The outgoing president of Berkeley’s Vista College is claiming that a black-orchestrated, racial discrimination conspiracy has cost him his job and is threatening a lawsuit against the Peralta Community College District if his contract is not reopened and renewed before the end of the month.  

Vista College is a member of the Peralta District. 

In a June 1 letter addressed to the district’s Board of Trustees and Chancellor Elihu Harris, Vista President John Garmon, who is white, charged that the five African American members of the seven-member board and Harris, who is also African American, based their decision last month not to renew his contract “on racial grounds and voted as a black majority for race-based reasons.” 

The vote, Garmon said, came in retaliation for his dismissal of an African American researcher as part of a budgetary cut and his failed attempt to dismiss “an underperforming and chronically absent” African American dean. Garmon insists the two employees had close relations with Harris and African American members of the board, and conspired to turn the board against him. 

“I’m sorry to say it, but that’s the way it appears,” Garmon said in an interview Thursday. 

Although he said he couldn’t prove his allegations and that much of his information has come second hand, Garmon said he expects to file a lawsuit against the district for violating his employment rights and civil rights. 

Among other complaints, Garmon wrote in his June 1 letter that the board didn’t give him fair consideration when he applied for Chancellor of the Peralta District and that it failed to let him respond to a critical May 7 letter from the Vista Faculty Senate delivered days before the board voted unanimously not to renew his contract as president. 

Response to Garmon’s letter has been fast and furious. 

“I’m absolutely flabbergasted and shocked,” said Peralta Trustee Darryl Moore, who is African American. “The vote had nothing to do with John’s race and everything to do with his performance.” 

Moore said Garmon—as stated in the May 7 faculty letter—had “dropped the ball” on fundraising for Vista’s new downtown Berkeley campus and failed to build ties to the community for Vista’s 30th anniversary celebration. 

“John is grasping for straws,” added Joan Berezin, co-president of the Faculty Senate, who along with co-president Joseph Bielanski, wrote the May 7 letter to Chancellor Harris and Board President Lynn Baranco. The letter expressed concerns about Vista’s leadership without mentioning Garmon by name. 

The May 7 letter, written without the knowledge of Vista’s classified staff, drove a wedge between the faculty and other staff members. While Berezin said the faculty didn’t want to include the staff because they would be more vulnerable to retaliatory layoffs, some staff members said they felt betrayed. 

“[Garmon] was the nicest person we’ve ever had,” said one classified worker who asked not to be identified. “The faculty senate didn’t ask us anything about this. I feel like they ruined this man.” 

For Vista, Garmon’s departure when his contract expires at the end of the month means the school will be saddled with an interim president for next year while it conducts a nationwide search for a replacement. Garmon’s eventual successor will be the fourth Vista president in seven years and will bear the burden for completing a $2.5 million fundraising effort to outfit its new campus with furniture and equipment.  

Vista has long been considered the stepchild of the Peralta district, which includes Merritt College, Laney College and the College of Alameda. The new campus, scheduled for completion in 2006 was seen as finally placing Vista on equal footing with its sister schools. 

Garmon insists his three-year tenure at Vista has been a success and that his downfall began early last year when he was ordered to slash his budget by 10 percent. He says he attempted to reach that budget-cutting goal by recommending the dismissal Dr. Connie Portero, an education researcher, who is African American. 

The move touched off a revolt among Garmon’s hand-picked management team, said Michael Mills, president of the Peralta Federation of Teachers. “The opposition countered that [Garmon’s] decision was based on race,” Mills said. 

Garmon, who insists he respected the researcher’s work but had to concentrate cuts away from classroom instruction, said his management team had some “heated discussions” over the proposed release. 

Chancellor Harris backed Garmon’s decision, but the board overruled him and reassigned Portero to the district’s main office. 

Shortly thereafter, the board renewed Garmon’s contract for one year, while giving two-year extensions to his management team. The dispute over the dean soon followed. 

Vista staff interviewed described Garmon as a friendly boss, but a subpar administrator. 

“A number of people say he was a very nice man, outgoing affable, but not the kind of leader Vista needed at this time,” said Bielanski. 

“He’s a nice guy,” said Paula Coil, President of the Classified Employee Senate at Vista. “A lot of staff people did appreciate the human touch he brought to things.” 

Miller said the teachers union has received complaints from faculty about the leadership of all of the Peralta school presidents, but nothing specifically bad about Garmon. The other two school presidents up for renewal in May received extensions. 

The Vista job was Garmon’s first stint as a college president after more than three decades working in community colleges, most recently as executive dean at the Florida Community College. 

Despite signs that his job was not secure, Garmon insists he was shocked the board chose not to renew his contract.  

His colleagues, however, were not surprised by his dismissal and said Garmon had been interviewing for jobs outside the district since last fall.  

Garmon said he inquired about other jobs because of the district’s budget turmoil. “Most of the presidents in Peralta were looking for jobs,” he said. “We were all hedging our bets.” 

One job Garmon applied for this year happened to be for district chancellor, held until May on an interim basis by Harris. Though Garmon said he never expected to beat out the former state legislator and former Oakland Mayor for the job, he said the board was set on giving Harris the full-time job and rejected the advice of its consultant to re-advertise the position when only seven candidates applied. 

“I know it didn’t sit well with the board that I had the nerve to run for chancellor,” Garmon explained. 

Moore insists that Chancellor Harris had been talking to Garmon for months about concerns over his performance. 

“John knew he wasn’t going to be renewed,” the Berkeley-based board member said. “Now he can say he was let go because he applied to be chancellor.”ˇ

Any illusions UC officials may have harbored about how the rest of Berkeley views their Long Range Development Plan should have vanished after Tuesday night’s City Council session. 

In other matters, the council approved a request by residents of the proposed Thousand Oaks Heights Applicant Funded Utility Undergrounding District to lower the percentage of votes needed to authorize the $3.08 million project, and took action on several November ballot measures. 

But it was the UC issue that was the highlight of the night. One after another, a parade of angry residents and irate officials from across the political spectrum bared their anger at the university’s expansion plans, all agreeing that UC’s continued development will have a profound impact on the rest of the city. 

The item was for information-gathering purposes only, with no action scheduled by the council. 

While Councilmember Kriss Worthington likened the university to “almost an abusive parent,” his colleague, Miriam Hawley, cited UC’s failure to offer emergency evacuation plans in event of a disaster and Councilmember Dona Spring called on residents to write letters and raise “many voices out there, holding our feet to the fire.” 

But the strongest calls came from a parade of Berkeley residents lamenting the university’s impacts on traffic, taxes, parking and property values. 

Leading off were representatives from Berkeleyans for a Livable University Environment (BLUE), a coalition of neighborhood organizations from across the city. 

Carl Freiberg recounted earlier broken promises by the university, as well as the refusal of school officials to extend the LRDP comment period beyond 60 days—a sore point with councilmembers and city staff as well. 

That was followed by a discussion between Peace and Justice Commissioner and former candidate Anne Wagley and Mayor Tom Bates, when the mayor let slip that he didn’t know that the university wouldn’t be paying the city tax assessments that voters would be called on to increase in the November elections. 

“The manager can correct me,” the mayor said, “but I believe [the university is] subject to the utility user tax.” 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz shook his head. 

“No?” ventured the mayor. “They’re subject to— What are they subject to?” 

“None of the assessments we have in the city,” Kamlarz responded. “No taxes are assessed.” 

It was a peculiar slip by a mayor who has made negotiations with the university over payments to the city one of the centerpieces of his administration. 

Noting that only 30 percent of the UCB budget goes to education and the rest to research and development, Wagley (who works at the Daily Planet) suggested that the city to seek a half-percent overhead on every grant to pay for fire, police, sewers and other city services, a move endorsed by Dona Spring and Linda Maio. 

While all comments targeted the LRDP and EIR as deficient at best, Bates and Councilmember Gordon Wozniak struck a more conciliatory tone. “I really think it does a disservice to this community just to bash the university,” the mayor said. 

But Councilmember Spring called the financial relations between the city and the university “an untenable situation, and we cannot continue to give the university almost a free ride. We have crumbling sewers and storm drains and our streets are wearing out faster than we can replace them, as are our sidewalks. There is a basic, fundamental economic disparity here.”  

Councilmember Betty Olds, a Spring adversary on many issues, joined her in singing the praises of the BLUE activists in criticizing UC. “I think it’s wonderful that you’re doing this,” she told the group. 

City Planning Director Dan Marks offered his own critique of the LRDP. 

Noting that university officials had labeled the document a “general plan,” he said that such plans “are put together with the help and involvement of citizens, It adds legitimacy to the document. We had 60 days to respond to their general plan. . .and we do not know how they will react. We do not know if they will change it in response to our comments. The sense that we get from the university is that they will not.” 

Further complicating the picture, Marks said, is that the university is preparing their LRDP at the same time they’re readying a second LRDP for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

“We question that approach,” Marks said. “The university owns both the lab and the university. It’s the same regents. . . They divided themselves in order to better conquer the City of Berkeley. . .and make it harder” for the city to respond. 

Assistant City Manager Arietta Chakos criticized the LRDP for the lack of details on the 2,300-2,500 parking spaces UC proposes to add, including 1,900 on property just off campus. 

Chakos said adding the new spaces violated the LRDP’s own precepts, which call for trip reduction and new parking strategies. She also faulted the LRDP’s transportation section for failing to adequately assess the impacts of the additional spaces. 

Grace Maguire, the city staffer assigned to evaluate the LRDP’s fiscal impacts, said she has prepared an analysis that takes into account the plan’s impact on various city services for presentation to the council at next week’s meeting. 

Several citizens offered scathing critiques of the university’s plans to build 100 units of “family suitable” housing in the Hill Campus. 

Though cited just across the Oakland city limit, neighbors on the Berkeley side said the project would severely impact traffic and parking on the narrow winding streets of the adjacent Summit Road and Grizzly Peak neighborhood. 

Thousand Oaks Heights 

On the Thousand Oaks Height Applicant Funded Utility Undergrounding District issue, council voted to drop the needed approval ratio of district property owners from 70 percent to 60 percent. If the district is approved by that new percentage of owners who cast votes in a special 45-day election period tentatively scheduled to begin July 20, electrical, telephone and cable wires would move from poles to underground pipes along Kentucky, Colorado and Florida avenues and portions of Vassar, Maryland, Michigan and Boynton avenues. 

Property owners would be assessed according to a four-part scale, with the highest charges—$32,011—paid by owners of homes with clear street window views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge and the lowest—$13,917—on vacant lots with non-spectacular vistas. 

Ballot Measures  

Following the LRDP session, the council ironed out language in the November ballot measure calling for publicly financed elections, with the revised version scheduled to reach the council at their next regular session. 

Members showed less unanimity when it came to reviewing the eight proposed taxes scheduled to go before voters in November. Councilmember Wozniak said he thought the proposed increases were too much, and proposed eliminating any revenues earmarked for new programs, a move Miriam Hawley supported. 

“What about the paramedics?” declared Mayor Bates. “It would be worth paying more to have paramedics available on every call.” The $1.2 million-a-year Emergency Medical Services Tax would place a paramedic in every station, up from the current three. 

“I’m particularly worried we’ll lose the youth programs,” Hawley said. Under the ballot proposals, that funding would be funded by a half-percent real estate transfer tax on home sales of between $600,000 and $1 million and a full percent on sales of more than $1 million. 

“They’ll be covered by 250 homebuyers at these inflated prices,” said Bates. 

Wozniak objected, saying increased housing prices would force more potential buyers out of the Berkeley housing market. He threw his support behind the proposed boost in the city Utility User’s Tax, which calls for a boost from 7.5 percent to 9 percent on all gas, electric, cable, telephone and cell phone charges. 

“I favor the utility tax because it promotes conservation and supports our Kyoto goals,” Wozniak said. 

Bates said he favored the real estate transfer tax “because it’s a runaway market and it won’t deter people” from buying. 

“We have to decide what taxes to put on the ballot” on June 15, Kamlarz said, with a first vote on the final draft due by July 13 and a final vote on the 22nd.›

Larry Picus stood center stage before about 75 parents Tuesday at the Longfellow Middle School Theater Tuesday as he auditioned for the leading role in Berkeley Unified’s great school funding adventure. 

After his presentation, Superintendent Michele Lawrence said she had big plans for Picus, her former school finance professor at the University of Southern California. 

“I’d like him to be involved,” she said. “He has expertise and we don’t want to do this alone.” 

Picus, the director of USC’s Center for Research in Education Finance, is a leader in what in education circles is called the “adequacy movement.” Its central tenet is that when plotting school finance, the goal must be to examine the essential components of a good education, determine the costs, and then figure out how to pay for it. That would be opposite the general procedure of districts waiting to see what money is coming in from state and local sources, and then figuring out how to spend it. 

After several years of finding herself at the mercy of state budget cuts with no promise of brighter times ahead, Lawrence has decided that the district needs Picus’ brand of strategic planning before it returns to voters in 2006 for an extension of Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP)—its signature parcel tax that promises to bring in at least $18 million annually. 

“This seems to me the only option I can present to you right now,” Lawrence told the assembled community members. After three years of struggling to break free of budget deficits, she warned that the district would soon find itself back in the same morass of debt unless it figured out how to fund its top priorities in an era of declining state resources. 

“The only way to get out of this spiral is to look at our systems and structures and determine which things are most critical for our kids,” Lawrence said. She envisions a task force led by someone of Picus’ ilk, with community members and education experts included to guide the study. 

For Picus, taking on the Berkeley job wouldn’t just turn the district’s system of funding schools on its head, it would revolutionize the adequacy movement. 

Until now, adequacy studies have only been performed on the state level, where legislators have the power to tax raise the revenues needed to boost education. 

Picus insisted Berkeley was the perfect testing ground for a study. Displaying a sound knowledge of the district’s schools and at one point referring to the community as “we,” Picus said Berkeley Unified was just the right size to guarantee that the superintendent could keep tabs on principals while the schools could experiment somewhat with ways to meet standards. 

His preferred approach is to develop prototype schools and then allocate the resources needed to ensure that all students have the tools to meet state education requirements. 

“It’s a simple model that allows for transparency and is easy to understand,” he said. 

Picus last employed the model for the state of Arkansas, which paid him and his partner $400,000 for their services. 

Lawrence said Berkeley Unified wouldn’t pay as well as Arkansas, and that she hoped Picus could lead a team of graduate students, which could reduce the price tag. 

“These things are not cheap to do, but I think it’s worth the investment,” Lawrence said. She added she would search the district to find funds to pay for the study, but hadn’t earmarked any yet. 

Although adequacy studies universally result in a request for more taxpayer money—Picus requested $800 million for the Arkansas schools—synergies with local agencies including the city, county and UC Berkeley were the buzzwords Tuesday. 

Picus argued that by teaming up with different agencies, Berkeley could boost its spending per student from below $10,000 to around $20,000. 

Asked by a community member how the district’s partnerships were going, Lawrence said Berkeley Unified had made progress, but still lacked the accounting sophistication to fully connect with service agencies. 

By and large, residents at the meeting were prepared to support Lawrence’s plan. “The superintendent deserves our support in putting together a unified agreement of our priorities,” said Nina Robinson, a parent with two children in the district. 

Another parent, Gloria Soto, said she expected more concrete details on ideas for alternative funding, but was “totally confident that it’s worth the try.” 

Wanda Steward, a parent at Longfellow Middle School, said she assumed the process would yield the same priorities—small class sizes and well trained teachers—but “if a process makes everyone buy into it, then it’s good.” 

Derrick Miller, a parent at Jefferson Elementary School and former candidate for the Berkeley school board said the task force had promise but also faced pitfalls. Noting that Berkeley has a complex set of funding streams including a lot of volunteer energy, a good process could build on those resources, but if the process proceeds in the wrong way, the district runs the risk of people pulling out, Miller said.›

FRIDAY, JUNE 4 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Paola Timora, Prof., emeritus, Dept. of Mole- 

cular and Cell Biology, UCB, on “Aging Gracefully.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. for $12.50. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925.  

“Ancient Wisdom for Racial Healing” A workshop with Aaeeshah and Kokomon Klottey from 1 to 5 p.m. at Naropa University Oakland, 2141 Broadway. Cost is $30-$50. 835-4827, ext. 19. 

By the Light of the Moon Open Mic and Salon for Women hosted by Karen Broder, at 7:30 p.m. at Changemakers Bookstore, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $3-$7 sliding scale. 482-1315. www.changemakersforwomen.com 

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. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

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

SATURDAY, JUNE 5 

Berkeley Poetry Festival and Community Fair from 11:15 to 5 p.m. at Civic Center Park, with live music, and a poetry slam from 2 to 4 p.m. www.mothershen.com 

Ladybirds and Ladybugs We’ll collect and release as many adult and larval forms as we can find. We’ll talk about the good these beetles do and learn about the ones who have turned to the dark side. From 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Ponds are Places Where Babies Grow Up Meet nymphs, naiads, larvae and the real “Phantom Menace” as we look at pond creatures with the 14-power Discovery Scope. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Sick Plant Clinic The first Sat. of every month, UC plant apthologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants. From 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Free. 643-2755. 

Good Night Little Farm Rain or shine, the animals on the farm need to be fed and tucked in for the night. Round up the chickens, slop the hog, feed the cows and say “sleep tight.” Wear boots if you’ve got them. For all ages from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Tilden Little Farm. 525-2233. 

Make a Cornhusk Doll Bookmark at the Albany Library from noon to 2 p.m. Free and open to all ages. 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 20. 

LeConte Elementary School Yard Sale from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at 2241 Russell St. Great furniture, gear, plants, etc. and food and beverages, and a good way to support our public school. To donate items in advance, call 649-0419. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour of the city’s corporation yard and the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club led by Patrick Keilch. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

Prof. Marshall Windmiller on the Iraq War “How did we get in and How do we get out?” at 7 p.m. at the Home of truth Spiritual Center, 1300 Grand St., Alameda. Sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum. 

Carpentry Basics for Women A two-day introduction to basic carpentry tools and skills for women with little or no pre-vious hands-on experience. After a morning lecture and demonstration, you will build your own bookshelf unit (materials included with class fee). Please bring your own hand tools. From 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $225. 525-7610. 

Pee Wee Basketball for boys and girls ages 6 to 8 is offered by Berkeley Youth Alternatives every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at 1255 Allston Way. Fee for six week session is $25 for residents, $35 for non-residents. 845-9066. sports@byaonline.org 

ProArts Open Studios with over 160 participating artists in Berkeley and around the East Bay. For a list see www.mesart. 

com/openstudiosPA.jsp 

Artists for Change Fundraiser to benefit John Kerry for President and MoveOn.org from 6 to 8 p.m. at Nexus Gallery, 2701 Eighth St. Light refreshments and live music. Cost is $25.  

Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1FM at 8 p.m. at The Longhaul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190. 

"Green Threads in the Urban Fabric," a walk exploring nature in the city, restored creeks, and planned restoration from El Cerrito to Berkeley. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Meet at El Cerrito BART for the 5-mile hike (includes fording creeks and climbing Albany Hill) ends at North Berkeley BART. Bring water, snacks, and sun protection. Sponsored by Friends of Five Creeks and Greenbelt Alliance. 848-9358. www.greenbelt.org, f5creeks@aol.com  

Drip Irrigation A do-it-yourself class covering benefits, supplies and tools needed. Taught by John Bauer, and held at a home-owner installed drip irrigation site in North Oakland. Cost is $15-$25. To register call 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Light Search and Rescue Class offered by the City of Berkeley from 1 to 5 p.m. at 997 Cedar St. To register call 981-5506. 

Propagating Natives with Cuttings from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Regional Parks Botanical Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $40-$45, advance registration recommended. 845-4116. www.nativeplants.org 

REI Service Project at Dry Creek Pioneer Regional Park, Hayward, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Pre-registration recommended. 527-4140. 

Stem Cell Research and Advocacy Conference Leaders in stem cell research and policy will speak about the California initiative to support stem cell research and offer practical ways for promoting this measure. Sat. and Sun. in the Pauley Ballroom, UC Campus. Open to the public. Details available at www.fisca.info  

Women’s Fitness Day at the YMCA of Oakland with free fun activities for the entire family from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., 1515 Webster St. 451-7910. 

California Writers Club meets at 10 a.m. with readings by three student winners of the Fifth-Grade Writing Contest at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Vocal Jazz Workshop with Richard Kalman at 12:30 p.m. followed by jam session, at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. 524-9283. 

Primordial Meditation with Peter Kingsley at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $15. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., from 10 to 11 a.m. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. 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, JUNE 6 

Neotropical Migrants Birdwalk from 8 to 10 a.m. Up close views of birds from far away. Learn their habits and habitats, and stay for a great cup of coffee that’s for the birds-- shade tree coffee plantation birds, that is; pastries too. Cost is $5-$7. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Laurel Canyon Hike The heart of our park is this wooded canyon. We’ll see birds, blooms, berries and learn the role that each plays in the life of this place. Some steep parts, so wear good walking shoes. From 1 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Mini Gardeners “Farm Tales” We’ll make up stories about our garden and the animals that live there, then make drawings and paintings to go along with them. For ages 4-6 accompanied by an adult, from 2 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Cost is $3-$4. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Rosa Parks School 7th Annual Ice Cream Social including ice cream, food, games, quilt raffle, silent auction, and talent show, from noon to 4 p.m. at Rosa Parks Elementary School, 920 Allston Way. 644-8812. 

ProArts Open Studios with over 160 participating artists in Berkeley and around the East Bay. For a list see www.mesart. 

com/openstudiosPA.jsp 

Dragonflies of the Bay Area from 9:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at the Regional Parks Botanical Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $25-$30, advance registration recommended. 845-4116. www.nativeplants.org 

A Tea Cup Give Away Storytelling Tea Party with Rhiannon and Janet Koike from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Addison St. Windows, 2018 Addison St. Cost is sliding scale $10-$25. To register see www.urbancreeks.org/ 

events.html 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

Peace Empowerment Process A two-day training from 1 to 4 p.m., with the second session on June 13, at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Bonita St. at Cedar. Donations $10-$25, no one turned away. to register call Carolyna at 527-2356, or Cynthia at 528-5403. 

“The Patriot Act” with Sanjeev Bery, of the ACLU at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. 525-0302.  

A Taste of Albany A culinary tour of the town from 5 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $20-$25. for information call 525-1771. www.albanychamber.org 

Aquatic Celebration at the Downtown Berkeley YMCA, with mind-body classes in the Shallow Pool. 665-3258. 

Boadecia’s Reunion Party for all who met their sweetie at the bookstore at 3 p.m. at Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. at Colusa Circle, Kensington. 559-9184. www.bookpride.com  

Tibetan Buddhism, with Syliva Gretchen on “Managing Pain Through Meditation” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JUNE 7 

Community Meeting on the City Budget at 7 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the City Managers Office. 981-7000. 

“Creek Restoration History” Ann Riley, creek-restoration pioneer and author of “Restoring Streams in Cities,” gives a slide presentation on lessons learned and changing methods in urban creek restoration, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin, Albany. 848-9358. f5creeks@aol.com 

“From the Prisons in Iraq to the Prisons in the US” a discussion and organizing meeting to build a march in October under the banner of “Stop the War on the Black Community!” At 7 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Temescal Branch, 5205 Telegraph at Claremont. Sponsored by the African People’s Solidarity Committee. 625-1106.  

Benefit for Humanitarian Aid to Cuba Clogging, Lindy, Knockdown and Running Sets, with some surprises, at 8 p.m. at Glenview Performing Arts Center, 1318 Glenfield Ave. near Park Blvd. Cost is $15-$40 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. Humanitarian aid to be delivered by the Berkeley Group of the Cuban American Alliance Education Fund, Inc. 548-6914.  

National Organization for Women, Oakland/East Bay Chapter meets at 6 p.m. the first Monday of each month at the Oakland YWCA, 1515 Webster St. Our June speaker will be Margo Smith from The Gray Panthers. 287-8948.  

Baby Yoga at 11 a.m. and Yoga and Meditation for Children at 2:45 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

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

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

TUESDAY, JUNE 8 

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets from 3 to 7 p.m. 843-1307. 

Backpacking 101 with Martin Dickinson at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Phone Banking to ReDefeat Bush on Tuesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Bring your cell phones. Please RSVP if you can join us. 415-336 8736. dan@redefeatbush.com 

Writer’s Workshop with Teresa Leyung Ryan at 7 p.m. at Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Avenue at Colusa Circle, Kensington. Suggested $5-$20 sliding scale donation. 559-9184. www.bookpride.com 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 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. 845-6830. 

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

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wed., rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840. 

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak at 7 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room, Albany Public Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 20. 

East Bay Genealogical Society meets at 10 a.m. in the Library Conference Room at the Family History Center, 4700 Lincoln Avenue in Oakland. Ray McFalone will speak about “A Time to Remember.” Guests always welcome. 635-6692. 

Boadecia’s Women’s Book Group meets to discuss Patricia Highsmith’s “The Price of Salt” at 7 p.m. at 398 Colusa Ave., Kensington. Suggested donation $3-$5. www.bookpride.com 

Book Forum with American Society of Journalists and Authors to discuss what publishers are looking for at 7:30 p.m. at the Journalism Library, UC Campus. RSVP to 530-6699. 

