. at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St. Followed by a slide show. For ticket information call 415-491-0818. www.chaucertheatre.org 

Berkeley Youth Art Festival with Rhythm and Muse Young Poets at 7 p.m., open mic sign up at 6:30 p.m., at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Unified School District Performing Arts Showcase at 1 p.m. at Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley High School Campus. 644-8831. 

Nederlands Dans Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $38-$64 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Yukimi Kambe Viol Consort, interpretations of Rennaissance music at 8 p.m. at St John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-25, available from 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

“Twin Harps” with Cheryl Ann Fulton and Diana Stork at 7:30 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Avenue in Kensington. Tickets are $12 at the door. 526-9146. 

Berkeley Youth Art Festival with Flute Fest at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkleyartcenter.org 

Jewish Music Festival “ Philly Klezmer Swing Dance Party” at 8 p.m. with a dance lesson by Steven Weintraub at 6:30 p.m. at The Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-0237. 

“Chanticleer and the Fox,” a musical at 4 p.m. at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St. For ticket information call 415-491-0818. www.chaucertheatre.org 

Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound featuring Frank Martin, Jami Sieber, Joey Blake and David Worm at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Misturada, Latin jazz quartet at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

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

Maya Azucena performs soul and funk at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10, $8 with student i.d. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

“Thieves in the Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip Hop,” written and performed by Aya de León, at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at Oakland Box Theater, 1928 Telegraph. Tickets are $10. 451-1932. 

ACME Observatory’s Contemporary Composer’s Series with Toshi Makihara with Steve Adams, Jon Raskin and Wade Matthews at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Admission free, donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

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

Mark Growden, Whore, Three Piece Combo at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Joey Keithley, punk pioneer, at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St., Oakland. Donation $5. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, roots Americana at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Feisty Females in the Round at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Collective Amnesia at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Bekka’s Frogland Orchestra, tribal avant funk, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Le Scrawl, Voetsek, Jewdriver, Lux Nova, Slit Wrist at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

CV1, reggae and jazz-improv, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Chemystry Set with special guests Sunfire Pleasure at 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $8. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

For a few weeks in spring, the downtown part of Shattuck Avenue gets a tropical feel as the pittosporum trees bloom. The heavy, sleepy orangeblossom scent descends from the high-pruned trees and evokes Waikiki or some unlikely urban citrus grove, and lays a sexy benediction on Berkeley’s nightlife. 

Victorian box is more often a shrub than a tree, and, as its name suggests, is one of a suite of plants we inherit from that era’s garden fanatics. If you have a Victorian-style building and want to keep the plantings authentic, you’re in luck—those folks loved variety and “exotic” appearance, and you have a huge palette of species, forms, and habitat types to choose from. Quite a few, like members of the Pittosporum genus, are even fairly drought-tolerant, so you can have an extravagant look for little water.  

I’ve always liked working on Victorian box because of the strong orange-peel scent the wood gives off when it’s cut. It’s easy to prune, too, as its multiple branches give you lots of choices, and in my experience it recovers well. It gets used as a hedge plant, and it’s good for that, but I think the waste of fragrance and flowers because of constant shearing is a pity. Still, the person doing the work gets to enjoy the wood’s scent, a direct reward to the laborer worthy of that Victorian theorist Marx. Worker bees are drawn to the blossoms, too. I hope the nectar’s taste is as good as the scent. If it’s false advertising, well, we can enjoy it anyway. 

Most of the Pittosporum genus hails from Australia and its neighbors, and like many Aussie plants, they’re suited to life in our climate. I haven’t heard of its being very invasive here except in a very few suburban interfaces, but it’s a problem in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Maybe that crowd heard from their Berkeley brethren about the pleasures of good coffee, and want a cuppa Blue Mountain brew. It’s been a problem in the fynbos of South Africa, but some as-yet-undiagnosed disease seems to be whacking it there.  

