News

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. -more-

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. -more-

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. -more-

FRIDAY, JUNE 4 -more-

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. -more-

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. -more-

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

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. -more-

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.” -more-

Cop Hit (Again) -more-

2004 is nothing like 1966. -more-

SCHOOL FUNDING -more-

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. -more-

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. -more-

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

Simple syllables -more-

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

FRIDAY, JUNE 4 -more-

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. -more-

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. -more-

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

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. -more-

TUESDAY, JUNE 1 -more-

Sam Huntington rides again! -more-

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

Shooting Victim Gives Cops Silent Treatment -more-

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. -more-

DOWNTOWN -more-

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. -more-

Clothing Drive -more-

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. -more-

Editors, Daily Planet: -more-

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. -more-

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. -more-

TUESDAY, JUNE 1 -more-

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. -more-