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

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 

THURSDAY, JUNE 10 

Awesome Earthen Buildings from Around the World Slide show and presentation by Janell Kapoor at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Medgar Evers Voter Advocacy Summit Thurs. through Sun at St. Paul AME Church, Ashby Ave. Hands-on nonpartisan voter advocacy training by grassroots specialists. Topics include campaign planning; fundraising; message development; GOTV; and campaign finance. The cost is $25, which will include meals, t-shirt, Voter Empowerment Handbook and certificate of completion. RSVP with the Berkeley NAACP Youth Council 435-3101. www.geocities.com/berkeleynaacp  

Voter Registration Training and pot-luck at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Church, 1600 Sacramento at Cedar. 415-565-0201, ext. 23. 

Berkeley Farmer’s Market with all organic produce at Elephant Pharmacy parking lot, 1607 Shattuck Ave., at Cedar from 3 to 7 p.m. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Reading Workshop for Parents of 3rd-5th Graders at 8 p.m. at Classroom Mattters, 2607 Seventh St., Suite E. Free, reservations required 540-8646. www.classroommatters.com 

East Bay Mac User Group meets the 2nd Thursday of every month, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St. www.expression.edu  

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers meets at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. for a fly-tying demonstration and slide show by Andy Burk. Cost is $5 for non-members. 547-8629. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., June 7, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon. June 7, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon. June 7, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. ww.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/landmarks 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., June 7, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/peaceandjustice 

Youth Commission meets Mon., June 7, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/youth 

City Council meets Tues., June 8, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on Disability meets Wed. June 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Paul Church, 981-6342. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/disability 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., June 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Planning Commission meets Wed., June 9, 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. June 9, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Barbara Attard, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/policereview 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., June 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti. 644-6376 ext. 224. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., June 10, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs, June 10, at 6:45 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/health 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., June 10, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., June 10, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoningw

The day laborers gather on Berkeley’s Hearst corridor early in the morning, hours before most of the high-priced shops and trendy cafes in the nearby Fourth Street commercial district open for business. The first to arrive is Hector Castillo, a 51-year old Honduran who sleeps in his car on a nearby side street. 

Hoping to catch an early job with one of the small building contractors or homeowners who cruise the corridor searching for cheap temporary labor, Castillo stations himself near the Truitt & White lumberyard at Second and Hearst. 

Castillo, a round-faced, friendly man wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, is looking for a small room to sleep and shower in, but says he can’t afford to pay rent because he goes to the Western Union office each week to send most of his earnings home to his wife and nine children in Honduras. He gets by for now living in his car. 

“My life is on the street, looking for work,” he said. 

Castillo is one of a growing number of day laborers (called jornaleros in Spanish)—mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America, many undocumented—who seek work each day on Hearst Avenue in West Berkeley. Faced with declining job opportunities, low wages, and frequent abuse by unscrupulous employers, they struggle to survive on the margins of the economy.  

On a morning in late March, more than 150 men stand in small groups or sit on curbs along a 10-block stretch of Hearst extending east from the Interstate 80 frontage road to the residential neighborhood between Sixth Street and San Pablo Avenue. Aside from a small group of African-Americans on the corner of Hearst and Second Street and one white man with long hair and a beard standing near the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks just east of the Truitt & White lumberyard, all of the men appear to be Latinos. There are no women.  

They talk quietly, looking up expectantly at each passing motorist, sometimes waving in an attempt to make eye contact with potential employers. An occasional truck or car pulls over to the curb. After a brief conversation, terms are agreed upon, and the men hired for the day get in the vehicle to be driven to their place of work. Their employers seldom identify themselves, and their wages are paid in cash. 

Most will wait all day for work. Not more than 20 percent are likely to find jobs on an average day, says Father Rigoberto Caloca-Rivas, executive director of the Multicultural Institute, a nonprofit organization working with the City of Berkeley to provide services to the day laborers.  

Castillo has supported his family with money earned in the United States for over 20 years, working previously as a dishwasher in Miami and a hospital maintenance man in New York City. He has worked as a jornalero on Hearst for three years. 

He earns $10-$15 per hour for carpentry work, painting, landscaping or digging trenches for foundations. He usually gets at least one or two jobs per week, and sometimes works every day. But other weeks Castillo gets no work at all. 

Too many workers competing for too few jobs keep wages on the Hearst corridor low. Medical benefits are non-existent, and legally required protections like overtime pay, regular breaks and workers compensation for job-related injuries are seldom provided. 

With help from the Multicultural Institute, the jornaleros have attempted to establish an unofficial minimum wage rate of $10 for their work, but so far have had little success. The contractors usually start out offering $7 or $8 per hour, and there is no way to prevent other jornaleros from accepting the lower wage if they are hungry enough, says Sergio Granados, a 22-year old Guatemalan. “We have tried to convince them not to work for less than $10, but some of them just don’t understand,” he said. 

One of the biggest problems, says Martin Ibarra, a Multicultural Institute staff member, is that many of the jornaleros are vulnerable to employer exploitation because they are in the United States illegally. Although legal experts say most state and federal labor laws protect undocumented immigrants, many are reluctant to call attention to themselves and risk deportation by filing legal claims. 

“If the contractor knows you have no legal documents, he’s more likely to take advantage of you because he knows you will be afraid to complain,” said Francisco Raudelas, a 35-year old Honduran. In a recent case cited by Castillo, a jornalero was picked up on Hearst by a contractor who drove him to Sacramento and then refused to pay him or provide him with transportation back to Berkeley. “He didn’t make a complaint because he didn’t have papers,” Castillo added. 

Fernando Martinez, a small, intense man in a blue sweatshirt and black pants, also complained of unfair treatment on the job. Employers often lie about the kind of work that will be required or hire too few men to get it done, he said. “When you get there, you find out that they want you to move concrete blocks or carry heavy furniture up six flights of stairs for $7 or $8 per hour.” 

The jornaleros put up with these conditions because they can’t find permanent jobs, said Raudales, a tall man wearing paint-stained white pants, a leather jacket, wrap-around sunglasses and a San Francisco Giants cap. “I wouldn’t be out here wasting my time if I had a regular job,” he added. 

Raudales says the jornaleros all come here to work for the same reason: their families. “The older ones send money home to support their wives and children, and the younger ones are trying to earn money to go back and start their own families,” he said. 

Castillo says he gets lonely, particularly at night when he has nothing to do but return to his car to sleep. He hopes to earn enough money this summer to bring his wife and children to this country. But eventually, he would like to return to Honduras to live in the house he has built for his family. 

Martinez, who came here to work because the economic situation in Mexico City made it impossible for him to support his wife and children, also thinks often of going home. “Mexico is always on my mind,” he said. 

But Raudales, who has not been home for two years, would like to find a steady job that pays enough to enable him to move his wife and children here permanently. “In Honduras, you have very little chance to get a good job, an education, a house,” he said. “If you are poor, you are poor. Here you have a chance.” 

The key to improving the lives of the jornaleros, says Caloca-Rivas, is education and job training to help them make the transition to better-paid permanent jobs. The Multicultural Institute conducts weekend English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and General Educational Development (GED) classes for the jornaleros and is looking for a site to provide them with job skills workshops. It has also arranged for monthly visits by a mobile health unit that provides them with free medical screening and referrals. 

These programs have improved the situation on the Hearst corridor, said Granados. But the harsh day-to-day economic reality of life on the street looking for work remains largely unchanged. 

There may be no easy answers to the problems faced by the jornaleros, but Martinez thinks the first step is relatively simple. “When they treat us as human beings, with respect, as people trying to make a life for themselves, then things might change,” he said. “We just want to be equal, to be treated like everyone else.” 

The four teachers involuntarily transferred last week from Rosa Parks Elementary School will file a grievance seeking monetary compensation, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers announced Tuesday. 

Calling Superintendent Michele Lawrence’s decision “an attack on our union,” BFT President Barry Fike said the transfers violated the teachers’ contract and were issued punitively in place of a proper performance review. 

The four teachers set to be transferred next year were among the more than three-quarters of the faculty that signed a letter to the superintendent asking for the transfer from the school of second-year Rosa Parks principal Shirley Herrera. Lawrence, instead opted to keep Herrera—the first principal to last two years at the school since 1999—and instead transfer members of the faculty. 

In addition to the four teachers being involuntarily transferred, others are being allowed to leave voluntarily. An exact tally on the exodus from Rosa Parks is unknown, but Fike put the number between seven and 13 teachers at the school which has 16 classroom teachers. 

Fike chastised Lawrence for refusing to bridge the gap between Herrera and the teachers and said he warned Lawrence that involuntarily transferring teachers could “do more than just rip apart Rosa Parks school, it could very well harm relationships between teachers and principals at other Berkeley schools.” 

Under the teachers contract, involuntary transfers are permissible only in cases when there are “irreconcilable differences” or a poor classroom learning environment. 

Since it’s doubtful that the teachers would be reinstated, Fike said they would seek monetary damages for emotional distress. 

Rosa Parks, which serves some of Berkeley’s poorest children, has repeatedly failed to meet state standards on standardized tests. Teachers, who chose not to give their names, last week said they believed the pressure to improve test scores further damaged their relationship with Herrera. 

Last Friday, Superintendent Lawrence met with 12 parents about the school. She told them she was considering hiring a mentor for Herrera, organizing diversity training for the new staff, and pumping in additional resources for the school, most likely in the form of increased staffing. 

Lawrence also promised to find a new science teacher for Rosa Parks—which is billed as an Environmental Sciences Magnate School—after the school’s dedicated science teacher was among those transferred. 

Finding new teachers from within the district could be tough, Lawrence said after a group of parents, staff and teachers— called Concerned Citizens of Rosa Parks School— vented their frustrations with Herrera. 

Not all parents opposed Lawrence’s decision or Herrera’s work at the school. 

Julie Holcomb, who attended the Friday meeting with Lawrence, praised Herrera as a responsive and committed principal and said the transfers were difficult but necessary. Holcomb said the superintendent told the parents that the overall behavior of children at Rosa Parks was markedly worse than at other district schools and that the culture of the school needed to be overhauled. 

Lawrence and Herrera are scheduled to attend a PTA meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the school. 

d

The lights will not go out on Berkeley after school programs this fall, though they might flicker a bit.  

All seven district schools passed over last week for prized 21st Century Community Learning Center five-year grants will get some renewed funding after all, California Department of Education After School Program Coordinator Pat Rainey told the Daily Planet Wednesday. 

Rainey said the education department planned to announce the names of additional schools slated for funding in 2004-2005 in the coming days, but noted that Longfellow Middle School, King Middle School, Leconte Elementary, Oxford Elementary, Thousand Oaks Elementary, and Berkeley Arts Magnet were on the list. 

“That is welcome news,” said Superintendent Michele Lawrence. The seven schools were among 10 that had applied for renewed funding in the 2003-2004 cycle announced last week, but only Cragmont, Rosa Parks and Washington elementary schools had received the grants. 

At $1 billion, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers are the federal government’s largest distributors of after school programs and one of the biggest contributors to Berkeley Unified’s school-based programs. New state funding rules, however, promise to diminish the size of the grants.  

Prior to this week’s announcement, Lawrence said the district had not received any indication if the other schools would be included, and had started making contingency plans to preserve its after school programs if the money had not materialized. The district had already given layoff notices to its after school employees. 

Julie Sinai, an aide to Mayor Tom Bates, said the city had offered to try to come through with emergency assistance if any of the programs were in danger of closing and that funding for the programs could be included on a proposed $2.2 million ballot initiative to fund youth services. 

As part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the federal government handed over management of the 21st Century program to the states, with strict guidance to give priority to schools labeled failing under the federal education law and with a large proportion of poor students. 

With $92 million in grant requests and only $27 million to hand out to elementary and middle schools in the 2003-2004 cycle, Rainey said the state could only fund failing schools. The three Berkeley schools that already had their funding renewed have begun “program improvement” as required under No Child Left Behind. 

Now the state has decided to use some of the $49 million it will get for 2004-2005 to fund schools that otherwise had strong applications, Rainey said. Assuming the state budget is finalized before the summer, the Berkeley schools should get their upfront funding before the start of the 2004 school year, said Rainey. 

She couldn’t provide specific allocations to Berkeley schools but said the three which received renewed funding for 2003-2004 would receive a total sum of $228,150 and the seven schools scheduled to be renewed for 2004-2005 would receive a total sum of $494,000. 

That will still be a cut for most Berkeley schools. When the federal government oversaw the program, schools could apply for their determined need, but California has opted to give smaller grants to a greater number of schools, Rainey said. 

The state has imposed maximum grants of $75,000 for elementary schools and $100,000 for middle schools, basing much of the money on daily attendance at a rate of $5 per student per day. 

Longfellow Middle School had previously received $135,000 under its grant, about one-third of the total money to fund its after school program, said Principal Rebecca Cheung. 

Parents at the school have organized fundraisers to compensate for lost federal dollars. If the school has a shortfall, Cheung said, it would likely transfer some of its discretionary site funds to the after school program at the expense of other services. 

Some of the district’s after school programs have poor attendance and that district management will consider ways to improve accountability so it doesn’t lose grant money, Superintendent Lawrence said. 

A report issued last year on the federal program found that nationwide, the community learning centers did not raise test scores and needed to be better aligned with state curriculum standards.

Nearly one year after their contract expired, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) announced Tuesday they have unilaterally declared that negotiations with the Berkeley Unified School District are at an impasse. 

BFT President Barry Fike said he expected the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) to appoint a mediator to meet with negotiating teams from both sides of the dispute over the summer. 

The district is not budgeted to approve any wage increases over the next three years. Recent contracts signed with two of the district’s classified unions included no pay raises, but maintained full medical benefits, the cost of which increased by about 12 percent last year. 

The teachers’ previous contract had tied salary increases to a composite of salaries at 31 area school districts to ensure that Berkeley teachers achieved the median pay of the other districts. 

Depending on experience and education level, a Berkeley teacher makes between $33,848 and $70,358. 

—Matthew Artz

Carbs have been taking a beating lately, and the news isn’t getting any better. A pending lawsuit filed against fast food mega-corps McDonald’s and Burger King may leave one of America’s most beloved junk foods with a cigarette-like warning label: “May cause cancer.”  

Acrylamide, a chemical produced when carbohydrate-rich foods like french fries or potato chips are heated to very high temperatures, was discovered in 2002 by Swedish researchers to cause cancer and reproductive harm in high doses. Scientists in the UK, Switzerland, and Japan have all since reached the same conclusion. The FDA, along with the World Health Organization (WHO), considers acrylamide in food to be a “major concern.”  

Unsurprisingly, acrylamide is found in especially high levels in McDonalds’ and Burger King’s best-selling side order, cooked by both at unusually high temperatures to achieve that admittedly yummy crisp. Problem is: The higher the temperature, the more acrylamide you get. According to an article in the Guardian UK, “Americans nowadays eat on average some 30 pounds of fries a year and...35 micrograms of acrylamide a day—many hundreds of times what the WHO judges to be safe.” These facts, and the lawsuit filed to publicize them, has the fast food giants concerned that sales of the high-profit products may plummet.  

So how do all the new discoveries affect the average consumer and their kids? While no government or state agency seeks to pull the beloved french fry from the shelves, they all agree on one thing: Americans should be informed of the risks.  

California’s voter-approved Proposition 65 uses labels to “help consumers make informed choices about products,” which let the buyer beware of chemicals in food and consumer products that are “known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.” Unfortunately for consumers, there is no practical enforcement of the rule.  

Alan Hirsch, a spokesman for California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), explains. “Acrylamide has actually been listed on Prop. 65 since 1990, for the hazard associated with occupational uses of the chemical, but its presence in food has only been known for about two years. Labeling of chemicals on the list, although required, is not enforced. “  

That’s precisely why McDonald’s and Burger King are being sued. “Though it’s the responsibility of individual businesses to have a warning for products on the list,” Hirsch says, “Prop. 65 allows any member of the public to enforce a warning if there isn’t one in place.” If the world’s largest fry sellers lose, as many suspect they will, they’ll be under court order to place acrylamide warnings in their California restaurants, if not directly on their packaging. Because fast food restaurants do about 60 percent of their business in the drive-through window, packaging labels may be preferred.  

Enter Raphael Metzger of Long Beach, the tort lawyer representing the Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT) in the Prop. 65 suit. “By targeting these two companies, the largest market share (of fry sellers) are represented. Addressing this issue with them means that the problem will be remedied in a large portion of the fast food supply, in foods that are highest in acrylamide.” Currently, Metzger is waiting for the OEHHA to draft the language that will put people off their fries and chips.  

From May 17-20, 2004, the National Institutes of Health convened a special panel to look specifically at the risks of acrylamide to reproductive health, ignoring its carcinogenic properties altogether. Though independent scientists found that there was a “minimal concern” that acrylamide levels could cause serious reproductive harm, chromosomal sperm damage was found in mice exposed to high doses of acrylamide (affecting the fertility of their offspring as well). The study concluded, however, that human reproductive health probably wouldn’t suffer much damage.  

“But,” as the famous Simpson’s line goes, “what about the children?” In 1996 it was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency that children often metabolize chemicals and react to them differently than adults. According to Dr. Michael Shelby, Director of the National Toxicology Program at the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction, “Kids get proportionately two to three times the level of exposure to acrylamide as an adult.” Unfortunately, nobody has yet studied the effects of acrylamide on younger bodies, despite the fact that children are clearly targeted by the industry—Ronald McDonald anyone?  

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whose aegis the issue falls under, has been studying acrylamide’s affects on both cancer levels and reproductive health since the Swedish studies came out two years ago. Unsurprisingly, the embattled, and increasingly pro-business, agency has yet to release any data or warnings more specific than it’s fuzzy comment that acrylamide in food represents a “major concern.” McDonald’s, refusing to return phone calls, had no comment on the case or the studies.  

Starre Vartan is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in E Magazine. 

›

Cop Hit (Again) 

A Berkeley motorcycle cop struck by a car while on duty less than a year ago was struck again Wednesday when a motorist hit his motorcycle in downtown Berkeley.  

Officer Ben Cardoza did not sustain any major injuries from this week’s accident, unlike the previous one last August, which sent him to the hospital with broken bones in his leg and foot and large cuts on his arms and face. This time Cardoza came away with bruises and scratches and was able to return to work the same day—at his desk, though, not on his motorcycle, which was damaged in the accident. By Thursday, he was medically cleared for full duty.   

According to police, Cardoza was headed east on Allston Way when a motorist heading south on Milvia Street hit the back of his motorcycle. Cardoza was thrown to the ground and slid into another parked motorcycle. The owner of the parked motorcycle was standing nearby, and also sustained minor injuries. 

The motorist stopped and is cooperating with police. The California Highway Patrol is in charge of the investigation but police would not release information on whether the driver ran the light at the intersection before hitting Cardoza. 

Cardoza, who has been with the department for more than four years, has not been assigned a new motorcycle yet. 

Bank Robbery 

According to police, a young man entered the Andronico’s Market at 1414 University Ave. last Friday around noon and, displaying a handgun, robbed the Wells Fargo bank located in the store. 

The assailant then fled on foot with an undisclosed amount of money. The suspect is described as a black male in his late twenties, 5’10”, with a heavy build. At the time of the robbery, the suspect was wearing a dark colored pea coat, a fisherman’s hat, and dark colored pants. The robbery is part of spree of bank hold-ups that the city has experienced within the last few months. 

Dead body at Aquatic Park 

A jogger saw what appeared to be a dead body lying near the water while jogging through Berkeley Aquatic Park Thursday afternoon. The jogger contacted the police, who confirmed the report.  

Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Officer Joe Oakies said foul play was not apparent. The coroner’s office is handling the case and the name and cause of death are pending. 

Robber on Bike  

On Wednesday afternoon, police report that a young man on a bike tried to rob a furniture store on San Pablo Avenue. They could not confirm whether he was trying to steal money or furniture. 

ˇ

2004 is nothing like 1966. 

In the summer of 1966, we gathered bottles in front of the storefronts near 82nd and East 14th and tossed them at the police cars when they rolled by. It was a year after the Watts riot, only a few months before the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the same summer as police shot demonstrators at the Bayview Community Center, and National Guard tanks rolled down the streets of San Francisco to quell the resulting disturbances. Malcolm X had been shot dead while giving a speech in a Harlem auditorium the year before, the same year civil rights demonstrators got their heads beat in trying to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. All through the fall of 1965 and into the winter and spring of 1966, Oakland’s black neighborhoods brooded in sullen silence, waiting to blow. The Oakland police knew it, and they dispersed any gathering of young African-Americans they came across. They padlocked the school playgrounds as if we were going to steal the rims off the backboards or the erase the basepath lines painted on the ground. They rousted us wherever they found us. We were young, and we were angry. No-one listened to us. No-one spoke up for us. And so, in the summer of 1966, we gathered bottles in front of the storefronts near 82nd and East 14th and tossed them at police cars when they rolled by. We roamed the neighborhood, looking for something to tear up. Someone tried to set fire to the paint factory two doors from our house. If it had caught, it would probably have taken five square blocks with it, including all of where Allen Temple now stands. It didn’t make any sense, but that wasn’t the point. Community anger doesn’t have a point. Pressure builds. Usually finds its release in music or parties or other diversions. Withers as it vents steam from hidden cracks. But sometimes, under certain circumstances, when the cracks have all been closed off and no other outlet can be found, community anger simply explodes. 

But 2004 is nothing like 1966. 

Over the fall and the winter of this past year, and into the early spring, police conducted what they called “Operation Impact” in Oakland, a project in which they flooded something they called “hot spots” with squads of outside officers—mostly California Highway Patrol officers—in what they said was an effort to clamp down on Oakland’s spiraling murder rate. “Hot spots” was a term that was never officially defined. In Oakland, it seemed to be one long stretch along International from High Street to 105th, including several neighborhoods to the east and west. The selected method of stopping Oakland’s murders was to simply pull over cars, in massive doses. Coming home late from work on nights the operation was in full swing, I once saw three cars pulled over by three separate Highway Patrol officers in a ten block stretch. Why all these cars were being pulled over, and what exactly this had to do with Oakland’s murders, we don’t exactly know. But the murder rate slowed and so, like the man in the ancient story who went outside before dawn one day and beat on a drum until the sun comes up—thereafter declaring himself to be the cause of it—Oakland deemed Operation Impact a success. 

What effect it had on all those non-murdering people who were ticketed in those sweeps, whose cars were towed, who had to stop traveling the streets for months at a time...well, we haven’t figured that one out yet, either. We haven’t even bothered to ask. 

In the spring, having tested the procedures in Oakland, the California Highway Patrol moved across the bay to take the program to the streets of San Francisco, which was having its own murderous outbreak. In early May, the Bay Guardian newspaper reported it as “an unprecedented joint San Francisco Police Department-California Highway Patrol crackdown...which would result in 857 traffic stops, 66 arrests, 520 citations, and 72 impounded vehicles. Police say no firearms were found, but three stolen vehicles were recovered. There were just six felony arrests, two for driving under the influence, and four for narcotics. The stated purpose of the operation, according to an SFPD press release put out on the first day, was ‘to control what are referred to as precursors to violent crime and gang-related activity, namely reckless driving, DUI, weapons possession, narcotics, vandalism, and loitering.’” 

“All [Operation Impact] was was ‘driving while black or brown,’” the Bay Guardian quoted a Bayview-Hunters Point leader as saying. “I think what you’ll see is a lot of people who had tickets or a broken taillight who couldn’t afford to pay them who got nailed by that—and is that really fighting crime?” 

Is it? Good question. But San Francisco, of course, is nothing like Oakland. Just like 2004 is nothing like 1966. 

Meanwhile, back in Oakland, the court-appointed police monitoring team set up in the wake of the settlement in the Delphine Allen v. City of Oakland police misconduct case (you remember that case, don’t you? it was part of the Riders scandal) released its third quarterly report on the conduct (or misconduct) of the Oakland Police Department. Under “areas of concern,” the team lists “street strip searches,” in which we learn some details as to how our police are cracking down on crime, in our name: 

“Recent citizens complaints filed with OPD and presented to the [Civilian Police Review Board] complain of searches that, if conducted as alleged, raise serious legal concerns,” the monitoring team reports. “Complaints describe searches on Oakland streets in which young men’s pants and underwear were pulled down, exposing their buttocks and genitalia to their friends, family and strangers on the street. In some instances, OPD officers donned latex gloves and performed invasive searches… In our professional experience,” the monitoring team goes on to say, “such [street strip] searches are unnecessarily humiliating and dehumanizing (sometimes intentionally) and can immediately alienate citizens and destroy community respect for its police department.” 

The “sometimes intentionally” comment concerning dehumanizing, by the way, was in the monitoring team’s report. 

One wonders how many of youngsters—cars impounded in one of the Operation Impact sweeps, humiliated on the streets by strip searches—showed up at Carijama on Monday evening, looking to get some revenge on the cops. This is not to say that the violence at this year’s festival was right, or the proper response. This is just a search for cause. And effect.  

Oakland simmers. Oakland broods. 

2004 is nothing like 1966. 

It may be worse.

SCHOOL FUNDING 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Your front page article (“Berkeley Unified Launches Study of Long-Term Funding Needs,” Daily Planet, June 1-3) states BUSD will “go where no school district has gone before” by weaning itself from state funding and relying on local sources. This is an exciting idea, however BUSD already is where no other district has gone. Without acknowledging the basic math that impacts the schools this new venture must fail. There are already several locally funded districts: Albany, Piedmont, Orinda. All carefully watch admissions so local funds are spent on local kids. There are also other districts that make no real attempt to guard admission. Berkeley is unique in the Bay Area as a preferred school that does not attempt to guard enrollments. Preferred districts see it as a fiduciary responsibility to guard the local funds. Berkeley’s ideology is troubled by this approach. As more local funds are raised the implication of being where no other district has gone before also rises. One former Berkeley High principal estimated that Berkeley High serviced a student body that was half out of district. 