Pittosporums have been caught hosting the Sudden Oak Death organism, as have a lot of landscape plants both native and exotic. Don’t panic and cut yours down if it’s healthy, though; it’s the nursery industry that needs to deal with this contagion, and soon. 

The trees on Shattuck Avenue have cousins in gardens and public spaces all around here, some with musical vernacular names like “tobira” and “tawhiwhi.” (Tawhiwhi is the one with the, slightly broader and grayer-green leaves and stylish, slender black twigs, quite an elegant shrub.) The Shattuck trees are about as tall as the plant gets, and are probably near the end of their natural lives; that, with the fact that they drop flowers and little orange fruits and are deemed “messy” and disposable in the landscape trade, means we should enjoy them while we can.  

Our opinion pages have received a number of letters regarding Israel’s recent assassination of a Hamas leader. They’re from all over Northern California, written in a variety of styles by obviously concerned citizens, but they have a common outline and theme: what’s wrong with assassination in self-defense? Since most of the writers don’t seem to be Daily Planet readers, we’ve sent this stock response: 

“Thanks for your submission. We probably won’t print it, since we usually publish only letters from our local readership area, or occasionally responses to our editorials from other places. We haven’t written an editorial about the morality of assassination yet, but your letter convinces us that we have been  

derelict in not doing so, an omission we hope to rectify soon.”  

One or two of these letters have been from our circulation area, and we do plan to print those. But the interesting thing, as our stock response letter points out, is that the letters themselves are pre-emptive strikes. Even though the Planet has yet to speak on this topic, counter-arguments are being organized and launched. Could it be that some of the writers have a deeply suppressed perception that something is indeed wrong with assassination as a tool of national policy? 

Discussions of the moral issues around self defense have played a prominent part in the evolution of the Anglo-American legal system. The criminal codes in various jurisdictions attempt to define precisely when killing another human constitutes legitimate self defense. Though I’m not familiar with Jewish law, I expect that similar discussions are central there too. 

I do not know of many instances in American law where pre-emptive killing is justified. Historic Christian discussions of what constitutes a just war have left very little room for pre-emptive killing on a national scale. We would be interested in comments from additional letter writers on what mainstream Jewish ethical thinkers have to say on this topic.  

Among the letters we’ve already received, which appear to be part of an organized campaign, is one from David Meir-Levi of Menlo Park which is reprinted in this issue. He says, in part: “…..appeasement emboldens the aggressor. Hypocritical and shortsighted Israel-bashing appeases the aggressor, condemns the victim, and gives succor and support to those who seek to finish what Hitler started.”  

But is it Israel-bashing to suggest that killing an elderly, almost blind quadriplegic, along with a number of bystanders, was both immoral and impractical? To suggest that it would have been relatively easy and much more ethical to capture the man, using tear gas if needed, and try him under Israeli law for any crimes he might have committed? It’s true that Palestinian activists, including some who were part of Hamas, have also carried out assassinations and killed innocent bystanders, but does that make it right for Israelis to do the same thing? In simple everyday ethical terms, familiar to most people in most cultures, do two wrongs make a right? And even, to put this on the level of what almost all parents tell their children, just because “everyone does it”, should you do it too? 

In the eyes of many thoughtful people, the true defenders of Israel, and of Israel’s reputation, are those like my many Israeli friends who have voluntarily exiled themselves from the country where their families still live, because they do not want to be associated with what they consider a war conducted with immoral tactics. They’re like the 19-year-old girl I know who went to jail as a conscientious objector to serving in the Israeli army. They’re Berkeley people from Jewish backgrounds like Henry Norr and Barbara Lubin, who go to Israel to find out for themselves what is being done to Palestinians in the name of Israel.  

Many sincere and ethically conscious people, both Israelis and others, have of course concluded that sometimes assassination is ethical, and if they have thought carefully about that decision one must respect it. But it does not illuminate what should be a sober consideration of the moral issues involved when people who come down on the other side are accused of giving “succor and support to those who seek to finish what Hitler started.”  