The problem of “free-riders” is a classic political dilemma. One answer to this dilemma is to charge non-residents the average that tax payers fund the schools. Another is to set aside a scholarship pool of separately raised funds.  

Ignoring reality is also a choice. 

David Baggins 

• 

TOXIC TALENT 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

To all the people who wrote voluminously and mindfully in objection to a tasteless article by Richard Brenneman: Have you read this guy’s crime column? This is an individual whose charming “humor” refers to a gunshot wound as a “ventilation”; calls a random street assault a “dustup”; thinks it’s so cool to describe an armed robber as “packing a piece.” That’s enough to know what can be expected of this oh-so-hip writer. It may seem illogical, but it’s not unusual for an otherwise decent paper to carry one mean-spirited columnist whose poison is seen as a kind of balance. Unfortunately, he’s the Senior Editor. We have hopes for the Daily Planet and hope it will have the wisdom to tell this guy to take his toxic talent elsewhere. 

Sandy Rothman 

• 

INTO THE FRAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

OK, I have to jump in to the fray. It seems your staff has fewer reporting and editing skills than we’d all realized. Congratulations on the really bad job of handling this one! Pagans have been a part of the Berkeley community for many years now, and have done some fine things for this city and your staff managed to insult all of us—the active and the quiet ones alike, and quite a few who aren’t Pagans as well. “Cute and clever” or “sarcastic and witty” never works when reporting an event. Your staff should know that without your readership having to remind them! 

Guess I’ll have to dust off my pentacle and actually go next year. 

Leave it to (local rabble rouser and folk singer) Carol Denny to respond with something even nastier than the Planet reporter—maybe the two of them could meet at some cafe and practice being sarcastic and witty together. Their brand of humor is certainly lost on me! No Pagan or Wiccan in his or her right mind would consider the awful and violent things she recommends, not even as a joke! 

Ashes of Roses  

• 

RICHMOND PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Richmond’s proposed campus development: Your staff and, particularly, your reporter Mr. Brenneman, who researched this issue, have done our community and the Bay Area a valuable service. 

Thanks, and keep it up! We need it! 

Tony Sustak 

• 

CORRECTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I must address some corrections to Becky O’Malley’s editorial (“Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us,” Daily Planet, May 25-27). I am one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc. of which she incorrectly states “make fun of Catholic nuns,” “are secretly resentful of women who are in a position of power,” that we “imitate” and/or “mock nuns.” I understand her misperceptions, however a little research at our website—www.TheSisters.org—would have easily cleared up her errors.  

First, we don’t mock nuns anymore than she mocks being a human. We are nuns, we take vows and serve our community and have many fans within many religions including Catholic nuns. We don’t imitate—we are as real as the hate crimes and homophobia, classism, sexism and racism that we seek to overturn in creative manners and agitprop actions.  

The argument has traditionally been made against drag queens and transphobically against intersex individuals that we envy or despise women. We all come from women my dear and if you were to look at us and a picture of a woman I think you would agree that we aren’t trying to fool or deceive anyone that we are women or superior to women. I resent that comment in particular and I think our female and intersex members around the world would agree.  

Our Order was founded to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt—that is guilt applied to you for being yourself—gay, female, poor, a person of color, specially-abled, etc. Amongst our innovations is that in our Order, unlike most mainlining religions, the nuns have the power and all have a voice in the decisions and directions and we transform stigmatic guilt into a call to activism. I would be thrilled if the Catholic Church would put the Pope and cardinals on hold and let the nuns run the church for a while. Maybe then condoms could be put in the hands of those who want them and the “holy” war against queers who want to marry and raise their children in dignity would be stopped. Maybe then women around the world could be granted economic freedom and healthcare for all could manifest. Maybe then wars would be condemned rather than John Kerry refused communion for not demonizing marriage for all. Maybe then making the world a better place for our children’s children would be a priority rather than the greedy needs of the few. 

No, we don’t imitate the Catholic Church, it really would be easy but we have higher goals than that. You wrote that “Religious belief has always been used as justification for outrageous and intolerable actions” and I agree. You also wrote that you have been educated by nuns and now I know that is true again. 

Sister Kitty Catalyst OCP 

• 

STATE BUDGET 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Gov. Schwarzenegger has failed. He campaigned on the promise that he could slash the car tax and balance the budget by getting rid of “waste.” The reality is much different. The governor has failed to find the mythical ‘waste.” Instead the cuts in crime fighting youth programs are part of a long list of critical services that the governor is slashing to afford his car tax refunds. My son’s classroom size is likely to climb into the high thirties, his access to the library is going to be cut, his lungs are going to be attacked by more pollution as cut bus routes drive up traffic, to name just a few more. It is a Faustian bargain. The governor offers a “lower tax” (that mostly benefits those that can afford expensive cars) and we all pay far more in crime, congestion, pollution, hospital bills, and lost kids. Let Arnold and your state representatives know where your priorities lie. 

Tom Lent  

• 

UNIVERSITY AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Following the last meeting of the Planning Commission the mayor and City Council should all be very concerned about the fate of University Avenue. 

It seems as if the Planning Commission has its own agenda for more growth and for the abandonment of the UASP. The commission seems out of control. Instead of hearing the concerns of University Avenue neighbors, the commission only seems to hear the voices of the developers and the build-at-any-cost advocates. And the commission seems to be advocating regulations and guidelines which are overly vague and could lead to more Acton Court buildings. 

It was my understanding that the council instructed the Planning Commission earlier this year to come up with a nuts-and-bolts way to implement the UASP and to address the concerns and needs of all parties, neighbors and developers. But this is clearly not happening. The Planning Commission is not helping to bring people together; it is driving them further apart. 

It certainly seems as if the package the Planning Commission will present to the council for consideration will not solve the unanswered questions about the avenue. The City Council will be asked to vote on regulations and guidelines which will increase the volume of debate on every University Avenue project to come. You can expect more bitter fighting, rancor and the inevitable lawsuits. 

I know the council wanted to have the issue of University Avenue settled before the summer recess. But the attitude of the Planning Commission has made this impossible. 

The City Council must reject the commission’s work when presented for endorsement. The council must tell the commission they got it wrong. The council must tell the commission to meet and listen to all members of the community affected by University Avenue development. And come up with guidelines all can live with. It is possible to reach a consensus, the neighbors and developers seem willing to talk. If it takes a few extra months to get these issues settled it will be worth it in the long run. 

Frank Greenspan 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been to San Luis Obispo only once, but the beautiful downtown creek left a lasting and favorable impression. Couldn’t Berkeley use something other than Telegraph Avenue as a city icon? 

I suggest forming a citizen’s group to get donations and to organize volunteer labor. This might be a way to revitalize community pride as well as downtown Berkeley. 

Robert Gable 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

I received a letter from the city manager about renewing my 2005 preferential parking permit. No where in the letter or on the renewal form does the city mention the mitigation passed along with the fee increase passed last year, that people with incomes under $29,000 a year may pay only half the $30 fee. All they have to do is attach a copy of their income tax statement or other proof of income with the renewal form and a check for $15. 

Is the city so desperate for funds that it will mislead low-income residents by not supplying this information? I think the city manager should send out a new letter with this information and inform those who have already paid that they may receive a refund with the proper supporting information on income. 

One warning: If paying in person, it’s best to make your own copies since the city charges $2 a page! 

Estelle Jelinek 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a born and raised Berkeley girl, I find Susan Parker’s columns offensive and racist. She writes in a very condescending way about the “colorful natives” in her recently gentrified neighborhood. I don’t know where she’s from but I wish she would go back. Why are you printing this stuff? 

Thanks for letting me express my opinion. 

Leslie Williams 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the proposed Longs store in downtown Berkeley, councilmembers Spring and Maio’s remarks sound like they have not visited a local Longs lately. It is not a “liquor outlet” (Maio), that would be Beverages & More. Nor, just by its presence, will it attract “...panhandling to buy alcohol…” (Spring). Panhandlers are rampant in every block of downtown already, with or without Longs. 

It is a dry goods store offering pharmacy, gifts, photo, seasonal items, grocery items, snacks, cosmetics, etc. It is not a ready-food store and thus will offer no competition to the nearby E-Z Stop Deli. They will add their friendly, intelligent service in a spacious, well-stocked store. 

The nearby Walgreens could benefit from the competition. Locals, students and business people in the area are currently given no choice but to shop at the Walgreens which is crowded, rude, under-staffed, and has a limited selection of goods. I invite opposing councilmembers to visit a Longs store in person to see how clean, neat, friendly and professionally the stores are run. With downtown bemoaning the glut of empty storefronts and several recent business closures, the City Council should be welcoming Longs with open arms. Any store selling liquor or cigarettes (Walgreens, E-Z Stop, etc.) should have the same safeguards in place to avoid sales to minors and Longs should not be singled out. 

Katie Breer 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bus fare hikes are again being considered by AC Transit, not yet six months following the December 2003 fare hike for seniors and disabled persons.  

Despite drastic cuts in services, according to items 9 and 10 on an agenda for last AC Transit board meeting (May 19) those who can least afford a fair increase: disabled people, seniors, and also students may be asked to pay more to ride AC Transit next September 2004.  

AC Transit holds its board meetings first and third Wednesdays at 2 p.m.  

Although AC Transit does have a limited if ineffective forum for riders to protest its policies, meetings are always held in small rooms that soon fill, usually at 2 p.m., when working people are least likely to be able to attend. President Wallace, a kindly soft-spoken man, is obviously preempted in meetings by the AC Transit attorney. 

Now is the time to protest fare hikes. Let us not allow a second fare increase in less than a year! AC Transit Riders unite!  

Arlene Merryman 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Whatever Bush and Cheney’s true reasons were for invading Iraq, the actual result has been to validate Osama’s paranoid fear of the USA to millions of Muslim men. Our country’s invasion, born of arrogance and greed, was Al Qaeda’s most effective recruiting tool. But, the sexual abuse conducted in American-run prisons overwhelms the invasion. 

Do you remember the movie “Lawrence of Arabia”? There is a scene, about 1/3 into the film, which cauterizes the audience, solidifies its sympathies with Lawrence against the Turks. Up until that scene, it’s not clear who are the good guys and who are the bad, or why. In that scene, however, a soldier who escaped Turkish capture describes the Turks’ forced sodomization of prisoners. From then on, there is no doubt. 

To Muslim men, the sex abuse pictures from Abu Ghraib show the US to be the kind of pervert about which Muslim radicals rant and rail. Whatever the US mission to the Middle East was - whether to force democracy, stability, or to control terrorism - it is now “Game Over” for us. There is nothing more we can do. 

The Bush government has betrayed us by conducting the war as a depraved nation on a cultural conquest, which Islam has always feared. Turns out, thanks to Bush and Cheney, Osama may not be paranoid; the USA really is an ambitious, corrupt empire. Bush’s administration has failed to protect us. Their arrogant invasion and incompetent occupation have created many, many more enemies. 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

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Editor, Daily Planet: 

I hate to contradict Charles Siegel’s statements about Union Square, but having been in the retail business for over 15 years, including four years with a company that had a store on the square itself, I would not describe Union Square as being your typical retail center. The bulk of the regular customers at the Union Square stores are either tourists from the nearby hotels, or office workers from downtown businesses. Folks from the suburbs do not flock into Union Square to shop, except perhaps once a year at Christmas. Charles is also off base with the parking situation. There is a 985-space garage right under the square itself, an 1865 space garage at Sutter and Stockton, a 925-space garage at Ellis and O’Farrell, and a large private garage on the block behind Macy’s. I suspect people who do come in from out of town drive for the most part, rather than having to fight their way onto BART with bags full of stuff, not to mention having to run the gauntlet of panhandlers and other bizarre people who congregate around the Powell Street BART station.  

What are the implications for Berkeley? If you want to replicate Union Square in Berkeley, build hotels, build more parking, get more office workers, and clean up the streets. Also, get much faster vehicular access from the freeways. On the other hand, if you want to have a fully pedestrianized downtown, with small boutiques and restaurants only, fine, but it won’t attract serious shoppers. As Charles correctly points out, Berkeley is not a natural or a convenient shopping destination in its current physical format. Also, if you want to see one possible vision of what a pedestrian mall can turn into, visit the pedestrian precinct in downtown Sacramento and look at the empty storefronts. All the retail activity in that town is several blocks away in a large indoor complex which has a parking garage attached to it, or out in the suburban malls. 

Sorry, but it’s a fact of life that retail activity and cars go hand in hand in this country. It may not be the ideal situation from a quality of life standpoint, but as I said in one of my earlier missives, you can’t have your cake and eat it. 

Malcolm Carden 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Judy Stamps writes that “years of research in urban design” shows that University Avenue would be most appealing with the three- and four-story buildings of the UA Strategic Plan (“University Avenue Strategic Plan Should Benefit All Berkeley Citizens,” Daily Planet, May 28-31.) 

In reality, as Allan Jacobs says in his book Great Streets, all the research on urban design shows that streets are most visually appealing if the buildings on them are at least half as high as the street is wide. On University Avenue that means that buildings should be at least four stories. 

In his book The Regional City, Peter Calthorpe uses two buildings in Berkeley as models of good urban design: the four-story building on University and Grant, and the five-story building on Oxford and Berkeley Way.  

Calthorpe Associates did not develop a plan for three-story buildings on University Avenue because they believe research shows this height is visually appealing. Pressure from local residents forced them to limit heights to less than what their professional judgment and the research recommends.  

I agree with Stamps that we should zone University Ave. to benefit all Berkeley citizens, not just a vocal minority with a vested interest in the outcome. That is why the city should not cave in to pressure from the small, noisy contingent of University Avenue neighbors. These local residents care only about the impact of development on themselves and not about the good of the city as a whole. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

The exceedingly convenient timing of latest Bush Administration hysteria about those darned summertime terrorist threats (do they only attack in nice weather or are they guided by holiday greeting card fanatics?) is not hard to understand. After all, public support for Bush has been dropping steadily since the mass torturing and unseemly abuse of Iraqi prisoners was revealed to the world in April. However, I could not understand how the London-based Institute for International Baloney got their asserted number of 18,000 “potential terrorists.” (What exactly is a “potential terrorist” anyway?) This morning, one of the local papers said that the FBI was going to notify some 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies of this new supposed terror threat. So it all adds up, one “potential terrorist” per American state and local law enforcement agency. One on one, I think that we can handle that.  

And exactly how are these potential terrorists crossing our national borders after three years of the draconian internal security rules set up by Attorney General John Ashcroft? In donkey carts overland from Canada or Mexico? By plywood gliders flown 5,000 miles from their mountain redoubts in Afghanistan and Pakistan (against the prevailing Westerly winds, to boot)? And how is an alleged threat with “no time, no place and no date” qualify as being called “intelligence?” It sounds more like finely tuned propaganda to scare us into supporting our heroic warmonger to me.  

James K. Sayre 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Jesse Arreguin states that he is the director of the ASUC’s City Affairs, Lobby and Housing Commission (Letters, Daily Planet, May 14-17). I expect that a person in such a position would have access to accurate information about rental housing, and I was therefore very surprised by his assertion that “Most landlords illegally inflate rents and compromise the rights of tenants.” In an informal conversation the executive director of the Rent Board estimated that the number of renter petitions is about 150 per year, and that there are several thousand landlords and about 19,000 rentals in Berkeley. A formal request would elicit more precise numbers but is unlikely to change the basic magnitudes. Even if we assume that every petition represents a case of illegal rent, or compromised tenant rights, and even if we assume that every petition is against a different landlord, this is still a long ways from “most.” 

I don’t think I exaggerate in stating that exaggeration has been a major factor in many of the major social problems facing us today. For an admittedly extreme example, one needs to look no further than “weapons of mass destruction.” You begin to believe your own exaggerations, and make decisions that are based on them. How objective can Mr. Arreguin be towards a class of people he regards as crooks? The problem goes the other way too. If most landlords are crooks, what kind of people will want to become landlords? And how will they treat their tenants? 

If housing is really a “basic human right” why is it that only landlords have to pay to provide it? And why do we vilify them for doing it? I don’t share Mr. Koenigshofer’s faith in the market, but that doesn’t mean that rent control is the best solution. 

Robert Clear 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet:  

If I may weigh in regarding John Koenigshofer’s op-ed assailing Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Ordinace (“Kill City Rent Control Panel,” Daily Planet, May 11-13), and Rent Board chair Max Anderson’s subsequent response (“Rent Board Chair Chides Control Foe’s ‘Rant,’” Daily Planet, May 25-27): 

Mr. Koenigshofer obviously relishes his role as an anti-rent control agent provocateur. His suggestion that rent control is “unfair,” “unneeded,” “counterproductive,” should be dismantled, etc., flies in the face of reality: Rent stabilization ordinances have been part of California’s social/cultural fabric for nearly 25 years, and have been declared reasonable and constitutional by the California Supreme Court in several decisions. 

Along with the City of Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, Hayward, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and a half dozen other California cities operate rent stabilization ordinances. Moreover, more than 100 mobile home park sites statewide maintain rent stabilization laws. Together, these community rent stabilization ordinances regulate nearly a million tenant households across California.  

To briefly respond to Keith Winnard’s June 1 letter regarding Max Anderson’s May 25 op-ed stating his opposition to tenant “means testing”: If Mr. Winnard considers means testing to be “logically consistent,” than it follows that a parallel or reciprocal rental property owner means testing process is also logically consistent. 

Such an approach, however, is both counterproductive and legally untenable. 

Like the regulation of electricity and gas, telephone service, water, and other vital California services, community rent stabilization ordinances are universal regulatory programs—not selective or arbitrary income-based programs. 

Chris Kavanagh, 

Commissioner, Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board 

Ó

I’m writing as one of the “anxious artists” from Nexus who attended the recent Berkeley City Council Subcommittee on the New Animal Shelter. These meetings have been going on for about two years—this is the first we have attended since finding out about them one month ago. 

It’s been quite a shock to learn that after 30 years as an arts and crafts cooperative (one of the first in West Berkeley), with two years remaining on our lease, we have a bulls-eye painted on our backs. Jill Posener, chair of the city’s Citizens Humane Commission, who ran the meeting, told me afterward that we are the only site in West Berkeley suitable for the new bond-subsidized animal shelter. 

How we got to this point seems like a classic case of missed opportunities and capricious, arbitrary judgment calls. I am basing my commentary largely upon Posener’s remarks at the public meeting, a previous meeting she requested at Nexus, and on my conversations with her. We have had scant opportunity to negotiate with Councilperson Breland, the mayor, or city staff. I applaud Posener for open and forthright (if belated) communication with us. Otherwise we would be completely out of the proverbial loop. This letter should not be interpreted as a personal attack on my part, but Posener is de facto the city’s only negotiator vis a vis Nexus and presumably with the knowledge of and on behalf of city staff, councilmembers, and the mayor. 

Posener blames city officials and the bond language for thwarting the acquisition of her optimal site: the former Urban Ore location on Gilman at Sixth Street. 

As I understand the scenario, she advocated for using the bond monies to buy the McCauley Foundry site on Carleton below Seventh Street, and then trading up for the Gilman location. After that deal fell through (or was quashed at the highest levels), Posener provides various explanations for why the Foundry site was then rejected, lost, or some combination of the two. 

At the subcommittee meeting, she objected to the Foundry’s proximity to the railroad tracks and to Bayer Corp., which conducts animal-testing. Yet the area of West Berkeley that she wants to relocate to is permeated with Bayer parking lots, offices, and labs, Nexus is a scant two blocks from the tracks, one more than the foundry, and one (short) block from Bayer. 

Even Alan Shriro of the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, part of the proposed joint venture with the city-owned animal shelter, indicated that a new building could be almost completely sound-proofed. (One example of the co-existence of noise and human residents is the Clocktower luxury loft building at the San Francisco end of the Bay Bridge--windows have been double and triple-glazed.) 

At the meeting, Posener reacted angrily to a participant at the meeting holding up a handout from the city manager’s office, describing a for sale property at 945 Camelia containing a 20,000 building on a 35,000-square-foot parcel. She dismissed the building as a “tear-down” (apparently acceptable in the case of the distinctive Nexus Building), and later told me another drawback was the proximity of neighbors she feared would object. This squares perfectly with her preference for Nexus--located in what she (inaccurately) described at the meeting as not being part of a neighborhood. 

After the meeting, Posener angrily shot down my suggestion of the Jetco site at Channing Way and Fifth Street, saying I was insulting to suggest a location so close to the tracks. 

In her visit to Nexus, Posener indicated that her “vision” for a new shelter required that all operations except for possibly offices must be on ground level. She said it was not acceptable for dogs to use elevators or climb stairs. She said a pet emergency room must be on ground level. The Humane Society’s Shriro, again, seemed to disagree about the inherent problems for dogs with stairs and elevators. 

In reality, while Posener recognizes the difficulty of finding a site in a dense city like Berkeley, her “vision” and what she finds acceptable are the more expansive suburban models involving the conversion of open space and farmland. 

The obviously inadequate existing animal shelter has a 7,000-square-foot building on a 12,000-square-foot lot, the voter-approved $7.2 million bond measure provides for a 12,000-square-foot building on a 20,000-square-foot, and Posener’s goal is a 20,000-square-foot building on a 35,000-square-foot lot. She does allow that the bond measure is inadequate for her goal. 

I certainly do not mean to suggest that Posener alone is driving the site selection process that has apparently been concluded behind closed doors. A compromise of sharing the spacious site—a retrofitted Nexus alongside a new shelter—although floated by a city manager, is apparently not seriously under consideration. It’s clear what the Humane Society brings to the table is the land, which they own. Unfortunately for Posener and some city officials, that site is not vacant but the location of Nexus. 

Arts and crafts uses are protected by both the West Berkeley Plan (part of zoning) and the newly drafted Cultural Plan. The Nexus Building is a potential landmark—the brick portion was built by the prestigious Austin Building Co. in 1924, and is an unfortunately increasingly rare example of early industrial activity in West Berkeley. Nexus is also notable for being a locus of studios, woodshop, and gallery exhibits for some 30 years. 

It is not bragging to say that Nexus helps to provide the ambiance that’s bringing developers, shoppers, and residents to this vital neighborhood. 

I would also like to make a small correction to an implication in Brenneman’s well-written article (“Arts Commissioners Call For Public Input,” Daily Planet, April 27-29). Nexus has not had the opportunity to negotiate an extension of our lease as a trade for Nexans providing the seismic upgrade—we have been consistently told by the Humane Society that they will tell us what they have decided to do about our lease renewal when they have made up their minds. 

Under state law, the property owner—in this case, the Humane Society—is ultimately responsible for seismic upgrades. But because the city continues to grant their requests for waivers for seismic compliance, the Humane Society apparently feels no urgency to bring the building up to code. This despite the hazards to their own staff, patrons, and pets in their dog-training area which is part of the unreinforced masonry building. They would benefit from our retrofit. 

We shouldn’t forget that those who died in the recent Paso Robles earthquake were killed on the street by falling debris—Nexus is right on the street and the parking in front and side is claimed by employees from nearby businesses, customers of Juan’s Place, and probably even Humane Society users. 

As an individual who lives in a household with two rescue cats, a dog, and macaw, and who has spent hundreds of hours and dollars rescuing, taming, having neutered and trying to find homes for feral cats and kittens I am acutely aware of the paucity of shelter services in the immediate area. I have often had to drive to San Francisco and even Novato shelters in order to place animals. I fully support the creation of an expanded and improved local shelter. 

But irrational, inconsistent reasoning and pious opinions must be set aside before another site can be found or the Nexus site be shared. Time is of the essence. An Environmental Impact Report, which the proposed demolition of the Nexus Building would surely trigger, will only add long delays and additional costs. The consideration of alternatives and constructive solutions mandated by an EIR should be happening right now. 

This is one catfight that could have been avoided. Arbitrary and short-sighted decisions should stop driving the process, and all the stakeholders should be at the table. 

Bob Brokl is an Oakland resident. 

›

We’ve all heard about the inspections that took place in Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction and programs to make them. As we know, none were found in Iraq. 

That wouldn’t be the case if the inspectors were to come to the University of California at Berkeley. They would find that programs to research, design, develop, improve, test, and maintain nuclear weapons have been going on under the auspices of this university for more than 60 years. They would find that the University of California provides oversight to the nation’s two principal nuclear weapons laboratories: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. They would find that today these weapons laboratories are engaged in attempting to make new, more usable nuclear weapons: “bunker-busters” and mini-nukes. 

For a fee, the University of California has provided a fig leaf of respectability to the research and development of the most horrendous weapons known to humankind. It is ironic that our government cannot tolerate the possibility of Iraqi scientists creating such weapons, but at the University of California such a horrid use of science is called “a service to the nation.” 

Two of the weapons developed at the Los Alamos Laboratory were used on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were relatively small weapons but caused the deaths of more than 200,000 persons, mostly innocent civilians, by incineration, burning, blast and radiation poisoning. There are no guarantees that the nuclear weapons being developed today under UC auspices will not be used again. In fact, the odds are that they will be used again, by accident or design. 

There are three reasons the UC should get out of the nuclear weapons business: 

First, UC is a great university, and no great university should lend its talents to making weapons capable of destroying cities, civilizations and most life on Earth. A university exists to examine the amazing wonders of our world, to collect and categorize knowledge, and to pass important knowledge from the past on to new generations. How can a great university allow itself to be co-opted into helping create weapons of mass destruction? 

How can the UC Board of Regents justify this as “a service to the nation”?  

Second, there is no moral ground on which nuclear weapons can rest. These are weapons of mass murder. They cannot discriminate between combatants and civilians. They kill indiscriminately. By continuing to develop and improve these weapons, the United States, economically and militarily the strongest country in the world, is signaling to other nations that these weapons would be useful for them as well. 

Third, the International Court of Justice has stated that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law. It allowed only one possible exception in which the “very survival of a state” was at stake. In such a situation, it said that the law was unclear, but under any circumstance the use of nuclear weapons would not be legal if it failed to discriminate between civilians and combatants or caused unnecessary suffering. There is no evidence that nuclear weapons could be used without violating these precepts. 

Sir Joseph Rotblat, a Manhattan Project scientist and Nobel Peace Laureate, has written: “If the use of a given type of weapon is illegal under international law, should not research on such weapons also be illegal, and should not scientists also be culpable?” 

It is time to heed the words of Professor Rotblat and to bring nuclear weapons under control. If the scientists and engineers at the laboratories are unwilling to give up their role in creating and improving nuclear weapons, then at least the UC community can send a message to the rest of the country and the world that it is no longer willing to participate in the management of laboratories making weapons of mass murder. 

The motto of the University of California is “fiat lux,” meaning “let there be light.” It is unlikely that the light the founders of the university had in mind was the flash “brighter than a thousand suns.” They meant the light of knowledge, truth and beauty. The University of California should end its association with the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories when the contract expires in 2005. 

David Krieger is president of the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and the author of Nuclear Weapons and the World Court and Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

“I’ve spent the last 30 years being a public nuisance,” says Julia Vinograd, adding—with a smile—“in a positive way.” 

Berkeley’s unofficial street poet laureate is a familiar figure on Telegraph Avenue, and anyone who finds a table at the Caffe Mediterraneum soon finds Julia approaching with several of the 48 volumes she’s published. 

“I wave my books at people, and if they open them, they find themselves outraged by the fact that they’re actually readable,” she says. 

A Berkeley native, Vinograd was raised in Pasadena, another world entirely, before returning as an undergraduate in 1961 to study poetry under the likes of Gary Snyder. 

Caught up by the turbulent events of the early ‘60s, she found herself among the 700 students who occupied Sproul Hall for the Free Speech Movement Sit-in. 

“I wasn’t anybody important,” she says. “I wasn’t a politico—I was a poet, an English major.” 

After graduating from UC in 1965, Vinograd headed off to the University of Iowa for her Masters of Fine Arts, and then, two years later, it was back to Berkeley. 

“When I left, all the girls looked like secretaries and all the boys looked like law clerks,” she said. “When I came back, there’d been a cultural revolution. Now they all looked like they’d just walked off a tapestry. I wandered around the streets with my notebook and tried to capture it all.” 

It wasn’t just a notebook she carried as she made her entry into the world of street poetry. Vinograd quickly established herself as “the Bubble Lady” for the bubbles she created to entertain children. 

“I basically do one book a year now and I blow bubbles for the kids. Otherwise, I’m useless,” she quips. 

In the early years it was two books a year, slim volumes created with a mimeograph machine and a stapler. Today’s books offer twice as many poems, slick covers, and machine bindings. 

“Until recently they were $3 each, but I had to go up to $5,” Vinograd said. 

But if you’re running short of cash, don’t worry—she’ll either cut the price or offer to barter. 

“I love trading. I get at least half my holiday presents every year by trading with street vendors,” she explains. “I also do CDs now.” 

Like so many in Berkeley who remember the ‘60s, Vinograd harbors a soft spot in her heart for that long-vanished era. 

“You could do pretty much anything you wanted to and live pretty much any way you wanted. The Grateful Dead started as a garage band then, and now music is so corporatized that garage bands don’t have a chance. And a lot of people stayed on the street by choice,” she explains. 

For poets and artists, Telegraph offered tons of good food, “and all of it very cheap. In the beginning, I hung out at the Med and the Forum. And there was Pepe’s Pizza Parlor, where we went for the best ice cream. That was when the crew that was filming The Graduate got kicked out of the Med and they had to shoot Dustin Hoffman from the street.” 

Vinograd recalls one delightful moment “when a group of young, very blonde kids walked up to me and said, ‘We know you. We’ve been rolling joints on your face through three states.’” 

It was then they produced one of her books, which they’d used as a platform to capture the debris spilled as they rolled up their doobies.  

But one thing’s a lot better these days, Vinograd says, and that’s poetry. 

“There’s a lot more poetry right now. The ‘60s produced the worst poetry I’ve ever read, everyone trying to capture the essence of their acid trips. The ‘50s were good, and things started coming back in the ‘70s. The critics were mad at Charles Bukowski because people actually read him, and critics feel that poetry is something that should have to be interpreted.” 

Vinograd anticipated one question before it could be asked—how much does poetry writing pay? 

“You make a living off your books when you’re dead,” she said. “Right now, one book pays for the next.” 

Vinograd has no shortage of friends, and her sister Deborah—also a Berkeley resident—creates the illustrations that add yet another dimension to some of her poetry books. 

Though she walks a little less because age and time are taking their toll on her legs, Julia Vinograd remains a fixture along Berkeley’s Telegraph row, offering poems, conversation and the occasional bubble to all.

Simple syllables 

woven together 

bring great joy to Berkeleyans 

Or so an aspiring haiku artist might describe this Saturday’s Berkeley Poetry Festival and Community Fair, returning after a one-year hiatus. 

Created by Berkeley poet Louis Cuneo—a transplanted New Yorker—this year’s free festival features the poetry of Berkeley High School students, open mic readings, a two-hour poetry slam, music, and a presentation to and reading by Julia Vinograd, the city’s unofficial poet laureate. 

Festivities begin at 11:15 a.m. at Civic Center Park, with 45-minute set by The Wild Buds, a Berkeley band. 

Starting 15 minutes later, anyone’s welcome to sign up for a slot in the open mic poetry readings—three minutes max per poet—which commence at noon and finish at 1:45. 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington will next present the city’s first Lifetime Achievement Award to Vinograd. 

After Vinograd reads one of her creations, Charles Ellick of the Berzerkeley Poetry Slam will host a two-hour festival poetry slam, featuring two rounds and a collection of prizes. 

Students from Berkeley High School’s Youth Speaks will close the festival hour, with readings from 4 to 5 p.m. 

While the poets hold center stage, a variety of other activities will also be on hand, including children’s activities, a community fair featuring publishers, poets, craftsfolk, artists, organic food vendors, a blood drive organized by the Alameda County Red Cross, student and teacher workshops presented by Youth Speaks and a Poet’s Scroll—a group poem to which all comers are welcome to add their lines. 

“This isn’t an ‘I’ event,” said Cuneo. “It’s a ‘we’ event.” 

But Cuneo’s personal history is a ballad-poem in itself. 

While still living in New York, Cuneo attended a performance by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. His raucous laugh attracted Zappa, who used both his laugh and his stream of consciousness ramblings in several albums. 

Cuneo moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1970 while still in his early twenties. “I decided that if I had to live with cockroaches, I might as well do it in a nice, warm environment.” 

Mother’s Hen, the organization Cuneo created to help poets bring their work to the community, began a year later, the outgrowth of a poetry reading in his home. 

He moved to Berkeley a decade later. 

A specialist in haiku, a Japanese meditative poetry that must cast its spell in a mere 17 syllables, he has branched out into photography—using film to capture the essence of haiga, a visual form of haiku that seeks to capture an image in 17 brushstrokes. 

Cuneo’s written and photographic creations are available in ten books and included in several anthologies. 

Berkeley Poetry Festival & Community Fair, 11:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Civic Center Park. For more information go to http://mothershen.com/.  

b

“No applause, please” the diva commands as she walks on stage at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.  

Quite probably the patter of applause heralds the start of a storm of greeting for the multi-award-winning actress, Rita Moreno, who stars in the Rep’s new production of Master Class, Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning play about opera singer Maria Callas. After all, we’ve all known about Moreno since she opened in West Side Story decades ago. The woman has won every award in the theatrical world. You name them: Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony, the works. 

The icing on the cake is that there has had to be a slight adjustment in the current run at the Rep, so that Moreno can go to Washington D.C. to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  

But it is Maria Callas, the formidable diva herself, who will brook no nonsense—nor will Moreno, who embodies Callas in every second that she is on that stage. The audience members are rapidly whipped into shape. Callas’ wit is sharp, but funny. She will, mind you, throw the audience a bone from time to time during the evening, in the form of a direct comment or so, but she is on stage to conduct her famous singing classes and intends to waste no time.  

First, however, it will be necessary, absolutely necessary, mind you, to make sure that the pillow (in the chair that she probably won’t sit in all night) is at exactly the correct height. As the result of Callas’ various demands, we see rather more than one would expect of Owen Murphy, who plays a stagehand. His portrayal is so convincing that his first appearance on the stage may very well strike you as a minor accident. When he subsequently finds himself running various errands for the nit-picking Callas, his lack of awe is refreshing. 

When Callas finally gets her pillow and so forth organized according to her standards, she becomes gracious enough to greet the talented young piano player, Manny (played by Michael Wiles). He has been well within her view since she stepped on stage, but she has ignored him while she dealt with “more important” matters. He is the first of the awe-stricken neophytes, in his case so overcome by her fame that he can barely speak. 

Sophie, the first of the three students who see themselves as honored to be selected for a lesson with the great singer, is played by Donna Lynn Champlain. One’s sympathies are almost immediately engaged by this awkward, clumsily dressed and eager young woman with the beautiful voice. She is a natural target for the kind of situation she stumbles into with Callas and is naïve enough to say—after most adults would have stormed out in fury—“I think she likes me!” 

We hear only a very few bars of Sophie’s singing. Callas talks away most of the time she consciously spends with the girl and then goes into a reverie. As she recounts her early history, she becomes more and more an object of sympathy and far less the antagonistic, self-centered control-freak that she has appeared so far. Perhaps the fact that her image as a young woman in a white ballet costume dances in the background helps one’s attitude. (Cheree A. Sager is both graceful and deft in this role.) 

Sherry Boone and Scott Scully, who next take their turns as the students Sharon and Tony, are given a somewhat easier time than was poor Sophie. At least each of them gets to demonstrate their very real vocal gifts. In Callas’ second reverie, she relives some of her experiences as the lover of the richest man in the world—and some of the humiliation and losses to which she was subjected in that relationship. Again, she becomes a more sympathetic, as well as a more well-rounded figure. It’s an effective technique and well staged.  

While perhaps it isn’t surprising that Rita Moreno creates such a flawless presentation, it does seem a remarkable feat of casting that the supporting roles are filled with such powerful talent, musically and dramatically. Director Moises Kaufman has created a seemingly flawless production of Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning play.›

FRIDAY, JUNE 4 

CHILDREN 

Love Those Classics, with readings from “Ugly Ducking” and “The Gingerbread Man” at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“The Renowned Photography of Margaretta K. Mitchell” reception for the artist from 6 to 8 p.m. at Schurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. Exhibition runs to June 30. Gallery hours are Wed. - Sat. 2 to 6 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 524-0623. 

California College of Art Alumni Exhibition at 5212 Broadway, Oakland, through June 10. 594-3788. 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep “Master Class” with Rita Moreno at The Roda Theater. Runs through July 18. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Impact Theatre “Money and Run” an action serial adventure with different episodes on Thurs., Fri. and Sats. Runs through June 5 at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. For tickets and information call 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

New Shakespeare Co., “Hamlet” directed by Stanley Spenger, at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, through June 5, no show June 3. Tickets are $10-$12. 234-6046. www.geocities.com/spoonboy_sf/hamlet.html 

California Shakespeare Theater, “Comedy of Errors,” Tues.-Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, through June 27. Tickets are $13-$32. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ben Bagdikian describes “The New Media Monopoly” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“The Spoken Word Show” with films by David Michalak and stories by Dean Santomieri, and music by Tom Djill at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation $8-$15. www.thejazz- 

house.com 

Calvin Trillin reads from his new collection of verse, “Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Potential Jazz Ensemble and MLK Jr. Middle School Jazz Band perform at 7:30 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. at Grant. Admission is free but donations gratefully accepted in support of the school music program. 

Berkeley High School Jazz Band’s Final Concert at 7 p.m. at the Little Theater, Allston Way, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. www.berkeleyhighjazz.org 

Berkeley Public Library Jazz Festival with the Tammy Hall Trio at 8 p.m. in the Reading Room at 2090 Kittredge. Free. 981-6100. 

SambaDá, Brazilian dance music, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Stompy Jones performs East Coast Swing and Lindy Hop 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 

Norton Buffalo and friends, harmonica and acoustic trio, 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 

The Ex-Boyfriends, Bitesize, Robosapien at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

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

Happy Turtle, jazz trio, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Paintbox, Look Back and Laugh, Cropknox, Ballast 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. 

The Cuts, rock and roll from Oakland, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

André Sumelius’ LIFT, drummer from Finland, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Cannonball and Realistic Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$10. 548-1159. 

www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Anton Schwartz, saxophonist, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

SATURDAY, JUNE 5 

CHILDREN  

Los Mapaches at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8 for adults, 43 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Wild About Books” storytime with Cric Crac Storytelling Troupe and stories from Jamaica at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

How to Make a Pop-Up Book with author Lulu Hansen at 3 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. books@ewbb.com 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Visualizing Perspective” featuring Gary De Jong and Chung Ae Kim at 4th Street Studio, 1717D Fourth St. www.fourthstreetstudio.com 

THEATER 

Wilde Irish Productions, “Eclipsed” by Patricia Burke Brogan, at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Runs Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through June 27. Tickets are $15-$20. 841-7287. www.wildeirish.org 

FILM 

International Media Festival on Disabilities from 1 to 9 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ed Craine, contributing author, discusses “Masters of Success” at 3 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Public Library Jazz Festival with Mary Watkins Trio at 8 p.m. in the Reading Room at 2090 Kittredge. Free. 981-6100. 

Bella Musica Chorus with the Prometheus Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito, Oakland. 525-5393. info@bellamusica.org  

Pacific Boychoir performs Bach’s Cantata 150 at 7 p.m. at Firts Presbyterian Church, 27th and Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15, available from 866-486-3399. www.pacificboychoir.org 

Pacific Mozart Ensemble performs at 7:30 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $15-$20. 415-705-0848. www.pacificmozart.org 

José Luis Orozco at 10 a.m. at La Peña, in a benefit concert for BAHIA, Inc. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Chelsey Fasano and Helen Chaya, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1FM at 8 p.m. at The Longhaul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190. 

“Hooray For Hollywood” Alameda Civic Light Opera features dinner and a floorshow with songs from Hollywood blockbuster movies along with movie-themed live and silent auctions, at 6 p.m. at the Alameda Elks Lodge. Tickets are $55. 864-2256. www.aclo.com  

Mighty Prince Singers and Talk of Da Town, roots of a cappella, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

African Folk Night with The Nigerian Brothers and DJ Omar at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Drum circle with Pope Flyne at 9 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Wayward Monks, jam band jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Cost is $8-$15 sliding scale. www.thejazzhouse.com 

7th Direction, Hyim and the Fat Folkland Orchestra, Shantytown at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Times 4, jazz funk quartet, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Embrace the End, Animosity, Lifelong Tragedy 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. 

Blame Sally at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Braziu at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $8-$10. 548-1159. 

www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Sylvia and the Silvertones at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. www.downtownrestaurant.com 

SUNDAY, JUNE 6 

CHILDREN 

“The World in my Neighborhood: Celebrating the Bay Area’s Cultural Heritage” Family Day at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum from 1 to 4 p.m. with music, arts and demonstrations. Cost is $1-$4. 643-7648. http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Artist in Watershed” an exhibition of artworks by Patricia Bulitt opens at the Addison St. Windows, 2018 Addison St. 981-7533. 

THEATER 

“Primo” a play by Ed Davidson, on the last days of Holocaust author, Primo Levi, at 7:30 PM Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut Street. Cost is $15-$20. 925-798-1300. 

FILM 

International Media Festival on Disabilities from 1 to 9 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Christie Mellor discusses child-rearing in “The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Flash with contributors reading from “So Luminous the Wildflowers, An Anthology of California Poets” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

George Farah exposes the presidential debate process in “No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates” at 7:30 at Black Oak Books. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Public Library Jazz Festival with the Dee Spencer Trio at 8 p.m. in the Reading Room at 2090 Kittredge. Free. 981-6100. 

The Youth Arts Studio, ”inside out,” a dance performance and art exhibition at noon at All Souls Church, 2220 Cedar St. Youth Arts Studio is a non-profit after school program offering professional-quality training in dance and the visual arts to middle and high school students. The performance and exhibit are free and open to the public. 848-1755. www.youthartstudio.org 

Bella Musica Chorus with the Prometheus Symphony at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito, Oakland. 525-5393. info@bellamusica.org  

Piedmont Choirs Spring Sing at 3 p.m. at the Kofman Theatre, 2200 Central Ave. Alameda. Tickets are $10-$12. 547-441. www.piedmontchoirs.org 

Hip Hop Circus benefit for Camp Winnarainbow at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$1000. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Art Lande Quartet at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com  

Americana Unplugged: The Saddle Cats, traditional bluegrass, at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Swinging on the Home Front, a cabaret and sing-along salute to the great songs of WWII, at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Za’atar, music of the Jews of Arab and Muslim lands, 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 

MONDAY, JUNE 7 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Actors Reading Writers “Surprising Loves: Art and Romance,” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave.  

Ben Cohen explains “50 Ways You Can Show George the Door in 2004” at 12:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Dale Maharidge interviewed over one hundred Americans to write “Homeland” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Melita Schuam talks about what it is like to be a woman in midlife in “A Sinner of Memory” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 

The Last Word presents poets Sparrow 13 and Maw Shein Win at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Bookstore, 2349 Shattuck Ave.  

Poetry Express, featuring Alice Templeton, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Frankye Kelly sings Gershwin at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, JUNE 8 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Penelope Grenoble O’Malley introduces her memoir “Malibu Diary: Notes from an Urban Refugee” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Geneen Roth discusses weight-loss in “The Craggy Hole in My Heart and the Cat who Fixed It” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

The Whole Note Poetry Series, with Toby Kaplan and Howard Dycus and open mic, at 7 p.m. at The Beanery, 2925 College Ave., near Ashby. 549-9093. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

2nd Annual June Jazz Jubilee from 3 to 5 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Home, 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. Free, but reservations requested. 434-2871. 

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

Jazz House Jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Janis Siegel in a tribute to Broadway at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. Also on Wed. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Stan Ridgeway at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazz-school at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9 

CHILDREN 

Preschool Storytime, a program introducing books and music to promote early literacy skills, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

FILM 

John Calloway’s AfroCuban Youth Ensemble at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $4-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Marc Bojanowski talks about “The Dog Fighter” set in the underworld of 1940s Mexico, at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Peretz Kidron introduces the anthology “Refusenik!: Israel’s Soldiers of Conscience” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Penelope Tzougros talks about “Wealthy Choices: The Seven Competencies of Financial Success” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Concord Ensemble, a cappella sextet performs “Your Beautiful Eyes,” music by the Renaissance Dutch master Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $20. 310-867-9583. www.concordensemble.com  

Coro Ciconia performs “Ockeghem & Son,” a program of late medieval and early Renaissance choral music, at 8 p.m. at Loper Chapel at First Congregational Church, Dana at Durant. Tickets are $10. 843-0450. pcfisher@berkeley.edu  

“Black and Female: What is the Reality?” A benefit performance at 8 p.m. at the Oakland Box, 1928 Telegraph Ave. Tickets are $15-$50 sliding scale. 536-2260. 

Billy Dunn and Bluesway at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. West Coast Swing lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Carol Denney, singer, songwriter, activist at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Christy Dana Quartet, trumpet-led original jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Cost is $8-$15 sliding scale. www.thejazzhouse.com 

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

The Key of Z: Experimental Instruments, and the Music They Make, with Peter Whitehead and his recycled instruments, at 7:30 p.m.at the Pacific Film Archive. Sponsored by Amoeba Records. 642-0808. 

Gaucho Gypsy Jazz at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

ubzorb and Sandhya Sanjana, Indian jazz vocalist at 9 p.m. at The Lucre Lounge, 2086 Allston at Shattuck. Cost is $5. 841-1390."

For the longest time, I felt sure that a romantic dinner out meant sitting across from your companion at a candlelit table in a great restaurant. It is only recently that I’ve been won over to the charms of bellying up to the bar in those very same restaurants and eating side by side. 

Sitting at the bar allows you and your sweetie to speak to each other in a normal tone of voice rather than holler your wit and wisdom across the table. Plus you are in a larger social arena than you would be able to enjoy if exiled to a table of your own.  

Whether you’re dining alone at the bar or with a friend, you can broaden the scope of your interactions by socializing with other patrons, if they interest you, as well as with the bartender. 

Bartenders at such places, as far as I’ve been able to tell, are rather like yoga teachers: It’s rare that I find one I don’t like. The best ones give you the sense that they both know and appreciate you, oddities and all. They are sensitive to your needs without ever intruding themselves on your privacy. They are not just your servers at dinner—they are part of the social ambiance of your meal. 

Now, mind you—the bars I’m talking about are every bit as much about food as they are about alcohol. I myself am completely hopeless as a drinker—one martini is to me as a fifth of Chivas Regal would be to someone better schooled in the art of drinking. Two glasses of good red wine in the course of an entire evening are more than enough to make me feel that I am celebrating. 

Berkeley, with its high standards for both food and conversation, is an ideal venue for a gourmet pub crawl. Normally I would at most go to two of these places in the course of an evening out. But, for the purposes of this article, I left a trail of lipstick-stained wineglasses all across Berkeley. Please, if you follow in my path, drink moderately and/or take taxis as you move about town. 

Start with oysters at Café Rouge on Fourth Street. They’re my standard for what is good and fresh and plump and tasty. I love it that Robbie the oysterman always smiles like a beaming schoolteacher as he points to the various mollusks and tells us where they come from. Someone who loves martinis would have one at this point, perhaps served by Darin, who tends the bar on mid-week evenings and exudes such an air of generosity, solicitude and goodwill. 

You could easily spend an entire festive evening at Café Rouge. Ask Darin for his recommendations about what’s best on the menu, which changes every other Wednesday. He’s never wrong. 

Wave goodbye and drive up to San Pablo Avenue and turn north until you get to Nizza la Bella, where chef-owners Eleanor Triboletti and Evelyne Slomon recreate the Italian-inspired tastes and smells of southeastern France. Sit at the bar and order the beignet de “Fiouretta de Cougourda,” delicate zucchini-blossom fritters stuffed with herbs and goat cheese—a veritable mouthful of summer. If you decide to end your evening here, be sure not to miss the individual apple tarts baked in the wood-fired oven imported from Provence. 

For your main course, if you’re still on the move, I would suggest avoiding a main course altogether with a stop at Richard Mazzera’s César, the beloved tapas bar next to Chez Panisse on Shattuck Avenue. Everything is delectable and the menu changes at least a little bit every day. My dining partner and I always prefer sharing two small plates. I love the bocadillo with smoked salmon and queso fresco, the stuffed piquillo peppers and all of the salads. The shoestring potatoes with fried rosemary and aioli on the side are enough to make a carb-counter like myself tremble with desire.  

César can get very crowded, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. If you go either very early or very late, you’ll have a better chance of getting a seat at the bar (but getting a seat at the bar is easier than getting a table). You can stand with a glass of wine, chatting with Cate and her boyfriend Dylan, if they’re working that night, and keeping a weather eye on the crowd, prepared to pounce when a place at the bar becomes available. 

Return to Fourth Street, if you’ve saved some room, and finish up at the bar of O Chame with a bowl of their balsamic gelato. I love this dessert. Not too sweet or filling, it nonetheless gives your palate a wonderfully grownup goodnight kiss. Share a glass of one of the delicious dessert wines on the menu—and vow to come back for a complete meal at this restaurant, where everything that comes out of the kitchen is exquisite and original while maintaining a laudable simplicity.  

If you feel that you’ve imbibed too much to drive safely, you can always sleep in the car and have breakfast at Betty’s the next morning. 

Barbara Quick’s latest book, Even More/Todavía Más, is a bi-lingual mother-daughter gift book co-written with artist Liz McGrath.

Berkeley Unified is about to go where no school district has gone before. Come Tuesday the district will seek to wean itself from state dependency and embark on a mission to turn school funding upside down. 

Known in the education business as an “adequacy study,” the district, with the help of community members and education experts, is setting out to examine the essential components of a good education, determine its price, and then figure out how to pay for it. 

The goal is to determine the district’s needs and expenses and plot a course for securing funds so that Berkeley Unified isn’t at the mercy of California’s diminishing education resources, said Lawrence Picus, a professor at the University of Southern California and a participant in Tuesday’s community forum. 

The call for an adequacy study gained momentum during community debate over asking voters for an extension of the district’s signature parcel tax—Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP)—which funds programs that state money can’t provide. 

With most community members pushing a new long-term tax measure, Superintendent Michele Lawrence insisted the district should only request a two-year tax until it undertook a new round of strategic planning. 