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Berkeley Daily Planet.

San Francisco Chronicle Editor Phil Bronstein has added another corollary to the paper’s Greater Eunuch theory of press objectivity by taking two staffers who had the nerve to marry one another off the part of their city hall beat which involved reporting on same-sex marriage. And yes, they were same-sex, in case you couldn’t guess.  

The paper defended its action in a column on Monday by its on-staff “Reader’s Representative,” in which the logic was so convoluted that it was just about impossible to follow. Here’s a sample:  

“Reader complaints that the paper’s decision reflects discrimination against [Liz] Mangelsdorf and [Rachel] Gordon because of their sexual orientation fall flat. Both are highly regarded, both have covered gay issues for years.” 

Sure, we know that the Chronicle has plenty of gay reporters, has had them for years, some quite distinguished. But what about the fact that the two “have covered gay issues for years”? What’s different about this story? Still covering gay issues, just like they have for years, right? Why are they taken off the beat now? 

Another quote: “The bottom line, as Associate Managing Editor Kenn Altine puts it, is that it’s not about the person, it’s about the action.”  

Which action would that be? Presumably they didn’t just up and get married with no previous history of a relationship which most likely had some action component. What raised their activities in the sexual arena to the point that the Chronicle had to take official notice?  

Marriage, arguably legal? Deputy Editor Narda Zacchino and columnist Bob Scheer have been married for a long time. If Leah Garchik gets married to a man, will she be taken off the gossip beat? If Liz Smith marries a woman, will her column be dropped? Jon Carroll, like many Chronicle columnists before him, actually writes about his (different-sex) marriage from time to time. (But no, we can’t use him as an example, since they do seem to be trying to fire him.)  

A pair of tortured reverse analogies which fail to illuminate the Chronicle’s logic: 

“The decision also does not mean, as some readers have erroneously concluded, that African Americans cannot cover African American issues or that married people cannot cover the same-sex marriage issue.” 

Why is it fair that heterosexual married staffers can cover the same-sex marriage controversy, when according to some observers they are the beneficiaries of the state’s discriminatory policy of allowing them to marry while excluding same-sex couples? How does the Chronicle determine what’s “the issue” in a story?  

Does the decision mean that only African Americans can fairly cover the story about UC Board of Regents’ Chairman John Moores’ insinuations that UC inappropriately favors African-American applicants? But European Americans and Asian Americans can’t, since, according to Moores, they were discriminated against? Or maybe it’s the other way round? No, that couldn’t be right.  

Maybe “objectivity” means that parents of potential applicants to UC, no matter what their race, shouldn’t cover Moores’ activities. No, that couldn’t be right either. We have three reporters at the Planet who could be assigned to cover the regents: one is a parent of two African-American UC students, one is a UC graduate and has no kids, and one has no kids and went to school out of state. Which one should we assign to the story, following the Chronicle logic? Door number three. But what if he knows nothing about education? (Moores’ outlandish behavior, by the way, was the subject of an excellent Chronicle editorial on Monday. Good job, even if the anonymous writer happens to be African American!) 

But of course, long-time (more than a year) Chronicle readers suspect that what’s really going on in this case is another lame attempt to defend management’s indefensible firing of reporter Henry Norr a year ago for participating in (1) anti-Iraq war protests and (2) sympathetic encounters with Palestinian refugees. “See, we are too being consistent, aren’t we, so there!” their action seems to say.  

How close does a relationship have to be before it causes readers, in the words of the Reader’s Rep, to “doubt that journalists could retain a healthy skepticism while on the story”? Well, my collateral ancestor Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Perhaps the Chronicle’s Greater Eunuch theory, carried to its illogical extreme by little minds, would argue that because my great-great-grandfather was Ralph Waldo’s brother, I shouldn’t quote him in this paper.  

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Daily Planet.