If the projected 18-month project is a success, the district will have a consensus on its education program and transparency on its costs as it gears up to ask voters to renew the BSEP measure in 2006.  

Transparency could be key for the district. Lawrence has talked about restructuring the $10 million BSEP tax to give the district more flexibility in how it spends the money. With the district contemplating a two year tax, expected to range from $6.5 to $9 million to supplement BSEP, the 2006 tax measure could hit $20 million. 

“Every place in the country that has performed an adequacy study has asked for more money,” said Picus. 

Most recently, Picus and a partner were paid $400,000 to perform a court-ordered adequacy study for the state of Arkansas. Until now, such studies have been only performed on the state level, where lawmakers have greater leverage to raise revenue.  

In Arkansas, Picus recommended $800,000 in tax hikes for new education spending. The state legislature has so far appropriated half that amount. 

Picus, who is interested in leading the Berkeley effort, insisted, that even though the district lacks the power to tax, the study could help it sort out its educational priorities. 

Lawrence has neither settled on a facilitator nor a price tag for the endeavor. 

Starting in the fall she will appoint a task force of community members, finance experts and educational leaders to begin reviewing the district’s organizational structure and educational program. 

The concept has widespread support among active parents, many of whom are anxious to delve into the district’s curriculum after three years where the district’s budget deficits took top priority. 

After numerous cuts, Berkeley Unified goes into fiscal year with its first balanced budget since 2001, but the cuts have taken their toll. 

“The situation right now is pretty severe,” said Jay Nitschke, a parent who is helping to organize Tuesday’s meeting. When his third grade daughter entered kindergarten the average class size for fourth and fifth grade classes was 26 students. Today those same classes average 32 students, with several classes combining students from different grades. 

Nitschke hoped the effort would lead to improved cooperation with the city and UC and not necessarily result in a tax hike. 

While, every community member interviewed supported Lawrence’s initiative, some feared that a task force selected solely by the superintendent could fall prey to entrenched interests.  

“Hand picked groups that merely represent only a small subset of groups are not good and we have had that in the past,” said Derrick Miller, a parent who expressed interest in serving on the task force. 

Another interested parent, Laura Menard, said school board members should also be able to appoint task force members. 

Change doesn’t come easy to the district. When Lawrence arrived in 2001, many parents grumbled when she changed the district’s culture of school site independence and consolidated more power at the board level. 

For the new effort to work, Menard said Berkeley Unified would have to reform the curriculum and toughen academic standards. 

“This has tremendous potential, but only if we go through a preliminary process and have a conversation that is going to be painful for the community,” she said. 

Trina Ostlander, director of the Berkeley Public Education Foundation, the sponsor of Tuesday’s event remains optimistic that the district can pull it off. “Nobody knows if this is doable for one community in an anti-tax state, but if they can do it in Arkansas they ought to be able to do it in Berkeley,” she said.  

›

Heading into the earliest fire season in recent memory in the wake of three increasingly dangerous years, Berkeley firefighters have good reason to worry. 

“Because of overall reductions in firefighting capacity at the state and federal levels, there’s an increased potential of more fires getting bigger,” said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. “There’s a lot of concern.” 

In an e-mail to firefighters across the state about the recently declared season, state Office of Emergency Services Fire and Rescue Branch Chief Kim Zagaris warned Monday that “all indications are that it will be as severe as the last four.” 

Coupled with recent announcements that the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have ended their air tanker contracts, “it appears to be another tough year for firefighters on the line,” he warned. 

The federal tanker fleet was grounded on May 10 at the urging of the National Transportation Safety Board following their investigations into three deadly tanker crashes in the western United States between 1994 and 2002.  

“The shortage of heavy air tankers may increase the likelihood of emerging fires escaping the initial attack,” Zagaris wrote, “resulting in the need for more firefighters.” 

Orth said air support will become available in June through a contract with the California Division of Forestry (CDF). “But if bigger fires erupt in other parts of the state, they’ll be pulled away to work on them. Air support is critical for containment in the early phase of a fire. It’s going to be a lot harder if we don’t have reliable tanker support.” 

CDF maintains two air tankers at Hollister that will become available June 1, and three more in Santa Rosa that come on line later in June. All five planes have just been equipped with more powerful engines and their tank capacities increased by half. 

Statewide, the Division of Forestry also maintains 370 engines and has the authority to call on 689 more from local agencies, Orth said. 

Supplementing the engines are CDF hand crews, who wield axes, chainsaws and shovels to slash firebreaks along the perimeters of conflagrations. They’re staffed by adults from the state prison system and older offenders from the California Youth Authority.  

“Statewide, there are now a total of 194 hand crews, staffed by 4,300 prison inmates and CYA wards,” Orth said. But recent state cuts include the closing of several California Youth Authority fire camps, where young offenders train in firefighting skills and respond as needed to blazes around the state. 

“The state has been supplying fewer wards to the camps,” Orth said, “so the Bay Area will have access to only five hand crews instead of the seven we’ve had in past years.” Orth blamed the local crew reductions on lower numbers wards assigned to the CYA camp at Ben Lomond in the Santa Cruz Mountains. 

With the start of fire season earlier this month, the first sign of blaze in the Berkeley Hills will draw “a full assignment” from the BFD, including three engines, a ladder truck, a wildland truck, an ambulance staffed by two firefighters and a chief—a total of seven vehicles and 15 firefighters. 

Oakland would send three more engines, with more—depending on the fire’s location—coming from El Cerrito, Orinda, the Alameda County Fire Department and the CDF. 

“In some areas of the hills a fire report would bring 15 to 20 engines during fire season, compared to as few as a single engine out of season,” Orth said. “The massive response is designed to prevent a recurrence of the events of ‘91,” when a massive blaze swept through the Oakland and Berkeley hills, engulfing hundreds of homes. 

“The CDF has asked to be called from the start if a structure of car fire threatens vegetation,” he said. “And this year, for the first time, CDF has given us the authority to ask for air support directly, rather than wait ‘til CDF crews arrive on the scene so they can then call for the tankers.” 

On hot days when the wind blows from the east and fire danger soars, Berkeley will begin keeping an engine patrolling the hills, two on days when the danger is critical. Unlike other engines, the pump-and-roll units can keep pumping from a hydrant as they roll along a fireline—helping in fast-moving hill fires. 

Critical days may also see an additional firefighter joining engine crews, Orth said. 

“It’s wait and see for now,” he said. “The weather has been extremely nice. Our peak fire danger usually lasts a month around October, though we expect two months this year.” 

To prepare for the tough times ahead, Berkeley’s firefighters have been honing their skills in a series of drills, with the most recent exercise conducted Tuesday afternoon in Tilden Regional Park’s Equestrian Camp. 

Wildland 2004, a joint exercise for Alameda and Contra Costa county departments featuring a controlled burn, will be conducted June 29 and 30 at Camp Parker near Dublin.›

When Dan Casey came to Berkeley last month to visit his ailing father, he discovered that the Board of Education had delivered a death sentence to the Vera Casey Center, the pioneering day care program his mother established 32 years ago at Berkeley High to provide support for school-aged mothers and care for their babies. 

Upon hearing the news, Casey promptly set up shop in a Berkeley hotel and began work to save the center and his mother’s legacy. 

Now, after weeks of crunching numbers and talking to dozens of child care experts—many of them former contacts of his mother, who died 20 years ago—Casey says he has a business model that can operate the center at no cost to the school district, which spent $75,000 this year to cover the program’s deficit. 

Casey’s credentials make his plan tough to ignore. The Harvard Business School graduate and Anchorage, Alaska businessman has managed millions in public and private funds, and previously served as commissioner of the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. 

“Obviously this is an emotional issue for me,” said Casey who painted the center’s walls before it first opened in 1972, and, several years later as an economics major at UC Berkeley, helped produce a report on the financial value of keeping student mothers in mainstream schools—a concept pioneered by Vera Casey. 

Still, he said, “If I had found that this wouldn’t have paid for itself I wouldn’t be doing this. It just quickly became clear that there is an economic model that works.” 

Casey proposes to boost enrollment for community members and charge them higher fees to help subsidize the student mother program. 

His plan, however, faces stiff competition and some unlikely skeptics. 

The Vera Casey Center Board of Directors, a natural ally for Casey, feels he has ignored them, according to David Hench, the husband of a board member. 

“The board is concerned that Dan Casey is coming in from Alaska and asserting authority he doesn’t have,” said Hench, who added that Casey had not yet met face-to-face with a single board member. 

“He’s creating a lot of angst that is unnecessary,” Hench said. 

After the school board voted last March to eliminate the center effective June 19, community members huddled to find an alternative service provider for pregnant and parenting and students at Berkeley High. 

Their solution was to bring in Berkeley Head Start—the federal child care program for poor families—to run the Vera Casey Center with a guarantee that Head Start would accept the students’ children and the Berkeley High Health Center would assume the support services for the student mothers. 

The two programs don’t have a history of collaboration, and vying for the center hasn’t improved relations. 

Casey charged that District Preschool Director John Santoro had been pushing Head Start, which contracts to the district’s preschool program, into the center long before the board cut funding for program.  

“He started going around saying Vera Casey was dead meat,” Casey said. 

Pamm Shaw, executive director of Berkeley Head Start, said the two centers had never understood each others’ programs and that Vera Casey Center management had rebuffed her previous offers to work together. “I’m sorry for the families that it’s been so political,” she said. “I don’t think it needed to be this way.” 

With the Vera Casey Center set to shut down, Superintendent Michele Lawrence plans to present her preferred choice to the school board June 9. Although she wouldn’t disclose which plan she favored, Lawrence said Casey’s numbers were “still speculative.” 

Teaming with Berkeley Head Start has obvious advantages for both the district and the federal day care program. 

After years of bailing out Vera Casey Center debts, the district would be out of the child care business and free from any financial liability. Federal head start grants would pay to care for the children at the center across the street from Berkeley High and the state CAL-SAFE grant would pay to provide more extensive services for the children and counseling for the parents at the high school health center. 

For Head Start, occupying the Vera Casey Center would give it a prime location with a bargain basement rent.  

The program is vacating its Emeryville location where it pays $20,000 for one classroom and continues to pay $50,000 for three classrooms in a building on San Pablo Avenue. 

Head Start would only pay $4,500 for the 34-child capacity Vera Casey Center, which is owned by the Vera Casey Foundation, a nonprofit with strong connections to the First Presbyterian Church. While Head Start is restricted to serving only 86 children in its infant and toddler program, reduced rent would allow it to spend more money on amenities like equipment, supplies and staff benefits, Shaw said. 

What Head Start can’t provide, according to Vera Casey supporters, is the combination of child care and parent services all under one roof. 

Dealing with high school mothers takes special skills and every professional says it makes a big difference to have staff that’s primarily focused on that mission, Casey said.  

That was his mother’s philosophy, he said, when she worked to make Berkeley the first school district in California to provide infant care and counseling for student mothers.  

Vera Casey was an unlikely reformer. Born into a strict Virginia home, she became a teacher late in life. While working as a home economics instructor at the former continuation high school in Berkeley, she realized that many of her chronically absent students were parents. To get them into class, Casey set up a day care program through the First Presbyterian Church adjacent to the school. 

Later she determined that the mothers should be able to attend the regular high school, so she raised money to buy the future Vera Casey Center on Martin Luther King Jr. Way next to Berkeley High School. 

Praised as a national model, which included vocational training for the mothers, the center was a springboard for a state grant program, enacted by former governor Ronald Reagan, to fund similar programs. The grants helped support the center as it transformed itself from a primarily volunteer to a professional staff. However in recent years the funding has stagnated while labor costs have skyrocketed. 

To make the center financially solvent, Dan Casey proposes to serve 14 community children (six part time, eight full time) at prices 25 percent above what the center had been charging. The added revenue coupled with other grant money he plans to seek would allow the center to hire an additional instructional assistant, and free up the district’s CAL-SAFE program coordinator Katharine Sullivan to do outreach. 

Previous plans to save the program, Casey said, took a “nail biter approach,” trying to shift around vacations and cut services. “I said let’s see if we can’t make this thing comfortably work. There’s a big market for day care and it won’t go away next year.” 

The center started serving community members three years ago as a means to break even and to compensate for a decline in teenage pregnancy. Berkeley was recently acknowledged for having the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in the state, and of the 11 children at the center, only three are the children of students. Nine current students are known to be pregnant. 

Still the transition to a combination student and community day care center didn’t go smoothly, and was further hampered last September when the district—expecting to close the program—forbade new clients even though the center had a 15-family waiting list. 

“They would have broken even this year, but the district was gearing the program down,” said Arlyce Currie, program director of Bananas, an Alameda County child care support agency. 

But not everyone is confident that Casey’s plan could work. Paul Miller, executive director of Kidango, the second largest nonprofit infant day care provider, is closing a center in San Mateo county next month that served student mothers and community members in the Sequoia School District. 

“Dan Casey has a good strategy, but I don’t think it will win the day,” he said. Kidango runs other programs similar to Vera Casey in Fremont, Newark and New Haven and they are all losing money, Miller said. 

The culprit is that state government has woefully underfunded the grants, said Miller. Since 1981, in adjusted dollars, state grants to nonprofit child care centers have fallen 30 percent. 

Marcy Whitebook, director of the Center for Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley, said the state system has stacked the deck against programs like Vera Casey. For years, she said, publicly subsidized programs paid higher salaries thanks to state grants, but now the grants are worth less, and centers, in order to qualify for the state subsidy, must meet stringent ratios of care workers to children—criteria that profit centers are not required to meet. 

“It’s an irrational and inequitable system,” she said. “The subsidized center that serves the poor has to meet a higher level of staffing and gets less money to do it.” 

This year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget includes a generous 1.84 percent cost of living expense for the state grant, but over the long run Miller doesn’t think that will be enough. 

“The governor and Legislature have to understand that either they’re willing to pay for the service, or they’re willing to let teen parents drop out of school,” he said. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 1 

Funding Excellence in Public Schools: New Possibilities A community forum with Michele Lawrence Superintendent, Berkeley Unified School District and Lawrence Picus, Director, Center for Research in Education Financing, University of Southern California School of Education at 7:30 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School Theater, 1500 Derby St. 

Breaking the Ice, with Doron Erel discussing how a team of Israeli and Palestinian non-climbers journeyed to the ends of the earth and reached the summit of an un-named peak in Antarctica, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237, ext. 112.  

An Evening with Tom Sinestra on the best Bay Area outdoor adventures at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Baseball for Beginners and Diehard Fans with Jeff Lichtman, El Cerrito resident and author of “Baseball for Rookies.” Special guest will be former major league player, Pumpsie Green, the first African American to play on the Boston Red Sox. At 7 p.m. in the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. 

Phone Banking to ReDefeat Bush on Tuesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Bring your cell phones. Please RSVP if you can join us. 415-336 8736. dan@redefeatbush.com 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. at its office 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed. 594-5165. 

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

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Sts every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. A project of BOSS Urban Gardening Institute and Spiral Gardens. For more information call 843-1307. 

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 

East Bay Theology on Tap meets to discuss “The Catholic Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkein” with Fr. Ayres at 7 p.m. at 4092 Piedmont Ave. Contact Norah at St. Leo the Great 654-6177. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Association Walkers meet at 10 a.m. at Live Oak Park, Walnut St. and Berryman Path, for a 2 hour walk through the beautiful paths in Berkeley. The walk will feature uphill and then downhill walking. 981-5367. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. For information call Robert Flammia 524-3765. 

“Seeds of Deception” with author Jeffrey Smith discussing efforts to keep genetically modified foods out of Alameda County’s ecosystems and food supply, at 7 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Dinner at 6 p.m. Cost is $15. 843-0662. 

Fun with Acting class meets at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome. 985-0373. 

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 

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

THURSDAY, JUNE 3 

Morning Birdwalk from 7 to 9:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area. For information, or to reserve binoculars, call 525-2233. 

Community Meeting on the City Budget at 7 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Sponsored by the City Manager’s Office. 981-7000. 

Quit Smoking Class offered by the City of Berkeley for residents and employees on Tuesdays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Alta Bates/Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way. To register, call 981-5330. 

Environmental Monitoring in India with Madhu Dutta, Anne Leonard and Denny Larson. The 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal has led to community monitoring of local industries. At 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

Albany Library Annual Prose Night Open readings at 7 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 20. 

Berkeley Farmer’s Market with all organic produce at Elephant Pharmacy parking lot, 1607 Shattuck Ave., at Cedar from 3 to 7 p.m. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

Friends of Faith Fancher, luncheon and celebration of Faith’s life at Scott’s Seafood Restaurant, Jack London Square, in a benefit for the new Breast Health Center at Alta Bates Summit. For tickets and reservations call 204-1667. 

“Why You Should Give a Damn About Gay Marriage” with Davina Koltulski at 7 p.m. at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. 655-2405. 

“She Who Creates” A logo painting workshop with Shiloh McCloud from 6 to 9 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $40, materials $20. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

FRIDAY, JUNE 4 

“Ancient Wisdom for Racial Healing” A workshop with Aaeeshah and Kokomon Klottey from 1 to 5 p.m. at Naropa University Oakland, 2141 Broadway. Cost is $30-$50. 835-4827, ext. 19. 

By the Light of the Moon Open Mic and Salon for Women hosted by Karen Broder, at 7:30 p.m. at Changemakers Bookstore, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $3-$7 sliding scale. 482-1315. www.changemakersforwomen.com 

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. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

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

SATURDAY, JUNE 5 

Ladybirds and Ladybugs We’ll collect and release as many adult and larval forms as we can find. We’ll talk about the good these beetles do and learn about the ones who have turned to the dark side. From 10 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Ponds are Places Where Babies Grow Up Meet nymphs, naiads, larvae and the real “Phantom Menace” as we look at pond creatures with the 14-power Discovery Scope. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Sick Plant Clinic The first Sat. of every month, UC plant apthologist Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants. From 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Free. 643-2755. 

Good Night Little Farm Rain or shine, the animals on the farm need to be fed and tucked in for the night. Round up the chickens, slop the hog, feed the cows and say “sleep tight.” Wear boots if you’ve got them. For all ages from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Tilden Little Farm. 525-2233. 

Make a Cornhusk Doll Bookmark at the Albany Library from noon to 2 p.m. Free and open to all ages. 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 20. 

Berkeley Poetry Festival and Community Fair from 11:15 to 5 p.m. at Civic Center Park, with live music, and a poetry slam from 2 to 4 p.m. www.mothershen.com 

LeConte Elementary School Yard Sale from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at 2241 Russell St. Great furniture, gear, plants, etc. and food and beverages, and a good way to support our public school. To donate items in advance, call 649-0419. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour of the city’s corporation yard and the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club led by Patrick Keilch, Deputy Director of Berkeley’s Public Works Dept. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

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

Pee Wee Basketball for boys and girls ages 6 to 8 is offered by Berkeley Youth Alternatives every Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at 1255 Allston Way. Fee for six week session is $25 for residents, $35 for non-residents. 845-9066. sports@byaonline.org 

ProArts Open Studios with over 160 participating artists in Berkeley and around the East Bay. For a list see www.mesart. 

com/openstudiosPA.jsp 

Artists for Change Fundraiser to benefit John Kerry for President and MoveOn.org from 6 to 8 p.m. at Nexus Gallery, 2701 Eighth St. Light refreshments and live music. Cost is $25.  

Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1FM at 8 p.m. at The Longhaul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190. 

"Green Threads in the Urban Fabric," a walk exploring nature in the city, restored creeks, and planned restoration from El Cerrito to Berkeley. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Meet at El Cerrito BART for the 5-mile hike (includes fording creeks and climbing Albany Hill) ends at North Berkeley BART. Bring water, snacks, and sun protection. Sponsored by Friends of Five Creeks and Greenbelt Alliance. 848-9358. www.greenbelt.org, f5creeks@aol.com  

Drip Irrigation A do-it-yourself class covering benefits, supplies and tools needed. Taught by John Bauer, and held at a home-owner installed drip irrigation site in North Oakland. Cost is $15-$25. To register call 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Light Search and Rescue Class offered by the City of Berkeley from 1 to 5 p.m. at 997 Cedar St. To register call 981-5506. 

Propagating Natives with Cuttings from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Regional Parks Botanical Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $40-$45, advance registration recommended. 845-4116. www.nativeplants.org 

REI Service Project at Dry Creek Pioneer Regional Park, Hayward, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Pre-registration recommended. 527-4140. 

Stem Cell Research and Advocacy Conference Leaders in stem cell research and policy will speak about the California initiative to support stem cell research and offer practical ways for promoting this measure. Sat. and Sun. in the Pauley Ballroom, UC Campus. Open to the public. Full details available at www.fisca.info  

Women’s Fitness Day at the YMCA of Oakland with free fun activities for the entire family from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., 1515 Webster St. 451-7910. 

California Writers Club (last meeting of the season,) meets at 10 a.m. with readings by three student winners of the Fifth-Grade Writing Contest at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Vocal Jazz Workshop with Richard Kalman from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. followed by jam session, at the Albany Community Center. 1249 Marin Ave. 524-9283. 

Primordial Meditation with Peter Kingsley at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $15. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. The class is taught by Rosie Linsky, who at age 72, has practiced yoga for over 40 years. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. To register call 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, JUNE 6 

Neotropical Migrants Birdwalk from 8 to 10 a.m. Up close views of birds from far away. Learn their habits and habitats, and stay for a great cup of coffee that’s for the birds-- shade tree coffee plantation birds, that is; pastries too. Cost is $5-$7. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Laurel Canyon Hike The heart of our park is this wooded canyon. We’ll see birds, blooms, berries and learn the role that each plays in the life of this place. Some steep parts, so wear good walking shoes. From 1 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Mini Gardeners “Farm Tales” We’ll make up stories about our garden and the animals that live there, then make drawings and paintings to go along with them. For ages 4-6 accompanied by an adult, from 2 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Cost is $3-$4. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Rosa Parks School 7th Annual Ice Cream Social including ice cream, food, games, quilt raffle, silent auction, and talent show, from noon to 4 p.m. at Rosa Parks Elementary School, 920 Allston Way. 644-8812. 

ProArts Open Studios with over 160 participating artists in Berkeley and around the East Bay. For a list see www.mesart.com/openstudiosPA.jsp 

Dragonflies of the Bay Area from 9:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at the Regional Parks Botanical Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $25-$30, advance registration recommended. 845-4116. www.nativeplants.org 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

Peace Empowerment Process A two-day training from 1 to 4 p.m., with the second session on June 13, at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Bonita St. at Cedar. Siding scale donation sof $10-$25, no one turned away. to register call Carolyna at 527-2356, or Cynthia at 528-5403. 

“The Patriot Act” with Sanjeev Bery, of the American Civil Liberties Union, at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. 525-0302.  

A Taste of Albany A culinary tour of the town from 5 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $20-$25. for information call 525-1771. www.albanychamber.org 

Aquatic Celebration at the Downtown Berkeley YMCA, with mind-body classes in the Shallow Pool, including water Pilates and water yoga. To register call 665-3258. 

Boadecia’s Reunion Party for all who met their sweetie at the bookstore at 3 p.m. at Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. at Colusa Circle, Kensington. 559-9184. www.bookpride.com  

Tibetan Buddhism, with Syliva Gretchen on “Managing Pain Through Meditation” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

ONGOING 

Volunteer Coaches Needed for Twilight Basketball for the 13-15 year-old division on Saturdays at 5 p.m. beginning June 26. Please call Ginsi Bryant at 981-6678. 

Vista College Study Abroad in Mexico Live with a family and learn language skills in a two-week session in July in Guadalajara. For information call 981-2917 or visit www.peralta.cc.ca. 

us/interntl/studyabr.htm. 

Berkeley Video and Film Festival is calling for entries. The deadline for last call is July 10. For information please call 843-3699. www.berkeleyvideofilmfest.org 

Radio Summer Camp, four day sessions from June 4 through Sept. 6. Learn how to build and operate a community radio station. Sponsored by Radio Free Berkeley. 625-0314. www.freeradio.org 

Interesting Backyards Do you have a really cool backyard project or unusual sustainable living practice that you’d like to share with others in the East Bay? Consider becoming a stop on the 5th Annual Urban Sustainability Bike Tour on Saturday, July 31. Past sites have included features such as graywater systems, chicken coops, bee hives, solar installations and permaculture gardens. For information call Beck at 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Summer Reading Games at the Albany Public Library, from June 14 th through August 14th. For information call 526-3700. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Tues. June 1, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

City Council meets Tues., June 1, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., June 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruby Primus, 981-5106. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/women 

Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., June 2, at 7:30 p.m. at the Public Safety Building, 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 2nd floor. David Orth, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/firesafety 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., June 3, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/environmentaladvisory 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., June 3, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/housing 

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., June 3, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworksˇ

Sam Huntington rides again! 

Sam is the Harvard professor who, from time to time, puts on his Paul Revere costume and gallops across the country warning his fellow white Protestant citizens that the others are coming. This man is nobody to shrug off. What he says gets listened to in the think tanks, and that gets the op-ed types running to their keyboards, tapping out the kink in the reactionary party line. Pay attention to Sam. He is a heavyweight. 

In 1993, he hoisted his lantern to let the country know of the growing danger from Islam. In an article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations,” he put America on notice that the ragheads are coming, the ragheads are coming. In short order, he predicted, we would be inundated by the backward, bigoted sons of the camel. It might be something of an understatement to say that Sam hit the bull’s-eye with his intellectual form of high-brow hatred. Popularized simplifications of Sam’s Crusader cry issued forth from every pore of the media beast day and night. 

In his new book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity, Sam—his tricornered hat squarely planted on his block head—has lifted another one of his warning lanterns: This time, the Hispanics are coming. In a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, the professor previewed some of the arguments in his book. “The single most immediate and most serious challenge to America’s traditional identity,” he writes, “comes from the immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico.” And what, may we ask, is America’s traditional identity which is being so dangerously challenged? It is “the product of the distinct Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers. Key elements of that culture include the English language, Christianity, religious commitment; English concepts of the rule of law … dissenting Protestant values of individualism, the work ethic … the duty to try to create a heaven on earth….” 

According to Professor Huntington, Hispanics are having none of that; instead, they harbor an “Americano Dream,” a term coined by Lionel Sosa, a Texas businessman. But our Cantabrigian nightrider says that the Americano Dream is all bullocks. “There is no Americano dream,” he writes. “There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.” 

Hispano-phones are learning English, and Professor Huntington knows perfectly well that they are. Indeed, he is at pains to tuck in the facts about Hispanics learning English in this hysterical call to his fellow Anglo-Saxons. He cites a study which found that “more than 90 percent of the U.S.-born people of Mexican origin spoke English fluently.” He concedes that the available evidence shows that Spanish-speaking immigrants are learning English in patterns similar to that of previous arrivals from other places, but he is spooked anyway. Why? The increasing frequency of bilingual persons. It used to be considered rather a plus if a person spoke two languages, even at Harvard, and I guess it is still as long as one of the languages isn’t Spanish. Otherwise, the day may come when “those aspiring to political office might have to be fluent in both languages. Bilingual candidates for president and elected federal positions would have the advantage over English-only speakers …. English speakers lacking fluency in Spanish are likely to be and feel at a disadvantage in the competition for jobs, promotions or contracts.” As a consolation prize, such persons might consider applying for membership in WASP-only country clubs, or one might trip over to Berlitz and aprender how to hablar un poquito Splanglish. 

To repeat, all of this would be nonsense if Professor Huntington didn’t carry the clout he does. The man moves the people who move the masses, and you know how dumb they are. He has to be refuted, and repeatedly so. Such drivel. In a time when people in India, China, Russia, Romania, Poland, Chile, Indonesia and everywhere else are learning English like crazy, at the very moment when English has become the lingua franca of the planet, a relatively small number of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans are going to plop down and refuse to learn it? I don’t think so. 

Professor Huntington fears a Hispanic “takeover.” He says it’s already happening, and not just in Miami. “Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista—reconquest—of the Southwest United States by Mexican immigrants is well underway.” This is one Harvard professor who has eaten too much locoweed. “Many Mexican-American immigrants and their offspring [snotty word, eh wot?] do not appear to identify primarily with the United States,” he writes. This is an observation which has been and still is made of members of more than one non-Spanish-speaking ethnic and/or religious group. It was something said of Roman Catholics for decades, and it is said of some Jewish people and their affiliation with Israel today. In both instances, the nation has not fallen to pieces. 

Our Ivy League Know-Nothing’s article contains an arresting section on “regional concentration”—by which he means, I think, that they are clannish and stick together, a characteristic noted in Jews, Italians, Poles and Algonquins (both the Native American kind and those who take tea at the hotel of the same name). “Hispanics … have tended to concentrate regionally: Mexicans in Southern California, Cubans in Miami, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in New York. The more concentrated immigrants become, the slower and less complete their assimilation,” the man says, at the same time he complains that “Mexicans and other Hispanics were also establishing beachheads elsewhere.” Please note the use of the word beachhead, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “fortified position of troops landed on a beach”—i.e., the little bean-eaters are invading us. The crack about the Puerto Ricans, whom he accuses of establishing one of those “beachheads” in Hartford, Conn., is particularly ungracious given that it was Samuel P. Huntington’s white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon forefathers who invaded Puerto Rico, occupied it and wallowed in cheap peon labor. Finally forced to grant these colonials American citizenship, Americans like Professor Huntington are now bitching their heads off because Puerto Ricans do what other Americans do—move from one place to another. 

Professor Huntington is haunted by the prospect that Spanish-speaking arrivals may not care to ape his Anglo-Saxon ways. He wants to be their role model and is afraid they may reject him. The “takeover” of Miami drives him nuts. He says that a Spanish-language television station in Miami is No. 1 in the market and quotes with dread a bumper sticker asking: “Will the last American to leave Miami please bring the flag.” He cites with grave concern that in 1998, “’Jose’ replaced ‘Michael’ as the most popular name for newborn boys in both California and Texas.” Perhaps we should encourage parents of Hispanic extraction to name their sons Samuel. 

The professor takes note of a bundle of Hispanic cultural and character defects, such as “the mañana syndrome,” “little use for education,” “acceptance of poverty as a virtue” and “lack of initiative, self-reliance and ambition.” There is also a lack of blue-eyed blondes, but the Sage of Cambridge doesn’t discuss that. 

He doesn’t exactly cotton to any Hispano-phones, but Mexicans really worry him: “No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican Americans can and do.” This is a Banquo’s-ghost séance: The man is spooked by the knowledge that the United States took the entire Southwest from Mexico, and he fears that many Mexicans want it back or—since they know the same history he does—that they may regard what the U.S. calls the border as a legal fiction, merely a line drawn on a map. If that’s the case, then perhaps while American Anglo-Saxonia alternates between anger and panic at the vast number of illegals setting up shop in the U.S.A., Mexicans see it differently. They may see it as simply moving around their own country. However they see it, Professor Huntington is convinced they are conspiring to form some kind of “Republica del Norte” in the American Southwest. Paul Revere, get on your nag and spread the alarm. One if by land, two if by sea—and in the case of Spanish speakers, it’s both, since they enter by water and by land. 

Similar things were said and feared about German-speakers in the last part of the 19th century: Laws were passed forbidding the teaching of German, for it was an established fact that the Teuto-phones were taking over cities like Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and even San Antonio and Austin. The Germans were more highly organized than present-day Hispanics but, like them, even though united by language, they were divided by much else, and in due course the German threat evaporated. 

Professor Sam seems to be full of such forebodings. I doubt anyone can give him much comfort, but he may take some solace in an aphorism (probably erroneously attributed to Philip II of Spain) which says that “English is the language of shopkeepers, French is the language of reason, Italian is the language of love, and Spanish the language of God.” 

Nicholas von Hoffman is a former columnist at the Washington Post. He now writes for the New York Observer, where this column first appeared.  

ˇ

Two mammoth battles highlight tonight’s (Tuesday, June 2) City Council meeting.  

In closed session, the city will continue to try to squeeze concessions out of its unions to help balance a $10 million budget shortfall. Later, city staff will present an overview of its response to UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan, which the city fears could cost it millions in additional services it provides for the university. 

In the never ending battle with UC over tax-and-services issues, the city has gotten some legislative help. Last week, by a vote of 59-12, the State Assembly passed Assemblymember Loni Hancock’s (D-Berkeley) AB 2902 legislation to require fair compensation to cities from public agencies like UC Berkeley. The bill now goes to the State Senate for consideration. 

In cases where UC expansion and development has environmental impacts, Hancock’s bill would prevent UC from saddling the city with the costs of mitigating the impacts without holding a public hearing and entering into “good faith” negotiations. 

To squeeze more money out of the university, Berkeley is scheduled to release June 14 the draft of a $50,000 report it commissioned to determine the true costs UC places on city services. Assistant City Manager Arrietta Chakos wouldn’t divulge the report’s contents, but said the tally was in the millions. UC currently pays the city approximately $500,000 to offset city expenses for sewers, public safety and other services. 

At tonight’s council meeting, Chakos will present an overview of the city’s response to the university’s Long Range Development Plan. Among the criticisms: that the plan’s Draft Environmental Impact Report fails to properly mitigate the impact of 2,500 new parking spaces near the main campus and 100 new housing units on its Hill Campus, and that the plan underestimates the impact of its transportation policy and relies on “continuing best practices” that don’t comply with state environmental law. 

Also at tonight’s meeting, a group of Berkeley residents will give a presentation highlighting what the UC plan, if implemented, would mean for different neighborhoods. 

On the labor front, time is running out for a deal with city unions. After the unions rebuffed a city demand for a three percent salary giveback, the city is now asking them to defer three percent of their cost of living increase—about $1.2 million—for the coming year.  

The proposal is essentially a one-year fix. For the following year, city workers would be slated to receive their accumulated cost of living increases over the past two years. Since the city would still be facing a budget deficit for fiscal year 2006, it’s likely the two sides would have to negotiate a second deal the following year. 

Should the unions refuse, the city is threatening to raise the $1.2 million by closing essential services one day a month.  

With the city required to finalize its budget later this month and a 30-day notice mandated before the city can institute its first shutdown, tentatively scheduled for the first week of July, something has to give soon. 

So far it hasn’t been the unions. 

“No one has agreed to change the overall salary structure,” said Eric Landes-Brenman, of the Public Employees Union Local One. 

Rich Chan, shop steward for the International Brotherhood of Engineering Workers Local 1245 said the city has rebuffed his union’s compromise proposals—including voluntary time off—which Chan says is in violation of the labor agreement’s “meet and confer process.” “Right now they’re only discussing mandatory time off and a three percent salary reduction for this year,” he said. 

Most unions potentially have something to gain from the three percent deferral. The city has hinted that the concession could prevent anticipated layoffs this year. In addition, since essential services like police and fire would have to work in the event of monthly closures, mandatory time off would cost non-essential employees 4.67 percent of their salaries to make up the difference. 

“The city’s proposal is a gruesome treatment of employees,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “Police and fire have by far the most generous contracts and they’re exempt.” 

On the other side of the budget balancing equation, the council will receive ballot language for four tax measures totaling $8 million dollars. The proposals include $1.2 million for paramedic services, $1.9 million for the public library, $2.2 million for youth services, and a $2.7 million Utility Users Tax that would go into the general fund. 

The city dumped a $1.2 million clean water tax after councilmembers didn’t show much support for it at last week’s meeting. 

›

Shooting Victim Gives Cops Silent Treatment 

Berkeley Police were summoned to Kaiser’s Oakland emergency room in the wee hours of Thursday morning. They found a gentleman with a gunshot wound who would only volunteer that he’d been ventilated outside a Berkeley liquor store on Allston Way. 

Pressed for details, he clammed up. 

Assault with a Deadly Brolly? 

Police are calling it an assault with a deadly weapon, and so it seemed to the woman riding her bicycle along Grant Street near Channing Way at 9:30 Thursday morning. 

When one member of a band of three teenagers laid into her with an umbrella, the others grabbed her bike, according to Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

The hapless cyclist sustained no serious injuries in the dustup. 

Gun-toting Bandits Rob Woman 

Two young males, one packing a piece, accosted a woman on Gilman Street near Fifth Street about 6 p.m. Thursday. When they demanded cash, she complied. 

Arc Sparks Spark Traffic Snarl 

A fire engine and police rolled to a report of power lines arcing on College Avenue Thursday night, halting traffic between Garber and Russell streets from 9:13 to 9:39 p.m. 

The problem resolved, patrol cars and fire engines departed and traffic resumed.H

Baseball season is in full swing and my friend Laurie is once again worried about her relationship with her boyfriend, Mark. He has satellite hook-up and a television or radio in every room of his house so that he can listen to and watch games after work and all through the weekend. When he gardens and barbecues in his backyard he carries a transistor radio with him, and he wears a walkman while he jogs. On his drive to work he listens to KNBR in his car, and on his desk in his cubicle he has a small radio that he keeps tuned to KFRC. CBS Sportsline is bookmarked on his computer so that he gets up-to-the-minute scores on games not broadcasted locally.  

On their first date Mark told Laurie about his sports obsession. “I’ll be unavailable during the baseball playoffs, the World Series, March Madness and anytime UCLA plays Cal,” he explained to her. “And I’m never available during Monday night football games.” 

“Maybe you’re just too unavailable,” she said. “Maybe we should forget this whole thing.” 

“That’s not necessary,” he told her, “because I don’t like hockey or golf except when Tiger plays, or tennis except when Serena and Venus are on the court. And I never watch wrestling or soccer. For instance, I’ll be free during the World Cup and all of the Olympics.” 

But those statements turned out to be false because Mark becomes distracted by anything that resembles a competition. Although he said he didn’t follow hockey, he lied. When the Sharks recently made the playoffs he suddenly began calling them, “HIS Sharkies.” He was inconsolable after their defeat by Calgary, but bounced back after victories by the Giants and As.  

Their dating schedule follows a pattern dictated by the NBA, NFL, PGA and the National and American Baseball leagues. To a lesser extent it is governed by the Women’s Pro Tennis Circuit and anything that has to do with the Pac Ten. When nothing else is available, he watches “Survivor.” 

If Tiger’s swing is off, if Shaq gets injured, or Barry Bonds goes into a slump, well then, their love life is in trouble too. This business with Kobe Bryant has been especially distressing. It affects him not just physically, but mentally as well. He claims that his concentration will be off “…until that mess in Colorado is straightened out.” 

“But that could take years,” she protested. 

“I know,” was his sad response.  

When the last ball is served and the final match point made, he will surf the channels, frantically looking for a new event. When desperate, he is known to watch drag racing, figure skaters, and SUV commercials. He has a special fondness for cheerleaders and female wrestlers. She once caught him, on an especially dreary February afternoon, intently viewing the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.  

So now Laurie is steeling herself for baseball season, as she has every year since meeting Mark. She is aware of what might happen if the As and Giants continue to do well on the field. It will mean missed important social engagements, and fights about when they will see each other. And it’s not just the home teams she’s concerned about. She needs to know Dusty Baker’s schedule as well as that of the Yankees. 

“Dusty Baker?” I ask when I see her for lunch on a day when both the As and Giants are playing afternoon games. “Who’s Dusty Baker?” 

“He coaches Chicago,” she says sadly. “but he used to manage the Giants.” 

I nod as if I know what she’s talking about. “And the Yankees?” I say. “I thought Mark hated the Yankees.” 

“He does,” confirms Laurie. “But that just means he has to root for whoever goes against them.” She has a far-off look in her eyes and I wonder if she is going to cry.  

I reach across the table and hold her hand. “It’s okay,” I reassure her. “I know you can get through this.” 

“Yes,” sighs Laurie. “I suppose I can.” 

DOWNTOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Having followed all the meetings of the downtown development task force and attended the last one, I found the recommendations in the task force report to be well thought out and attentive to all points of view. The report suggests ways of developing the area under study as a cohesive, integrated whole, that will make our downtown an attractive place to be, and will serve the various needs of our community. The report offers recommendations and not any type of requirements. As such, they should be presented to developers as representing the consensus of a broadly based group of Berkeley citizens. 

In particular, I believe the “green” development recommendations, including a pedestrian plaza, and the daylighting of Strawberry Creek, are important for the success of our downtown in the future. These features will have multiple benefits, including a boon to downtown businesses, a healthier environment, and a wonderful civic space for Berkeley’s citizens to gather in, share events in, and simply enjoy. As our city continues to become more urban and developed, it is important that we remember to provide access to nature, and the relaxation and sense of well-being that it can provide. 

Including public art along with these “green” elements, as also recommended by the task force, will create a vibrant city center that reflects our values in terms of both nature and culture. The combination of a daylighted creek on Center Street, a pedestrian plaza, a “green” hotel, public art, and the future Brower Center two blocks away, could even make our downtown a destination point for environmental conferences and eco-tourism. Berkeley deserves no less. 

Fran Segal 

• 

BETH ISRAEL 

DEMOLITION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the article in May 18-20 edition about the unauthorized demolition of the Congregation Beth Israel building at 1630 Bancroft Way: We would like to clarify that neither of us, either individually or collaboratively, is in any way associated with the demolition of Congregation Beth Israel’s building, or with their current building project. We were the architects for Beth Israel when previously developing the plans for building a wooden synagogue which would have “re-built’ an historic Polish synagogue destroyed in the Holocaust. Beth Israel, however, chose not to continue that project, and our work with the congregation ended when that project came to an end. We are not currently their architects, and are in no way involved with their choices, either in terms of the demolition of the existing structure, or in their current building plans. 

The article and fact that the construction was red-tagged by the city imply a failure by the congregation to adequately address the permit issues involved in demolishing their existing building. When we were involved as the architects for their previous project, we strongly advised that they carefully address the historic nature of their then existing structure, and informed them of the approaches and procedures necessary to obtain a required demolition permit. If the congregation has proceeded in its current actions without heeding our advice, and without our current involvement, it would be unfair for that failure to reflect badly on our professionalism as architects. Should you write and publish any follow-up articles on Beth Israel’s demolition or subsequent building, we would appreciate if you would make it clear that we are no longer associated with this project. 

David Finn, David Finn Architects 

Tomas Frank, Frank Architects 

• 

WHAT WAS THE POINT? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am disturbed by the article on the demolition of the Beth Israel synagogue. There are very few facts presented in the story and the tone is strikingly negative. The author, Richard Brenneman, suggests that there is something seriously shady going on. An 83-year-old building suffering from severe dry rot and fungus that had been condemned as unsafe and seismically unsound by the city for over 10 years was finally torn down. The building owners had permission to rebuild on that site, but allegedly did not have permission to tear it down. Although not granted the status of a landmark, the owners did not get the seemingly required permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Hmm. If there is a story here, if there is a reason to suspect foul play as the headline suggests, the information necessary to demonstrate it was not contained in the article itself. 

As a 30-year resident of Berkeley, I would be interested in a story that explained the process of building permits in this city. I would not have thought you needed a separate demolition permit if  

you have a permit to rebuild. I would not have known that you needed permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to demolish any building more than 40 years old. I did not even know there was a Landmarks Preservation Commission. I would be interested to hear more about what they do. I would also be interested in a story that taught me something about the diversity of our city. Who is this community of Orthodox Jews? How did Berkeley, of all places, come to house the largest Orthodox congregation in the East Bay? 

As I said, I am disturbed by the article. There is negative innuendo in almost every paragraph and very little information. The Berkeley Daily Planet should be a forum for learning about our community not slandering the people in it. 

Juliet Stamper 

• 

LAKOFF LECTURE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As an officer of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, I would like to respond to the concerns raised by Erica Grevemeyer about how we dealt with an unruly audience member at the public lecture by George Lakoff given under our sponsorship last Friday. 

The young man was, along with others, sitting on the stage because the meeting was quite packed. He was therefore in close physical proximity to Dr. Lakoff. So we were particularly concerned after two outbursts on his part. We asked a trained facilitator to sit next to him to try to quietly talk him down and we also asked a few club members to sit around him. 

The audience was becoming increasingly impatient with him and our efforts to calm him were not successful. Our club members then ushered him out with great care and with no violence at all. 

I am mindful of Ms. Grevemeyer’s concerns and I urge her to carefully consider our concerns for the safety of Dr. Lakoff and the success of our meeting. Incidents like this are perhaps the most difficult part of putting on public meetings and dealing with them is an art. We think that we did pretty well, but we are new at this game and would appreciate any advice from those with experience in dealing with this kind of situation. 

Jack Kurzweil 

Treasurer, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club 

• 

UNIVERSITY TRAFFIC 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When I saw the news of Professor Zelnick’s tragic death I wondered how long it would take before someone rhetorically linked it to some broad criticism of the university. There’s the answer—less than one week—in the letters column of the May 25-27 Daily Planet. Bruce Loeb writes about how the campus is now “grotesquely overbuilt” and a “neverending commotion” and says Professor Zelnick’s death is “a sorry indicator of the state of UC Berkeley.” 

Before the university’s critics nod their heads sadly, let’s consider the context. 

Professor Zelnick was killed by a private delivery truck while crossing a roadway that has existed since the 19th century. That road has been re-designed over the years from a major vehicle thoroughfare to a comparative backwater in terms of non-pedestrian traffic. An adjacent parking lot was removed in the 1980s in favor of lawns and pedestrian space. 

The site where Professor Zelnick died is busy with pedestrians and flanked by the university’s oldest building (South Hall) where librarians are educated, a three-story circa 1931 building that now houses philosophers, the 1914 Sather Campanile, and extensive lawns and walkways. 

It is hard to imagine a spot on campus more removed in appearance, use, or character from the 21st century excesses Mr. Loeb criticizes. 

Steven Finacom 

• 

DOGGY JAIL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Reading Susan Parker’s essay (“On Drugs and Dogs and Dumb Questions on a Corner,” Daily Planet, May 18-20) reminded me why Berkeley is the political laughingstock of the nation. She seems to insinuate that her live-in attendant is somehow a victim of a cruel system which treats animals better than humans. I must ask why Ms. Parker affords herself the privilege of a car ride across town to a safer neighborhood but makes poor Andrea run a gauntlet of crack dealers and undercover cops at the corner liquor store. As an Alameda County tax payer (and probably a close neighbor of Ms. Parker) I can only wish that when next Andrea gets busted, she’ll be put away for much longer time. Maybe she’ll get around to quitting smoking. At the very least, she’ll get some exercise walking home from BART since Ms. Parker can’t be bothered to give her a ride home from jail. As for Ms. Parker’s errant dog Whiskers, I believe I may now know who has been defecating on my front lawn in the wee hours of the night. For the little dog’s sake, next time Ms. Parker chooses to scoff at the law let’s hope Officer Friendly finds her before I do. Otherwise, it’ll be doggy jail for sure. Among the many egregious iniquities of our society, dogs are not allowed ride BART unattended, and even with four legs it’s a long walk back to the Parker place. 

Gus Hulderman 

North Oakland 

• 

DERBY FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Anyone with a young soccer or baseball player in the family knows that sports recreation fields are in short supply in Berkeley. That’s why I applaud the Berkeley School Board’s plan to use its land at Derby and MLK for a multi-purpose athletic field, including a plan to accommodate the Tuesday farmers’ market.  

For our family and for dozens if not hundreds more Berkeley families this plan is a three-fer. Less driving to ball fields in Alameda and Oakland, a chance to watch the Berkeley High baseball team play on a decent field, and more opportunities to shop at the farmers’ market after games or practices. 

I urge the City Council to get behind this plan for Berkeley families and Berkeley kids. 

David Fogarty 

• 

FIRE STATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is really very simple: They promised us eight and are now offering seven. 

When we taxpayers generously passed Measure G 12 years ago, what we had said “yes” to was, among other things, to retrofit all our seven existing firehouses, plus build another multi-jusridictional firehouse, which would total eight fire houses. But in the interim, although we were promised eight, we are now being offered just seven. 

The proposed new hills firehouse has been quite a hot topic. The reason for this is that in District 6, Betty Olds’ district, Station No. 7 has yet to be retrofitted, and the push by Councilmember Olds and others has instead been to just “hurry up and build a new fire house.” For years I have been totally puzzled by all of this, because my “yes” vote, as I just said, was apparently totally baited and switched since 1992. 

All the new firehouse would do is move the crew and materiel from Station No. 7 up the hill to the new proposed site. No additional city fire personnel would operate the new house, we’d have essentially the same level of protection as we have now. And this would cost the whopping amount of at least $5 million. This has become much too complicated. But, as I’ve always said about Berkeley, “If it can be complicated, why make it simple?” 

Another crucial point is the finances of all this. Shouldn’t Berkeley be trying to save every possible penny at this time of desperate fiscal straits? The savings of not paying interest on the $5 million could be much better spent elsewhere, don’t you think? 

All I’m asking is that if you also voted in favor of Measure G back in 1992, expecting that an eighth, truly inter-city, multi-jurisdictional firehouse be built in addition to our current seven firehouses, please let the mayor and City Council know your opinion. When voters approve of a bond measure and are willing to put up the money, voters should be able to trust that our elected officials respect our will and thereby earn our trust. Once this trust is broken, no one should ever assume that we voters would ever trust the city again by voting in favor of any future bond proposal. 

Doris Nassiry 

• 

CLARIFICATION, PLEASE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So let me get this straight. Max Anderson, chair of the Rent Stabilization Board, responding to John Koenigshofer’s criticisms of Berkeley’s rent controls, believes Mr. Koenigshofer’s status as a landlord and realtor discredits these criticisms (“Rent Board Chair Chides Control Foe’s ‘Rant,’” Daily Planet, May 25-27). Are we then to believe that Mr. Anderson’s status as chair of the Rent Board discredits his own support of the program? 

Mr. Anderson also thinks means testing tenants to determine whether they should benefit from rent control is an “Ashcroftesque invasion of privacy.” If he is to be logically consistent about means testing, Mr. Anderson must also be opposed to requiring that taxpayers, students applying for financial aid, and welfare recipients disclose information about their assets and income to qualify for the benefits of tax credits and deductions, student loans, and subsidized housing respectively. 

I am neither a landlord nor a tenant. But as a Berkeley voter, I am puzzled and worried by Mr. Anderson’s reasoning. I look forward to clarification. 

Keith Winnard 

• 

ROSA PARKS TURNOVER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your poorly informed article on Rosa Parks (“Rosa Parks School Faces Hugh Turnover,” Daily Planet, May 25-27) was completely shocked me and some other parents. I’ve got to say, you need to talk to more than a small self-appointed group of people with an axe to grind who claim they represent concerned parents and teachers. Well I’m a concerned parent too and no one asked me my opinion or a lot of other folks as well. 

By the way, what is the point of the article? Try to make more parents and kids leave the school? Why do you think these changes are being made— just randomly? Wouldn’t it be worth it to speak to a few other folks in the district and, well, find out. Ms. Herrera did not comment because she is under legal obligation not to comment until this whole thing is over. You neglected to mention this. 

I’m a parent at the school and have been following the changes that have been going on over the last six years of my participation there as my daughter and son have been attending. We’ve gone through four principals until Ms. Herrera arrived. We now have a focus, a direction and some clear standards to follow. 

These changes did not all come just from Ms. Herrera but from the observations of both the principle, the superintendent and other educational experts who observed, over a period of many months, the teaching in individual classrooms. Recommended changes to improve the learning environment for ALL the kids were made from these observations. Unfortunately, some teachers did not want to make these changes and may have not been prepared for the recommendations but something needed to happen and they were completely included in this process over the last year. 

As for the school, testing and the learning environment. If anything, the behavior and treatment of ALL the kids has been more even and consistent than it has ever been. And, we there is a greater commitment to getting all kids up to their grade level and not just push them through without the skills they need to succeed. We need to know what kids are learning, what they are not and get them what they need. What’s wrong with this? 

It’s time to put the gossip, criticism behind us and move forward and get Rosa Parks happening again. Look into the facts and start moving forward. What good is this going to do for the teachers and families remaining in the school? I challenge the critics to find out what really happened and why and to make some really valuable recommendations on what should happen to bring kids up to grade level, improve performance and to create improved behavior at the school. 

As a committed parent, I have positive hopes for the future. I would like to see improvements in the science program and other programs and I hope to see this school improve over the next three years until my son moves on to middle school. I know there are other parents who are equally committed to the school and will be staying on. 

Let’s move on together and make Rosa Parks a success for all the kids. 

Steven Donaldson 

• 

SCHOOL TAXES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am single, retired and living on fixed income. And while I strongly believe education and schools are important, asking me to pay more taxes when so much of my property taxes already goes for schools is not a small burden. 

When the BSEP issue first came up, we as a community agreed that libraries, music and small classes were a priority. Then the remainder should to individual schools for each school to allocate. That costs us over $11 million a year. Since then, we have voted to give the school district over $250 million for new school construction, and $4 million a year to maintain that construction. 

The new construction looks great, but is it being properly maintained, I wonder? I am concerned about the repeat flooding at newly renovated Malcolm X. The roses planted by volunteers at Willard are gorgeous, but the sides of the school on Derby and Stuart are neglected and need care. That new lawn in front of King was just planted last year, and now they’re tearing it up again to put in irrigation. Isn’t that somewhat backwards and a waste of money? I wonder, is all the money BUSD is getting being put to good use? We were promised small class sizes and the promises have not been kept. 

I find it rather curious that the Superintendent has called for another community forum, so we can again discuss what the components of an excellent education, and again endlessly discuss what our resources are. Weren’t there at least two prior such forums? I don’t recall hearing a peep about the results of the prior forums and discussions. 

What strikes me is that despite all this money BUSD as received, our community’s level of satisfaction, as reported in the latest poll taken by BUSD, is only at 40 percent, no better than 14 years ago, before all this money. At my age, I know that money isn’t the solution for everything. 

Maybe before I’m asked to pay more school taxes, I’d like to know that the school taxes I’m already paying are being used efficiently and effectively. 

S. Corcosˇ

For me, awaiting the new city budget is a lot like waiting to read the book based on the lousy movie. The really awful part is that I had the same feeling watching a spark ignite the worn gas line in my ’75 bug, and again after W’s Sept. 12 speech. Disastrous aftermaths often develop from similar avoidable beginnings; there are remarkable parallels between the war against terrorism and Berkeley’s war against the budget crisis.  

Both crusades are so well titled, so well framed, that to most of us, it seems unreasonable, even irresponsible for a person to say, no, I have another option, or, no, I am against it. No person that you or I am comfortable talking with actually wants more death or financial collapse, and this factor is exploited by the emergency mongers who constantly remind us that in times of fearful crisis, people must be prepared to do unusual things, things we might otherwise be ashamed of doing. Fearful crisis will allow a person justification for brutally eliminating the enemy. It will make one re-examine their well-reasoned position; it can destroy you if you stand in the way. It is a catalyst of such immediacy and influence that its authors cannot necessarily control the change. It is a sort of functional autonomy. 

The executives seem so earnest and so pressed, so without options, so having no solution except THE solution, that we empathize and come to refer to them personally as Dick and George and Condie, and Phil, and endorse their struggle as they valiantly set to slay demonic hordes allayed against the innocent; hordes unknown as enemy, maybe unknown unto themselves, unknown to taxpayers, but demonic the same: Muslims, Darkies, Unions. 

Never mind that the people charged with intelligently forecasting and planning do claim to have been caught by surprise, also there is blind acceptance that those that reaped great benefit from the very thing they now attack—oil suppliers, military alliance, salary and benefits—are so terribly needed and are not the least bit self-serving, and are not using the cover of the crisis to settle old scores and make advantage. You can take this to the bank: The executives responsible will be unscathed by the crisis and will soon enjoy the greatest retirement benefits taxpayers can provide.  

There are many people who not only see through the b.s., but also will tell the world of the news they’ve found. Unfortunately for progress, we find that messages from these enlightened ones are habitually downplayed as the ruminations of impractical dreamers, malcontents, and counter-culture types. The situation had even caused me to wonder if there was some mass hypnosis causing once thoughtful people to abandon complex reasoning and seek peace in expedient simplicity. Never mind if truth is apparent—increasingly if you are trying to sell a proposition, socioeconomic or cuteness status of the proponent is as often the determinant of what is acted on as any. White collar trumps blue collar; big salary people are more right than littler salary people; labels are product. Just as some viruses infest only healthy hosts, crass demonizations have been fixed on every progressive function Berkeley is known for: liberals are too vague, affordable housing is unaffordable, Nader is too divisive, Black Rep and curb cuts are too expensive, commissions are too bothersome, teachers are too pushy, university too big, social agencies too ineffective, and those greedy powerful unionized city workers … well, they’re fairly employed. 

For years I have pointed out to several city officials that they have wasted a lot of money by hiring contractors and incompetents (whose work we often have corrected) and violating our contract and classification system to perform telephone and electrical work when the city communication techs and electricians of IBEW Local 1245 do the same things better and at long-term savings. The response has been to obfuscate, stall, ignore our rights, and then layoff because of a false schemed lack of work and funding. Kind of what happened to the UN peacekeeping force. 

It would signal that a new day has come if the proposals by the workers are implemented. There is still opportunity that together--taxpayer and taxpayer funded—we will rescue our perhaps last chance to get it right. Getting it right requires acknowledging the truth, which is that workers have expended several hundreds of unpaid hours attempting to resolve the budget crisis situation. I am one of many city employees who feel special indebtedness to this city for its place in the civil and human rights struggles and, though I live in Oakland, consider Berkeley’s problems as my own. Giving back to the city is something I and many workers aim to do everyday, so don’t take a lack of agreement with the city manager’s/budget oversight committees’ ultimatums as an affront to Berkeley’s generosity. We have been helping and are trying to overcome the resistance from obstinate administrators so we can help more. They have told us it is all political and that appearances require workers seem to contribute in the way the executives and council have selected. The truth is political posturing makes us gag and workers contribute proportionally far more than the high-paid executives contribute and have far less left over. We have feelings too and have been pummeled by false characterizations, misrepresentations, blanket accusations, and the stunning silence of the city manager’s failure to defend scapegoated workers who got less benefit from their meager labor contracts than his executive team gets. The administration’s refrain, even when there was plenty of time, has been they don’t have sufficient time remaining to evaluate our proposals. If I paid property taxes in Berkeley I would demand the decision makers use a little more of the reserves for this next fiscal year so that layoffs and program cuts can be prevented while benefits of the workers’ proposals are realized, and seriously evaluate the workers’ proposals and implement them immediately. Trust the workers and they will soon show you what true cooperation among people who appreciate and like each other can produce. 

I’ve empirically proven to myself so many times that optimism is the attitude that rewards itself. But hey, I’m the kind of person who believes that a sincere apology, reparations, and new leadership can prevent the loss of American lives in Iraq and make us safer at home.  

Pat McCullough is an employee of the City of Berkeley and an Oakland resident. ›

Clothing Drive 

In their Afghanistan clothing drive, 

The Quakers of “Friends” ask no symbols 

On the donated hats, 

The t-shirts, the sweaters. 

No slogans or smiley faces, 

Nor deer on the Norwegian cardigans. 

The Moslem children are to get plain colors. 

Green if possible. 

Not red, white or blue. 

I fold by daughter’s purple old nightgown 

In a paper bag I’ll carry in next Sunday 

It was never her favorite 

Like the long one 

With Snoopy on his doghouse 

Ready to fight the Red Baron. 

But perhaps some 9-year-old Afghan girl 

Might dream in its flannel 

Might like to dream in its soft folds.  

Oh Osama girl, stay asleep in your bed. 

The Red Baron snoops over Iraq instead. 

Nancy Woganô

In recent contributions to an e-mail discussion of University Avenue zoning reforms among city officials, staff, and interested citizens, Planning Commissioner Tim Perry (Councilmember Margaret Breland’s appointee) blamed Berkeley’s “public culture” for the anger and intemperate remarks directed at staff during last week’s Planning Commission hearing. Saying that he’s “convinced staff does their best to treat the community and housing producers (a.k.a. ‘developers’) equally,” Perry called for neighbors to treat staff with more respect. 

Perry’s right to lament these lapses of civility, but by blaming “public culture” for its own character (a circular argument) he’s begging the question. Why are people angry? Because a handful of pushy developers keep circumventing popular local development controls intended to preserve Berkeley’s unique character and throwing up inappropriate, out-of-scale buildings. Planning staff are a handy target for this anger, since it’s their job to enforce the zoning code—but they’re not the root of the problem. 

Staff not only don’t treat developers and neighbors equally, they can’t. A special relationship between staff and developers necessarily arises because, especially on large and potentially controversial projects, they meet many times over many months, sometimes years. There’s no way to avoid that, so the law provides a balancing role for the public. 

In Berkeley, that public role is currently inadequate. This results in a constant stream of controversial projects, angry neighbors, and contentious hearings. 

This stream does not run through a political vacuum. Some people in town, including some staff and appointed and elected officials, benefit from the status quo through increased departmental or tax revenue, campaign contributions, or jobs, or favor construction of large buildings for ideological reasons such as a belief that they help the homeless or reduce development of open space and farmland in places like Brentwood. 

How does this political tendency play out? Staff, through inaction, selective enforcement, and creative interpretation of the zoning code, city plans, and state law, and under constant pressure from developers, frequently promote projects that flout the regulations intended to preserve neighborhood character and prohibit out-of-scale buildings. Appointed and elected officials—despite protestations of reluctance, expressions of sympathy for neighbors’ objections, and minority votes to the contrary—more often than not approve such projects. And at all levels, any attempt to reform the zoning code to plug loopholes are thwarted by inaction, obstructionism, and vague, ambiguous legislation that provides new loopholes. 

For example, the University Avenue Strategic Plan approved in 1996 contains a detailed description of how large buildings were to be restricted to certain major intersections, with the rest of the street limited to three-story buildings with ample setbacks and stepbacks. But, by failing to draft the zoning code revisions necessary to implement that plan, staff effectively vetoed the measure. 

Whether this was a conscious or deliberate decision is debatable. There’s a virtually endless backlog of such work, and neither the Planning Commission or City Council put pressure on staff to make this particular task a priority until a few months ago, when the Tune-Up Masters proposal highlighted the gap between the official plans and development reality. 

On the other hand, now that it is a priority, staff have produced one draft after another that effectively perpetuate the current loopholes but fail to implement the explicit and detailed provisions of the UASP. Can even the most reasonable and disinterested observer see that as anything but a deliberate attempt to dump the democratically developed and approved plan with one that allows the continued construction of sore-thumb buildings? Neighbors have a right to be angry. 

Nevertheless, it’s not only uncivil but a waste of political capital to direct anger at staff. No proposal by planning staff can take effect without the support of a majority of the members of the Planning Commission. Since each City Council member appoints one commissioner, they’re the ones who are ultimately responsible. 

Angry? The upcoming City Council election provides the proper forum to express it. Get out and work to elect people whose Planning Commission appointees won’t vote to make Berkeley look like Walnut Creek. 

Pro-democracy activist Robert Lauriston lives in South Berkeley.

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I appreciated that your paper’s coverage of the Berkeley Pagan Parade (“Pagans on Parade Cavort in Downtown Berkeley,” Daily Planet, May 18-20). However I felt that focusing at least half of the article on a little Christian group giving out water, and not on the actual Pagans (which, by the way, should be capitalized out of respect, just like Christianity and Hinduism) and what their parade was even about. Turning one of the few times in a year that (minority) Pagans can come into the spotlight into yet another excuse to write about (dominant) Christians is very unfortunate. Not only that, but the article not-so-subtly compares the gentle Christian act of giving water to hypothetical Pagan orgies and animal sacrifice; this is downright insulting innuendo, and utterly unprofessional in the extreme.  

Also, why must Pagans “cavort” when they have a parade? If it were a Catholic parade, would your journalists say they were “cavorting”? Or imply that one should expect to see Jews being tortured (as they were by Catholics centuries ago)? Of course not! And why? Because such innuendoes would be very offensive and insulting to Catholics. Yet your paper seems to think it’s perfectly fine to say and imply similar things to Pagans. 

Please show our religion the same respect you show the dominant ones in our country and keep these things in mind when your paper next covers a Pagan activity. 

Brett Lowry 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I assume Richard Brenneman’s article on the Interfaith Pagan Pride Parade and Celebration was an attempt to narrate a visitor’s experiences of the festival. However, Mr. Brenneman did resort to gratuitous negatives and common biases in order to define the event. I quote “paganism... nowhere defined in event literature,” “no animals (or humans) were offered up as sacrifices,” and “no temple prostitutes and no orgies” and “only equivalent of the “All-Seeing Eye was the tripod-mounted video camera... atop the tower of old city hall,” and “promoters of ...legalized prostitution (itself a fine old pagan tradition) were restricted to...the elevated plaza...” 

My impression of the event was entirely different. I read the program guide and found a wealth of information. I saw a wholesome celebration of interfaith groups, good selection of arts and crafts, plus marvelous music performances. The “all-seeing eye” happened to be Berkeley Community Media, Berkeley’s own cable TV station, which filmed the festival from various locations including the old city hall tower. Also, proponents of the Berkeley ballot measure on prostitution were not part of the approved pagan pride event, though I did see one unauthorized petition gatherer walking from the adjacent Farmer’s Market into the festival.  

There is already too much divisiveness in the world to add “paganism in Berkeley “ to the roster. I hope the Berkeley Daily Planet will do a followup story, an interview with an event representative, or a retraction regarding the above article. A follow-up would be an ideal opportunity for Berkeley’s premier voice to dispel prejudice and inform the public about modern neo-paganism. 

Gianna Ranuzzi 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My father, Phillip Potter of the Balitmore Sun, brought me up to respect the profession of journalism, and used to revile “yellow sheet journalism” as an insidious betrayal of the public trust. Your recent article, “Pagans on Parade Cavort in Downtown Berkeley,” is a fine example of the worst sort of journalism. I was there for the entire day, and note that almost every word of Richard Brenneman’s article was spurious, inciteful, and devoid of truth. In this day and age of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, hate mongering and violence, the last thing we need is journalistic religious intolerance. You owe the organizers of the event, the participants, and the community an apology. Shame on you. 

Susan Potter 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a dedicated reader of the Daily Planet I’m ashamed, disgusted and most of all insulted by your horrible, poorly researched article about The Interfaith Pagan Pride Parade. As an independent paper you require the support of your community, and you managed to disrespect a large number of us with this article. If you continue to publish this kind of garbage your going to see your support base start slipping away. I will never read the Daily Planet again, you are a disgrace to Berkeley and all that it stands for. Fundamentalist would be (and I’m sure are) proud! 

With regret and disdain, 

Caitlyn Powell 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am personally offended by the article by Richard Brenneman on Pagan Pride Day in Berkeley. I am a Pagan myself and attended the event. I found it peaceful and a celebration of religions that are fairly new and religions that predate Christianity and not the prostitution peddling festival of tax evasion evil that Mr. Brenneman made it out to be. The way the article was written reveals his ignorance and bigotry of the pagan community. 

I was really offended by his contrasting of the Christians who dispense free water (which was much appreciated) and the vendors at the event. He made no mistake portraying the scene like the pagans are a bunch of tax evading, religion peddling misfits and the water dispensing Christians as an island of righteousness in a sea of sinfulness. 

I will not put up with this and will be distributing the article among other pagans as far as I can reach. I will be encouraging them to not read the Berkeley Daily Planet and it’s affiliates until a full page apology is made. 

I have to congratulate Mr. Brenneman and the Berkeley Daily Planet on offending an entire religious community that practices nothing but love of each other, the earth and love of peace with his venom. If that’s what was intended, it has been done. 

Stephanie Jones 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding your article on the Pagan Parade: What a poor excuse for journalism. And, to assign blame where blame is due, what a lazy, irresponsible editorial choice to allow this story to run as written. Certainly the cynical, world-weary, sarcastically tongue-in-cheek ap-proach to writing has its place, and one has to look no further than the East Bay Express and the Bay Guardian to find countless examples of this style, in which informative content is wholly subsumed by attitude. Until now, I’ve viewed the Daily Planet as a publication with a sincere interest in serving the Berkeley community. Mr. Brenneman’s approach to his reportage of the parade, however, reveals a complete lack of interest in his subject matter, as well as an arbitrary, mean-spirited willingness to cast the volunteer efforts of a large group of community-minded participants in a negative light. 

As someone who has regularly volunteered my own time as a professional musician to help with fundraising events for the Parade, it pisses me off no end to see the efforts of a talented, hard-working community of people dismissed out of hand as nothing more than selfish, immoral, parasitic indulgence. I pity the journalist who refuses to do even the minimum of research on his subject in order to free his sarcastic “wit” to function unencumbered by the facts. Brenneman is no Steve Rubenstein or Dave Barry, but if that’s the type of writing he aspires to, maybe you should give him a column — that way, your readers won’t mistake him for an actual reporter. 

Mark Ungar 

San Francisco 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I found your article “Pagans on Parade” by Richard Brenneman to be really lame and disrespectful. Why does he delight in criticizing the hard work and positive energy of others? Here we have a group of people singing, dancing, drumming, and adding beauty to Berkeley, and the only good thing he has to say is about someone who wasn’t part of the event (the Christian dispersing water). As a pagan, and a druid, I found his denegration of the celebration of my faith to be completely inappropriate. Does he walk by Bar Mitzvahs and find things to mock about the celebrants? Get a clue, dude! 

Here’s hoping he sleeps well at night with the comforting thought that 1,500 witches are pissed off at him. 

Sweet dreams! 

Kira Westfall 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was shocked that a city with the reputation for fairness that Berkeley used to enjoy would cover an event as all-inclusive and supportive of minorities as the Pagan Pride Parade with such poor journalism and unfairness. 

A large portion of the feature was devoted to how Christians were dispensing “the living water” of Christ, while nowhere did the Planet’s intrepid reporter get to the heart of what paganism is all about. 

An article of this nature might have been appropriate on the op-ed page, or better yet in a Christian newspaper. The Planet is apparently turning Moonie. 

John Koenig 

former Berkeley resident 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was extremely disappointed by the May 18 article by Richard Brenneman entitled “Pagans on Parade Cavort in Downtown Berkeley.” I have never attended the parade. I heard about the event on KPFA and in the SF Bay Guardian. I support events that attempt to build bridges between spiritual communities, particularly in these extremely troubled times. I was hoping to read a comprehensive article in your paper describing the events of the day. Instead I found an article that was heavily biased and extremely disrespectful in tone. 

Except for his section on the Christian group, Mr. Brenneman repeatedly utilized gross stereotype to frame his so-called report. I was touched and enjoyed the reporter’s description of the Christian group offering water. Curiously there were no other attempts to personalize other less mainstream participants at the parade. I can only assume that Mr. Brenneman was unable to maintain the objectivity required of a reporter when he went on this assignment. I am puzzled that his editors were unable to recognize the manifest problems with this story. I hope that in the future the Daily Planet will be more careful about whom they assign to write and edit such stories. Please let me know how the Daily Planet intends to proceed in this matter. Thank you. 

Megan Evart 

Concord 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s editorial, “Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us” in the May 25 edition, cuts to the crux of the matter. The point of Richard Brenneman’s piece “Pagan’s Parade...” in fact was to “poke gentle fun” at those with whom your paper does not purportedly agree on a religious basis. But his piece—however innocently intended—had missed its mark, as did her support for it. 

What makes Garrison Keillor’s prodding at Lutherans, Unitarians, Catholics, etc., humorous and effective is that Keillor makes his living as a humorist. Perhaps more importantly, Keillor makes clear his own beliefs in God, and with his one foot on that ground, he allows an audience or a reader see him as a part of his joke, rather than apart from it. 

Mark Twain’s letters regarding Mormons and Christian evangelicals to the journal Alta California were simply that: letters.  

While objectivity is a goal difficult to achieve by any writer, it is the goal of a journalist. Based on previously authored articles, I’ve been under the impression that Mr. Brenneman is a journalist, and therefore, follows basic journalistic principles. One of which is to offer a fair and balanced report. 

Brenneman’s Pagan article had other intentions and was inappropriate for the main body of your newspaper. Its placement did nothing short of alienating a harmless group of people at a harmless gathering. The article would have better served the readership as an editorial opinion, a review or column. 

For Brenneman to willingly show bias in an inappropriate format is self-indulgent. To then to be supported by a top executive, whose tone is to trivialize the matter, is patronizing, and it leaves the Berkeley Daily Planet and its journalists suspect in their endeavors to serve the community as something more than just a self-aggrandizing vehicle for advertisers. 

Bob Ferrer 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read an article that greatly disturbed me, and I wanted to bring this to your attention. 

There was a gathering In Berkely, and it was covered and written with such disdain for the Pagan Society, I and my fellow sisterhood and brotherhood of witches and pagans are appalled, that you would allow this inflammatory article to be written. I understand freedom of speech, however this goes far beyond that, and I would only hope you will take a closer look at this article and justify why you would think this article was written fairly and without prejudice. 

I am proud to call my self a Witch.. I am Pagan, and I for one take extreme exception to your article sir. Who ever wrote this should indeed be careful that they have not set them selves up for slander and libel. 

Freedom of Religion, means all religions... 

Safyre Witch 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m certainly enjoying the flap over the humorous coverage of the pagan/interfaith parade. I believe we readers are entitled to assume that the pagans, if sincere about defending their dignity should insist that the writer, Richard Brenneman, be either ritually cursed, sent to hell, or burned at the stake. 

Carol Denney 

ô

The most dramatic story in Ben Bagdikian’s life was not his role in obtaining, publishing, and reporting on the Pentagon Papers in 1971. It was a story he was not able to report (until his 1995 memoir Double Vision) because he was too young—10 days old in 1920—when his parents and four sisters fled Marash, Armenia, on foot, climbing over snow-covered mountains to escape the Turks during a great Armenian genocide.  

Thinking the new baby was dead, his father dropped him in order to catch his mother who had fainted. Ben hit the snow, cried out, and was picked up again. After more narrow escapes, the family made it to America when Ben was four months old and settled in Stoneham, Mass. There his father (who had taught at an American University in Armenia) became pastor of a Cambridge Armenian Congregational Church.  

Despite the loss of his mother to tuberculosis three years later, Ben says that, compared to immigrants with no contacts, no English, and few skills, his English-speaking family had a fairly “easy entreé into middle-class American life,” and he grew up as “an Armenian overlaid by, of all things, the culture of New England Yankees.” 

Although there were family feasts where relatives told stories in Turkish or Armenian, Ben—a fiercely “American” kid who “always wished they’d serve hot dogs and stuff like that instead of stuffed eggplant”—understood neither language. “I picked up a little Turkish when I was staying with my grandparents, but lost it all. Or thought I did.”  

A few years ago, his wife Marlene and he traveled to Marash.  

“One night we found ourselves wandering in a dark and gloomy district that made me more and more uneasy. We had to get out of there, but how? I saw a man in a tan uniform—some official or policeman, I hoped—walked up to him, and out of my mouth came, ‘Can you tell us how to get a cab?’ In Turkish! I was astonished. Somewhere, back in my brain, bits of the language still lived.” 

The plan was for Ben to become a doctor, but when he graduated from Clark University (after serving as editor of the college newspaper), he needed to earn money for medical school. As a pre-med student, he had to take many chemistry courses. He went to apply for a job as a chemist. “Come back in an hour.” During that fateful hour, he wandered into the offices of the Springfield Morning Union, found that they could use a reporter, and never looked back. 

During World War II, he married while serving as a navigator in the Army Air Corps. He and his wife Betty had two sons, Chris (1944) and Eric (1951), before their marriage ended. By 1947 he was working as a reporter and Washington bureau chief for the Providence Journal-Bulletin. In 1956, he won an Ogden Reed Fellowship for a year in Europe, then in 1957 took the risky assignment of covering the Southern Civil Rights scene along with black reporter Jim Rhea. He left the Journal-Bulletin in 1961 and began freelance reporting. His first book, In The Midst of Plenty (1964), came out of articles written after spending time with poor Appalachians, bean pickers in Florida, old people “warehoused” in Los Angeles, men in flop houses in Chicago.  

Later, a similar experience, having himself smuggled into a maximum security prison as an inmate, led to his book Caged: Eight Prisoners and their Keepers (1976).  

“I was only there two weeks, but I’ll never forget how quickly the outside world disappears. A depression settles over everyone. Once, when we were brought out of our cells, I looked into a wall-mirror to check out who was nearby. I saw a guy I didn’t know. Who was that? It was me! That look, that careful, dead, expressionless look had already made me a stranger to myself.” 

I asked Ben if such experiences with the poor and the imprisoned led to his life-long concern for the deprived, the less educated. He nodded. 

“And a couple of earlier influences. There was my Uncle Fred, a mechanic with a great zest for life. He bought me my first ice cream soda, took me around with him, out of that up-tight world of the ‘preacher’s son.’ That was a terrible burden, everyone watching and judging to see how ‘good’ I was—and I wasn’t good! Yet within that uptight world was the deep concern for values. Every night we had a Bible reading, all together, the family. Sounds dreary, and sometimes it was. But, you know, after years and years, the theology, the dogma falls away, and what’s left is ‘Do unto others—’ and the Beatitudes. You know, in the ethics class I have at Berkeley, I asked my graduate students, where they got their sense of right and wrong. And most of them went back to early religious training—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever—and they said the same thing, that in adulthood the theology dropped away, but the moral teachings stayed with them.” Ben laughs. “Marlene says all that King James Bible reading shows in my writing style.” 

By 1967 Ben was with the Washington Post as assistant managing editor for national news (1970), where his adventures with the Pentagon Papers hit the headlines in 1971. “It was a tricky spot to be in. I was covering the story, but I was instrumental in getting the papers, so I was part of the story as well. I believe a reporter should stand outside the story and report it accurately, but in some cases, that’s not possible. It’s like walking a tightrope.”  

Ben has won so many awards that articles about him no longer bother to list all of them. I asked which were his favorite awards.  

“I was part of a group Pulitzer, but what I value more is the Pulitzer I didn’t get. I was one of two finalists during that fellowship year 1956-57 in Europe. I had helped cover the Israeli/Egyptian war, giving the point of view of leaders but also of ordinary citizens on both sides; that’s what made our reports different. Another award I value is the Peabody I got in 1951 for criticizing leading TV and radio commentators. And I treasure the James Madison Award from the American Library Association, Coalition on Government Information in 1998.” 

In 1976 Ben joined the faculty of the UC Graduate School of Journalism, where he taught until 1991, serving three years as dean (1985-1988). His major publishing event of those years was The Media Monopoly in 1983. In that book he described the dangers of media ownership by only 50 companies. Media Monopoly went into five more editions—1987, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2000. Then in January 2004 The New Media Monopoly came out.  

“It wasn’t my idea. The publisher said I had to do a new edition because so much has changed. So the seventh edition is really 90 percent new. From 50 companies, ownership of media has shrunk to just five or six. But there’s an even bigger difference. In 1983 each company wanted a monopoly over just one medium—say magazines, or newspapers, or television. Now, these few companies try to control all media, so that the TV you watch, the radio, the newspaper, the magazines, the movies, the books—might all be owned and controlled by one corporation—Fox or Murdock or Disney. And these companies promote a far-right slant. What they have managed to do in 25 years is to shift what used to be called the ‘nutty right’ to the center. And the left has been pushed off the edge completely.” 

Is there hope in the Internet?  

“Yes. There’s lots of junk on it, but it’s still an outlet for an independent with no money but plenty of ingenuity and skill, like MoveOn.org. It’s not controlled by the corporations. Not yet. But the FCC, which is supposed to protect independent media, is Bush-appointed, and not a bit friendly.” 

What about print media? Name some of the ones that are holding firm against the move to the right. 

“Well, you know, I think you have to read the New York Times every day. There’s been a big change in the last five years. It’s not so wedded to the establishment. And there’s the Nation, the Progressive, Extra, alternative radio, the New York Review of Books. And it’s a good idea to read Time and Newsweek, so you get a view of the total picture most magazine readers are getting—and even those two have been pretty dismayed at the right lately.” Ben laughs. “I occasionally look at the National Review too, and the Weekly Standard—I think you have to know what the right is thinking.” 

I asked, what if I work at a full-time job and have a family and a house to keep up and friends, and a need to relax and watch TV a little. But I’m determined to squeeze out an hour a day to stay informed. What should I read? 

“Hmmmm. Okay. The Nation, Newsweek, the Progressive. And, of course, the Berkeley Daily Planet. It’s a really great local paper!” 

Lest the reader decide that, in my admiration for Ben, I am buttering him up inexcusably, let me conclude by telling his dirty little secret, the revelation of which is sure to infuriate him. Ben is not his real first name. His mother had him christened Ben-Hur, yes, after the monumentally schlocky best seller that spawned some even more tasteless movie spectacles. 

“To my knowledge,” Ben murmurs, “it was her only lapse of literary taste.” 

Ben Bagdikian will read from The New Media Monopoly at 7:30 on June 4 at Cody’s Books on Telegraph.

The Giorgi Gallery on Claremont is currently showing an exhibit of Evelyn Glaubman’s work from 1990-2000. Evelyn Glaubman is Vista College’s—and Berkeley’s—premiere art teacher and has more devoted students than the Pope has bishops. One other thing to note about the artist when viewing this show is that she is a tiny, diminutive person who creates BIG WORK! The Giorgi’s walls are barely big enough to contain it and each piece needs a much larger space.  

In this work the “message” is the art—or some of it. What I liked about these pieces is the unifying single most clear message: We Want Our Freedom! From the debasement of our freedoms by “technology” imprisoning us to the Statue of Liberty reduced to holding up a No Parking sign, each piece dramatizes our loss of freedom. (Because these pieces were done in the prior decade, the freedoms at stake pale before what is going on today—which won’t be lost on you and perhaps makes it all the more chilling). 

For me, the best is the piece “American Gothic,” a huge work with many levels (both in references, meanings and superimposed layering including external ropes criss-crossing Mom and Pop further imprisoning them and creating a three dimensional work of depth). They are a new “American Gothic,” not the folksy couple we knew struggling (together) with their pitchforks to contain our vast land, but a man and a woman who cannot make a relationship together. They are badly injured, particularly Pop, with his injured macho.  

All the works are created from recycled materials including paper towels, Truitt & White rulers, and the whole “Billboard” series is done on the backs of billboards! 

Glaubman’s work is the most interesting show the Giorgi has yet produced. 

Evelyn Glaubman Exhibit shows May 20-June 6 at the Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. at Ashby Avenue. 848-1228.ø

TUESDAY, JUNE 1 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charles Purdy discusses “Urban Etiquette” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Burke Schuchmann, cellist and Lois Brandwynne, pianist, chamber music at the Berkeley City Club. 236-5717. www.berkeleycityclub.org  

Édessa at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz, with a Balkan dance lesson with Nancy Klein at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

www.thejazzhouse.com 

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

Tiempo Libre, Afro-Cuban jazz, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Dance floor open. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“We Hold the Rock” a exhibition of photographs featuring Native American activism at the Free Speech Café, Moffitt Library, UC Campus.  

“Transition/Exploration,” works by five Bay Area artists at A.C.C.I. Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Gallery hours are Mon.-Fri. 11a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 843-2527.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country” a panel discussion on taking politics on the road at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose, 843-3533. 

James Lee Burke at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

David Bacon describes “The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Seeds of Deception” with author Jeffrey Smith discussing efforts to keep genetically modified foods out of Alameda County’s ecosystems and food supply, at 7 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Dinner at 6 p.m. Cost is $15. 843-0662. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Nazelah Jamison and Karen Ladson at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7,  

$5 with student i.d. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Songwriter Showcase with Emily Fox, Adam Varona, Mike Rofe, Robyn Harris and Jason Broome at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $5. 644-2204.  

www.epicarts.org 

Keyser Soze and Beautiful Losers at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

ICE, Improvised Composition Experiment open jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744.  

www.thejazzhouse.com 

The Key of Z: Experimental Instruments, and the Music They Make, with the New Zealand ensemble From Scratch, at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Sponsored by Amoeba Records. 642-1412. 

Whiskey Brothers perform old time and bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Jules Broussard at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Jump/Cut, modern jazz ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Don Braden’s Organ Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200.  

www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JUNE 3 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“High Fiber” an exhibit exploring the intersection of digital technology and fiber-based artworks, at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Gallery hours are Tues.-Fri. noon to 5:30 p.m., Sat. noon to 4:30 p.m. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

THEATER 

“Primo” a play by Ed Davidson, on the last days of Holocaust author, Primo Levi, at 7:30 PM Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut Street. Cost is $15-$20. 925-798-1300. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Mishell Erickson and Kat Hash, followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. For information call 526-5985 or 205-1749.  

Randall Sullivan describes his work as “The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ballet Frankfurt, William Forsythe’s celebrated troupe performs as part of their first US tour outside NY in over 15 years at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Summer Noon Concert with the Jackie Payne and Steve Edmonson Band at the Berkeley BART. Sponsored by the Downtown Berkeley Association. 

Rose Street House of Music celebrates its 6th Anniversary at 7:30 p.m. with Irina Rivkin, Lisa Sanders and Kim Baker. call 594-4000, ext. 687 for location. www.rosestreetmusic.com  

Mark Growden at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$10, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204.  

www.epicarts.org 

The Bills, folk roots from Canada, 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 

Flamenco Sur at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568.  

www.lapena.org 

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

George Pederson and His Pretty Good Band at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

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

Odd Shaped Case at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $8-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Airto Moreira’s Jam Band at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, JUNE 4 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“The Renowned Photography of Margaretta K. Mitchell” reception for the artist from 6 to 8 p.m. at Schurman Fine Art Gallery, 1659 San Pablo Ave. Exhibition runs to June 30. Gallery hours are Wed. - Sat. 2 to 6 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 524-0623. 

California College of Art Alumni Exhibition at 5212 Broadway, Oakland, through June 10. 594-3788. 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep “Master Class” with Rita Moreno at The Roda Theater. Runs through July 18. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Impact Theatre “Money and Run” an action serial adventure with different episodes on Thurs., Fri. and Sats. Runs through June 5 at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. For tickets and information call 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

New Shakespeare Co., “Hamlet” directed by Stanley Spenger, at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, through June 5, no show June 3. Tickets are $10-$12. 234-6046. www.geocities.com/spoonboy_sf/hamlet.html 

California Shakespeare Theater, “Comedy of Errors,” Tues.-Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, through June 27. Tickets are $13-$32. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ben Bagdikian describes “The New Media Monopoly” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“The Spoken Word Show” with films by David Michalak and stories by Dean Santomieri at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation $8-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Potential Jazz Ensemble and MLK Jr. Middle School Jazz Band perform at 7:30 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. at Grant. Admission is free but donations gratefully accepted in support of the school music program. 

Berkeley High School Jazz Band’s Final Concert at 7 p.m. at the Little Theater, Allston Way, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $3-$10. www.berkeleyhighjazz.org 

Berkeley Public Library Jazz Festival with the Tammy Hall Trio at 8 p.m. in the Reading Room at 2090 Kittredge. Free. 981-6100. 

SambaDá, Brazilian dance music, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Stompy Jones performs East Coast Swing and Lindy Hop 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 

Norton Buffalo and friends, harmonica and acoustic trio, 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 

The Ex-Boyfriends, Bitesize, Robosapien at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

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

Happy Turtle, jazz trio, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Paintbox, Look Back and Laugh, Cropknox, Ballast 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. 

The Cuts, rock and roll from Oakland, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

André Sumelius’ LIFT, drummer from Finland, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 5 

CHILDREN  

Los Mapaches at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8 for adults, 43 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Wild About Books” storytime with Cric Crac Storytelling Troupe and stories from Jamaica at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

How to Make a Pop-Up Book with author Lulu Hansen at 3 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. books@ewbb.com 

THEATER 

Wilde Irish Productions, “Eclipsed” by Patricia Burke Brogan, at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Runs Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through June 27. Tickets are $15-$20. 841-7287. www.wildeirish.org 

FILM 

International Media Festival on Disabilities from 1 to 9 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Public Library Jazz Festival with Mary Watkins Trio at 8 p.m. in the Reading Room at 2090 Kittredge. Free. 981-6100. 

Bella Musica Chorus with the Prometheus Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito, Oakland. 525-5393. info@bellamusica.org  

Pacific Boychoir performs Bach’s Cantata 150 at 7 p.m. at Firts Presbyterian Church, 27th and Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15, available from 866-486-3399. www.pacificboychoir.org 

José Luis Orozco at 10 a.m. at La Peña, in a benefit concert for BAHIA, Inc. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Chelsey Fasano and Helen Chaya, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Benefit for Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1FM at 8 p.m. at The Longhaul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190. 

“Hooray For Hollywood” Alameda Civic Light Opera features dinner and a floorshow with songs from Hollywood blockbuster movies along with movie-themed live and silent auctions, at 6 p.m. at the Alameda Elks Lodge. Tickets are $55. 864-2256. www.aclo.com  

Might Prince Singers and Talk of Da Town, roots of a cappella, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

African Folk Night with The Nigerian Brothers and DJ Omar at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Drum circle with Pope Flyne at 9 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Wayward Monks, jam band jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Cost is $8-$15 sliding scale. 649-8744. www.thejazz- 

house.com 

7th Direction, Hyim and the Fat Folkland Orchestra, Shantytown at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Times 4, jazz funk quartet, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Embrace the End, Animosity, Lifelong Tragedy at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 6 

CHILDREN 

“The World in my Neighborhood: Celebrating the Bay Area’s Cultural Heritage” Family Day at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum from 1 to 4 p.m. with music, arts and demonstrations. Cost is $1-$4. 643-7648. http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

“Primo” a play by Ed Davidson, on the last days of Holocaust author, Primo Levi, at 7:30 PM Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut Street. Also June 3 and 6. Cost is $15-$20. 925-798-1300. 

FILM 

International Media Festival on Disabilities from 1 to 9 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Christie Mellor discusses child-rearing in “The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Flash with contributors reading from “So Luminous the Wildflowers, An Anthology of California Poets” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Public Library Jazz Festival with the Dee Spencer Trio at 8 p.m. in the Reading Room at 2090 Kittredge. Free. 981-6100. 

Bella Musica Chorus with the Prometheus Symphony at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito, Oakland. 525-5393. info@bellamusica.org  

Piedmont Choirs Spring Sing at 3 p.m. at the Kofman Theatre, 2200 Central Ave. Alameda. Tickets are $10-$12. 547-441. www.piedmontchoirs.org 

Hip Hop Circus benefit for Camp Winnarainbow at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$1000. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jazzschool Advanced Jazz Workshop at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Art Lande Quartet at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com  

Americana Unplugged: The Saddle Cats, traditional bluegrass, at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Swinging on the Home Front, a cabaret and sing-along salute to the great songs of WWII, at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Za’atar, music of the Jews of Arab and Muslim lands, 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 

MONDAY, JUNE 7 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Actors Reading Writers “Surprising Loves: Art and Romance,” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave.  

Ben Cohen explains “50 Ways You Can Show George the Door in 2004” at 12:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Dale Maharidge interviewed over one hundred Americans to write “Homeland” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

The Last Word presents poets Sparrow 13 and Maw Shein Win at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Bookstore, 2349 Shattuck Ave.  

Poetry Express, featuring Alice Templeton, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Frankye Kelly sings Gershwin at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

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You can’t take anything for granted anymore. Hummingbirds, for instance—like the Bay Area’s permanent-resident Anna’s, spring-nesting Allen’s, and migrant rufous. There are about 340 living species of these small, hyperactive, nectar-feeding birds, and they’re all found in the Western Hemisphere. Their greatest diversity is in the Central American and northern South American tropics, leading biologists to conclude that the family evolved there before colonizing the temperate regions. Hummingbirds were always thought to be as American as succotash, or ceviche. 

Not so, says ornithologist Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt. Hummingbirds are from Germany. 

In a recent issue of Science, Mayr described a 30- to 34-million-year-old fossil discovered in a clay pit in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The tiny skeleton is almost identical to that of a modern hummingbird. Its needle-like beak is more than twice as long as the skull; its wingbones are modified for hovering flight. Mayr named his find Eurotrochilus (“European hummingbird”) inexpectatus. 

Inexpectatus is an understatement. “My mind is a little blown,” commented one American biologist. 

Hummingbirds, like most small, delicate-boned vertebrates, have not left an extensive fossil record. The oldest unequivocal hummingbird remains, from Central America, date back a mere million years. Mayr has claimed other specimens from 49-million-year-old deposits in Germany and 30-million-year-old sites in the Caucasus as protohummers, but these are less complete than Eurotrochilus and appear to have been in some ways more like swifts than modern hummingbirds. 

The new discovery seems to clinch the case for the European ancestry of hummers. As counterintuitive as it seems, that shouldn’t be too much of a shock, though. Many organisms evolved in one continent, migrated to others, then died out in their original homeland. Horses and rhinos began as native North Americans; not to mention camels. There was a lot of traffic over Beringia and other ancient landbridges. 

You might wonder how the founders of the American hummingbird lineage made it across the North Atlantic. No problem. When the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, Eurasia and North America were still united in the supercontinent Laurasia, the northern counterpart to Gondwanaland. While tectonic rifts then opened up in the Arctic regions, broad land corridors still connected North America with Greenland, Greenland with Scandinavia and Scotland. The last such link, the DeGeer Landbridge, was not broken until 36 million years ago. There were lots of potential flight paths for early hummers. And the higher latitudes were pretty balmy, with broadleaf forests growing almost as far north as the pole. 

Mayr hasn’t speculated in print as to why hummingbirds would have gone extinct in the Old World. But they may have left tantalizing clues to long-vanished partnerships with flowering plants: what naturalist Connie Barlow has called “ghosts of evolution.” 

Plants pollinated by hummingbirds share a number of characteristics. 

Many have tube-shaped flowers, to accommodate a hummer’s long beak and probing tongue. Some, like fuchsias, have pendent flowers; if your pollinator can hover, there’s no need to provide a perch. Red is a prevalent color. Insects are blind to red, but hummers and other birds are ultrasensitive to that end of the spectrum. On Santa Cruz Island off the Southern California coast, the yellow-blossomed bush monkeyflower is pollinated only by bees, while the red island monkeyflower attracts hummingbirds. Experiments with other monkeyflower species have shown that small mutations in the genes that control flower color can have dramatic effects on pollinator preference. 

Compared with insects, hummers don’t seem to have much of a sweet tooth. The nectars of the flowers they service have relatively low sugar concentrations, in the neighborhood of 20 percent, mostly sucrose. And since birds have a limited sense of smell, hummer-pollinated flowers tend to be unscented. 

Hummingbirds aren’t the only avian pollinators, of course. Other families—the sunbirds of Africa and Asia, the honeyeaters of Australia and the South Pacific—have made their own arrangements with flowering plants. But none of these birds have evolved the ability to hover by rotating their wings in a figure-eight pattern. Only hummingbirds can do that. 

Gerald Mayr points out that a handful of Old World plants—an East African bellflower, a Himalayan impatiens, some Asian members of the heath family—have flowers that look as if they evolved to attract hummingbirds. I was able to find a picture of one of these, a Southeast Asian shrub called Agapetes serpens. Its flowers are tubular, pendent, and fire-engine red. Any hummer would love them. Mayr thinks bees may have taken over the pollinator role for these plants after the extinction of Eurasian and African hummingbirds. 

My trusty Hortus Third, the one-volume encyclopedia of plants cultivated in North America, says Agapetes has been grown in California. So it’s highly probable that somewhere, in someone’s garden, a California hummingbird—Anna’s or Allen’s, rufous, Costa’s or black-chinned—has nectared at an Agapetes, and an old partnership has been renewed. 

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The Berkeley School Board unanimously approved the first reading of an $8.3 million tax measure for the November ballot that, if passed by voters, would cost the average homeowner $184 per year in extra taxes. 

The two-year tax—designed to complement the district’s $10 million Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP)— would pay for lower class sizes, more librarians, additional music instruction, teacher training, statistical analysis and parent outreach. 

A second board vote on the proposal is expected in two weeks after a public hearing. 

Board members have argued that state funding cuts and inflation have forced the district to cut back on class size, music, and library initiatives that BSEP was designed to cover. A two-year supplemental tax, they concluded, could give relief to students while the district begins an 18-month strategic planning process before bringing a new long-term BSEP measure to voters in 2006. 

Sixty-eight percent of all funding provided by the proposed tax increase would go to reduce class sizes. Teacher student targets would be 20:1 for kindergarten through third grade, 26:1 for grades four and five, and 28:1 for grades six through 12.  

The board nixed a proposal from Director Terry Doran to restore a state subsidized program to establish 20:1 ratios in ninth grade English and Social Science classes. The district withdrew from the state program this year because it couldn’t afford its share. Doran argued that by reapplying for the state subsidy, the district would get more value for the added teaching positions. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence said the tax proposal included enough new teacher positions to satisfy Doran’s request, but that Berkeley High Principal Jim Slemp indicated he favored using the new positions to provide advisors for ninth graders instead of reducing class size. 

Libraries would receive 16 percent of the new funding. In recent years, most schools have not had money for licensed librarians and instead staffed their libraries with library media teachers, whose hours have been repeatedly cut. 

Seven percent of the tax dollars would go to the music program to restore instrument instruction in the fourth grade and five days a week of band practice in the middle schools. 

At the urging of Superintendent Lawrence, seven percent of the proceeds will go to teacher training and program evaluation and two percent will go to parent outreach. 

A survey of 600 likely Berkeley voters conducted last month by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research showed that nearly three out of four voters would support the tax measure—far greater than the two-thirds majority needed to pass. 

Casual conversations with strangers can be more revealing than stories on the nightly news. A Berkeley friend, a motherly lady in her fifties, started chatting with her seatmate on a bus a couple of weeks ago. He was an army officer, a personnel specialist in a big infantry unit down South somewhere. He said his job is dealing with “bereavements”—supporting families of service people who have died on duty. My friend, who comes from a military family herself, was shocked at what he told her: that in the last few months, out of every 100 deaths he’s worked on, 14 have been suicides. That’s not an official Army statistic, he emphasized, just his estimate, but in his opinion, based on about 20 years experience in the military, the suicide rate has gone up dramatically since the Iraq invasion. 

One detail he revealed to her was that families are not usually informed that their loved one committed suicide unless they ask. Suicide, like much else in the bureaucratic world of the armed forces, has a special code number. The information the family initially receives doesn’t contain the suicide code, so the family must dig, must ask the right questions, to get the cause of death. He told my friend of one particularly harrowing case: A soldier committed suicide in Iraq, and his buddy sent his wife an e-mail apologizing for not seeing the symptoms in time to prevent the death. The wife had not been told that her husband had committed suicide, and so was doubly shocked when she found out. 

The officer said that there’s a big internal controversy in the army right now about how such cases should be handled. Even though he has a strong personal belief that the practice of concealing suicides is wrong, he’s afraid to say so publicly. But he’s distressed.  

It’s hard to confirm what this officer believes to be true using official or unofficial sources. For one thing, army personnel are warned not to reveal any information of this kind. The friend who told me this story got her informant’s phone number, so I called him, told him I was writing this, asked him to tell me more. Of course he wouldn’t say anything. It is against the rules, and he clearly feared the consequences of sharing his anxieties about his job with a motherly woman on the bus. As he probably should.  

We’ve read in the New Yorker and other publications about some harrowing cases of how things seem to be badly wrong in Iraq. What we won’t necessarily read about is the terrible toll this is taking on ordinary American service men and women, who know it’s a mess but don’t know what they can do about it. A very few, like the guy who blew the whistle on the prison torturers, might summon the courage to back up their convictions about what’s right and wrong by speaking truth to power and taking the consequences . Others, perhaps, see only suicide as their path out of the morass. 

On the Memorial Day weekend, as this is being written, it’s the duty of those of us at home to think about our fellow Americans in Iraq who are caught up in a situation not of their own making and can’t escape. Most of them joined the armed forces out of a real desire to serve their country, and never anticipated that they would become an army of occupation in an increasingly hostile Middle East. They were told, and believed, that the Iraqi (and Afghani) populations would welcome them as the liberators of Europe were welcomed after World War II.  

Even arch-conservatives like Pat Buchanan now accept the awful reality that our American troops have been led, once again, into the Big Muddy, potentially even deeper, if that’s possible, than in Vietnam. Pat and his gang probably didn’t learn all the words to Pete Seeger’s Vietnam-era song about the captain who tried to lead his troops into a swamp and almost drowned them all, but here’s the key verse, as pungently adapted by Scots folkie Dick Gaughn: 

“Captain, sir, with all this gear 

No man’ll be able to swim.” 

“Sergeant, don’t be a Nervous Nellie,” 

The Captain said to him. 

“All we need is a little determination; 

Follow me, I’ll lead on.” 

We were neck deep in the Big Muddy 

And the damn fool kept yelling to push on. 

In the song, all versions, the captain drowns, the sergeant turns the troops back just in time, and they are saved. Somewhere in our armed forces today there’s a non-com like Seeger’s sergeant, or an officer like the youthful John Kerry, who will be courageous enough to tell Americans that it’s time to get our men and women out of the swamp. The officer on the bus, who confessed his doubts to a motherly acquaintance, was taking a first hesitant step on the path back to solid ground.  

—Becky O’Malley›